607-624 p.

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doi.org: https://doi.org/10.22378/he.2025-10-4.607-624
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Abstract. This article examines the relationship between the declared importance of territorial identity and the ability to verbalize key territorial concepts among residents of Northeast Russia. The research is driven by the need to understand the depth and content of territorial identity in multiethnic regions. The study aims to identify correlations between the declared importance of Russian and regional identities and the ways in which the concepts of ‘big’ and ‘small’ homelands are conceptualized. The empirical basis consists of data from a representative sociological survey of 1436 respondents in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) and the Chukotka Autonomous District, conducted in March-April 2024. The research methodology combines traditional survey methods with the psycholinguistic technique of subjective definition, which allows for the collection of spontaneous verbal responses to the stimuli “Big homeland is ...” and “Small homeland is ...”. The analysis is based on a developed 20-category typology of territorial identity, grouped into five main blocks: specific spatial, abstract spatial, temporal, social categories, and null responses. The results demonstrate a considerable gap between the declarative and verbal levels of territorial identity: despite a high declared significance of territorial belonging, one-third of respondents could not verbalize the content of the homeland concepts. A gradient correlation was established between the importance of Russian identity and the state-oriented conceptualization of the large homeland: most respondents who assigned maximum weight to Russian identity define the large homeland through the category “country”. Regional identity demonstrates a more complex, non-linear relationship with the concept of the small homeland, which is primarily conceptualized through biographical-temporal categories and local-territorial representations. Significant interregional differences were revealed: in Yakutia, there is a balanced ratio of regional and Russian identities with a greater diversity in the ways of conceptualizing the homeland; in Chukotka, Russian identity dominates, with more unified territorial representations. These findings broaden the understanding of the mechanisms of territorial identity formation and justify the need for an integrated approach that considers not only the emotional significance but also the cognitive elaboration of identification processes.

Keywords: territorial identity, Russian identity, regional identity, big homeland, small homeland, Russia’s Northeast, Yakutia, Chukotka

For citation: Danilov I.A. (2025) To say and to name: Declared and verbalized territorial identity in Northeastern Russia. Istoricheskaya etnologiya [Historical Ethnology]. Vol. 10. No. 4: 607–624. https://doi.org/10.22378/he.2025-10-4.607-624 (In Russ.)
Acknowledgements. The research was conducted within the project “Patriotism of the Peoples of Russia’s Northeast: Big and Small Homeland in the Narratives of Residents of Yakutia and Chukotka” as part of the Program of Scientific Research on the Ethnocultural Diversity of Russian Society Aimed at Strengthening Russian Identity, 2023–2025 (Order of the President of the Russian Federation No. Pr-71 dated January 16, 2020). Program Director – Academician of RAS V.A. Tishkov. The author expresses gratitude to the project leader, Candidate of Political Sciences O.V. Vasilyeva, for her careful reading of the manuscript and valuable comments that contributed to improving the article.

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About the author: Igor A. Danilov, Junior Research Fellow of the Center for Sociolinguistic Studies, Institute for Humanities Research and Indigenous Studies of the North of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1 Petrovskiy St., Yakutsk 677027, Russian Federation); http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1974-3088, e-mail: igor_danilov_2000@mail.ru

Received 1.06.2025 Revised 16.09.2025   Accepted for publication 03.10.2025

Published Online 01.12.2025