Originals and Copies: The Life and Photographic Collections of Waldemar Jochelson

Abstract

Waldemar Jochelson’s photographic collections from the Jesup Expedition are stored in the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York and in the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences (MAE RAS) in St Petersburg. The Jesup photo collection from the AMNH also includes some photographs from the Sibiryakov expedition, and the Jesup collection from the MAE RAS is significantly smaller than the American one. These little-known facts were the occasion for clarifying the social life of the photographs in the context of their author’s biography. For the first time, a comprehensive comparative analysis of Jochelson’s photographic collections from the Irkutsk Regional Museum of Local History (the former Museum of the Eastern Siberia Branch of the Russian Geographical Society), MAE RAS in St Petersburg, and AMNH in New York was conducted. The current location of the photographs, Jochelson’s ethnographical collections and his archives reflects his affiliations with various research organisations and his movements around the world in search of an academic piedà-terre. By producing, copying, donating and publishing photographs, and transferring them to museums, Jochelson asserted and constantly reaffirmed his new status as a scientist. His photographic collections in different museums are not completely identical and equivalent, and the presence of numerous copies creates the effect of a larger collection of Jochelson’s photographs than actually exists. The data obtained make it possible to clarify why some museums possess the originals, and others duplicates of Jochelson’s photographs, to identify what unique information some copies contained, and to clarify any inconsistencies and/or errors in museum documentation. The analysis of the locations and composition of the photographic collections sheds additional light on the relations between Waldemar Jochelson and his comrade and colleague Waldemar Bogoraz and their different strategies for forming collections. Although the article deals with specific issue of Jochelson’s photographic collections, it contributes to a broader issue of the history of Russian-American scientific contacts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.