To the extent that non-Russian speakers are familiar with Soviet archaeology, it is likely to be through Leo S. Klejn's Soviet archaeology (Reference Klejn2012). Klejn was suspicious of Okladnikov (1908–1981), describing him as “constantly preoccupied with his prestige and reputation” and “insatiable where self-promotion and his work were concerned” (Reference Klejn2012: 336), working in “too much haste” and demonstrating a “tendency towards dilettantism” (Reference Klejn2012: 337). He also noted his readiness to change position according to political convenience. Another historian of Soviet archaeology, A.A. Formozov, was especially critical on this point.
As Klejn noted, however, we must at least pay tribute to Okladnikov's abundance of energy, his capacity for work and the profusion of his archaeological discoveries. He published over 400 papers and discovered a huge number of prehistoric sites across Siberia, Mongolia and Central Asia. The achievements of which he was most proud were, unsurprisingly, the discovery of Neanderthal remains in Uzbekistan and of Palaeolithic artworks (for example the Venus figurines from Buret near Irkutsk).
Aleksei P. Okladnikov: the great explorer of the past offers a new view of Okladnikov. The translation of the first part of this two-volume biography is reviewed here. The biography is by a former student, Aleksander Konopatskii, and is clearly a labour of love. It has a preface by Okladnikov's daughter, also an archaeologist, Elena A. Okladnikova (named after the River Lena where Okladnikov made his first archaeological discoveries). She describes the book as “voluminous, richly illustrated and leading to a world of documentary detail” (p. xi). That is true, for the energy and determination of Okladnikov were indeed phenomenal, and Konopatskii has been able to draw not only on the published papers but from a vast archive of unpublished material held at the Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg (Leningrad).
In 1925 Okladnikov enrolled at Irkutsk Teachers’ College, and while still an undergraduate he led several expeditions exploring the valley of the River Lena. In 1934 he began postgraduate studies in St Petersburg. A year later he led an expedition to the valley of the River Amur in which he discovered no less than 35 Neolithic sites and 51 Iron Age sites. By then he was married, to Vera Dmitrievna. When they married, in 1932, Vera had ambitions to be a theatre set-designer, but she put these aside in order to devote herself to her husband's career. In effect, she protected him from everyday problems in order that he might concentrate without interruptions on exploring, excavating and writing. If he had no interest in housekeeping, neither, according to Konopatskii, did he show any concern for politics; consequently, he was able to devote himself single-mindedly to archaeology.
Okladnikov's most famous discovery was made in 1938: the skeleton of a Neanderthal boy in a cave in Teshik-Tash in Uzbekistan. The skeleton was surrounded by horns from Siberian ibex. Okladnikov suggested that the boy had been laid to rest as though sleeping and that the evidence pointed to ritual activity and rudimentary ideas of an afterlife. The ritual nature of the burial has since been contested, but the Neanderthal identification has been confirmed.
The constant round of field trips and report writing continued until 1949 when he took on a more desk-based role. He was made Assistant Director of the Institute of the History of Material Culture (IIMK) and head of its Leningrad branch. In April of that year he wrote a report to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of the Institute, ‘Nikolai Yakovelich Marr and Soviet archaeology’ (Okladnikov Reference Okladnikov1950).
It is worth noting that the ideas of N. Ya. Marr (1864–1934) dominated Soviet archaeology in the 1930s and 1940s. Marr consistently and determinedly downplayed the influence of ethnicity and the movement of peoples in archaeology and history. His position was approved at the highest levels, but Marr's ideas fell from favour, suddenly and dramatically.
It was Joseph Stalin himself who denounced Marr in June 1950, the very year that Okladnikov's paper was published. Stalin condemned Marr for oversimplifying and vulgarising Marxism. Konopatskii believes that Marr's view of the Chinese language as ‘primitive’ had become politically embarrassing, but it is also likely that Stalin viewed Marr's opinions as inimical to Russian patriotism. Either way, Okladnikov's support for Marr lost him his job and he subsequently had to resign from the editorial boards of several journals. He was fortunate that the repercussions were no worse: his relatively humble origins may have benefitted him. Okladnikov now returned to a life of exploration.
Konopatskii is keen to defend Okladnikov from critics such as Formozov who view him as having been overly subservient to the dominant ideology. Konopatskii argues that Okladnikov's references to Marr were no more than ritually obligatory: “as the head of the Leningrad Branch of IIMK he could not refuse to give an annual report, and it was impossible not to mention the name of N. Ya. Marr” (p. 165). This, however, is not entirely convincing, given that during an interview in 1981, included in the volume as an appendix, Okladnikov refers to Marr as “My spiritual teacher” (p. 327). At this point Konopatskii records in a footnote that Okladnikov probably admired Marr's “Colossal erudition, contribution to archaeology [and] ability to find cultural analogies imperceptible to others” (p. 327). That may be true (albeit that the last of these compliments is somewhat ambiguous)—his admiration for Marr may have been significant—but then should we believe that his earlier praise of Marr was only lip service?
That note of doubt notwithstanding, I look forward to the second volume. This biography of Okladnikov sheds light on both his adventurous life and Soviet archaeology in general, which is still little known in the West.
