CULTURAL SURVIVAL: AIMS AND METHODS

Since 1972, Cultural Survival has helped indigenous people and ethnic minorities deal as equals in their encounters with industrial society.

Where the Moose Have No Blood: In Yakutsk, Siberia, the myths are falling, though slowly.

They say the moose in the forests have no hair and no blood. Parents say the children suffer from leukemia and are allergic to apples and jam; their skin breaks out in rashes, and they have trouble breathing. In the nature museum is a stuffed calf that was born here not long ago, a calf with two heads not unlike the two-headed eagle that is the historic symbol of the Russian empire.

Unnatural Disasters: Pogroms have killed thousands of Bangladeshi minorities; millions more are refugees in India

Unnatural Disasters: Pogroms have killed thousands of Bangladeshi. minorities; millions more are refugees in India.

The Quest for Identity

On February 21, 1988, a startling announcement appeared in the Nagorno-Karabagh daily newspaper:

Siberian Seminar: In the village of Kazim, activists learn to portray their own culture with video.

In August 1991, we traveled to western Siberia to conduct a field seminar on visual anthropology in the village of Kazim. Our intention was to establish the practice of video ethnography among a small group of native Siberian cultural activists.

POPULATION TRANSFER: The Tragedy of the Meskhetian Turks

All the nationalities in the vast lands of the former Soviet Union are facing rough times, but few have had to endure such tragic hardships as those that have fallen upon the Meskhetian Turks. Worse yet, these hardship have gone practically unnoticed. Very little documentation a bout the ancient history of this people exists, and no detailed investigations on them have been published.

POPULATION TRANSFER: The Crimean Tatars Return Home

In 1912, a Russian scholar, L.P. Semirenko, wrote that "even those people who have been in the Crimea for but a month know that the Crimea will perish after the resettlement of the Tatars.

POPULATION TRANSFER: A Scattered People Seeks Its Nationhood

The rich and distinctive culture and tragic fate of the Kurds make up a striking part of the history of the nations of the former Soviet Union. In some ways the situation of the Kurds is worse today than it was between 1937 and 1944, the years of forced relocation under Stalin.

Mapping the Future

Maps provide an orientation. Ancient maps looked eastward, hence the expression." Maps, literally and figuratively, can put things in perspective and people in their place.

Manipulating Territory, Undermining Rights

A close look at world maps reveals that states have created a variety of "ethnic territories" from republics and autonomous regions in the Soviet Union and China to Swiss cantons, ethnic states in India and Burma, Indian reservations in the United States, independent homelands in the Republic of South Africa, and Flanders and Walonia in Belgium.

Last of an Ancient People

Driven even deeper into the Eastern Sayan Mountains by invading Turks in the seventh century. Mongolas in the thirteenth century, and Russians in the seventeenth century, the Tofa ended up in territory that is exceedingly difficult to reach. Not a single road extends into Tofalaria, the land of the Tofa.

Indigenes and Settlers: Minorities in Georgia are seeking the same pluralism ethnic Georgians long sought

Indigenes and Settlers: Minorities in Georgia are seeking the same. pluralism ethnic Georgians long sought.

From Marx to Muhammad

A kind of cultural myopia often afflicts human beings, causing them to perceive anything foreign as monolithic and making it difficult to distinguish the individual parts that comprise the whole. This has certainly long been true of the Western world's perception of the Soviet Union, to the point where the terms "Russian" and "Soviet" came to appear interchangeable.

False Promises: Venezuela appears to have protected the Yanomami, but appearances can be deceiving

False Promises: Venezuela appears to have protected the Yanomami, but. appearances can be deceiving.

Culture and Water: A host of Soviet Central Asia's environmental dilemmas stem from its limited supply of water.

In Central Asia, water is in short supply. Centuries-old cultural practices contributed to a variety of ways to use this essential natural resource efficiently, but over the course of 70 years a Russian-dominated, socialist-oriented system replaced many long-standing indigenous practices in agriculture.

briefly noted - 16.1

Congo Project Draws Fire

At Home in Siberia

To Westerners, the idea of "at home in Sibera" is an oxymoron. To us, Siberia conjures up the image of a barren, frozen land, a land of exile, the Gulag Archipelago. But to a diverse array of indigenous cultures, Siberia is home and has been for millennia.

After the Breakup Roots of Soviet Dis-Union

Belarus. Ukraine. Moldova. Kyrgyzstan. Russia. New states clamoring for - and receiving - recognition from the community of international states.

A People Dwindling Under Centralized Rule

In their history and in their present predicament, the Evenk of Khanda have much in common with many dwindling enclaves of native peoples in Siberia.

A Land Divided: The disappearance of an artificial border in Central Asia is plausible for the first time in 70 years

A Land Divided: The disappearance of an artificial border in Central Asia. is plausible for the first time in 70 years.