Introduction

This chapter presents an attempt to analyse some of the current elements of nationalism and ethnicity as they are seen in ethnographic thinking in contemporary Russia. One can read astonishing attacks on ethnography in Russian ethnographic journals. Ethnic and social disorder is said to be caused by ethnography. The fall of the Soviet regime, especially that of the state structure, and the collapse of the ethnonational structure of the Soviet Union has forced ethnographers to rethink ontology, basic theories, methodology and the political implications of their discipline. The contemporary ethnic and nationalistic tendency in Russia concerning the inner core of ethnography is the main object of this and its ideological and political interests. The Soviet theory of ethnos has had very concrete political implications, which have been the object of contemporary critics as well. The transition in Russia has brought about a radical change in the interpretation of ethnic and national movements, both by Russian and Western activists and scholars.