ABSTRACT
This chapter scrutinizes how the Jewish-German communist and scholar of Finno-Ugric studies Wolfgang Steinitz (1905–1967) got caught up between fascism and Stalinism in his international networks and academic work. Previous studies have treated him as a Jewish-German communist and scholar in the context of German history. However, these studies have not paid enough attention to his activity as a Finno-Ugric researcher who engaged with the question of Finno-Ugric peoples from an anti-fascist point of view. Steintitz was well connected with leading scholars in Finland, Estonia, Sweden, Hungary, and the Soviet Union: he published his doctoral dissertation on the Finnic epic poems in Finland, exiled to Leningrad, and carried out a research expedition to Siberia to study Khanty and Mansi peoples in the mid-1930s. While struggling against fascism and fascist scholarship as a committed communist, Steinitz faced Finnish criticism against Stalinism and the way in which Soviet-style communism sometimes contradicted its own anti-fascism and even denied Finno-Ugric scholarship itself. This led him to find himself in an anti-fascist position in-between Finnish fascism and Stalinism. Using German, Finnish, Estonian, and Russian archival materials, this article investigates Steinitz’ anti-fascism in his transnational activities and scholarly interactions with the Soviet Union, Finland, and other Finno-Ugric countries.
