Indigenous sovereign engagements: Aleksandr Korobeinikov, ‘Questioning Russian settler colonialism: resettlement strategies and indigenous agency in the post-imperial Sakha (Yakut) region’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2024 | settler colonial studies blog

Indigenous sovereign engagements: Aleksandr Korobeinikov, ‘Questioning Russian settler colonialism: resettlement strategies and indigenous agency in the post-imperial Sakha (Yakut) region’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2024

22Dec24

Abstract: This article explores how indigenous Sakha intellectuals responded to Russian colonialism during a period of transformation in the Sakha (Yakut) region. It examines the impact of penal and resource colonialism in the late nineteenth century, the response of local intellectuals to potential settler colonialism in the early twentieth century, and their efforts to transition the Sakha population from nomadism to more sedentary or mixed lifestyles. Sakha intellectuals not only challenged Russian settler colonialism, but also appropriated its discourse, arguing for the designation of the Sakha as a sedentary community in the early Soviet period. They sought to counter imperialist representations of the Sakha as ‘backward’ while asserting indigenous agency in shaping regional development. By resisting and reframing colonial practices, these intellectuals became key actors in the socio-political transformation of Yakutia during the late Russian Empire and early Soviet Union. The article focuses on how sedentarization facilitated this transformation, revealing the complexity of colonial dynamics in early Soviet Yakutia.

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