ANTHROPOLOGICAL FIELD WORK · IN THE USSR The first Ethnographical Society in Russia was founded around 1845, under the auspices of the Imperial Society of Geography,

followed by the publication of a journal, Etnograficheskoe Obosrenie o Its char~cter and aims were similar to those of the Royal Anthro pological Institute, as described by Edmund Leach: 'The Institute in its origins was a typical 19th co learned society. Anthropology was not, as it is now, a 'subject ' studied by undergraduates at univ~rsities with an appropriate cadre of professional and academic· staff; it was a leisure-time pursuit for a small number of enthusiastic gentlemen amateurs. Most of them were possessed with substantial private means, and with one or. two notable exceptions, they all rode hobby horses of the greatest eccentricity (Leach 1974). The St. Petersburgh anthropologists were not, on the whole, eccentrics, but rather an exceptionally liberal-minded group of people. This was recognized OY a Soviet hard"'liner, whose atti tude nevertheless permitted the claim·. that: Russian ethnography of the 19th and (early) 20th centuries was never of an officious character,never offered·its services to tsarism. The Russian ethno graphic bodies of that period had an advanced social nature (Tolstov1946)~ The principle concern was to study the social life of various peoples coming under the umbrella of the Tsarist empire. Although speculative interest in man's prehistoric origins was not excessive, anthropologists attempted to place each social phenomenon at a stage along a saile of unilineal development, as was the general practice of social scientists at the time. A few OVerseas expeditions were made by Russians of the 19th century, the most outstanding figure being Miklukho-Maclay, a Russian Scotsman, who travelled to Oceania and lived there for seven years. He carried out some of the best fieldwork done in his time (Lienhardt 1964). Unfortunately the precedent set by Miklukho-Maclay has been neglected, and long-term expeditions abroad. have been abandoned; his revered name, however, has been given to the central Ethnographic Institute of the USSRo The Kunst Kamera, established under Peter the Great, to this day houses an impressive collection of exotic objects. It is admin:istered and is adjacent to the present-day Leningrad Branc