Siberian Historical Research

6-7

Authors: Funk D.

Editor's note

23-56

Authors: Vladimirova V.

This paper analyses narratives about nationalist sentiments and alleged separatist intentions of the Sami in the Kola Peninsula. Discussions about Sami ambitions to have their own state together with the Sami from Fennoscandia circulate in certain, predominantly urban, Russian social circles. Sami people are eager to distance themselves from such discussions and to reject any accusations on nationalist ground. My analysis reveals that the real fear that such narratives are indicative of comes not from any real possibility for independent Sami state or even Sami separatists intentions, but from possible spread of ideals inspired from (neo)liberal multicultural ideas, penetrating from abroad. In contrast to the previous liberal doctrines, neoliberal multiculturalism as an ideology accommodates the granting of collective rights as a compensation for past injustice to disadvantaged and more vulnerable parts of the population. The ideas behind neoliberal multiculturalism oppose the spirit of the Kola community. So, when imported from abroad, as an ideological subset of Sami cultural and ethnic revival support, they are accepted with suspicion and hostility. People intuitively feel threatened by such ideas, even though they may not have explicit knowledge of multiculturalism, which is not a part of the local discursive sphere.

87-97

Authors: Jamrozik I.

In England, Sikhs are one of the most recognisable ethnic groups which have managed to embrace and explore the potential of the western world whilst maintaining their beliefs and practices within the multicultural and globalised society. This article will present a brief overview of the ideas and formations of identities amongst the first and second generation Sikhs living in England since 1950s and 60s. Historical background will be set by referring to the unique relationship between the UK and Punjab and to the waves of immigration to England which followed the end of British colonial rule. I will then explore the social, cultural and political issues of transition and adaptation of Sikh communities. Using ethnographic and theoretical literature as well as referring to first-hand materials gathered within the community and through on-line resources, I will explore the construction of various models of lifestyle and identities found amongst Sikhs living across England in modern days. A focus will be given to the contrasts between the Punjab-born and UK-born Sikhs' ideas of religious and social identities and to their different expressions.

110-115

Authors: Funk D.

Review of Kai Donner: Linguist, ethnographer, photographer. Donner Joakim & Juha Janhunen (eds.), Peter Sandberg (photo ed.). Helsinki: Société Finno-Ougrienne, National Board of Antiquities, 2014. 175 p. (Travaux ethnographiques de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 21).

6-9

Authors: Dunk D.A.

Discussion of the year's results and new goals of the journal. (in Russian and English)

21-37

Authors: Vavulin M.V., Zaytseva O.V., Pushkaryov A.A.

The extensive experimental studies were carried out for scanning archaeological artifacts of different types within the framework of the project aimed at establishing the virtual 3D museum of artifacts "Ancient Culture of Siberia" to be implemented by the Laboratory for Social and Anthropological Research. The choice of specific equipment and scanning techniques was determined in each case by a research task and characteristics of objects to be scanned. The 3D scanning techniques for ceramic vessels of different sizes and ornamentation types, miniature anthropomorphic images, stone Turkic sculptures, and wooden ship details are described herein in detail. All of the generated 3D models are presented in the electronic supplement to this journal.

73-103

Authors: Saxinger G., Öfner E., Shakirova E., Ivanova M., Yakovlev M., Gareev E.

This article draws on the example of students from long-distance commuter families, studying at the Ufa State Petroleum Technical University (UGNTU) in the Republic of Bashkortostan. This case study shows that long-distance commuting (LDC) to the sub-arctic extractive industry regions is on the one hand both a socio-economic necessity as well as an attractive form of making a livelihood. A central reason why people on the other hand do not opt for LDC is the cyclical distance from the family. However, even more though the weak living and dangerous working conditions at site reduce the motivation for this multi-local and mobile career path. This article is based on ethnographic and quantitative applied research. It shows on the one hand, where the industry should put the emphasis on in order to use the strong potential of high-qualified workforce for the remote extraction sites in the Arctic and Subarctic. On the other hand, this article shows the tight socio-spatial relations for people from the central and southern parts of Russia to the Far Northern regions and their material meaning as resource peripheries for the social vertical mobility of people including gender specific effects.

111-118

Authors: Khakhalkina E.

A review of Fedorowich Kent and Andrew S. Thompson (eds.) Empire, Migration and Identity in the British World. Manchester University Press, 2013. – xviii, 336 p. (Studies in Imperialism). ISBN-13: 978-0-7190-8956-5.

6

Authors: Kharus O.A.

Introduction to the issue

24-45

Authors: Zinovyev V.P.

The correlation of natural and monetary wages is an indicator of the maturity of the capitalist production. The higher is the share of cash in a wage, the more “purified” the relationship between the labour and the capital is supposed to be. This topic received much attention in the classical Marxist analysis of capitalist production. The paper analyzes the categories of wages paid to Siberian mine workers in the late 19th to the early 20th centuries. At that time the market and infrastructure were underdeveloped, and business owners were compelled to provide their employees with lodging, board and other services, reducing the share of cash remaining at the employees’ disposal. In Siberian mining industry natural wages which created the conditions for the “secondary” exploitation of workers and engendered social conflicts were almost never substituted for money. In the 19th century Siberia master’s board and lodging were a traditional means of payment to employees. In the 1860s to the 1880s the average share of ‘master’s board and lodging’ constituted 40 % of wages in Siberian plants and factories and from 25 to 35 % at goldmines. As the meals provided by the owner were scarce, workers always supplemented them with goods and food from shops belonging to the same owner. In the late 19th century “master’s board” was abolished by almost all of businessmen, substituted by the distribution of foodstuffs from shops on account of wages. On the basis of the author’s analysis of the reports submitted by enterprises and the results of official inspections, it has been revealed that the share of natural wages at Siberian mines showed no tendency to decreasing. Up to 1917 it constituted on average from 30 to 50 % of the total wages paid to Siberian miners. Workers had to get foodstuffs and other goods from the masters’ shops, they were also provided with lodging, medical services, and schooling for children. In the early 20th century the natural component of wages paid to Siberian mine workers was from 3 to 5 times higher than that paid to the workers of European Russia. The author raises a question about the factors accounting for the longtime preservation of natural wages in Siberian mining. He argues that the main reason for it was the weakness of Siberian retail trade which did not penetrate into the mining settlements. The role of retailers was taken on by the enterprises’ management. In Soviet times this role was performed by departments of supplies for workers (ORSy). In fact they occupied a monopoly position in this respect and that had the overpricing and lack of quality control as a result. Only enterprises located in Siberia’s well-developed areas, in particular mining plants, refused the functions of trade and provision of goods.

71-87

Authors: Razgon V.N., Zhdanova G.D.

Studying the history of the Great Terror at the micro level allows us to concretize the knowledge of the basic problems of the history of mass repressions in 1937–1938 adequate resolution of which is not possible if the study is limited purely to approaches based on the principles and methods of macro historical research. These are questions about the objectives of the repressions, criteria and the mechanism for selecting victims of repressions, forms and methods of interaction of the NKVD, party organizations and local activists in the implementation of repressive policies, the specifics of investigative procedures during the Great Terror. The repressions in Solton district, greater in scale if compared to many other districts of the Altai region, are accounted for by the following: 1) the special repressive action in November 1937 led to some ‘failures’ in the fulfillment of the grain procurement plan and in the campaign for elections to the Supreme Council of the USSR; 2) the use of specific methods for implementing repressive policies on the part of local district leadership that contributed to the escalation of terror (the examination of collective farms and compiling of special acts with an obligatory indication of ‘enemies of the people’; 3) the emphasize put on eradication of noncollective forms of rural economy, which had been developed in Solton. The last two factors are indicative of the specificities of the repressive policies implemented during the Great Terror in rural areas of the country, with its focus on the tasks of socialist modernization related to the strengthening of collective farming. Although the punitive action of November 1937 in Solton was more of a ‘special action’ character, and in this respect can be regarded as an ‘incident’, which was beyond the scope of the generally conducted repressions, it shows more clearly than ‘ordinary’ repressions do the specificity of the repressive operation fulfilled under the NKVD order № 00447: the extreme simplification of the investigative procedures, large-scale falsified charges, active cooperation in the implementation of repressive policies between the NKVD, party structures, and rural activists. Thus, this repressive action can be considered as one of the culmination points in the repressive policies on the implementation of the order № 00447.

108-135

Authors: Sorokin Yu.A.

The article describes the main trends in the development of national historiography in the 19th and 20th centuries in terms of studying the political regimes of Catherine II and Paul I. It reveals the factors that influenced the thinkingof professional historians and shows metamorphoses and transformation of their views, as well as provides a chronological order that allows not only to establish the authorship of the so-called conventional views, but to understand the specificities of the evidence upon which historians relied. This allowed the author to argue that, although historians have always thought the differences between the political regimes of Catherine II and Paul I to be quite substantial,they were unable to determine what, in fact, these differences consisted in, if considered in the actual historical and formal logical aspects.

142-148

Authors: Funk D.A.

Review of a series “Quellen zur Geschichte Sibiriens und Alaskas aus russischen Archiven“, Halle, 2000-2010 / «Istochniki po istorii Sibiri i Aliaski iz rossiiskikh arkhivov», Moscow / St.-Petersburg, 1999–2013.

6-7

Authors: Funk D.A.

General info about new politics of the journal and some issues of contemporary situation in Russian anthropology.

15-38

Authors: Balzer Mandelstam M.

Diverse levels and dynamics of indigenous politics in Siberia are examined, ranging from examples of community devastation to impressive cultural revitalization. Anthropological concepts of “indigenous cosmopolitans” and urban-based activism are stressed. I argue that the most effective urban indigenous leaders are those whose lives are deeply intertwined with their original forest, tundra and river bank homelands. Conclusions analyze sociopolitical conditions that make some groups more successful than others in defending their social, ecological and cultural interests. Recent legal constraints on the definition of indigeneity in Russia are reviewed, before discussing specific cases. I feature several accounts from diverse regions that show a pattern of how and why indigenous people have been driven to urban environments, for “push” (forced migration) as well as “pull” (urban attraction) reasons. The Sakha Republic (Yakutia) in the Far East, where I have worked periodically since 1986, is featured as a relatively positive case with still serious problems. Strains of urbanization, ethnic interaction and contestation created by development are explored. Implications for civil society in Russia’s nominal “federation” are discussed.

60-82

Authors: Maslov D.V.

The issue that inspired this paper lies in the specifics of social life of indigenous people shaped by laws. The specificities of the legal status of indigenous people not only influence the creation and keeping of ethnic identity but also directly impact the sense of solidarity of indigenous people. These people readily set up non-commercial organizations – institutions capable of influencing the life of indigenous people on a par with more “traditional” ones, e.g. kinship and/or local groups. The place of such non-commercial organizations among the tools used to maintain solidarity among indigenous people, as it seems, may be of greater significance in urban environments against the backdrop of the erosion of social ties that had been established as a result of the non-urban way of life mainly led by indigenous people. However, the real situation differs from what is expected. Legal rights of indigenous people, through law enforcement and law enforcers, create a specific area of social relations in which an active part is played by the executive and the judicial power. This produces not only a special context in which non-commercial organizations operate, but an isolated semantic field. Such organizations gain social importance, participating in the system of bureaucratic relations, whereas solidarity within groups of indigenous people is maintained thanks to less formal institutions. The main material for the paper was collected by the author during the field research in 2010 in the city of Gorno-Altaisk of Altai Republic.

95-125

Authors: Mamontova N.A.

The Internet has become an inevitable part of social life. Some researchers even prefer to use a term “online habitat” referring to everyday people’s activity on the web. Over the last decade, in Russia there has been a significant growth in the number of ethnicallyoriented online communities of the indigenous peoples of the North as a result of the Internet penetration into the most remote settlements (though the most active members of them are still constituted mainly by urban population). Their participants discuss a wide range of questions concerning their culture and language. The author believes that such online communities make it possible for their members to construct more effectively new forms of cultural authenticity and, therefore, relatively quickly spread them among the wide audience. This article is devoted to one of those communities, a group named “The Evenks” on VKontakte. It considers how the group’s participants represent the contemporary Evenk culture by using information technologies. However, the main problem is that an idea of the use of the Internet as a means of promotion of the Evenk culture comes into contradiction with the widely-spread view on technologies as a threat to “traditionality”, traditional way of life, and even maintenance of the Evenk language. Discussions of the community’s members surrounding this problem, their attempts to find the way out of it, as well as their thoughts on the Evenk culture’s future constitute the main focus of the article. The material was collected by the author though participant observation, interview, questionnaire survey and content-analysis during her “fieldwork” in the online community in 2013-2014.

134-137

Authors: Funk D.A.

Rreview of a book by Safonova T. and I. Santha.

6-7

Authors: Dunk D.A.

Presentation of a new journal's policy.

10-16

Authors: Gromyko A.A.

This article compares events that occurred in Europe at the beginning of both the 20th and 21st centuries. Many researchers consider 1914 to be an important point in European history. Indeed, often the beginning of the 20th century is considered to be that year, and in 2014, the 100th anniversary of the First World War was widely commemorated in Europe and across the world. Similarly, the end of the century is often referred to as 1991, when the USSR collapsed and Cold War ended. Gromyko therefore argues that the “short XX century” offers important lessons for today's European historians and politicians. Referring to recent European books, he reveals great similarities between conflicts at the beginning of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st. He believes that today European security depends on how successfully Russia is integrated in contemporary Europe. Just as was the case with Germany in the 20th century, Russia’s relations with European countries will determine the difference between peace and war in Europe. Furthermore, Gromyko evaluates the development of Europe in the “short” twentieth century and argues that Europe is far from secure and just despite an enthusiastic belief among member states that the European Union project can prevent war. In contrast, he argues that Europe is as divided now as it was a hundred years ago and that Euroscepticism is the predominant position for the majority of Europeans. The current crisis over Ukraine has created a new and dangerous situation, but the author maintains that Europe should learn from its past and choose "lasting peace" rather than war.

24-32

Authors: Aude, Merlin

Aude Merlin, a professor at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Free University of Brussels, shares her encounters with different people in Tomsk in October 2011. Her short stories draw the past and present experiences of the people and the city together, and contemplates their possible futures. Aude listened to the people's opinions regarding the forthcoming elections, their evaluation of the Soviet past and today life, as well as their inspiration, hopes and concerns. These findings were complemented by her observations of local people going about their everyday business, in cafes, universities, saunas, and on the street. Her understanding of the past and present were enhanced by additional experiences, such as an interview with the Director of the Museum of Political Repression, Vassiliy Khanevich, and attendance at TSU documentaries on human rights activists Anna Politkovskaya and Nataliya Estemirova. Aude begins her work contemplating Tomsk as a ‘closed city’ but ends asserting that it is in fact an ‘open city’. Her subtle observations and philosophical reasoning offer the insight of the experienced traveler and European specialist on Russia.

49-58

Authors: Khakhalkina E.V.

Khakhalkina's article addresses the issue of a common European identity and whether the term can be used as a synonym for a European Union identity. To answer this question the author refers to the experience of Great Britain, which is known for its “special position” in the European Union since joining the European Community in 1973. Khakhalkina draws upon a great deal of theoretical literature on the concept of identity and its collective manifestation at the EU level. She finds that in recent years the terms “common European identity” and “EU identity” have often been separated. The former is too broad and complex to be used meaningfully, whereas the latter refers directly to the efforts of the European Commission to build and strengthen the collective consciousness at the level of the EU and is therefore preferred. With specific reference to British identity within the EU, the author stresses that the British are the least integrated of all European countries, which she believes may be a consequence of their imperial past and migration flows between their former dependencies. Drawing on the theoretical material and the British case study, Khakhalkina concludes that the nature of EU identity is in fact “mobile” and there is an absence of wider European identity.

69-76

Authors: Deriglazova L.V.

Larisa Deriglazova, Director of the European Union Center in Siberia, evaluates the implementation of this project, which has united six Siberian universities: Tomsk, Tyumen, Kemerovo, Barnaul, Irkutsk state universities and Novosibirsk technical state universities. She discusses the Center’s goals, methodology, achievements and possible future. The project introduced new resources, ideas and people to the development of European and EU studies among the partner universities at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, and as a result they have been able to respond to the high interest in Europe among young people and the general public in Siberia through annual student conferences, summer schools, outreach activities and annual international conferences, which attracted participants from across the region. Additionally, a number of individual and collective research projects on the topic of Europe and the EU were initiated under the auspices of the Centre, allowing regional experts to work in partnership. Research findings and outcomes resulting from this work have been delivered in a both specialist publications and peer-reviews journals. The administrative task of overcoming great distances between project partners did not prevent the successful delivery of the project. Indeed, the project created synergies between partner universities, resting on the accurate evaluation of the strengths and needs of each partner. Overall, the project enhanced established ties between Siberian experts, and created a strong base for the future development and consolidation of academic research on Europe and the EU.

81-84

Authors: Khakhalkina E.V.

Review of Martynova M. (ed.) Essays on European identity and multiculturalism: Collection. Moscow, IEA RAS, 2013. 480 p. ISBN 978-5-4211-0084-3