Kennan Institute Dilemmas of Diversity after the ColD War: Analyses of “Cultural Difference” by U.S. and Russia-Based Scholars edited by michele rivkin-fish and elena trubina Dilemmas of Diversity after the ColD War: Analyses of “Cultural Difference” by U.S. and Russia-Based Scholars By michele rivkin-fish and elena trubina WoodroW Wilson international Center for sCholars The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, established by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., is a living national memorial to President Wilson. The Center’s mission is to com- memorate the ideals and concerns of Woodrow Wilson by providing a link between the worlds of ideas and policy, while fostering research, study, discussion, and collaboration among a broad spectrum of individuals con- cerned with policy and scholarship in national and international affairs. Supported by public and private funds, the Center is a nonpartisan in- stitution engaged in the study of national and world affairs. It establish- es and maintains a neutral forum for free, open, and informed dialogue. Conclusions or opinions expressed in Center publications and programs are those of the authors and speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Center staff, fellows, trustees, advisory groups, or any individuals or organizations that provide financial support to the Center. The Center is the publisher of The Wilson Quarterly and home of Woodrow Wilson Center Press, dialogue radio and television, and the monthly news- letter “Centerpoint.” For more information about the Center’s activities and publications, please visit us on the web at www.wilsoncenter.org. Lee H. Hamilton, President and Director Board of Trustees Joseph B. Gildenhorn, Chair Sander R. Gerber, Vice Chair Public Members: James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress; Hillary R. Clinton, Secretary, U.S. Department of State; G. Wayne Clough, Secretary, Smithsonian Institution; Arne Duncan, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education; Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; David Ferriero, Archivist of the United States; James Leach, Chairman, National Endowment for the Humanities Private Citizen Members: Charles Cobb, Jr., Robin Cook, Charles L. Glazer, Carlos M. Gutierrez, Susan Hutchison, Barry S. Jackson, Ignacio E. Sanchez Dilemmas of Diversity after the ColD War: Analyses of “Cultural Difference” by U.S. and Russia-Based Scholars By michele rivkin-fish and elena trubina 2010 Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C. www.wilsoncenter.org Cover Photograph: A detail of the fountain, The Friendship of the Peoples, which was installed on the grounds of the Exhibition of National Economic Achievements (VDNH, originally The All-Union Agricultural Exhibition) in August 1954 (architects K.Topuridze and G. Konstanti- novsky). The composition consists of a gigantic sheave surrounded by 16 female figures symbol- izing the 16 republics of the Soviet Uniion (including Karelo-Finnish, which eventually became the Karelian autonomous republic). (Courtesy of Elena Trubina) ISBN: 1-933549-92-0 CoNteNts Introduction: Conceptualizing ‘Cultural Diversity’ 7 after the Cold War Elena Trubina and Michele Rivkin-Fish Part I: ConstruCtIng the natIon In the shaDoWs of DIfferenCe Chapter 1 50 from Buchach to sheikh Muwannis: Building the future and erasing the Past Omer Bartov Chapter 2 80 symbols and stories of Post-soviet Buryat national revival Tatyana Skrynnikova and Darima Amogolonova Chapter 3 113 Multiple Museums, Multiple nations: the Politics of Communal representation in Post-soviet tatarstan Katherine Graney Chapter 4 136 Peace-Building after Violent Conflict in the Caucasus and Beyond: Managing the symbolic Politics of ethnic Diversity Stuart Kaufman AnAlyses of CulturAl DifferenCe by u.s. AnD russiA-bAseD sCholArs 7 Part II: ContestIng DIVersIty In the fIelD of eDuCatIon Chapter 5 174 reading Differently as a Cultural Challenge in russia: on literature, national unity, and the Promises of Pluralism Tatiana Venediktova Chapter 6 193 teaching “ethnic” and “national” Differences: the Concept of “Narod” in russian school textbooks Oksana Karpenko Chapter 7 218 facing history and ourselves: an approach to teaching tolerance through understanding the holocaust Rachel Burg Belin afterword 233 Michele Rivkin-Fish and Elena Trubina acknowledgements 239 about the Contributors 240 8 DilemmAs of Diversity After the ColD WAr introduction: Conceptualizing “Cultural Diversity” after the Cold War elena truBIna anD MIChele rIVkIn-fIsh W hen the end of the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991 presented a momentary sense of euphoria to societies around the globe, a fundamental ques- tion about the nature of future societal development arose: Would the rea- lignment of geopolitical power, together with the emergence of market economics and democratic politics, result in a global convergence of social life and a “flattening” of difference? The rapid and tumultuous changes that occurred in Russia during the 1990s and 2000s quickly revealed the shortsightedness of this question, as those years bore witness to sweeping sociocultural change and upheavals, stemming from processes such as widespread migration, the rise of nation- alist and separatist movements, ethnic violence and war, and contestations over universalizing discourses of human rights. The importance of scholar- ship on “diversity” in this context and beyond cannot be underestimated; the dire need for increased understanding of legitimate and effective strat- egies for peacemaking, tolerance building, and the creation of a multi- cultural society becomes inescapable as numerous high-profile tragedies repeatedly call our attention to the violence and conflict being endured. These include the 2004 Beslan tragedy, in which Chechen separatists took more than 1,200 men, women, and children hostage in a school in the southern Russian province of Ossetia, an event that ended with an estimat- ed 330 people, including more than 188 children, dead; the October 2006 murder of the journalist Anna Politkovskaya, a major critic of human rights abuses committed in Chechnya by the Vladimir Putin administration; and also outbursts of hostilities, street fighting, and murders based on ethnic animosity that have become all too common in Russian towns and cities. Less visible in the daily headlines, but still significant in their cumu- lative impact on society, are the myriad interactions in which perceived social differences become the object of discrimination, symbolic violence, AnAlyses of CulturAl DifferenCe by u.s. AnD russiA-bAseD sCholArs 9 and struggle among groups whose members increasingly see each other as “enemy.” Such mundane events include the routine police procedures of stopping people with dark complexions and forcing them to show their documentation on the streets of Russian cities; struggles between students and administrators in the sociology department of a top Russian university in 2007 over allegations that the latter promote anti-Semitic and nationalist ideology; and processes of deepening socioeconomic stratification—divid- ing society into the many who suffer abject poverty; the few, outrageously wealth elite; and a small, struggling middle class for whom the ability to consume high-status products is becoming increasingly indispensable as a marker of true professionalism if not human dignity itself. In social science and humanities scholarship on Russia since the 1990s, issues related to the broad rubric of cultural identities and diversity have been central. Among cultural anthropologists based in Western settings, a range of theoretical concerns have emerged, including the use of racial- ized imagery in vernacular and intellectual discourses on difference;1 the importance of social memory among ethnic and geographical minori- ties;2 and the shifts engendered by the breakdown of the Soviet system in the already varied symbolic landscape of religion, spirituality, and spiri- tual healing.3 Of particular importance, a focus on conflict and contesta- tion among minority groups, such as Jews4 and various Islamic groups,5 has added nuanced analysis of the diversity within diversity and provides crucial evidence against the essentialist characterizations of ethnic groups. Virtually all ethnographic work seeks to parse the multiple effects of the Soviet and Russian state on subjectivity, whether ethnic, “racial,” religious, gender-based, and so on. Many of these theoretical concerns are devel- oped in a growing body of work examining indigenous communities in Siberia. Scholars have analyzed these communities’ struggles to negotiate post-Soviet change in terms of changing modes of subsistence and ways of life,6 shifting relationships with the state,7 and the rise of indigenous politi- cal movements.8 Another ethnographic location for questions of the construction and re- construction of identity among indigenous peoples has been the Russian Far East, where scholars have examined the impact of Soviet nationality policies, state power, and local agency.9 And as Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer reminds us, Western anthropological agendas must not be mistaken for the only set of debates on cultural diversity and social change. It is crucial to 10 DilemmAs of Diversity After the ColD WAr