From “Clan” to Speech Community

Administrative Reforms, Territory, and Language as Factors of Identity Development among the Ilimpii Evenki in the Twentieth Century

in Sibirica
Author:
Nadezhda Mamontova Moscow State University

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DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3167/sib.2016.150202
Keywords:
administrative clans; Evenki; Evenkia; Soviet nationality politics; speech community
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Abstract

This article deals with the relationships between identity, language, and “clan organization” among Ilimpii Evenki, and how these relationships formed and changed over the course of the twentieth century under the influence of Soviet nationalities policy, administrative reform, and local discursive practices. It is based on the author’s field materials collected in the period 2007 to 2012 in the Evenki Municipal District (Evenkia) of Krasnoiarskii Krai, as well as on unpublished sources stored in the archives of Tura (Evenkia), Krasnoiarsk, Moscow, and St. Petersburg. The central question under investigation deals with why the names of the former administrative clans of contemporary Ilimpii Evenki were used to label language communities; the results suggest that the main reasons were the specifics of the Soviet nationalities policy of the 1920s—which shaped the establishment of national regions on the basis of Evenki “clan” organization—as well the emergence of a new literary Evenki language and resettlement campaigns in the mid-twentieth century.

Contributor Notes

Nadezhda Mamontova has an MA in Altaic Studies and PhD (kandidat nauk) in Social Anthropology. She is a Research Fellow in the Ethnology Department of Moscow State University.

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Sibirica

Interdisciplinary Journal of Siberian Studies

Cover Sibirica
Article Category:
Research Article
Page Count:
33
Keywords:
administrative clans; Evenki; Evenkia; Soviet nationality politics; speech community
Print Publication Date:
01 Sep 2016
Online Publication Date:
01 Sep 2016
Copyright:
© Berghahn Books 2016

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