Indigenous Minorities in the Contemporary Ethnopolitical Space of the Altai Republic

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of contemporary ethnopolitical processes in the Altai Republic. It is based on a polyparadigm approach and a wide range of sources. In the 1980–1990s, a number of organizations emerged in the Altai Republic; they represented the interests of the region’s minorities: the Kumandins, Chelkans, Tubalars, Teleuts. These groups, which were assessed as subethnoses in the academic and social-journalistic discourse, had crisis parameters in the preservation of languages and cultures, but demonstrated a high level of political activity. In the 2000s, the Kumandins, Chelkans, Tubalars, and Teleuts’ political choice was made in favor of the status of indigenous small peoples, which did not prevent them from considering themselves as a part of the Altai community as a whole. The authors’ study showed that the priorities of ethnic structuring of the Altai’s ethnopolitical space in the 2000s combined with integration trends. The realization of the rights of the indigenous peoples of the Altai Republic formed a new socio-cultural and ethno-political reality. The characteristic features of this reality are: activation of the national and ecological-cultural movement of indigenous small peoples and mobilization of ethnicity, cultural and linguistic identity; multi-level nature of identity. By analyzing the socio-cultural and ethno-political practices of the indigenous small peoples of the Altai Republic, the article demonstrates that despite all the difficulties associated with preserving the unity of the republican community, the movement of the region’s indigenous minorities has built a system of effective dialogue with the state and the regional community, taking into account Russian and international political and legal support.