Abstract

This contribution presents three late 1970s autobiographical essays written by dissident Tyan Zaochnaya (born 1950 in Kamchatka). They were published in anthologies edited by the feminist dissident Tatyana Mamonova in the West after she was expelled from the USSR for the samizdat publication of the journal Woman and Russia. Zaochnaya herself has lived in exile since 1980 and is a member of the international indigenous rights community. The introduction to the published essays reconstructs the biographical trajectory which leads to the formation of Zaochnaya’s ethnic identity as an Itelmen woman, a representative of the autochthonous people of Kamchatka. The reconstruction is based on Zaochnaya’s ego-documents created in the late 1970s-1980s, contemporary oral and written interviews with her, as well as some published and unpublished memoir sources.