“How Northern Peoples Live and What They Do”: Representation Strategies of Indigenous Peoples of the North and Siberia in Children’s Literature, 1920s–1930s

The period of the 1920s–1930s saw an increase in state-supported propaganda projects on the topic of Soviet nationality policy, including publications for children about people of different nationalities living in the USSR. The educational activities of the Committee of the North under the Presidium of the All-Union Central Executive Committee, the enthusiasm of individual ethnographers whose research focused on the Arctic zone, Siberia, and the Far East and who authored dozens of books for children, contributed to the remarkable popularity of publications about the indigenous peoples of the North in the total volume of publications. The article delves into the recurring images and narratives, both textual and visual, in the representation of the indigenous peoples of the North in publications for children published from 1917 to 1940. It emphasizes the profound influence of the authors’ professional expertise, the shifting state ideology towards indigenous northerners, and the conventions of the popular genre that underpinned these editions. The system of characters and narrative logic in these publications reflected a complex ‘own’ vs. ‘other’ dialectics and the romantic vs. pragmatic views of indigenous peoples. The visual language used by the book’s publishers included three types of images: photographs, authentic drawings by indigenous people, and drawings by professional artists. Each type of image dictated a different lens on indigenous peoples, constructing a view from both outside and inside the culture. The analysis of the books’ print runs and the number of new titles vividly illustrates the transient nature of the enthusiasm for the northern ethnic cultures: by the mid-1930s, the fascination with the peoples was overtaken by an interest in territories. The theme of the northern ethnic groups ceased to be in demand, but the theme of travel, geographical discoveries, and expeditions intensified.