title: Cartoon epic heroes in indigenous Siberian revival: The meaning of ethnicity in Putin's Russia (Respond to this article at https://www.therai.org.uk/publications/anthropology-today/debate)
abstract: This article outlines a motivation for the Russian Federation's incursion into the Crimea, which concerns the Putin administration's relationship with Russia's citizens, rather than the outside world. I use a case study from Siberia – the Sakha people's revival of their national epic, the Olongkho – to explore the possibility that Putin's behaviour during the Ukrainian crisis serves to legitimate his authority within Russia, by appealing to conceptions of ethnicity that have their roots in Sovie
journal: Anthropology Today