Ethnicity Without Power: The Siberian Khanty in Soviet Society

Abstract

Western discussion of Soviet nationality issues frequently centers on large national groups and their varying potential for dissent. The fate of smaller groups, particularly those within the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, is less often explored and is sometimes obscured by assumptions of forced acculturation. Rather than viewing the dominant Soviet Russian culture as a shark eating small fish cultures like the Siberian Khanty, it is more appropriate to decipher a range of acculturation options and experiences. Sharks can get indigestion, and all the economic and political changes introduced in small Siberian societies do not eliminate questions of ethnicity. Sometimes they exacerbate them.This article focuses on the cultural survival and ethnic consciousness of the Khanty, a Ugrian speaking group who live predominantly in the Northern Ob River area of sub-arctic Siberia and who numbered 20,934 in 1979. They are traditionally hunters, fishers, and semi-nomadic reindeer breeders whose locale and trade over centuries have led them into contact with several ethnic groups, including the Russians. Within the Soviet political framework, the Ob-Ugrian Khanty and Mansi share an Autonomous District (Okrug). This places them midway between Siberian groups without a formal administrative unit based on nationality (for example, some Amur River peoples) and the two largest Siberian groups, the Buriat and the Yakut, each numbering over 325,000, with their own Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSRs) within the RSFSR.