Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The All-Buriat “Ray of Light”: Independence and Identity in Native-Language Media

2016; Volume: 5; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/reg.2016.0014

2166-4307

Kathryn E. Graber,

Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics

This article provides a rare account of local media development in post-perestroika Russia by examining Tolon (Ray of Light), an “all-Buriat” newspaper founded in 1989 to serve as an independent media outlet for Buriat readers. Since the heyday of Buriat nationalism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Tolon has been published in the Aga region with the goals of unifying Buriats throughout their fragmented Russian territories and Mongolia and encouraging national self-awareness. As one of very few native-language publications not directly published by the state, it allows close examination of the social missions and roles of independent local media in contemporary Russia. To the extent that the paper has survived for 26 years, it is also an uncommon example of an overtly minority-nationalist initiative allowed to function within an increasingly Russian-nationalist state. Key to Tolon’s success is its home in Aginskoe, a small, if culturally significant, town far from mainstream politics. By naturalizing Buriat identity and locating it within the realm of the spiritual, the newspaper pursues ethnolinguistic reunification in this out-of-the-way place without invoking the political conflict of irredentism. Tolon thus illuminates some of the more covert ways local media may support ethnonational coalescence on the margins of the state.