The fragrance of belonging in Russian Beringia

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore how the smells associated with particular emotions encode the feeling of belonging in Russian Beringia. The differing olfactory patterns are conceptualised within the broad socio-political processes of Soviet and post-Soviet modernisation. The odours, the mental representations of the odorous stimuli, are considered socially constructed. Following David Howes (2002) and Constance Classen et al. (1994), it is assumed that the cultural politics of olfaction intensify under the changing social regimes. The study further draws on David Chaney’s concept of lifestyle (1996) that proves to be helpful in enhancing the investigation of the interrelation between social differentiation and aesthetic patterns in the context of the Soviet mission civilisatrice. In the analysis of the impact of the Soviet (and post-Soviet) policies on the native olfactory practices, the study shifts the focus from deodorisation (a concept that refers to elimination of those odours that colonizing western discourse finds socially unacceptable) towards sanitation (process in which cleanliness as a synecdoche for civility may lead to, but not necessarily does, a repudiation of certain odours). It demonstrates that the realms where the senses, aesthetic, and social hierarchies overlap have a wide spectrum of cultural forms, often unintended from the point of view of the Soviet or post-Soviet policy makers.