Authors

Discussion

In this report I will analyze the genetic discourses found in the etnos theory of Iulian Bromlei (1921-1990), the then director of the Institute of Ethnography of Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union from 1966 until the year before his death. He is considered, along with Lev Gumilev, to be one of the representative ethnic theorists of the Soviet period, and the clash between Bromlei’s “social” and Gumilev’s “biological” views on etnos is considered as a major event in the history of Soviet ethnology. In previous studies, many has focused on his bureaucratic side as a “scholar-secretary,” so Bromlei has been considered to have presented a fixed understanding of etnos that corresponded to the Soviet national policy of the time. In his works, however, Bromlei did not always treat each ethnic group as a completely fixed unit, especially in his “biological” discourse, which has been overlooked. Rather, his theory has the potential to explain the characteristic situation of Eurasia, where diverse etnoses coexist on a continuum.

In this report, I will focus on arguments about the genetic aspect of ethnic groups found in Bromlei’s early works, paying attention to the historical context of the time when he began to publish his theory. The late 1960s, when Bromlei began to write about etnos, was a period when urbanization and the spread of public education reduced cultural differences among peoples, and “the rapprochement and merger of nations” were advocated at an official level. On the other hand, despite this tendency, interest in ethnicity was growing, and Bromlei himself called this phenomenon the “ethnic paradox of our time.” In this regard, it is believed that he built his theory as a reaction to this paradox. In his explanation of the so-called “ethnic paradox,” Bromlei believed that genetic barriers are formed in each etnos as a result of intermarriage within the group, from which he explained the primordial immutable character of ethnic groups, but at the same time, he also advocated that these groups consist of a hierarchical structure and stressed the multilayered nature of ethnic belonging. Through a detailed analysis of this argument, I will show that he updated the concept of nationality in the post-Stalinist period, which was shaken by the “ethnic paradox,” by reconciling the regime’s extreme expectancy represented by the “merger” of various groups with the salad bowl type etnos theory.