Folklore collector Alexey Moiseyev

Over the past few years, increasingly more attention has been paid to the biographies of folklore collectors in folklore studies. Researchers turn not only to the well-known figures but also to those “ordinary” folklorists, who lived and worked in numerous villages throughout the country. Using both published and archival sources, the article deals with the biography of one of such people, a farmer from the Kargopol area, Alexey A. Moiseyev. The article investigates folklore texts published by him in the newspaper Olonetskiye Gubernskiye Vedomosti (The Olonets Province Gazette). The author of the article also pinpoints folklore and ethnographic pieces published in this newspaper anonymously, but recorded at the place where Moiseyev lived and at the time of his high activity as the newspaper’s contributor. Finally, a sketch of Moiseyev’s personality and work is given, and the conclusion is made about his input into the preservation of the oral tradition of the Kargopol area.