In 2014, the National Heritage Board of Estonia began the procedure for declaring the town centre of the former Soviet secret uranium town of Sillamäe in Northeast Estonia a heritage conservation area. The process is expected to be finalised in 2023, making it the first area where Soviet architecture would be under protection in Estonia. By approaching the town theoretically and methodologically as a heritagescape where components of tangible landscape are used to create a distinct place of the past, looking at how the town’s official development policy relates to the existing representations of the past in the town’s memory institutions, and interviewing local stakeholders, this article provides a broader and more nuanced understanding of Sillamäe and its tourism potential. Sillamäe as heritagescape offers tourists the chance to experience a curated version of the Soviet era and contemplate on the legacy of nuclear industry, while remaining in the safety of a resort town in the periphery of the European Union.
This article focuses on the possibilities created through provenance research in the museum. Setting out current interest in provenance research against the backdrop of antiracist and decolonial movements such as Black Lives Matter and Rhodes Must Fall, the article focuses specifically on the history of research in ethnographic museums shaped by legislative acts such as NAGPRA in the USA, critical thinking about representational practices in anthropology, and collaborative work with originating communities. Using the Siberian collection acquired by Maria Czaplicka in 1914 and held at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford as a case study, I argue that broad-ranging and open-ended provenance research akin to anthropological fieldwork allows to uncover different narratives pertaining to museum objects. It enables to understand why and how the objects were brought to the museum, the kinds of epistemic realities they have helped to build but also to attend to different cultural meanings and realities embedded in these objects. A close historical study of the Czaplicka collection has added to our understanding of the nature of ethnographic research in the early 20th century, brought to attention immoral acquisition of grave goods and human remains during the Siberian expedition but also highlighted close relations between ethnographers and their Indigenous hosts. Contemporary fieldwork in Siberia and creative engagement with the collection have further broadened the understanding of the origin of these objects in relation to Evenki worldview and lived experience. Through such nuanced research, a “thick description” emerges that enables a museum interpretation that can speak to the emergence of drifts and fault lines in the society, bring different worldviews into one space, and within that space address topics of global concern.
The University of Oxford Siberian expedition (1914–1915) led by Maria Czaplicka brought to the United Kingdom knowledge and objects from the little‐known Yenise region in Siberia. The photographs taken during this expedition exemplify the uncertain role of photography in anthropology at this time and speak of the possibilities afforded by the abundance of the medium. Comparing the photographic outputs of the expedition to those of the first British generation of field‐working ethnographers and Arctic explorers, this article examines early ethnographic photography as a form of translation aimed at diverse audiences.
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