Svetlana Ya. SHCHEBROVAHerzen State Pedagogical University
48, Moyka River Embankment, Saint Petersburg, 191186 Russian Federation
Associate Professor of the Department of Theory and History of Culture
Sociological Institute of the RAS – Branch of the Federal Center of Theoretical and Applied Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences
25/14, 7-ya Krasnoarmeyskaya street, Saint Petersburg, 190005 Russian Federation
Senior Researcher
PhD (in Cultural Studies)
e-mail: bersek1991@yandex.ru
ORCID: 0000-0002-2728-0730
Concepts and Constants of Altai Culture in the Work of G.I. GurkinAbstract: The active engagement of a number of republican elites in the field of ethnosophy to reconstruct the traditional religious and mythological picture of the world is far from innocuous. The lack of critique of the archaic and mythological element of communist ideology during Soviet society is not conducive to the development of contemporary political culture. The active imposition of archaic ideals and myths hinders the development of modernisation processes, generating hostility that leads to the destruction of the country's integrity. This applies above all to the transformation of the name of Grigory Ivanovich Gurkin (1870–1937) into an object of political speculation. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, Gurkin had the opportunity to study painting under the renowned Russian landscape painter Ivan Ivanovich Shishkin (1832–1898). The rest of Gurkin's life was spent exploring and discovering the culture and nature of the Altai Mountains and Siberia. At present, the cult of Gurkin is being created in the Altai Republic, which hinders understanding of the artist's pictorial legacy. Since Gurkin's paintings embody a system of cultural constants that form the basis of the ethnic worldview of the Altai people, a culturological analysis of his works as a complex system of images is relevant. By dividing Gurkin's works according to the time of their creation and their subject matter, the article identifies numerous chamber subjects that became the basis for large-scale panoramic compositions. The representations of the world depicted by Gurkin can be described as really conscious concepts (glaciers, snow-white mountain peaks, rivers, taiga lakes and waterfalls) and the constants hidden behind them (life, death, space, time), partly perceived unconsciously. The main symbols of the Altai Mountains captured by G.I. Gurkin are relevant today, as the nature of the Altai Republic turns into an object of tourist activity. Gurkin's art should become the backbone of the movement forward on the path of modern economic development for the peoples of the Altai Mountains.
Key words: G.I. Gurkin, art, concepts, constants, ethnosophy, myth-making, culturology, world picture.
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For Citation: Shchebrova, S. (2023) Concepts and Constants of Altai Culture in the Work of G.I. Gurkin. International Journal of Cultural Research, 1 (50). 103–117. DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2023_1_103
DOI: 10.52173/2079-1100_2023_1_103