The National Press of the Indigenous Peoples of Siberia:: Origins and Future Directions

For many decades the Siberian indigenous peoples' press functioned as a part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's general press system. The structure and types of Native (indigenous minority groups) newspapers were determined by resolutions of the Communist Party, and only within autonomous republics, regions and districts of Siberia. At the beginning of perestroika, only the Siberian Native people who had received `autonomy', such as the Yakut people, had newspapers in their own language, although some groups (Nanais, Nivkhs, Evens) had a written language and even their own literature. At present, local newspapers in the Evenkjiski, Koryakski and Taimyrski autonomous districts are published only in Russian. Did the granting of real sovereignty to former autonomous states and the disintegration of traditional Native life in Russia begin the disintegration of the newspapers of Native Siberians in line with the new democratic changes? It is impossible to understand the current mass media processes without examining the history of this press.