> Hello- I am presently doing my Master's degree in Political Science at
> the University of Northern British Columbia. I have chosen to focus on
> the indigenous peoples of Siberia throughout my programme and I was
> curious to see if there is anybody out there that has done work on or
> with any of these indigenous groups and/or research about them...
First of all, in response to Shauna McLarnon's request for
information on indigenous/state relations in Russian Federation:
You could also contact Arctic Centre in the University Lapland,
Rovaniemi, (their e- mail address is Arctic.Centre@levi.urova.fi).
They hosted an international conference on arctic social sciences in
May, and had a lot of visitors from different parts of Russia.
Secondly, in response to what Johannes Rohr wrote on Russia's
indigenous representatives (and I'm writing as a non-specialist):
a2350203@smail1.rrz.uni-koeln.de (Johannes Rohr) writes:
> About these guys you should really forget as fast as you can. The are
> typical representatives of the old soviet "national elite" of the
> northern peoples. Chosen and educated by the state and always thankful to
> it.
I guess I agree with this, up to a point. However, I'd say that if a
person is doing research on indigenous/state relations in Russia, it
would be useful to know about the influence these guys, their
colleagues, and their respective organizations have had/still have.
All things have a history, and old habits die hard: studying how
these 'national cadres' were formed and kept up might explain many
things in contemporary Russia's indigenous policies.
One should bear in mind, too, that the change after 1991 in many
provincial and local administrations was not so radical as it
sometimes seems (Moscow being one example - Yuri Luzhkov is a man of
the old school). Very often those who had already occupied
some powerful position before 1991 tended to keep it - or made a
victorious comeback a little later. It shouldn't be supposed, then,
that things and people would be amazingly different and new in Russian
indigenous matters all of a sudden.
One new thing, though, which would be quite useful to follow is the
development of province and municipality/indigenous relations, if
Russian local administration really begins to develop, and more
official decision power is transferred to the local level. Isn't this
the level where the many conflicts occur in our own countries? At
least in Finland, in Finnish-Sami relations, this seems to be the
case today.
Johannes Rohr writes:
> If you want to know more about this, ask those, who attended this
> year's meeting of the UN-Working group on Indigenous peoples
Our Sami teacher was supposed to attend that meeting, but couldn't.
I'd like to know what happened with the Russian participants, if you
could point me to the people who were there.
On the matter of grassroots-movements: as you know it was unwise to
work politically in any organized nongovernmental way in the Soviet
Union, unless, of course, one specifically looked for a stay in a
correctional/mental institution, or didn't mind spending rest
of his/her life as a virtual outcast. There were those who were brave
enough to risk this, but the problem with them (I'm speaking of
Russians in general) is that, in this new world, many have turned out
to be only good as revolutionaries/noble thinkers, eternally fighting
the oppressor. I suppose it takes time for new people and real
organizations to really emerge - and perestroika for real started
less than ten years ago.
But maybe one should also look for individuals, not only any easily
recognizable movements, identical to what we're used to:
I met an elderly Russian Sami lady in March, Ms. Antonova, and
thought she was a 'movement' on her own right. Even though she was
quite old and frail, she was still the driving force behind the local
Sami radio. She was actively involved in Sami language teaching in
the SU from its new beginning (I forget if this happened in the 70s
or 80s, but I can check). Also, in later Soviet times she headed
letter-writing campaigns against the building of hydroelectric power
plant in their region, seemingly successfully.
I also briefly met a Nenets (Taimyr Peninsula) poet and fiction
writer, Lyubov Nenyang. She was also an elderly lady - and also
involved in same kind of activities, at least in the field of
culture, among her people. I personally was really impressed by both
of these elderly women, and am convinced that by working with people
like them one might accomplish much more than by looking for a
'movement' for a movement's sake. It could turn out that the
'movement' is headed by an old 'national cadre', anyway.
Obviously, my knowledge in these matters is as yet limited.
Best regards,
Pirkko Vishnevskij
(visnevskij@latuko.helsinki.fi)