KONGRE BİLDİRİLERİ
The researching of the traditional Gagaus culture began in 1905 in the Ethnographical Department
of the Russian Museum of Alexander III. The main problem of the initial period consisted in gathering
of funds which were accomplished by the specialists of that time. Of special note is that expeditionary
and gathering work, from the very beginning, was scientifically thought over and carried according
specially published “Program for the gathering of the ethnographical items’’1.
«Tarak » - a tool for combing wool
Bender District, Kirsovo village
Among researchers who collected the fund of the Gagauz collection there were scientific officers
who worked in the museum at different times: N.M. Mogilyanskyi (1905), A.G. Danilina (1940),
N.M. Kalashnikova (1979-1982, 1984, 1986), E.F. Kononova and E.Ya. Timofeheva (1980), and also
local-historian P.A. Shuemanskyi (1911-1912), researcher on the Gagauz M.V. Marunevich (Zbirnya),
musician G.G. Stomatova (1987).
The Geography of the gatherings covered Bessarabia Gubernya (Bender and Tiraspol’ districts),
MSSR (Vulcaneshti, Komrat, Tarakli, Cheadir-lunge districts), and also the adjoining territory of the
Ukraine (Odessa oblast., Bolhrad district and Bolgrad and Kiliya disrtict).
It is significant that the first Gagauz collection was brought from Bessarabia by Nikolay
Mikhailovich Mogilyanskyi – the head of the Ethnographical Department, Russian ethnographer
theorist, who made a great contribution in improvement of the scientific and gathering work of the
Ethnography Department of the Russian Museum. In summer 1905 the researcher visited several
villages of the Bender District Cheadir-Lunga, Kiruetnya (Korten’), Komrat, Kirsovo, Besh-Alma,
Besh-Temin.2
Collection gathered by N.M. Mogilyanskyi, allows to characterize the material culture of the
Gagauz in different ways. They are samples of raw materials, tools for weaving and spinning, fabric
samples for towel and pillow-case making, utensils, male and female clothes, adornments, the Easter
eggs. The compulsory fixation of the local terms of the described items, names of the ornamental
compositions and technic methods and also tools which were used in making of all these articles is
very important.
For example while studying such topic as “S