An Empire of Others
Ethnographers helped to perceive, to understand and also to shape imperial as well as Soviet Russia’s cultural diversity. This volume focuses on the contexts in which ethnographic knowledge was created. Usually, ethnographic findings were superseded by imperial discourse: Defining regions, connecting them with ethnic origins and conceiving national entities necessarily implied the mapping of political and historical hierarchies. But beyond these spatial conceptualizations the essays particularly address the specific conditions in which ethnographic knowledge appeared and changed. On the one hand, they turn to the several fields into which ethnographic knowledge poured and materialized, i.e., history, historiography, anthropology or ideology. On the other, they equally consider the impact of the specific formats, i.e., pictures, maps, atlases, lectures, songs, museums, and exhibitions, on academic as well as non-academic manifestations.
Introduction: On the Making of Ethnographic Knowledge in Russia (Roland Cvetkovski)
Imperial Case Studies: Russian and British Ethnographic Theory (Alexis Hofmeister)
Part I: Paradigms
Russian Ethnography as a Science: Truths Claimed, Trails Followed (Alexei Elfimov)
Beyond, against, and with Ethnography: Physical Anthropology as a Science of Russian Modernity (Marina Mogilner)
Ethnography, Marxism, and Soviet Ideology (Sergei Alymov)
Ethnogenesis and Historiography: Historical Narratives for Central Asia in the 1940s and 1950s (Sergey Abashin)
Part II: Representations
Symbols, Conventions, and Practices: Visual Representation of Ethnographic Knowledge on Siberia in Early Modern Maps and Reports (Maike Sach)
Empire Complex: Arrangements in the Russian Ethnographic Museum, 1910 (Roland Cvetkovski)
Learning about the Nation: Ethnographic Representations of Children, Representations of Ethnography for Children (Catriona Kelly)
Part III: Peoples
Siberian Ruptures: Dilemmas of Ethnography in an Imperial Situation (Sergey Glebov)
Concepts of Ukrainian Folklore and the Transition from Imperial Russia to Stalin's Soviet Empire (Angela Rustemeyer)
No Love Affair: Ingush and Chechen Imperial Ethnographies (Christian Dettmering)
National Inventions: The Imperial Emancipation of the Karaites from Jewishness (Mikhail Kizilov)
List of Contributors
Index