On the written sources for studying the traditional female costume of Kaluga Governorate inhabitants

this article presents the authors’ interpretation of extant written evidence preserved in the form of publications in the regional press – specifically, the Kaluga Governorate Gazette (Kaluzhskie Gubernskie Vedomosti) from the mid-19th century – as well as in a number of ethnographic essays published in the 1920s–1930s. These materials constitute a distinct corpus of written sources that allows tracing the history of the traditional female costume worn by inhabitants of the Kaluga Governorate from the 19th century to the first third of the 20th century. In their research, the authors draw on materials from Prince V.N. Tenishev’s Ethnographic Bureau, along with scholarly works by M.E. Sheremeteva, N.I. Lebedeva, and N.P. Grinkova. The focus is placed on systematizing data concerning the evolution of local clothing complexes and their geographic distribution. The study demonstrates that the surviving written sources document not only the composition and structural features of the costume but also its social, ritual, and ethnocultural functions. Furthermore, the research emphasizes that the degree of preservation of traditional clothing correlates with the cultural isolation of local groups, including the Gamayunshchina, Monastyrshchina, and Polesie communities. Based on their analysis, the authors conclude that written sources are of crucial importance for reconstructing traditional clothing complexes, restoring local norms of costume usage, and deepening the understanding of the cultural specificity of the population of the Kaluga region.

Kaluga province, traditional costume, written sources, ethnography, M.E. Sheremeteva, Grinkova N.P., Lebedeva N.I.