From Travelogues to Soviet Cinema: The Colonial Gaze in Vladimir Arsen’ev’s Representations of the Far Eastern Peoples

• In Event: Negotiating the Colonial Gaze: Russian and Soviet Visual Culture in Domestic and International Contexts

Abstract

I investigate the continuities and transformations of the colonial gaze through the case of V. Arsen’ev, a geographer, explorer, and writer whose works, particularly Dersu Uzala (1923) and Forest People (1926), played a crucial role in shaping Russian perceptions of the indigenous peoples of the Russian Far East. Arsen’ev’s travelogues and photographic documentation, while ethnographically valuable, also reflect Orientalist tropes that align with the Tsarist-era colonial discourses, portraying indigenous groups, such as the Udege and the Nanai, as “noble savages” or remnants of a vanishing past. By bridging literature, photography, and cinema, this presentation contextualizes Arsen’ev’s visual legacy within the broader Russian imperial and Soviet colonial discourse and tries to depict the ways in which the colonial gaze survived and adapted to new ideological frameworks.

Author

• Filippo Boscolo Gioachina, UC Berkeley