Ethnologia Polona

CHUKOTKA AND THE RUSSIAN INVASION OF UKRAINE

2024-12-17T12:01:56+00:00

It seems that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine came as a surprise to the Indigenous people of Chukotka. Indeed, at first, there was confusion among them, then ignorance and even denial of the war. Militarist state propaganda and exceptional cash payments to soldiers and their families, on the one hand, and the threat of imprisonment to protesters, on the other hand, convinced most Chukotkans to accept the war and even find excuses for it. Dozens of residents from every village in Chukotka signed up as “volunteers”, leaving their homeland to kill or be killed. Those who stayed at home have adapted to the new reality and returned to their routines, at least outwardly. In my research, I trace the Chukotkans perceptions of a seemingly distant war. The Russian authorities have criminalised any sign of anti-war speech and given that I have no right to endanger the Chukotkans, I cannot conduct interviews and surveys. What I can do is monitor internet sources. Thanks to the growing role of social networks in the daily life of Chukotka settlements, I was able to observe what people discussed and how in order to get a sense of what they were really thinking. As a litmus test to monitor trends in people’s views on the war, I tracked donations to the front lines and the campaigns to attract them. Online research significantly limits my ability to describe a comprehensive picture, but it does provide enough circumstantial information to outline the social trends in Chukotka’s communities. A very preliminary conclusion from my observations is that the most valuable group of men were taken from the villages. This group is the backbone of local settlements, providing traditional food, new generations and identity. The remaining Chukotkans are stubbornly trying to return to everyday life, and the war is not something they care about. The result is that the Russian authorities have dealt yet another crushing blow to the identity of Chukotka’s Indigenous peoples.

INTRODUCTION

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CONFERENCE REPORT:

2024-11-26T16:58:32+00:00

THE POWER OF THE UNBURIED:

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Using the experience of repatriates from Inner Asia as an example, this article examines the specifics of Soviet practices of suspicion, fixing the border population in a situation of inevitable political and racial impurity. Despite the gradual withdrawal of the state from the mass persecution of people in border areas after 1953, the emotional experience of living near the border is relevant, not only in new post-Soviet contexts but also as a way to understand the past. This experience will be considered in two aspects: (1) the citizenship regime for repatriates as it, to a greater or lesser extent, related to the community and (2) the specifics of the community’s responsibility for armed resistance to Soviet power. The narrative shift in the study of Stalinism and Soviet citizenship has provided a broad theoretical view of the value system and epistemology of the Soviet subject. It should be noted that this theoretical generalisation can be filled with empirical content thanks to anthropological studies of the border communities from the eastern part of the USSR (Transbaikalia). To write this article, material was used from field research conducted in Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and the Chita region in the autumn of 2012, 2016 and 2021.

AT THE CROSSROADS OF MEMORIES

2024-12-17T12:02:00+00:00

The traumatic experience of war has played a pivotal role in the history of the Circassians, an Indigenous people of the North Caucasus who suffered enormous population loss and displacement due to the Russian Empire’s conquest in the nineteenth century. Despite this historical trauma, not all members of the Circassian community oppose modern Russian military expansion in Ukraine driven by colonial ambition. To understand why this is the case, the article examines the contestation between the state memory regimes that have been silencing the memory of the Russian-Caucasian War (1763–1864) and the counter-memory of the Circassians who preserve the memory of its atrocities. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, it shows how Circassian authorities and individuals adapt to the current regime, which discourages ruminations on the significance of the Russian-Caucasian War while elevating the memory of the Second World War and emphasising the importance of interethnic unity. The paper argues that by establishing and sustaining a hierarchy of memories and identities, the Russian state cultivates loyalty and patriotism among its ethnic minorities, who are compelled to prioritise their identity as Russian citizens over their ethnic affiliations and grievances.

WAR AND THE FIELD

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In the spring of 1999, while NATO forces were bombing Serbia, I was doing fieldwork in Western Siberia. Russia was clearly on Serbia’s side in this conflict, and countless patriotic and anti-war actions were taking place throughout the country. Both the war and these patriotic actions were given great publicity in the media, and state propaganda successfully monopolised the local discourse on it. Given the situation, former relations between the anthropologist-fieldworker and the locals were reassessed. My relationship with the field changed. It was not me who felt in danger, but I was worried about my family living close to the Croatian border, influenced by Russian propaganda and isolation from my home. This changed my perception of reality, and I found myself experiencing “existential shock.” My previous intimate relationships were shaken by the propaganda-fuelled paranoia brought about by the war. The wartime hegemony had raised the possibility of a negative interpretation of me in addition to the former positive ones – in short, it had occurred to people that I might actually be an enemy or source of danger. During this period of my fieldwork, I was suspected of being a hostile spy. To understand this situation, the question of researcher neutrality had to be raised. War is closely connected to group identity and, consequentially, shapes personal identities, reinforces previous ones, creates new ones and spurs individuals with multiple identities to choose between them. The bombing of Serbia exerted a potent effect on the mechanisms of Russian identity: it reinforced the Rossijanin (“Russian citizen”) identity, the basis for the Russian state identity that reigned following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The strengthening of this identity also had an elemental effect on the local Indigenous people, drawing them towards a “pan-Slavic” identity and reinforcing the role of the former Soviet identity. News of a Russian-Ukrainian war escalating in 2022 came as a serious shock to me, an anthropologist engaged in field research in Russia. On the one hand, it was a significant detriment to my identity as a researcher, as the field station I had been intending to visit seemed likely to become closed off to the world. Secondly, the Russian invasion curtailed any opportunity of communicating with my various Siberian acquaintances. However, the job of the anthropologist offers no exemption from reporting on war and violent conflict. Where the necessity arises, methods, concepts and theories must be found that permit the development of a viable approach. In solving – or in the current situation, attempting to solve – the predicament outlined above, the only possible point of departure I had were my field studies conducted in 1999.

BROTHERS FOREVER:

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This ethnographic documentation of a settlement in Arctic Russia demonstrates the role of brotherhood in local institutions, individual decision-making and family- and community-based obligations. It shows how crucial these are for understanding the complex dynamics of power, obligation and identity to distinguish the diverse use of fraternal metaphors in the community in contrast to the national level or state ideology. I start with the premise that the most prevalent and emotionally charged concepts of brotherhood are, in fact, local and are rooted in two social institutions – the institute of “a hunting crew” and the local kinship system(s). Although these two evolved and transformed under the Soviet and post-Soviet state regimes, the principles of social organisation, positioning and obligations, essential for ties between men, persisted. As the kinship relations are transformative, they do not create an immutable basis for kin-based resources. Labour, such as marine hunting, makes such a basis. In individual decision-making, only non-optative relations with parents and siblings matter. In this study, my focus is the influence of male siblings and cousins on a man’s actions. In the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine, some families approve of the monetised service in the army as a substitute for family care and subsistence, and men join their siblings and cousins in the army. The study thus shows how the notion of brotherhood impacts individual decision-making and why it is not difficult, metaphorically speaking, to change sealskin- for heavy-duty leather army boots.

THE MINDFUL BODY AND GEOPOLITICAL EMBODIMENT DURING THE WAR BETWEEN RUSSIA AND UKRAINE

2024-12-17T12:01:53+00:00

In this article, I argue that the war between Russia and Ukraine has “geopolitical embodiment”, meaning personal bodily experiences that people associate with inter-state relations. In this case, the embodiment includes the “imprints” of feelings, moral sentiments, memories and relations connected with nation-states and their political relations. The “mindful body” theory (Scheper-Hughes and Lock 1987) allows me to continue their metaphorical conceptualisation and talk about the “geopolitical body”. When approaching the topic, I explored the stories of four Russian citizens who experienced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine painfully. Ukraine was an integrated part of their personal, social and geopolitical space. They were strongly against the invasion and talked about changes in their lives and bodies that they attributed to the war: social fragmentation and physical sickness experienced as corporeal disintegration. To resist it and recollect their social and corporeal unity, they left Russia soon after the war began. Speaking about their experiences, they also represented their post-Soviet geopolitical subjectivities.

INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF RUSSIA AGAINST THE WAR

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This paper explores the role of ethnic identity among the Indigenous Peoples of Russia as a resource for anti-war resistance. It focuses on the qualitative processes of ethnic self-identification and self-determination at the individual level, addressing a gap in the social and political analysis of activists’ behaviour in Russia. By employing the framework of identity as a narrative, it analyses interviews with ethnic decolonial anti-war activists who possess Indigenous heritage and represent various ethnic groups across Russia. The research highlights the developmental stages of ethnic identity that activists have experienced, particularly emphasising the stages that serve as resources for activism. Moreover, it emphasises the fact that for individuals who have established contact with their ethnic identity, activism emerges as an inherent and dynamic response to historical oppression. Additionally, the paper distinguishes the role of ethnic identity among Indigenous peoples from their racial identity, by providing a nuanced understanding of the specific challenges and dynamics faced by Indigenous peoples in their activism.

DEBATE ON DECOLONIALITY AND SENSE OF BELONGING AMONG YOUNG KALMYKS AND BURYATS WHO FLED TO MONGOLIA AFTER 2022

2024-12-17T12:02:03+00:00

In 2022–2023, there was a significant shift in discussions about minority languages and ethnic groups in Russia. This study examines discourses concerning the attitudes to the Russian state, the sense of belonging and the future of ethnic minorities. The paper is based on interviews with young people from Mongolian-speaking republics in Russia, Kalmykia and Buryatia, who left for Mongolia after mobilization was announced in 2022. Fleeing possible conscription into military service, living in a country with a similar culture and language, and sharing emigration experiences with other young people made their life in Mongolia a space for fruitful discussions about their experiences, history and the future of their ethnic groups. The sense of belonging is context-sensitive. The study shows that the views of young Kalmyks and Buryats consider both official and activist perspectives. Their narratives about the future of their republics are closely linked to personal decisions to leave, life experiences and family memories of their community’s turbulent history. At the same time, the evolving perspectives of young people will shape future collective discourses among ethnic minorities.

THE SOCIAL ORGANISATION OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCE

2024-12-17T12:01:51+00:00

This paper explores the orientalisation of Siberian ethnic minorities who have actively participated in the war on Ukraine. The overrepresentation of Buryats and Tuvans within the Russian army has sparked public discussions in Ukraine and Russia about the relations of Siberian minorities with the Russian state. This study is a starting point in analysing the relationship between the state, nationalism, and ethnic minorities in contemporary Russia, particularly in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. The orientalisation of Siberian ethnic minorities is interpreted as a significant aspect of a broader national and cultural boundary construct between Russian and Ukrainian societies. The research focuses on two key areas: (1) an examination of discursive representations of Siberian minorities in both Ukrainian and Russian media and (2) an exploration of the process of national and cultural differentiation between Russian and Ukrainian societies.