Humanities & Social Sciences 12 (2016 9) 2947-2963 ~ ~ ~ УДК 63.1(2)64+86.372.81 Photography as a Source for Comparative Research of History and Culture of Local Old Believer Groups in the First Third of the 20th Century (through the example of the Old Believers of Bessarabia, Buryatia and Tuva) and Aleksander A. Prigarinb a 1 K. Marksa Str., Irkutsk, 664003, Russia b Odessa I. I. Mechnikov National University 2 Dvorianskaia Str., Odessa, 65000, Ukraine Received 12.01.2016, received in revised form 28.04.2016, accepted 29.10.2016 Photo materials are one of the important sources for the research of the history and culture of local Old Believer groups in the first third of the 20th century. <...> Photography, genre pictures, the appearance of people printed in photos and this culture representatives’ objective world – all these things give a lot of valuable materials for the study of regional Old Believers at the time. <...> The photo documentary legacy, which reflected the particular qualities of the Old Believer culture of different regions, within the framework of comparative approach, also allows us to reveal and to make a comprehensive analysis of the specific features of the local Old Believer communities. <...> The article gradually explores the theory and practice of using source study photos, reveals the general and miscellaneous in different historical conditions of the Old Believer communities development in Bessarabia, Buryatia and Tuva. <...> The comparative research of photo sets, which reflected their lives in the period under study has been undertaken. <...> We have come to conclusion that the photo materials allow us to expand and to clarify other types of data sources significantly, and also enable to reveal the character and evolution peculiarity of the Old Believer traditional culture of different regions in its folk and church sense. <...> All rights reserved * Corresponding author E-mail address: a_kostrov@mail.ru – 2947 – Aleksander V. Kostrova Irkutsk State University * Aleksander V. Kostrov, Aleksander A. Prigarin. <...> In anthropology and related sciences there have already been successful examples of consideration of photography as an element of human culture reflecting the multi-layered reality (Alexandrov, 2005; Barthes, 1997; Lishaev, 2007; Males, 2007; Nurkova, 2006; Petrovskaya, 2002; Tolmacheva, 2009 et al.) Scientific experience reveals the effectiveness <...>