ISSN 2223-165X

Izvestiya SOIGSI

 

Contacts

Address: Pr. Mira, 10, Vladikavkaz,
362040, RNO-A, Russia
E-mail: soigsi@mail.ru

 

Яндекс.Метрика

DOI: 10.46698/VNC.2026.100.61.014

OSSETIA IN THE TRAVEL NOTES OF DOUGLAS FRESHFIELD (1868).

Chochiev, Georgy V.
Izvestia SOIGSI. 2026. Issue 61 (100). P.145-173.
Abstract:

Presented above is a translation of fragments of travel notes related to Ossetia by the famous English mountaineer and geographer Douglas Freshfield, made during his “great” journey through the Middle East, the Caucasus and European Russia in 1868 and published the following year in London. The descriptions of the author’s and his companions’ contacts with the local population and observations of the latter’s way of life, customs and mores contained in the text are of undoubted interest as documentary evidence from a foreign eyewitness about various aspects of the material and social culture, everyday life, economic activity and ethnosocial psychology of the Ossetian highlanders during the specified period. The proposed notes also contain brief but quite original information about the foothill North Ossetian settlements and especially the capital of the Terek Region – the city of Vladikavkaz. Despite the subjectivity and superficiality of some of Freshfield’s assessments and judgments, which is natural for the genre of travelogue memoirs, the introduction of the factual material he provides into scientific circulation can serve, in combination and comparison with data from other sources, as additional support in the work of Ossetologists – ethnographers, anthropologists and historians.


Keywords: travelogues, Douglas Freshfield, Ossetia, material culture, social life, everyday life, socio-economic transformation
Language:: Russian Download the full text  
For citation:: Chochiev, G.V. Ossetia in the travel notes of Douglas Freshfield (1868) // Izvestiya SOIGSI. 2026. Iss. 61 (100). Pp. 145-173. (in Russian). DOI: 10.46698/VNC.2026.100.61.014 DOI 10.46698/VNC.2026.100.61.014
+ References


← Contents of issue
 
 
© 2026 Известия СОИГСИ