Zviagin K.S.: Abyssinia. A Reading for the People

Title

Abissiniia. Chtenie dlia naroda, Moskva 1910

Abyssinia. A Reading for the People

Keywords

Summary

The book consists of two readings, which were meant to be presented to the people at the Salt Town auditorium in Saint Petersburg. The first reading is entitled Nature and Inhabitants of Abyssinia, while the second one Daily Customs and Mores of Abyssinians. This printed version of the readings is accompanied by a few pictures, but the List of Light Pictures (Diapositives) for the Readings “Abyssinia” by K.S. Zviagin, at the end of the book, makes it clear that, during the event, many more photos were shown to the public (47).

Bio

Konstantin Zviagin was a Russian shtabs-kapitan, who travelled to Ethiopia in 1894, as part of the expedition promoted by the Russian Geographical Society and led by Nikolai Leont’ev and Aleksandr Eliseev. He went back a few years later as a member of the Russian Red Cross mission. Zviagin published a few essays and memoirs on this experience, and brought back to Russia a collection of ethnographic objects which he displayed in various exhibitions (Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Kharkiv, Odessa and Kyiv, 1897-1898).His other works include: The Foundations of the Structure of Modern Abyssinia (1895); Abyssinia. A Reading for the People (1910).

Sources

K.S. Zviagin, Katalog abissinsko-sanitarno-etnograficheskoi vystavki, Moskva 1897;

M. Rait, Russkie ekspeditsii v Efiopii v seredine XIX-nachale XX vv. i ikh etnograficheskie materialy, “Afrikanskii etnograficheskii sbornik”, 1956, 1, p. 220-281.

A.F.

Gallery