The category of "borders" in Russian ethnography

The article is an expanded version of the report presented at the XVIll International West Siberian Archaeological and Ethnographic Conference in 2024. It discusses the methodology of Russian ethnology of the 19th - early 21st centuries. Its aim is to use the materials of humanitarian discourse to identify the place of the category "borders" in ethnocultural studies of Russia. For Russia, which had one of the longest borders by the end of the 19th century, the methods of its assessment were very actively mastered. The article shows how the approaches of European anthropogeography, reinterpreted within the framework of Russian land studies, influenced the nature of the study of peoples and their territories. During the geopolitical transformations of the twentieth century, the principle of assessing the territory as the most important feature and factor of self-determination of the people was laid down as the basis for the political practices of the Soviet state and mapping practices. This approach was consistent with the theory of ethnos, which was developed by Russian and then Soviet ethnographers from the beginning of the twentieth century. The definition of an ethnic group, which by the 1960s became the methodological basis of Soviet science included the territory among its main features. Based on this theory, the research was associated with the identification of cultural and linguistic complexes localized in time and space; at the same time, the ratio of natural, ethnic, cultural and political boundaries was mobile. In Russian ethnology, by the beginning of the 21st century, borders were assessed as an expression of national sovereignty and regional identification, but their integration functions were widely discussed. At the same time, concepts such as "limits", "limitrophe", "frontier" appeared in research, denoting zones of crossborder interactions. In the development of the topic, the article considers the adjustment of methodology based on a constructivist approach: the category of "borders" is interpreted through the prism of the differentiating potential of socio-cultural markers. Within the framework of the anthropology of the movement, which has been developed in Russia since the 2000s, ethno-historical studies took into account the dynamic nature of borders. As a result, the article concludes that the category of "borders" in the ethnography/ ethnology of Russia has a multidimensional character. Borders are recognized as an international legal institution that ensures the sovereignty and integrity of the State; they are factors of geopolitical, ethnic and national identity. In modern science, the category "borders" is included in the arsenal of interdisciplinary approaches describing the realities of a multi-ethnic Russia in the past and present. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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