Eremei Aipine was born in 1948 in the autonomous district of Khanty-Mansi. He is considered as a key-figure of the Indigenous peoples in Siberia. He has been publishing stories, poetic works, novels and short-stories since the late 60s. He has also taken an active part in public life. Indeed, he has defended the native cause both before the local Duma as well as the UN. In 2004, Aipine was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature by the Finno-Ugric Writers’ Congress.
- La Mère de Dieu dans les neiges de sang (Paulsen Mars 2010)
- L’Etoile de l’aube (Editions du Rocher, 2001)
Synopsis of La Mère de Dieu dans les neiges de sang
La Mere de Dieu dans les neiges de sang (for the French edition) reveals the suffering the Khanty people experienced in the 1930s when the indigenous populations were being sovietized. This at a time when current issues in the Arctic are threatening the Native populations’ integrity. So Aipine’s novel is more than ever speaking for all the minorities who are being weakened by economical and political disruptions.
In the 60s, following the 20th Congress of the Communist Party, intellectuals started to denounce the crimes of the Stalinist period. Aipine was among the first to deal with this issue in his work at a time when the minority peoples were remaining silent.
La Mere de Dieu dans les neiges de sang is about the past of his people, their origins, their beliefs and their traditions which were seriously harmed during the Red Terror.
This story mingles the dislocated bodies of the victims with the shimmering of the fabrics and the merry tinkling of the bells ; it creates a vivid and colourful picture which turns blood-red. This story contains the exact same poetry typical of the great founding works.