Soviet Traditions in the Study of Siberian Hunter-Gatherer Society

Abstract

The Moscow Institute of Ethnography even used to have a special theoretical section for the history of 'primitive' society. The scholars who worked in this section, as a rule, had never been in the field either in Africa, Australia, or even in the Russian North. Marxist-Leninist theory attempted to create new approaches. Marxism-Leninism became the major methodological approach in studies during the Soviet period, together with historical materialism with its theory of socio-economic formations, progressive development, and the decisive influence of the mode of production in the historical process. The concept of ethnic self-consciousness was created in the framework of the ethnicity theory. It was assumed that self-consciousness, arising on the different ethnic criteria, is quite independent and self-sufficient. Scholars were interested in the question of the origin and of the phenomenon of Siberian shamanism, the correlation between shamanism and different 'primitive' beliefs and rituals.