A Panorama of Social Archaeology in Russia

Abstract

The Russian (Soviet) archaeology is often positioned by western scholars as the Great Unknown. For a long period of time, the Soviet archaeology has been hidden behind the Berlin Wall and only few western archaeologists had visited the USSR and even fewer archaeologists from the USSR traveled abroad. This situation has caused many rumors and false impressions about the field behind the Iron Curtain. However, due to several striking reviews, especially by Leo Klejn, the curtain has been lifted. After perestroika, tighter contacts have been established between the Russian and foreign archaeologists. Since then there were many joint expeditions, organization of international conferences, and publication of books containing articles by Russian and foreign authors and edited in Russian and English. After the collapse of the USSR, new tendencies in Russian archaeology were noted, as more articles were devoted to problems of ethnic constructivism and archaeology of nationalism in Russia. This study aims at reviewing some of those changes and innovations. First, I will discuss general transformation modern Russian archaeology underwent recently and subsequently I will focus on social archaeology, which is sometimes used in the West as a synonym for new or processual archaeology.