Dongak Okaanchyk was an outstanding wood and stone carver and maker of traditional musical instruments. He was born in 1896.
Dongak Okaanchyk started to realize himself as an instrument maker only in the 1950s. During this period, he began to be directly involved in making and tuning musical instruments. It was in this field that the master gained recognition and became an innovator. Being proficient in traditional technologies of music instrument making, he nevertheless decided to move away from the canon and find his ideal image of the igil, a two-stringed bowed musical instrument, and the byzaanchy, a four-stringed bowed musical instrument.
Thus, the craftsman used two innovative approaches in creating his instruments that immediately raised them to a new level. The first was the use of patterns in the design of musical instruments. Instead of ascetic austerity, Dongak Okaanchyk added decorative patterns using bright and lush colors: red, emerald, brown, yellow and blue. The master’s designs are original too: a combination of plant and floral patterns (pointed petals and butterflies) with five-pointed stars, flags of the USSR republics, images of sickle and hammer — a typical reflection of the symbolism of socialist realism art.
Secondly, Dongak Okaanchyk used relief carvings as an element of decoration on musical instruments. For example, the pommels of the igil or byzaanchy were made in the form of riders and bridled horses, which were works of art in their own right.
The master is mentioned in the fundamental work of the ethnographer Sevyan Weinstein “History of Folk Art of Tuva”, in which he noted the innovative approach of Dongak Okaanchyk in the decorative design of musical instruments. As a researcher at the Aldan-Maadyr Museum of Regional Studies of the Tuvan ASSR, Sevyan was instrumental in enriching the museum’s collections with works by this particular master. Thanks to this, nowadays the basis of the museum’s musical collection is the musical instruments of Dongak Okaanchyk.
The chadagan on display is a seven-stringed musical instrument in the form of a wide rectangular box with a bottom.
