Introduction

In the words of Pier Damiani, the eleventh-century Italian philosopher: ‘Philosophy should serve theology as a servant serves her mistress.’ Almost a thousand years later, a similar role was imposed on Soviet social and cultural anthropology (locally known as etnografiya): together with other social sciences and humanities, particularly history, philosophy and literary studies, anthropology became a servant of Soviet ideology and of the political legitimation of the ruling party, the construction of the state and of nation-building. As Francine Hirsch, among others, has shown, ethnographers were directly involved in such crucial (even though apparently technical) projects as the establishment of lists of nationalities to be used for the official registration of peoples in state censuses and in the passport (identity card) system. ¹