Nº 3 (2025)

The article discusses μάγκας – a sociocultural phenomenon that arose in the lower-class milieu of Greek port cities in the late 19th – first half of the 20th century. It was in that period that the criminalization of port cities occurred due to the impoverishment of the rural population as a consequence of urbanization and its resettlement in search of a better life in larger cities and towns, but mainly due to the Asia Minor catastrophe of 1922, which caused an influx of refugees from Smyrna (Izmir) and its environs to Athens and Piraeus. Mάγκας is a polysemantic word that is difficult to translate from Greek and that has gone over time beyond its originally negative meaning. In this case, we can observe an evolution and metamorphosis of the concept: from a declassed criminal or semi-criminal element, a vagabond, a loafer, sometimes a thief and smuggler, a regular at cheap tekes (hashish dens) in Piraeus, who typically confronts the police, he turns into a brave bully-guy from the ordinary people, who does not place much value on material goods, or sometimes into a virtuoso musician and dancer who performs rebetika, which itself played a significant part in the romanticization of the image of μάγκας. While much of the scholarly work has been commonly focused on Greek rebetika and its development from the folk song to the kind of “underground chanson”, which was initially despised and semi-banned in the official culture and later proclaimed a cultural heritage of Greece, I will specifically focus on μάγκας as the main figure of rebetika, examining his cultural life in a certain social environment and the ways he was perceived in Greek society.

The article takes the case of Sardinia, an archaic and conservative region of Italy, and its central mountainous area of Barbagia in particular, to examine the phenomenon of cattle raiding in historical perspective. I draw primarily on my own field materials to support the analyses provided in the available scholarly literature, since the latter predominantly discuss the topic from the legal point of view. The anthropological standpoint will be helpful in presenting a more complex and multidimensional vision of the Sardinian cattle raiding, shedding light on its intricacies, folk philosophy, and place in the local cultural context, as well as in identifying its connections to the ancient code of customary law and the present values and norms of behavior in the region. I argue that, in the emic views of the villagers, cattle raiding is considered as a phenomenon organically inscribed in the local social-economic and cultural context, being sometimes disapproved of, sometimes “decriminalized” or “heroized” and shown as requiring certain dignity of its actors. By examining this practice in the context of Sardinia, we will be able to better understand many other realities in this European region in its present and historical past.

The field study, based on the interviews recorded in the village of Vozhgora, Leshukonsky District, Arkhangelsk Region, in 2021–2024, analyzes the role and place of the Northern Russian fishing and hunting huts in the life of the local community. The hut, which usually has several owners, is considered an object of the customary law: most often, a son inherits it from his father with all the adjacent lands. Joint ownership and maintenance of huts are regulated by the rules established by the community. Violation of these rules entails the closure of the huts and, as a result, conflicts both within the community and between the community and the strangers. I describe the social relationships (adult and children) that are built around the huts, analyze the established rules, their violations, as well as the actions of the community in response to transgressions. Consistently showing that the hut is a place of identity, relationships and history for the local hunters and fishers, I call it an “anthropological place” (Marc Augé’s term).

This publication presents a discussion of arguments raised in the article on “Masao Miura’s Autobiographical Narrative: Un-Soviet Practices in Soviet Kazakhstan [Avtobiograficheskii narrativ Masao Miury: nesovetskie praktiki v sovetskom Kazakhstane]”, by Elza-Bair Guchinova who examines the memoirs of Masao Miura about life in the USSR and thinks over Miura’s behavioral patterns and his strategies of adaptation within a new social context. Miura’s biography was unique: at the age of 13, he was convicted and, after serving time in a labor camp, deported to Kazakhstan where he lived for 54 years before returning to Japan. The article’s author pays particular attention to narrative techniques in Miura’s stories about rural Kazakhstan in the 1940s and 1950s – an environment inhabited by many repressed individuals and marked by pockets of archaism within a rapidly modernizing region. Sergey Kim responds to the issue of critical interpretation of sources related to the epoch under consideration in his comment entitled “Masao Miura’s Memoirs as a Historical Source”.

Ethnic migrations, that is the movement of a people or part of it to new territories outside traditional ethnic boundaries, play a significant role in history and can be very diverse. This can be easily verified by analyzing ethnic migrations in Russian America. This name was given to the former colonies of the Russian Empire that emerged in the Aleutian Islands and Alaska in the second half of the 18th century and were then sold to the United States in 1867. Ethnic migrations during this period can be reduced to three main types: 1) migrations of Russians and representatives of other peoples of the Russian Empire to the Aleutian Islands and Alaska; 2) migrations of local dependent natives under the influence of Russians; 3) migrations of independent native groups. The first two types of migrations were characterized by an organized and predominantly forced nature. Numerous historical data indicate that during the period of Russian America, both the scale and intensity of ethnic migrations increased compared to the pre-contact period. At the same time, the result of such migrations was very significant demographic losses for a number of ethnic groups, a change in traditional ethnic boundaries and the formation of new ethnic communities, as well as very important changes in the culture of a number of Alaskan peoples.

The article examines the ethnic history of Kenya during the years of colonialism and on the eve of the country’s independence. I argue that the Kenyan society may be considered as an essentially typical case in research on tribalism, national question, and federalism in Africa, as well as elsewhere in the world, and in the study of a country-specific version of “African socialism”. Having a short-lived experience of federalism on the eve of independence (the era of majimbo) and an experience of unitary state order during the independence period, Kenya in the 2010s turned back to decentralization and regionalism as a system of territorial and political structure. Some researchers believe that Kenya is returning to the practice of majimbo, i.e. devolution, and that a specific version of “ethnic federalism” is being established in the country when its administrative-territorial system is being adjusted to the tribal composition of the population. I attempt to demonstrate the relationship between the choice of regionalism and the prospects for political, economic, and cultural coexistence of different peoples within the confines of the country. Without analyzing the colonial experience, it is impossible to understand what is happening in modern Kenya, including the “ethnic policy” pursued by the Kenyan authorities.

The article examines the custom of mutual assistance in the economic life of Mordovian peasants. It focuses on the fact that Mordovian villagers used to render help to each other in various kinds of seasonal work that were complex, labor-intensive, and required collective effort. This, for example, was typically the case when houses were constructed, as well as in certain activities in agriculture and farming, in emergency situations, in circumstances related to the organization of celebrations, customs, and so on. The village community acted as a keeper of moral values and ensured that the economic knowledge and experience be maintained and safely passed on from generation to generation. It also played a significant part in the shaping of the communal opinion, often rather strictly controlling villagers’ behavior. Therefore, the custom of mutual support itself was highly regularized and encompassed a number of orderly stages, such as announcement, invitation, working, and providing a treat afterwards. This can be observed up to the present days. Still, the study of this custom in the historical perspective attests to the fact that it has undergone substantial changes during the closing decades of the last century, undervaluing the necessity of mutual support in many scenarios.