Lev (Chaim-Leib) Yakovlevich Sternberg () ( – August 14, 1927) was a Russian and Soviet ethnographer of Jewish origin who from 1889 to 1897 studied the Nivkhs (Gilyaks), Oroks, and Ainu on

Sakhalin Sakhalin ( rus, Сахали́н, p=səxɐˈlʲin) is an island in Northeast Asia. Its north coast lies off the southeastern coast of Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, while its southern tip lies north of the Japanese island of Hokkaido. An islan ...

and in

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

for the

American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located in Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 21 interconn ...

, in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

Biography

Sternberg majored in physics and mathematics at

Saint Petersburg State University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the university from the be ...

. He later majored in law at Novorossiisk University. He was an activist who joined ''

Narodnaya Volya Narodnaya Volya () was a late 19th-century revolutionary socialist political organization operating in the Russian Empire, which conducted assassinations of government officials in an attempt to overthrow the autocratic Tsarist system. The org ...

'' (The People's Will) and edited the publication ''Vestnik Narodnoi Voli'' (The Narodnaya Volya Herald).Sternberg and Grant, p.xi He was not a

Marxist Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflic ...

. He was arrested by Russian authorities April 27, 1886 for participation in ''The People's Will'' which was labeled an anti-tsarist terrorist organization spending three years in an

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

jail.The Papers of Lev Shternberg, 1861-1927. American Museum of Natural History
Division of Anthropology Archives
(search: Lev Shternberg; or select name from drop-down list). Retrieved October 15, 2022. Sternberg was then exiled to the

penal colony A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory. Although the term can be used to refer ...

for a ten-year prison sentence. He was deported from Odessa on the boat ''Peterburg'' on March 19, 1889, arriving in Port Aleksandrovsk, Sakhalin, on May 19, 1889.Sternberg and Grant, p.xxxi Sternberg agitated authorities due to his activism with regard to prisoners' and indigenous peoples' rights. Authorities sent him to the remote community of Viakhtu, 100 km north of Port Aleksandrovsk, where he first began his ethnographic fieldwork on the Nivkhs, Oroks, and Ainu. He would return home but be put under house arrest for the first few years. Lev Sternberg was an important Russian figure in the then new field of

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

. Sternberg, with the help of Vladimir Bogoraz organized the first Russian ethnography center at

after the 1917

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

.Merriam-Webster, see index: Lev Sternberg

Footnotes

References

*Merriam-Webster (1995) ''Merriam-Webster's Biographical Dictionary''; 1st edition. Merriam-Webster. 1184p *Shternberg, Lev Iakovlevich and Bruce Grant. (1999) ''The Social Organization of the Gilyak''. New York:

. Seattle:

University of Washington Press The University of Washington Press is an American academic publishing house. The organization is a division of the University of Washington, based in Seattle. Although the division functions autonomously, it has worked to assist the university' ...

280p. *Smolyak, A. V. (2001) ''Traditional Principles of Natural Resources Use among Indigenous Peoples of the Lower Amur River''. Journal of Legal Pluralism Num. 46

External links

* https://memory.pvost.org/pages/shteinberglya.html * https://archive.today/20070928141838/http://www.pgpb.ru/cd/primor/first/shter.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Shternberg, Lev 1861 births 1927 deaths Writers from Zhytomyr Ukrainian ethnographers Corresponding Members of the Russian Academy of Sciences (1917–1925) Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Ukrainian Jews Members of the Grand Orient of Russia's Peoples Narodnaya Volya Ethnographers from the Russian Empire Saint Petersburg State University alumni