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THE RUSSIANS FROM INNER MONGOLIA IN THE SHADOW OF THEIR PROJECTED AND PRACTISED PAST. THE PITFALLS OF 'RETROSPECTIVE RUSSIANNESS' ALONG THE RUSSIAN-CHINESE BORDER (Polish title below)

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Peshkov I.

Lud

2010

vol. 94

243-263

(Polish title: Rosjanie z Mongolii Wewnetrznej w cieniu projektowanej i praktykowanej przeszlosci. Pulapki 'rosyjskosci retrospektywnej' na pograniczu rosyjsko-chinskim). The article offers a case study of a Russian borderline community living in Inner Mongolia, China. The key cultural feature of the group is its retrospective orientation to the 'Russian' period of the region's history. Its members' cultural practice includes constant references to the past and is based on the manifestation of public memory concentrated solely on the Russian aspects of the group's history. Simultaneously, the community keeps generating fairly complicated references to the contemporary Russian culture. The latter in turn has been dynamically adapting both the Soviet and emigrational models of conceptualising the region's past. The juxtaposition of the two concepts of 'retrospective Russianness' has created a unique situation of enchantment with the past expressed by both researchers and their respondents. Consequently, the cultural needs of the post-Soviet society have considerably influenced the methodology employed by the researchers studying the region in question. In this context 'Russianness' - both the one projected by the Russians and the one represented by the local community - constitutes, first of all, a significant obstacle to understanding the social role of the group's memory and, secondly, an instrument for conscious deformation of the real situation in order to create an idealised image of the past.

THE HOSTAGES OF THE 'IMAGINED PAST'. PROBLEMS OF ETHNIC AND CULTURAL IDENTITY AMONG THE GURAN MINORITY IN EASTERN SIBERIA (Zakladnicy 'wyobrazonej przeszlosci'. Problemy tozsamosci etnicznej i kulturowej Guranów zabajkalskich w Syberii Wshodniej)

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Peshkov I.

Lud

2008

vol. 92

27-42

The article aims to present the role of the 'imagined past' in the development of the identity among the Guran community in Eastern Siberia. The group under analysis created a unique culture with strong Evenk and Buryat elements. The Gurans played a specific social role (Cossacks); they held the status of local Russians despite mixed origin. Their complex identity structure, with ethnic, racial, social and political elements, is very specific. The myth of the role played by the Guran ancestors in the conquest of Siberia formed the base of their identity. Russification and westernisation of the past did not interfere with the existence of eastern elements in the culture of the Gurans. We are dealing with a community, which actively configures events of the past, in this way creating concepts, which integrate the group. The Gurans can offer such an account of the events, which incorporates their history into the general trend of Russian history (the conquest of Siberia, fight against communism), without eliminating elements of Buryat and Evenk cultures.

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THE RUSSIANS FROM INNER MONGOLIA IN THE SHADOW OF THEIR PROJECTED AND PRACTISED PAST. THE PITFALLS OF 'RETROSPECTIVE RUSSIANNESS' ALONG THE RUSSIAN-CHINESE BORDER (Polish title below)

THE HOSTAGES OF THE 'IMAGINED PAST'. PROBLEMS OF ETHNIC AND CULTURAL IDENTITY AMONG THE GURAN MINORITY IN EASTERN SIBERIA (Zakladnicy 'wyobrazonej przeszlosci'. Problemy tozsamosci etnicznej i kulturowej Guranów zabajkalskich w Syberii Wshodniej)