The ADC Memorial continues to address the issues facing indigenous peoples in its anti-discrimination podcast.
The guest of the twelfth episode of “Connected” is Vyacheslav Shadrin, Chief of the Yukaghir Council of Elders and an expert on the rights of Indigenous Peoples of the North. We spoke with him ahead of a discussion organized by ADC Memorial in Warsaw, focusing on protection against discrimination and equal opportunities for all in the context of debates about a postcolonial future.
The Yukaghirs are one of the Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the North. According to the 2020 census, their population is 1,813. More than 80% of Yukaghirs live in the Kolyma districts of Yakutia, while the rest live in Chukotka and Magadan Oblast. Of the 14 Yukaghir tribes that inhabited these lands before the arrival of the Russians, only two remain: the Tundra Yukaghirs and the Forest Yukaghirs. Their languages are so different that speakers cannot understand one another. Fewer than 30 people, mostly elderly, speak Yukaghir fluently. Many linguists describe the language as “dormant.” According to Vyacheslav Shadrin, the Yukaghirs have been considered a disappearing people for nearly 200 years, yet they continue to survive.
Vyacheslav Shadrin describes the Yukaghirs as one of the most striking examples of peoples devastated by the colonial policies of the Russian Empire. In the 17th century, epidemics reduced their population severalfold. Colonial authorities took chiefs and shamans as amanats (hostages) to force the rest of the population to pay yasak (tribute). In the 1730s, Yukaghirs accounted for approximately two-thirds of all amanats—around 170 people, or nearly 10% of the entire population. Women taken away by Cossacks and settlers accounted for up to another 10%. Yukaghirs were used as guides, interpreters, and reindeer drivers during military campaigns, and most never returned home. Yakut legends called the northern lights “Yukaghir fires”: there were so many Yukaghir campfires that their light was said to be reflected in the sky. Today, there are around half a million Yakuts, approximately 50,000 Evens and Evenks, and fewer than 2,000 Yukaghirs.
Today, the Yukaghirs face pressure to assimilate from two, and in some places three, directions: from Russians, Yakuts, and neighboring peoples. The Yukaghirs occupied the lowest position in the colonial hierarchy, so people from mixed families often registered themselves as belonging to another ethnic group. As recently as the late 1980s, many children were ashamed to identify as Yukaghir. The population has increased from 443 in 1959 to 1,813 today. According to Vyacheslav Shadrin, this growth primarily reflects people reclaiming their Yukaghir identity.
The Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the North have never sought to establish their own states. For them, self-determination means genuine self-government. Since the early 1990s, Yakutia has had a unique law on suktuls, the nomadic communities of the Yukaghir people. Today, the law has been largely stripped of its substance, and the suktuls themselves have almost no rights. Vyacheslav Shadrin believes that both state paternalism and the “small people mentality” among the Yukaghirs themselves must be overcome:
“We ourselves must stop being objects of politics. We must become political actors. This is the most important aspect of decolonization.”
Sound design: Ostap Kukhar
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Text version of the podcast
We are publishing the transcript of the ‘Сonnected’ podcast. The text has been slightly edited for readability.
— Hello everyone! You’re listening to Connected — a podcast from the Memorial Anti-Discrimination Centre about the rights of Indigenous peoples. Joining us today is Vyacheslav Shadrin, a leader of the Yukaghir people and an expert on the rights of Indigenous peoples of the North.
It’s a pleasure to have you with us. In the coming days, you’ll be taking part in our discussion in Warsaw on protection against discrimination and ensuring equal opportunities for each and every person, in the context of ongoing discussions about a postcolonial future. And I’d like to begin our conversation by asking what you’ll be bringing to this discussion, what you’re planning to talk about there and what you want to convey to the other participants. Just a reminder that the discussion is being organised by the Anti-Discrimination Centre Memorial.
— The way you introduced me has already outlined the range of issues, or the position, that I’ll be representing. This is, of course, the situation of the Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, since I am a representative of the Yukaghir people.
Well, perhaps I should say a little about my people, just as an introduction, so that our listeners have some understanding of who we are.
The Yukaghirs are one of the Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North. According to the 2020 census, our population is 1,813. Some might think that’s a small number, but I believe that over the past 50 years the Yukaghir population has grown considerably and become more secure.
If we start with the 1970 census, we can see steady growth throughout that period. And today, as I said, the population stands at 1,813 according to the 2020 census.
We live in the far north-east of Russia, in three regions. Mainly in Yakutia, in the Kolyma districts, where the majority — more than 80% of Yukaghirs — live. We also live in Chukotka and in one district of Magadan Oblast. So those are the three regions of the far north-east.
It’s immediately clear that we live in extreme natural conditions. It’s also clear that we maintain our traditional ways of using natural resources — reindeer herding, hunting and fishing. We live on our ancestral lands, preserve our identity and preserve our language.
— The territories where the Yukaghir people live are extensive, really enormous, spread across three different regions. Do the Yukaghirs in different regions differ from one another in their language or way of life?
— By the time the Russians arrived, the Yukaghirs consisted of 14 tribes. Since then, only two Yukaghir tribes, two Yukaghir peoples, have survived. Today these are the Tundra Yukaghirs and the Forest Yukaghirs.
And their languages differ so much from one another that the Forest Yukaghirs cannot understand the Tundra Yukaghirs.
Unfortunately, the other Yukaghir tribes have not survived to the present day. There are only descendants of the Chuvans living in Chukotka, but they had already lost their language by the 19th century.
They lived across different, very extensive territories. And naturally, there were significant differences in their traditional livelihoods. For example, the main occupation of the Tundra Yukaghirs is reindeer herding, while the Forest Yukaghirs mainly engage in hunting and fishing.
And, accordingly, this also has an influence. In other words, there are many significant differences, including cultural ones. But fundamentally, we nevertheless recognise that we are one people with common roots, and that sense of unity remains.
So despite our small population of 1,813, even within the people itself we can distinguish several ethnic groups with their own characteristics and differences. And this makes the whole situation even more difficult.
For example, when we produce textbooks now, we have to produce them in two Yukaghir languages — Forest Yukaghir and Tundra Yukaghir. International classifications refer to them as Southern Yukaghir and Northern Yukaghir.
The language situation is not very good. Although, according to the census, almost a quarter of our people say they know the language, the reality is that fewer than 30 speakers remain today.
In the opinion of many philologists, it is already a dormant language, because the speakers I mentioned are mostly elderly people.
Even among people of my generation, say those aged around 50, there are practically no such speakers left. There are people like me who have learnt the language, know it and can hold a conversation, but we no longer think in our native language.
For probably 200 years now, the Yukaghirs have been regarded as a disappearing people. And at one point, people even believed that we no longer existed.
And every researcher over this period has always written, or continues to write, about this. For example, a hundred years ago, Jochelson wrote something along these lines: “I have the thankless task of introducing you to a people whose language has already disappeared and who themselves are on the verge of extinction. I think the last generation is simply living out its remaining years.”
That’s how people have always thought.
Indigenous small-numbered peoples are most often affected by processes of assimilation not just by one ethnic community, for example, Russians. Yes, in many regions, in most regions, it is Russians. But the thing is that we live in multi-ethnic territories.
For example, most Yukaghirs live in Yakutia. And in Yakutia, as you know, the titular people are the Yakuts. So we live alongside them in the same territories. This means that we experience double assimilation.
On the one hand, there is Russian influence, which has a very strong impact and is displacing our native language. But at the same time, we are also being assimilated by the Yakut people. And the Yakuts are not to blame for this. It is simply, you understand, a natural consequence of living together.
They are closer to us because they also live in the same areas and follow a similar way of life. And as a result, assimilation by the Yakuts is even stronger.
Unlike many other peoples, the problem of preserving their identity is even more acute for the Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, precisely because they face not just pressure from one direction, but pressure from two, and in some places even three.
That is one point.
The second point is that throughout their history, the Yukaghirs have, of course, constantly been on the move, settling in different places. And there are still debates about where they originally emerged as a people.
Nevertheless, we can assume that it was most likely in the south-west of Eastern Siberia, somewhere in Krasnoyarsk Krai. That was where the ancient Yukaghir people formed. And from there, they spread further east and north-east.
By the time the Russians arrived in the 17th century, they had already been displaced from most of this territory. Because a thousand years earlier, the well-known Evenki, or Tungusic, colonisation had begun, spreading across practically the whole of Siberia. And the Yukaghirs were pushed further towards the north-east.
Then the Yakuts arrived, and they also displaced them. So in the 17th century, when the Russians arrived, they encountered the Yukaghirs only in the north-eastern part of Yakutia, from the Lena River further north-east, across practically the entire north-east, including the whole of Chukotka.
And here we can say that the Yukaghirs are one of the clearest examples of victims of the colonial policies of Russia, of the Russian state and later the empire.
Naturally, on the one hand, there was the policy of colonisation itself, involving military clashes that really did lead to the destruction of people.
On the other hand, there were new diseases and viruses brought from completely different places, which the bodies of the local population were not prepared for. And several epidemics, one after another, even in the 17th century — smallpox, for example — reduced the Yukaghir population several times over.
Another aspect of this colonial policy was the so-called amanat system. Amanats were hostages. The most prominent members of the community, shamans and chiefs, were taken away so that those who remained would pay yasak, or tribute, and remain in submission.
And in the case of the Yukaghirs, the numbers were particularly significant. While the hostages, or amanats, taken from other peoples might be considered little more than a statistical margin of error, according to records from the 1730s, two-thirds of all the amanats held in fortified settlements at that time were Yukaghirs.
That was around 170 people. For the Yukaghir population at the time, that was about 10%.
But you have to understand that these were mainly men, mainly leaders and chiefs, the people who led their communities. Most of them died while being held as hostages.
Another practice was the taking of captives, known as yasyr. The Cossack detachments and others who came there, as well as new tribes arriving as a result of migration… Enormous migration processes followed the incorporation of these territories into the Russian state.
They arrived in new places, and these newcomers were mainly men. And naturally, women were the main captives they sought. They took women from the local peoples.
And this became so widespread that both at the end of the 17th century and in the first half of the 18th century, there were special letters, even appeals from the Church, saying that huge numbers of Cossacks themselves, baptised Cossacks, were living in sinful relationships with unbaptised female captives, or yasyrki.
And once again, it turns out that the majority of these women were Yukaghirs — between 100 and 200 women. Again, as a percentage of the population of the people themselves, that was up to 10%.
So if we add all this together, we get a picture in which, at the beginning of the 18th century, around 20% of the people of what we might call the most fertile, active age group had been taken away from their people.
The Yukaghirs were constantly used as, how shall I put it, a labour force, or as the people who accompanied Cossack detachments during the conquest of new territories.
On the one hand, they served as interpreters, known as tolmachi, and at the same time they provided transport, for example, and so on. In other words, they accompanied these expeditions with their reindeer.
And we know from documentary evidence that two expeditions each involved more than 150 Yukaghirs, most of whom never returned to their lands after setting out. Most of them died.
And they died not only at the hands of their so-called “masters”, in quotation marks, who forced them to go on these expeditions, but also at the hands of those against whom the Russian Cossacks were campaigning. The Chukchi, Koryaks and Itelmens, for example, regarded the Yukaghirs themselves as enemies because they accompanied their enemies and brought them into their territories.
And this, too, was a disaster for our people.
So we became victims of this colonial policy from different directions.
As a result, a people who, at the time of the Russians’ arrival, were considered numerous… There were even legends about this, Yakut legends, for example. They called the northern lights the Yukaghir fires.
Why? Because they said there were so many Yukaghirs, so many Yukaghir camps, that the light from their fires was reflected in the sky.
Look at the figures we have today: there are around 500,000 Yakuts, about half a million; around 50,000 Evens and Evenks combined; and 1,813 Yukaghirs.
We can say that our people are one of the victims of this entire colonial policy.
That is why this aspect of the discussion is very important to us. And it is important not only because we are victims, so to speak, in historical terms. We can also speak about this in the present day.
I have already said that our people are in a critical situation, including from an ethnic point of view.
— But at the same time, you say that the Yukaghir population is growing. How does that happen?
— When we talk about the factors that determine ethnicity, there are several factors that play a role.
Well, first of all, most often, when we ask someone, “What is your ethnicity?”, they might say, for example, “I’m Russian” or “I’m Yakut.” And if you ask, “Why?”, the first thing they’ll say is something like, “Because my parents, or one of my parents — my father or mother — are Russian or Yakut.” In other words, it’s the factor of kinship, of blood ties.
And I’ve already told you that the Yukaghir population has been growing steadily since 1970. In 1959, we reached our lowest recorded population — 443 Yukaghirs. And since then, just look, our numbers have increased more than fourfold.
This wasn’t an increase through natural population growth. To a large extent, it was about rediscovering our own identity.
There’s a reason why I keep using the word “assimilation”. We were being absorbed into many other peoples.
First of all, ever since colonial times, we were considered one of the so-called wandering peoples. We had a very low status, a low social status.
At that time, let’s say 200 years ago, for example, Russians were considered to have the highest status. Then, somewhat lower down, were the Yakuts. And below them were the nomadic reindeer-herding peoples — the Tungus, Evens and so on, the Chukchi. And at the very bottom were the Yukaghirs.
You see, this is the so-called colonial hierarchy. The Yukaghirs were also subject to the highest rate of yasak, or tribute.
And so, whenever they had the opportunity, in mixed marriages and so on, people preferred to register themselves as belonging to another ethnic group. And this further accelerated the absorption of our people into other peoples.
And this continued afterwards, even until quite recently.
When I started working at a school in the late 1980s, one of the signs I pointed to as evidence of the crisis was that most children were simply ashamed to identify themselves as Yukaghirs.
The status of our people was very low. Most families were ethnically mixed.
Naturally, they were mixed. We have our own internal prohibitions, for example: relatives within seven generations are not allowed to, how shall I put it, marry one another. And people tried to observe this rule, at least in the past.
Obviously, with such a small population, in recent years there probably can no longer be any question of families consisting entirely of Yukaghirs.
— I’d still like to return to the discussion you’ll be taking part in. We often hear representatives of Indigenous peoples saying that, in the future, they would like to see themselves as political actors in their own right. And I’d like you to tell me what the situation is in this respect for Indigenous small-numbered peoples, and whether it differs from the situation of more numerous peoples. We often include both groups under the term “Indigenous peoples”, treating them all together. But I think their situations are nevertheless different.
— Of course. The Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North have never raised the question of creating separate states or anything like that. We have never spoken about the break-up of Russia and so on.
We have always acted within Russia, within a unified Russian state.
But there are certain specific features.
The first is that, as I’ve already said, Indigenous small-numbered peoples most often live in multi-ethnic communities. Of course, some are surrounded only by Russians, but others, for example, are surrounded by several peoples.
Take the Izhma Komi, for example: they are influenced not only by Russians, but also by the Komi and the Nenets.
In other places, as with the Yukaghirs, we find ourselves under pressure from three or even four directions. It’s not only Russians and Yakuts, but also the more numerous Chukchi and Evens who live nearby.
When we talk about self-determination, we are talking precisely about our right to self-determination and about the opportunities available to us, in political terms, to establish certain national-territorial entities of our own.
In Yakutia, for example, there is a rather unique law — a law on self-government in Yukaghir territories, the law on the suktul of the Yukaghir people.
Of course, it has now been largely stripped of its substance. Today, it differs very little from the Russian law on local self-government.
But when it was introduced in the early 1990s, it contained a great many provisions.
First of all, it was a law on the local self-government of the Yukaghir people. It provided for direct subordination to the republican authorities, bypassing the district level.
It also provided for special programmes to support the language, culture and economy of the people, precisely in order to preserve them and ensure their further socio-economic development.
We constantly point out that we do have suktuls. There are two suktuls in territories where Yukaghirs make up a significant proportion of the population.
One is in Nelemnoye — the Nelemnoye Suktul, home to the Forest Yukaghirs. There, Yukaghirs make up the majority of the population.
And there is the Olyorinsky Suktul, where Yukaghirs make up only 30% of the population. This is in the Nizhnekolymsky District, and these are the Tundra Yukaghirs.
The suktuls exist, but they have practically no powers, like almost all municipalities in Russia.
And we say that local authorities, municipal authorities, must be given real powers. Especially forms of national-territorial self-government that represent Indigenous small-numbered peoples.
That is the first aspect.
And the second aspect is that, because of the term “small peoples”, we have come to see ourselves as small, and in our own minds we really do remain small peoples. In our own consciousness, our self-awareness, and even in how we position ourselves in relation to other peoples.
And I always say that this must be destroyed, uprooted completely — this mentality of being a little person, this mentality of being a small people.
We are a people just like any other people. We make just as valuable a contribution to the cultural and linguistic richness of our homeland, and not only our homeland, but of all humanity.
At one time, before 1980, the term “small peoples” was widely used. Even then, there was a famous slogan used by our leaders: “There are no small peoples.”
And we spoke about this, which is why the term was officially abandoned. And then the term “Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North” appeared everywhere, including in legislation.
The problem also exists within our own communities.
When we talk about decolonisation, I don’t mean the political aspect. When we talk about decolonisation, what I probably have in mind here is more of a psychological aspect.
On the one hand, there is the attitude of more numerous peoples. And I’m also talking about the self-awareness of our own people. This is something we need to overcome.
There are sometimes representatives of more numerous peoples who still retain a somewhat snobbish attitude.
Well, this is reflected in policy too.
It seems that they are accommodating us, that they are, so to speak… But notice that much of what I’ve been talking about is the fact that a policy of paternalism still persists.
After colonial policy, paternalism may be the next stage.
There is now a principle recognised around the world: “Nothing about us without us.” We can also put it this way: “Nothing about us without us.”
In other words, everything that is formulated, everything that is to be done on our territories, must be carried out with our views taken into account and with our participation.
We ourselves must stop being objects of policy. We must become subjects of policy.
That is the most important decolonial aspect.
The ‘Сonnected’ podcast series highlights the project ‘Indigenous Peoples’ Rights for a Democratic Future’, which is being implemented by INFOE (Institut für Ökologie und Aktions-Ethnologie e.V.), ICIPR (International Committee of Indigenous Peoples of Russia), the Never Again Association and the ADC Memorial, with the support of the German Federal Foreign Office.
