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15 - The Nationalities Question

from Part III - To the Pacific Ocean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 January 2024

Lisa A. Kirschenbaum
Affiliation:
West Chester University, Pennsylvania
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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.

Type
Chapter
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Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists
Ilf and Petrov's American Road Trip
, pp. 156 - 167
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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  • The Nationalities Question
  • Lisa A. Kirschenbaum, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
  • Book: Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists
  • Online publication: 18 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009008914.019
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  • The Nationalities Question
  • Lisa A. Kirschenbaum, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
  • Book: Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists
  • Online publication: 18 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009008914.019
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • The Nationalities Question
  • Lisa A. Kirschenbaum, West Chester University, Pennsylvania
  • Book: Soviet Adventures in the Land of the Capitalists
  • Online publication: 18 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009008914.019
Available formats
×