The Bukharian Jews Through the Lenses of the 19th Century Russian Photographers
| Autor: | Rachel Goldenweiser |
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| Rok vydání: | 2005 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Iran and the Caucasus. 9:257-272 |
| ISSN: | 1573-384X 1609-8498 |
| DOI: | 10.1163/157338405774829322 |
| Popis: | The present paper will focus on the unique visual sources created by the Russian photographers Dmitrij Ermakov (1846-1916), S. M. Dudin, and S. M. Prokudin-Gorskij, as well as a number of anonymous masters. These materials (mostly from the Armenian archives), vividly illustrate the cultural life of the Bukharian Jews in late 19th-beginning of the 20th century. The compositions of the photos are magnificent, well composed with a graphic image. The plethora of images depicting everyday life in the schools, houses and back alleys of the city of Bukhara and other urban centres of Central Asia, portraits of individuals and group photos on the background of expansive landscapes and architectural details of the historical buildings, were captured with great skill and proficiency. The Jews of Bukhara are one of the oldest and most authentic Jewish communities in the world. They call themselves Isro'il or rahudi, and speak a Tajik dialect of the Samarqand-Bukhara area. The ancestors of the Bukharian Jews moved to Central Asia in the late medieval period from Eastern Iran, chiefly from Mashhad. The main communities of the Central Asian Jews are located in Uzbekistan: in Tashkent, Samarqand, Bukhara, in the towns of Fergana Valley, and also in the neighbouring regions of Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. The town of Bukhara apparently became a centre ofJewish life in Central Asia in the 16th century, having absorbed also many Jews from the zone of the clashes between the Persians (Iranians) and the local Sunni rulers. Towards the end of the 16th and at the beginning of the 1 7th centuries the Jewish quarter, Mahalla, was established in the town of Bukhara; the Jews were forbidden to reside outside its boundaries. The main (and today, the only) synagogue of this town was built in this quarter in the first half of the 17th century. The Jewish community at that time was small, reaching about 3,000-5,000 souls, and very poor. At the end of the 19th century the number of |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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