Religious Interaction in the Spiritual Space of Buryatia

The paper discusses the problem of religious revival and interaction in the Republic of Buryatia. The religious revival is proposed to consider in the context of desecularization process that implies return of religion from the periphery to the center of social and cultural practices. This in its turn means rapprochement between religious institutions and state, the clergy’s participation in political and educational activities, and resolute rejection of atheism in favor of religiosity. Buryatia is the territory where different religious traditions have coexisted for centuries: Buddhism, Orthodox Christianity, shamanism and the Old Belief. Albeit in the popular consciousness Orthodoxy and Old Belief mark the Russian cultural space and Buddhism and shamanism the Buryat one, still the long interaction of ethnic cultures has developed in the religious syncretism and mutual tolerance. The most obvious evidence of intercultural reciprocality manifests in the participation of different ethnic groups in the religious festivals, visiting temples, and observance of religious customs. But such interactions have also deeper worldview basis due to the peculiarities of world-perception in terms of ethnic and cultural diversity that is built on the inevitability of mutual economical and everyday aid in the harsh natural environment. Initially the rapprochement took place from the side of Buryats who entered the russification processes more actively than other Siberian ethnic groups. However, on the part of Russians, the steps toward rapprochement with the Buryats were also significant. In the world outlook sense, the Russians learned the ideas about spirits of locality and necessity to propitiate them thus adopting the shamanic animistic ideas. When Russians visit the Buddhist clergy this has less to do with religious faith but mainly with the credibility of the lamas in the matters of Tibetan medicine, astrology and worldly wisdom.  Based on the latest methodological approaches, the authors analyze the variety of religious practices in the multiethnic and multicultural society, in which regardless of religious ascription the people possess peculiar understanding of the special world of Buryatia where the tradition of cultural interaction has continued since old times to the present.

Buddhism, shamanism, Orthodoxy, Buryats, Russians, cultural interaction, religious revival, traditional culture, secularization, desecularization

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