Documents of the National Archive of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the languages of the peoples of the North
A.V. Kazaev,
Chief Archivist of the Documentation Department of the National
Archive of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia)
The National Archive of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) has more than 1.4 million items in state storage in various types of media in 17 languages of the world: English, French, German, Polish, Czech, Latvian, Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Korean, Georgian, Russian, Yakut, Even, Yukaghir, Chukchi and Koryak languages.
The national archive has unique documents in the languages of the indigenous peoples of the North dated to the late 19 th century such as prayer books, oaths, and question sheets of the First General Census of the Russian Empire in 1897. These documents would be of great interest to researchers. The value of these documents lies in the fact that they were written long before the official creation of the written systems in the Soviet period. The Russian Orthodox Church played an important role in this, which actively used the languages of the indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East in its educational work and missionary, liturgical activities.
These documents show and reveal hitherto unknown pages of the history and culture of the indigenous peoples of the North, their relationship with the Russian authorities, etc.
In one of the documents, the Yukaghir language is mistakenly indicated, since the priest who wrote down the text of the prayer, apparently, wrote it down according to the Yukaghirs who lost their native language and switched to Lamut language in communication. This document, as well as others presented here for review, will undoubtedly be of interest to linguists, historians, as well as all those interested in the history of their native land and the peoples of the North.