Chapter 9

 

Back to Siberia: Adventures of the Metaphor in Its Motherland

 

In Chapter Nine I return to where I started my book - Siberia, the "classical" motherland of the shamanism metaphor.  This chapter explores the fate of shamanism from 1917, during the advance of communism in Russia, to the present day, when Siberia has seen the emergence of indigenous neo-shamanism.

  • Using the works of prominent Russian and indigenous ethnologists (e.g. Dmitrii Zelenin, Gavriil Ksenofontov, Waldemar Bogoras, and Leonid Potapov), who in the 1920s and the 1930s learned to speak "Marxist," I outline Soviet Marxist anthropology's approach to shamanism. 

  • Then in a section entitled "Religion of the Oppressed, Useful Esotericism, or Obstacle to Modernity" I discuss ambivalent attitudes of early Soviet ideology to Siberian shamanism in the 1920s. Abortive attempts to introduce the shamanism metaphor into Soviet literature are discussed (e. g. Sakha poet Platon Oiunskii's Red Shaman (1925).  A brief flirt of the Soviet secret police (Gleb Bokii, Aleksandr Barchenko) with occult knowledge and altered states (Shambhala, Tibet, and shamanism) for the "world liberation" purposes is also considered.

  • From the 1920s I move to the 1930s, when Stalinist regime in the Soviet Union unleashed ruthless attacks against Siberian shamans and religion in general.  My particular attention is focused on the attempts of Soviet ideologists to identify class roots of shamanism and categorize shamans as a "parasite" group designated for eradication.  At the same time, I look into remarkable resilience of shamanism under the totalitarian regime by discussing such peculiar phenomena as the "dispersed shamanism" and "virtual drums."

  • The chapter ends with the discussion of the resurgence of shamanism in post-communist Siberia in the 1990s.  Here I consider the use of the shamanism metaphor by Siberian indigenous people for the purposes of ethnic and cultural construction. I also discuss the place of the emerging Siberian neo-shamanism in the global network of esoteric and nature spiritualities.  As illustrations I consider the experiences of indigenous individuals who since the 1990s either promote shamanism or position themselves as shamanism practitioners (Irina Urbanaeva, Mongush Kenin-Lopsan, Tatiana Kabezhikova, Ai-Churek, and Nadezhda Stepanova).

 

 

1920s: booming interest in shamanism among ethnographers and writers

 

 

 

 

Waldemar Bogoras at the Künstkamera exibit

"Gallery of Shamans," Leningrad (1925)

 

 

 

 

Staged photograph of the Khakass shaman

by anthropologist N. N. Nagorskaia (1928)

 

 

 

 

Platon Oiunskii: the author of Red Shaman (1925)

 

 

 

Gavriil Ksenofontov with his son: this famous collector of morbid tales about the initiation of shamans was also the author of  “Cult of Insanity in Ural-Altaian Shamanism” (1928)

 

 

1920s: esotericism for the cause of "world liberation"

 

 

 

Gleb Bokii: one of the chiefs of Soviet secret police and a former Rosicrucian, he sponsored research in occult knowledge

 

 

 

 

Aleksandr Barchenko: for this esotericism scholar

and secret police agent shamanism was part of his occult research

 

 

1930s: crusade against shamanism

 

 

 

Soviet anti-shamanic poster that encouraged “tribal masses”

to expel shamans from native communities (1931)

 

 

 

An anti-shamanic brochure by a Soviet propaganda writer (1931)

 

Prominent early Soviet explorers of shamanism

 

 

 

 

Dmitrii Zelenin

 

 

 

 

Leonid Potapov

 

 

1990s and beyond: emergence of Siberian neo-shamanism

 

 

Public session in front of the "shamanic clinic" Tos-deer in Kyzyl, Tuva Republic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nadezhda Stepanova: since the 1990s,

this anthropology professor positions

herself as a practitioner of Buryat shamanism

 

 

 

Mongush Kenin-Lopsan: this ethnographer

and writer promotes shamanism in his

Tuva republic and the West

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ai-Churek (Moon Heart), practitioner of Tuvan shamanism

 

 

Shaman on stage is a common

phenomenon in present-day  Siberia

 

 

Moscow psychologist and poet Vera Sazhina rediscovered herself as a Siberian shaman in the 1990s;

here she gives a public séance  for Western seekers of tribal wisdom, Aosta Valley, Italy (2005)

 

 

 

 

 

Further reading

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright note The above photographs and illustrations are believed to be in the public domain or out of copyright.  If the use of any photograph on this site is thought to infringe any copyright, please inform me immediately and I will either remove the photograph with apologies or, if permission is given, add an appropriate acknowledgment.

 

 

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