“A long way of Komi ethnography”: from retrospective studies of ethnic history and traditional cultureof the Komi to the modern ethnological monitoring of the European North-East of Russia (1940s–2000s)

A brief review of the development of problems and techniques of ethnographic research conducted in the territory of the European North-East by the employees of the sector/Department of Ethnography of the Institute of Language, Literature and History, Komi Science Centre, Ural Branch, RAS, in the second half of XX – beginning of XXI century is presented. The main attention is focused on consideration of the priority directions of modern field studies, in particular, the new interdisciplinary approaches in the implementation of the ethnological expertise and ethnological monitoring in the territory of the Republic of Komi. The resumption of ethnographic research in the Komi ASSR in the second half of the 1940s is associated with the name of Moscow researcher V.N. Belitser. The result of her regular field studies in 1945-1952 was the publication of an academic monograph on the ethnography of the Komi and Komi-Permians, published by the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences in 1958. In the early 1950s, in the Komi Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences (established in 1949) there appeared its own team of ethnographers, which founders were L.N.Zherebtsov, graduate of the Komi Pedagogical Institute, and L.P.Lashuk, graduate of the Ethnography Department of Moscow State University. In 1961, an independent Department of Archaeology and Ethnography was established, which included Yu.V.Gagarin, L.S.Gribova, G.N.Klimova, N.I. Dukart, and later G.P. Belorukova, all of whom made a significant contribution to Komi Ethnography. At the initial stage, the attention of Komi ethnographers was focused on ethnic history, the principles of distinguishing ethnographic groups of the Komi, dwellings and settlements, calendar rites and folk art traditions, as well as religiosity (which was then studied in the form of “religious remnants”). In 1970, the Institute of Language, Literature and History was established, which included an independent Department of Ethnography, that for 20 years was managed by L.N.Zherebtsov (then for 10 years the Department was headed by N.D.Konakov, now – by Yu.P.Shabaev). During this period, systematic study of the Komi migration groups on the Kola Peninsula, in Siberia, and the Altai began. Statistical and sociological methods were applied pioneered by Yu.V.Gagarin and G.P.Belorukova. Considerable attention was paid to the study of ethnic contacts and the nature of cultural interaction between the Komi and neighboring peoples, which resulted in L.N. Zherebtsov’s fundamental monograph. In the 1980s, considerable attention was focused on the study of ethno-territorial groups of the Komi and traditional nature use, the results of which were summarized in the monographs of O.V.Kotov and N.D.Konakov. In the same years, systematic study of modern ethnic processes in the territory of the Republic began, for which a special research group was created (M.B.Rogachev, V.N. Denisenko, Yu.P.Shabaev, O.V.Kotov). Significant attention was paid to the study of folk knowledge and, in particular, Komi folk medicine (I.V.Ilyina). In the 1990s, the main attention was paid to the international project “Ural mythologies”, in which almost all the employees of the Department took part. The project resulted in the publication of the first volume of the encyclopedic series “Komi Mythology”, which was highly appreciated by Russian and foreign researchers and became a model for subsequent volumes of the series. In the 2000s, the main focus was on the study of collective identities: gender, religious, ethnic. In this vein, the monograph of O.I.Ulyashev and I.V. Ilyina on the role of man and woman in the traditional community, works of T.I. Dronova on the cultural traditions of Ust-Tsilma and V.V.Vlasova on the ethno-confessional groups of the Komi were written. During the same years, ethnographers paid considerable attention to the analysis of interethnic interaction in the Komi Republic and Из опыта историографического осмысления изучения этнографии коми Этнографическое изучение народа коми продолжается уже более двух столетий (если брать за точку отсчёта экспедицию 1771 г. Ивана Ивано- вича Лепёхина), однако историографических работ по этнографии коми до настоящего времени напи- сано немного. Вероятно, одна из причин отсутствия фундаментальных историографических штудий в этнографии коми заключается в том, что научный дискурс в финно-угроведческих исследованиях во многом обусловлен не только научной проблемати- кой, но и широкими общественно-политическими, идеологическими контекстами, провоцирующими исследователей на выбор определенных направле- neighboring territories, the consideration of ethnopolitical issues, and other contemporary topical cultural problems, which brought the traditions of Komi Ethnography closer to modern Western social anthropology.