The Study of the Northern Tungus in the Academic Project “History of Yakutia”

Abstract

In this paper, it is noted that new development in the Tungus-Manchu studies has begun by the virtue of writing a three-volume work “History of Yakutia”. It was found that, as the result, a new stage of the development of the fundamental science in the field of research of the peoples of Yakutia has begun. It is emphasized that the developed concept of creating the large-volume work allowed conducting a multi-faceted investigation; new archival and other materials were drawn into research, which had not received sufficient attention previously. It is shown how, according to the concept of publishing “History of Yakutia”, in the mainstream of the history of the peoples of Yakutia, presentation of the existing material is possible not only from the point of view of the traditional ethnographic approach by each group individually and by all conventional means of subsistence of the ethnic culture. It is concluded that the development and transformation of the territory by the nomadic Tungus-Manchu Cultures was actively manifested in the expansion to the North (an example of Even-Bytantai Ulus of Yakutia can be noted) and to the East (notably, to the Far East, including the insular territory of the Russian Federation). It is noted that the Tungus-Manchu peoples of Russia fell into the category of the “northern” nations in the very course of the development of the northern territories. These nations developed a unique school of adaptation of their culture to the environmental conditions of the northern spaces. It is the vision of the Tungus histoty as a whole, and of the history of small Tungus-Manchu nations, in particular, as a powerful momentum that played an important role in the history of the development of the vast territories, that seems new and topical. There have been presented examples of the updated source base for the study of the development of the territory by Tungus ethnic minorities, which reveals the potential of a synthesis of the study of the vocabulary and folklore of the Tungus-Manchu peoples and archaeological artifacts, in comparison with archival materials (primarily, archives of Yakutia.