When the Heir to the Throne Met the Udmurts
Is Lokke’s Вотяки the Earliest Photograph of Udmurts?
One of these images — the photograph of the Votyaks (Вотяки: Russian exonym for Udmurts) — stands today as a foundational anchor of Udmurt photography. Like the companion images of Hill and Meadow Mari groups, it presents a small group posed as representative “types” of their people. The three female and two male figures stand in a group, dressed in carefully arranged garments that emphasise ethnic distinctiveness. The image was not intended as an intimate portrait, but as documentation: a visual taxonomy of empire. Continue reading on Substack…
