Narody Mira

The Soviet Ethnographic Series

Narody mira (Народы мира, Peoples of the World) is a landmark 18-volume scholarly series on world ethnography, published by the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences between 1954 and 1966. This fundamental project remains one of the most comprehensive Soviet attempts to document and analyze the ethnic composition, cultures, and traditions of peoples across the globe.

The Narody mira series represents a genre specific to the Soviet era: a massive multi-volume work produced over years, if not decades, by the country’s intellectual elite. It was a highly choreographed and collaborative enterprise that—with the possible exception of the People’s Republic of China—had no real parallel anywhere else in the world. East View is proud to bring these monumental print works to digital life, opening them to new audiences and ensuring that the many gems of knowledge and deep research contained within are accessible to modern scholars.

For today’s researchers, Narody mira represents a unique intersection of global ethnographic knowledge and Soviet academic tradition at the height of the Cold War. The series captures a moment when Soviet scholars sought to systematize and classify the peoples of the world, offering both rich empirical data and an ideological framework that shaped research in the USSR for decades.

For scholars in anthropology and ethnography, the series provides detailed descriptions of cultures, languages, and traditions that remain valuable for comparative studies and historical analysis. Historians will find in these volumes rare insights into Soviet scholarly priorities, methodologies, and representations of both Soviet and non-Soviet peoples. Linguists can draw on the extensive coverage of language groups and dialects. Political scientists and area studies specialists can use the series to better understand how knowledge about other regions was constructed, disseminated, and employed in Soviet foreign policy and cultural diplomacy.

Narody mira is an indispensable resource for anyone studying global cultural diversity, Soviet approaches to ethnography, or the intellectual history of the 20th century. Its availability in digital format ensures that this foundational series can now serve new generations of scholars across disciplines.

Narody Mira

Series Titles

The Narody Mira Soviet Ethnographic Series covers regions and populations worldwide:

  • Narody Avstralii i Okeanii (Peoples of Australia and Oceania)
  • Narody Ameriki (Peoples of the Americas, in 2 volumes)
  • Narody Afriki (Peoples of Africa)
  • Narody Vostochnoi Azii (Peoples of East Asia)
  • Narody Evropeiskoi chasti SSSR (Peoples of the European Part of the USSR, in 2 volumes)
  • Narody zarubezhnoi Evropy (Peoples of Foreign Europe, in 2 volumes)
  • Narody Kavkaza (Peoples of the Caucasus, in 2 volumes)
  • Narody Perednei Azii (Peoples of the Near East)
  • Narody Sibiri (Peoples of Siberia)
  • Narody Srednei Azii i Kazakhstana (Peoples of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, in 2 volumes)
  • Narody Yugo-Vostochnoi Azii (Peoples of Southeast Asia)
  • Narody Yuzhnoi Azii (Peoples of South Asia)
  • Chislennost’ i rasselenie narodov mira (Population and Distribution of the Peoples of the World)

Each volume provides a detailed ethnographic portrait of peoples and regions, addressing their origins, languages, economies, social structures, belief systems, and cultural practices. The series draws on extensive fieldwork, archival research, and historical analysis, combining descriptive accounts of daily life, rituals, and celebrations with systematic scholarly interpretation.

The concluding demographic volume, Chislennost’ i rasselenie narodov mira, adds another dimension, offering systematic data on ethnic composition, population size, and distribution across regions and nations of the mid-20th century world — material that remains a vital reference point for historical population studies.

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