Dolgan - History and Cultural Relations

The Dolgan are probably the most recent example within the Russian Federation of the formation of an independent ethnic group. Their consolidation began in the nineteenth century. At the time of the 1926-1927 census, the Dolgan were represented by nine ethnographic groupings. These consisted of the Dolgan proper; of alliances that historically incorporated large numbers of Yakut; of Yakut proper; of Evenki groups (also of varied origins); of a significant number of Russian peasants, hunters, and dog breeders; and of small numbers of Samoyeds, Nenets, and Enets. All of these spoke different Dolgan or Yakut dialects. The Nganasan did not play a significant part in the formation of the Dolgan. They simply ceded the southern and easternmost frontier regions of the territories they used in their transhumance to the Dolgan.

From the seventeenth century on, the "Great Russian Road," the Khatanga Tract, existed on the Taimyr. Along this road communications were maintained by means of reindeer and dog transport between the Dudino settlement and Lake Piasino and then eastward toward the Khatanga and even farther to the Anabar River and to Yakutia. Winter camps along this road were relatively permanent. It was in this stretch of territory that groups speaking different languages, diverse in origin, with different traditions and beliefs and different material and spiritual cultures, developed a unitary self-consciousness, language, and culture and eventually coalesced into the Dolgan people. Their collective name is derived from one of the Tungus clans.

Their economy was primarily based on hunting—wild reindeer in the north, elks and mountain sheep in the south. Subsidiary game were ptarmigan and hares. In the summer, molting geese and ducks were taken. Reindeer husbandry in various groups was oriented mostly toward transport. Reindeer were raised to serve as mounts and for forest transport, although some families residing in the tundra kept large herds for sled transport. Fishing played a very important role, and commercial polar-fox trapping was well developed.

By the beginning of the twentieth century all Dolgan were Christians. The presence of the Russian population in the area facilitated the spread of Orthodox Christianity. By the end of the 1930s this population was completely assimilated by the Dolgan. Thus, Dolgan culture incorporated components from different peoples, and these different influences are discernible even today to various degrees in different areas of the Dolgan settlement.

Following the establishment of Soviet control, the Dolgan, especially the Western groups, experienced numerous administratively mandated reorganizations of their economies and resettlement from one territory to another within the Taimyr Peninsula. The mixing of peoples of various origins increased, and the emergence of a single common identity as a separate people became stronger.

The basic transformations followed the same pattern as among the Nganasan and in tandem with the latter. The Dolgan tundra-reindeer breeders in the 1970s, under pressure from the proliferating wild-reindeer herds in western and central Taimyr, lost all of their domestic animals and had to switch to commercial fur trapping, fishing, and fall hunting of wild reindeer. Stable units for reindeer breeding are preserved only to the east of the Khatanga settlement.