An Institutional History of Russian Ethnology: A Brief Overview

Abstract

This article proposes a periodization scheme for Russian ethnology, taking changes in the institutional structure of the discipline (particularly in research institutions, university departments, and ethno graphic museums) as a starting point. Drawing on Richard Whitley’s idea of social institutionalization, I distinguish three stages in the history of Russian ethnology: the imperial stage, including the pre institutional period (1724–1844) and the period of early institutionalization (1845–1917); the Soviet stage, with periods of voluntary “Marxization” (1917/18–1929/32), elimination of methodological pluralism (1929/32–1953), the Tolstov period (1954–1966/67), and the Bromley period (1966/67 1991); and the post-Soviet stage subdivided into the period of crisis and hope (1992–2004) and the period of thematical and theoretical diversification (since 2005). In my subsequent research and publications, I will be testing this scheme empirically, using statistical data on ethnologists’ thematic preferences in different time periods.