Author: Kovalaschina, Elena

Source: Sibirica, Volume 6, Number 2, Autumn 2007 , pp. 87-119(33)

Abstract:

This article examines the ideals of G. N. Potanin and N. M. Iadrintsev, who were the architects of the federalist Siberian oblastnichestvo movement of the second half of the 19^th nineteenth century and beginning of the 20^th twentieth century. In their day, the work of the oblastniki on the cultural specificity of native Siberian peoples had a great influence on popular opinion, on the popularization of ethnological theory, and on the general social and political credo to reform policy towards these people. The oblastniki rejected both ethnocentrism and Eurocentrism in the comparison of various peoples. Their eventual acceptance of cultural relativism, the idea of equality of cultural values between peoples, and need for a civil understanding of human history were all closely linked to their political program of promoting regionalism. Their regionalist idea put forth the idea that every social and cultural unit had the right to an independent existence and to have control over their own development.

Keywords: SIBERIA; CULTURAL STUDIES; OBLASTNICHESTVO; G. N. POTANIN; N. M. IADRINTSEV

DOI: 10.3167/sib.2007.060204

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