An Empire of Others-Creating Ethnographic Knowledge in Imperial Russia and the USSR

Ethnographers helped to perceive, understand and to also to Russia's remarkable cultural diversity. This book focuses on the specific contexts as ethnographic knowledge was created in modern Russia, showing readers how tsarist and Soviet ethnographers simultaneously defined both their subjects and their own expertise over a roughly three-hundred year period. The essays address fields into which ethnographic knowledge poured - military, mission, history, anthropology, literature etc. - as well as broadening the understanding of knowledge formats - pictures, maps, atlases, plays, tape recordings, lectures, films, posters, museums, exhibitions etc. - noticeably exerting an influence on imperial identities. It is place, space and territory where ethnographic knowledge fields and formats are palpably superseded by the imperial discourse: defining regions, establishing ethnic or national affiliations and conceiving of certain entities means mapping political and historical hierarchy.