Alkor (Koshkin) Yan (Yakov)

Alkor (Koshkin) Yan (Yakov) (1900–1938) – ethnographer, linguist, participant of the revolutionary movement.

From the age of 14, he took part in the revolutionary underground work in Latvia, was arrested several times. In 1917, he joined the RSDLP (Bolshevik). In 1918-1920, he studied at the Higher Cavalry School in Petrograd. In 1921-1923, he was Commissioner of the General Staff School. At the same time, he entered the social pedagogical department of the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Ethnographic Department of the Geographical Institute of the 1st Petrograd University, which he graduated in 1924. Disciple of L.Ya.Sternberg and V.G. Bogoraz. In 1925-1930, he was Lecturer of the Northern Faculty of the Leningrad Oriental Institute and at the Ethnographic Department of the Geographic Faculty of the Leningrad State University. From 1925 to 1929, he was Executive Secretary of the Bureau of the Leningrad Branch Department of the Committee of the North at the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. One of the founders and active employees (1930-1936) of the Institute of the Peoples of the North of the Central Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R., Professor; since 1931, in the position of Director of the Institute. Organizer of the Research Association at the Institute. Since 1932, Professor, Head of the Department of Northern Languages at the Leningrad Institute of Philosophy, Literature, and History, and Head of the Department of Northern Languages at the Pedagogical Institute named after A.I. Herzen.

In 1935-1937, he was Head of the Ethnological Section of the Institute of Anthropology, Archeology and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. In 1932-1936, he headed the Committee of the New Alphabet of the Peoples of the North. He participated in the processing of the results of the All-Union Population Census in 1937.

In 1936, he was expelled from the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, and, in 1937, he was arrested on charges of belonging to a spy and terrorist organization. In 1938, on the order of the Special Council of the Leningrad Military District, he was shot. Reabilitation on October 29, 1955.

Researcher of language and culture of Evenks, took part in the working out the Evenkian alphabet.

Compositions

A Project of the Alphabet for the Evenk (Tungus) Language. Leningrad, 1930.
Writing of the Peoples of the North. Leningrad: Institute of the Peoples of the North of the Central Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R., 1931.
Languages and Writing of the Peoples of the North. Digest of Articles. Part 1. / Under general ed. Ya.P. Alkor. Moscow- Leningrad: GUPI, 1934; Part 2. Moscow-Leningrad: GUPI, 1937.
Colonial Politics of Tsarism in Kamchatka and Chukotka in the Eighteenth Century. Collection of Archival Materials. / Ed. Ya.P. Alkor and L.K. Dresen. Introd. S.B. Okun. Leningrad: Institute of the Peoples of the North of the Central Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R., 1935.
Colonial Politics of the Moscow State in Yakutia in the Seventeenth century. Collection of Documents / Under general ed. Ya.P. Alkor, B.D. Grekov. Introd. I.M. Trotsky. Leningrad: Institute of the Peoples of the North of the Central Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R. named after P.G. Smidovich, 1936.
Collection of Materials on the Evenk (Tungus) Folklore. / Comp. G.M. Vasilevich. Ed. Ya.P. Alkor. Leningrad: Institute of the Peoples of the North of the Central Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R. named after P.G. Smidovich, 1936.
Morgan L. Ancient Society, or the Study of the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization. / Transl. from English ed. M.O. Kosven. App.: Foreword L.G. Morgan to the book by L. Fayson and A. Howitt ‘Camilaroi and Kurnai’; Article by F. Engels. Leningrad: Institute of the Peoples of the North of the Central Executive Committee of the U.S.S.R., 1935.
Sternberg L.Ya. Primordial Religion in the Light of Ethnography. / Ed. and introd. Ya. P. Alkor. Leningrad: Institute of the Peoples of the North of the U.S.S.R., 1936.

About him

Omelchuk A. Knights of the North. Sverdlovsk, 1982. P. 8-14.
Alkor (real name: Koshkin), Yan (Yakov) Petrovich / Vasilkov Ya.V., Sorokina M.Yu. People and Destinies. Biobibliographic Dictionary of Orientalists - Victims of Political Terror in the Soviet Period (1917 - 1991). St. Petersburg, 2003. P. 32.
Alymov S.S., Arzyutov D.V. Marxist Ethnography in Seven Days: Meeting of Ethnographers from Moscow and Leningrad, and Discussions in Soviet Social Disciplines in 1920s – 1930s // From the Classics to Marxism: Meeting of Ethnographers from Moscow and Leningrad (April 5-11, 1929) / ed. D.V. Arzyutova, S.S. Alymova, D.J. Anderson. St. Petersburg: MAE RAN, 2014. P. 21-93.
Lyarskaya E. ‘Penelope's Fabric’: The ‘Bogoraz's Project’ in the Second Half of 1920s - 1930s. // Anthropological Forum. 2016. Iss. 29. P. 142-186.
Sem T.Yu. The Role of Ethnological Education in Preserving Cultures of the Small Peoples of the North in the Historical Perspective of Northern Studies // Questions of History and Culture of Northern Countries and Territories. Syktyvkar, 2017, Iss. 4 (40). P. 88-135.

M. Sh.