Between Endorsement and Disavowal: André Leroi-Gourhan's Russian Interactions

Material-based interpretations of everyday undertakings have long been of interest to the French social sciences, including anthropology and history. André Leroi-Gourhan (1911-1986) follows to some extend this trend, insofar as his pioneering contributions to ethnographic and prehistoric technology – from the “elementary forms of human activity,” to studies of stone tool manufacture, to the formulation of the “chaîne opératoire” – shed much light on the more tangible and infrastructural dimensions of human existence. At the same time, his predominantly idealist recourse to evolutionary “tendencies,” “vital thrusts” (élan vital), and suchlike metaphysical notions rather held him at bay from would-be historical and dialectical understandings of primitive socio-economic formations – and this, despite his ready access to and close acquaintance with the professional literature from the other side of the Iron Curtain. Hence the paradox, as outlined here, of Leroi-Gourhan's distant attitude towards the conceptual (historical-materialist) substrate of Russian-cum-Soviet archaeology, on whose practical achievements he nonetheless remained well-informed and appreciative. In turn, this ambivalence may partly explain the rather superficial and incomplete perception of Leroi-Gourhan's works within Soviet archaeology and anthropology, limited to his publications on Prehistoric art and religion while ignoring his broad-ranging contributions to “anthropogenesis.”