The Competition of Models of Pomor Identity in Historiography of the Late 20th – First Quarter of the 21st Century: State and Prospects

Abstract

The article is devoted to the issue of the essence of the concepts related to the problem of ethnogenesis and ethnocultural identity of the Pomors in modern historical discourse. The author provides a name for two oppos-ing models emerged due to the different formats of the address to the preceding academic heritage as well as fundamentally diverse methodological and geopolitical foundations; a comprehensive assessment of their arguments is carried out based on an analysis of the works of the most significant representatives. A number of arbitrary assumptions and contradictions of the diffuse‑constructivist model are identified. It is concluded that the intensity of competition between the models of Pomor identity is ultimately determined by the confrontation between strategies of discrediting and rehabilitating the history of the Russian state. The recommendations are proposed for implementing a strategy for their interaction including abandoning the extreme postmodernist concepts of ethnogenesis, reducing the appealing to non-Russian cultural and genetic substrates, narrowing the chronotopic localization of the “Pomorye” concept, and breaking away from the Westernized geopolitical context.