THE ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE OF SOLIKAMSK
AND THE NORTHERN DISTRICTS OF PERM PROVINCE*
by
WILLIAM C. BRUMFIELD Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
The Province of Perm, located at the center of the European side of the Ural Mountains, is one of the most important economic, industrial, and cultural centers in contemporary Russia. Yet the city of Perm itself is a recent foundation, officially incorporated only in 1781. For the deeper historical legacy of this region one must explore the older settlements of Solikamsk and Cherdyn', which played a pivotal role in the Russian settlement of the Ural Mountains and Siberia.
References to a territory known as "Perm" (apparently deriving from the Finno-Ugric words pera ma, meaning "distant land") appear as early as the twelfth-century chronicle Tale of Bygone Years. 1 At that
* Dans cet article, la translitération des noms propres et mots russes est conforme à l'usage anglo-saxon.
1 The words pera ma have been derived from the language of the Veps, a Finno-Ugric people living between lakes Ladoga and Onega. The explanation has it that they would have used these words in response to questions by Novgorodian explorers about lands to the east. See A.S. Krivoshchekova-Gantman, Geograficheskie nazvaniia Verkhnego Prikam'ia (Perm, 1983), 134 ; and E.V. Shabashova, Istoricheskie miniatiury o Zemle Permskoi (Perm : "Kursiv", 1998), 13-16.
Cahiers slaves, n° 10, UFR d'Études slaves, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2008, p. 317-355.
