Kazan Ethnography Congress Calls for Focus on All-Russian Identity

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 14 – The 13^th Congress of Anthropologists and Ethnologists of Russia took place in Kazan July 2-6.  Its resolution is now on the website of the Moscow Institute for Ethnology and Anthropology (iea-ras.ru/index.php?go=News&in=view&id=1816.  Much of its language is exactly what one would expect, boilerplate calls for more funding and attention.

            But from an organization whose members have typically devoted themselves to ethnic minorities, some of which are hard-pressed to adapt to and survive modernization, the 800-word resolution contains some unexpected language which suggests the field is going to be moving in a different direction, one more congruent with the Kremlin’s plans.

            First of all, it praised the contribution of Russian anthropologists and ethnologists to “guaranteeing stability and concord in multi-national Russian society, the promotion of all-Russian identity, and the preservation and development of the historical-cultural heritage of the peoples of the Russian Federation.”

           

            Such a formulation consistent with the ideas Academician Valery Tishkov, former nationalities minister and institute direction who serves as a close advisor to Vladimir Putin on ethnic issues, has long promoted significantly downgrades non-Russians whose heritage may be supported but whose continued existence is not mentioned.

            Second, the resolution praised “the growth of professional interest in the study of inter-ethnic relations and civic Russian [rossissky] ethnicity,” rather than the nature of any particular people, again an interesting departure from the focus one typically assumes anthropologists and ethnologists.

            Third, the congress document called for a more practical focus of academic research, with scholars keeping an eye out in their work to “the challenges of the present day” so that they could “offer models for the resolution of important tasks,” again a shift from an academic to a practical even political approach.

            Fourth, the resolution suggested that its members need to devote more attention to the processes by which “traditional family and ethnocultural values” are transmitted from one generation to another, a focus that suggests Russian ethnographers will be increasingly trying to describe how these values can be transmitted not via state institutions but by non-state ones.

            And fifth, the congress called for a broader use of the media to popularize ethnographic knowledge to “the population of the Russian Federation and neighboring territories,” an even more insulting description of the countries that emerged from the collapse of the USSR than “the near abroad.”