1926/27 Soviet Polar Census Expeditions

David G. Anderson is Professor of the Anthropology of the North at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. He researches the history and ethnography of the circumpolar Arctic and has conducted fieldwork in Eastern Siberia (Taimyr, Evenkiia, Zabaikal’e), the Russian North (Kola), Northern Norway and in Canada’s Mackenzie Delta. His current research is on the different visions of history among settler states and aboriginal peoples and how this is linked to the growing debate on indigenous rights. His publications include Identity and Ecology in Arctic Siberia (Oxford University Press) and three coedited books, Ethnographies of Conservation, Cultivating Arctic Landscapes and About the Hearth (all Berghahn Books).

• List of FiguresList of TablesAcknowledgmentsNote on Cyrillic TransliterationChapter 1. The Polar Census and the Architecture of EnumerationDavid G. Anderson Chapter 2. Seasonal Mobility and Sacred Landscape Geography among Northern Hunter-GathererPeter JordanChapter 3. The Interpretation of Nenets Demography in the First Third of the 20th CenturyElena VolzhaninaChapter 4. Undaunted Courage: the Polar Census in the Obdor RegionElena GlavatskayaChapter 5. Household Structure in the Multi-Ethnic Barents Region – A Local Case StudyGunnar ThorvaldsenChapter 6. Statistical Surveys of the Kanin Peninsula and the Samoed QuestionIgor SemenovChapter 7. The Sustaining Landscape and the Arctic Fox Trade in the European North of Russia 1926-1927Konstantin KlokovChapter 8. The Origin of Reindeer Herding as ‘Sector’ on the Kanin PeninsulaStanislav Kiselev Chapter 9. The Spatial Demography of the ‘Outer Taiga’ of the Zhuia River Valley, Eastern SiberiaDavid Anderson, Evgenii Ineshin, John ZikerChapter 10. Identity, Status, and Fish among Essei IakutsTatiana Argounova-LowChapter 11. Subsistence and Residence in the Putoran Uplands and Taimyr LowlandsJohn ZikerAppendicesAppendix I:The Manuscript Archives of the Polar Census ExpeditionsAppendix II: Table of MeasuresBibliographic and Archival ReferencesNotes on the Contributors

“The contributors have made excellent use of recently opened archives and interviews with descendants of the people surveyed to provide a uniquely human portrait of this seminal project. While the chapters focus most thoroughly on the Nenets, Khanty, and Yakut, the analysis is of broader relevance to an understanding of Siberian peoples during the first stages of the sovietization of the Far North. This book will prove of unique value to historians of the Soviet period as well as to cultural anthropologists specializing in polar peoples. Highly recommended.” • Choice“All in all, this book is an important contribution to our knowledge about the ethnography and ethnohistory of the indigenous peoples of this region as well as about the immense work undertaken during the very early years of the Soviet Union in an effort to understand the demography and livelihoods of these peoples. The volume belongs on the shelves of all researchers working on these issues.” • Polar Research“This a much-welcome addition to the modern English-language reference library on Siberian indigenous people and the first book-size effort to address their plight and status from the perspective of the Russian archival statistical and documentary records of the early 1900s. It is an outcome of a monumental collaborative project.” • Igor Krupnik, Smithsonian Institution