Shternberg Lev (Khaim Leib)

Shternberg Lev (Khaim Leib) (1861–1927) – ethnographer, historian of religion.

After a short learning in yeshiva, he entered the classical gymnasium in Zhitomir and finished it in 1881; then, he passed competition n for the Natural Sciences Department of the Physical and Mathematical Faculty of the St. Petersburg University. He joined the revolutionary group ‘Narodnaya volya’; in 1882, after students’ protests, he was sent home to Zhitomir, In 1883, he enrolled to the Legal Faculty of the Novorossisky University (Odessa).

In 1883, he was one of organizers of the underground congress of ‘Narodnaya volya’ in Ekaterinoslav; so, he was arrested; in 1886, after three years of his solitary confinement in the central jail of Odessa, he was sent to exile to the island of Sakhalin. There, in 1889-1897, he started to study the life and religious beliefs of Gilyaks (Nivkh), studied and described their language. He expounded his observations in articles which were published in regional and central media: ‘Vladivostok’, ‘Russkie vedomosti’ (1892), ‘Ethnograficheskoe obozrenie’ (1893, 1894). In 1891-1892, he conducted a census of Gilyaks, Oroch, and Ainu peoples. He fpunded a museum of local history on the island of Sakhalin. In 1895, the Society for Local History of the Amur Region, and the Khabarovsk Branch of the Russian Geographical Society achieved a permission to transfer S. from the island to the Amur Region for studying local Gilyaks and other native tribes. In 1895-1896, he organized there three expeditions.

In 1897, the Ac. of Sc. in St. Petersburg gave a petition for his returning from the exile; the same year he came to Zhitomir. In 1901, V. V. Radlov invited him to work as a volunteer at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (in spite of the fact, that S. had no right to live constantly in the capital, because he was a Jew). In 1902, S. got a diploma of the Legal Faculty of the St. Petersburg University and became a regular employee of the Museum.

In 1900-1902, together with V. G. Bogoraz and V. I. Iohelson, he participated in the Jesup North Pacific Expedition, organized by the American Museum of natural History under the leadership of Franz Boas. In 1910, S. made an expedition to Amur.

In 1904, he started his lecture course in ethnography at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography. In 1915, he participated in the foundation of the High Geographical Courses in Petrograd (in 1918-1925 – Geographical Institute; since 1925 – Geographical Faculty of the Leningrad State University). In 1918, he became Professor and Dean of the Ethnographical Faculty of the Geographical Institute; he kept that position till 1925, when the Institute was included into the Leningrad University as a faculty.

In 1917, he was Chairman of the Siberian Sub-Commission for the creating of the ethnographical map of Russia, organized at the Geographical Society; since 1920 – Chairman of the Siberian Department of the Commission for Studying the Tribal Content of the Population of the U.S.S.R. He was one of the founders of the Institute of the Peoples of the North. He worked over the new constant exhibition of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography after the Revolution 1917.

He also was Chairman of the Hebrew Historical and Ethnographical Society and one of the founders of its Hebrew Museum.

He was arrested in February 1921, during the Kronstadt Uprising, and released on the request of Maksim Gorky.

Correspondent Member of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. at the department of Paleoasian Peoples (1924). He was buried at the Jewish Preobrazhenskoe Cemetery in St. Petersburg.

He made a significant input into studying the primordial religion and its forms, into studying Nivkh, Sakhalin and Amur Ainu people, several Tungus-Manchu peoples. He wrote key research works on the theory of religious studies, including his article ‘The Comparative Studies of Religion’ (1900). His main works on religion were published in a collection of articles ‘The Primordial Religion in the Light of Ethnography’ (Leningrad, 1936) published after his death.

Compositions

Tragedy of the Six-Million People // Syn Otechestva. April 1905. (4th publ.: 1909) (in Rus.)
Gilyaks. Moscow, 1905. (in Rus.)
The Classical Twins Cult in the Light of Ethnography. Petrograd, Ac. of Sc., 1906. (in Rus.)
Before the Sunrise: Collection of Articles on the Jewish Matter (together with I. V. Hessen, М. B. Ratner). St. Petersburg, 1906. (in Rus.)
Materials for Studying the Gilyak Language and Folklore. Vol. 1: Samples of Folk Literature. Part 1: Epic. St. Petersburg, Ac. of Sc., 1908. (in Rus.)
From the Life and Activity of V. V. Radlov. St. Petersburg, 1910. (in Rus.)
In Palestine: Letters from the Road. Odessa, 1911. (in Rus.)
The Eagle Cult of Siberian Peoples // Sbornik of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Ac. of Sc. Iss. 5, Leningrad, 1925. (in Rus.)
Contemporary Ethnology: The Newest Achievements, Scholarly trends and Methods // Etnografiya. 1926, No ½, pp. 15-43. (in Rus.)
The Twins Cult in China and Indian Influences // Sbornik of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Ac. of Sc. Iss. 6, 1927, pp. 1-18. (in Rus.)
The Problem of Ainu. Leningrad, Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R., 1929. (in Rus.)
Gilyaks, Orochi, Goeldi, Negidals, Ainu. Khabarovsk, 1933. (in Rus.)
Family and Clan at the Peoples of the South-East Asia. With a Supplement of the Article by F. Engels ‘A Recently Found Case of a Group Marriage’ / Introd., edit. Ya. P. Alkor. Leningrad, 1933. (in Rus.)
The Primordial Religion in the Light of Ethnography. / Introd., edit. Ya. P. Alkor. Leningrad, 1936. (in Rus.)

About him

Lev Yakovlevich Shternberg (May 4, 1862 – August 14, 1927) // Etnografiya. 1927, No 2, pp. 263-266. (in Rus.)
Oldenburg S. F. Lev Yakovlevich Shternberg. In Memoriam // Etnografiya. 1927, No 2, pp.267-268. (in Rus.)
Bogoraz-Tan V. G. L. Ya. Shternberg as a Person and Scholar // Etnografiya. 1927, No 2, pp.269-282. (in Rus.)
Lev Yakovlevich Shternberg // Sbornik of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Ac. of Sc. Vol. VII, Leningrad, 1928., pp.1–3. (in Rus.)
In the Memory of L. Ya. Shternberg // Sibirskaya zhivaya starina. Irkutsk, 1927, pp. I-VIII. (in Rus.)
Johelson W. Leo Sternberg // American Anthropologist. 1928, vol.30, No 1, pp.180 – 181.
Kagaroff E. Leo Sternberg // American Anthropologist. 1929, vol. 31, No 3, pp.568 – 571.
Bogoraz V. G. L. Ya. Shternberg as Ethnographer // Sbornik of the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Ac. of Sc. Vol. VII. Leningrad, 1928, pp.4–30. (in Rus.)
In the Memory of L. Ya. Shternberg: 1861 – 1927. Leningrad, 1930. (in Rus.)
Ratner-Shternberg S. А. L. Ya. Shternberg and the Leningrad Ethnographical School // Sovetskaya etnografiya. 1935, No 2, pp. 134-154. (in Rus.)
Okladnikov А. P. The Significance of Works by L. Ya. Shternberg for the Archeology of the Far East // Essays on the History of Russian Ethnography, Folkloristic, and Anthropology. Iss. II: Trudy of the Institute of Ethnography of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. New Series. Vol. 85, Moscow, 1963, pp. 259–267. (in Rus.)
Gagen-Torn N. I. The Leningrad Ethnographical School in 1920-s // Sovetskaya etnografiya. 1971, No 2, pp. 134–145. (in Rus.)
Staniukovich Т. V. From the History of Ethnographical Teaching (Leningrad Geographical Institute and Geographical Faculty of the Leningrad State University) // Essays on the History of Russian Ethnography, Folkloristic, and Anthropology. Iss. V: Trudy of the Institute of
Ethnography of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. New Series. Vol. XCV, Moscow, 1971, pp.121-139. (in Rus.)
Gagen-Torn N. I. Lev Yakovlevich Shternberg. Moscow, 1975. (in Rus.)
Shulgina Т. S. Russian Researchers of Culture and Common Life of Small peoples of Amur and Sakhalin (Late Nineteenth – Early Twentieth Centuries). Vladivostok, 1989. (in Rus.)
Sirina А. А., Roon Т. P. Lev Yakovlevich Shternberg: at the Sources of Soviet Ethnography // Outstanding Russian Ethnologists and Anthropologists of the Twentieth Century. Moscow, 2004, pp.49-94. (in Rus.)
Kan Sergei. Lev Shternberg. Anthropologist. Russian Socialist. Jewish Activist. University of Nebrasca Press, 2009.
Leo Shternberg – Citizen, Scholar, Pedagogue: by the 150th Anniversary / Edit. Е. А. Rezvan. St. Petersburg, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Ac. of Sc., 2012. (in Rus.)
Shakhnovich М. М. L. Ya. Shternberg and the ‘Religious Studies’ // Leo Shternberg – Citizen, Scholar, Pedagogue: by the 150th Anniversary / Edit. Е. А. Rezvan. St. Petersburg, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Ac. of Sc., 2012, pp.190-200. (in Rus.)
Bronislaw Pilsudsky and Leo Shternberg: Letters and Documents (Late Nineteenth – Early Twentieth Centuries) / Comp. V. М. Latyshev, G. I. Dudarets, М. М. Prokofiev. Edit. А. I. Kostanov. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, 2011. (in Rus.)

M. Sh.