Ernest Gellner in the Soviet East

Abstract

Ernest Gellner's (eg, 1974, 1977) treatment of the anthropological work of Soviet scholars is discussed in the context of the political climate of the Cold War. Conversations among colleagues had to be held surreptitiously. The tension between Gellner & his Marxist counterparts did not prevent him from recognizing the world-class anthropologists who worked within Soviet Marxist constrictions. Western & Soviet anthropologists worked on similar questions, eg, power relations in early preindustrial societies. Soviet ideology also posed some special questions for anthropologists, eg, the relevance of ethnographic analysis & the schema of historical stages of development. H. von Rautenfeld