PEOPLES OF THE VOLGA-URAL REGION IN FEDOR SOLNTSEV’s CREATIVE HERITAGE

This paper is devoted to studying the images of the peoples of the Volga-Ural region in the graphics created by Fedor G. Solntsev, famous Russian aquarelle artist of the 19th century, the author of many historical reconstructions and ethnographic drawings of folk costumes made in different provinces of the Russian Empire and among different social classes. His gallery of images also includes the peoples of the Volga-Ural region. These are the Udmurts, Mountain Maris, Erzya Mordvins, Middle Lower Chuvashs and Mishar Tatars. Many Solntsev’s watercolours that embody ethnographic characteristic types were drawn from nature. However, his images of the peoples of the Volga-Ural region are just the copies from other visual sources (pictures, gravures, photographs). As primary sources Solntsev used Emelyan Korneev’s gravures (to create the image of a "Votyak woman"), William Carrick’s photographs (as the basis for some images of "Kazan Tatars") and the picture of an unknown amateur artist dated back to the late 18th or early 19th centuries (to create the "Cheremis" compositions). It is not improbable that the use of other’s ready-made examples and not his own ethnographic drawings resulted in some inaccuracies both in the images of the peoples of the Volga-Ural region and their annotations. There are still no prototypes found for Solntsev’s images of Maris and Mordvins, but the absence of ethnic attribution in the annotations, inaccuracies in their geographical references, errors in depicting the details of the Mordvins’ garments and a disconnect between their poses and the angles characteristic of Solntsev’s ethnic types make it possible to suggest that the images of Maris and Mordvins in the sheets of the Penza and Tambov Provinces were also copied from ready-made pictures.