The Subject Matter and Methodology of Ethnographic Study of the Soviet Working Class

Abstract

The problem of the culture and mode of life of the working class is increasingly attracting the attention of Soviet researchers. In recent years considerable progress has been made in their study. This work is also proceeding actively in the people's democracies. (1) Nevertheless, it must be recognized that this field of ethnography continues to lag. Pre-Marxist, and particularly prerevolutionary Russian ethnography, did not set itself the task of studying the working class. It regarded the working class as a uniform mass without specific ethnic characteristics, and saw the peasantry as the sole bearer of national culture. As a consequence, a substantial portion of the population of a particular nationality, not engaged in agriculture or the fishing and hunting occupations, remained outside the purview of ethnographic study. This not only impoverished but distorted the general picture of the development of the folk way of life, the folk culture.