In the Soviet House of Culture: A Century of Perestroikas

Rating:
Summary: Knowing the Nivkh
Review: Back before the Russian Revolution, Orthodox priests on Sakhalin island, just north of Japan, attempted to convert an Asiatic people known to the world then as `Gilyak', but as Nivkh to themselves. Their pagan beliefs, the Nivkh were told, kept them primitive and uncivilized. Although they enjoyed a rich religious and economic life (trading with Japan, China, Korea, and the Russians too), had their own language and folkways, the Nivkh were classed at the bottom of the human hierarchy because they weren't Christian or literate, didn't have a written history. The Russian government in Europe, eight time zones away, paid zero attention to the Nivkh, though Russian settlers and convicts often occupied their villages, sited in the best fishing areas. After the Revolution, the Nivkh went through the Soviet cycles of cultural policy, which by 1990, when Bruce Grant got to Sakhalin, had become an absurd tale of Alice-in-Wonderland ups and downs. Grant's subtitle of 'A Century of Perestroikas' says it very well. (And the Nivkh have probably gone through two more since 1991.) In the 1920s, Nivkh language and culture were seen as well-worth preserving; the people should control their own destiny. No, all local cultures had to be subsumed under the proletarian Soviet culture and previous Nivkh leaders should be shot. They were, under Stalin. Then, during Khrushchev's time, cultural pressure eased off, but in the name of efficiency many Nivkh villages were evacuated, the inhabitants transferred to bigger centers. Often more successful villages gave way to the least. Soviet culture still ruled the roost. By the late 1980s, everything had collapsed---alcoholism, lack of supplies, and poor supervision had ruined everything. Self-confident Nivkh traders, hunters, and fishermen had been transformed into janitors, loaders, watchmen---the lowest on the totem pole. Soviet culture became just a shadow. But what could the Nivkh fall back on ? What remained of Nivkh culture? Could anyone separate Nivkh culture from Soviet culture anymore ? On top of that, opinions about everything varied. The Nivkh had not been passive, just the acted-upon of the USSR. They had participated in every twist of policy, mostly embracing the dreams of a Soviet future like other citizens. Now it seemed that nothing remained but broken dreams, broken lives, empty shelves. So, by 1991, who were the Nivkh ? What was their future ?

Bruce Grant has written a very interesting ethnography which addresses two vastly important problems in the contemporary world illustrated by a very small and remote people's experience. First, how to revive the cultures of all the peoples that lived through the destructive experience of the USSR ? I think this question impacts people everywhere. Second, how can minorities survive the cultural and political onslaught of bigger communities ? Native Americans, Aborigines, Ainu, Maori, Adivasis in India, Tibetans or Uighurs, Roma---there's an endless list of peoples who have suffered the slings and arrows of modernization on somebody else's terms, winding up at the bottom of the heap. I don't think Grant answers these questions, nor does he claim to, but in the process of thinking about them, this book is highly relevant.

I especially liked Grant's humorous descriptions of the absurd scenes played out in the last days of Soviet Sakhalin. It seems to me that was the only way to handle them, though the situation was grave for the people involved. The text comes with a map, good photographs, and an excellent bibliography. All in all, readers not very familiar with the ups and downs of the Soviet history of culture and cultural description will find this a very useful book.



Rating:
Summary: Friendly but Scholarly
Review: Bruce Grant's work is well-researched and extremely well-organized. It is easy to read and interspersed with anecdotes about his travels on Sakhalin island. The book includes some excellent photography. Grant's main thesis centers around the idea that the Nivkhi tribe of Sakhalin island experienced the Soviet era as a "roller coaster" of policy shifts culminating in a sense of "culturelessness." The book covers pre-Revolutionary times a little bit, and then documents the treatment of Nivkhi throughout the Soviet era. A recommended read for anyone studying Siberia during Stalinism or Soviet times.

Rating:
Summary: Friendly but Scholarly
Review: Bruce Grant's work is well-researched and extremely well-organized. It is easy to read and interspersed with anecdotes about his travels on Sakhalin island. The book includes some excellent photography. Grant's main thesis centers around the idea that the Nivkhi tribe of Sakhalin island experienced the Soviet era as a "roller coaster" of policy shifts culminating in a sense of "culturelessness." The book covers pre-Revolutionary times a little bit, and then documents the treatment of Nivkhi throughout the Soviet era. A recommended read for anyone studying Siberia during Stalinism or Soviet times.

Rating:
Summary: very important book in siberian studies
Review: Grant's book is in the vanguard of his field of siberian studies and post soviet studies. Anyone who wants to understand sovietization and de-sovietization of culture - a much more important topic than this might seem to be - MUST read this book. Grant's analysis is right and beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: Landmark ethnography of Siberian accessible to non-academics
Review: In the House of Soviet Culture is the first recipient of the American Ethnological Society Book Prize for First Book, and rightfully so, for Bruce Grant has given us a great ethnography of the Nivkh on Sakhalin Island, combining his own experiences on the island with detailed historical analysis. Masterfully combining fieldwork and oral history with archival and published historical materials, Grant narrates the history of these Siberian people, or, rather, histories, through the juxtaposition of different perspectives on the past.
The Nivkhi (or Gilyaks, as known in pre-war publications) have played an important role in the formation of Soviet and Russian anthropology, like the Kwakiutl in the United States. Nivkhi became the definitive example of savages in Russian ethnographic literature, which built upon the evolutionary theory of developmental stages outlined by Morgan and Engels. As "poster children" of the revolution the Nivkhi have served as a changing symbol of the "primitive" in Russian and Soviet thought. They were alternatively, and sometimes simultaneously, an example of the most primitive stage of social development, and, as "primitive communists," an example of the most advanced communist society. As such, an history of the Nivkhi is not only about one native Siberian people, but about the rise and fall of Soviet anthropology, from its birth as a profession at the turn of the century to its death and surreal rebirth during Stalin's Terror.

In the preface, Grant outlines three arguments that underpin his book. His primary task is to "challenge the lens of timeless exotica through which we so often view indigenous peoples" (xii). Nivkhi have thought of themselves as active participants in the Soviet program of cultural construction and social policies. Secondly, he wants to "produce new readings of Soviet and post-Soviet nationality policies that recognize the very hybrid identities produced by the Soviet state." This identity-production "was reasonably effective among Nivkhi, and that brings us closer to understanding some of the mechanisms of persuasion and control by which states exert hegemony over their constituents." The "invention of tradition" by the state is his third problem, and Grant foregrounds the problematic nature of authenticity or even "traditional culture" in the context of modern societies.
Grant's prose is witty and entertaining. The reader gets a sense of competing narratives of native history and never loses sight of the ethnographer in his discussion of contemporary Nivkh. Grant makes extensive use of quoted dialogue between informants and himself and narrates personal experiences in an engaging manner to illustrate breakdowns in Soviet society of the early 1990s, rather than presenting lifeless structures. This book is full of personalities that invigorate history as rarely encountered in academic writing.
Despite the great strengths of this book, Grant may not be entirely successful in fulfilling the ambitious program outlined in the introduction. Grant's theoretical introduction and conclusion surround material that is not as connected to the introductory and concluding points as it could be. For example, Nivkh "denials of culture" do not seem to be "strategic inversions" providing Nivkhi "symbolic capital amid the ruins" of the myths of traditional culture and Soviet society (158). Rather, they seem to be symbolic (ethno-)suicide, like the toast of a former Nivkh communist: "No one believes in anything. You can't trust anyone. Nothing is interesting. So eat. Food is our only insurance" (155).
These differences of interpretation do not detract from Grant's contribution or the usefulness of his ethnography. There is much fascinating material deserving more space than I have available to discuss. For example, some of the turns in Soviet anthropology of the twenties and thirties, calling for the erasure of "this line between subject and object" seem almost postmodern (77). This is the rare ethnography that is a genuine pleasure to read, and I do not hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for a great ethnography of Siberia.