Authors

Eeva Kuikka¹;  ¹ Tampere University, Finland

Discussion

In this presentation, I address two literary pieces by Indigenous authors from the Russian Arctic: Golubye pescy (Голубые песцы, 1963) by the Chukhi author Yuri Rytkheu and Aniko iz roda Nogo (Анико из рода Ного, 1976) by the Nenets author Anna Nerkagi. The works were published over ten years apart by authors belonging to different Indigenous peoples and their stories address two very different topics but they both can be read as descriptions of the cultural hybridity of their main characters. Golubye pescy centers around the establishment of fur farms in Chukotka peninsula and Aniko iz roda Nogo describes a Nenets girl Aniko’s return to the native tundra after the demise of her mother. Despite the differences between these works, I argue that for both Rytkheu and Nerkagi dirtiness serves as a way to depict the internal negotiation in which the main characters of their literary pieces are engaged in relation to their national identities. The main characters of both works have lived their lives as subjected to Soviet “civilization” mission and modernization discourses. Yet, as members of Northern Indigenous peoples their identities are fundamentally connected with such communities that the dominant culture has defined through notions of backwardness and savagery. I approach this question through Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of hybridity as both Soviet and Indigenous subjects that in my view becomes thematized as dirtiness in both Rytk