Paper short abstract:

This paper creates a framework for the 'ecology of knowledge' of Soviet ethnography without assuming goals of nation-building. Using this framework, it analyzes Soviet ethnographer Saul Abramzon's scholarship, demonstrating the benefits of renewed attention to 1940s and 1950s Soviet ethnography.

Paper long abstract:

This paper proposes an approach based on Charles Rosenberg's 'ecology of knowledge' as the basis for renewed scholarly attention to Soviet ethnography from the 1940s and 1950s. Noting that previous scholarship has often been focused on the contributions of ethnographic scholarship to Soviet nation-building projects in the 1920s and 1930s, this paper endeavours to remedy the limitations of these frameworks for the study of later periods of Soviet rule by indicating the potentials of studying the 'ecology' of the field in the 1940s and 1950s in its own right. Probing this ecology, which encompasses the multidimensional exchanges between scholarship and Soviet society as reified in its institutional bases and textual outputs, allows for detailed study of the influence of scholarship on society and vice versa, without assuming any (national) frameworks to be the basis of these exchanges. The effectiveness of this framework is demonstrated through an analysis of Russian-Soviet ethnographer Saul Abramzon's work between 1939 and 1953 on the Kyrgyz epic Manas. Abramzon, as a member of the first generation of scholars that was fully educated during the Soviet period, was highly influential in developing the field of Kyrgyz Soviet ethnography, and therefore provides a valuable insight into the 'ecology' of the field in this period. By analysing three key publications by Abramzon and their associated debates, this paper outlines the changing positions of Abramzon, Manas and the ethnographic field throughout the 1940s and early 1950s, as they were influenced by Stalinist projects and changing circumstances within the institutes themselves.