Collected Works

Since her death in 1921, the celebrated Polish anthropologist Marya Antonina Czaplicka's life and works have retained a remarkable contemporary significance. A woman in the man's world of Oxford anthropology, she fought her way to acceptance as a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Anthropological Institute. Fluent in Russian, she revealed the exotic realms of the Siberian indigenous peoples and shamanism through her pioneering Aboriginal Siberia. Her account of her year in Siberia leading the 1914 Oxford University expedition, My Siberian Year , provides a fascinating evocation of Siberian life on the eve of World War I. Czaplicka was an early advocate for autonomy for Russian Siberia and complete democratic independence for Poland, and she wrote perceptively on the Turks in Central Asia, the Cossacks, and Russian folklore. This is the first publication to gather together the complete writings of Czaplicka and includes letters and other previously unpublished material.