An-Ski's ethnographic expedition, 1912 and 1914

above: The province of Volhynia, in which the shtetl Kremenets was located and which was visited by An-Ski and his group of scholars, as well as Podolia and the Kiev gubernia were the sites of the oldest and, from a folkloristic viewpoint, most interesting Jewish communities in the Russian Empire.

below: Between 1912 and 1914, the Russian-Jewish writer, socialist and ethnographer An-Ski (pseudonym of Shlomo Zanvil Rapoport (1863–1920)) undertook an expedition in the Jewish pale of settlement. During three seasons (avoiding winter), he and a group of young musicologists, photographers and folkorists visited more than 70 shtetelekh in Volhynia, Podolia and the Kiev gubernia.

(Marie Schumacher-Brunhes, Lille)

above: Zusman Kiselgof, participant in An-Ski's ethnographic expedition, recording folklore in Kremenets, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), b/w photograph, 1912, unknown photographer; source: © YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York / The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.

below: Avrom Rekhtman (seated right), a student in the so-called advanced courses in orientalism at  St. Petersburg and participant in An-Ski's ethnographic expedition, interviewing his grandfather on the veranda, Brailov, Ukraine, b/w photograph, 1914, unknown photographer; source: © YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York / The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe.