SPRUKSH OF THE RUSSIAN GERMANS OF ALTAI AS A SYMBOL OF NATIONAL IDENTITY

Abstract

The work is devoted to the study of one of the types of decorative and applied art inherent only in the German population of Altai – sprukhs. Wall panels with religious sayings act as a kind of «cultural code», a symbol of the ethnocultural identity of Russian Germans. This issue was studied in the framework of field ethnographic research 2017-2020 in Kulundinsky (Ananyevka village) and German National (Grishkovka village, Galbstadt village, Podsosnovo village) districts of the Altai Territory, where sprukhs are found in the decoration of Russian Germans' housing, in the design of houses of worship and in the collections of local museums. Such pictures are still an important component of the spiritual and cultural life of this ethnic group. The appeal to this topic is associated with the preservation and popularization of the sprukhs of the Altai Germans, as a significant element of the cultural heritage of the region.