Forming Subjects and Rhizomes Through Human-Animal Relations in Anna Nerkagi’s Aniko of the Nogo Clan

Abstract Using Anna Nerkagi’s novella Aniko of the Nogo Clan as an example, this chapter explores the contradictions faced by Indigenous people in the Soviet Union as they attempted to balance the demands of Soviet modernity with the expectations of their own communities. The chapter asks how this tension is experienced by a young, urbanized member of a Nenets community and her elderly father, who resides in the tundra, and how their opposing perspectives are reflected trough their relationship with non-human animals. For the urbanized young Nenets woman, the encounters with non-human animals destabilize her identity as a modernized, urban Soviet subject, whereas her father’s life is entangled with the non-human companions of the Nenets people. At the same time, the relationship between the old Nenets man and two canine characters in the story reveals his ambivalent attitude towards Soviet society. Finally, the chapter demonstrates how depictions of human-animal interaction and the incorporation of multiple points of view in the narration present the tundra space in a manner that resonates with the Deleuzian concept of the rhizome.