RUDN Journal of Russian History (Mar 2024)
Organization of Social Assistance to Indigenous Minorities in the Turukhansk Region in 1920-1925
Abstract
The authors consider the issues of involvement of native minorities of the Russian North in the Soviet construction in the first half of the 1920s. The problem is illustrated through the example of Turukhansk region (until 1930 it united the peoples that populated the North of Yeniseysk Governorate). The source base includes the documents from the fund of the State Archive of Krasnoyarsk Territory. It is noted that during the early Soviet period the national policy towards the indigenous peoples of the North was characterized by flexibility and search for balance between the interests of the government and the northern peoples. This policy was mostly founded on socio-economical tasks, rather than political ones. At this stage the government assumed the administration management, provision of economic aid to the native minorities of the North, preservation of the life-sustaining system for using natural resources, all that determined their traditional lifestyle. There began the creation of institutions of self-government (clan councils), trade services, medical care and school education. It was the Northern instructors that acted as conductors of Soviet policy among indigenous peoples. It was intended, on the one hand, to streamline the activities of Soviet institutions among the indigenous peoples of the North, and on the other hand, to help the latter adapt to the new socio-economic conditions. The authors determine the specifics and role of Northern inspectors (from 1924 - instructors in foreign affairs) through the nature of interaction between state, local administrative and clan institutions in the process of developing and implementing support for indigenous peoples of the Yenisey North; their general catastrophic situation could entail irreversible processes of the extinction of these peoples.
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