Late 18th to Early 19th Century Representations of Armed Horsemen on Northern Khanty Ritual Artifacts

Abstract

   We describe representations of mounted warriors on ritual artifacts (silver plates and a leather pouch), used in ritual practices of the Khanty on the Lower Ob, and propose their chronological attribution and interpretation. A comparative analysis reveals the prototypes and dates of these representations and their connection with late 18^th to early 19^th century decorative traditions. Silver saucers with figures of horsemen wearing helmets were made at P. T. Bryukhanov’s workshop in Tobolsk. This military headgear resembles leather helmets of the Tarleton type with longitudinal fur crests, popular during a rather short period from the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) to the Napoleonic Wars (1795–1815). We provide a detailed description of the leather pouch with figures of a hussar and his horse (replicating an unknown engraving from the first quarter of the 19^th century), and a fragment of Konstantin Batyushkov’s poem “The Farewell”, whose motifs and popularity were closely related to 1813–1814 foreign campaigns by the Russian army. We conclude that representations on artifacts manufactured for the Voguls and Ostyaks were rather realistic, and reproduced characteristic details of that time.