EVSEYEV: Recognition at the cost of life

Sinossi

From a rural teacher and local historian to an enemy of the Soviet system, Timofei Evseyev was an ethnographer and folklorist, one of the first to attempt to uncover the secrets of the life-cycle rituals of his people. His ethnographic collections and handwritten materials gathered over a century ago now constitute the “golden fund” of Mari traditional culture and are significant for the entire Ugro-Finnic world. An internationally recognized scholar, he was “rewarded” with the death penalty during his lifetime by a country, the republic, that he had glorified the heritage of and sought to preserve at the cost of his own life.