Abstract. The article examines the Russian experience of intercultural interaction with
the peoples of the North based on the analysis of the forms and methods of introducing
representatives of the peoples of the northern outskirts to the Russian educational tradition aimed, on the one hand, at adaptation of the small northern peoples to Russian cultural life, on the other hand, at preservation of the ethnic and cultural identity and reproduction of the forms of national culture. The development of the Arctic by the Russian explorers, the economic, political and cultural introduction to the Russian world of the nomadic population, which was mostly at the primitive stage of civilisational development, revealed to the world a unique experience of territory development and harmonious assimilation of the “small peoples” who inhabited these territories. The article pays special attention to the art workshops of the Institute of the Peoples of the North, where northern artists with exceptional natural talent were trained and special approaches to the development of their creative abilities to artistic creativity were
developed. The article analyses the formation of a special “northern” art style in the workshops of the Institute in the 1930s as an example of successful cooperation between professional teachers and naive artists of the North, one of their brightest representatives being the original Nenets artist Konstantin Pankov.
Keywords: intercultural interaction, ethno-cultural identity, Institute of the Peoples of the
North, Konstantin Pankov, northern art style
