Minoreurus Helsinki – December 2013 Marie Dugast Casen

PHD student, Inalco, Paris

Paper of the presentation:

Visibility as a strategy of the contemporary Udmurt Culture

As I am preparing a thesis on the contemporary Udmurt culture, for this presentation I asked myself the following questions:- What makes the Udmurt culture a strategy? In what sense can we say that it is a strategy of visibility?- What factors are involved in the increasing cultural visibility?- Is there some counterproductive aspects of these factors ?

To answer these questions, I will use

-Official documents: results of the census and Constitutions-my own work, including two field during which I was able to participate in events , conducting formal and informal interviews with activits and developpers of the Udmurt Culture. -The work of researchers in Finno-Ugric studies or working on ethnic issue in the region of Middle Volga : G. Nikitina , K. Zamyatin , K. Marquardt ; S. Edygarova ; C. Taylor; A. Piontkovsky; Z. Zinik; And especially two theories applicable in political science :- The theory of recognition , as stated by Nancy Fraser , an American philosopher who has worked on the problem of recognition in multicultural societies- The theory of counterproductivity stated by the Croatian-Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich which is a social critic of the institutions of western culture.

The plan of this presentation isPart 1 . what strategy will be implemented to achieve the goal of visibility?Part 2 . Context of contemporary Udmurtia and statutory non-recognition.Part 3 . Cultural strategy by spreading and cons - productive aspects

I) What strategy of visibility?

Considering the development of the Udmurt culture in terms of strategy inevitably introduce a political dimension :Strategy (Collins, 2010): The art or science of planning and marshaling resources for their most efficient and effective use.

It includes the concepts of reflection , organization, implementation and mobilization of resources to achieve to perpetuating the construction of the Udmurt culture (including language) in the contemporary period.Indeed, we can see an organization in the actions of revitalization and promotion of the Udmurt culture, both at the institutional and non- institutional levels. This organization can be described as a complementary horizontal and vertical organization.

A part of this organization consists in transmitting language and cultural contents naturally, vertically, from parents to children. It happens mainly in the countryside. The typical situation is the answer of this Udmurt mother in the village of Azamatovo

"-Малы Тӥ пиналъёсыныды удмурт кылын вераськиськоды?-Ну !!! малы ке шуоно со аслам кылы! "" -Why do you speak Udmurt to your children ?-well !!! because it's my language! "

It is a vertical movement which consists in the transmission of the local language and cultural content . This transmission is not always conscious or voluntary. In a highly assimilationist context, for example in the town, this transmission can be called into question.

Another part of this organization is conceptualized and developed by Udmurt have a conscious an critical approach on Udmurt culture and its development. They are planners and activists, whether they are from the countryside and have migrated to the town for studying and working, wether they are urban natives and neo speakers.

Besides a transmission perspective, the actors of the development of the Udmurt culture are working to strengthening and spreading the fields where Udmurt culture is present. It is an horizontal organization that can be represented by the image of a bush where each new branch, each new clumps is a new cultural manifestation. In order to multiply the Udmurt cultural offerings in various sectors, the actors use different means ( legal, institutional , linguistic, technical , media , social, artistic , professional).This development by expansion , spreading, is characterized by the use of the global media internet as a tool for disseminating what has a significant consequence: to give to the Udmurt culture and to its actors a position in spheres wider than the Udmurt one; ex - Finno-Ugric ; musicians, academic , artistic spheres ; Automatically, this proliferation increases the visibility of cultural facts .Therefore, we can speak of a strategy of visibility for the development of the contemporary Udmurt culture. What are its specific features and limitations?To answer this question lit is appropriate to consider the current context in Udmurtia.

II ) Part 2 . Context of contemporary Udmurtia and statutory non-recognition.

Demographic and sociolinguistic contexts

2nd largest FO people of Russia (after the Mordvins – 1,1 million people). The Udmurts are about 410 000 (four hundred ten thousand) according to the Russian census of 2010. They were 460 000 (four hundred sixty thousand) in 2002.The Udmurts represent only 28% of the population in their eponymous republic, the main other nationalities are Russian ( 62%) and Tatar (6%).The linguistic and cultural assimilation to the dominant Russian people is strong and permanent , for example , the number of Udmurt speaker decreased by 29.9% between the censuses of 2002 and 2010 (a loss that is comparable to other Finno-Ugric region of the Middle Volga region).

Institutional context

Despite The 1993 Russian constitution and the 1994 constitution Udmurt Republic , the Udmurts are very poorly represented in the institutional sphere , both in the field of official representation and language planning.

Official representation is limited :

-by the territorial recomposition since the years 2000 (eg the district autonomous Komi- Permyak okrug was merged with the Perm kraï in 2004) ,

-by the restructuring of high level juridiction staff personal, by legal but dubious means (like the abolition of the electivity of the regional administration heads in 2005, or the nomination of Agaev , the son of the head of the oil faculty, as the representative of Udmurtia at the State Duma , while another, Nikolaj Musalimov, the head of the Udmurt association Kenesh, had been elected )

As far as language planning is concerned, the situation is also critical. Since 1994, Udmurt language is beside the Russian an official language in Udmurtia . As you can see, the main provisions concern the right to preserve and receive an education in its native language; and this right emanate mainly from the Federal Laws, not from the Constitution of Udmurtia. Moreover, this right is de facto limited by the lack of infrastructures and effective preservation programs and by other Federal Laws on Education.

At the international level, despite the efforts of the Council of Europe , Russia and France remain the two big countries that have not ratified The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages .

The Socio-political context :In the Russian context of the dual crisis (economic crisis and identity crisis), the socio-political context is an important data

Economic crisis:

Among other manifestations in Udmurtia we can underline the inability to restructure the military and industrial complex and the inadequacy of the tax system for small businesses, what provides a disincentive to entrepreneurship.

Identity crisis in Russia since the desintegration of the Soviet Union, the conflicts in Caucasus, and the increasing nationalist ideology .

Minority people that are not assimilated into the Russian population are considered as well as immigrants, that is to say, as potential enemies of the Russian nation or they are manipulated for electoral reasons as this picture of cooking and song liflets illustrates. Inside, you have receips and songs, but also a letter from the local head of the party Edinaja Rossia ( songs and Udmurt kitchen edinaja rossia )

K. Zamyatin rightly sums up the current context:In the contemporary period, in Russia, “nation -building Implies exclusion of the " nationalities question " from the state structure and political processes and Its restriction to the sphere of culture"Konstantin Zamyatin " Nationalities policy of Russia " in Russian Federation , 2012, short term prognoses , Tartu University Press, 2012. Pp. 62-66 .

According to Nancy fraser, the non-recognition " is invisibility due to authoritarian practices of representation, communication and interpretation " . From the perspective of statutory recognition , Udmurt language is confined to a domestic use (apart from a few exceptions, there is no infrastructures for the implementation of its official status ), folklorized (associated with past) since its dynamism is a potential threat to the integrity of the Russian nation .

Moreover, Ch. Taylor insists on the aftermath of the lack of recognition on people:

Charles Taylor ( 1997) Multiculturalism : Difference and Democracy , Flammarion, Paris , p42 : "The lack of recognition or inadequate recognition can be a form of oppression or imprison people in a false, distorted and reduced way of being. The failure of recognition [...]may impose a cruel injury by making people victims of a crippling self-hatred . Recognition is not just a courtesy, it is a vital need "

In this context, it became necessary to develop Udmurt culture out of the traditional territorial framework. The contemporary Udmurt culture is led by a strategy of spreading its visibility and manifestations (the image of the bush).

In the last part of this presentation, I try to identify the specific features of this strategy and its counterproductive aspects.

3) Cultural strategy of visibility and counterproductive aspects

The most prominent feature of the development of the contemporary Udmurt culture is the use of spreading, that can be illustrated by the multiplication of the cultural manifestations, the expansion to individuals (creating a community) , growing professionalism and popularity , and widening connections and informational framework .

First of all, the proliferation of initiatives is particularly noticeable as far as linguistic standardization is concerned :

Linguistic standardization started in the 20’s , it continues from the late 80’s ( Edygarova ) and driven both by the institutional and the non- institutional actors:

-institutional actions: A committee composed of members of the elite was responsible for translating the constitution ; currently unproductive ( Nikitina ) / The quadriennal projects of the Ministry for national Policies , the major part of the current program aims at publishing books for children, but there are no place where the publication can be distributed.

-non - institutional actions ( that is to say, actions that were not initiated by institutions and that are implemented by developpers and activists ) --- they keep on working on standardization.

-For example they create neologism ( Удмурт кыл кебит, which is a dictionary online that can be commented)

- They translate contemporary movies or official documents (Berykton lud)-They found a giant vector of diffusion: the internet, a global mass media with a quite easy

accessAs a consequence the textual production in Udmurt language is in expansion, in terms of numbers and of varities

At the same time, language normalization and adaptation contains counterproductive aspects.

Ivan Illich defines the notion of counterproductiveness: " at one point , an action reached a level

of development in which it turns against itself and denies its own purpose "

For example : making visible a language , it is also invisibilised some of its varieties. According to

S. Edygarova, speakers of dialectal varieties may suffer an emotional break with the language

when they face the Udmurt standard which, although it admits several norms (North and South),

seems a partially foreign language to them.

Moreover, the standard Udmurt language tends to remove the Russian elements from the

language while the linguistics borrowings are natural to most of the Udmurt speakers. Indeed,

there is about only 7% of speakers of the standard language, mainly neo speakers and university

teachers ( Edigarova ) .

Another important feature of the strategy of spreading is the use of the global media internet

N. Fraser " Discursive public arenas are among the most important places in which identities are

constructed "

Platforms dedicated to the information in Udmurt langauge (Udmurtlyk), the exchange of

information on FO people ( Uralistica ) , social networks ( facebook and VK ) , websites and

blogs( chipoton, daralileli.blogspot.fr,the udmurtblog, udmort.ru, ... ), art galery (ex Udmurt art

of Chudia Jeni) or show case for design or fashion small businesses (ex Mon ami) promote

membership to a virtual community. The membership is virtual but the feeling of belonging to a

community is real and physically experienced.

The Internet plateform understood as a public space, activate the identity construction by

reflection in a double movement: confrontation with otherness and introspection. For activits, it

is also a possible space for the interpretation of the needs of the community.

I would like quickly give two other prominent features of the strategy of the Udmurt

contemporary culture:

-the collective actions (actions are done by and for groups); a good example would be the actions

of the promo Groupe Yumshan Promo whose leader, Pavel Pozdeev, is considered as the initiator

of the urban Udmurt culture.

-The last feature of the contemporary Udmurt cultural strategy is the insertion, the positionning

of the actions and the actors into wider and often international disciplinary spheres (artistic,

academic, professional). For example, the music of Silent Woo Goore and in another style , the

success of the babouchkas of Buranovo to the Eurovision contest in 2012, as well as the work of

designers who develop Udmurt logos for Finno-Ugric local or international events, and the

integration of Udmurt searchers in foreign university, all these manifestations reveal that

Udmurt culture takes its place in the global cultural scene and its ability to use the codes of the

global culture as a means of expression.

One of the obvious consequences of this is the increase of the visibility of the Udmurt culture.

To conclude, In this presentation of the udm cult strategy of visibility, it has been pointed out

that many actions are operated by non- institutional cultural actors, what reveals a transfer of

skills but without means:

- there is no legal protection against the assimilation process : A culture is considered as saved

when there is no need of artificial support to keep it alive. In such a perspective, two

complementary movement are at stake: the revitalization and consolidation actions and the

protection against assimilation. Revitalization can be done by any people involved in this process

but the state is the main instance responsible for the protection against assimilation; and at

present, in Udmurtia, the law is not applied.

- the lack of statutory socio professional recognition of Udmurt people in the institutional sphere

make difficult the providing of a social position as an Udmurt. K. Marcquart describes the

situation of Tatarstan where the language is a possibility of social promotion. Since the

knowledge of the tatar language is one of the necessary conditions for working in the

administration. It created a statutory valorization of the use of tatar, and the parents start to

realize that it was an opportunity for their children future professional life.

- Considering the difficulty faced by small national businesses (fashion and design businesses),

one of the solution proposed by Nancy Fraser is to implement positive actions in order to make

their situation fairer and more equitable. For example, as done in financial grants for some

regions or an exemption of taxes for a while in some professional sectors.

One can notice that in the Udmurt case, the question of recognition is not far from the question of redistribution.

References

-Edygarova S., Cours d’oudmourte à Paris (INALCO), octobre 2013.

-Fraser N. Redistribution or Recognition ? A Political - Philosophical Exchange ( co-authored with Axel Honneth ), 2003.

-Fraser N. Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World, 2009.

-Illich I., Le genre vernaculaire, Fayard, 1981.

-Marquardt K., « Language and Sovereignty:A Comparative Analysis of Language Policy in Tatarstan and Kazakhstan,1991-2010 ». Working Paper UCLA – Central Asia, 2013.

-Piontkovsky A., « Russia's Identity Crisis in Foreign Policy », Economic and identity , East or West , January 2006

-Sapir J., Le chaos russe, désordres économiques, conflits politiques, décomposition militaire, la découverte, 1996.

-Taylor Charles (1997) Multiculturalism : Difference and Democracy , Flammarion, Paris , p42

-Zamyatin, K." Nationalities policy of Russia " Russian Federation , 2012, short term prognoses , Tartu University Press, 2012. Pp. 62-66 .

-Zinik Z., " Censorship and Self- Alienation in Russia" Economic and identity , East or West, 2005.