Bibliotheca
Sibiro-pacifica |
SEC Publications
general editors: Erich Kasten and Michael Dürr |
Waldemar Bogoras Chukchee Mythology Edited by Michael Dürr and Erich Kasten 2016, Fürstenberg: Kulturstiftung Sibirien 204 pp., 15,5 x 22 cm ISBN: 978-3-942883-89-4 Euro 34, Hardcover |
Since the
18th century, researchers and scientists have
traveled the Russian Far East. Many of them were
of German origin and had been commissioned by the
Russian government to perform specific tasks.
Their exhaustive descriptions and detailed reports
are still considered some of the most valuable
documents on the ethnography of the indigenous
peoples of that part of the world. These works
inform us about living conditions and particular
ways of natural resource use at various times, and
provide us with valuable background information
for current assessment.
As the first
profound anthropological descriptions of that
region, the publications of the Jesup North
Pacific Expedition, undertaken in the first years
of the 20th century, marked the beginning of a new
era of research in Russia. They represented a
shift of the already existing transnational
research networks toward North America. Bogoras’s
work Chukchee Mythology was an important milestone
for Russian and North American anthropology that
provides to this day a unique contribution to
thoroughly understanding the cultures of the North
Pacific rim.