The concept of social justice in the economy of traditional households of the Kola Peninsula

Abstract

The article is based on the analysis of ethnographic literature of the late 19th – early 20th centuries, folklore and archival sources and examines the historical and cultural context and the current existence of a specific subjective concept of social justice in the economy of a traditional household, historically formed by the local Arctic population – the Sámi of the Kola Peninsula. When thinking on this concept, criteria of strict equality in distribution, productivity and principles of satisfaction of needs were identified. It is noted that in the conditions of the state colonization policy of the Murmansk coast of the Kola Peninsula, starting with 1860, the region initiated new economic relations, governed by the norms of all-Russian legislation and “colonization” legal acts prepared speculatively, without taking into account the specific rights of the indigenous people. By the example of analysis of archival sources deposited in the funds of the State Archive of the Murmansk region, it is shown that in 1870-1871 in the case of legal way of upholding their ideas about social justice in the process of resolving possessory conflicts the Sámi of the Kola-Lopar district had declarative justice on their side, unlike the colonists though they had state resettlement privileges.