State and Shamanism in Buryatia: From Antagonism to Incorporation

Abstract

Introduction. The contemporary transformation of the place and role attributed to shamanism in social structures cannot be explained in isolation from social and political trends. Goals. The study aims at revealing causes of shamanism’s revival in post-Soviet Russia, analyzing the latter’s mechanisms, and attempts an efficient policy roadmap that could be followed by the Government. Materials and methods. The comparative historical method identifies structural inconsistencies between official clerics and institutions supposed to sustain intrasystemic balance in human society — and individual shamans performing similar functions in the so called ‘big universe’ that additionally comprises the world of natural phenomena and that of spirits. Results. The paper shows that when social institutions headed by authorities are capable of securing acceptable solutions for most problems of an individual citizen, shamanism tends to turn vividly oppositional and retains its potentials in ‘peripheries’ only — within ‘gaps’ of social systems. Meanwhile, the experiences of post-Soviet Buryatia attest to that in acute crisis shamanism may be recruited again to tackle actual mundane objectives. In this case, it becomes an important structural element to a wider social relations system with boundaries of society proper further extended. Conclusions. The paper asserts the latter phenomenon may imply an efficient strategy be incorporation of shamans into the public law field with limited allocations of specific resources owned by the Government only. This may result in that the former’s spiritual potentials and impacts be used to common advantage — to avoid takeovers by spiritual leaders from peripheries of social systems.