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ABSTRACT
This article seeks to understand the Festival of the North in Murmansk as an event incorporating different logics of design and political projects. It pays particular attention to the reindeer races and their changing historical significance, and puts forward the argument that the spontaneity of the reindeer races provides for the constant renewal of meanings attached to them and thus for the longevity of the festival. Combining a historical overview of available written sources with empirical observations from the 78th Festival of the North in Murmansk, the article examines the reindeer races through the notion of “indigenous sports” as applied in local context. In this way it complements the existing body of scholarly works on indigenous cultural festivals and on the Festival of the North within the context of the reindeer-herding practice.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. In the early years of the Bolshevik regime the attention of the authorities was directed towards the minorities and especially their historical development progress, seen as the main premise for consolidation of nationhood (Martin Citation2001, 6).
2. People-to-people diplomacy refers to the role of contacts between private citizens in interstate relations. During the Cold War such diplomacy between Norway and the Soviet Union took place in the North, between the province of eastern Finnmark and Murmansk County. In it, sports competitions played a major part (Bones Citation2015).
3. After the breakdown of the Soviet Union, the political search for common identity resulted in the term “multiethnic civic nation” (Tishkov Citation2003; Shevel Citation2011).
4. The first reindeer races in Norway were also organized by a foreigner, a Belgian in 1936. Later they were also held in conjunction with the Easter holidays by sport organizations and to attract tourists. The races included participants from Norway, Sweden and Finland, and even had a category for tourists (Hætta Citation2016).
5. White Army: the military forces of the anti-Bolshevik, counter-revolutionary movement, supported by some Western powers and military units in the northern part of Russia: the towns of Murmansk, Arkhangelsk and Omsk in Siberia.
6. During WWII the Red Army used reindeer transport battalions. They were used to transport provisions and ammunitions to the front line, and bring back casualties from the front line.
7. At that time, the main income was from fishing and reindeer herding. The products were sold to middlemen or residents in the coastal settlements and the town of Kola, where the Sami used to come and sell their products (Materialy po statisticheskomu 1902).
8. The Committee of the North (Komitet Severa) is short for Committee for the Assistance to the People of the Northern Borderlands, a special governmental committee whose main task was to involve the indigenous northern populations in the Soviet construction, to assist their development and defend their interests. The Council for Physical Culture (Sovet fizkultury): an administrative body that organized the scientific, educational and organizational questions for the physical education of the labourers.
9. See “Pervye olenye bega” Karelo-Murmanskiy Kray no. 4–5 (April–May) 1929, 47. These two descriptions of the races from the same journal also show two more nuanced perspectives on the concerns taken into account in the organization. The author of the first one, Aron Arnoldov, was the head of the railway, and his work was directed primarily to intensify the development of the region. The second report, written by V. Alymov who was the head of the statistical bureau, but also an ethnographer, shows more interest in and concern with the local Sami people. Nonetheless, both of them became victims of the purges in 1937–1938.
10. Sergey Kirov was the head of the Communist Party in Leningrad. In December 1934 he was assassinated and his assassination was used as a pretext for the first large-scale Stalinist purges.
11. In 1926 the Murmansk region (128,500 sq. km) was scarcely populated – 23,006 people, most of them living in the towns of Murmansk and Kola, but also in small coastal settlements. In the interior there were only a few settlements of reindeer-herding Sami and Komi people.
12. The governmental organization in charge for the navigation on the Northern Sea Route, predecessor of the Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route.
13. In Russian, natsional'nyye vidy sporta, or national sports, are defined as “historically developed within the ethnic groups’ sports, having a socio-cultural dimension and practiced on the territory of the Russian Federation”.
14. Korenizatsiya: the Soviet policy of educating native cadres who understood the way of life, customs, and habits of the local population, and would make Soviet power seem indigenous rather than an external Russian imperial imposition (Martin Citation2001).
15. Skijoring (from the Norwegian – skikjøring) is a winter sport or recreation activity in which a skier is towed by an animal or vehicle over snow or ice.
17. Abbreviation from Vystavka Dostizheniy Narodnogo Khozyaystva (Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy); this is a large exhibition, museum and recreation complex, situated in Moscow.