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S. A. Maretina

Portrait of S. A.  Maretina

Sofia Aleksandrovna Maretina Софья Александровна Маретина (23 July 1929, Leningrad [Saint-Petersbourg] — 6 Aug. 2013, Sankt-Petersbourg) was a Russian historian and ethnologist specializing in Indian history and ethnography, one of the rare women titular of a University chair in history (at Leningrad University — St. Petersburg University after 1991). 

The daughter of renowned philologist and musician A.V. Boldirev А.В. Болдырева (1896 — 1941), she studied Indian philology at the Ethnographic Institute, Leningrad University, obtaining her PhD in 1955 with her dissertation on ​“The Social Organization of the Bodo Peoples (Assam)”. A Chief Researcher associated to the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography under the name of Peter the Great (Kunstkamera, МАЭ РАН/MAE RAS), she was granted in 1985 a second doctorate with her thesis on ​“The Evolution of the Social System among the Mountain Peoples of Northeastern India.” From 2002 to 2010, she was a professor in the History Department of St. Petersburg State University.

Sofia Maretina researched and published (mostly in Russian) about the history and ethnography of the peoples of India, the the peoples of Indonesia; general cultural issues, mythology, social organization and culture of the ​‘small peoples’ (“adivasis”), pre-agricultural societies, ​‘hill peoples’ traditions, features of the organization and culture of the Balinese people, status of women and women’s clothing in tribal societies…

Selected Publications

[under construction]

  1. “Рамаяна” в бенгальском кукольном театре [​“Ramayana” in Bengali Puppet Theater], Сборник МАЭ [MAE Collection], Т. XXI, 1967: 252 – 266.
  2. Община у горных народов Ассама, Община и социальная организация у народов Южной и Юго-Восточной Азии [Community among the Hill Peoples of Assam, in Community and Social Organization among the Peoples of South and Southeast Asia], Мoscow, 1967: 7 – 49.
  3. Conversion of Indian Varnas in Bali, in Countries and Peoples of the East, Moscow, 1974: 286 – 297.
  4. Соседская община у балийцев, Социальная организация народов Азии и Африки [“Neighborhood Community among the Balinese”, in Social Organization of the Peoples of Asia and Africa], Moscow, 1975: 133 – 170.
  5. “The Kashari state: the character of Early States in North-East India”, in The Early States, The Hague-Paris, 1978: 339 – 359.
  6. Малые народы Северо-Восточной Индии, Малые народы Южной Азии [Minority peoples of Northeast India, in Minority peoples of South Asia, Moscow, 1976: 89 – 142.
  7. Одежда народов Северо-Западной Индии (на примере панджабцев и кашмирцев), Одежда народов Зарубежной Азии и Океании [Garments of the peoples of Northwest India (using the Punjabis and Kashmiris as examples), in Garments of the peoples of Asia and Oceania, Cборник МАЭ [MAE Collection], Vol. XXXII, Leningrad, 1977: 5 – 25.
  8. Проблема матрилинейности в зарубежной этнографии (на примере малых народов Индии), Актуальные проблемы этнографии и современная зарубежная наука [“The problem of matrilineality in foreign ethnography (using the minorities of India as examples), in Current problems of ethnography and modern foreign science], Leningrad, 1979: 128 – 146.
  9. Эволюция общественного строя у горных народов Северо-Восточной Индии [Evolution of the social system among the mountain peoples of North-East India], Moscow, Наука [Na’uka], 1980.
  10. Социальная стратификация и становление государства (на примере малых народов Индии), От доклассовых обществ к раннеклассовым [“Social Stratification and the Formation of the State (based on the ​‘Small Peoples’ of India”, in From Pre-Class to Early-Class Societies], Moscow, 1987: 158 – 177.
  11. Традиции и инновации в социальной структуре племен, Расы и народы [Traditions and Innovations in the Social Structure of Tribes, in Races and Peoples n 16], Moscow, 1988: 159 – 178.
  12. К проблеме универсальности вождеств: природа вождей у нага // Ранние формы политической организации [“On the Problem of the Universality of Chiefdoms: The Nature of Naga Chiefs”, in Early Forms of Political Organization], Moscow, 1995: 79 – 104.
  13. К проблеме универсальности вождеств: природа вождей у нага, Ранние формы политической организации [“On the Problem of the Universality of Chiefdoms: The Nature of Naga Chiefs”, in Early Forms of Political Organization], Moscow, 1995: 79 – 104.
  14. Андаманцы [The Andamanese], St. Petersburg: MAE RAS, 1995.
  15. Змея в индуистской мифологии (По материалам коллекций МАЭ) [The Snake in Hindu Mythology (Based on the MAE collections)], St. Petersburg: Kunstkamera, 1999. 
  16. Змея и птица в индуистской мифологии, Музейные коллекции и научные исследования. Материалы годичной научной сессии МАЭ РАН 2000 года [“Snakes and Birds in Hindu Mythology”, in Museum Collections and Scientific Research: Proceedings of the 2000 Annual Scientific Session of the MAE RAS], St. Petersburg, MAE Collection XLIX, 2004: 90 – 94.
  17. Тигр/​лев в мифологической традиции индийцев, Бестиарий II. Зооморфизмы Азии: движение во времени [“Images of the Tiger in Indian Tribal Mythology, in Asian Bestiary, Animal Images in the Traditions of South, Southwest, and Central Asia], ed. М.А.Родионов [M.A. Rodionov], St. Petersburg, MAE RAS, 2009: 87 – 95.
  18. [with И. Ю. Котин [I. Y. Kotine]] Племена в Индии [Tribes of India], Saint-Petersbourg, Наука, 2011, 151 p.
  19. Образ тигра в племенной мифологии Индии, Азиатский Бестиарий. Образы животных в традициях Южной, Юго-Западной и Центральной Азии [“Tiger and Lion in the Mythological Tradition of Indians”, Bestiary II: Zoomorphisms of Asia: Movement in Time], ed. M.A. Rodionov, St. Petersburg: MAE RAS, 2012: 41 – 56.