Dolgan - Sociopolitical Organization

Social and Political Organization. Prior to the establishment of Soviet power, administrative units to which the Dolgan belonged were headed by princelings and leaders appointed by the central power. They occasionally acted as the primary tax collectors. Rich reindeer herders also belonged to the upper strata of society. Hired laborers, persons who owned only a few reindeer, or kinsmen who had met with misfortune tended the herds of the wealthy. Although the tradition of kin-group mutual assistance was well developed, this did not preclude disputes over property and payment for labor.

The kin-group or nomadic-group councils, created in the 1920s, were by the 1930s headed by formerly propertyless but active persons. After the abolition of the kulak system and the socialization of the reindeer herds, the formerly propertyless headed the first small-scale economic enterprises. At present, almost all settlement soviets are headed by the Dolgan, but the state enterprises are headed by outside specialists. Within the settlement, the elite core is composed of the enterprise director, the trapping engineer, the hunting specialist, the manager of the settlement store, the chairman of the settlement council, the school principal, a physician or paramedic, and managers of economic departments. In the eastern settlements, some of these positions are occupied by the Dolgan. In most western settlements the Dolgan are represented only on the settlement councils.

The Dolgan, like all other small-scale groups within the TAO, receive certain privileges and subsidies from the state to enable them to survive and develop. These, in the main, are in the area of education, settlement building, and the improvement of settlement and economic enterprises.

The Dolgan now head the Association of the Indigenous Peoples of the TAO. They were most active in supporting the organization of this association in 1989. They are also represented in the Council of the Association of the Small-Scale Peoples of the North of the Russian Federation. The Taimyr Association declared the inalienable right of the small-scale peoples to the land and its subsurface resources, as well as the right to development of traditional culture.

Social Control. All peoples of the Russian Federation are subject to its constitution and juridical codices. The customary law of the Dolgan has been destroyed under the impact of state legislation. In spite of this fact, the traditions of mutual assistance among kin and supplying the elderly with a share of the catch are still strong.

Conflict. Various nomadic Dolgan groups in the Taimyr territory became involved in the same type of conflicts as did the Nganasan. Among the Dolgan, however, commercial relationships were already much more developed by the nineteenth century because a number of the Dolgan groups specialized in fur procurement for the market. Relationships with the merchants were not always smooth. The Nganasan remember even today how, in the past, the Dolgan nomads occupied their territories. Despite the numerous administratively mandated reorganizations and resettlements of 1950-1970, interethnic tensions still flare occasionally in the mixed settlements.