I'll happily agree that the Kodokan offered a large part of what Oshchepkov et al were looking for during the early 1900s, especially re. formal pedagogy and organizational model.
Kano's ambition was to impose the European model of sports pedagogy on to traditional Japanese jujitsu. He had both the academic and practical backgrounds, as well as the financial support and organizational abilities to have largely achieved this goal by the time the USSR decided to devise its own official H2H combat systems. This must have been a powerful incentive, especially when contrasted to the Slavic folk styles which were simply "the way we wrestle in Moldavia", etc.
I also acknowledge that the "SAMBO is an ancient Russian martial art" line was Soviet-era propaganda, directly equivalent with the South Korean government's official stance on the history of Tae Kwon Do.
However, IMO to say that the native Russian wrestling styles "probably comprise less than one half of one percent" of SAMBO is to offer an extreme in the other direction. Consider the prevalence of belt-wrestling techniques (ubiquitous throughout Central Asia, not characteristic of pre-WW2 Judo) in the SAMBO curriculum; even acknowledging that the percentages weren't recorded, I'd say that this strongly suggests a technical influence from a greater proportion of Slavic and other folk-wrestling styles. Note, I don't mean "a greater proportion than Judo", just "a greater proportion that .5 of 1 percent".
Kano's ambition was to impose the European model of sports pedagogy on to traditional Japanese jujitsu. He had both the academic and practical backgrounds, as well as the financial support and organizational abilities to have largely achieved this goal by the time the USSR decided to devise its own official H2H combat systems. This must have been a powerful incentive, especially when contrasted to the Slavic folk styles which were simply "the way we wrestle in Moldavia", etc.
I also acknowledge that the "SAMBO is an ancient Russian martial art" line was Soviet-era propaganda, directly equivalent with the South Korean government's official stance on the history of Tae Kwon Do.
However, IMO to say that the native Russian wrestling styles "probably comprise less than one half of one percent" of SAMBO is to offer an extreme in the other direction. Consider the prevalence of belt-wrestling techniques (ubiquitous throughout Central Asia, not characteristic of pre-WW2 Judo) in the SAMBO curriculum; even acknowledging that the percentages weren't recorded, I'd say that this strongly suggests a technical influence from a greater proportion of Slavic and other folk-wrestling styles. Note, I don't mean "a greater proportion than Judo", just "a greater proportion that .5 of 1 percent".