THE ROLE OF YOUNG PEOPLE IN RESISTANCE AGAINST THE SOVIET RULE AMONG THE NORTHERN PEOPLES IN THE 1930S–1940S

• Main Author: Art Leete
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: khanty; nenets; Tundra; Siberia
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.486.7096; http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol41/leete.pdf

Abstract: At the beginning of the 1930s, the life of the northern peoples in Soviet Russia started to change rapidly. The new way of modernisation which predicted collectivisation, reorganisation of local administrative system, edu-cation, and religious life remained rather incomprehensible for the local com-munities. In many instances, the local groups of the northern peoples resisted these changes. In addition, a few attempts of armed resistance were under-taken. The article analyses some aspects of a prominent uprising which was organised by the Khanty and the Forest Nenets in West Siberia in the early 1930s. This uprising was known among the local indigenous population as Kazym War. The aim is to analyse the limited data that reflects the participation of women and young people in this uprising. As a rule, archival and literary sources do not concentrate on the fate of these groups in the Kazym uprising. However, since life in the northern tundra demands a tight integration of action by all age and gender groups, it may be supposed that men could not be engaged in long-term resistance activities without the support of their family members. While the role of young people seems to be mainly passive in the indigenous resistance of the early Soviet period, some Khanty writers have described in their novels the resistance experience of women and children. I aim to compare the reflec-tions of the young people’s role in the Kazym revolt in various sources. Key words: children, the Khanty, the Nenets, resistance, young people “The young generation of the whole Soviet North declare in a “monolithic ” spirit: Life has become better, life has become more amusing.” (Voblov 1938: 30) The large-scale radical social and political changes that the communities of the northern peoples of Soviet Russia were forced to go through during the early Soviet period put enormous challenges before these peoples. The northern peoples had to meet the demands of the new regime and they tried to survive in the situation of a rapid cultural ...