E-mail: golocen@yandex.ru Tel.: +7 (843) 292-84-82
7а, Baturina str., Kazan, 420111, Russian Federation
Researcher, Department of Ethnological Research, Institute of History named after Sh. Marjani, Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation
This article is devoted to the study of women’s silk knitted “kalfaks” (a timehonored Tatar headdress for women), the first mentions of which date back to the first half of the nineteenth century. Earlier studies did not dwell on the manufacturing method, only noting that Tatar kalfaks were made of velvet and knitted, nor did they specify the distinctiveness of their fabric, made by hand or on a machine from knitted threads. The article cites fifty-seven samples from seventeen museums of the Russian Federation. Among these are: kalfaki both with and without decoration (embroidery or other ornamental elements); those entirely sewn from factory-produced knitted fabric, or from strips of smooth silk fabric and velvet; kalfaki with a rounded and diamond-shaped tapered edge; and those constructed on a vertical or horizontal pattern. This headdress was typical for all Tatar ethnographic groups, and did not have a limited territory of existence, which explains their presence in museum collections throughout the country. Photographs and exhibits from the All-Union Agricultural Exhibition of 1939, where, among other examples of folk art, a knitted kalfak was displayed, suggest that even by the beginning of the twentieth century it was found among the female Tatar population. The article notes the general similarity of the headdresses of Tatars and Don Cossacks. This may be attributed to marriage customs, as well as to the multi-ethnic nature of the Cossack community, in which the traditional way of life and characteristic clothing of the Tatar population directly influenced the female costume of the Don Cossacks
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