Introduction to Russia and Eurasia - Reference Resources

The vastness of the literature on the former Soviet Union reflects the physical expanse of the region, the variety of peoples living there, and the central role of Russia in world affairs for the last two centuries (and the Soviet Union in recent decades). The opening of the former Soviet Union to the West means that many of the standard works on the history, politics, and economy of the Soviet Union and the now-independent constituent nations will be revised and updated. Similarly, atlases are being continually revised to reflect political and name changes in the region.

Useful bibliographies to works relevant to the cultures of the former Soviet Union include those of Jakobson (1957) on the indigenous peoples of northeastern Siberia, Horak (1982) on the non-Russian peoples of the Soviet Union, Mann (1981), which lists nearly 200 bibliographies on the peoples of the former Soviet Union, and the Bibliography of Soviet Ethnological Publications, 1977-1982.

Surveys of the peoples of the Soviet Union include those of Wixman (1984), which provides brief descriptions of the groups and helps sort out the various ethnonyms; Katz (1975), which covers the major national groups; Levin and Potapov (1964), which is the English-language translation of the 1956 Russian-language survey with much information on the traditional culture of Siberian peoples; and the Soviet government survey, Peoples of the Soviet Union. The Muslim peoples are perhaps better covered in ethnographic surveys, including those by Akiner (1986) and Bennigsen and Wimbush (1986) and the entries in Weekes (1984). The Journal of Soviet Nationalities, which began publication in 1990, publishes scholarly research relevant to former Soviet peoples. The languages of the Soviet Union are listed, classified, and described in Comrie (1981).

In recent years numerous ethnographic publications on (former) Soviet peoples have been published in Russian, Ukrainian, Georgian, Kazakh, and other languages. Many of these are cited in the relevant articles in this volume, although most have not been translated and are available only at a few major research libraries.