Between the Lord and the Jew: Some Remarks on the Identity Structure of Belarusian kolkhozniks in the Late Twentieth and Early Twenty first Centuries

• Authors: Anna Engelking
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Following an ethnographic field study, the author presents her findings on the cognitive collective identity of Belarusian kolkhozniks. Their self-definition as a group is based on the semiotic oppositions: peasant–‘lord’, peasant–Jew, and Christian–Jew, and it testifies to a longevity, or longue durée, of pre-modern mechanisms of conceptualising the social reality. The contemporary kolkhoznik defines himself as a simple (uneducated) but assiduous man, as opposed to his lord; in contrast to Jews, the kolkhozniks cultivate the land (as farmers) and are baptised. The post-serfdom identity of the ‘Christian kolkhozniks of-this-place’ is immersed in a mythical worldview and indifferent to any modern ideological and/or political projects.

Keywords

EN

Belarus; kolkhoz; social identity; peasants; Jews; Christians

PL

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla PAN w Warszawie
• Journal: Acta Poloniae Historica
• Year: 2014
• Volume: 109

Dates

published

2014

online

2014-01-01

Contributors

author

Anna Engelking

Identifiers

DOI

10.12775/APH.2014.109.05