Czvetkovski R., Hoffmeister A. (eds.) An Empire of Others: Creating Ethnographic Knowledge in Imperial Russia and the USSR

Central European University Press, 2013. — 415 p.Ethnographers helped to perceive, to understand and also to shape imperial as well as Soviet Russia’s cultural diversity. This volume focuses on the contexts in which ethnographic knowledge was created. Usually, ethnographic findings were superseded by imperial discourse: Defining regions, connecting them with ethnic origins and conceiving national entities necessarily implied the mapping of political and historical hierarchies. But beyond these spatial conceptualizations the essays particularly address the specific conditions in which ethnographic knowledge appeared and changed. On the one hand, they turn to the several fields into which ethnographic knowledge poured and materialized, i.e., history, historiography, anthropology or ideology. On the other, they equally consider the impact of the specific formats, i.e., pictures, maps, atlases, lectures, songs, museums, and exhibitions, on academic as well as non-academic manifestations.Introduction: On the Making of Ethnographic Knowledge in Russia
Imperial Case Studies: Russian and British Ethnographic Theory
Paradigms
Russian Ethnography as a Science: Truths Claimed, Trails Followed
Beyond, Against, and with Ethnography: Physical Anthropology as a Science of Russian Modernity
Ethnography, Marxism and Soviet Ideology
Ethnogenesis and Historiography: Historical Narratives for Central Asia, 1940s–1950s
Representations
Symbols, Conventions and Practices: Visual Representation of Ethnographic Knowledge on Siberia in Early Modern Maps and Reports
Empire Complex: Arrangements in the Russian Ethnographic Museum, 1910
Learning about the Nation: Ethnographical Representations of Children, Representations of Ethnography for Children
Peoples
Siberian Ruptures: Dilemmas of Ethnography in Imperial Situation
Concepts of Ukrainian Folklore and the Transition from Imperial Russia to Stalin’s Soviet Empire
No Love Affair: Ingush and Chechen Imperial Ethnographies
National Inventions: The Imperial Emancipation of the Karaites from Jewishness