"One of our Own among Strangers, a Stranger among our Own": Specificity of the Ideological and Political Position and Literary Creativity of V. G. Bogoraz-Tan

The article examines the main stages of life, features of the worldview and artistic and journalistic creativity of V.G. Bogoraz (pen name - Tan), 1865-1936. His activities can be divided into three large areas: scientific-professional, political-journalistic and literary-artistic, writing. Attention is drawn to the fact that, in contrast to the scientific merits of Bogoraz-Tan, which have received wide recognition in Russia and abroad, his creative legacy is little known today, and his contribution to the field of politics and journalism has not been fully studied. The purpose of the article is to identify the specifics of the literary and creative heritage of Bogoraz-Tan, to explain the reasons for its underestimation by the mass reader and critics. The stages of Bogoraz-Tan's formation in various fields of activity are shown: exile to the Kolyma region (late 1880s - 1890s) and his passion for the ethnography of northern peoples, which grew into professionalism, which determined the vector of his subsequent scientific research and, in many ways, the nature of the plots and forms of artistic works; The first Russian revolution and the switch to the socio-political sphere (1905-1917). The evolution of Bogoraz-Tan's relationship with the Soviet regime and the circumstances that accompanied it are analyzed. Arguments are given in favor of classifying Tan as a representative of the populist literary and journalistic movement. It is concluded that the lack of fame of V.G. Bogoraz-Tan as a writer may be due to his political background (belonging to the party opposition to the Bolsheviks) and the authorities’ doubts about the scientist’s true loyalty to it, as well as the originality of his artistic works, which did not fit well into the “current » themes of the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary eras.