Narrating the Future in Siberia: Childhood, Adolescence and Autobiography among the Eveny

210 Pages·2012·1.569 MB·English

by  Olga Ulturgasheva

Narrating the Future in Siberia

Narrating the Future in Siberia
Childhood, Adolescence and Autobiography
among Young Eveny
Olga Ulturgasheva
Berghahn Books
New York • oxford
First Published in 2012 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
© 2012 Olga Ulturgasheva
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages
for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A C.I.P. cataloging record is available from the Library of Congress.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed in the United States on acid-free paper.
ISBN 978-0-85745-766-0 (hardback)
ISBN 978-0-85745-767-7 (ebook)
To my parents, Vasily Bargachan and
Alexandra davydovna keymetinova

Contents
Acknowledgements ix
List of Characters xi
Introduction 1
Narrating the future
My own return
The Eveny and the village of Topolinoye
Previous literature on the Eveny and other indigenous
communities of Siberia
Summary of the book
Chapter 1. Future Autobiographies and Their Spaces 21
Research in the field: introducing case studies
Contact for case studies and sampling
Gender and kinship
Age cohorts
Oral and written
Narrative and ‘future autobiography’
Chapter 2. Eveny Childhood and Adolescence 43
Djuluchen: the composition of child and adolescent personhood
Childhood and narrative
Coming of age
Chapter 3. Forest and Village 56
Forest and village in local cosmologies of movement
The social world of the forest
The village: social context today
Complexities of engagement with antagonistic spaces
Chapter 4. Three Future Autobiographies 77
The story of Tonya, a forest girl
The stories of village adolescents: Vera and Grisha
viii Contents
Chapter 5. Reindeer and Child in the Forest Chronotope 109
Reindeer as a non-human component of child personhood
Reindeer as child: Tonya on learning and teaching
The forest chronotope in narrative
Chapter 6. The Village as Domain of Unhappiness: Broken
Families and the Curse of the GULAG 131
Wandering spirits of the dead and the curse of the GULAG
Unhappy families: children’s futures and parents’ pasts
Chapter 7. Cosmologies of the Future in the Shadow of Djuluchen 154
Personhood: hero and shaman
Time: cycles with and without destination
‘Future autobiography’ as an activator of djuluchen
Conclusion
References 173
Index 185
Acknowledgements
I am hugely indebted and grateful to all my young informants and their
parents who generously shared with me their valuable time and precious
insights. Their warm hospitality and incredible patience will always re-
main in my heart. I hope this book does justice to them.
I extend my heartfelt gratitude to my mentor Piers Vitebsky, who has
been a great source of knowledge, helpful advice and an inspiration all the
way through. There are several anthropologists and senior colleagues to
whom I owe a special debt. In Cambridge I am particularly thankful to
Marilyn Strathern, Barbara Bodenhorn and Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov for
their generosity, intellectual guidance and support of my work. Julie Crui-
kshank, Heather Montgomery and Elizabeth Tonkin read separate chap-
ters of the manuscript and helpfully commented upon them with precious
advice and kind encouragement.
I have gained valuable insights and much inspiration from the audience
of various seminars and conferences, particularly those given at the Uni-
versity of Manchester, the University of Oxford, the University of Cam-
bridge, Brunel University, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology,
Aarhus University, University of Greenland (Ilisimatusarfik), the Univer-
sity of Tartu and Tsaritsyno Museum in Moscow.
Over the years in Cambridge I have been immeasurably fortunate to
have wonderful friends and colleagues who have always been an invaluable
source of moral support and camaraderie – Madeleine Reeves, Katie Sw-
ancutt, Marc Brightman, Vanessa-Elisa Grotti, Rane Willerslev, Tim Bayl-
iss-Smith, Inga-Maria Mulk, Carole Pegg, Elena Khlinovskaya Rockhill,
Emma Wilson, Otto Habbeck, Marcel Chabot, Elana Wilson-Rowe, Kath-
leen Richardson, Janne Flora, Laur Vallikivi, Hatice Tuncer, El’vis Beytul-
laev and Eleanor Peers. I also wish to impart to Sally Wolfe, Yarjung and
his family my profound thanks for being my extended family in the UK.
In Topolinoye, north-east Siberia, I am most grateful to Sergei Golikov,
Anatoly and Vera Neustroevy, Timofey Neustroyev, Leonid Prokopiev,
Valery and Marusia Golikovy, Nikolai Neustroev (Kangalas), Stepan and
Viktoria Lebedevy, Zhanna and Vasily Sleptsovy, Alexander and Mar-