Paul Goble
Staunton, Oct. 2 – Academician Andrey Golovnyov has called for identifying all the peoples of the country “indigenous” if they have historical and ethno-genetic roots on its territory regardless of their memory, an idea that will please Russian nationalists who resent the fact that in law, ethnic Russians are not “indigenous.”
The director of the Kunstkammer Museum made that proposal at a session of Federation Council’s Committee on Federal Structures, Regional Policy, Local Self-Administration and the Affairs of the North on September 28 (indigenous-russia.com/archives/50603) and thereby opened a can of worms with potentially far-reaching consequences.
Golovnyov was careful to say that he did not want to see any change in special rights the 47 numerically small peoples of the north, Siberia and the Far East now enjoy under Russia’s legal system. But by suggesting that almost all peoples in the country are indigenous, he is whether he intends to or not challenging that arrangement.
Under current Russian law, the numerically small indigenous peoples are those 47 peoples who live on the territories of their ancestors, preserve a traditional way of life and economic activity, number fewer than 50,000 peoples and recognize themselves as distinct ethnic communities.
Russian law does not define indigenous any other way; but of course, indigenous in the everyday meaning of a people long settled on a particular territory and in the Russian legal code defined as the numerically small peoples of the north, Siberia and the far east are not one and the same thing.
But insisting, as Golovnyov has done, that all peoples who are indigenous in the common sense meaning of the term raises questions about whether the status of the numerically small indigenous peoples as a special legal category won’t be affected even if he would leave their status untouched.
The issue of the definition of who is indigenous and who is now has been percolating for some time and not only among Russian nationalists. First, there is the question of number. One numerically small people – the Nenets – is close to the 50,000 figure. If it passes that, will it lose its status? Or will others gain that status if they fall below that number in the future?
Second, the numbers question has both a domestic and an international component. Within Russia, there is a very real issue of what government level should have the right to determine who is and who is not a numerically small people. And abroad, Russia’s indigenous peoples deal with their counterparts in other countries who do not think in the same categories.
In almost all of them, governments and activists stress the traditional way of life rather than the number of people pursuing it. That means many of those who define themselves as indigenous abroad are far larger than the Russian communities with whom they interact and thus have larger agendas than most of the Russian ones do.
And third, will calling almost everyone including ethnic Russian indigenous undermine the existing government programs for the numerically small indigenous peoples and put even more of them on track to disappear in the future, something Golovnyov is against but that Putin’s support for exploitation of their territories makes increasingly likely?
That is far more likely than many are willing to recognize. Already, of the 47 nations identified as indigenous, only three have majorities who know their national language, a clear sign of just how much pressure they are under (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2026/08/in-only-three-of-47-numerically-small.html).
It should be obvious that indigenous and numerically small indigenous nationalities are not equivalent terms, but in the Russia of Vladimir Putin, that is likely to be forgotten and those who are called indigenous now are almost certain to suffer the most just so some Russians offended that the state doesn’t call them indigenous now can gain such official recognition.
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