Red Men in Red Square

by Claude Clayton Smith

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“Red Men in Red Square is a captivating true story chronicling the extraordinary journey of American writer Claude Clayton Smith and Chief Big Eagle of Connecticut's Golden Hill Paugussett tribe as they travel to post-Soviet Russia in 1990-1991. Invited by a Gorky Institute professor who is translating Smith's book on the Chief, they discover the ‘Indianists’—a passionate subculture of Soviet nonconformists devoted to Native American traditions-and find themselves navigating a crumbling empire, where the bleakness of everyday life contrasts sharply with the warmth and vibrancy of the people they meet. The book offers a rare glimpse into an unlikely cultural exchange that defied borders and ideologies. A must-read for anyone fascinated by history, identity, and the unexpected human connections that shape our world.” (Olga Sharp)

SOCIAL SCIENCE / Indigenous Studies
TRAVEL / Russia

ISBN: 978-1-971191-27-0 (print; softcover; perfect bound)
ISBN: 978-1-971191-28-7 (ebook)

LCCN: 2026949323

Second edition
First published by Pocahontas Press, 1994
Copyright © 1994, 2026 Claude Clayton Smith
Released September 2026

250 pages

Author Biography

Claude Clayton Smith, Professor of English, Emeritus, Ohio Northern University, is the author of eight books and co-editor/translator of four. His own work has been translated into five languages, including Russian and Chinese. He holds a DA from Carnegie-Mellon, an MFA from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, an MAT from Yale, and a BA from Wesleyan. His most recent publication is the second edition of Quarter-Acre of Heartache (Shanti Arts, 2025), the first edition of which took him to Russia with Chief Big Eagle, leading to the events in Red Men in Red Square. In 2004, he received a medal from the United Nations committee responsible for the International Decade of Indigenous Peoples: 1994-2004, citing him as a “friend of Native Peoples” for his publications on Native Americans and Native Siberians. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with Elaine, his first reader, editor, and wife of fifty years. claudeclaytonsmith.wordpress.com

Endorsements

“Years ago, as an undergraduate, I was fascinated by Russian history, but I never could have imagined the phenomenon of Indianism emerging in the twentieth century and persisting into the twenty-first. Smith’s book offers a tantalizing account of the movement from many perspectives, both inside and out.”
—Dr. John Sottosanti, author of Mortal Adhesions

“In Red Men in Red Square Claude Clayton Smith describes his adventures and misadventures traveling in Russia with Chief Big Eagle of Connecticut’s Golden Hill Paugussett Reservation. In the summers of 1990 and 1991, they interacted with Indianists—Russian citizens ‘dedicated to the preservation of Native American culture.’ This 2nd edition remains an intriguing memoir, travelogue, and history of the Indianist movement in Russia.”
—Faith Garbin, author of How We Bury Our Dead

“To the extent that Americans are aware of Indianism . . . they regard it as an amusing eccentricity or an expression of disaffection with communism. Chief Big Eagle found something deeper than that. He immediately experienced both an ethnic and spiritual bond with the Indianists.”
—Mike Lackey, The Lima (Ohio) News

“On several levels, this book is a unique cultural time capsule. First, it’s the further adventures of the larger-than-life Chief Big Eagle as he visits the Soviet Union twice, in 1990 and 1991, with his Boswell, author Claude Clayton Smith at his side. (The first adventure is reported in Smith’s Quarter-Acre of Heartache, about the Chief’s successful fight for the last remnant of his tribe’s ancestral lands in Connecticut.) Second, it documents the remarkable meeting of idealistic young Soviet citizens inspired to live the values of Native Americans—‘Indianists’—with an authentic culture-bearer, Chief Big Eagle. On a third, higher level of international relations, Red Men in Red Square captures the moment at the very end of the USSR when Soviet-American relations were at their warmest, a honeymoon period that has long since ended. And finally, a fourth level for me personally: I was an eyewitness to this moment. As a doctoral student in cultural anthropology, I was conducting fieldwork on informal youth groups in Soviet/post-Soviet St. Petersburg, I had the privilege of attending the Indianist powwow in 1995, when the movement was at its height. Smith’s narrative from 1991 aligns with what I witnessed four years later. For anyone interested in Native American or Russian culture, this rich cross-cultural narrative is well worth a read.”
—Jenny Rabodzeenko, Ph.D., cultural anthropologist

“A fascinating account of an unlikely adventure encompassing the fall of the Soviet Union,  American Indians, and Russian Indianists. The book is part travelogue, part history, part cultural exposé, and part buddy movie. Smith shows us the exciting interactions that sometimes happen among scholars who discover common interests and how it leads to more collaboration.”
—Irene Hoge Smith, author of The Good Poetic Mother

“Mark Twain was right. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and if you’re only going to read one book this year, make it Red Men in Red Square, the incredible tale of Claude Clayton Smith’s travels in Russia with a bona fide Native American chief.”
—Christopher Chambers, author of Kind of Blue

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