Ebook: Democratic Practices and Cultural Resilience: How a small people flourished under authoritarianism

Соавторская статья опубликована в журнале Kettering Review. 2009. Vol.
27. No.
2. p. 39-50.For more than 500 years, the Pomore people, numbering even today not more than 10-15,000, have sustained a traditional way of life, primarily as fishermen on coastal seas and rivers. Over the past hundred years, especially during the collectivization of the 1920’s and 1930’s and again from the 1970’s till the present time, the Pomore’s way of life has been threatened with upheaval and even destruction. The primary source of these threats were the actions first of the Soviet, and after 1990, the Russian state although some have arisen from international competition and declines in fish stock. The Pomore peoples, of course, were among hundreds of Soviet ethnic groups and thousands of communities to face these or similar pressures. What makes their story of particular interest is that the Pomore were among the very few peoples of Russia to adapt to these stresses in ways that enabled them not only to survive but at times even to thrive, while maintaining the essential features of their traditional way of life, both economic and cultural.