Buryats in the Area of Influence of the Orthodox Church during the 19th - Early 20th Centuries: Identities Transformed

Like all the peoples of Siberia, the Buryats were involved in the process of Christianization aiming to complete the spiritual unification of Russia’s multinational population in the 19th century. The Christianization was actively implemented out in Irkutsk Governorate. In Transbaikalia, the process was restrained by the solid position of Buddhism. The Buryats’ conversion to Orthodox Christianity was based on a number of social problems. It entailed changes in the economic and cultural life of the baptized Buryats, influencing their self-identity. In Buryat society there was an ambiguous attitude towards different groups of baptized Buryats. Some of the baptized Buryats rejected the society, and others had to put up with it. The first group consisted of people who had already come into conflict with society. Those were criminals - thieves, robbers. Significantly, a number of newly baptized individuals were married against the will of parents and clan communities. The newlyweds were deprived of ties with their ancestral community after such church marriage. In the 19th century, married women eager to get a divorce got baptized actively. They were pushed for the decision by the arbitrariness and unlimited power of the husband and his relatives. In the other group, there were people who converted to Orthodoxy for ‘objective reasons’ - in view of poverty, to get education, or as a matter of duty. The attitudes of society towards the latter were more loyal. However, the change in religious status led to changes of administrative nature - those of property status and place of residence. These changes led to a split in the Buryat society and the breaking of ties between the newly baptized people and their relatives. At the same time, the process of integration of the newly baptized into Russian society was not that easy. The adoption of Orthodox Christianity by the Buryats not at all meant that they were immediately perceived as ‘own people’ (i.e. insiders) in the Russian environment. The ambiguous attitude of Russians towards the newly baptized Buryats led to the formation of such an ethnic group as karym. In general, the act of baptism was formal for most Buryats: newly baptized ones, as a rule, kept professing the faith of their ancestors - shamanism, which contributed to the preservation of their ethnic, gentile identity. And with the adoption of the liberal law on freedom of religion in 1905, the mass separation of the Buryats from Orthodoxy began. Orthodoxy for the Buryats became an instrument that improved the material conditions of the poor, helped officials to build a dialogue with the authorities ‘in the right direction’, thus destroying the traditional foundations of the Buryat society.

буряты, православие, буддизм, шаманизм, лояльность, элита, идентичность, мотивация

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