Critical Essay 2: <Tab/>Anna M. Kerttula, Antler on the Sea

In her book, Antler on the Sea, Kerttula discusses how Soviet government policies aimed to integrate the northern peoples of the USSR in reality helped the groups to maintain their identities as they defined themselves in opposition to one another. According to Kerttula, "in Sireniki, the very system that sought to control and homogenize difference reinforced it" (155). Kerttula illustrates the extent to which much of the native culture has survived the Soviet period. This trend …

…identity and personhood (151). What makes the case at Sireniki unique is that three distinct cultural groups were essentially forced to live together in relative peace while each simultaneously sought to prolong and promote their own traditional practices and beliefs. Kerttula's investigation and analysis is of how collective identities were facilitated among the two indigenous groups and one immigrant group in order to maintain their cultures in the face of rapidly changing social and material circumstances (153).