In the Labyrinth of History and Politics: Soviet Studies of the Sakhalin Ainu (1946–1949)

Abstract

The article examines little known publications and archival materials shedding light on studies of the Sakhalin Ainu in the period after World War II. The institutions of the Soviet Academy of Sciences played the leading part in collecting information on the language, culture, and anthropology of this ethnic group. The Soviet scholarship of the period focused largely on issues of ethnic origins (known under the rubric of etnogenez); it was supposed to provide a scientifically valid solution to the “Ainu problem”. As the political tension started to mount during the late Stalin era, information and data on the Ainu were classified. A substantial volume of photos, fieldnotes, reports, and census materials that were removed from archives at the time are still not available to researchers. The political challenges of the time thus impeded the fulfillment of research objectives and constricted the very research horizons for many years to follow. This article attempts to make a contribution to this important area of studies by introducing the fragmented yet informative and revealing sources that are accessible today.