Description
Book SynopsisGalvanizing Nostalgia? explores critical questions for the survival of Russia in its nominally federal form. Will Russia fall apart along the lines of its internal republics, as did the Soviet Union? Based on cultural anthropology field and historical research in major republics of Eastern SiberiaSakha (Yakutia), Buryatia, and Tyva (Tuva)this book highlights Indigenous concerns about self-determination. Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer suggests that a fragile and disorganized dynamic of nested sovereignties has developed within Russia. Ecology activism has grown, given new threats to the environment and accelerating climate challenges, especially in the Arctic. Focus on strategically chosen republics enables comparing and contrasting interethnic relations, language politics, and the salience of gender, demography, resource competition, environmental degradation, and increased spirituality. Republics vary in their neocolonial relationships to Moscow authorities. Some local leaders, such as a politicized shaman, use nostalgia for cultural achievements to galvanize citizens. Since the Soviet Union collapsed, cultural and political revitalization have been relatively more viable, although still difficult, in areas where Siberians have their own republics.
Trade ReviewThis excellent study provides a much-needed view of history unfolding across this vast region for historians, political scientists, and scholars interested in Siberia's native peoples.
* Choice *
Galvanizing Nostalgia? opens with a very rich introduction in which the author argues for the need to study the Indigenous peoples of Siberia in contemporary Russia, explains the reasons for cultural and political revitalisation amongst groups that have their own republics, and defines indigeneity, sovereignty and nostalgia.
* Europe Asia Studies *
The information value of the book is unique, due to a very committed and long standing immersion in Sakha-Yakutia, Buryatia and Tyva.
* Euroasian Geography and Economics *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Contested Ecological, Cultural, and Political Sovereignty in Russia
1. Sakha Republic (Yakutia): Resource Rich and Pivotal
2. Republic of Buryatia: Gerrymandered and Struggling
3. Republic of Tyva (Tuva): A Borderline State with Demographic Advantages
4. Crossover Trends: Eurasianism, Competition, Cooperation, and Protest
Conclusions: Federalism, Cultural Dignity, and Nostalgia
