Th e Hostages of the Place of Exile. Polish Researchers of Shamanism in Soviet Academic and Museum Discourses

Abstract

The crucial role of Polish researchers in the investigation of Siberian indigenous cultures in the 19thcentury provoked attempts to use that Polish heritage in the project of Soviet Siberia. Streets and schools were named after the Polish researchers and their work was paid attention to at numerous museum exhibitions. That positive mythology was not politically neutral. Their special status of political victims and “European viewers” was supposed not only to legitimize the offi cial (Soviet) knowledge about traditional cultures, but also to continue the democratic discourse of “Siberia as a prison”. Th  e Soviet state tried to use the academic heritage of Polish exiles for its own purposes. The confrontation of the well educated Europeans with extremely traditional cultures symbolized the right (European and scientifi c) perspective to look at Siberian cultures. Th eir papers, books and collections were combined with the Soviet ethnographic perspective to perceive traditional cultures and their “backward past”. The aim of this paper is to investigate the Soviet use of the Polish exiles’ heritage in the conceptualization of shamanism as a set of religious and social practices. Th  e main goal here is the reconstruction of the models of use, contexts of quotations, selection of data and symbols of representation of the Polish academic heritage in Siberia.