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Kotin I., Slepukhina O. Ethnographic Animation by Vladimir Pekar and the Screenplays of Mikhail Rodionov

I. Kotin
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the RAS
St. Petersburg, Russia
ORCID: 0000-0001-5751-7703
E-mail: igorkotin@mail.ru

 

O. Slepukhina
Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the RAS
St. Petersburg, Russia
ORCID: 0000-0003-3484-2612
E-mail: olslepukhina@gmail.com

 

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ABSTRACT. This article examines a series of what are often termed ethnographic animated films by Vladimir Pekar, produced in the late 1970s and 1980s, in relation to the interaction between Soviet animation and academic ethnography. Drawing on archival materials, screenplays, and correspondence, the study analyzes the role of ethnographer and specialist in Asian and African studies, Mikhail Anatolyevich Rodionov, whose contributions to these films went beyond the formal authorship of the cartoons’ scripts. The production of these ethnographic animated films, including The Legends of the Peruvian Indians (1978), The Talking Hands of Travancore (1981), The Law of the Tribe (1982), The Way to Eternity (1983), A Bird or an Animal (1984), The Riddle of the Sphinx (1985), and The Mouse and the Camel (1987) is interpreted as a methodological approach to visual sources, with animation functioning as a tool for reconstructing the graphic systems of traditional cultures. Particular attention is given to The Legends of the Peruvian Indians and The Talking Hands of Travancore, which were developed with the participation of scholarly consultants Yu. E. Berezkin and N. G. Krasnodembskaya. The analysis of these works provides a deeper understanding of the principles of scholarly mediation, screenplay interpretation, and the limits of artistic freedom that characterized this cycle.

 

KEYWORDS: Soviet animation, ethno graphic animation, visual anthropology, scholarly reconstruction

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8600-2026-2(32)-152-171
UDC 39:791.228

 

REFERENCES

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