Clothes as a marker of otherness in traditional Kazakh culture

The concept of “otherness” is derived from the word “other”, non-identical. The problem of otherness in humanitarian science has attracted the attention of researchers since long ago and has been considered from a variety of perspectives. In the opinion of the authors of the article, the visual expression of otherness is the least developed issue in science, but it is clothing (costume) and the image as a whole that reflects it most vividly and distinctively. The main focus of this article is the reflection of otherness in clothing, viewed through the prism of Kazakh culture. In order to compare and clarify some data, the article draws on materials on the clothing of other Turkic ethnic groups (Kyrgyz, Altai, Uzbek, Karakalpak), as well as Iranians. As it is known, clothing in traditional culture was conceptualized as a receptacle of the soul and the “second” shell of a person. By wearing certain clothes, a person could present his “specialness”, his difference from all others, i.e. there was an expressive demonstration of his “I”, “I am the Other”. The article provides an interpretation of some elements of the costume of steppe nobility, people of creative professions, as well as shamans and other category of people with the status of “otherness”. It is assumed that the meaning of some visual markers of clothing was not only that they showed the society the substance of the Other, but also contain even more profound grounds. In our opinion, most of these attributes (markers) demonstrate the syncretism of the unity of Man and the Cosmos, or rather express the belonging of the wearer to a certain level of the universe. Having considered the visual markers of otherness given in the article on the example of Kazakh culture, we can conclude that the iconography of the other was a well thought out and balanced system, understood and accepted by the community

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Clothing · Kazakh · Linguistics · Sociology · Anthropology · History · Philosophy · Soviet and Russian History