THE ABORIGINAL ISSUE IN LEGAL STUDIES OF THE SIBERIAN
To-day, when indigenous peoples all over the world, including those in Russia, are claiming the right to self-determination, the right to choose their own destiny, it is important to utilize all the achievements of historical traditions and past legislation to resolve the very difficult issue of the...
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| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.607.7514 http://www.jlp.bham.ac.uk/volumes/46/nam-art.pdf |
| Summary: | To-day, when indigenous peoples all over the world, including those in Russia, are claiming the right to self-determination, the right to choose their own destiny, it is important to utilize all the achievements of historical traditions and past legislation to resolve the very difficult issue of the interrelationship between the State and its peoples. In this connection, the unique, though brief, legal experience of the Siberian ‘provincialists ’ (Obliastniki) with their policy on the aboriginal (inorodtsy) issue is of definite interest. They are entitled to credit for developing theory and practices based on the idea of cultural, political and legal pluralism, in work which in many ways foreshadows by many years modern approaches. To express their concept politically the ‘provincialists ’ used the formula ‘cultural self-determination ’ and included it in the program of the Siberian Provincial Council adopted in 1905. According to G.N. Potanin, ‘pioneer of provincialists’, the right of cultural and even national self-determination … for aboriginals should be recognized, first, in the interests of those tribes themselves, and for this they need social resurrection to protect themselves in the struggle for survival; secondly, the original development of mentality and social life among those tribes will contribute something new to common human spiritual values. Even if that contribution is not great, it will still be interesting because it will represent original products of the Siberian mind developed by the life in the tundra and taiga. (Potanin 1908: 267) |
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