A Report by I.S. Gurvich on the Ethnography of Yakutia (from the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences)

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2020-51-3/41-48

Abstract

The article provides information on the report by I.S. Gurvich “New Data on Ethnography of Northern Yakutia”, stored in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, presented at a meeting of the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences on April 26, 1955. The report contains information about expeditions of the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Yakut Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1953-1954. The expeditions aimed to study the composition of the population, life and culture of the peoples living in the basins of the Yana and Lower Lena rivers (Verkhoyansk, Ust-Yansky, Berizinsky, Zhigansky regions). As a result of a wide continuous ethnographic survey, it was possible not only to collect material for an ethnographic map of the northern regions of Yakutia and to further elaborate ethnic statistics for a number of regions, but also to identify areas of settlement of specific ethnic groups. The scientist managed to collect sufficient material to characterize the process of national consolidation, which was extremely intensive in the north of Yakutia. He noted that in reality the historical process in the North was still going on and had its own specificity, and "the task of Soviet historians and ethnographers is to reveal the essence of these processes, since there is still no connected history of the peoples of the North".

References

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