No 4 (2025)

The article is a brief introduction to the issue’s special theme focusing on the “Ethnography of Performing Arts”. This collection of articles is dedicated to the ethnography of dance and ritual theatre. It presents the contributions by M.V. Osipova (who analyzes traditional Ainu dance practices in contemporary Japan), S.I. Ryzhakova (an article on the transformation of martial practices into dance and stage performances in India), A.V. Kinyaeva (a study of Tazi’a phenomena in Iran and India), A.A. Glazovsksaya and S.V. Alferov (respectively, Irish and Scotish dances as both national and global phenomena) and characterizes them in the context of research into the performing arts of the particular communities and cultures in different countries of the world. 

Kinetic practices, which until recently were part of the daily internal practice of particular groups involved in martial art in India, are now coming onto the stage, have formed and continue to form a new format for their existence, concentrating on presentation to an audience – both inside the country, at various seminars and festivals, and broadly in the international arena. The traditions of Kalarippayattu, Thang-ta, Raibenshe and Natua are good examples of martial arts, whose sets of exercises that in today’s India are gradually becoming dance or stage performance. Drawing on extensive ethnographic material collected during the expeditions in 2002–2025 in India (West Bengal, Kerala and Manipur), I describe the changes that occurred in traditional martial practices in the 20th century. Each of the traditions analysed was until recently associated with a specific caste community and was practised in gymnasiums (such as the kalari of Kerala) or in the open air, with no audience intended for the application of the skills acquired. However, the change in the socio-economic picture and all the conditions of life, which became evident in the middle of the 20th century, required a transformation of the professional skills of the martial communities and the ways of their usage.

Ireland’s image in mass culture is closely associated with Irish dances, which are one of the country’s distinctive symbols. As a result of the success of the touring dance show “Riverdance” in 1994, Irish dances have long ceased to be considered to be only “Irish”. The Irish Dance World Championships are attended by over 6,000 dancers from around 30 countries. Riverdance still remains one of Ireland’s most profitable export products. The dance form that we see today on the stage, associated with Ireland, was developed at the beginning of the 20th century. This was a result of the country's quest for independence. Since then, however, its functions have changed in the modern world. When this dance became widely known on the global stage during a period of economic boom (the effect referred to as the Celtic Tiger), it became a reflection of global “western” trends that were completely opposed to established notions of how the dance should be performed: “past, catholic, rural” has been modified into a Broadway-style performance. This article investigates how a local cultural phenomenon, which is considered “folk dance” on stage, became an object of commodification in the 21st century, as well as the changes it has undergone (and continues to undergo).

The article is a publication and study of a recently discovered legend about the defense of the former Russian fortress Ross (now Fort Ross) by the Californian Kashaya Indians, told by the spiritual leader of the Kashaya Essie Parrish in the 20th century. The published text is analyzed in the article from the standpoint of today’s knowledge about the history of Fort Ross. The article notes the discrepancy between a number of important points of the legend and historical facts; however, in the author’s opinion, it is possible that the plot core of this story reflects an undocumented event that could have taken place only in the very early period after the sale of Ross, in early 1842. At the same time, regardless of its historical authenticity, the published legend is an important fact of the historical self-awareness of the Kashaya, whose ethnic history, which took place under the conditions of Russian colonization, is distinguished by great originality.

In this article, I dive into examination of an archival document shedding light on the mid-twentieth century editorial politics of the journal Sovetskaia etnografiia and, more generally, on the changes in interpreting Soviet ethnography’s key subjects and themes during the period of ideological debates in the late Stalin era. This is a memo which was prepared by the Department of Science and Culture of the Central Committee of USSR’s Communist Party in 1953 as an outcome of the assessment of work and activities of the journal. That assessment was initiated by the Division of History and Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Sciences after the decisions on national culture were issued at the 19th Congress of the Communist Party. It was also timed to the publication of Stalin’s writings on the economic problems of socialism and the place of Marxism in language studies. The very form of the memo and its specific omissions and misrepresentations let us better understand the currents of competition in Soviet academia in the 1950s. I argue that the memo’s target was Sergei Tolstov, then chief editor of the journal and director of the Institute of Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In the 2010s, a social movement emerged in Catalonia, inspired by the desire of a large group of residents of this autonomous region of Spain to resist regional separatists. The movement's participants insist on a deep and comprehensive - including cultural, linguistic, and historical - uniqueness of the inhabitants of the Barcelona and Tarragona area (Tabarnia) in comparison with other Catalans. On these grounds, they demand that they be recognized as a special people and that Tabarnia be separated from Catalonia as an autonomous community, which would remain part of the country regardless of the future fate of Catalonia. The article examines the process of constructing a new "imaginary community" and forming a sense of special identity in a population. It discusses the arguments, techniques, and technologies used in this case, considering the features dictated by the Spanish historical and political tradition, and shows the dependence of the development of events on the changing political context.

This article provides an interdisciplinary analysis of the interaction between genetic, neural, and cultural factors underlying key human capacities such as language, ritual, art, and complex social organization. The study is based on the concept of gene-culture coevolution, which demonstrates that culture can generate selective pressures while also being shaped by biological influences, forming a dynamic feedback loop between the two. Ethnographic examples from diverse contexts – including Andean and Tibetan highland societies, Nicaraguan sign languages, Aboriginal Australian practices, and Ugandan educational reforms – illustrate the variety of adaptive strategies. These cases show how culture can both compensate for and reinforce biological influences. Published field data on topics such as high-altitude adaptation, linguistic environments, and ritual systems highlight the importance of an interdisciplinary approach that integrates genetics, neurobiology, ethnography, and cultural anthropology. In conclusion, the study emphasizes that overcoming the simplistic nature versus nurture dichotomy requires acknowledging the synergy between biological and cultural mechanisms that drive the coevolution of cognitive and social capacities in Homo sapiens, particularly in the context of globalization and technological advancement.