Institute of Eastern Studies

This paper aims at analysing the depoliticisation process of a border region's past from the perspective of simultaneous changes in biographies of people, objects and forbidden places. Turning the closed Soviet-Chinese border into a relatively open Russian– Chinese border meant not only opening the socialist borderline areas to the world, but also confronting Russian society with an intensely mythologised area and people connected with it. The combination of the totally Soviet symbolic space of the of the border town of Priargunsk in Eastern Transbaikalia with extremely differing attitudes towards the socialist past enables us to show the influence of borderline location on post-communist struggles with the trauma of long-lasting political confrontation in a different light. This new version of the past not only offers the possibility of including former enemies in the new post-communist border community, but also of establishing a fresh connection with Soviet objects, now defined as historically specific signs of the long Russian presence in the area. We are dealing with a peculiar post-Soviet case of an epistemic advantage of border, according to which the borderline and peripheral location of extreme ideological and cultural attitudes encourages unexpected forms of time and space perception, regardless of the incomplete reconciliation process following the Civil War. Keywords Russia – Transbaikal Cossacks – frontier urbanism – memory …

This article explores modern Siberian discursive practices of interethnic divisions among prisoners, which are still based on the Soviet model of a multiethnic prisoner population. The contemporary Russian xenophobic image of the organized and anonymous mass of newcomers from Central Asia and the Caucasus clearly contrasts with the ethnic-difference-sensitive perception of " non-Russians " in Siberian prison camps. The effectiveness of forced nonethnic consensus is based on a well-established hierarchical code according to which all prisoners are expected to subordinate themselves regardless of their ethnicity. It is genea-logically linked to the sociality established during the Gulag era and is entangled with a " cosmopolitan " Soviet ethnic policy. The comparative analysis of prisoners' discourses on Eastern migrants offers an opportunity to identify traces of Soviet nationality policy as well as prisoners' sociality in the Soviet Gulag camps in modern Russian criminal culture. This analysis is based on the author's field research conducted in Eastern Siberia in 2012–2014.

T he relationship between individual and social in the perception of traumatic events has been a problem of stable concern of ethnographers and social anthropologists. 1 Th is complicated relationship between the biological and cultural nature of Famine and Mass Violence experience provoked suspicions about the possibility of explanation of the research phenomena in question. Th e critique went to basic assumption of biomedical approaches to nutritional and violence crises and provoked new questions about emotional, institutional and social aspects of research investigation. Th e situation of distancing from others stemming from a diff erent cultural status can change the optics of perception considerably and result in completely diff erent adaptation strategies. Internal and external perception of a given community as partly alien to the dominant ethnic group develops more determined survival strategies (including greater solidarity, support received from befriended communities, and eff orts to receive special treatment from the state) at the time of traumatic disturbances. Viewing complex and often chaotic socialist modernization processes (repressions, expropriations, fi ghting reaction, etc.) in clear terms of an ethnocultural confl ict off ers a possibility to focus on the defense of the material, symbolic and cultural capital of a given community.

T he crucial role of Polish researchers in the investigation of Siberian indigenous cultures in the 19 th century provoked attempts to use the Polish heritage in the project of Soviet Siberia. Streets and schools were named after the Polish researchers and their work was paid attention to at numerous museum exhibitions. Th is positive mythology was not politically neutral. Th e researches special status of political victims and " European viewers " was supposed not only to legitimize the offi cial (Soviet) knowledge about traditional cultures, but also to continue the democratic discourse of " Siberia as a prison. " Th e Soviet state tried to use the academic heritage of Polish exiles for its own purposes. Th e confrontation of these well educated Europeans with extremely traditional cultures symbolized the right (European and scientifi c) perspective to look at Siberian cultures. Th eir papers, books and collections were combined with the Soviet ethnographic perspective to perceive traditional cultures and their " backward past. " Th e aim of this paper is to investigate the Soviet use of the Polish exiles' heritage in the conceptualization of shamanism as a set of religious and social practices. Th e main goal here is the reconstruction of models of use, contexts of quotations, selection of data and symbols of representation of the Polish academic heritage in Siberia.

В работах, посвященных борьбе с отсталостью, достаточно убеди-тельно показаны деструктивные эффекты модернистических страте-гий государства по отношению к сообществам, зафиксированным как отсталые (Бауман 2004; Scott 1998). Принудительный выбор современ-ности вместо автономии позволяет государству исключать так назы-ваемые отсталые сообщества из правового поля в целях реализации про-извольно установленного абсолютного права сообществ на современные модели жизни (Agamben 1998). В этой перспективе связанное с переходом к современным моделям экономической активности радикальное расши-рение правового поля может сочетаться с одновременным сворачивани-ем экономических, культурных и социальных прав сообществ в рамках патерналистической логики развития. В случае кочевников процессы достижения минимального уровня культурной автономии и дееспособно-сти останавливаются в результате практик де-номадизации и прину-дительного включения в рынок. Отношения кочевых культур c совре-менным государством отличает поверхностное противоречие между создаваемыми официальными образами «угрозы» со стороны кочевников и реальными практиками ограничения автономии постномадических со-обществ. Характер и масштаб проектируемой опасности зависит от выбранной временной шкалы, если в исторической перспективе фиксиру-ются милитарный и цивилизационный характер угрозы, то в наше время подчеркиваются политические (сепаратизм), экологические и социаль-ные (отсталость) риски. Это сочетание действия рыночных механизмов и реальной де-номадизации Внутренней Азии будет рассмотрено здесь в перспективе сложных отношений микросообщества китайских эвен-ков-оленеводов с китайским государством, региональные органы кото-рого уже десять лет проводят политику закрытия леса для кочевников и создания оригинального примера эвенкийского городского поселения в тайге (эвенкийский поселок Алагуя). Возможность остановки эконо-мических, социальных и культурных прав в целях борьбы с отсталостью * Статья подготовлена при поддержке Национального центра науки (Польша) (грант номер DEC 2012/05/E/HS3/03527). Пешков Иван Олегович — кандидат экономических наук, Восточный Институт, Уни-верситет им. Адама Мицкевича в Познани ([email protected]) Peshkov Ivan — PhD, the Institute of Eastern Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University ([email protected])

This article aims at presenting issues connected with the representation of Stalinism in the Russian school curriculum from two interrelated perspectives. The first perspective includes the issues related to creating narratives of the past that would enable to clearly separate Stalinist crimes from “the Soviet nation’s great achievements.” The second perspective relates to the social context of the debate on Stalin’s era representation at schools and an attempt to deconstruct elementary discourses regarding this traumatic period. The foundation of this article is the universal character of helplessness related to representing the Stalinist trauma, only indirectly connected with textbook writing or any special historical policy in this respect. History textbooks have become hostages of the necessity to meet two contradictory objectives: telling the truth about the repressions and demonstrating the power of the country and its grand history.

The centre orientation and closed character of the Soviet space turned border areas into half-empty places remaining in absolute readiness for confrontation. Frontier forms of socialism were special, not only because of the extremely intense implementation of Soviet methods of modernization, but also because they achieved a particularly high level of political and social sterility of frontier populations. The contradiction between political sterility of border inhabitants and the latter’s emotional inclusion as Cossacks in border defence was dealt with through re-creation of confrontational myths whose performative power was able to combine temporal regimes and cast doubt on the loyalty of the local inhabitants. The paper analyses late Soviet discursive practices concerning the disloyalty of fictional Cossack communities in Inner Asia (Mongolia, China, and Transbaikalia) with their old-fashioned life style and strong anti-Soviet attitudes.

The borderline territory serves a double purpose, being simultaneously zones of cultural contact and cultural barriers-administrative and often civilizational. This ambivalence frequently affects borderline area inhabitants turning them into hostages of border management regimes and outside projections concerning their cultural and civilizational status, and the authenticity of forms of their culture representation. In the case of Birobidzhan, we are dealing with an absolutely modern project of creating ethnic territoriality without reference to the historical context and far from the places of traditional settlement of the Jewish population. The implementation of this project put the Jewish settlers at the center of a complex process of border management and securitization of the border areas. The factors of border and "remoteness" are largely underestimated in Birobidzhan studies. The article fills this niche, emphasizing the spatial aspects of the implementation of the "anti-Zionist utopia" and its complex relationship with previous models of territoriality in the region and local inhabitants.

The article explores the doubts and anxieties associated with the return of two communities of Russian long-term residents of Inner Asia-the Cossack repatriates of the Three Rivers Region and the local Mongolian Russians-to the Soviet citizenship. The theoretical basis of the article is the statement about the epistemological character of the presence of the past, which determines a crucial influence of the current terms on any historical knowledge. In this perspective, the memory of the past can be considered not only as its subjective reflection, but also as a social practice that identifies the community's status. The purpose of this article is to show how the Soviet people used speech practices in relation to the temporary and spatial discrepancy of repatriates. The main characters of this article will be the ways of creating an image of the enemy linguistically and mastering it by target groups in everyday life. In this perspective, the decision to repatriate, which causes distrust and alarm, is a convenient marker for the inclusion of local political folklore in the conflict between ethnic and political solidarity in Soviet society.

Статья посвящена вопросу о том, какую роль играет опыт приграничного
города-посредника в формулировании тревожных прогнозов относительно
последствий миграции. В этом вопросе два аспекта – когнитивный
и культурный. Ответ на него автор дает, опираясь на этнографический
материал, собранный в городе-посреднике на российско-китайской
границе. Успехи китайских региональных властей по созданию городов-
посредников вдоль границы (с открытыми торговыми площадками,
ориентированными на русских предпринимателей и надеждой на со-
вместную жизнь), должны были рассеять все сомнения и «разоружить»
тревожную память о советско-китайской конфронтации. Однако успех
приграничного урбанизма в регионе привел к резкому росту опасений.
Сегодня стоит говорить не столько об усилении старых фобий, сколько
о появлении новых. Возникшие на границе города-посредники попали
в ловушку собственной мимикрии под воображаемую модель российского
города. Их приграничная локализация и ориентация на Россию сделали
возможным экстраполяцию опыта совместной жизни россиян с китай-
скими предпринимателями на возможные сценарии развития Сибири
и Дальнего Востока. В этих экстраполяциях соединены воедино две
вещи – тревога по поводу стремительно беднеющего региона и массовое
узнавание собственных страхов перед «пробуждением китайского дра-
кона» у границ России. В статье предполагается, что массовые пред-
ставления относительно перспектив китайской миграции в данном регионе
формируются на основе негативного опыта, укоренённого в конкретном
месте. Это знание не просто присутствует в качестве фона, оно играет
ключевую роль в «эмпирическом подтверждении» латентных и открытых
тревог по поводу истинных мотиваций китайских мигрантов.