Gazdanova, Anastasia V.
Kavkaz Forum. 2023. Issue 16.

Abstract:
The article deals with the history of the study, the purpose of which was to
reconstruct the biography of the correspondent of the Ethnographic Department
of the Russian Museum of Emperor Alexander III in 1906-1907. Zachary Petrovich
Valaev. He was one of the correspondents who worked on behalf of the museum
in their regions. At the same time, he became one of the few Caucasian collectors
who managed to successfully fulfill the assignment and collect full-fledged
ethnographic collections reflecting the culture of Ossetians, Kabardians and
Balkars. Acquaintance with the collections collected by Z.P. Valaev aroused
interest in the personality of the collector himself. The present study, devoted to
the study of his life and work, consisted of three stages: searching for information
preserved about the collector in the museum archive, traveling to his small
homeland in North Ossetia to interview local residents and work in libraries and
archives, as well as collecting information in the digital field. Thus, in the course of
the work, it was possible to establish the main facts of the collector’s biography,
restore the fate of his family members, and also suggest what prompted the
engineering student to become a collector of ethnographic collections for the
young St. Petersburg Museum. In the article, information concerning the collector’s
biography is considered in the context of conducting research. Special attention
is paid to the digital environment, namely the social network «Geni.com « and the
group «Stanitsa Chernoyarskaya!» in the social network «Odnoklassniki», through
which it was possible to establish contact with the descendants of Z. P. Valaev and
a local historian, for further collection of information about the correspondent
and his family members, which continues at the present time.

Keywords: Z.P. Valaev, collections of the REM, biographical method, digital ethnography, museum Caucasian studies, Ossetians.

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