Bogoraz, Vladimir Germanovich

(also known by the pseudonyms N. A. Tan and V. G. Tan). Born Apr. 15 (27), 1865, in Ovruch, Volyn’ Province; died May 10, 1936, on the road to Rostov-on-Don. Soviet ethnologist, writer, and public figure.

In his youth, Bogoraz joined the revolutionary Narodniks (Populists). His scholarly activities began in the 1890’s during his exile in Kolyma (1890–98). He was a member of expeditions to study the peoples of the Far Northeast (1894–96, 1900–01). His principal works deal with ethnology and folklore. He is the author of textbooks and dictionaries, as well as one of the creators of writing systems for the languages of the northern peoples. In 1918 he became a staff member of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR; from 1921 he was a professor at a number of higher educational institutions in Leningrad. Bogoraz was one of the founders of the study of the history, ethnology, culture, and daily life of the northern peoples. He initiated the establishment of the Committee on the North attached to the Presidium of the All-Union Central Executive Committee, as well as the founding of the Institute of Northern Peoples. Outstanding among his scholarly works is the monograph The Chukchi (parts 1–2, 1934–39). Bogoraz published the book Chukchi Stories (1899), novels, and novellas from the life of primitive peoples, among them The Eight Tribes (1902) and The Dragon’s Victim (1909). He also published the novel The Resurrected Tribe (1935) about the rebirth of a small northern tribe after the October Revolution.