Lifestyle Transformation of the Siberia’ Indigenous Peoples in the Soviet Period

Abstract

AbstractAlong with the processes of new lands annexation, the policy of Russia toward the small-numbered indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Far East was formed. Oriented more toward Europe, the Tsarist Government considered collection of the furred tax, yasak, as a primary goal in the annexed territories, paying little attention to the ethnic situation. Even though the nature of Russian colonization was rather controversial, dependence on indigenous hunters, bringing yasak, limited the severity of the conquerors. Up until the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Russian government did not interfere in the internal life and system of the aboriginal population self-organization. Only in 1822 does the “Charter on the management of non-Russians” appear, compiled by M. M. Speransky, an outstanding document for its time, which regulates the relationship between government representatives and indigenous peoples, taking into account the peculiarities of their development. The life of the indigenous peoples ensured by this document hadn’t been changing until the arrival of the Soviet power. The specificity of the historical fate of Siberia, as a single super-region and a particular cultural-historical type, determined the features of the industrial revolution, the central contradictions of which passed into the Soviet period. This was preceded by an industrial revolution that began at the end of the nineteenth century and was continued in Soviet Russia. The twentieth century was the time of the search for a new policy toward the aboriginal population. The indigenous peoples were involved in the process of socialist transformations, the policy toward which was rather contradictory: during the socialist transformation toward the indigenous peoples of Kamchatka in the first period (the 20s—the beginning of the 30s of the twentieth century) a patronage policy was carried out, observing gradual changes, taking into account the interests of the peoples, their national-cultural characteristics and economic identity, but since the mid-1930s. The interests of the North peoples were subordinated to the needs of the forced building of socialism. Along with the achievements, there were also negative consequences: the erosion of the aboriginal lifestyle, destruction of culture, loss of native languages. This happened to the Rassokha group of Evens, when the process of involving the Rassokhintsi (the people of Rassokha village) into the mainstream of socialist development led to the loss of the traditional way of life. Fortunately, some groups of the Evens managed to preserve traditional beliefs and customs: worship of spirits, commercial cults, first of all—the cult of the deer, which for the Evens had a special meaning: it provided them with movement, clothing, housing, and was a food product. At the same time, the Nanai hunting economy, the most essential activity of this small-numbered indigenous peoples of the North, was seriously damaged. Key problems: Soviet modernization has brought the aboriginal population to modern civilization, technical and scientific knowledge, without which the formation of the modern type of personality is impossible. In the socio-economic sphere, the everyday life of small indigenous peoples have been done irreversible qualitative changes, but this did not lead to adequate changes in the spiritual sphere. Continuing to live in the atmosphere of a tribal mentality, the ethnic groups of the Far East were excluded from their natural habitat, losing their original culture and historical roots.KeywordsSocialist transformationsSocialismResidencyIndustrializationThe evensCollective farmDeer farmingThe NanaisThe KoryaksYakutia