In 1924 the Soviet Government decided to introduce written languages for all the peoples of the former Russian Empire, putting an essential condition that only the Latin alphabet might be used for this purpose [l]. A year later, in 1925, the official organs of this government took upon themselves a new task of bringing the Tungus into the cycle of educational Sovietization. There was organized for this aim a «Department of Northern Peoples” [2] attached to the «Workmen Faculty” of the Leningrad State University (formerly the St Petersburg Imperial University), which began to accept a certain number of Tungus with the modest aim of teaching them the Russian language. The next year this department was renamed the «Northern Faculty [3]. In the meantime, the number of Tungus enrolled in this department kept on increasing, and there appeared a new demand for being taught their own language. In kind of rudimentary transcription was for the first time adapted for Tungus speech and, in the following year, in order to satisfy the needs of the students, the first book in Tungus was published. It took the form of an elementary manual in 1931 [4]. However, we find, not without surprise, that in series of Tungus schools were allowed to begin their work in Tungus, even though an alphabet was not yet established nor books prepared. The alphabet was suggested by J. P. Alkor (alias Koshkin) in 1930, and in its final form it was approved by the Sector of Science attached to the People's Commissariat of the only in May of 1931.[5]
From 1932 onwards there appeared one publication after another in Tungus, chiefly school books, propaganda pamphlets, etc., about which we shall speak later. However, for this aim a whole machine has been set in motion by the high Soviet authorities and is now functioning under their strict supervision. Hence, in order to form an accurate idea about the history of Literary Tungus, we have to look at this machinery as well. Installation of this machinery was not a play of imagination; it was imposed by the actual problem of organizing the native populations of Siberia and northern. Here we have to distinguish different aspects of the problem that the authorities were obliged to deal with among the Tungus: the aspect of controlling Tungus scattered over an enormous territory; the aspect of their economic activity, to which the authorities could not be indifferent; the aspect of the ideological side; and the aspect of practical measures to be taken.
During the civil war in the Tungus did not join the new authorities. Most of them wholeheartedly supported the anti-Communist movement, or at least abstained from any political activity. At any rate, they were not friendly. After the war it was found out that some Tungus groups had become completely extinct, as happened to the Samagir group in Transbaikalia, whence some other Tungus groups also disappeared, giving up their territory to some new groups (while a large part, if not all, of the Mankova and Borzia Tungus migrated to Mongolia) [6]. As for the Aldan-Maia and Aian-Okhotsk regions, a comparison of present statistical observations with those published by S. K. Patkanov [7] shows a considerable loss of Tungus population [8]. In the Enissei region significant changes have also occurred, with the result that Vasilevich states that these Tungus groups have expanded their distribution to the west as far as the left tributaries of the Ob River [9]. This is confirmed by evidence of real wars with the Enisseians, whom the Tungus pushed westwards during their mass migration [10]. The Tungus of the have retreated further north, beyond the northern watershed range of this river. These facts may suffice to demonstrate that for the Tungus the Revolution meant first of all a complete upset of their former relations with other ethnical units and groups.
Still more serious were other consequences of the Revolution. Formerly the Tungus lived by hunting, fishing, reindeer breeding, and some other minor forest and river industries, with the produce serving for regular barter with Russian and other merchants, who in their turn -supplied the Tungus with powder, firearms, and sometimes even food. The whole economic system that supported the Tungus collapsed with the opening of the civil war, and they were left to themselves. Moreover, their old administrative organization was entirely destroyed, especially owing to the migrations and loss of population. Hence, the Tungus rushed away from any contact with alien groups. Actually, for a certain time they lived independent, as there was no power to keep them under any control. I shall now confine myself to these remarks, quite sufficient to demonstrate how greatly the authorities might be impressed by a considerable loss of population, the economic disorganization, and also the impossibility of controlling the Tungus. Of course, these feelings were not exactly of a humanitarian nature. As a matter of fact, the Tungus, even in their small numbers, in their own territory might become dangerous. Moreover, being experienced hunters, the Tungus used to be the most regular suppliers of fur goods, which at that time formed one of the important items of foreign trade for the Soviets.
Under these circumstances, the authorities appealed to the humanitarian feelings of potential collaborators. Being inexperienced in the art of governing, the government perhaps sincerely believed that they had found persons capable not only of working out practical measures for pacifying the terrified Tungus, measures that were indispensable and needed to be new in form, but also of justifying this activity in terms of economic, political, and humanitarian interests and ideas. The task of elaborating the plan of this work was assigned to a special board of specialists, named the «Committee of the North” and attached to the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee, to the «Institute of the Northern Peoples” attached to the Central Executive Committee, and to some others as well. Thus, the Communist Party itself took the problem rather seriously and did not fail to produce directive solutions regularly. The essentials of all these efforts may be reduced to the following points of particular interest for our present subject:
1. The Tungus should be organized into a new Soviet system, where the place of the clan should be taken by special organs composed of young Tungus who were connected with the Communist Party;
2. Their economic activity should be directed by non-Tungus organs, the organs of immediate contact being co-operative organizations and governmental agents at the spot, who should supply the hunters and fishermen with all they need for their activity and distribute their produce with a view to serving «general interests”,while all private initiative should be eliminated entirely;
3. The old «beliefs” and shamanism should be fought against as religious aberrations and a basis for hostility towards the new ideas, while a network of schools should be established and young Tungus should be brought to big cities, in order first to be educated in a desirable way and then to be sent back again to direct the lives of their own people;
literary language should be created in order to facilitate this operation and to develop a Tungus «consciousness».
The program for this operation was founded on an assumption that there should be no tendency to Russification, that the Tungus should create their own Soviet system adjusted to local conditions, that they should have their own (and functioning in their own language) justice, administration, etc., and that they should have their own «press, schools, theatre, cultural work, and, in general, culturally enlightening institutions, in the native language”; also there should be organized a wide network of special courses and schools for general education and schools of a professional-technical type [11]. The rights acquired by the nationalities through the October Revolution represent «the greatest victory of the people”, but those nationalities who have not passed through capitalism and have not formed a «proletariat” cannot enjoy all the privileges they may now have and, without assistance from outside, cannot reach a higher stage of development and join those nationalities that have gone ahead [12]. Then, since the «proletarian dictatorship” should be at the same time a period of «flourishing of national cultures”,the latter should be developed through the introduction of a general education given in the native language [13].
In order to show the difference between the present magnificent policy of the Communist Party towards the Tungus and that of the Imperial Government, G. M. Vasilevich asserts [14] that the latter was a merciless oppression of any national movements among the natives of Siberia and the setting of obstacles to prevent them from learning even the Russian language. If any schools had been set up, she says, their aim would have been to have the natives Russified and to prepare agents of oppression and robbery of their own people. Still harsher is the approach to all problems of J. P. Koshkin (Alkor) [15], who advocates a militant point of view. He invites his colleagues at the conference to follow Stalin's theory and practice regarding a struggle on two fronts, one the «mechanicism” of the «pseudo-Marxist Japhetidological School” and the other «Menshevikian idealism”, to which are also added such other «fronts” as the «Trotskyite smugglers”, «rotten liberalism”, «bourgeois and social-fascist science”, etc. Several of his co-workers are denounced along the way as partisans of all the above-mentioned enemies [16]. A real enlightenment comes from Koshkin's official declaration, where he says, «Some theoreticians of the Soviet Country pretend to lead linguistic policy, without conceiving that in our country nobody else but the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party is allowed to determine political principles” (Report of First Pan-Russian Conference, pp. 47-48), whence he finds it a duty of present-day linguists to create written languages. Therefore, the members of the conference did not have to worry about the theoretical side or the practical problem of whether it may be feasible or not. Since we shall discuss the problem of orthography later, I think it is useful to quote once more the same authority, who asserts, «Of course, any orthography has its own class-sense. The bourgeoisie of every country wants to immortalize such an orthography as would prevent the working masses from learning the writing without spending a great deal of effort and losing a great deal of time. We now see in countries like and and others a very confused orthography. Once Engels clearly pointed out the class-character of the English orthography”. This, according to him, was responsible for the ignorance of the working class in (Report of First Pan-Russian Conference, pp. 61-62) [17]. Here lies the secret of the major role performed by the above-named party in the creation of the Tungus grammar. As a matter of fact, this relieves the subaltern assistants of J. P. Alkor [18] — such as G. M. Vasilevich, N. N. Poppe, and others, of much responsibility.
We can now summarize. The whole enterprise has from the very beginning been in the firm hands of a political (Communist) party that attached special political importance even to orthography. The agent directly concerned with the Tungus was J. P. Koshkin (alias Alkor).
1. So far the idea of introducing compulsory Latinization of the Russian language has been, temporarily at least, given up. Latinization has been introduced in some countries outside of as well. It had a certain success in, too, but there were no serious consequences of practical value, except for its introduction into the special schools for the Chinese under the Soviets.
2. The term people may be misleading. In this case it means a «nationality”; in scientific terminology, an ”ethnical unit or group of ethnical units”.
3. Here it must be explained that the word faculty in Russian corresponds to «college”. However, «Workmen Faculty” actually meant » for Workmen”. It was regarded as one of the great achievements of the Revolution, since it opened up a wide opportunity for «workers” to get the university education of which they had been deprived by the ill-will of the Imperial Government. However, when the first experiments failed to show any results of practical value, «workmen faculties” were first reformed and then given up; a preliminary selection of students who have some preparation has proved to be the only rational way of recruiting them for higher education. Naturally, Tungus who had been attracted to university education from the beginning of the experiment had to experience all the reforms, until the establishment for them (and other «northern peoples”) of a special institute.
4. Primary Book in Tungus, by G. M. Vasilevich, 1931,.
5. Here I am using Explanatory Note to the Tungus ABC, New Path, by Vasilevich,, 1933.
6. See my Social Organization of the Northern Tungus,, 1929.
7. Essay on the Geographical and Statistical Distribution of the Tungus (in Russian),, 1906.
8. B. N. Vasiliev, Preliminary Report on the Investigation of the Aldan-Maia and Aian-Okhotsk Tungus in 1926-1928 (in Russian),, 1930.
9. See G. M. Vasilevich, Tungus-Russian Dialectal Dictionary,, 1934.
10. See Kai-Donner, in Journal de, 1922(?).
11. Resolutions of the Tenth Party Congress concerning all nationalities.
12. Resolutions of the Twelfth Party Congress.
13. Resolutions of the Sixteenth Party Congress, proposed by J. Stalin (Dzhugashvili).
14. Manual of the Tungus Language, Moscow/Leningrad, 8», 156 pp. The author has distinguished herself by a long list of publications in Literary Tungus, the compilation of various textbooks, an original investigation of a group of dialects (Enissei), which has resulted in a short dictionary (see note 9), and the collection of folklore. Her activity began rather recently, i.e., around the end of the last decade. As we learn from the list of participants in the First Pan-Russian Conference for Development of the Languages and Writing among the Northern Peoples (reports were published in 1932,), she is Russian by origin and holds the position of teacher of Tungus in the Institute, but is not a member of the Communist Party. In her publications she shares the opinions of her superiors and seems to have accommodated herself to the Marxist-dialectic view on the history and present state of the Tungus, about which, owing to their «political” implications, no controversy is allowed. See below.
15. I could not ascertain what his real name was J. P. Alkor, or J. P. Koshkin — since in the same report on the First Pan-Russian Conference he figures under both of them. A Latvian by origin and a distinguished member of the Communist Party, in 1932 he occupied such positions as Director of the Institute of the Northern Peoples and President of the Scientific Research Association. Thus he may be regarded as a mouthpiece of the high spheres. Apparently his task was to iron out all the problems in accordance with the method of dialectical materialism, while adjusting it to the opinions of leading authorities of the past and present such as K. Marx, Engels, Lenin, and, perhaps the most important of all (at least today), J. Stalin, whose opinions are lavishly quoted by him. As to his personality, he himself informs us that he has learned a lot from his teacher, L. J. Sternberg, who personally fostered in his pupil a special interest in ethnography (see his contribution to the booklet, To the Memory of L. J. Sternberg [in Russian], Publ. of the Acad. of Sciences, 1930). He has distinguished himself through a few articles connected in one way or another with the Tungus and their literary language, and also through reports expounding the official point of view on the same subjects. Apparently he has carried out no original investigations.
16. Given the state of mania persecutiva prevailing in ruling circles, such a denouncing is not an act without consequences. Thus, people whose names have been mentioned by such an authority as the Director of the Institute, might pay for their disagreement with him with their lives. He attacked for the latter's «Marxist disguise of liberalism”, comrade Lomtev for his «Menshevikian Hegelianism” (formerly this philosopher used to be the cornerstone for the whole Marxian scaffolding), and comrades Dresen and Rus for their «mechanicism”, and he also accused comrade Danilov of supporting such social-fascists as Kautsky, Trotsky, et al. I have quoted all these terms of uncommon classification and delirious denouncing, since they characterize the situation under which some linguists have to build up their theories, and for which they ought to be excused as well, for under these conditions it is quite risky to have any opinion of one's own. Indeed, we cannot take everything which is published in present-day as the genuine opinion of those who put their names under their writings. Was this not the case of 's scientific activity in his last years?
17. We find all these remarkable ideas in his report, which fills twenty-six pages of poor printing with invariably fascinating reading that, however, soon becomes monotonous and tiresome.
18. As for the other participants in the conference, we may mention here only N. N. Poppe, V. G. Bogoras, and V. I. Cincius, as we shall meet their names later. The first of them has distinguished himself by a series of articles and studies on various Mongol subjects and dialects, and by two sketches of Tungus dialects. He represented the of of the (his nationality is not indicated). Bogoras (who has recently died), a well-known field ethnographer who has investigated several groups of Paleo-Asiates and a Lamut dialect, was invited as an expert, and he declared himself to be Russian. Cincius, a teacher of Tungus in the Institute, has also declared herself to be Russian. She is known as a translator into Tungus and the editor of some Tungus materials. Altogether there were fifty-five participants, of whom twenty-three were members of Communist organizations and fifteen were «natives”,while most of the others were described as being Russians, even though not all were so. I do not know what has become of them after several «purges” as practiced among the Communists and their collaborators. It is likely, indeed, that not all of them are alive, so that the whole thing might be treated in accordance with an old saying, De mortuis aut bene aut nihil, except for the fact that they are leaving behind works which could tempt uncautious people to use them as a reliable source, and about which we have to speak unfavorably.