Exploration Place

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the study of photographic activity by the prominent Russian Turkologist Alexander N. Samoilovich (1880-1938). The primary focus of modern-day investigations of his career is concentrated on his linguistic and literary studies or his public service in the 1920s-1930s. However, photographic activity was an essential part of his academic methodology. In this article this practice is studied as a “net of beliefs”, determined by cultural space and the dominant academic methodology. Academicians of this epoch believed in the dominance of textuality and the importance of aesthetics in their explorations of the “Orient”. They applied those categories to their work on the visual materials to explore the inner meanings behind the local communities and their lives. Moreover, the practice of photographing is examined in this article as an act of communication. This article studies the change of this practice in connection with the scholar’s vision of the concept of “academic truth” and his main object of study (the “Orient”), which was changing due to political and cultural circumstances. The analysis is based on three photo collections Samoilovich created in 1902, 1906 and 1921.