Anthropologist or Politician? Political Bias and Theoretical Constructions of Sergei M. Shirokogoroff

Abstract

This article deals with the reconstruction of the political biography of Sergei Shirokogoroff, whose name is firmly associated with the Soviet theory of ethnos. Based on documents from many Russian and foreign archives, the author selects several episodes that show the relations between his political bias and theoretical models. In the first part of the article the author describes the political history of the Shirokogoroff family and their relationship with the young politician Alexander Kerensky. Later on the author provides a description of Shirokogoroff’s political life in Paris and the story of his and his wife’s arrest in Chita and then the Vladivostok period when he worked in local provisional governments. The article ends with an analysis of his political speeches in China and a description of the context of discussions about ethnos in conservative circles of Russian emigrants.