Contribution to the study of history of the Kola North

Ten years has passed since on the Kola North appeared and began to develop successfully by direct participation of Doctor of Historical Sciences, chief research worker of Center of humanities of the Barents region of KSC (Krasnoyarsk Scientific Center) of RAS named after I.A. Razumova (Apatity) new scientific field —- historic and social anthropology. This methodological area is considered to be interdisciplinary, and for working in it there were in need for Irina Alekseevna’s knowledge as philologist, folklorist, ethnographer, cultural specialist and historian. Essentially, everything what was proposed by I.A. Razumova in different publications [2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11; 12; 13] became the challenge of history-regional tradition, existing on the Kola North and attempt to move native humanitarian problematic in other forms of reading and understanding. With this goal to the native humanitarian ground were moved new approaches and methods, which are successfully applied by historians-anthropologists in Russia and in the whole world.

So, by I.A. Razumova and her followers for the first time in conditions of the Murmansk region methods of oral theory were used, there was collected and analyzed great content of data, which characterize socio-cultural situation in central and southern districts of the region, firstly, on the territories of the so-called small towns. These researches «captured» researchers in Murmansk, who, in their term, developed beginnings of scientists from Apatity over the regional center and northern part of the region [15]. Also Irina Alekseevna for the first time used definition of «cultural landscape» speaking about the Kola North [3], what itself became not only scientific contribution, but original intellectual provocation, which stirred other researchers into action in the same direction [14].

СЕМЬИ на фоне поморской культуры

Historically anthropological direction of scientific researches of I.A. Razumova predetermined priority of social, «Human» problematic. Researcher is conscious about how experience and accept the history ordinary people — residents of the Kola North; how functions and develops the institution of the family in north of the Arctic Circle conditions; how happened and are happening processes of adaptation of migrants to territorial and ethnocultural specifics of the region; how local consciousness, way of life and cultural practices of region’s residents are formed.

External distance from such usual for native historical consciousness concepts as «state», «power», «economy», etc. just at first sight excludes human discourse from «high dimensionali-ty». Residents of the Kola North, whom the anthropologist is interested in, — is a labor resource, which live in synergy with political and economic factors. And when current Russian government is puzzled with the question how to save and probably to creep the industrial (and wider geopolitical) potential of Russia on the territories of the Far North, anthropological researches could render great assistance in revelation of socio-cultural instruments when solving these challenges.

New result of scientific work of I.A. Razumova and her follower O.V. Zmeeva is published in Krasnoyarsk scientific center (KSC) of RAS scientific-documentary source book «History of family of Zhidkih on the background of the Pomor culture», which includes educed memorial records of a resident of Kandalaksha (Murmansk region) G.F. Beloshitskaya, folkloristic texts from her own private archive and also finding aid prepared by publishers [1].

The central place in publication is G.F. Beloshitskaya’s essay «History of family of Zhidkih in the Pomor village Kandalaksha» and also adding it small memorial compositions of her, where we are able to see the practice of ordinary conceptualization of her family history, its traditions, important dates, living atmosphere (games, songs, etc.). Memorial compositions consist of independent texts full of different marks of Russian Pomor culture. They contain unique information on history and ethnography of the Pomor family in the Northern Belomorie (the whole coast of the White Sea and adjoining area) in conditions of intensive social transformations of the 20th century.

Sources really enrich the understanding of that specific situation, which took place in Kandalaksha (as well as other districts of Russian Pomorie (mainly used of shores of White Sea) during fracture of history. Constructed in 1915—1916, Murmansk railway which connected skirts and the center of the country was near the village of Kandalaksha. During industrialization works on construction of cascade of hydroelectric stations started on the river Neva and Kandalaksha aluminum plant. As a result near the village Kandalaksha began to grow the settlement, which in 1938 was reorganized into town. Village continued to live till in 1971 it wasn’t assimilated by it.

Notes of G.F. Beloshtskaya is an evidence of a person who became the eyewitness of transformation of traditional landscape and keeper of its cultural heritage.

Publishers of this source fairly came to its analysis from positions of not only concrete-historical and private, but also structural and typical, what allowed them to interpret problems of family identity and cultural memory in the context of Russian Pomor culture. Publishers rightly consider, that memorial culture to wide extent determines viability of cultural traditions at the stages of «cultural acceleration» [1, p. 12]. Soviet transformation didn’t lead to disappearance of the whole layer of pre-revolutionary culture because of conservation of its particular elements in «memorial landscape».

Such comments to texts of memories successfully provide their representativeness with accumulated in science balk of knowledge in history, culture and ethnography. Special attention was paid to language of memorial source. In a special table publishers located correlation of Pomor terms, founded in texts of G.F. Beloshitskaya, with famous vocabularies of Russian Pomor lexicon. Perception of texts is increased with the help of photos, archive documents and pictures from the family Zhidkih private archive.

Documentary collection from G.F. Beloshitskaya’s private archive — is not the only one example of family memoirs in the Kola North. As researches of 2012—2013, undertaken by the expedition of Murmansk State humanitarian university showed, sources, published by I.A. Razumova and O.V. Zmeeva on the history of family of Zhidkih, have their analogues in the northern districts of Murmansk region, rather alike by its both structure and directivity of content. For example, with collected works of G.F. Beloshitskaya could be interrelated earlier published memorial compositions of the Kola residents E.M. Popova and V.S. Lopincev, and of the Murmansk resident T.S. Uvarova. And folklore materials, collected by G.F. Beloshitskaya, are aligned with collection of chastushkas (two-line or four-line rhymed poem or ditty on some topical or humorous theme) of the Kola resident M.I. Zherebtsova [15]. These parallels could speak for the fact, that contrary to ideas of lack of cultural layer on the Kola North, family culture is in their own way rich.

Study of family memory and private archives of the Northerners - is a current problem of humanitarian science in conditions of demographic challenges and threats, which face nowadays Russian society and Russian North in particular.

Collection of the history of family of Zhidkih is rightly considered to be the best evidence of the fact, that interdisciplinary approach, and particularly, historical and social anthropology, as an accepted direction of current science, has its perspectives in the Kola North.