"Goncharnye promysly Nizhegorodchiny" ("Pottery Crafts of the Nizhny Novgorod Land") is a scholarly ethnographic text by T. Gusarova and E. Shmelev, published on the "Open Text" platform in the materials section of the Ethnological Museum of Nizhny Novgorod Region (the publication is dated October 31, 2019). The work is devoted to the history and geography of pottery production in Nizhny Novgorod Region, one of the most developed centers of folk crafts in Russia.[1]
Contents and main arguments
The authors treat Nizhny Novgorod Region as an area where at least half of all the trades known in Russia were historically practiced. The key reason given is the low fertility of the soil: peasants needed additional earnings. The authors support this argument with the words of the Nizhny Novgorod local historian and ethnographer A. S. Gatsisky, who wrote in the mid-19th century: "when the land bears no grain, it bears a kustar (home craftsman); when it bears grain, the kustar has a poor harvest."[1]
The text traces the dual nature of the craft: on the one hand, its products met the practical needs of rural residents; on the other, through competition and the pursuit of quality, pottery acquired artistic qualities, turning from a trade into a folk art.[1]
The displacement of kustar crafts by cheap factory-made goods, which began in the late 19th century, is examined separately. The authors point out that only those crafts survived that met needs factory production could not satisfy, whether in price, quality, or suitability to local tastes.[1]
The place of pottery in the system of crafts
Pottery production is described as one of the most durable crafts: it held its ground in many districts of Nizhny Novgorod Region until the late 1970s, and in certain selos (larger villages) it continued to exist in its classic individual kustar form even at the time the work was written. The authors link the resilience of pottery to the availability of local raw materials and fuel, which they see as key conditions for the craft's development.[1]
Publication
The text is posted on the "Open Text" portal (opentextnn.ru) in the "Crafts and Trades" section of the Ethnological Museum of Nizhny Novgorod Region and is available as an electronic document of 33.1 KB.[1]
Sources
- opentextnn.ru — Gusarova T., Shmelev E. Pottery Crafts of the Nizhny Novgorod Land — OPEN TEXT (archive)