Challenging Heredity: Early Soviet Marxist Endeavors in Revolutionizing Deep Time Studies

• In Event: Digging for the Truth: Social and Political Factors in the History of Archaeology and Related Disciplines

Abstract

This paper examines the extent to which a groundbreaking academic discipline emerged in Soviet Russia, known as the History of Material Culture, disrupted the epistemological framework of pre-revolutionary archaeology. Immediately after the revolution, the Imperial Archaeological Commission underwent a transformation into the Russian Academy for the History of Material Culture, marking a decisive break from the previous tradition. The inception of this new discipline aimed to offer a fresh perspective by integrating archaeology, ethnography, and linguistics into a unified framework focused on studying everyday life and social relations of the past, rather than emphasizing ethnic and racial lineage or artistic endeavors. The former ethnocentric approach, which prioritized the search for national heredity, was denounced as a manifestation of ruling class agendas aimed at legitimizing colonial claims. Furthermore, the fascination with antique art was rebranded as a mere leisure activity for the aristocracy.
However, this article contends that the Soviet Marxist perspective on deep time studies was not entirely divorced from the broader epistemological evolution of archaeology, which was underway both in pre-Revolutionary Russia and contemporaneous European archaeological discourse. Rather than representing a complete rupture, the History of Material Culture project can be seen as intensifying and accelerating processes that were already unfolding within the field of archaeology. In doing so, it enabled early Soviet archaeologists to align their ideas with ongoing developments in archaeology abroad, gradually assimilating them into the widely accepted framework that underpins subsequent archaeological studies.

Author

• Dmitrii Blyshko, U of Houston