Ķencis, Toms, Simon J. Bronner, Elo-Hanna Seljamaa, eds. Folklore and Ethnology in the Soviet Western Borderlands: Socialist in Form, Nationalist in Content
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The notions of nation, national identity, and shared identity in the post-Soviet sphere have come even more to the fore with the events of the last ten years and the Russian Federation continuing to stake its claims on the territory of Ukraine.This volume is yet another important piece to understanding the mechanisms behind the framing of nation and national identity.The scholars that have contributed to Folklore and Ethnology in the Soviet Western Borderlands advance the understanding of the development of folkloristics and ethnography in the "Western Borderlands," meaning the territories on the Western border of the former Soviet Union, through a study of their historiography.The essays in this volume tell the story of how national and ethnic identities were framed in the context of the Stalin-era cultural policy of "socialist in form, national in content" and its legacy.Fourteen scholars across twelve chapters delve into various aspects of the development of approaches to ethnology and folklore in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Moldova, Ukraine, East Germany, and Hungary.The book is divided into four sections, the first dealing with the socialist period and the relationship between socialism and nationalism in Soviet Russia.The second part looks at the role of minorities in the construction of socialist national policies.In part three, the essays look at the implementation of socialist ideas of folk culture through the management of artistic expression and the roles of different agencies in this process.Lastly, the final section looks at the relationship between nationalization and Sovietization, modernization and colonial power.Ķencis's first chapter sets the stakes for the subsequent case studies.He defines folklore as "a sociocultural semiotic system" and analyzes the "cultural logic of folk in the era between World War II and the demise of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (33).In examining the language of folklore, we can understand the mechanisms behind various social constructs underpinning the building of the Soviet Union and of communism.Both his chapter and the book as a whole aim toward a "comparative dialogue" (2) rather than discussions of uniqueness.That said, most of the subsequent essays are written along national lines: traditional songs in Estonia, Latvian folk ornament, and folk art in Poland.Perhaps it is for the reader to draw the comparisons, or that could even have been the task for the afterword.Nonetheless, each of the individual essays contributed a fascinating exploration of particular concerns from the researchers' varying areas of expertise.It was also refreshing to see a refined consideration of the region, not focusing solely on Soviet nations but also on socialist neighbors from East Germany, Poland, and Hungary.
Author: Amy Bryzgel
Institution: Northeastern University
Language: English
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4415419839
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