The article is a tribute of respect to the memory of Gennady Evgenyevich Markov, a major Russian ethnologist, archaeologist and historian of primitive society, doctor in history, professor of the Department of Ethnology, Faculty of History, Lomonosov Moscow State University. The authors provide a detailed analysis of the scientific contribution and life path of the outstanding Soviet/Russian scholar and place their narrative in a broad socio-cultural and intellectual context of the country and society. G.E. Markov’s biography is closely connected with the history of the Department of Ethnography/Ethnology at the Faculty of History, Moscow State University and serves as a serious basis for reconstructing the genesis of university ethnography and its dynamics over the course of nearly 85 years. Such a long period of existence of the university department and its sustainable effectiveness in training professional staff were essentially ensured by the high qualifi cation of scientific and pedagogical staff, reliance on solid theoretical and methodological foundations and interdisciplinarity, a combination of conservatism with flexibility and adaptability to the challenges of the time, the ability to preserve disciplinary continuity and ensure the transmission of the scholarly tradition. All these components of the successful development of university ethnology are subjected to a comprehensive and balanced examination in the article. G.E. Markov’s biography in all its typical and special manifestations forms the semantic core of the analysis and presentation. The authors offer their view on complex and sharply debatable issues of professional self-determination,.

It is only possible to comprehend the logic of the formation and development of ethnography (ethnology) as a discipline at Moscow University if one is aware of its context(s). Primarily, this is a disciplinary context, as evidenced by its long-term and decisive influence on ethnography within the university environment. The development of ethnology as a discipline has been shaped by a dynamic socio-historical context, which has exerted and continues to exert a significant influence on its evolution. The establishment and institutionalization of ethnology in Russia occurred in the second half of the 19th century. During the 1880s, two distinct trends began to emerge in the organization of ethnological education. One of these trends integrated ethnological education into the context of the natural sciences, while the other placed it within the broader historical and humanitarian context. In the early decades of the 20th century Russian ethnography possessed serious potential, including the ability for independent original theorization. During the Soviet era, ethnography experienced significant development, both as a scholarly discipline and as a formally recognized academic department. Since 1939, ethnography within the university has undergone phases of institutionalization (S.P. Tolstov and N.N. Cheboksarov). The concept of ethnographic education was formed, substantial scientific research and expeditionary activities were carried out, and the profession developed an attractive image. The stability and conservative ethos of Moscow University and its academic community enabled the department to successfully navigate the period of social and political turbulence (the late 1980s — 1990s), thereby preserving the foundational aspects of the professional training system and introducing necessary innovations (V.V. Pimenov). At the beginning of the twenty first century, ethnology as a discipline underwent a significant development, marked by an anthropological turn in research and methodology. The anthropological approach was integrated into the academic framework of professional education at Moscow University, serving as a complement to, rather than a replacement for, the prevailing ethnographic and ethnological methodologies (A.A. Nikishenkov, D.A. Funk). The Department of Ethnology has recently been experiencing an increase in student enrolment, while concurrently maintaining a judicious balance between ethnographic, ethnological and anthropological components. It is noteworthy that the department has adopted an interdisciplinary stance and has instituted measures to ensure the seamless transmission of professional tradition in close collaboration with academic science.

The article examines how the programmes of population censuses conducted in Russia between 1897 and 1937 reflected the dynamics of perceptions of major ethnocultural identities. Among the various forms of cultural identity in Russia, the most significant were linguistic, religious, and ethnic. However, the relative importance of these categories shift ed across different periods, as state priorities in promoting one or several of them evolved. The censuses of 1897, 1920, 1926, and 1937 vividly reveal transformations in this hierarchy of identities. Special attention is devoted to the incorporation of the category of national (ethnic) identity into census practices. In the Russian Empire of the modern era, an elite discourse emerged that proposed diverse interpretations of the nature of the ethnic (national): defining Russianness through its attributes — Orthodoxy and loyalty to the throne; defining Russianness through culture; and defining Russianness through notions of “race”, “stock”, or “blood”. For the broader Russian population, however, a presumption operated: Russian meant Orthodox and loyal to the throne (with the tacit implication of the Russian language). The study demonstrates that, in Soviet Russia, the significance of ethnic identity increased, facilitated both by the principle of national self-determination adopted by the new regime and by the administrative divisions, which were closely tied to nationality. It is therefore no coincidence that the 1920 census included, for the first time, a question on ethnic affiliation, framed as “narodnost” (“ethnic group”), which in the 1926 census was replaced with the term “nationality”. The analysis of the censuses conducted between 1897 and 1937 shows that the fundamental factors of ethnic identity in Russia — although not officially recognized in every period — were language and religion. The connection between language and ethnicity appears almost self-evident. The link between ethnicity and religion is less straightforward, yet despite the repression of religion it persisted, albeit muted; over time, however, in the structuring of identities (primary/derivative), religion and ethnicity exchanged their positions .

This article traces the principal stages in the formation of the supra-ethnic meta-identifications “the Soviet people” (sovetskiy narod) and “the Russian civic nation” (rossiiskaya grazhdanskaya natsiya), drawing on the population censuses of the USSR in the second half of the twentieth century and those of Post-Soviet Russia. Its central premise is that the census not only records social reality but also plays a significant role in producing it. Accordingly, the study considers the ways in which these political concepts were fashioned and/ or constructed and how they related to cultural forms of identification. The expression “the Soviet people,” already in circulation in the 1920s–1930 s, entered official discourse in Stalin’s address of 6 November 1944 and received its definitive codification in the USSR Constitution adopted on 7 October 1977, which defined the Soviet people as “a new type of historical community of people”. The project at stake was the creation of a civic-political identity within which ethnic identities would not conflict with the state, and ideally would be subsumed into the identity of “the Soviet people”, “the Soviet person”. At the same time, the censuses of 1959, 1970, 1979, and 1989 consolidated a categorization of the population on an ethno-cultural principle and the identities associated with it — ethnic and linguistic (ethno-nations). Russian ethnic identity constituted an exception: the politico-administrative order effectively rendered Russians a de-ethnicized substratum intended to serve as the foundation of the Soviet people (a politiconation). The authors conclude that the erosion of a union-wide identity alongside the strengthening of ethnic identities was not a consequence but a cause of the Soviet Union’s collapse. In the Post-Soviet period, state policy turned toward the construction of a Russian civic nation. In order to resolve the tension between “ethnic” and “civic” frames, the formula “a multi-peopled Russian nation” (mnogonarodnaya rossiyskaya natsiya; V.A. Tishkov) was proposed. This approach found expression in the censuses of 2002, 2010, and 2021, which present Russian citizenship and the Russian language as the foundational elements of Russian identity.