Grant Bruce
Professor and Chair of Anthropology, New York University, USA.
Ber Wiss. 2020 Mar;43(1):119-140. doi: 10.1002/bewi.201900022.
The history of Russian social anthropology has long been best known for the work of three, late nineteenth-century "exile ethnographers," each sent to the Russian Far East for their anti-tsarist activities as students. All three men-Vladimir Bogoraz, Vladimir Iokhel'son, and Lev Shternberg-produced voluminous and celebrated works on Russian far eastern indigenous life, but it was the young Shternberg who had perhaps the most profound effect on setting the agenda for the canonic evolutionist line soon to take hold in late Russian imperial and early Soviet ethnography. This essay draws on archival, library, and field research to revisit the life and work of Shternberg in order to tell the story of "group marriage" that he documented for the life of one Sakhalin Island indigenous people, Gilyaks (or Nivkhgu, Nivkhi). Documented in this way by Shternberg, the Nivkh kinship system proved a crucial "missing link" for Friedrich Engels, who had long been eager to provide evidence of primitive communism as man's natural state. For Gilyaks, the die was cast. Their role as the quintessential savages of Engels' favor made them famous in Russian and Soviet ethnographic literature, and significantly enhanced their importance to Soviet government planners. This essay tracks that episode and its aftermaths as a pivotal moment in the history of Russian social anthropology and of evolutionist thought more broadly.
俄罗斯社会人类学的历史长期以来最为人所知的是三位19世纪晚期“流亡民族志学者”的著作，他们三人作为学生时都因反沙皇活动而被流放到俄罗斯远东地区。这三位学者——弗拉基米尔·博戈拉兹、弗拉基米尔·约赫尔松和列夫·施特恩贝格——都创作了大量关于俄罗斯远东地区原住民生活的著名作品，但年轻的施特恩贝格或许对确立即将在俄罗斯帝国晚期和苏联早期民族志中占据主导地位的经典进化论路线的议程产生了最为深远的影响。本文借助档案、图书馆和实地研究，重新审视施特恩贝格的生平与著作，以讲述他为萨哈林岛原住民吉利亚克人（或尼夫赫人）记录的“群婚”故事。施特恩贝格以这种方式记录下来的尼夫赫亲属制度，对弗里德里希·恩格斯来说，是一个至关重要的“缺失环节”，因为他长期以来一直渴望找到证据来证明原始共产主义是人类的自然状态。对于吉利亚克人来说，命运已定。他们作为恩格斯所青睐的典型野蛮人，在俄罗斯和苏联民族志文献中声名远扬，并显著提升了他们在苏联政府规划者眼中的重要性。本文将这一事件及其后续影响作为俄罗斯社会人类学以及更广泛的进化论思想史上的一个关键时刻进行追踪。
