Talk:Indigenous peoples of the Russian North

Old talk

It finally dawned on me that this list originally was taken from an old Encyclopedia. I added some more names, and it turned out that both obsolete and new names become listed independently. Someone who knows better must figure this out and do better. :-) Mikkalai 06:25, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Gurgty, Malaty, Otloy, Chinyik

I deleted these from the list. Please provide an external source of the information. These articles were added by an nonymous contributor and apparently have no context anywhere in the internet. Wikipedia may keep only verifiable data, so a book reference is definitely required here. Mikkalai 22:15, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Better title?

Would "Indigenous peoples of northern Russia" be a better title? Paul foord 08:18, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

"northern indigenous people" is the base term here. And "of Russia" is a localization. Mikkalai 16:06, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

I assume that the title is inspired by the Russian term "Korennye narody Severa" (Indigenous peoples of the North), which is actually an abbreviation of "Korennye narody Sever, Sibiri i Dal'nego Vostoka" (Indigenous Peoples of the [Russian] North, Siberia and the [Russian] Far East). This is an administrative category defined by the "edinyi perechen'" (see article) rather than a term including all indigenous peoples of :: Russia. Many peoples internationally regarded as "indigenous" like e.g. the Tuvans, Buryat, Sakha or Khakass are excluded from this list because they are assumed to have their own "statehood" (read: autonomous republic).

This category "Peoples of the North" has actually a long history back in Tzarist Russia (at various times known as "inozemtsy" (foreigners), "iasachnye liudi" (Iasak people, i.e. tribute payers), "narodnosti Severa" (Northern nationalities), "malye narody" (small peoples) and so forth.

I suggest to first clarify the subject of this arcticle. Is it about the subset of indigenous peoples commonly known as the "narody Severa" or "Peoples of the North" or is it about "Indigenous Peoples in Russia"? (in the latter case, "Northern" can be safely omitted.) Only then a meaningful decision about its title can be taken. --Johannes Rohr 11:55, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

As another option, we could restrain the scope of this article to only indigenous peoples in North Asia, so that the article matches the Category:Indigenous peoples of North Asia that it is in. Kurieeto 04:48, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

I honestly doubt that this categorie makes a lot of sense. To the Nenets living on both sides of the Ural mountains, the border between Europe and Asia is completely meaningless. Politically, the Saami of Kola peninsula and the Yupik of Chukotka are united in one common umbrella organisation, furthermore, being citizens of the same state with shared language, economiy, political culture and history also binds them together.

Most scholars do not separate indigenous peoples from the European and and those from the Asian part of Russia into seperate boxes. I cannot think of any. Neither Yuri Slezkine did this, nor James Forsyth nor anyone else that I've read so far. --Johannes Rohr 21:42, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

New article, maybe?

I wasn't sure where to put a couple of peoples who are not "northern", so I put them under "Other", because there's no article Indigenous peoples of Russia. KNewman 03:38, Jun 7, 2005 (UTC)

"North" is a political and administrative category, it does not always correspond with geographic reality. Anyways, the title of this article is a short version of "коренные, малочисленные народы Севера, Сибири и Дальнего Востока РФ", which is again an administrative category. The core problem behind this confusion is the specific Russian definition of "Indigenousness", which would include three criteria, those of

• Being no more than 50.000 people;
• being engaged in traditional economic occupations; as well as
• living in a region with is characterised by its extreme remoteness and harsh climate conditions

The latter is what is referred to as "the North" ("Sever") in Russia, this is not confined to the geographic North. Southern Siberia and Russia's Far East are also included. Hence the name of this article.

(The Russian definition of "indigenous" is very much unique and is not in line with the international de-facto standard which is the Cobo definition, however it is a fact of Russian domestic legislation.)--Johannes Rohr 21:32, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Indigenous peoples in northern Russia

I wish to propose that this article be moved to Indigenous peoples in northern Russia or Northern indigenous peoples in Russia - my preference is for the former. The listed indigenous peoples in this article have existed since long before the country Russia was formed. Therefore they are more properly peoples "in" Russia than peoples "of" Russia. It is preferrable to avoid any wording that may imply belonging of an indigenous people to a country. The word "in" instead of "of" has been chosen for related articles on indigenous peoples such as Aboriginal peoples in Canada (and its Category:Aboriginal peoples in Canada), and Indigenous peoples in Brazil. Kurieeto 02:12, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

I dare to disagree, I think the title should resemble the Russian term "Korrenye narody Severa" ("indigenous peoples of the North") which is the most frequently used term nowadays (the full form being "korrenye malochislennye narody Severa, Sibiri i Dal'nego Vostoka"). The English title cannot avoid adding "Russian" in order to make it clear that this article does not deal with Alaska, Canada or Scandinavia. And, well, "belonging to" in my understanding refers to "the North" rather than to "Russia", i.e. indigenous peoples belonging to those parts of the Circumpolar North which happen to be governed by Russia nowadays. Therefore I propose to move this article to Indigenous Peoples of the Russian North. --Johannes Rohr 08:47, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Link to List of indigenous peoples of Russia

Just because the article is short, doesn't mean we shouldn't link to it. If anything, linking to it makes more readers see the page, and thus inviting them to expand the article. I think the page needs some work, but it's still a relevant subject. Khoikhoi 03:37, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

In its current state, the list is, indeed, crap. However, that's not the only issue: Before having a "List of indigenous peoples of Russia", one would have to have an article Indigenous peoples of Russia, which is not the same as Indigenous peoples of the Russian North. There is no self-evident and uncontested definition of the former, given that the Russian legislation only knows of "коренные малочисленные народы Севера, Сибири и Дальнего Востока РФ". The plain term "коренные народы" is largely unheard of or used merely as a shorthand for the former.

So, while Russian authorities largely ignore the existence of the internationally used concept "Indigenous people" (as defined in the Martínez-Cobo study), outsiders tend to classify every non-Russian people in the former Soviet Union as "indigenous", which is also crap. Look at the list: Someone had added the Kyrgyz as an indigenous people of Russia, while they are in fact the state-nation of an independent country, known as Kyrgyzstan.

I really think that these matters have to be sorted out first, before compiling such completely arbitrary mixtures of random unrelated things.--Johannes Rohr 08:15, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think we necessarily have to have an Indigenous peoples of Russia article. Furthermore, It would be POV to support the Russian govt.'s views just as it is to support the Greek govt.'s views that there are no ethnic minorities. Governments say a lot of things to promote whatever policies they want, but that's all besides the point. My proposal is that we rename the List of indigenous peoples of Russia article to a better title—would that solve the problem? Khoikhoi 20:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by "a better title"? If it was supposed to be a list of indigenous peoples in/of Russia, it should be called List of indigenous peoples of Russia (or List of indigenous peoples of the Russian Federation). I don't see other options.

There are many good reasons to reject the Russian official concept of korennye, malochislennye narody Severa, Sibiri i Dal'nego Vostoka, at is is particularly narrow, exclusionist, and pseudo-objective. It limits indigenous peoples' activities to what is perceived to be "traditional" occupations. I.e. according to this definition you cannot be indigenous and at the same time live an urban life and engage in profitable business. However, if you think that the Russian govts POV is wrong, we still have the open question, which alternative point of view could be considered "neutral". This is a most delicate issue. I think, the Cobo definitions comes closest to being generally recognized and considered "objective", however, it

• explicitly rejects the concept of a watertight, exclusive definition (i.e. it says by itself that it is not and cannot be objective or all-inclusive)
• includes as a criterion for being indigenous the recognition by others (either state authorities or other indigenous communities). I.e. the Russian govt's POV matters, you cannot simply ignore it.

Lastly, if you reject one list/definition, you have to present an alternative (or forget about the issue, altogether). What would your proposed definition of "indigenous peoples of Russia" look like?--Johannes Rohr 08:47, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, those are all arguments for the deletion of that article and should probably be at the articles talk page. My suggestion is that you take the article to AFD, or add a {{prod}} template to it. In the meantime, I think the link should stay, but once it's deleted, we can remove it. What do you think? Khoikhoi 02:27, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

Edits of Peter G Werner

SOrry, I have to revert this basically cut and paste move of the nearly whole article under another title, List of indigenous peoples of the Russian North. The article already has a peculiar history of renaming and changing of its content.

Please explain what is your goal here. At the same time I have my own reserations at the very topic itself. `'mikka 04:32, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted back to my versions, as I had very good reasons for making the edits that I did. 1) The article in its earlier form was simply a sprawling list without notable content. Articles like this should be in separate "List of" type articles. 2) The article Shamanic cultures of Siberia had very little material on shamanism in Siberian cultures, but some OK material on Siberian ethnography. The solution seemed obvious to me – I posted a merge proposal to which absolutely no one responded, hence, I took action on the articles since seemingly nobody else was working on them. At first I merged the two, then noted that the sprawling list that was in the article needed to be broken out into a "list" article and did so. Now you've come along (after not even responding to the earlier merge proposal), assumed bad faith on my part, and have completely reverted my edits. My question is – Why???? Why do you prefer a sprawling list over an article with some content. Peter G Werner 05:39, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately I was very busy last week. First of all, I strongly suspect you have no idea about the topic. The title of the article is wrong. the title of the list is wrong. What is "Russian North"? The whole article was and is original research. I was thinkig of moving content under some more meaningful title, but I could not figure ot which. Therefore I asked you what is your goal here. You are talking about Siberian ethnography. Please make an article with this title: Ethnography of Siberia or something like this that would match your intentions. Meanwhile sorry, I have to destroy your "List ..." article.

Second, you cannot create the list article by cut and paste. You had to use "Move this page" function, to preserve the article history. That is what I am doing now, under a meaningful title that matches 96% of content of the article: List of small-numbered indigenous peoples of Russia. You may recover your edits from the history of this list and create a new article with a title that reflect its content. (I could have done it myself, but it is your contribution, and I don't deserve to be listed in its history as a creator.) Again, please remember, "Russian North" is probably not what you think. `'mikka 16:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)