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Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North
For over five hundred years the Russians wondered what kind of people their Arctic and sub-Arctic subjects were. "They have mouths between their shoulders and eyes in their chests," reported a fifteenth-century tale. "They rove around, live of their own free will, and beat the Russian people," complained a seventeenth-century Cossack. "Their actions are exceedingly rude. They do not take off their hats and do not bow to each other," huffed an eighteenth-century scholar. They are "children of nature" and "guardians of ecological balance," rhapsodized early nineteenth-century and late twentieth-century romantics. Even the Bolsheviks, who categorized the circumpolar foragers as "authentic proletarians," were repeatedly puzzled by the "peoples from the late Neolithic period who, by virtue of their extreme backwardness, cannot keep up either economically or culturally with the furious speed of the emerging socialist society."Whether described as brutes, aliens, or endangered indigenous populations, the so-called small peoples of the north have consistently remained a point of contrast for speculations on Russian identity and a convenient testing ground for policies and images that grew out of these speculations. In Arctic Mirrors , a vividly rendered history of circumpolar peoples in the Russian empire and the Russian mind, Yuri Slezkine offers the first in-depth interpretation of this relationship. No other book in any language links the history of a colonized non-Russian people to the full sweep of Russian intellectual and cultural history. Enhancing his account with vintage prints and photographs, Slezkine reenacts the procession of Russian fur traders, missionaries, tsarist bureaucrats, radical intellectuals, professional ethnographers, and commissars who struggled to reform and conceptualize this most "alien" of their subject populations.Slezkine reconstructs from a vast range of sources the successive official policies and prevailing attitudes toward the northern peoples, interweaving the resonant narratives of Russian and indigenous contemporaries with the extravagant images of popular Russian fiction. As he examines the many ironies and ambivalences involved in successive Russian attempts to overcome northern―and hence their own―otherness, Slezkine explores the wider issues of ethnic identity, cultural change, nationalist rhetoric, and not-so European colonialism.
476 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1994
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About the author
Yuri Slezkine
11books97followersYuri Lvovich Slezkine (Russian: Ю́рий Льво́вич Слёзкин Yúriy L'vóvich Slyózkin; born February 7, 1956) is a Russian-born American historian, writer, and translator.
He is a professor of Russian history, sovietologist and Director of the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
He is best known as the author of the book The Jewish Century (2004) and The House of Government: A Saga of The Russian Revolution (2017).
He is a professor of Russian history, sovietologist and Director of the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
He is best known as the author of the book The Jewish Century (2004) and The House of Government: A Saga of The Russian Revolution (2017).
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October 19, 2018
Хороший очерк колонизации Сибири и ДВ � и прекрасное напоминание о том, что проходило оно далеко не так сусально и безмятежно, как нас пытаются убедить, противопоставляя Россию Америке, а нам самим хотелось бы верить. Крови, жестокости и подлости там было достаточно.
Глядя на взаимоотношения имперского центра и колонизуемых народов сквозь всю историю, становится ясно, что население ДВ колонизовано по-прежнему � оно остается в тех же рабски-подчиненных отношениях с центральной властью, что и раньше, и от юкагиров XVII века ничем не отличается, пусть даже преимущественно принадлежит к титульной нации. Чтобы в этом убедиться, см. несмолкающие мольбы о деньгах на то или это, просьбы уменьшить ясак и назначение губернаторов на воеводство. Никто ничему за эти годы не научился, несмотря на несколько иную колонизацию, например, Манчжурии.
Ну и понятно, что русских на восток гнала, в первую очередь, жажда наживы, а все эти пресловутые стремления к свободе и прочая романтическая поебень были далеко не главным и далеко не для всех. Русские тут и были, и остались традиционно «ленивы и нелюбопытны», на что «пытливые иностранцы» жаловались еще в XVI-XVII веках: подлинного изучения и освоения Сибири и ДВ не происходило никогда � была только их эксплуатация. А «пытливость» уже тогда была ругательством. На том же стоим и посейчас.
Но с алчности все только начиналось. Наступил «просвещенный» XIX век, и русские последователи немецких философов-идеалистов устроили фактически геноцид «малых народностей». Те же самые Хердер, Фихте и Шеллинг, как мы знаем, породили и другую плеяду мыслителей � уже чисто (pun intended) германскую, которая в первой половине ХХ века известно до чего Европу довела. Все из-за того, как ловко эти бляди определяли «нацию», конечно. С такими их последователями, как «прогрессивный» граф Сперанский, в Сибири у самоедов, ясное дело, не было никакого шанса � только насильственная русификация.
Ну а потом уже наступило советское и постсоветское мифотворчество, чьим тотемом стал Дерсу, а чирлидером Гаер. Но там уже полный Дизниленд, все это мы и так знаем.
Глядя на взаимоотношения имперского центра и колонизуемых народов сквозь всю историю, становится ясно, что население ДВ колонизовано по-прежнему � оно остается в тех же рабски-подчиненных отношениях с центральной властью, что и раньше, и от юкагиров XVII века ничем не отличается, пусть даже преимущественно принадлежит к титульной нации. Чтобы в этом убедиться, см. несмолкающие мольбы о деньгах на то или это, просьбы уменьшить ясак и назначение губернаторов на воеводство. Никто ничему за эти годы не научился, несмотря на несколько иную колонизацию, например, Манчжурии.
Ну и понятно, что русских на восток гнала, в первую очередь, жажда наживы, а все эти пресловутые стремления к свободе и прочая романтическая поебень были далеко не главным и далеко не для всех. Русские тут и были, и остались традиционно «ленивы и нелюбопытны», на что «пытливые иностранцы» жаловались еще в XVI-XVII веках: подлинного изучения и освоения Сибири и ДВ не происходило никогда � была только их эксплуатация. А «пытливость» уже тогда была ругательством. На том же стоим и посейчас.
Но с алчности все только начиналось. Наступил «просвещенный» XIX век, и русские последователи немецких философов-идеалистов устроили фактически геноцид «малых народностей». Те же самые Хердер, Фихте и Шеллинг, как мы знаем, породили и другую плеяду мыслителей � уже чисто (pun intended) германскую, которая в первой половине ХХ века известно до чего Европу довела. Все из-за того, как ловко эти бляди определяли «нацию», конечно. С такими их последователями, как «прогрессивный» граф Сперанский, в Сибири у самоедов, ясное дело, не было никакого шанса � только насильственная русификация.
Ну а потом уже наступило советское и постсоветское мифотворчество, чьим тотемом стал Дерсу, а чирлидером Гаер. Но там уже полный Дизниленд, все это мы и так знаем.
October 12, 2013
Summary:
Having waded through three of Slezkine's articles, I was not looking forward to reading his book, expecting it to be extremely dense (also, it's 400 pages long). But it was wonderful - well-written, enjoyable, and very stimulating intellectually.
The title refers to the "small peoples of the North" being reflected in Russians' eyes - in a way, it's not a book about Siberian tribes, but about the Russians, who define themselves against these tribes, who in their backwardness are the exact opposite of what it means to be Russian (so the relationship between the two is reciprocal and the changes in representation of the natives are a reflection of changes in Russians' own identity). Russians who came to Siberia believing in universalism ran into the wall of "otherness" and relegated the native tribes to permanent childhood, which could mean either corruption or superiority, but in any case implied that they needed to be protected. Bolsheviks endorsed progress, but "cultural revolution" was unable to eliminate the differences between Russians and natives, who at the end of perestroika remained the inozemtsy they were centuries before (also, foragers will be primitive as long as they remain foragers).
The narrative begins in the 11th century and goes up to Perestroika. The first several chapters trace the shift in perceptions of Siberians by the Russians - from tribute-paying inovertsy, to savages who need to be converted to Christianity, to uncorrupted noble outcasts, to "aliens" who need to be Russified, to a group simply ignored by much of Russians who did not have to deal with them directly. Then come the Bolsheviks, and this is where the crux of Slezkine's work lies. Siberian tribes were classified as a classless society and the most oppressed of all, and legislature was issued to protect them from trade exploitation by Russian settlers (there is an interesting tension explored throughout the book between Siberian natives, Russian government, Russian settlers, and Russian ethnographers). There was a consensus in the Narkomnats and, later, in the Commiittee of the North (consisting of Soviet ethnographers and politicians), that native tribes (and their "national form") needed to be protected in order to be able to exploit Siberian natural resources, and their "backwardness problem" solved from above, and the remainder of the book spends time outlining Soviet attempts at a policy that would do just that. The natives were taught to use underwear, organized into clan soviets, had their children taken away from them to be educated, send to Leningrad universities, (after 1928) divided into classes and dekulakized, collectivized and then de-collectivized due to a sharp decline of fish and reindeer coming in to the center, industrialized, settled, taught political consciousness, assumed to be backward and soon after, developed, accused of wrecking and sabotage, and idealized in fiction and then ethnography. After WWII, they were no longer seen as equal to the Russians, but rather as their younger brothers (just like all other Soviet peoples). Post-war industrial expansion in Siberia paid little attention to the natives, who drank, were unable to stay married, were unemployed, had to send their children off to boarding schools, and faced massive consumer goods shortages, a situation that was eventually reflected in native literature. The book ends with a dilemma - while the northern peoples deserve democracy, they are not competitive in a contemporary society and require help from above, with in turn contradicts democracy from below.
The parallel history in Slezkine's book is that of Soviet ethnography - how the hands-on education promoted by former populists Bogoraz and Shternberg has been under attack since 1928 for not being Marxist enough by young and willing followers of Marr, and in 1932 the study of ethnography was almost discontinued because it was deemed to study primitive peoples which should have become developed as soon as communism arrived. However, by that time the Cultural Revolution was coming to an end and ethnography survived, but only as a study of "survivals of the previous stage of development." Both parties to the conflict were purged in 1936. After WWII, former populist ethnographers were brought back as an example of what not to do - accused of lacking an internationalist perspective in the 1930s, now they were condemned as cosmopolitanists. Ethnography, however, was back, although in a proscribed form - it was a static narrative showing the contrast between formerly backward and now educated native tribes, unable to explain how one went from A to B.
The conclusion of the book is a contribution to colonial theory, but I know too little about it - maybe something to come back to later. In any case, Slezkine's point that "cross-cultural encounters cannot be fully explained in terms of domination" is very clearly illustrated throughout the book.
Comments:
Slezkine presents the Siberian natives as the quintessential "other," but he never discusses race. In a way, while an educated Russian peasant could leave the "other" camp, an educated Samoed could not. Seems strange to have left that out. Is that because race was not an important issue in the sources he went off of, overshadowed by backwardness/nomadism?
Kan critiqued Slezkine's lack of attention to the views of Sternberg and Bogoraz before the revolution, which "read almost like a caricature." I think I agree with his point, because labeling them populists as if it's self-explanatory (and I think that's all he did) is probably a simplification.
Having waded through three of Slezkine's articles, I was not looking forward to reading his book, expecting it to be extremely dense (also, it's 400 pages long). But it was wonderful - well-written, enjoyable, and very stimulating intellectually.
The title refers to the "small peoples of the North" being reflected in Russians' eyes - in a way, it's not a book about Siberian tribes, but about the Russians, who define themselves against these tribes, who in their backwardness are the exact opposite of what it means to be Russian (so the relationship between the two is reciprocal and the changes in representation of the natives are a reflection of changes in Russians' own identity). Russians who came to Siberia believing in universalism ran into the wall of "otherness" and relegated the native tribes to permanent childhood, which could mean either corruption or superiority, but in any case implied that they needed to be protected. Bolsheviks endorsed progress, but "cultural revolution" was unable to eliminate the differences between Russians and natives, who at the end of perestroika remained the inozemtsy they were centuries before (also, foragers will be primitive as long as they remain foragers).
The narrative begins in the 11th century and goes up to Perestroika. The first several chapters trace the shift in perceptions of Siberians by the Russians - from tribute-paying inovertsy, to savages who need to be converted to Christianity, to uncorrupted noble outcasts, to "aliens" who need to be Russified, to a group simply ignored by much of Russians who did not have to deal with them directly. Then come the Bolsheviks, and this is where the crux of Slezkine's work lies. Siberian tribes were classified as a classless society and the most oppressed of all, and legislature was issued to protect them from trade exploitation by Russian settlers (there is an interesting tension explored throughout the book between Siberian natives, Russian government, Russian settlers, and Russian ethnographers). There was a consensus in the Narkomnats and, later, in the Commiittee of the North (consisting of Soviet ethnographers and politicians), that native tribes (and their "national form") needed to be protected in order to be able to exploit Siberian natural resources, and their "backwardness problem" solved from above, and the remainder of the book spends time outlining Soviet attempts at a policy that would do just that. The natives were taught to use underwear, organized into clan soviets, had their children taken away from them to be educated, send to Leningrad universities, (after 1928) divided into classes and dekulakized, collectivized and then de-collectivized due to a sharp decline of fish and reindeer coming in to the center, industrialized, settled, taught political consciousness, assumed to be backward and soon after, developed, accused of wrecking and sabotage, and idealized in fiction and then ethnography. After WWII, they were no longer seen as equal to the Russians, but rather as their younger brothers (just like all other Soviet peoples). Post-war industrial expansion in Siberia paid little attention to the natives, who drank, were unable to stay married, were unemployed, had to send their children off to boarding schools, and faced massive consumer goods shortages, a situation that was eventually reflected in native literature. The book ends with a dilemma - while the northern peoples deserve democracy, they are not competitive in a contemporary society and require help from above, with in turn contradicts democracy from below.
The parallel history in Slezkine's book is that of Soviet ethnography - how the hands-on education promoted by former populists Bogoraz and Shternberg has been under attack since 1928 for not being Marxist enough by young and willing followers of Marr, and in 1932 the study of ethnography was almost discontinued because it was deemed to study primitive peoples which should have become developed as soon as communism arrived. However, by that time the Cultural Revolution was coming to an end and ethnography survived, but only as a study of "survivals of the previous stage of development." Both parties to the conflict were purged in 1936. After WWII, former populist ethnographers were brought back as an example of what not to do - accused of lacking an internationalist perspective in the 1930s, now they were condemned as cosmopolitanists. Ethnography, however, was back, although in a proscribed form - it was a static narrative showing the contrast between formerly backward and now educated native tribes, unable to explain how one went from A to B.
The conclusion of the book is a contribution to colonial theory, but I know too little about it - maybe something to come back to later. In any case, Slezkine's point that "cross-cultural encounters cannot be fully explained in terms of domination" is very clearly illustrated throughout the book.
Comments:
Slezkine presents the Siberian natives as the quintessential "other," but he never discusses race. In a way, while an educated Russian peasant could leave the "other" camp, an educated Samoed could not. Seems strange to have left that out. Is that because race was not an important issue in the sources he went off of, overshadowed by backwardness/nomadism?
Kan critiqued Slezkine's lack of attention to the views of Sternberg and Bogoraz before the revolution, which "read almost like a caricature." I think I agree with his point, because labeling them populists as if it's self-explanatory (and I think that's all he did) is probably a simplification.
October 9, 2017
Я не то чтобы книжный критик, но о таких вещах очень мало кто пишет так (и так владеет материалом), чтобы в некоторых местах можно было смеяться в голос. Слезкин классный, честное слово.
April 2, 2018
This is a fascinating insight into a neglected subject. In addition to Slezikine's rigorous investigation into the byzantine world of Imperial and Soviet arctic policy, there is also the root of an important discussion about the contradictory relationship between equality and diversity, and the legacy of imperial thought that underlies many of the west's best intentions.
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