Title Page | Collection Summary | Scope and Content | Biographical/Organizational Note | Arrangement
Biographical History
Sergei Zhirkevich was born in Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, in 1958. Zhirkevich, who is trained as a professional photographer, is a professor at the Russian Institute of History of Arts in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1982, he began his ethnographic folklore expeditions to the Pskov Region of Russia, the former Baltic states, the Leningrad Region, Kazakhstan, and the region north of the Caucasus Mountains. His goal was to document the varied folk and religious traditions that survived the years of Soviet rule. In 1996, Zhirkevich began compiling his material for Ot Zamogil'ia do Blagodati (From Beyond the Grave to Blessed Grace) which was published in St. Petersburg by Ikar in 1999.