SUMMARY:

The article by Olga Khristoforova discusses the post-Soviet self-descriptive anthropological documentaries produced by filmmakers from the indigenous population of the Russian North. The author asks how their cinematic language defers from that of the outsiders, to what extend this language can be called “ethnic,” and what kind of version of ethnic culture the “indigenous” anthropologic documentaries propose. This discussion is linked to a larger problem of identities’ transformation in the Russian North. The post-Soviet multiplication of the languages of identity in this region led to overlapping ethnic and regional dimensions of these identities. Since the Northern elites’ repertoire for ethnic self-representation was rather limited, the anthropological film became a tremendously popular language of ethnicity and nationalism. The article deciphers its semantics and social function.