Байкальская Сибирь: Фрагменты социокультурной карты. Альманах-исследование ред. по М. Я. Рожанского, и Байкальская Сибирь: Предисловие XXI века. Альманах-исследование ред. по М. Я. Рожанского (review)

468 Рецензии/Reviews формирование модерных наций, период советской оккупации и трагедию русификации, то авторы рецензируемых книг, анализируя ту же тематику, рассматривают ее как политический процесс консолидации и формирования гражданской нации. Эта смена фокуса дает основания конста- тировать возникновение новых тенденций в развитии балтийских исследований, что связано с их большей интернационализацией, постепенным ослаблением пози- ций представителей латышского/ эстонского сообщества в США и Канаде, приходом нового поколе- ния исследователей, в том числе и из России. Вместо жесткого национально маркированного и политически детерминированного подхода в балтийских исследова- ниях складываются условия для постепенной деидеологизации и деполитизации, что, вероятно, не только окажет позитивное влия- ние на развитие “Baltic Studies”, но и приведет к фрагментации исследовательского сообщества на консервативное и либеральное течения. Krista SIGLER Байкальская Сибирь: Фраг- менты социокультурной карты. Альманах-исследование / Под ред. М. Я. Рожанского. Иркутск: Иркутский государственный университет, 2002. 245 с. ISBN: 5-7971-0128-9; Байкальская Сибирь: Преди- словие XXI века. Альманах-ис- следование / Под ред. М. Я. Ро- жанского. Иркутск: Иркутский государственный университет, 2007. 303 с. ISBN: 978-5-91344044 -0. Where there are places, there are stories. Whether it is the city that never sleeps, a small town in Kansas, or the Venice of the North – place is a harbor for our understanding of human life. Likewise with the Pearl of Siberia – the area of Baikal , Siberia. Baikal’skaia Sibir’ is a series of research anthologies that offer the reader a dizzying tour of this region.Although the work itself does not make definitive arguments, the books do immerse readers in the world of Baikal. In addition, the books prove the dynamic possibilities of interdisciplinary work based on local experts’ understanding of their home settings. Baikal’skaia Sibir’, as the editor, M. Ia. Rozhanskii explains, was conceived as a collection of research from experts in the humanities. The 469 Ab Imperio, 3/2011 Geography it adds that he had lived and worked for twelve years in the area as director of the local schools in Erbogachen (P. 151). The sections are designed to provoke discussion of the intersection of geography and human narrative: the first, for example, looks at the countryside and villages, the second the major cities, the third the outlying areas, and so on. Each section involves a mixture of short topical pieces (such as journalist Irina Shenderova’s examination of village life in Unegetei (Pp. 20-25)), with highlight articles focusing specifically on the interaction of humanity and setting, like a 1990 fire in the village Kuita (for example, the work of geographer Vera Kuklina (P. 108)), or the political graffiti in Irkutsk, by sociologist Irina Abdulova (Pp. 241-243). Each article provides a glimpse of insight into a specific area. Historian Sergei Karnaukhov’s work on the village Ust’-Kuda (Pp. 13-19), for example, describes the slow development of the village, marked by periods of migration (1896–1899, 1906–1911), and the only major growth after the 1991 installation of asphalt roads (P. 18). As a result, Karnaukhov explains, the environment prompted a high degree of self-reliance in the population and at times of flush harvest , experience with economic migrants (including Chinese migrants). The second volume, Predislovie XXI veka, was published five years numerous articles (forty-eight in the first volume, thirty-six in the second) emerged from an interdisciplinary research group. Their goal was to provide work that (a) gave a sense of the authors’ own research practice ; (b) gave a sense of their local expertise (all authors having either lived or worked for multiple years in the areas in which they write). In addition, they desired a work that (c) moved the discussion of Baikal outside of traditional sociological readings (from social research to a social vision, showing how geography changes the essence of social processes); and (d) allowed a vehicle for interdisciplinary dialogue that was open to multiple levels of scholarship , including the work of graduate students / doctoral candidates (Baikal’skaia Sibir’: Fragmenty sotsiokul’turnoi karty, P. 7). Both volumes of al’manakh succeed on these counts. The first volume, Fragmenty sotsiokul’turnoi karty, examines Baikal across eight major sections and forty-eight articles . The authors include a range of local experts – journalists, ethnographers , sociologists, and historians – and the book openly embraces their roots in the communities of which they write. Sidebars, such as the one for Nikolai Glavatskii’s piece on Erbogachen, make explicit the connection – in this case, the sidebar does not just tell the reader that Glavatskii is a doctoral candidate in 470 Рецензии/Reviews for example.) By the close of her piece, Kal’ianova presents a powerful image of change wrought by technology: from children walking by a riverside in the 1960s, to motorcycles veering down a road in the 1970s–1980s. This is one of the strengths of the series: the books provide you with a tempting array of ideas and invite you to go further with them. In the second volume, some of the writers attempt just that. Historian Sergei Karnaukhov’s work on the village Ust’-Kuda from the first book is expanded in the second, in an article focusing on contention over the...