American Indian Culture and Research Journal

An essay like this usually deals with the ways through which people of one culture look at representatives of another. In such cases, authors generally discuss all aspects of culture, from literature and press to scholarship and ordinary people's opinions. My scope is narrowed intentionally and considers the influence of state ideology on social thought as it applies to a particular field: coverage of American Indian-related topics in the Soviet press and in Indian studies. The materials presented below certainly have historiographical character, and therefore I could not avoid describing what has been done in Soviet Indian studies generally, although it is an independent theme worthy of a special article. In the Soviet period of Russian history, social thought developed within the strict limits of Marxist methodology, with Marxism understood as the state ideology; and Indian studies has been a vivid reflection of the general state of things. Social scholarship and the press had to serve governmental interests, and much concrete research that had little or nothing to do with ideological matters also could not avoid this fate.