Contenu du sommaire : Regards sur l'anthropologie soviétique

Ernest Gellner, The theory of history: East and West. This essay tries to bring into the open the nature of existing disagreements between the Western and Soviet Marxist vision of history. My suggestion is that a Western theory of history is crystallizing at present, and that it is materialist in its base-line typology, but not in its theory. It has no consensual theory, but its Fragestellung is materialist, though it does not prejudge the nature of the answer which is to be proposed. But I do not wish to suggest that this view is, even tacitly, embraced by the majority of Western social scientists and historians. Many embrace a semantic and largely anti-theoretical idealism of the kind I have briefly sketched out. A larger number still, notably amongst historians, are untheoretical or anti-theoretical, and are inclined to consider any pursuit of a general historical theory as un-professional. Many philosophers also work on the assumption that both historical context and theory are irrelevant to their own pursuits.

Marc Ferro, From unity to differentiation of sciences devoted to man and society. This text studies the development of the various disciplines of human sciences, its relationship on the one hand with the political context, and on the other hand with the progress of the discipline itself within the framework of other branches of knowledge. Soviet anthropology is thus inserted in a problematic that overlaps the recent history of this discipline.

Iurii I. SEMENOV, Main types of traditional societies and modes of their evolution. In our opinion, classification of societies into traditional and non-traditional is not all-important in understanding their essence. Classification based upon socio-economic formations is more relevant. Traditional societies are classified into primitive, pre-class (transitory from the primitive to the class society), based upon Asiatic mode of production (politary), slave-holding (antiquity) and feudal. Social evolution is based upon the progress of productive forces indicated by efficiency of production. But the modes of achieving economic growth in different traditional societies were not the same. Some of them brought the evolution to a standstill, as it happened in politary and societies.

Vladimir R. Kabo, The study of social structure of traditional societies in Soviet ethnography: past and present. The Soviet social science always coasiders the traditional societies as basis of subsequent social and cultural development. The concepts and fields of investigation of Soviet theoretical ethnography were not stable. We can mark some new trends in theoretical study of traditional societies in the late 1 950's that continue till present: 1 . more intensive study of socio-economic relations side by side with traditional interest to gentile organization, systems of kinship, etc.; 2. the differentiation of gentile and communal structures; the investigation of primeval community in its main parameters; 3. the detailed study of versatile connections of traditional societies with a defined ecosystem; 4. new aspects of investigation of primitive collectivism as a contradictory phenomenon that includes elements of social differentiation; 5. discussion of the problem of traditional societies as ethnic units; 6. new level of study of traditional consciousness; 7. the investigation of process of class and state formation.

Jean Cuisenier, The genesis of ethnie differences: from concept to empirical data. A large comparative international survey about cultural development was achieved in 1975-1982 by a team of Soviet, East-European and West-European scholars, including the author of this paper. An interrogation arises from the conceptual framework and the results of this survey: how did Soviet anthropologists ask their theoretical questioas, what concepts did they manage, how did they treat the empirical data? Actually, where Soviets think in terms of "interaction between national cultures," there, Occidentals think in terms of "relations between hegemonic and subaltern cultures." Where they intend to manifest ethnic essences and to explain by ethnogenesis their specific features, there. Occidentals find opposite legitimacy and national movements. By these ways, it appears that the Soviet anthropologists, facing up to empirical data, did not avoid giving new theoretical basis to

Peter Skalnik, Soviet etnografiia and the national(ilies) question. The present paper argues that the etnos "theory," as expounded by Bromley and his collaborators over more than the past twenty years, was particularly inept to face the problems summarized under the heading of national question. By inventing and reifying etnos, Bromley wished to substantiate his claims that etnografiia was an independent discipline and supply "scientific" evidence that the national question in the USSR was resolved "once and for all." The impotence of Bromley's "theory" is seen in the explosion of the "ethnic" claims all over the USSR, the failure both to predict and grasp it.

Yulian V. Bromley, Abram I. Pershitz, Spontaneous and stimulated development of traditional societies in the light of the theory of social and economic structures. In the past, the theory of social and economic structures was vulgarized to mean that the spontaneous development of nearly all of the human societies took each of them through almost every formative stage. But most recently it was recognized in Soviet science that societies receive an impetus from without, and kind of catch up with those which have outstripped them in their historical development. Although not a single society is absolutely spontaneous in its development and not a single one has been able to assimilate organically any outside stimulus without having been prepared first to such digestion by ils own internal development, there are always iastances of both mostly spontaneous and mostly stimulated development as conditioned by different natural and geographic circumstances and by concrete historical causes. The path of "mostly spontaneous" development has led traditional societies nearly invariably to historical backwardness and its apology, that ranges from the ideas of Africanism and the like to the concept of cultural relativism in Western anthropology, made people merely admire this sort of backwardness. However, the path of "mostly stimulated" development is always wrought for the traditional societies, which are not always sufficiently prepared by their internal evolution to take a leap through one or two formational stages, with some quite contradictory consequences.

Tamara Dragadze, Some changes in perspectives on ethnicity theory in the I980's. A brief sketch. To a certain extent. Western trends have often been marked by a greater recognition of essentialist, reflexive or cultural traits in die social coastruction of ethnic identity and the class-conflict based models arc on the wain. There are several reasons for this, one of them being the impact of the voice of members of ethnic minorities in Britain themselves. In the Soviet Union in the past, a Marxist framework was adapted to an essentialist, cultural model in order to escape the confines of simple class analysis and also to present a sanitized version of Soviet ethnic relations. The new glasnosť and the force of events themselves are permitting a review of some of the tenets of ethnicity theory. The materials are still being written and the diversity between Moscow and the republics has yet to be documented. This paper nevertheless attempts to elicit some thoughts on the direction some Soviet authors might be moving towards. The paper ends with a few comments on how I am trying to combine in my own work a selection of approaches from the vast variety of trends in both Western and Soviet anthropology.

Anatoly Khazanov, The ethnic situation in the Soviet Union as reflected in Soviet anthropology. The main aim of this paper is to demoastrate that despite the fact that in the Soviet Union anthropology is claimed to be the science of ethnicity, and that Soviet anthropologists have paid particular attention to ethnic studies, they have failed to describe and to adequately estimate modem ethnic developments in the USSR. Instead, they preferred, or simply had to provide "scientific" arguments in support of the Party line. Only on rare occasions and in a semi-Aesopian language few of them pointed out the facts that in specific cases might be considered as contradicting official claims. Even now, in the period of glasnosť, the ethnic situation in the Soviet Union is much more boldly discussed by the public and by representatives of other disciplines than by a majority of Soviet anthropologists. A question may be asked, whether this fact is connected with the circumstances within Soviet anthropology itself which have led to a reluctance or resistance by some members of its establishment to admit old sins and new realities.

Boris Chichlo, Soviet anthropology at the time of perestroika. For the first five years of glasnosť, Sovetskaia etnografiia has not changed its general outlook coined during the era of stagnation. When national conflicts - and, incidentally, aids - appear, threatening the whole society, ethnography endeavors to formulate its true name. In comparison with other Soviet periodicals, Sovetskaia etnografiia has not yet taken full advantage of the transparency. And anthropology in USSR has barely started on the

Vladimir Plotkin, Dual models, totalizing ideology and Soviet ethnography. Conceptual differences between Western and Soviet social sciences go far deeper than disagreement on any formal social theory. They arc rooted in two separate intellectual traditions. From the medieval times, Russian culture has been marked by the persistence of totalizing and monistic forms of ideology, and a strong polarity of values (dualism). The paper explores the impact of this ideology on Russian/Soviet Marxism, as well as on the character of social theory in Soviet ethnography. It suggests that the current debate between the fundamentalists and the innovators will remain inconclusive without the critical reevaluation of the Russian intellectual tradition.

Natalya Sadomskaya, Soviet anthropology and contemporary rituals. Following the Revolution of 1917, the traditional forms of folk rituals in the USSR were subject to suppression. This situation reflected the fact that these traditional rituals were of religious character, and the State was engaged in a concerted effort to stamp out religion. Consequently, old customs (Christian, Moslem, tribal) became to a considerable extent levelled. The need for the ritual expression became an essential factor in the rebirth of the traditional religion of each ethnic group. In this connection, the Government of the USSR charged the scholarly institutes with the study of the "survivals of the old life-style," and the means to overcome such survivals, and creating new "socialist ritual forms." Since 1960 there has been amassed in the USSR a considerable body of data to permit an evaluation of this unique experiment. In this paper, I shall focus on the role of Soviet anthropologists in the evaluation and construction of the "new folk ritual forms."

Kirill V. Chistov, The Russian traditional society in Soviet ethnography. The present day situation in Russian ethnography took its shape in the second half of the 1950's and the early 1960's as characterized by a harmonious blend between ethnography of the past and ethnography of the present. The subsequent decades have seen an intensive development of the following trends: ethnogenesis and ethnic history of the Eastern Slavs and the Russians; ethnocultural history as based on written documents and archival materials as well as museum collections; ethnographical cartography; typology of the phenomena of material and intellectual culture; studies in the local groups of people including those living in alien national media; urban ethnography from the Middle Ages to the present; studies in archaic forms of social organization (community, family, sex-age groups, ethics and common law in the old village); studies in the role and forms of functioning of ethnic traditions in die contemporary world (city, family, contemporary art, industrial production); folkloristics, its historical and modern problems; elaboration of a series of generalizing works.

Wladimir Berelowitch, The origin of Russian ethnography: the Geographical Society in the 1840's-1850's. Ethnography was conceived within the framework of the Russian Geographical Society created in 1845 along the rationalist lines of the eighteenth century, on the model of natural sciences, as a description and a classification of primitive peoples. However, as from 1846, when Nadezhdin was put in charge of the ethnographical section, it was the Russian current, greatly tinged with nationalism and slavophilism, that became predominant. While persisting to explore the remotest ethnic groups, the section stressed definitely the study of "Russian" (comprising Ukrainian and Belorussian) narodnost' (Volkstum), as well as its Slav neighbors in the hope of discovering the national spirit behind the "exterior" and "material" manifestatioas. The imperial idea that supported the ethnographic study was thus replaced by the national concept, and Russia was viewed as an ethnic entity rather than an imperial state.

against the dominating tendency of Russian folkloristic research focused on region and ethnic concepts.

Ellen Värv, Correspondents' contribution to the Estonian National Museum. Created in 1909, the Museum remedied for its lack of means by calling on the services of local correspondents in order to constitute its collections. Since 1922 it was also sending questionnaires, especially to rural schools. The network of the Museum's correspondents was officially created in 1931: there were then two hundred of them. Since the late 1950's ethnographic research was taken up again in Estonia. Annual competitions to collect ethnographical material were organized mainly in the guise of questionnaires and investigations. At present the archives of the Museum comprise 311,526 pages classified into 599 volumes.

Claire Mouradian, An Armenian ethnographie periodical, Azgagrakan handes. The reviews Azgagrakan handes, published in the Caucasus in 1895-1916 and Eminian azgagrakan joghovatsou, edited by the Lazarian Iastitute of Moscow in 1900-1913, represent a unique storehouse of ethnographic materials with regard to the Armenian rural world about to disappear. They represent a first-hand source on Armenian society at the beginning of the century. They can also be used by historiography of social sciences bearing on this peripheral region. Finally they contribute to clarify the process of elaboration of the national identity of the Armeniaas, revealing, as they do, their perception of themselves and of others, as well as of the past, of the present and the future of their nation. In the case of Armenia, ethnography as well as other domains of social sciences (history in particular) is viewed as a branch of armenology, instrumental in keeping memory alive and contributing to the solution of the national question.

Demitri В. Shimkin, Siberian ethnography. A current assessment. In Siberian ethnography, as in many other facets of Soviet life, new directions of effort are needed. Particularly urgent are assessment and mitigation of the adverse effects of industrialization upon the smaller native groups. In general, three ethnographic dimensions are most challenging: social structure, religion, and public health. Ethnic consciousness is strong even among very small groups. The social structures and dynamics of the in-migrant majority are virtually unknown. In both native and in-migrant populations, religious practices are widespread, heterogeneous, seemingly little organized. In health, migration is a major stress factor. Social disruption has been general among the smaller native groups now of subordinated status.

Lydia T. Black, Soviet anthropology and the ethnography of Alaska. The differences in approaches to micro-level ethnography between US and USSR scholars are discussed, with Alaska ethnography cited as a test case. It is proposed that some of these differences arise from the generalized, ideological framework employed by the researchers. Terminological differences are cited as contributing to cross-cultural miscommunications between scholars of the two nations. The paper ends with a plea for resolution, achievable once we recognize the nature of such differences.

Vladimir I. Vasil'ev, Traditional societies of northwestern Siberia in Soviet anthropology. Soviet anthropological studies in the traditional societies of the aboriginal ethnoses of northwestern Siberia (ie. Nentsi, Khanty, Mansi, Selkup, Nganassans, Entsi, etc.), in their ethnic origins, social structure and economic and cultural specificity, have always made a complex use of the materials of such different sciences as ethnography, archaeology, physical anthropology and lingogeography. Studies have been carried out along three main lines: ethnogenesis and ethnic history, social structure and social history, historical ethnography (formation of economic-cultural types and culture genesis). Studies in the social institutions of the northwestern peoples proceeded mainly to solve three major problems: clan and dual organization, large patriarchal family, neighbor-territorial community.

Jacques Karro, The nation and the universality: Yakuts of today. Social sciences in Yakutia are characterized by their concern about the origin as well as the future of the Yakuts: the economic potential of the Yakut Autonomous Republic from which its natives derive but little profit for themselves coastitutes at the same time the underlying force that might integrate values of East and West, somewhat on the model of Japan. This utilitarian theory does not explain everything. As a matter of fact, the ethnogenesis of the Yakuts as reconstructed by local research workers harbors a national vocation existing from the very beginning to admit antagonistic and complementary trends.

Piers Vitebsky, Centralized decentralization: the ethnography of remote reindeer herders under perestroïka. What are the implications of perestroika for the native groups in the most remote and outlying areas of the USSR? Rather than speak of "traditional" and "modern" strands in the lives of such peoples, they should be seen as citizens of a modern state making well-informed choices about their own future. This is illustrated through the example of the Eveny of north-eastern Siberia, who live mainly by reindeer herding. Though this is highly economical, since collectivization it has progressively separated the nomadic herders from their families in the centralized villages. This leads to a low birth-rate and the estrangement of children from herding. Under perestroika, labor is being reorganized into a system of contracts. Though the aim is to increase efficiency, this may also allow families to live and work together again. However, logistic problems, such as schooling, remain. These developments are taking place against a background of increasing ethnic consciousness and open public debate on policy. Though one of the main tendencies is towards decentralization, this takes place within an overall political climate determined at the centre, in Moscow.

Chantai Lemercier-Quelquejay, Elhnolinguistic problems and Soviet policy in Dagestan. Dagestan has always presented a curious and paradoxical landscape: diversity in a number of ethnic, social, and economic domains, but also unity based on the conscience of belonging to a national group, that of mountain people, reinforced by a common historical tradition and a spiritual Islamic cohesion. Soviet nationalities policy in Dagestan was the same as the one applied in other Muslim territories of the USSR. The linguistic policy seems to have been a success because it resulted in making the Russian language the lingua franca of the Dagestanis. But this cannot be said of the biological and cultural assimilation since language is but one of the factors of national identity.

Frédérique Longuet-Marx, The practice of ethnology in USSR (based upon an example in Dagestan). Because of its institutional character, the ethnological practice in USSR is different from its counterpart in the West. The choice of research topics, the organization of team work in the field, the relations with local authorities and with different institutions are ruled by a specific system. The fonction of an ethnologist within society is also different. He belongs to the domain of public service. He is consulted in case of conflict. Consequently the ethnologist is not confined to the part of analyst but asked also as an active agent of the authorities. Is it possible that the perestroïka would bring a change to the method and conceptioas of ethnology? Will the ethnologist endeavor to keep at a distance from the part he played in the past? If his own culture is involved, will he side with the Soviet state or with the interests of his own community?

Nora Dudwick, The case of the Caucasian Albanians: ethnohistory and ethnic politics. Ethnogenesis of the Soviet peoples is a topic which often carries a far from merely academic significance in the Soviet Union. Over the past two decades, Azerbaijani scholars have published a series of ethnohistorical studies of the currently-disputed region of Nagorno-Karabagh. These studies conclude that the Armenians of Karabagh are the Armenicized and Christianized descendants of the Caucasian Albanians, and therefore essentially the same people as the Azéris, who are claimed to be the Turkified and Islamicized descendants of the Caucasian Albanians. Armenian scholars have contested what they consider to be the appropriation of Armenian history and culture. Through these studies, the Armenian and Azerbaijani scholars are attempting to establish the legitimacy of their republics' claims to Karabagh. In my paper, I will examine the academic debate concerning the ethnohistorical relations of the Karabagh Armenians to the Caucasian Albanians as an example of the significant role which ethnography and history play in articulating and defending local concerns and aspirations within the Soviet Union.

Farida Mamedova, The problem of Caucasian-Albanian ethnos. Documents of the Antiquity and of early Middle Ages composed in different languages as well as material culture prove the existence in Caucasian Albania, during the first-eighth centuries, of a dominant ethnos, the Albanians, with in the background various other populations. The formation of the Albanian ethnos was promoted by all the necessary conditioas: territorial and political unity, consciousness of an Albanian identity determined by the Aluank-Albanian cihnonym, cultural unity comprising that of religion and language. The common language in the region was the Albanian belonging to the group of north-east Caucasian (Nakh-Dagcstani) languages. The Albanian ethnos existed since the first class-society till the end of the Middle Ages. The opinion of certain scholars who deny its existence seems to us erroneous.

Gcnnadii E. Markov, Traditional societies of Central Asia. The first agriculturists - Uzbeks and Tadzhiks - appeared in Central Asia when the former local sedentary population intermingled with cattle breeders who had arrived in those regions. This fact cxplaias the persistence up to a few recent decades of strong patriarchal traditions in the way of life of urban and rural dwellers. Even in our days we can observe the survivals of these traditions in the ideological domain. The Kazakhs were nomads until the eighteenth century. Some isolated groups began to settle down in the course of the nineteenth century but this process was finalized only in the 1930's. Certain nomadic Turkmen tribes were sedentarized as from the beginning of the sixteenth century, but the majority converted to agriculture only in the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is also during that same period that the Karakalpaks took to agriculture. Kazakhs, Turkmcns and Karakalpaks who persisted in their nomadic way of life at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries preserved numerous nomadic traditions. These traditions arc still alive in the material and spiritual culture of these peoples, especially among the rural population, though some of them arc also observed among city dwellers. The prescriptions of Orthodox Islam are respected well enough among the Uzbeks and the Tadzhiks, and less among the Kazakhs, the Turkmcns and the Karakalpaks.

Olivier Roy, Afghanistan: anthropological models and pacification. The policy of pacification, waged in Afghanistan from 1980 to 1988, by the Kabul government and by the KGB, relied on an accurate, but not publicized, anthropological model, which contradicted the published analyses made by Soviet scholars, who were making use of the official ртe-peresiroika anthropological concepts. The official model relied on a substantial ist concept of ethnic group and tribe, whereas the real practice of pacification was adapted to the flexibility of the identities and of the power game among the local notables.

Gérard Prunier, Ethiopian revolution as viewed by the Soviets or the political limits of anthropology. This article first looks at the history of relations between Russia and Abyssinia prior to the 1917 Revolution, showing that Russia's interest for that African country came from a feeling of cultural proximity which went all the way to a proposal of unification of their two Churches. The Soviet renewal of that interest following the 1974 Ethiopian revolution gave rise, at the intellectual level, to a mechanical application of Marxist-Leninist anthropological concepts to the Ethiopian case. The conjunction of Brezhnevian Realpolilik interests and of a ideological anthropology resulted in a very mediocre intellectual output, in which the real Russian cthiopianists were silenced by the politicized "specialists."

O. Iu. Artemova, Traditional society of Australian Aborigines in Soviet anthropology. Data on Australian traditional Aboriginal culture were and still are frequently used in Soviet anthropology as one of the main sources for reconstruction of early stages of human history (prehistory). In the early 1920's-carly 1950's, the research tradition traceable back to the nineteenth century centered mostly on such issues as systems of kinship, kin groups, family and marriage patterns. The 1930's and 1940's were the years of decline in the Soviet Australian Aboriginal studies mostly because of the dogmatic approach to L.H. Morgan's scheme of early social evolution. The early 1970's saw a renewal of scholarly interest in kinship systems and in uni lineal kin structures with the resultant discussion of the so-called Australian "controversy." In 1970's-1980's the themes of Soviet Australian Aboriginal studies grew more varied; they included Aboriginal religion, arts and folklore, as well as the role of personality, the correlation between individual behavior and traditional normative system. Today, the picture of traditional social life of Australian Aborigines as reflected in Soviet anthropology appears to be much more complicated than in the previous years. In particular the concept of primitive egalitarianism is replaced by the recognition of some forms of status differentiation (group and individual) and status hierarchy as well as certain forms of individual specialization.

Mihail V. Kriukov, Ethnic continuity of the Mon-Khmer mountain groups of South Vietnam. Attention is paid mainly to the analysis of kin units known as mpol among the Koho and turn among the Maa. They proved to belong to two different types of social organization. The first one is an exogamous matrilineal group of kin relatives whose hereditary name is common. The second one can be isolated as a non-exogamous patrilineal group of families exhibiting economical, social and ideological unity. Variants of the two types represented by different subdivisions of Koho and Maa can be treated as reflection of successive stages of the transformation of the underlying protomodel. From this point of view they represent a sort of continuity with Tring on one pole and Maa on the other. Despite gradual slackening of social functions of exogamous mpol units they still are main regulators of marriage rules. Both mpol and turn are functioning as essential elements of social structure notwithstanding the deformation of traditional kin organization during the last decades.