Peoples are Made of People

Peoples are Made of People. Finno-Ugrians and Samoyeds in old ethnographic photographs.

This book presents a selection of old photographs from the museums of thnography in Russia, Hungary, Finland and Estonia. The picutres come from the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century. This was the era when educated men showde lively interest i peasants and the population was dividend into different peoples based on their linguistic and cultural peculiarities. Folk culture bacame a prominent object of interest and study, and thus ethnography – the science of people and peoples – was born. Peoples consist of individuals, of course, although the ethnographers of those times were primarily interested in human beings as more or less typical representatives of their peoples rather than entities of interest in their own right. The photo series selected are intended to be small excursions into the history of ethnography, as well as that of the peoples in the photos.

This book is in Estonian, English and Russian.

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