Lev Shternberg Kan FM.indd i 7/7/09 9:18:54 AM Critical Studies in the History of Anthropology Series Editors Regna Darnell Stephen O. Murray Kan FM.indd ii 7/7/09 9:18:54 AM lev shternberg Anthropologist, Russian Socialist, Jewish Activist sergei kan university of nebraska press | lincoln and london Kan FM.indd iii 7/7/09 9:18:54 AM © 2009 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska All rights reserved Portions of this book previously appeared in: “Evolutionism and Historical Particularism at the St. Petersburg Museum of Anthro- pology and Ethnography,” Museum Anthropology 31.1 (2008): 1–19; “The Mystery of the Missing Monograph; or Why Shternberg’s ‘The Social Organization of the Gilyak’ Never Appeared among the Jesup Expedition Publications,” European Review of Native American Studies 14.2 (2000): 19–38; and “The ‘Russian Bastian’ and Boas; or Why Shternberg’s ‘The Social Organization of the Gilyak’ Never Appeared among the Jesup Expedition Publica- tions,” pp. 217–48, in Gateways: Exploring the Legacy of the Jesup North Pacifi c Expedition, 1897–1902, ed. William K. Fitzhugh and Igor Krupnik (Washington dc: Arctic Studies Center, Smith- sonian Institution, 2001). Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kan, Sergei. Lev Shternberg : anthropologist, Russian socialist, Jewish activist / Sergei Kan. p. cm. — (Critical studies in the history of anthropology) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8032-1603-7 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Shternberg, Lev Iakovlevich, 1861–1927. 2. Anthropolo- gists—Russia—Biography. I. Title. gn21.s5k36 2009 301.092—dc22 [B] 2008049065 Set in Quadraat by Kim Essman. Designed by Ray Boeche. Jacket and title page: Photograph of Lev Shternberg taken in Leningrad in 1924 for his foreign travel documents. St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 282/1/194:22. Kan FM.indd iv 7/7/09 9:18:56 AM In Memory of Yuli Moiseevich Glazman (1911–2001) Joseph Ostashevsky (1945–2003) Mikhail Fainshtein (1948–2003) genuine representatives of the Russian-Jewish intelligentsia Kan FM.indd v 7/7/09 9:18:56 AM Kan FM.indd vi 7/7/09 9:18:56 AM Each person’s life should be like a work of literature, regardless of whether it has been completed or not. Hence, it can break off at any moment but still represent a story that is instructive, beautiful, and rich in content. From a letter by Lev Shternberg to Ivan Iuvachev Kan FM.indd vii 7/7/09 9:18:57 AM Kan FM.indd viii 7/7/09 9:18:57 AM Contents List of Illustrations x Series Editors’ Introduction xi Acknowledgments xiii Introduction xv 1. The Early Years 1 2. Sakhalin 25 3. Beginning a Professional Career in the Capital 112 4. Scholarship and Activism during the 1905 Revolution 144 5. The Last Decade before the Storm 161 6. The Years of Turmoil, 1914–17 224 7. Building a New Anthropology in the “City of the Living Dead” 267 8. The nep Era and the Last Years of Shternberg’s Life 293 9. All Humanity Is One 392 Conclusion 439 Notes 447 References 489 Index 521 Kan FM.indd ix 7/7/09 9:18:57 AM