POTTERY PRODUCTION IN THE MORDOVIA DISTRICT: ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY

The paper tells about the results of systematization and analysis of ethnography data on pottery production in Mordovia district, collected by alexander a. Bobrinsky in the beginning of 1960th during complete questionnaire work. there are 75 messages as from the potters themselves (very rare) as from their younger relatives, local school-teachers, and others. then became clear that most of the local potters were russian migrants (not the Mordovians) lived here from 17-18th centuries. distribution the russian pottery traditions destroyed the local Mordovian ones preserved only in traces. But the russian potters in Mordovia had retained more archaic pottery traditions than the same potters resided in russia. Just these traditions have a lot of interest to study. the author investigates the Mordovian pottery production through the system of Historical-and-cultural approach according to the universal structure of pottery technology and the whole pottery production process as a field of the human culture.