Putin Calls for a Greater, More Dominant Russia, But how Russian is Russia? A Mari Perspective.
When Trump and Putin negotiate over territory, they often speak about mineral-rich land of Indigenous communities, such as the Mari. Putin also tends to send indigenous people to the front line in the Ukraine war–getting rid of two problems at once.
The current authoritarian regime in Russia isn’t the first state to harass the Mari. Artist, organizer, and Mari tribe member Joulia Strauss says: “We resisted the Czar, we resisted Stalin, and so of course we resist Putin.”
“In the case of my own island,” Strauss writes, “as the last Pagans of Europe, by way of introduction, I would like to apply an inverted anthropology to take a look at ourselves through those who exoticise, who “other” us. Russian encyclopedias depict us as a Mongoloid race with pigmented skin and cat-like eyes. In this depiction of Mari women, I was inspired by the Japanese photographer Ikuru of Juwajima. Since I do not own the copyright of the photographs of us he has exhibited at the Venice Biennale, I have drawn them. During some festivities we wear masks, but in his photographs we Mari are simply faceless. Clearly, something went wrong in our case.
And yet, now, for the first time in history, 160 indigenous cultures of Russian “Federation” are uniting into a movement.
Drawings: Joulia Strauss in collaboration with: Marc Mueller
