Transcultural Chukotka: Transfer and exchange in northeastern Asia, 1900–1945

The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review. 2012. Vol. 39. No. 2. P. 219–248.

Sablin I.

In the 1920s - 1940s the indigenous peoples of Chukotka, the northeastern extremity of Asia, were subjugated by the Soviet Union. This article takes a transcultural look at this process and seeks to explore what interactions shaped the region in pre- and early Soviet periods and what was exchanged through these interactions at different times. The cultural flows under study include those of material objects, diseases, language, institutions and ideas. A great deal of attention has been paid to the reception of exchange in indigenous communities, which was reconstructed based on memories and literary works of indigenous people of Eskimo, Chukchi and Even origin. The article aims to incorporate the case of Chukotka, which was subject to “socialist colonization”, into international cultural and social discourse and seeks to test transcultural methodology in a non-capitalist context.

Keywords: СССР, USSR, indigenous peoples of North, история СССР, Chukchi, history of USSR, коренные народы Севера, Arctic indigenous populations, коренные народы Арктики, коренные народы