Juwan Nikolayevich Shestalov

Juwan Nikolajewitsch Schestalow ( Russian Юван Николаевич Шесталов ; born June 22, 1937 in Kamratka , Berjosowski rajon ; † November 5, 2011 in Khanty-Mansiysk ) was a Mansi writer and the best-known representative of the Soviet nationality literature created in the course of the Soviet nationality policy.

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Most of his work is in Russian.

In his Soviet creative period he was characterized by extensive loyalty to the prevailing ideology, which saw the indigenous peoples of the Russian north on the way from the Stone Age to communist modernity. One of his works bears the significant title The Step Over a Millennium. One of the themes that appeared early on in his works is the role of oil production in his West Siberian homeland. While at first the praise of the progress connected with it predominates, later works suggest concerns about the ecological consequences and the effects on the way of life of his small Siberian ethnic group.

With the arrival of perestroika, Shestalov began to express his worries and doubts about the prevailing development model more openly. Together with the Niwchian writer Vladimir Sangi and numerous other indigenous writers, he was one of the signatories of a letter to the Soviet President Gorbachev , in which far-reaching measures to protect the small peoples of the north were called for.

In the post-Soviet period he dealt mainly with the traditions of his people, in particular shamanism . He published a magazine called Sterch and advocated the theory that the Mansi language was derived from Sumerian . The ethnologist Boris Schischlo called his change a “conversion from communism to shamanism”, not without cynicism.

In the political organizations of the indigenous peoples of Russia, especially RAIPON , he was not very present. Nevertheless, his death in November 2011 was the cause of obituaries.

Footnotes

1. ↑ Шесталов, Юван: Шаг через тысячелетие . Москва (Политиздат) 1974
2. ↑ Шесталов, Юван: край сокровищ. Ты будешь крылатым. From: Лившиц, С.Е .; Стебакова, Л.Н .; Бирюков, А.М. (Ed.): Два мира - Две Судьбы. Магадан (Магаданское Книжное издательство) 1978. pp. 89-101
3. ↑ Slezkine, Yuri : Arctic Mirrors, Russia and the Small Peoples of the North , p. 383. 1994, Cornell University Press, Ithaka (New York), ISBN 0-8014-2976-5
4. ↑ Шишло, Борис: Чукчи живут не только в анекдотах. In: Новое время, vol. 1994, no. 6, pp. 49–52
5. ↑ Сегодня стало известно о том, что умер мансийский поэт Юван Шесталов ( Memento of the original from December 2, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.