The Institute was established in 1970 on the basis of the Departments of Archaeology and Ethnography; History; Language and Literature of the Komi Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. At present the Institute consists of 7 Scientific-Research Departments, the Archaeological Museum of the European North-East of Russia. The total number of workers is equal to 98, including 10 Doctors of Science and 35 Candidates of Science.

At the Institute there functions the Branch of the Komi and Finno-Ugric Linguistics Chair of the Finno-Ugric Faculty of Syktyvkar State University. The Institute through the post-graduation course trains highly-skilled specialists in 6 specialties.

The Institute has close links and carries out joint projects with scientific and educative establishments of Great Britain, Hungary, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, the USA, Finland, Estonia.

The basic directions of research

•  the development of the basic problems of political and socio-economic history, historical demography, the history of culture of the European North of Russia and the pre-Urals in the context of the All-Russian and Finno-Ugric processes;

•  the study of archaeological cultures of the Stone Age, Metal Age, Middle Ages of the North of Euro-Asia;

•  the investigation of general regularities and specificity in the development of traditional, spiritual and material culture and the way of life of the Komi people, the Komi-Permians and other peoples of the Russian North;

•  the comparative-historical and typological study of the Permian languages in their interaction with the Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Russian languages, modern linguistic processes, the theory and practice in compiling dictionaries;

•  the analysis of the national peculiarities of the Komi literature, folklore and musical art and the problems of their interaction with the cultures of other peoples.

The major results of researches

Fundamental scientific work – 2-volume book "History of the Komi Republic" has been published, in which the major periods of history of the Komi Republic from ancient times to our days are chronologically described without any ideological underlying reasons: there have been shown the general and regional peculiarities of economic and social development of the region and estimated the important socio-economic, political and cultural problems of the republic.

Historical-demographic processes of the European North-East as a vast region with specific structure of the population have been investigated. The basic stages in demographic development of the Komi Republic have been singled out and their interrelation with climatic changes established.

On the basis of materials of the European North and pre-Urals of the 17-th century the fiscal policy of the state in relation to state peasantry of the suburb people has been investigated. Due to a large amount of sources it has been revealed that excessive exploitation of poll-tax payers was of vital necessity and caused by the interests of the state.

A big complex of archival and literary data enabled to give a correct interpretation of the role of liberal-democratic politicians in reforming the local organs of power in the period of revolution and the Civil War (1917-1921), to give a detailed analysis of the course of national-state building and show its contradictory character. The changes in socio-economic development of the Komi village, including the problems of collectivization, socio-cultural policy have been shown. The tendencies of formation and development of the working class have been revealed, and the sources and reasons of decreasing its social activity shown. The major directions of the growth of passive and then active resistance of the working class of the Komi ASSR to the dictatorship of administrative-command system have been discovered.

The archaeologists have made a series of discoveries having a great significance for the Russian as well as European Archaeology: in the course of investigations of the problem of initial development of the North by man in the Palaeolithic the new data allowing to verify the time of occurrence of first people in the pre-Urals have been obtained; during excavations of the Zaozerye site in the Perm Region a new European industry of transitive type from Moustierian to the Upper Palaeolithic has been revealed; the conclusion on the presence of resident population on the territory of the European North-East in the Early Upper Palaeolithic has been made; in the vicinity of Novy Bor settlement of the Ust-Tsilma region the most ancient Russian settlement of the 13-14-th centuries in the Pechora basin has been discovered that essentially changes the idea of the initial stage of the Russian development of the North.

Within the frames of the "Ural Mythology" international project the fundamental encyclopedia "The Komi Mythology" (in Russian and English) has been published, in which are in detail considered the bases of traditional world outlook of the Komi people. It has been shown how mythological mantality is reflected in various spheres of people's life. The mythological roots of spiritual culture of the Komi people have been established. The traditional notions of the Komi people on the surrounding world, its origin, mutual relation of man, society and environment have been elucidated.

In the course of investigation of modern ethnic processes in the peoples of the European North-East the dynamics and intensity of social changes in the ethnic identity and interethnic contacts have been revealed, the reasons which have caused these changes have been established, genesis and present state of material and spiritual culture of ethno-confessional groups of the Komi people and Russian old-believers of the Pechora, the Udora and the Upper Vychegda have been shown.

The thorough investigation of the grammatical system of the Komi language from the point of view of its typological peculiarities has been carried out. The paradigms of word-change have been systematized, the functionalities of grammar forms of all parts of speech have been in detail described, ways of their evolution have been found out. The results of these research works are presented in the monographs "The modern Komi language. Morphology", "Grammar category of voice in the Komi verb", "System of l-cases in the Permian languages: origin and semantics". The approach proposed by the Komi linguists may fruitfully be used in investigating other Finno-Ugric languages.

For the first time in the Finno-Ugristics the evolution in the formation of anthroponemic vocabulary at all stages of development of the Permian languages has been traced, the vocabulary on Botany, Biology, Anatomy has been systematized, the principles of compiling a card-index on natural sciences terminology of the Permian languages have been developed. Fundamental research works – "The Komi language. Encyclopedia", "Komi-Russian dictionary", "Russian-Komi dictionary", "Dictionary of synonyms of the Komi language" – have been published. The first series of monographic elaborations on all Komi-Zyryan dialects description has been completed.

The specialists in literature proposed a new methodology of studying the Finno-Ugric literatures of Russia based on their genre poetics. In the series of monographs and collections of articles a century and a half course of development the Komi poetry has been generalized for the first time, the pulse character of its genres development has been shown, peculiarities of poetics and the world of art have been comprehended, national-philosophical conceptions of the Komi writers of the 19-th century and alterations in the sphere of artistic form and genre development in literature of the late 20-th century have been revealed, a new periodization of the Komi literature of the 20-th century has been substantiated.

In 1999-2003 research workers of the Folklore Department worked over a theme "Verbal prose of Komi: the statute of monuments" which purpose is the creation of the academic statute of monuments of verbal culture of indigenous population of the Republic of Komi. In a channel of the general researches the concept of specificity of the verbal prose of Komi, its genre and stylistic originality has been developed. P.F.Limerov, Cand.Sci. (Philology), investigated the processes of formation the genres of non-fairy-tale prose, for the first time has proposed the classification and the scientific description of the genres of non-fairy-tale prose in view of their national originality, has revealed church-literary and people's-religious sources of some plots and motives of the Komi non-fairy-tale prose. N.S.Korovina, research worker, has studied the dynamics of existence of the Komi fairy-tale tradition. For the first time she considered the problems of interrelations of verbal and written traditions in a genre of a magic fairy tale, feature of subject structure and stylistic specificity of the Komi magic fairy tale. I.A.Ploskov, research worker, has developed classification of characters and systems of images of the Komi magic fairy tale. The field of scientific interests of A.V.Panyukov, Cand.Sci. (Philology), is related to the folkloristic and ethno-linguistic studies of traditional folk culture: traditional ceremonialism, song and prosaic folklore, Komi - Russian cultural and language interrelations.

Scientists of the Folklore Department conducted purposeful work on the selection of folklore prosaic material from the archives of the country, classification, textual processing, commenting of texts according to the requirements of the academic science. As a result the computer databank on the tradition of folk tales narrating in the Komi people has been made. Besides, researchers of the department carried out work on preservation of a unique collection of monuments of spiritual culture of the Komi people, among which recorder records of the Izhma-Kolva epos, wedding and funeral lamentations of Komi, magic labour songs, song lyrics, Komi fairy tales and legends. For today more than 750 hours of audiorecords of the Folklore Foundation have been digitalized and rewritten on compact discs.

Designed by — Anton Parfenov