Contested Souls: Christianisation, Millenarianism and Sentiments of Belonging on Indigenous Yamal, Russia

TY - JOUR

T1 - Contested Souls

T2 - Christianisation, Millenarianism and Sentiments of Belonging on Indigenous Yamal, Russia

AU - Skvirskaja, Vera

N1 - Special Issue: Millenarianism and Religious Innovation in North Asia

PY - 2014

Y1 - 2014

N2 - Religious revival has consistently shown itself to be a central characteristic of broader ideological shifts in post-Soviet Russia. This article discusses how new religious currents – Orthodox Christianity and a Protestant denomination condemned by the Church – affected rural indigenous dwellers on Yamal at the turn of the millennium. It contends that rather than simply filling a post-Soviet ideological vacuum, as is often suggested in mass media and social scientific literature, new religious discourses challenged and resurrected native traditions for new purposes as well as revoked certain Soviet images and social forms. People’s reliance on semantic memory in diverse and mutually hostile religious frameworks overrides a distinction between innovative religious movements characterised by evocative images and a doctrinal mode of religiosity based on routinised forms of worship and ‘general knowledge’ (cf. Whitehouse 2000). While sharing this memory, indigenous converts of different denominations may profess millenarian attitudes that coexist with both ‘syncretic’ dispositions and the complete negation of native tradition.

AB - Religious revival has consistently shown itself to be a central characteristic of broader ideological shifts in post-Soviet Russia. This article discusses how new religious currents – Orthodox Christianity and a Protestant denomination condemned by the Church – affected rural indigenous dwellers on Yamal at the turn of the millennium. It contends that rather than simply filling a post-Soviet ideological vacuum, as is often suggested in mass media and social scientific literature, new religious discourses challenged and resurrected native traditions for new purposes as well as revoked certain Soviet images and social forms. People’s reliance on semantic memory in diverse and mutually hostile religious frameworks overrides a distinction between innovative religious movements characterised by evocative images and a doctrinal mode of religiosity based on routinised forms of worship and ‘general knowledge’ (cf. Whitehouse 2000). While sharing this memory, indigenous converts of different denominations may profess millenarian attitudes that coexist with both ‘syncretic’ dispositions and the complete negation of native tradition.

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - Russia, Christianisation, Orthodox Church, spiritual security, post soviet society

U2 - 10.4000/emscat.2454

DO - 10.4000/emscat.2454

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0766-5075

VL - 45

SP - 2

EP - 16

JO - Etudes Mongoles et Siberiennes, Centrasiatiques et Tibetaines

JF - Etudes Mongoles et Siberiennes, Centrasiatiques et Tibetaines

ER -