Book contents
- Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists
- Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Transliteration and Translation
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Promised Lands
- Part II New York and the Eastern States
- Part III To the Pacific Ocean
- 13 The Road
- 14 Frozen Meat, Salty Butter, and Other American Delicacies
- 15 The Nationalities Question
- 16 A Laboratory of Anthropology
- 17 New Mexico Moderns
- 18 Can You Kid a Kidder?
- 19 The Man in the Red Shirt
- 20 Natural Wonders and Technical Marvels
- 21 The American Dneprostroi
- Part IV The Golden State
- Part V Journey’s End
- Select Bibliography
- Index
15 - The Nationalities Question
from Part III - To the Pacific Ocean
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 January 2024
- Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists
- Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Transliteration and Translation
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I Promised Lands
- Part II New York and the Eastern States
- Part III To the Pacific Ocean
- 13 The Road
- 14 Frozen Meat, Salty Butter, and Other American Delicacies
- 15 The Nationalities Question
- 16 A Laboratory of Anthropology
- 17 New Mexico Moderns
- 18 Can You Kid a Kidder?
- 19 The Man in the Red Shirt
- 20 Natural Wonders and Technical Marvels
- 21 The American Dneprostroi
- Part IV The Golden State
- Part V Journey’s End
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Chapter 15 places Ilf and Petrov’s reaction to American Indians in the context of Soviet nationalities policy. We can see in Ilf and Petrov’s insistence that the American government made “intentional” mistakes in its treatment of Native American peoples yet another example of their tendency to apply Soviet categories to American realities. Doing so, they provided oversimplified depictions of both American Indian policy and Soviet nationalities policy. The shortcomings of their analyses notwithstanding, reconstructing Ilf and Petrov’s encounters and observations in the desert Southwest opens a revealing perspective on the role of racialized difference in Soviet and American understandings of ethnic minorities. Behind this shared sensibility lay a long history of Russian–American anthropological exchanges that was coming to an end as Ilf and Petrov crossed the United States.
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- Soviet Adventures in the Land of the CapitalistsIlf and Petrov's American Road Trip, pp. 156 - 167Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2024