Aimar Ventsel
Biographic Data
| ID | 3637585 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Aimar Ventsel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Aimar |
| FAMILY NAME | Ventsel |
| SIGNATURE | VENTSEL A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Tartu |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3242-5471 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2003 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Child Mortality and Disease in Karlag, 1941: A Comparison of Prisoners’ and Free Workers’ Children
The article analyses archived statistical data illustrating mortality rates for the children of female prisoners, as well as the children of free labourers in Karlag in 1941. For a comparative view of the problem of child mortality in the Gulag in 1941, the article uses data from two other camps in the Gulag system, Vyatlag and Bureilag. The general trends and differences in the mortality rates of the children of mothers who were prisoners, and m…
Why There Was No Grunge Breakthrough in Estonia
Grunge is the term used for a type of music that appeared after the sensational breakthrough of American alternative rock band Nirvana with their album Nevermind in 1991. As is usual in the music business, record companies started to promote similar bands. This article is about the grunge subculture in Estonia in the early 1990s and is based on personal memories and discussions with people who embraced the style. The aim is to show that grunge in…
National Histor(iograph)y: An Ideological Identitarian Frontline
This article examines how present-day Kazakhstan tries to accommodate the existence and function of the Karlag branches of the Soviet Gulag system in the Kazakh Soviet republic and the societal legacies that this episode left, into its state-nation building and its commemoration policies. It thereby discusses the coming into being and the content setup of the Gulag commemoration sites at Malinovka (Aqmol), Dolinka and Spassk as well as para-gover…
On üksainuke keel
“In today’s world much depends on whether you are able to develop the computer in the direction beneficial for the mother tongue or end up as a speaker of a mega-language,” Mare Kõiva, head of the Department of Folkloristics, founder and chief editor of many journals, a European and Estonian academician, summarises the conversation on the topics of the past, present and future on the eve of her jubilee
Doing the Underdog Research: Ethics, Trust, Friendship
Dans cet article, je présente plusieurs difficultés qui se posent lorsque des recherches portent sur des groupes socialement et politiquement marginalisés. Dans le cadre de l'ouvrage Punks and Skins United: Identity, Class and the Economics of an Eastern German Subculture , j'ai mené des recherches sur l'économie semi-légale des punks et skinheads de la classe ouvrière est-allemande, en m'appuyant sur des amitiés personnelles dans le milieu. Ce t…
Culture from the Slums: Punk Rock in East and West Germany
Journal Article Culture from the Slums: Punk Rock in East and West Germany Get access Culture from the Slums: Punk Rock in East and West Germany. By Jeff Hayton. New York: Oxford University Press. 2022. 364 pp. £75.00 (hardback). Aimar Ventsel Aimar Ventsel University of Tartu, Estonia [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar German History, ghad038, https://doi.org/10.1093/gerhis/ghad038 Publis…
When Sacred Sites Become Symbols of Nationhood
Sciendo provides publishing services and solutions to academic and professional organizations and individual authors. We publish journals, books, conference proceedings and a variety of other publications
Kas on alust rääkida rahvuslikest subkultuuridest
General interpretation of youth subcultures often largely ignores the national element, and in case it is included at all, then only in the framework of local changes in global music or style or cultural and social conflicts. However, my focus in this article lies on studying Germanness in the abovementioned subcultures. I argue that punk and skinhead culture is suited for the working class rebellion because it largely overlaps with the notion of…
Reluctant Entrepreneurs of the Russian Far East: Another View on the Economic Strategies of Entrepreneurs
Research into private businesses in post-Soviet Russia began with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This paper focuses on a specific segment of private entrepreneurs who I call 'reluctant entrepreneurs', and revises the concept of a 'new entrepreneurship' in Russia. The people under study entered into business reluctantly in the early 1990s, when salaries in state jobs were not paid. The majority of these entrepreneurs planned to either return to…
Blurring masculinities in the Republic of Sakha, Russia
Siberia in general has traditionally been a region where men are expected to be ‘real’ men, i.e. to behave in a pronouncedly virile way. This perception is related to the history of the region – bringing ‘civilisation’ to the region was in direct relation to the intensive physical work. Urban life in Siberia was until recently dominated by such proletarian masculinity since urban centres were places where a large part of industrial workers lived.…
Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia
The FRINGE series explores the roles that complexity, ambivalence and immeasurability play in social and cultural phenomena.A cross-disciplinary initiative bringing together researchers from the humanities, social sciences and area studies, the series examines how seemingly opposed notions such as centrality and marginality, clarity and ambiguity, can shift and converge when embedded in everyday practices
Can We Talk About Post-Soviet Science
Ventsel began his studies during the Soviet era, at what was then
Prison Camp No. 29 for Prisoners of War from the Second World War on the Territory of Kazakhstan between 1943-1949
This article is the first publication of materials about Pakhta-Aral prison camp No. 29 for prisoners of war. The fate of prisoners of war (both Western and Eastern) remains largely unclear. One reason is because the camps for prisoners of war were subordinated to an extremely closed and classified structure -the GUPVI. To some extent, Pakhta-Aral was an untypical prison camp in the Soviet prison camp system. While most prison camps were establis…
They have no right to wear those clothes: The ambivalence of the dress code of German skinheads and Estonian metal heads
Ever since the beginning of post-subcultural studies, youth studies have developed in the direction of theorizing on the decreasing emphasis on the significance of a coherent style, towards the disappearance of subcultural boundaries and a switching between identities. In our article we are going to demonstrate that in some cases subcultures maintain and defend their style. By highlighting studies of German punks and skinheads and the Estonian me…
Sakha language and education in a social, cultural and political context
This paper analyses the language situation in the Republic of Sakha, Russian Far East. Due economic, social and political processes, Sakha language occupies at least two niches in the society – as a language of disadvataged low social strata and as a language for the national elite. The paper demonstrates that one language can have several social positions simultaneously in an envirounment where multiple social, economic and political factors det…
Responsibility and Authority in Drinking: Arctic Workshop at the University of Tartu, Estonia (30–31 May 2014)
This 2014 workshop was the fifth Arctic workshop held at the University of Tartu and the second dedicated to alcohol. In retrospect, both workshops were fruitful but differed in scope. The main difference between the first workshop in 2013 and second was that the first focused primarily on the social and cultural meaning of alcohol in the Arctic and the second broadened its geography. In the latter, we included papers presenting research results …
Interdisciplinary Fieldwork in Saidy, Republic of Sakha-Iakutiia, July–August 2014
This field report summarizes an international interdisciplinary research project in Saidy, Republic of Sakha, in the Russian Far East. The aim of the research was to study ecological adaptations of communities in northern Sakha, combining methods of anthropology, archaeology, and ecology. Most indigenous communities in this region demonstrate a high level of self-organization—for example, forbidding sales of alcohol and transforming drinking to a…
Ethnographic Research among Drinking Youth Cultures: Reflections from Observing Participants
Increasingly, ethnographic methods in the social sciences are being robbed of their capacity to research problematic social groups given the increased "risk governance" to ethical and methodological practices. Positivism and constructing objective realities of these groups has become the order of the day, which has resulted in a 'conceptual distance' from these kinds of social groups. In this article, we advocate for a return to subjectivity usin…
Reflections and Thoughts about the Social and Cultural Role of Alcohol
s age [is] close to 130 [] She considered herself young until five years ago. She smokes one package of cigarettes daily and inhales, a habit she has had for sixty-two years. She drinks a glass of wine before her noon meal and each morning before breakfast a glass of vodka
Social Meaning of Culture in a Stalinist Prison Camp
The Stalinist prison camp system -popularly known as the Gulag archipelago -existed for a relatively short period (from 1931-1960) and became world famous as a synonym for terror, humiliation and human suffering. This article focuses on the social significance of culture in one of the biggest Stalinist prison camp -Karlag in Central Kazakhstan. The first part of the article gives an overview of the institutions of culture in prison camps and thei…
One of the Family: Metis culture in nineteenth-century northwestern Saskatchewan
World Routes: Arctic Workshop of the University of Tartu, 28–29 May 2010, Tartu, Estonia
Introduction: World Routes in the Arctic
The Arctic is associated in popular perception with a vast frozen snow covered empty place.Everybody who has been in the Arctic, whether in the Eurasian or North American part, knows that this stereotype is correct.Indeed, the Arctic is a place with lots of space that determines the lifestyle of the people in this area.All human activities -whether livelihood or mastering of the territory -are and always have been connected with substantial movem…
Siberian movements: How Money and Goods travel in and out of Northwestern Sakha
In this article I want to discuss the notion of distance, movement and civilisation in Siberia. I focus on a particular type of people -traders -and their movements. The travels of traders in Siberia accompany the movement of goods and money and this movement is the main reason for their travels. In Siberia there exist many different perceptions of space and time. Incomers perceive the territory as a network linking the islands of civilisation. A…
Sahha (jakuudi) identiteet ja institutsionaliseeritud šamanism
In this article I discuss the ambivalent position of institutionalised shamanism in the Republic of Sakha, in the Russian Far East. Concurrently with the declaration of sovereignty in 1991, there was an upswing in the ethnic consciousness of the Sakha, the relevant process being manifested in increased interest in Sakha traditions and history.Shamanism, as one of the core features of Sakha culture, soon became an important ethnic symbol. After th…
Hunter-Herder Continuum in Anabarski District, NW Sakha, Siberia, Russian Federation
Anabarski district in NW Sakha was traditionally a region with mixed hunting/ reindeer herding economy. Unusual for tundra reindeer herding, domestic reindeer herding in the Anabar tundra contained many features typical of taiga reindeer herding (riding on mounted deer, milking). In the local economic system, rich reindeer owners focused more on herding and poor people either worked for rich reindeer herders or left their animals in the herds of …
Can We Talk About Post-Soviet Science
Ventsel began his studies during the Soviet era, at what was then
Sakha language and education in a social, cultural and political context
This paper analyses the language situation in the Republic of Sakha, Russian Far East. Due economic, social and political processes, Sakha language occupies at least two niches in the society – as a language of disadvataged low social strata and as a language for the national elite. The paper demonstrates that one language can have several social positions simultaneously in an envirounment where multiple social, economic and political factors det…
Reflections and Thoughts about the Social and Cultural Role of Alcohol
s age [is] close to 130 [] She considered herself young until five years ago. She smokes one package of cigarettes daily and inhales, a habit she has had for sixty-two years. She drinks a glass of wine before her noon meal and each morning before breakfast a glass of vodka
Siberian movements: How Money and Goods travel in and out of Northwestern Sakha
In this article I want to discuss the notion of distance, movement and civilisation in Siberia. I focus on a particular type of people -traders -and their movements. The travels of traders in Siberia accompany the movement of goods and money and this movement is the main reason for their travels. In Siberia there exist many different perceptions of space and time. Incomers perceive the territory as a network linking the islands of civilisation. A…
Stars without the money: Sakha ethnic music business, upward mobility and friendship
The Sakha have had their own popular music since the 1970s. During the Soviet era, music culture was controlled by the state. Starting in the 1990s, new pop-music institutions and venues emerged and new entrepreneurs entered the music business as club owners, managers, producers, DJs, etc. In this article, I examine multiple social relations in the music business. Music has become a possibility for village youth to leave their villages and gain f…
People Won't Dance if They Have Nothing to Eat: Do Economic Transformation and Centrally Planned Cultural Revival Fit Together
The Sakha Republic has played an important role in indigenous reorganization policy of the post-Soviet period. In 1991, a law on nomadic clan-based communities (kochevaya rodovaya obshchina) was enacted that attempted to provide a legal platform for the “cultural and economic revival” of small indigenous groups. This law was followed by others that reorganized reindeer herding, hunting, and self-governance of indigenous peoples. This process is v…
Stars without the money: Sakha ethnic music business, upward mobility and friendship
The Sakha have had their own popular music since the 1970s. During the Soviet era, music culture was controlled by the state. Starting in the 1990s, new pop-music institutions and venues emerged and new entrepreneurs entered the music business as club owners, managers, producers, DJs, etc. In this article, I examine multiple social relations in the music business. Music has become a possibility for village youth to leave their villages and gain f…
Generation P in the Tundra 8-10 October 2004, Tartu, Estonia
The conference, 'Generation P in the Tundra' (8–10 October 2004) was organised by the Estonian Literary Museum in Tartu. The topic of the conference was the young generation in Siberia in all of its facets. The title for the conference was inspired by the cult book Generation P by the Russian writer Victor Pelevin, who describes what he believes is the young, commercialised Pepsi generation in Russia, which has assimilated post-socialist consumer…
Hunter-Herder Continuum in Anabarski District, NW Sakha, Siberia, Russian Federation
Anabarski district in NW Sakha was traditionally a region with mixed hunting/ reindeer herding economy. Unusual for tundra reindeer herding, domestic reindeer herding in the Anabar tundra contained many features typical of taiga reindeer herding (riding on mounted deer, milking). In the local economic system, rich reindeer owners focused more on herding and poor people either worked for rich reindeer herders or left their animals in the herds of …
Order and Disorder: Anthropological Perspectives
Disorder and instability are matters of continuing public concern. Terrorism, as a threat to global order, has been added to preoccupations with political unrest, deviance and crime. Such considerations have prompted the return to the classic anthropological issues of order and disorder. Examining order within the political and legal spheres and in contrasting local settings, the papers in this volume highlight its complex and contested nature. E…
Punx and Skins United: One Law for Us One Law for Them
This paper discusses social and economic networks within the punk and skinhead culture in two East German cities. The skins' and punks' main ideological position is to demonstrate that they are an autonomous group. They regard themselves as a subculture with different values and social norms from the values and social norms of the mainstream society. Skins and punks have created complicated social and economic networks linking various cities. Wit…
Sakha Music Business: Mission, Contracts, and Social Relations in the Developing Post-Socialist Market Economy
This article is about the Sakha music business and the people involved in it. It discusses different strategies of making music and shows that different music genres have their own setting of social relations. Due to the specific economic and social situation, social relations in the music business are often informal. The classic theory of the cultural industry states that producing music is a calculated market economy-oriented activity. This art…
Introduction: Generation P in the Tundra. Young People and the Russian North
This volume presents a selection of articles written by speakers at the conference "Generation P in the Tundra", which was held on 8-10 October 2004 at the Estonian Literary Museum in Tartu, Estonia. Scholars from Estonia, Russia, Germany, United Kingdom, Scotland, USA, and Austria presented papers beyond their usual topic of research or took particular interest in youth as a social group in different regions of Siberia
Sahha (jakuudi) identiteet ja institutsionaliseeritud šamanism
In this article I discuss the ambivalent position of institutionalised shamanism in the Republic of Sakha, in the Russian Far East. Concurrently with the declaration of sovereignty in 1991, there was an upswing in the ethnic consciousness of the Sakha, the relevant process being manifested in increased interest in Sakha traditions and history.Shamanism, as one of the core features of Sakha culture, soon became an important ethnic symbol. After th…
Our Beer is Better Than Theirs: Sub-cultural Comics as a Joking Relationship with Identity
Many music-related subcultures have their own printed media known as fanzines.These journals often include comics, drawn by amateur artists who belong to the same subculture.In my article I will focus on the comics in German reggae and punk fanzines.I am going to demonstrate that besides entertainment and fun, these comics also entail a wide range of political, social and cultural messages as well as attempts to define the subculture's identity.P…
World Routes: Arctic Workshop of the University of Tartu, 28–29 May 2010, Tartu, Estonia
Introduction: World Routes in the Arctic
The Arctic is associated in popular perception with a vast frozen snow covered empty place.Everybody who has been in the Arctic, whether in the Eurasian or North American part, knows that this stereotype is correct.Indeed, the Arctic is a place with lots of space that determines the lifestyle of the people in this area.All human activities -whether livelihood or mastering of the territory -are and always have been connected with substantial movem…
Siberian movements: How Money and Goods travel in and out of Northwestern Sakha
In this article I want to discuss the notion of distance, movement and civilisation in Siberia. I focus on a particular type of people -traders -and their movements. The travels of traders in Siberia accompany the movement of goods and money and this movement is the main reason for their travels. In Siberia there exist many different perceptions of space and time. Incomers perceive the territory as a network linking the islands of civilisation. A…
One of the Family: Metis culture in nineteenth-century northwestern Saskatchewan
Social Meaning of Culture in a Stalinist Prison Camp
The Stalinist prison camp system -popularly known as the Gulag archipelago -existed for a relatively short period (from 1931-1960) and became world famous as a synonym for terror, humiliation and human suffering. This article focuses on the social significance of culture in one of the biggest Stalinist prison camp -Karlag in Central Kazakhstan. The first part of the article gives an overview of the institutions of culture in prison camps and thei…
They have no right to wear those clothes: The ambivalence of the dress code of German skinheads and Estonian metal heads
Ever since the beginning of post-subcultural studies, youth studies have developed in the direction of theorizing on the decreasing emphasis on the significance of a coherent style, towards the disappearance of subcultural boundaries and a switching between identities. In our article we are going to demonstrate that in some cases subcultures maintain and defend their style. By highlighting studies of German punks and skinheads and the Estonian me…
Sakha language and education in a social, cultural and political context
This paper analyses the language situation in the Republic of Sakha, Russian Far East. Due economic, social and political processes, Sakha language occupies at least two niches in the society – as a language of disadvataged low social strata and as a language for the national elite. The paper demonstrates that one language can have several social positions simultaneously in an envirounment where multiple social, economic and political factors det…
Responsibility and Authority in Drinking: Arctic Workshop at the University of Tartu, Estonia (30–31 May 2014)
This 2014 workshop was the fifth Arctic workshop held at the University of Tartu and the second dedicated to alcohol. In retrospect, both workshops were fruitful but differed in scope. The main difference between the first workshop in 2013 and second was that the first focused primarily on the social and cultural meaning of alcohol in the Arctic and the second broadened its geography. In the latter, we included papers presenting research results …
Interdisciplinary Fieldwork in Saidy, Republic of Sakha-Iakutiia, July–August 2014
This field report summarizes an international interdisciplinary research project in Saidy, Republic of Sakha, in the Russian Far East. The aim of the research was to study ecological adaptations of communities in northern Sakha, combining methods of anthropology, archaeology, and ecology. Most indigenous communities in this region demonstrate a high level of self-organization—for example, forbidding sales of alcohol and transforming drinking to a…
Ethnographic Research among Drinking Youth Cultures: Reflections from Observing Participants
Increasingly, ethnographic methods in the social sciences are being robbed of their capacity to research problematic social groups given the increased "risk governance" to ethical and methodological practices. Positivism and constructing objective realities of these groups has become the order of the day, which has resulted in a 'conceptual distance' from these kinds of social groups. In this article, we advocate for a return to subjectivity usin…
Reflections and Thoughts about the Social and Cultural Role of Alcohol
s age [is] close to 130 [] She considered herself young until five years ago. She smokes one package of cigarettes daily and inhales, a habit she has had for sixty-two years. She drinks a glass of wine before her noon meal and each morning before breakfast a glass of vodka
Can We Talk About Post-Soviet Science
Ventsel began his studies during the Soviet era, at what was then
Prison Camp No. 29 for Prisoners of War from the Second World War on the Territory of Kazakhstan between 1943-1949
This article is the first publication of materials about Pakhta-Aral prison camp No. 29 for prisoners of war. The fate of prisoners of war (both Western and Eastern) remains largely unclear. One reason is because the camps for prisoners of war were subordinated to an extremely closed and classified structure -the GUPVI. To some extent, Pakhta-Aral was an untypical prison camp in the Soviet prison camp system. While most prison camps were establis…
Blurring masculinities in the Republic of Sakha, Russia
Siberia in general has traditionally been a region where men are expected to be ‘real’ men, i.e. to behave in a pronouncedly virile way. This perception is related to the history of the region – bringing ‘civilisation’ to the region was in direct relation to the intensive physical work. Urban life in Siberia was until recently dominated by such proletarian masculinity since urban centres were places where a large part of industrial workers lived.…
Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia
The FRINGE series explores the roles that complexity, ambivalence and immeasurability play in social and cultural phenomena.A cross-disciplinary initiative bringing together researchers from the humanities, social sciences and area studies, the series examines how seemingly opposed notions such as centrality and marginality, clarity and ambiguity, can shift and converge when embedded in everyday practices
Political science (16 works) · Sociology (14 works) · History (12 works) · Art (9 works) · Geography (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Indigenous Studies and Ecology (7 works) · Social science (7 works)