Portrait of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)

Located on the Eurasian continent in the far northeastern region of Siberia, the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) is bounded to the north by the Arctic Ocean. Occupying a fifth of the RF's territory with its area of 3,101,200 km², Sakha-Yakutia has nearly 60% of its territory designated as being located in the ‘north’, with 40% to the north of the Arctic circle. It extends over 2500 km from east to west, includes three time zones, and stretches about 2000 km from north to south.

According to statistics from the last census in 2002, the population breakdown was as follows: Sakha 432,290, Russians 390,290, Ukrainians 34,633, Evenki 18,232, Evens 11,657, Buryats 7266, Dolgans 1272, and Yukagirs 1097. In total the Sakha-Yakutia hosts more than 120 nationalities. The Sakha are the most numerous amongst the Siberian peoples. Breeders of horses and cattle, they live along the rivers, mainly in central Sakha-Yakutia. They belong culturally and linguistically to pan-Turkic central Asia, while maintaining a unique position: first, because they come from the Altay area where lived Turks and Mongols and, secondly, because they are one of the few non-Islamised Turkic peoples. In this northern area, they are considered as native people but not as indigenous. Other Siberian peoples, often referred to as ‘Siberian minorities’ or as ‘indigenous people’, also live in the territory of Sakha-Yakutia. The Evenki are reindeer herders and hunters who inhabit the south and the north-western Olenyok river region. The Evens live in the mountainous Verkhoyansk area where they breed reindeer, and in the Kolyma region of the northeast. Some Yukagir and Chukchi fishermen and reindeer herders live in the north along the Indigirka and Kolyma Rivers. Dolgans, reindeer herders speaking the Sakha language, live in the northwest.

In recent times, the Sakha nation has been very dynamic and powerful within this group of Siberian peoples. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, the Sakha government tried to develop its own voice independent of the central authorities in Moscow. The Autonomous Republic of Yakutia was quick to proclaim its sovereignty on 27 September 1990 (Argunova Reference Argunova2001; Balzer Reference Balzer, Kotkin and Wolff1995), and to suggest a new name for itself, the Republic of Sakha. This eponymous designation comes from Sakha epic stories in which the term appears in apposition with the name ‘Uryankhay’, a name designating the Turkic peoples influenced by Mongolian culture, for example the Tuvan people living in southern Siberia call themselves Tuva Uryankhay. At this time, the Sakha were looking for a link to the Turkic peoples from central Asia and, for this reason, they used the name ‘Sakha’, dismissing the Russian term ‘Yakutia’ to brackets. In post-Soviet Russia, Boris Yeltsin allowed greater territorial autonomy. From the early 1990s until the early 2000s, the dialogue between Russia and the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) was officially one based upon a relationship of balance and respect, though internal social tensions between ethnic Sakha and Russians emerged in the regional capital Yakutsk. During the years that followed the end of the communist period, the indigenous peoples of Russia acquired rights that they had never had before. In the republic, these rights were supported by the vivacity of the cultural revival, as will be shown later, that was itself made possible by the most significant law proposed by the Sakha constitution: in particular the political and economic control over specific natural resources, such as gold, diamonds, coal, gas and the precious mammoth tusks by Sakha-Yakutia allowed indigenous institutions in the republic to develop. An interesting situation now occurred: the Sakha people, a people not identified by Russian law as indigenous [korennoy], suddenly found themselves the protector of the rights of indigenous Siberian peoples living in their territory. We must mention a point that can trouble the analysis if comparing the RF constitution and the Yakut one. Indeed the term korennoy [meaning ‘indigenous’] is the only one used in Russian law, when the Yakut law on the indigenous peoples (Zakon. . .2003) uses also the term aborigen [aboriginal] or abogennyj etnos for meaning ‘native’ or ‘indigenous’ and designating Dolan, Yukagir, Chukchi, Evenk and Even people.

Citizenship, nationality and indigenousness

In order to establish a dialogue between the government and society, an assembly of peoples of Sakha-Yakutia was created by the republic in 1997. Its main purpose was to strengthen and consolidate the national unity of the peoples of the republic within the framework of building a civic and democratic society. The republic considers it necessary to form a social community incorporating the citizens of Sakha-Yakutia [Yakutyane] as part of the republic's government in parallel to the similar project of Russia [citizens as rossiyane]. Indeed, there exists within the republic the same distinction between citizenship [grazhdanstvo] and nationality [natsional'nost] that exists in RF, under which an ethnic Russian [russkiy] is simultaneously a rossiyan when it is question of citizenship. Thus, a Russian living in Sakha-Yakutia can have Russian ethnicity [russkiy] and Sakha citizenship [Yakutyan], while an ethnic Sakha residing in Moscow can have Sakha ethnicity [Sakha or Yakut] while still enjoying Russian citizenship [rossiyan] without any contradiction. Today, this distinction of a few years ago was weakened when ethnicity was no longer written into the Russian [rossiyskiy] internal passport.

One has to remember an interesting fact that has importance for the indigenous peoples nowadays protected by the Sakha. During Soviet times, below the nation [natsiya] a hierarchic division appeared between ‘nationalities’ [natsional'nosti] and ‘ethnic groups’ [narodnosti] that had an impact on the native peoples. This distinction created the basis for the Leninist policy known as ‘ethnic federalism’, supporting non-Russian peoples in the civil war, which provides territorial autonomy for 44 ethnic groups. There are 35 ‘titular nations’ living in 21 republics, 7 autonomous districts and 1 autonomous province. A titular nation is related with a territorial ‘homeland’ named after it, although it largely comprise less than a third of the total population. These ‘titular nations’ are not considered ‘national minorities’ because they are the majority in their territory. The Sakha are the titular nation of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) while the other Siberian peoples (Evens, Evenki, Dolgans, Yukagirs and Chukchi) have a status of national minorities. According to Yakut law, these peoples, as we explained before, are not only considered as natives [korennye narody], or more precisely ‘Native small numbered peoples’ [korennye malotshislennye narody], but as aboriginal [aborigeny] because they are less numerous than 50,000 people. Taking into account the number of inhabitants, which is one of the criteria used to define the status of an indigenous people according to Russian law, indigenous status was supposed to give these ethnic groups more social advantages than the Sakha people. However, indigenous peoples had poor access to economic development because they live generally in remote areas, far from cities, the administration and the transport infrastructure.

In the 1990s, the republics, autonomous provinces and districts had the power to enact their own laws and policies allowing some regions to grant special status to the national minorities. This was the case in Sakha-Yakutia, which created an official ‘national region’ for the Even minority in the north of the republic, the Eveno-Bytantay region. Even if, apart from the Sakha and Russian languages, no other language in Sakha received the status of ‘state language’, the republic passed local legislation recognising as ‘official languages’ Evenki, Even, the Chukchi and Yukagir in areas where these minorities live compactly (Ministers’ Deputies 2006: article 192). Unfortunately, this language policy's effectiveness is questionable, because, for example, the Even dialect spoken in the Eveno-Bytantay region disappeared in 2010 with the death of the last local speaker. However, even if there is a chasm between theory and reality, the Sakha government continues to promote the development of indigenous peoples’ culture and economy on the territory of the republic. But what are its motives?

Cultural revival and animistic peoples

With the end of Soviet Union, organisations defending the rights of indigenous peoples were created. In 1991, Sakha opened a Ministry of the Minorities of the North and a few years later, in 1996 at the federal level, a Russia-wide Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East was established. The first president of Sakha, Mikhail Nikolaev, was an ethnic Sakha. Convinced that without tradition there is no spirituality, no ethnic or national culture, he founded the Academy of Spirituality, the goal of which is to revive the traditions and spirituality of the peoples of the republic. Reinventing traditions and referring to the ancestors, the new religious practices based on pre-Soviet rituals became an emblem of identity for all the Siberian peoples of Sakha-Yakutia. Rejecting old communism and new Orthodox Christianity, shamanism became a symbol, parallel with the transformation of ethnic symbol of the sovereignty. Animistic beliefs were a common characteristic of the Siberian peoples of the republic, bridging the divide between ‘titular’ and ‘indigenous’ peoples in the territory.

After seventy years of Soviet repression, cultural renewal can only be managed as a reinvention of tradition, from working with the memories of elders and through research into archival and ethnographic literature. Finally free to practice new rituals, Siberian peoples have reorganised festivals, which are a modification of those from the pre-Soviet period. For example, the celebration of the Sakha ‘Ysyakh’ (from ys: to spray) clan feast, when fermented mare's milk is sprayed in the direction of the sun and herd in order to pray for fertility, has become the Sakha ‘National Day’: sun worship is practiced while the horse has disappeared as a central element in the traditional festival. This old Sakha festival is becoming, under pressure from Yakutsk municipality, a celebration for all the citizens of the republic, assimilating the indigenous peoples into rituals specific to Sakha culture.

In early 1990s, Sakha-Yakutia chose a horse and rider as the symbol of the republic, inspired by a rock painting along the banks of the Lena river. This represents only Sakha breeders of horse and cattle (Maj Reference Maj2007). Since 2002, however, an unofficial figure emerged: the mammoth, a more unifying figure for the Sakha and indigenous minorities living in northern areas.

Despite the process of aboriginal cultural revival, the republic has not forgotten its historic union with Russia. In 2007 it celebrated 375 years of the ‘entry of Yakutia into the Russian Empire’. On this occasion it set up in the old town a monument to Pyotr Beketov, the Cossack who founded Yakutsk in 1632. At 33.4 meters tall, the monument is in the form of a Sakha ritual tethering post [serge] topped with an Orthodox cross and placed on a base representing a church. This monument, seen as a symbol of friendship between peoples, refers to the union of Christians with animist peoples, with a focus on Sakha who are the titular people of the republic. Nevertheless, its design is not without problems.

In the republic of Sakha (Yakutia), official relations between Orthodoxy and shamanism remain problematic. In the 1990s, intellectuals and supporters of neo-traditional religions accused the Sakha President Nikolaev of not supporting his people and to have lost his kut, that is to say, his soul. According to them, he was pro-Russian and pro-Orthodox because his mother was not Sakha (Shchipkov Reference Shchipkov1998). It is true that during his term, when the president was speaking of religion, he evoked the heritage of Orthodoxy. He made spirituality the foundation of the Sakha revival. But he redefined it by failing to designate shamanism as a religion as such, only invoking common moral values and the notion of the union of man with nature (Yamada Reference Yamada1994). Shamanism, formerly treated by the Communists as ‘primitive’ and ‘savage’, was not recognised as the Siberian peoples’ religion and Nikolaev too did not talk about it or about system of believes.

Since the end of the Soviet period, religion not only filled the spiritual vacuum caused by the destruction of Soviet ideology, but was also seen as a means to oppose it. Thus, says the head of the Sakha cultural society Kut-Sur (founded in 1993): ‘Christianity and Marxism have destroyed man for centuries (. . .). Man must cease to feel himself as the puppet of social and economic forces: he must feel, as then, as one of the fundamental elements of the world, such as water, fire or water. That is his true nature. This truth, we can now bring to our people and, perhaps, we will bring to humanity’ (Shchipkov Reference Shchipkov1998: 127).

By reinventing traditions and referring to nature and ancestors, common to all the Siberian peoples of Sakha-Yakutia, the new rituals based on pre-Soviet traditions have become an emblem unifying the native peoples of the republic. Shamanism has become a symbol of the republic's changing sovereignty and independence for not only the Sakha people, but for all the Siberian peoples in this territory by its rejection of communism and Orthodox Christianity.

Using Arctic peoples

Strongly integrated into Russian society, the Sakha are trying to develop other types of alliances to the north and south. The Sakha are thought to have originated from the Lake Baikal area, and are not regarded as one of the forty indigenous [korennye malotshislennnye or aborigeny] peoples of Russia because they number over 50,000 individuals (Stammler-Gossmann Reference Stammler-Gossmann2009) but are only considered as natives [korennye]. The Sakha are interested by the status of indigenous. In 1991, during the first Sakha presidency, Sakha-Yakutia contributed to the creation of an NGO, the ‘Northern Forum’, linking ten Arctic regions in Russia, Finland, Canada and Alaska (Hasanat in press). This organisation aims to contribute to the peace, stability and development of Arctic regions and to eliminate, through the creation of inter-regional and international structures, the division between east and west within the whole Arctic region. Through this affiliation with countries of similar natural landscape and climate, Sakha gains new visibility on the international stage, particularly when discussing the problems related to global warming. Nikolaev, published many books during the 1990s (Nikolaev Reference Nikolaev and Mousalimas1997) and gave speeches focusing on the northern location of the republic. Indeed, in the contemporary context when environmental issues and questions relating to the exploitation of natural resources give rise to important debates, this alliance between the northern peoples is interpreted as a strategic, political and economic union.

An interesting fact that demonstrates the use of ‘northernness’ of the republic in its policies should be mentioned. In July 2009, a three-day conference entitled ‘Civilisation in museums around the circumpolar world: yesterday, tomorrow, today’ took place on a guided boat cruise along the Lena river. This conference assembled a hundred representatives of various countries, half of whom belonging to the museum administration of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The purpose of the conference was to estimate the contribution of museums in expanding knowledge about the Arctic peoples. Following the conference, Sakha representatives of the UNESCO delegation and members of the government of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) decided to set up a committee and signed together a text called ‘Circumpolar resolutions’ encouraging collaboration between museums to promote the cultural heritage of the north, the establishment of scientific and educational publications, and the creation of media libraries and scientific institutes to study the lifestyles of Arctic peoples.

This ‘polarisation of the pole’ in Sakha has raised certain objections amongst participants, because no members of the indigenous minorities from northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland were present. ‘We have just formed a starting committee. In the future, all countries of the North will of course be invited to participate’, said the head of the local UNESCO delegation at a conference held in Yakutsk in August 2009. This apparent willingness to go on alone, however, can find justification in the current policy of the RF.

Entirely confined to the area occupied by the Siberian permafrost where almost half of the territory is to the north of the Arctic Circle, the republic, whose territory extends to cover over 1/5th of the RF, is an economic powerhouse and a place of strategic geopolitical importance for Russia. Effectively known since the 1960s for its huge deposits of gold and diamonds, it also houses still under-exploited reserves of gas and oil. Moreover, the wide coast of the Laptev Sea can be exploited in the commercial development of the northern sea route.

In early 1990s, the republic experienced several years of comparative wealth thanks to the abundance of revenues from natural resource, because of the law on state sovereignty of the republic's claimed all this wealth. However, since Vladimir Putin came to power in 2002, revenues have been sent to Moscow, which in turn pays a dividend to the republic. In addition, in May 2009 the Sakha parliament ‘Il Tumen’ ‘freely accepted’ removing the article claiming state sovereignty from the republic's constitution. This reversal is likely to be exacerbated by the transformation of administrative divisions and the replacement of presidents by governors which could economically and politically disadvantage Yakutia.

In the context of economic globalisation, the claim of indigenous status is a way for indigenous peoples to assert their emancipation in modernity in a way that they can protect their culture and territory. Sakha-Yakutia permits indigenous peoples to promote its image on the international scene, even if inside the country the Sakha population remains the main one, enjoying the greatest proportion of the economic benefits. Indigenousness has become a political instrument for the Sakha people that is more efficient, or at least less dangerous to the Russian administration, than the idea of pan-Turkic solidarity.

As a Turkic people strongly integrated within northern Russia, the Sakha belong to three cultural areas: the Russian, the Turkic and the Arctic areas. Economically and politically dynamic, the Sakha people are trying to escape Russian domination in two directions. The first choice is to establish an alliance with the peoples of central Asia, or even further with Turkey. But Russia's distrust of pan-Turkism as a propagator of Islam and the closure of the Sakha-Turkic school in Yakutsk by the Republic of Sakha prevents the Sakha from engaging more deeply with the Turkic world. For this reason, the Arctic alternative is more realistic as northern peoples constitute a smaller risk to the RF, and this relationship can actually be regarded as a positive development considering the strong positions taken on the international scene by the Saami and Inuit. The question of the status of indigenous peoples of the north has been growing and has yet to destabilise or frighten Russia. Thus, this seems to be the best way for the Sakha Republic to promote its image for the international community, through the rehabilitation of indigenous peoples in the world and the transformation of the ‘primitive savage’ into a ‘noble people’ living in harmony with nature. For this reason, Sakha-Yakutia uses the image of Arctic peoples outside its frontiers to attract the support of indigenous peoples abroad, such as American Indians, Inuit or Saami, elevating its position both at home and globally.