Khlebnikova, Tamara Alexandrovna

Born in a peasant family. After the birth of a daughter, the family moved to Kazan . After graduating from school, in 1946 she entered the historical department of the historical and philological faculty at Kazan State University , which she graduated in 1952. While still a student, Tamara Alexandrovna took an active part in the work of the archeological student club organized by the archaeological group at the Tatar Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Kazan Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, under the guidance of historian and archaeologist N.F. Kalinin . The main task of the group was to examine the territory of Tatarstan and compile its archaeological map . In 1955, she graduated from the graduate school at the State Historical Museum (GIM) , defending a dissertation on the topic "The main production of the Volga Bulgars - ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, pottery and leatherwork." Its supervisor was the historian-archaeologist A.P. Smirnov . After graduate school, T.A. Khlebnikova, after working for two years as a researcher at the State Historical Museum, returned to Kazan to the Institute of Language, Literature and History, where she went from a laboratory assistant to a senior researcher . In 1986 she went on a well-deserved rest. In the mid-1990s, work continued on the territory of the Kazan Kremlin. Tamara Alexandrovna was invited as a consultant to organize the work of the Kremlin archaeological expedition and until the end of her days she was at work in the Kazan Kremlin ^{[2] [3]} .

At the Institute of Language, Literature and History, Tamara Alexandrovna dealt with the questions posed in her dissertation, paying particular attention to the study of ceramics of the Volga Bulgaria , especially the pre-Mongol period. In 1962, two of her major works were published: “Pottery production of the Volga Bulgarians of the 10th – 13th centuries” and a large section in the collective monograph “Archaeological Monuments at Rozhdestveno Village” in the Laishevsky District of Tatarstan. In these works, a classification of the entire lifting ceramic material from archaeological sites of the Volga Bulgaria of the pre-Mongolian time was presented. For the first time in Soviet archeology, T. A. Khlebnikova applied innovative methods of statistical processing of mass ceramic series. On the basis of research conducted by her in the 1950s and 1960s, in 1964 she defended her thesis at the Institute of Archeology of the USSR Academy of Sciences on the topic “The main production of the Volga Bulgars”.

In the 1960s and 1970s, T. A. Khlebnikova was actively engaged in practical activities, participating in various archaeological expeditions. During the Mari expedition she participated in the excavations of the Malo-Sundyr settlement ( Gornomariysky district , near the village of Kuznetsovo ); in Tatarstan - in excavations of ancient settlements: Alekseevsky, Bulgarian, Dzhuketausky, Suvarsky, Tankeyevsky and in works on the territory of the Kazan Kremlin . Studying the most numerous archaeological material - ceramics, she was engaged in the study of a new Bulgarographic topic - the ethnocultural composition of the population of the Volga Bulgaria of the pre-Mongol period. This work also required a deep analysis of the ceramics of the medieval cultures of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the Caucasus and the Crimea, the Khazar Kaganate, Ancient Russia and the settlements of Finno-Ugric tribes. As a result of this work on the analysis of group features (surface treatment, shape, ornamentation, dough composition, firing, product proportions, etc.), she identified more than twenty groups of Bulgarian ceramics. As a result, conclusions were drawn about the difficult process of population formation in the pre-Mongolian Bulgaria by various ethnic and cultural groups. As a result, the monograph “Ceramics of the Volga Bulgaria Monuments: (On the Ethnocultural Composition of the Population”) was written.

A special place in the biography of T.A. Khlebnikova is occupied by the Bulgarian settlement, the study of which was begun back in 1938 under the leadership of A.P. Smirnov, and then in the late 1960s, Tamara Alexandrovna took over the leadership of the Bulgarian archaeological expedition. A worthy monument was her five-volume work (co-authored with other scientists: G. A. Fedorov-Davydov, D. G. Mukhametshin) “The City of Bulgarians” ^{[2] [3] [4]} .

One of the streets of Chistopol was named after T. Khlebnikova in Tatarstan ^[5] .

Tamara Aleksandrovna Khlebnikova is the author of about 90 scientific works, books and articles. Almost all the works were written on the basis of our own field research ^[2] .

Monographs

• Khlebnikova T. A. Pottery production of the Volga Bulgarians of the 10th — early 13th centuries // Brief Communications of the Institute of Archeology. - M .: Academy of Sciences of the USSR , 1962. - No. 111 . - S. 93-152 .
• Khlebnikova T. A. The main production of the Volga Bulgarians of the period X — beginning of XIII centuries .. - Kaz. : AN RT , 1964 .-- 27 p.
• Khlebnikova T. A. Alekseevskoe settlement: (On the question of the uniqueness of the early Bulgarian culture of the Lower Prikamye region). Questions of ethnogenesis of the Turkic-speaking peoples of the Middle Volga. - Kaz. : Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan, 1971. - S. 156-174 .
• Khlebnikova T. A. Ceramics of the Volga Bulgaria Monuments: (On the Ethnocultural Composition of the Population). - M .: Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1984. - 240 p.

Articles in CSIIMC / CSIA

• Khlebnikova T. A. Ancient Russian settlement in the Bulgarians // Brief Communications of the Institute of the History of Material Culture . - M. - L .: Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1956. - Vol. 62 . - S. 141-147 .
• Khlebnikova T. A. Paltsinsky villages of the 10th — early 13th centuries // Brief communications of the Institute of the History of Material Culture. - M. - L .: Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1958. - No. 61 . - S. 203-220 .
• Korolev A.V., Khlebnikova T.A. On the issue of ferrous metallurgy among the Volga Bulgarians // Brief Communications of the Institute of Archeology . - M .: Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1960. - No. 80 . - S. 159-168 .
• Khlebnikova T. A. Archaeological research of the mausoleums of the city of Great Bulgarians in 1966 // Brief Communications of the Institute of Archeology. - M .: Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1970. - No. 164 . - S. 57–67 .

Works in other editions

• Scientific reports of the Institute staff (neopr.) . Institute of Archeology RAS . Date of treatment March 9, 2019.