Description
Book SynopsisThis book takes readers to the village of Sheltozero in northern Russia. It highlights a tiny community of indigenous people called Veps, known colloquially as the forest folk for their intense closeness and affiliation with the forests in their ancestral territories. Davidov uses a tour of the local museum to introduce a cast of human and non-human characters from traditional Vepsian culture, while journeying through various eras under Russian, Finnish, Soviet, and post-Soviet rule. In the process, she explores how contemporary political struggles mesh with traditional beliefs, illustrating how Veps make meaning of their history and unfolding future.
A documentary entitled Museum Night is available for instructors who wish to incorporate it into their teaching.
Trade Review"Long Night at the Vepsian Museum is an ethnography that documents the history and current cultural struggles of the Veps people, a Finno-Ugric speaking minority community that lives in Russia’s Karelia region, on the border with Finland." -- Samantha Lomb * EuropeNow *
"Long Night at the Vepsian Museum, is a well-written and engaging contribution to the literature on Post-Soviet Russia and indigenous cultural production. Moreover, the book’s accessibility and clean prose will make it of interest to not only scholars of these fields, but also undergraduate educators looking for a snappy and thought-provoking syllabus addition." -- A. Lorraine Kaljund * EuropeNow *
"By juxtaposing relations between Veps craftspeople and the czarist and soviet states with traditions of reciprocity with master spirits that ensured Karelia’s natural bounty, Davidov offers an altogether new paradigm for understanding Indegeneity in the modern world." -- E. J. Vajda * Choice Connect, June 2018 vol. 55 # 10 *
"One of Davidov’s strengths lies in the place that she chose as a base for fieldwork: the local museum. Despite the idea that such institutions present only rigid, official discourses about real and lively cultures, what Davidov successfully reveals is that behind the facade of public exhibitions, there is an important vein of hidden and non-official cultural knowledge transfer and production taking place." -- Tatiana Safonova *
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *
"Long Night at the Vepsian Museum represents a solid analysis of Veps ‘resource biography’ which connects landscape, industry, and practices of remembering as intertwined local resources. This book would be particularly relevant for anthropology students due to the author’s valuable self-reflections on the nature of fieldwork and ‘collaborative ethnography.’" -- Anna Varfolomeeva, Tyumen State University *
Anthropology of East Europe Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Forest Folk 2. Vepsian Cosmologies 3. Spruce Eyelashes and Blue Eyes of Lakes 4. The Bad Masters 5. The Long Night of Museums 6. Conclusion
