Defining Self

The focus of Defining Self is on the identity building of minority groups in Russia during the past three to four centuries. The thirty-five essays describe extensively and illuminatingly the political, religious, cultural and linguistic factors on which the minority populations – Jews, Poles, Finns, Ukrainians, Livonians, Mari, Komi, Khanty, Chechens, Ingush, Ossetes, Samoyeds and other peoples of the far north – were beginning to shape identities of their own. This process raises numerous questions about relations within these minority groups, with other local groups and authorities, and often also with central authority in Moscow and St Petersburg.