The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia
The Buryats are a Mongolian population in Siberian Russia, the largest indigenous minority. The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia presents the dramatic transformation in their everyday lives during the late twentieth century. The book challenges the common notion that the process of modernization during the later Soviet period created a Buryat national assertiveness rather than assimilation or support for the state.
The author examines what it has meant to “be a Buryat” and “be a successful Buryat” in three periods: in the Tsarist Russian Empire; under Socialism; and in present-day Russia. For a number of historical and cultural reasons the Buryats and especially their intellectual elite became an integral and efficient part of the Russian administrative and cultural life. By 1991 they were overrepresented in nearly every profession in their autonomous republic, although they comprised just a quarter of its population. The first monograph devoted to Buryat history and the Soviet modernization, this study questions common ideas regarding nationalism, identity, westernization, modernity, and the tenacity of ethnicity.
Notes on Transliteration and Translation
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Modernization and Soviet Success
Institutions and the Culture of Progress
Buryat Exceptionalism and Advancement
Outline of Chapters
Chapter 1
The Buryats of Siberia: From Imperial Russia to the Soviet State
The Mongols of Siberia and Russian Expansion
Buddhism in Buryatia
The Buryats and the Imperial Government
Buryat Intellectual and Political Activity
The Civil War and the Competition over Siberia
Autonomy and Korenizatsiia
Conclusion
Chapter 2
Stalinism in Buryatia
Collectivization and the End of Nomadism
Terrorizing and Purging the Buryat Elite
Territorial Changes to Divide the Buryats
Laying the Foundations for a New Culture
Industrial Immigrants
Conclusion
Chapter 3
The New Buryats
The Postwar Buryat Migration
Buryat Professionals
Buryat Women
Political Leadership
Conclusion
Chapter 4
Education for Change
Building Soviet Education in Eastern Siberia
Buryat National Schools
Teaching Progress, Patriotism, and the Friendship of Nations
Teachers and Parents
Education and High Culture for Young and Old Alike
Conclusion
Chapter 5
Buryat Literature for a New Society
Producing High Culture Through Literature
Geser: The Story of a National Epic
Getting It Right: Censorship and Acceptable Narratives
The Decline of Buryat Language Publishing and Literature
Conclusion
Chapter 6
A Means to Modernity: Newspapers, Radio, and Television
The Local Press in Buryat and Russian
The Development of Broadcast Media
Radio and Television Programming
Conclusion
Chapter 7
Reform, But What Kind?
Glasnost’ and the Buryat National Movement: 1986–89
The Competition Heats Up: 1990
The Buryats and the End of the USSR: 1991
Conclusion
Conclusion
Bibliography