On the methodology for studying plastic folklore of Oirats and Kalmyks

The study is aimed at clarifying the methodological foundations of studying the decorative and applied arts of Oirats and Kalmyks by supplementing the existing research concepts (traditionally associated with ethnology) with an integrated approach. The latter combines the methods of art history, cultural history and philosophy thatt more fully reveal the original worldview of nomadic peoples, expressed in plastic folklore and preserving the ancestors’ figurative memory archetypes, which form the artistic image of works of applied art. Field and archival materials are summarized; the results of research by Russian and Mongolian scientists are used. Methods of historical and iconographic analysis, as well as a sociological approach and a comparative method are used. The role of figurative and plastic thinking of nomads in the formation of the ethnic originality of folk art is established. The results of scientific research (including works of Mongolian scientists), which reflect the descriptive, historical-cultural and comparative approaches to the problem under study, are analyzed. The article substantiates the use of an integrated approach to the study of the applied arts of Oirats and Kalmyks. The role of traditional objects in the development of the environment and in the system of social relations that existed among the nomads is determined. A scheme for a comprehensive study of the phenomena of the artistic heritage of related nomadic peoples is proposed. This scheme involves (1) describing the technique of making and decorating items of the material culture of Oirats and Kalmyks; (2) determining the functional and aesthetic significance of artistic crafts in the system of traditional nomadic culture; (3) identifying the symbolic essence of the ornamental decor of household items (made of leather and felt, wood and metal, fabric) of the nomads; (4) determining in a comparative analysis the general characteristics and ethnic features of the folk costume, ornamentation, and tamga complex that characterize the culture of Mongolian Kalmyks and Oirats. Conclusions have been formulated that allow methodologically linking the archetypes of nomads’ worldview, mythopoetic prototypes of images characteristic of works of decorative and applied art of Oirats and Kalmyks, as well as objects related to the plastic folklore of nomads, and the economic way of life of nomadic life itself. This approach is a methodological innovation, in the mainstream of which applied art is considered, among other things, as an objectified self-awareness of culture.