History and ethnology in Russia and abroad: past experience and present challenges

Sagitova L.V.

205-217 p.


doi.org: https://doi.org/10.22378/he.2026-11-2.205-217
EDN: HNJPBI


Abstract. This article presents an analytical review of the articles included in the thematic issue of the academic journal “Historical Ethnology,” dedicated to the thirtieth anniversary of Marjani Institute of History of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences. Its theme is “Current trends in contemporary historical and ethnological science in Russia and abroad.” Some of the published works are devoted to an analysis of the formation and development of regional historical and ethnological schools in the republics of the Russian Federation (Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Udmurtia, and Chuvashia) and in neighboring states (the Republic of Belarus, the Republic of Kazakhstan). Their formation and development demonstrate a number of common features: many of them have their origins in the joint interaction of academic researchers from St. Petersburg and Moscow with local ethnographers and amateur local historians. The Soviet period is viewed as a time of institutionalization of ethnographic science in the regions, the main directions of which were closely linked to the activities of central educational and academic institutions. In the biographies of virtually every regional ethnological school, the key factor in their formation and development is their interaction with the leading institution of the Russian ethnological school – the N.N. Miklouho-Maclay Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences, now the N.N. Miklouho-Maclay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The presented studies demonstrate that modern historical, ethnological, and ethnosociological sciences are gradually shaping a new research paradigm. It is characterized by the use of interdisciplinarity, the application of cultural essentialism alongside constructivist approaches, and their combination in multiparadigmatic approaches; recognition of multiple identities; attention to the symbolic and communicative mechanisms of shaping social reality; and a desire to combine fundamental research with the solution of pressing socio-political problems in the context of the implementation of the state nationality policy of the Russian Federation.


Keywords: Marjani Institute of History of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences; Tatar studies; historical science; regional ethnological schools; Tatarstan; Bashkortostan; Udmurtia; Chuvashia; Belarus; Kazakhstan

For citation: Sagitova L.V. (2026) History and ethnology in Russia and abroad: past experience and present challenges. Istoricheskaya etnologiya [Historical Ethnology]. Vol. 11. No. 2: 205–217. https://doi.org/10.22378/he.2026-11-2.205-217 (In Russ.)


About the author: Liliya V. Sagitova, Doctor Sc. (Politics), Associate Professor, Leading Research Fellow at the Department of Ethnological Research, Marjani Institute of History of the Tatarstan Academy of Sciences (7 Baturin St., Kazan 420111, Russian Federation); https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6426-6970; e-mail: liliya_sagitova@mail.ru


Received 14.05.2026 Revised 22.05.2026   Accepted for publication 25.05.2026

Published Online 08.06.2026