Missionaries as Ethnographers and Ethnographers as Missionaries: Dilemmas in Understanding the Indigenous Ritualized Resistance in Siberian Altai, 1900s-1930s

• In Event: Toward the History of Imperial Ethnography: Missionary Ethnography in the Russian Empire

Abstract

The paper seeks to understand the transformations in the politics of knowledge production in Siberian Altai through the lens of the missionary/ethnographer dynamic. This dynamic was first articulated in the work of the Altai Orthodox Mission, which aimed to have missionaries act as ethnographers in order to better understand Indigenous cultures and subsequently be more successful in converting local communities to Orthodox Christianity. Secondly, the paper explores how this rhetoric was appropriated by the first generation of Soviet ethnographers, as exemplified by the conceptualization of its Leningrad leader, Vladimir Bogoraz, as Soviet “ethnographers are the missionaries of a new/Soviet way of living.” This shift led to the reconceptualization of ethnographic work from mere data collection to actively transforming (= Sovietizing) the field where the data was collected. To understand this dilemma in the transition from the late Imperial to the early Soviet era, the paper focuses on the conflicting understanding of the Indigenous anti-colonial movement that sparked in Altai in 1904 and acquired its colonial name as Burkhanism (known as Ak Jang or Altai Jang in the Altai language, meaning ‘White/Altai Faith/Law’). This movement was thoroughly studied and intolerantly fought by Russian missionaries, local late Imperial and early Soviet authorities, and ethnographers. The complex and dynamic encounters between these agents made the history of the movement one of the most enigmatic in the Indigenous history of Siberia.

Author

• Dmitry Arzyutov, Ohio State U