Yulian Vladimirovich Bromley (russian: Юлиа́н Влади́мирович Бромле́й; 21 February 1921 – 4 June 1990) was a Soviet and Russian anthropologist who gained an international recognition. He became Director of the Institute of Ethnography at the

Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

in 1966 and held the post until 1989. Bromley’s main focus was studying the

South Slavs South Slavs are Slavic peoples who speak South Slavic languages and inhabit a contiguous region of Southeast Europe comprising the eastern Alps and the Balkan Peninsula. Geographically separated from the West Slavs and East Slavs by Austria, ...

, despite not actually engaging in fieldwork himself. His research framework led, in the words of

Ernest Gellner Ernest André Gellner FRAI (9 December 1925 – 5 November 1995) was a British- Czech philosopher and social anthropologist described by ''The Daily Telegraph'', when he died, as one of the world's most vigorous intellectuals, and by ''The ...

, to a minor revolution which consisted of turning ethnography into the study of "Ethnos-es", often referred to as ethnicity by Western anthropologists. He wrote more than 300 texts, although he did not engage in fieldwork himself.

Ethnos

Bromley described the term Ethnos as a word with many meanings, but the “closest” word of the term Ethnos, according to Bromley, is “people.” Ethnos is used to analyze communities. The term Ethnos has such a broad definition to prevent anthropologists from limiting their scopes to small, backwards communities, but instead view people as a whole. With this in mind, Ethnos can be used to view communities that go into the millions of people. Bromley states the main task of the word Ethnos is to define the common, generic name of community formations such as “tribe”, “nationality” and “nation” Bromley also states that all Ethnoses are unique for each possess a certain internal unity and specific features that distinguish themselves from other communities. As for what should be studied, Bromley defines three points of study: 1) folk culture, 2) to define the subject matter in terms of the method of direct observation, and 3) the subject matter of ethnography is determined by the range of problems which it is studied.

Stance on race

Bromley also claimed that racial distinctions as a whole do not play any essential ethno-distinctive role, and that there are no "pure" racially unmixed people as by the absence of clearcut anthropological boundaries between contiguous peoples or ethnoses belonging to one of the major races. According to Bromley's framework, race does not matter when viewing the community structure as a whole, and racial purity is impossible.

References

* ''The Routledge Dictionary of Anthropologists'' by Gérald Gaillard, Peter James Bowman, Routledge, 2002 * ''Ethnicity: Anthropological Constructions'' by

Marcus Banks Arthur Lemarcus "Marcus" Banks III (born November 19, 1981) is an American former professional basketball player. Banks is tall and . He played college basketball at the UNLV with the Runnin' Rebels, where he was Co-Defensive Player of the Year ...

, 1996 * Stocking Jr, George W., and Yulian Bromley: "Academician Bromley on Soviet Ethnography" in ''History of Anthropology Newsletter'' 11.2 (1984): 6-10. * Bromley, Yulian: "On the typology of ethnic communities", n.d. * Bromley, Yulian, 1978

pp. 15–21

External links

* 1921 births 1990 deaths 20th-century Russian historians Communist Party of the Soviet Union members Full Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour Recipients of the USSR State Prize Russian ethnographers Soviet ethnographers Soviet historians {{anthropologist-stub Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery