Description
Book SynopsisFor 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, th
Trade Review
Engagingly written and with much ironic wit throughout, Arctic Mirrors is a pleasure to read.
* Journal of Historical Geography *
In this great book, Slezkine has provided us with a comprehensive history of the encounter between the Russians and the indigenous peoples of the Arctic and northwestern Pacific.... Arctic Mirrors has already become required reading for anyone interested in the history or anthropology of Siberia, and it will soon establish itself as an invaluable contribution to the growing field of studies on the newly independent states.
* American Anthropologist *
Slezkine concentrates on the changing face of the Soviet Union in the microcosm of the northern people: from 'savage Indians' to the slow evolution from icebound hunters and trappers to industrialized laborers.... An invaluable look at the people the totalitarian Soviets forgot.
* Booklist *
This book sheds light on the history of a neglected people and reveals Russian self-perceptions refracted through the prism of their attitudes toward the natives.... It is a beautifully written, fascinating book that greatly enhances our understanding of Russia as a multiethnic state.
* American Historical Review *
This enlightening book should be read by all interested in the (former) Soviet north, northern people in general, or the relation between nation states and the various 'small peoples' of the earth.
* Ethnohistory *
This fascinating and authoritative book covers the history of relations between Russian civilization and the hunter-gatherer peoples of northern Eurasia. Slezkine charts changing Russian policies toward these circumpolar cultures beginning with the fur trade... in the eleventh century, through the expansion of the Russian empire under the tsars, to the modernization policies of the Soviets. He argues that attention to this kind of history reveals as much about the construction of Russian identity as it does about the cultural identity of the northern 'others.' This book is an important addition to the growing literature on comparative colonialisms.
* Virginia Quarterly Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Small Peoples of the NorthPART I. SUBJECTS OF THE TSARCHAPTER 1. The Unbaptized
The Sovereign's Profit
The Sovereign's ForeignersCHAPTER 2. The Unenlightened
The State and the Savages
The State and the Tribute PayersCHAPTER 3. The Uncorrupted
High Culture and the Children of Nature
The Empire and the AliensPART II. SUBJECTS OF CONCERNCHAPTER 4. The Oppressed
Aliens as Neighbors and Tribute Payers as Debtors
The Russian Indians and the Populist IntellectualsCHAPTER 5. The Liberated
The Commissariat of Nationalities and the Tribes of the Northern Borderlands
The Committee of the North: The Committee
The Committee of the North: The NorthPART III. CONQUERORS OF BACKWARDNESSCHAPTER 6. The Conscious Collectivists
Class Struggles in a Classless Society
Hunting and Gathering under SocialismCHAPTER 7. The Cultural Revolutionaries
The War against Backwardness
The War against EthnographyCHAPTER 8. The Uncertain Proletarians
The Native Northerners as Industrial Laborers
The North without the Native Northerners
The Long Journey of the Small PeoplesPART IV. LAST AMONG EQUALSCHAPTER 9. The Socialist Nationalities
Socialist Realism in the Social Sciences
Fiction as HistoryCHAPTER 10. The Endangered Species
Planners' Problems and Scholars' Scruples
The Return of Dersu Uzala
Perestroika and the Numerically Small Peoples of the NorthConclusionBibliography
Index
