Ethnic minorities, anthropology, and Russian national identity on trial: The Multan Case, 1892-96

Russian Review

Volumn 59, Issue 4, 2000, Pages 530-554

  Geraci, Robert ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0005510637     PISSN: 00360341     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/0036-0341.00140     Document Type: Review

References (112)

1. For an overview see Alan Dundes, "The Ritual Murder or Blood Libel Legend: A Study of Anti-Semitic Victimization through Projective Inversion," in The Blood Libel Legend: A Casebook in Anti-Semitic Folklore, ed. Dundes (Madison, 1991), 336-76
2. See A. S. Tager, Tsarskaia Rossiia i delo Beilisa (Moscow, 1934)
3. in English translation The Decay of Czarism: The Beiliss Trial (Philadelphia, 1935)
4. See also Albert S. Lindemann, The Jew Accused: Three Anti-Semitic Affairs (Cambridge, England, 1991), 174-93
5. and Hans Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia (Berkeley, 1986), 40-55
6. For more on the Il'minskii project and its idealization of the Finnic minorities of the region see Geraci, Window, esp. chap. 2
7. After a spate of ritual murder accusations against Jews at midcentury in the Southern Volga area, Russian fears of this crime traveled north, and soon ritual sacrifice was said to be practiced not only by Jews but also by other inorodtsy. See M. G. Khudiakov, "Politicheskoe znachenie multanskogo dela i ego otgoloskov v nastoiashchee vremia," Sovetskaia etnografiia (January-March 1932): 49-50
8. V. K. Magnitskii, "Iz byta kazanskikh inorodtsev (K voprusu o chelovecheskikh zhertvoprinosheniiakh)," Etnograficheskoe obozrenie (July-September 1894): 136-41
9. The most detailed accounts of the case are P. N. Luppov, Gromkoe delo multanskikh udmurtov (votiakov) obviniavshikhsia v chelovecheskom zhertvoprinoshenii (1892-1896 gg.) (Izhevsk, 1925)
10. and L. S. Shatenshtein, Multanskoe delo, 1892-1896 gg. (Izhevsk, 1960)
11. See also Robert Geraci, "Window on the East: Ethnography, Orthodoxy, and Russian Nationality in Kazan, 1870-1914" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1995), chap. 4
12. A. N. Baranov, V. G. Korolenko, and V. P. Sukhodoev, Delo multanskikh votiakov, obviniavshikhsia v prinesenii chelovecheskoi zhertvy iazycheskim bogam (Moscow, 1896), 3-6
13. "Delo o chelovecheskom zhertvoprinoshenii v malmyzhskom uezde," Kazanskii telegraf (21 January 1895)
14. Baranov et al, Delo, 9-10. It turned out that the Votiaks worshipped no god named "Kurbon." The word "kurban" is Tatar for sacrifice, and a spring holiday of local Muslims was known as "Kurban-bairam." The detail indicates either a certain degree of Tatar linguistic and religious influence on the Votiaks or the tendency of Russian peasants to lump together indiscriminately other local groups' faiths and practices
15. I. I. B[abushkin], "Chelovecheskoe zhertvo-prinoshenie iazycheskim bogam v Volzhsko-kamskom krae," Volzhskii vestnik (15 December 1894)
16. V. G. Korolenko, "Predislovie k otchetu o multanskom dele," in his Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (PSS), vol. 4 (St. Petersburg, 1914), 370-71
17. The court responded to the citations only five and a half months later, after the Votiaks had already been convicted a second time. See P. N. Luppov, "Kazanskie sudebnye uchrezhdeniia i Ministerstvo iustitsii v tret'em sudebnom razbore multanskogo dela," Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Akademii Nauk (ARAN), St. Petersburg, f. 811, op. 1, d. 71, ll. 24-25
18. and A. N. Baranov, "Iz vospominanii o multanskom dele," Vestnik Evropy (September 1913): 150-51
19. "Iz sovremennoi khroniki," Russkoe bogatstvo (June 1895): 159-60
20. Luppov, Gromkoe delo, 17
21. M. Mandel'shtam, "Legkomyslennaia publitsistika," Kazanskii telegraf (8 July 1895)
22. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv (RGIA), f. 733, op. 151, d. 583, ll. 48ob.-49ob
23. S. K. Kuznetsov, obituary of I. N. Smirnov, Etnograficheskoe obozrenie (April-June 1904): 214-16
24. I. N. Smirnov, Zadachi i znachenie mestnoi etnografii (Kazan, 1891)
25. Kuznetsov, Smirnov obituary, 215
26. idem, "Uspekhi etnologii v dele izucheniia finnov Povolzh'ia za poslednie tridtsat' let," Etnograficheskoe obozrenie (January-June 1910): 103
27. P. Bogaevskii, review of Votiaki, by I. N. Smirnov, Etnograficheskoe obozrenie (January-March 1890): 216
28. E. B. Tylor, "On a Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions, Applied to Laws of Marriage and Descent," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 18 (1889): 245-72
29. The article appeared in Russian translation as "O metode issledovaniia razvitiia uchrezhdenii," Etnograficheskoe obozrenie (April-June 1890): 1-31
30. Tylor's Primitive Culture (1871) had appeared in Russian translation in 1872, sooner than in any other language; Anthropology (1881), the first comprehensive text in the field, followed in 1882. See Margaret Hodgen, The Doctrine of Survivals (London, 1936), 67
31. George Stocking has shown that evolutionism actually could cut both ways in nineteenth-century European culture, providing tools either for subverting or reaffirming values such as patriarchy, Christianity, and class hierarchy. See his Victorian Anthropology (New York, 1987), esp. 186-237
32. Stocking, Race, Culture and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology (Chicago, 1982), 79-80
33. Marvin Harris, The Rise of Anthropological Theory: A History of Theories of Culture (New York, 1968), 173-79
34. See, for example, I. N. Smirnov, Cheremisy (Kazan, 1889), 24, 69
35. and idem, Votiaki (Kazan, 1890), 174, 185
36. See Seymour Becker, "The Muslim East in Nineteenth-Century Russian Popular Historiography," Central Asian Survey 5 (1986): 25-47
37. and Eli Weinerman, "Russification in Imperial Russia: The Search for Homogeneity in the Multinational State" (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1996), 179 (on "natural Russification")
38. I. N. Smirnov, "Obrusenie inorodtsev i zadachi obrasitel'noi politiki," Istoricheskii vestnik 47 (1892): 761
39. E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. 1 (Boston, 1874), 16
40. Tylor, Primitive Culture 1:97, 105-6
41. Because of the widespread view that gods in primitive religions are fashioned anthropomorphically, Tylor and others (including Smirnov) thought that human sacrifice itself was evidence that primitive peoples practice cannibalism at some stage of development. Because of this association, the concepts of cannibalism and human sacrifice were often conflated in the public discourse on the Multan Case. See Smirnov, Sledy chelovecheskikh prinoshenii v poezii i religioznykh obriadakh privolzhskikh finnov (Kazan, 1889), 19-21
42. Smirnov, Cheremisy, 182-86
43. E. F. Shmurlo, Vos'moi arkheologicheskii s''ezd(St. Petersburg, 1890), 41-42
44. idem, Permiaki (Kazan, 1891), 283-84
45. idem, Mordva, 308-12
46. and idem, Sledy, 21-22
47. G. Vereshchagin, Votiaki sosnovskogo kraia(=Zapiski IRGO po otdeleniiu etnografii, vol. 14, no. 2) (St. Petersburg, 1886), 80-81
48. Smirnov, Permiaki, 207-11
49. Hodgen, Doctrine, 141, 145-48. According to Hodgen, some critics of the concept denied that any culture trait, however out of place it seems to be, can be thoroughly useless or meaningless (pp. 154-73)
50. See Tylor's description of a woman using an old-fashioned loom rather than a new-fangled one: "this old woman is not a century behind her times, but she is a case of survival" (Primitive Culture 1:16)
51. Luppov, "Iz istorii multanskogo dela," ARAN, f. 811, op. 1, d. 68, ll. 19-22
52. The defense's first choice, Petr Bogaevskii, was turned down by the court probably because he had already gone public with his criticism of the case and of Smirnov. After the first conviction, he had presented his views to the ethnographic division of Moscow University's Society for the Lovers of Natural History, Anthropology, and Ethnography, and had urged that in future cases of this type ethnographers be invited to provide expertise. See P. M. Bogaevskii, "K Multanskomu delu: Sushchestvuiut li chelovecheskie zhertvoprinosheniia u votiakov?" Russkie vedomosti (7 November 1895)
53. Even before the case, ironically, Bogaevskii had also criticized Smirnov for expecting the full Russification of the Votiaks to be completed unrealistically soon (Bogaevskii, review of Votiaki, 220)
54. S. K. Kuznetsov, "Iz vospominanii etnografa," Etnograficheskoe obozrenie (July-September 1907): 2
55. and Shatenshtein, Multanskoe delo, 43
56. Vereshchagin, Votiaki sosnovskogo kraia, 80-81
57. Kuznetsov, "Uspekhi," 97
58. "After the evidence of these living witnesses," Raevskii said, "the experts have nothing to offer us; rather, this case gives much to science. The only thing of value in Smirnov's testimony is that among the tribes related to the Votiaks some gods aren't averse to eating human flesh." He also told the jurors that the "motive has no significance for the determination of your verdict," which concerned only whether the accused had taken Matiunin's life. The question posed to the jury did not include the words "human sacrifice" or any reference to a religious motive. But just minutes later Raevskii urged them: "Awaiting your verdict are not only these individuals, but thousands of Votiaks, their fellow tribespeople, in order to know whether they should continue this rite. You don't want them to, and with your verdict you will not tell them that the same God who saved them from hunger and disease will [also] save them from a guilty verdict!" (Baranov et al, Delo, 174, 177-78, 193-94)
59. Seemingly stunned by the jury's decision, Smirnov was heard to mutter despondently, "Could my judgment really have had such an influence?" (Baranov, "Iz vospominanii," 160)
60. Korolenko, "K otchetu o multanskom zhertvoprinoshenii," PSS 4:365, 367
61. Korolenko, "Multanskoe zhertvoprinoshenie," ibid., 401
62. Korolenko, "K otchetu," 362
63. D. A. Klements, "Novaia stadiia multanskogo delà," Vostochnoe obozrenie (6 March 1896)
64. As early as 1890, Bogaevskii had made the same point about the borrowing of folklore in a critique of Smirnov's work ("Ocherki religioznykh verovanii votiakov," 60)
65. Another ethnographer, Nikolai Kharuzin, noticed this mistake only in 1897, after the Multan Case had been settled. See his review of Trudy VIII-go Arkheologicheskogo S''ezda v Moskve 1890 g., vol. 3, Etnograficheskoe obozrenie (October-December 1897): 146-47
66. Klements, "Novaia stadiia."
67. P. N. Luppov, "Ob obstanovke votskikh zhertvoprinoshenii v sviazi s dannymi multanskogo dela," Viatskii krai (7 and 9 May 1896)
68. idem, "Fantasticheskii obychai," Novosti i birzhevaia gazeta (8 and 9 May 1896)
69. idem, "Iz istorii," ll. 32-33ob
70. and idem, "Pis'mo v redaktsiiu," Sankt-peterburgskie vedomosti (17 March 1896)
71. See also I. Poplavskii, "Po povodu vozrazheniia g. Luppova," Sankt-peterburgskie vedomosti (26 April 1896)
72. O. M. Zhirnov, "Otvet g. Poplavskomu," Viatskii krai (30 March 1896)
73. P. M. Bogaevskii, Multanskoe "molenie" votiakov v svete etnograficheskikh dannykh (Moscow, 1896)
74. V. M. Mikhailovskii, "Otkrytoe pis'mo g. prof. I. N. Smirnovu," Volzhskii vestnik (23 April 1896)
75. Kuznetsov had once already, in 1885, used his knowledge to debunk a rumor about Votiak human sacrifice reported in newspapers ("Iz vospominanii," 32-35)
76. Kuznetsov, open letter to I. N. Smirnov, Sibirskii vestnik (5 April 1896)
77. idem, "Iz vospominanii," 34-35
78. Only one ethnographer, Vasilii K. Magnitskii (a retired school inspector and expert on the Chuvash), used the pages of the OAIE Izvestiia, Smirnov's home journal, to denounce legends of Votiak human sacrifice, and he did so without attacking Smirnov directly. See M. K. Korbut, Vasilii Konstantinovich Magnitskii i ego trudy: 1839-1901 gg. (Cheboksary, 1929), 79
79. "Chelovecheskie zhertvoprinosheniia"
80. Smirnov, review of "O multanskom zhertvoprinoshenii," by V. G. Korolenko, Deiatel' 1 (January 1896): 45, 47
81. Luppov, "Iz istorii," ll. 11-19
82. Quoted in Korolenko, "Reshenie Senata po multanskomu delu," PSS 4:413-14
83. Quoted in S. Vysotskii, Koni (Moscow, 1988), 288
84. Khudiakov, "Politicheskoe znachenie," 56
85. The correspondence on this matter, Luppov shows, suggested that the court intended to pick a jury of as many peasants and as few townspeople as possible ("Iz istorii," ll. 37-38)
86. Baranov, "Iz vospominanii," 165
87. Luppov, "Iz istorii," ll. 48-49
88. idem, "Kazanskie sudebnye uchrezhdeniia," ll. 15-18
89. N. P. Karabchevskii, Rechi, 1882-1902, 2d ed. (St. Petersburg, 1902), 369-70
90. Karabchevskii, Rechi, 339
91. Kuznetsov, "Uspekhi," 105
92. S. V. Korolenko, Desiat'let v provintsii (Izhevsk, 1966), 206
93. Baranov, "Iz vospominanii," 170
94. S. V. Korolenko, Desiat'let, 207-8
95. F. D. Batiushkov, V. G. Korolenko kak chelovek i pisatel' (Moscow, 1922), 118-20
96. "Son Makara (Sviatochnyi rasskaz)," PSS, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1914), 3-27
97. Khudiakov, "Politicheskoe znachenie," 58
98. idem, "Novoe v Multanskom dele," Rossiiskaia Natsional'naia Biblioteka, Otdel rakopisei, f. 828, d. 10, l. 12ob
99. Shatenstein, Multanskoe delo, 6
100. and N. N. Blinov, Iazycheskii kul't votiakov (Viatka, 1898)
101. For references to the case in the foreign press see idem, "Bibliograficheskaia zametka," ibid. 421-22
102. Kuznetsov, "Uspekhi," 112
103. A German book on blood rituals, by Hermann L. Strack, had included the Multan incident as an example, and had been translated into Russian; the prosecutors of the Beilis case referred to this book. See Korolenko, "Beilis i multantsy," in PSS, vol. 9 (St. Petersburg, 1914), 310-14
104. "Inorodcheskie shkoly," Niva 45 (1896): 1124
105. I. D'iakonov, "Verovaniia i kul't votiakov - iazychnikov i kreshchennykh (Po povodu multanskogo dela)," Missionerskoe obozrenie (June 1898): 878-89
106. Khudiakov, "Politicheskoe znachenie," 62
107. Kuznetsov, "Uspekhi," 102-3
108. idem, Smirnov obituary, 216
109. For his books on the Volga Finnic peoples, Smirnov was awarded the Uvarov Prize of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and the gold medal of the Russian Geographical Society. See D. N. Anuchin, I. N. Smirnov: Vostochnye finny (St. Petersburg, 1898)
110. and E. N. Setälä, "Vostochnye finny: Istoriko- etnograficheskie ocherki I. N. Smirnova," in Otchet o tridtsat' vos 'mom prisuzhdenii nagrad grafa Uvarova [n.p., n.d]. He was also repeatedly reappointed a trustee of the Kazan Education Circuit, a position he had been given several months after the second Multan trial (RGIA, f. 733, op. 143, d. 40, op. 142, dd. 938 and 1160, and op. 151, d. 583, ll. 49-49ob.)
111. Though Korolenko mostly insinuated that this was true, one of the key ethnographers commenting on the case, Petr M. Bogaevskii, stated it explicitly. Challenging Smirnov's use of the concept of survivals, he used equally problematic reasoning: "The presence of 'survivals' (perezhivaniia) of a known ritual ... serves as the best indicator that the ritual itself has disappeared from life and that its continued existence must be considered an impossible anachronism." In effect, Bogaevskii reasoned that everything appearing in folklore is by definition a survival and is therefore outdated (Multanskoe "molenie," 1-2, 101)
112. It is this difference in imperial circumstances that I see as most important in causing the particular distortions of evolutionism in the case. I am not suggesting that Smirnov's misuse of evolutionism was a result of Russia's reputed scientific "backwardness." As mentioned earlier, some key concepts in evolutionism were flawed or ambiguous from the outset, and English anthropologists were as guilty as Smirnov of twisting the theory so as to drain it of its universalist intentions and to victimize "uncivilized" peoples. See, for instance, Stocking's discussion of evolutionism's conceptual role in the extinction of the Tasmanians in Victorian, 274-83