Read: Grant, In the Soviet House of Culture

1. What were state attitudes toward the Nivkhi in the different periods described by Grant (pre-revolutionary, 1920s, Stalinist, 1960s, Perestroika)? What concepts of culture and the Nivkhi's relationship to culture were used to justify these attitudes? (You might find it useful to make a chart with this information for each time period.)

2. How is the relationship between culture and class articulated at different periods in the 20th century?

3. On page 11, Grant summarizes two Soviet attitudes toward the Nivkhi: "one that heralds their transition into the modern world and another that consigns them to the timeless world of yesteryear." How have these attitudes varied over time?

4. What effects did these policies have on Nivkhi?

5. Writing about attitudes in the 1990s, Grant claims, "The nostalgic process of remembrance that now reconfigures Nivkh experience may say as much about dissatisfaction with the present as it does about the past." What is this nostalgia, and what are the problems of the present that Grant sees represented in it?

6. What might tradition be for Nivkhi today? What might it mean to them?

Journal entry: No journal entry this week. Second 5-7 page essay due by 11:59 pm on Sunday, November 12.

For more information, contact: aleshkow@holycross.edu