On The Construction Of The Buryat Natsional'nost Of Russia: Interactive Mechanism,State Institution,and Natsional'nost(17th Century To The Beginning Of 21st Century)

Most countries in the world today are multi-national states.The Russian Federation is a multi-national state with the largest geographic area in the world and a country along the “Belt and Road”.Under this circumstance,re-valuing the Siberian region of Russia and its nationalities adjacent to China has become an urgent task for Chinese think tanks to promote the construction of the "China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor" and jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind.It is also a basic task to enrich overseas ethnographic studies with Chinese characteristics.This dissertation will re-value the most populous indigenous people in Siberia,the Buryat people,enrich overseas ethnographic studies with Chinese characteristics,and realize the sharing of humanistic values in the Siberian region adjacent to China.It will consolidate the building of national communication between China and Russia,and lead toward a community of shared future for mankind.Besides,the dissertation focuses on “periphery in the center”,examines the“center” from its “periphery”,and analyzes how the “center-periphery” interactive mechanism shapes the two sides from the perspective of reflection.Specifically,without knowing Russia's “periphery” nationalities,it is impossible to fully understand the Russian state itself,because Russia has always been a multi-national and cultural political system since the establishment of the country.At present,research on nation,nationalism,and nation-state has become one of the most important development trends in ethnology and anthropology.Among them,nation and nationalism are considered to be a difficult research field by the academic communities,while the nation-state as a political entity is considered to be a relatively easy research object.Although the academic communities have accumulated a profound theoretical foundation for the study of nation and nationalism,the debate has existed and a unified conclusion has not yet been formed.Primordialists believe that a nation is a product of natural development and that the most fundamental nature of a nation,so-called “national characteristics”,will not change with changes in the outside world.Therefore,national identity is born,and nationalism is a product of national instinct instead of a social ideology.Primordialism is regarded as a “so superficial” and “largely ignored” theory by constructivists,“a long-dead horse that writers on ethnicity and nationalism continue to flog”.The dissertation takes the Buryat nationality as an example,keeps “flogging”Primordialism as “a dead horse”,and argues that the nation is not “born” but “made”.Constructivists pay attention to the social constructivity of a nation,believing that nation is “made” rather than “born”,and emphasize that nation is constructed through the efforts of intellectual elites and the political will of the states or an effective tool of intellectual elites and states for achieving a certain purpose.Because the constructivists believe that nation is the result of the transformation of traditional society to modern society,they oppose a fixed national essence and emphasize that nation is not an inherent human attribute.Constructivism is the current mainstream theoretical paradigm in the study of ethnicity,nation,and nationalism,but it cannot fully explain the continuity of the construction of modern nation-states and pre-modern ethnicity,so it is regarded as a theory of “throwing out the baby with the bathwater”.For this reason,Anthony Smith proposed ethno-symbolism,emphasizing the construction of the pre-modern ethnicity of a modern nation.The author believes that constructivism overestimates the political will of the state,especially shaping power of the national consciousness,national unity,and loyalty to build a state-nation in a multi-national country.It fails to fully explain the national consciousness of a sub-state level of nation and the persistence of transnational ethnic ties.The dissertation takes Russia's Buryat nationality(the sub-state level of a nation)and its nationalism(autonomy seeking nationalism)as an example to supplement the discussion of the shaping power of the sub-state level of a nation in the construction of the state and the state institution.Moreover,Rogers Brubaker put forward the theory of Institutionalism,emphasizing that we should not ask “what is a nation” but rather how is nationhood as a political and cultural form institutionalized within and among states.Nationality is shaped by the state institution.When all members of society are classified into different nationalities,identity does not depend on economic and social changes,but on institutional changes.This is a long-term process,so this social division based on nationality can easily lead to nationalist movements.In other words,the theory of institutionalism shifts its analytical perspective to the state institution,rather than the nation itself.The author believes that Institutionalism has three clear shortcomings: 1.it overestimates the one-way ability of the state institution to shape the nation and ignores the nation's response to the state;2.one-sided emphasis on the state institution itself to demonstrate the inevitability of the rise of ethnic nationalism in the Soviet Union;3.it cannot fully explain why the Buryatia(autonomous republic within the Russian Federation),which was born under the same dual system,did not have the problem of extreme national separatism.The dissertation challenges Institutionalism,taking the Buryat nationality and nationalism as an example,argues that the“periphery” nationality is the product of the “center-periphery” interaction,rather than a unilateral creation of the “center” of the state,and proposes the triadic relational nexus of mechanism,institution,and nationality.In other words,the dissertation focuses on the triadic relational nexus of the “center-periphery” mechanism,the state institution,and the “peripheral” nationality.Therefore,neither the idea that unilaterally emphasizes the state institution to shape the nation nor the independent national construction project of the “peripheral” nationality is an overall statement.The reason is that the construction of the sub-state level nation is simultaneously shaped by the dual shaping forces of the nationality itself and the power of the state.In the end,as for the theoretical paradigm,the dissertation takes the Buryat nationality,the “model ethnic minority” of the Russian Federation,as an example to reflect on the research paradigm of theories,and to supplement the discussion of the shaping power of the sub-state level of a nation in the construction of the state and the state institution.Also,it proposes the triadic relational nexus of mechanism,institution,and nationality.The dissertation has the following innovative points: 1.to supplement the discussion of the shaping power of the sub-state level of a nation in the construction of the state and the state institution;2.to demonstrate the triadic relational nexus of mechanism,institution,and nationality and fill the theoretical research niche.As for the research topic,at present,academic communities still lack of a highly conceptualized term to express the attributes of the Buryat nationality and its identity.The dissertation,based on field survey data and multilingual archival documents,will re-examine the Buryat Nationality Building Project by combining participant observation and historical research methods.And it proposes a highly conceptualized term called the Laminative Nationality to express the Buryat natsional'nost.The innovative points of the dissertation lie in the multilingual archival documents,the local perspective,and the concept of the Laminative Nationality,which makes up for research niche and enriches Buryat nationality research.