SUMMARY:

Juliette Cadiot examines Russian censuses in order to understand how the state controlled and organized its multinational population. Looking at the census of 1897, the author surveys the debate around language and nationality, in particular the differences between scholarship and a bureaucracy that paid attention to only the most important languages of the empire. The census of 1926, on the other hand, took place against the background of official korenizatsia policies, as reflected in the recording of not only language, but also nationality as part of the census. Debates surrounding the 1926 census reflected the endless process of singling out dialects and languages and witnessed an increased role for ethnographers and linguists. Conflict emerged between Moscow-based scholars and politicians – searching for traces of ever-smaller nationalities – and local authorities who often represented titular nationalities in the Soviet Union’s constituent republics. The interests of the state prevailed over ethnographic interest in the census of 1939. This census, conducted against the background of the persecution of the organizers of the canceled 1937 census, strictly followed Stalin’s ideas on the number of nationalities in the USSR. In 1939, the list of nationalities was shortened to maximally correspond to the number of titular nationalities in the Soviet Union and its autonomous republics. According to the author, the censuses in a multinational state reflect the desire of the state to understand, control, and bring order to the numerous national and ethnic groups.