Ero sivun Saami Studies: Russia / Soviet versioiden välillä

The heyday of research on the Kola Saamis was in the 1920s and 1930s, but it collapsed with Stalin s reign of terror. During the postwar period, the contents even of scientific texts were frequently coloured by Communist ideology. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the ideological burden has been shed, and many Russian scholars have been able to visit neighbouring countries and forge links with their counterparts in Saami studies there. To an increasing extent, their writings are also being published in the West. At the same time, Western researchers have been able to conduct field studies in the Kola Peninsula, often in cooperation with their Russian colleagues.

Up till now a drawback has been the lack of knowledge of each others languages among both Western and Russian scholars. In the West, few scholars speak Russian, while the knowledge of Western languages among Russian scholars has been weak, and carrying out research on the Kola Saamis is a rather hopeless task without a knowledge of Russian. Another problem is the fact that research on the Kola Saamis in Russia is published in numerous different places and in small editions, which makes finding them very much a matter of chance. A large number of articles on the Saami are published only in newspapers. For example, the Encyclopaedia of the Kola Peninsula (as it is called) was published only in a certain Murmansk newspaper.

In the West, too, it is possible to find articles on the Kola Saamis in the most surprising publications (Research History: Eastern Saami). For example, the travel accounts of a St Petersburg geologist called Wilhelm Bötlingk have recently turned up in an 1840 issue of Åbo Tidningar, an old Finnish newspaper. He undertook his journey in 1839, travelling from Ostrobothnia in Finland via Rovaniemi, the town of Kola, the Varanger Peninsula, Petsamo (Pechenga), Kildin Island, Ponoy, Varsuga and Kandalaksha to Lake Onega. The articles also contain information about the life of the Saami.

The most famous researhers on the Kola Saamis are in the 19th century:

• Nikolaj Haruzin,
• Alexandra Yakolevna Efimenko,
• Zachary Chernyakov,

• David Alexeyevich Zolotarevb,
• Vasiliy Kondratyevich Alymov,
• F.G. Ivanov-Dyatlov,
• Nikolai Nikolaevich Volkov
• and in the Post-war period Alexei Alexevich Kiselev,
• Ivor Fedorovich Ushakov,
• Tatyana Lukyachenko,
• Georgiy Martyrnoch Kert,
• Pekka Zaikov,
• Evigeniya Yakolevna Patsiya,
• Vladimir Ya. Shumkin,
• Rimma Kuruch
• and Marina Kuropyatnik.

• Saami studies: Finland
• Saami studies: Norway
• Saami studies: Sweden