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The Métis of Canada were included as an Aboriginal people in the Constitution Act of 1982, but in the intervening decades we have observed a great disparity in the political and legal treatment of the various Métis communities by the federal and provincial governments. The Métis of the Ottawa River are a telling case, reflective of the disparities entrenched by the provincial border separating Ontario and Quebec. In chronicling the history of this particular Métis community, primarily through unpublished sources, we demonstrate that there is a shared Métis experience and identity in Canada, but that a contiguous community has been arbitrarily divided by a provincial boundary whereby the community is recognized on one side of the divide but not the other. Depuis la reconnaissance constitutionnelle des Métis canadiens en tant que peuple autochtone, nous observons une grande disparité dans le traitement politique et juridique des différentes communautés de la part des gouvernements fédéral et provinciaux. Les Métis de la rivière des Outaouais sont un cas de figure intéressant, reflet de cette disparité ici liée aux effets d’une frontière interprovinciale porteuse de paradoxes. En explorant l’histoire de cette communauté métisse, principalement à l’aide de documents inédits, nous démontrons la grande similarité des expériences identitaires métisses au Canada, mais aussi l’arbitraire d’une reconnaissance politique contemporaine calquée sur une frontière interprovinciale qui, historiquement, n’avait aucune incidence sur les principaux intéressés. Desde el reconocimiento constitucional de los mestizos canadienses como pueblo indígena, se observa disparidad en el tratamiento político y jurídico de las comunidades por el gobierno federal y los gobiernos provinciales. Los mestizos del río Outaouais son un ejemplo de esta disparidad vinculada a los efectos de una frontera entre provincias que trae paradojas. Explorando la historia de esta comunidad mestiza, principalmente con la ayuda de documentos inéditos, demostramos la gran similitud de las experiencias identitarias mestizas en Canadá, así como la arbitrariedad del reconocimiento político contemporáneo modelado por una frontera interprovincial que, históricamente, no tenía ninguna repercusión sobre los principales interesados.

Depuis la reconnaissance constitutionnelle des Métis canadiens en tant que peuple autochtone, nous observons une grande disparité dans le traitement politique et juridique des différentes communautés de la part des gouvernements fédéral et provinciaux. Les Métis de la rivière des Outaouais sont un cas de figure intéressant, reflet de cette disparité ici liée aux effets d’une frontière interprovinciale porteuse de paradoxes. En explorant l’histoire de cette communauté métisse, principalement à l’aide de documents inédits, nous démontrons la grande similarité des expériences identitaires métisses au Canada, mais aussi l’arbitraire d’une reconnaissance politique contemporaine calquée sur une frontière interprovinciale qui, historiquement, n’avait aucune incidence sur les principaux intéressés. The Métis of Canada were included as an Aboriginal people in the Constitution Act of 1982, but in the intervening decades we have observed a great disparity in the political and legal treatment of the various Métis communities by the federal and provincial governments. The Métis of the Ottawa River are a telling case, reflective of the disparities entrenched by the provincial border separating Ontario and Québec. In chronicling the history of this particular Métis community, primarily through unpublished sources, we demonstrate that there is a shared Métis experience and identity in Canada, but that a contiguous community has been arbitrarily divided by a provincial boundary whereby the community is recognized on one side of the divide but not the other. Desde el reconocimiento constitucional de los mestizos canadienses como pueblo indígena, se observa disparidad en el tratamiento político y jurídico de las comunidades por el gobierno federal y los gobiernos provinciales. Los mestizos del río Outaouais son un ejemplo de esta disparidad vinculada a los efectos de una frontera entre provincias que trae paradojas. Explorando la historia de esta comunidad mestiza, principalmente con la ayuda de documentos inéditos, demostramos la gran similitud de las experiencias identitarias mestizas en Canadá, así como la arbitrariedad del reconocimiento político contemporáneo modelado por una frontera interprovincial que, históricamente, no tenía ninguna repercusión sobre los principales interesados.

The Conquest of the Russian Arctic, by Paul R. Josephson. Cambridge & London, Harvard University Press, 2014. 456 pp. $58.00 US (cloth). Rooted in a land-based empire that spread overland in all directions, Russia took to the seas relatively late. Here Paul Josephson provides a detailed account of Russian resource extraction in the Arctic--fish and whales in the nineteenth century, and oil and gas in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. This account of the conquest of the Russian North provides a telling history of the rise of Russia as a naval Arctic power and the push to both industrialize and urbanize the Arctic. In many ways, Josephson asserts, the contemporary Russian state continues to live the legacy of the gulag-driven Russian conquest of the north under Joseph Stalin. Josephson demonstrates how the conquest of the Russian Arctic was tied to the need to develop a northeast Arctic sea route. The Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), a war that the Russian Empire lost, that highlighted the need to find a shorter and faster route to reach the Pacific from central Russia than the Trans-Siberian Railway. To reach the theatre of war, Russia had to send ships around the Cape of Good Hope to get to the northern Pacific. The railway was "overloaded" and could not provide the necessary means to transport troops and equipment to the Russian Pacific ports (27). Even in times of peace, the railway was not sufficient as "the Trans-Siberian Railway had such low capacity that it was overwhelmed by grain shipments --grain often rotted in the open air as it waited to be shipped" (29). They then faced the challenge of building ships that could adequately sail these waters. This book does provide a telling account of the early years of exploration carried out in the final decade of Imperial Russia. As Josephson explains, not only were these expeditions ill-prepared and lacking in crews with even a basic knowledge and understanding of Arctic conditions, but invariably, "emotions [such] as patriotism and heroism overwhelmed those of common sense and self-awareness" (32). The Empire was simply too technologically backward--still featuring a largely peasant-based economy with relatively little industrial activity as compared to the epoch's leading economic powers--and thus lacking the industrial base to effectively establish a strong presence in the Arctic Ocean. This problem plagued Soviet rulers in turn following the October Revolution. Josephson examines the ways in which gulag slave labour was used to compensate for shortages of technology that still bedeviled Soviet plans in the 1930s. Gulag labour was used to "build, dig, pour, load and dump" (p. 116). The need for labour was such that prisoners who finished their terms were charged again; to fill the requirement for engineers, the secret police gathered engineers in Moscow for the large-scale construction projects in the Arctic (126). …

Medieval scholars have demonstrated that the term gens (plural gentes), largely identical in usage to the modern term nation, was in use by the end of the first millennium. This article seeks to explain how and when nation came to replace gens in medieval Europe. The emergence of the concept of nationhood in Central and Eastern Europe must also be understood as a process of othering and resistance to othering, whereby emerging states seek to affirm their status as civilized Christian states, the political, social and cultural equals of the older states that had risen out of the Roman Empire.

The age-old tradition of feasting the dead has been maintained by Russian populations for well over five centuries. Graveyards hold a special place both in traditional Orthodox faith and in the lives of Russians and others in the city of Narva, Estonia. The tradition of feasting the dead for three, nine and forty days after death, can be traced unbroken to pre-Christian Rus’. Details may vary, but always the soul of the deceased must battle its way out of the body and then spend time in both heaven and hell. While this journey is occurring, the living must remember the dead, helping their souls during this period of travail. Even a final feast one year after the death of the individual does not end the relationship between the living and the deceased, for the graves are still visited on a regular basis as a sign of respect to the dead, who are potential saints in the Russian Orthodox tradition. This ‘saintly’ land — Russian graves — defines homeland and roots the population to a new area. By examining the importance of graveyards to Russians, to the ethnic Komi of Northern Russia, and other Eastern Europeans, I demonstrate that a sense of place is maintained in these rituals of daily life.

It is rare to find an analysis of nationalism that does not invoke Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, first published in 1983 and then reprinted in 1991. Although the term has caught the imagination of many researchers, the concept of the ‘imagined community’ is based on a number of questionable premises. The first problematic assertion is that prior to modernity the medieval period's sacred languages and scripts provided the basis for universal religious communities. The emergence of capitalism purportedly resulted in a radical break with the medieval past. Imagined national communities emerged with print‐capitalism and the mass publication of texts in vernaculars. Anderson argues that: ‘In a word, the fall of Latin exemplified a larger process in which the sacred communities integrated by old sacred languages were gradually fragmented, pluralised, and territorialised.’ For Anderson, it was this process that led to the modern self‐conceived nations. I do not question the importance of the printed ...

В общественных науках принято рассматривать национализм как преимущественно политический феномен. В последние годы возобла-дала тенденция трактовать как государственные конструкты и куль-турные основания нации. Возникновение нации не только описывается как процесс политический, но и безусловно привязывается хронологи-чески к Новому времени. Квинтэссенцией данного подхода является известное утверждение Эрика Хобсбаума: “существует больше госу-дарств, создавших нации, чем наций, создавших государства” (1990). И все же, несмотря на то, что трактовка нации как модернового го-сударственного конструкта превратилась в научную ортодоксию, раз-даются голоса сторонников “еретической” точки зрения, согласно ко-торой нации начинают складываться в Средние века. В качестве наи-более очевидного примера средневековой нации обычно приводится Англия, но ревизионистская концепция теории нации и национализма, выдвинутая Адрианом Гастингсом (Adrian Hastings) применительно к Англии, вполне приложима и к другим странам. Если Гастингс прав в том, что Библия служила зеркалом для формирующихся наций, приме-ры средневековых наций должны обнаруживаться во всех христиан-ских регионах мира. В предлагаемой статье теория Гастингса тестиру-ется на российском материале. Корни русской нации автор ищет не в политической сфере, а в православных религиозных текстах. Наиболее ранние следы национального самосознания М. Бушар об-наруживает в XI веке в таких религиозных текстах, как древнеславян-ские Псалтыри и апокрифы. Он демонстрирует, что основная лексика описания национального в современной России восходит к этому ран-нему периоду. Рассмотрение “Повести временных лет” и “Слова ми-трополита Илариона о законе и благодати” позволяет автору утвер-ждать, что в Киевской Руси концепция национального формулирова-лась аналогично тому, как понимают ее в современной России. Ставя проблему средневековых корней нации, М. Бушар призывает пере-смотреть влиятельные сегодня модернистские теории, не позволяю-щие, по его мнению, адекватно исследовать те феномены нации и на-ционального, которые характерны для Российской Федерации и рус-ской диаспоры.