Eva Jane Neumann Fridman, Sacred Geography: Shamanism Among the Buddhist Peoples of Russia, Bibliotheca Shamanistica vol. 12, Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest (2004) ISBN 963 05 81140 xiv+323 pp., $87.89 (original) (raw)
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From the reviews: "Znamenski set out to provide for readers of English a wealth of sources that will be utterly new even to most experts in the field. He recognises the value of all of his chosen texts, whatever their viewpoints, and demonstrates it to others. His introduction is the best concise summary yet made of the history of research into Siberian shamanism, from the earliest times to the present, and outstandingly valuable in its range and perception." (Professor Ronald Hutton, Dept. of Historical Studies, The University of Bristol, UK) "This volume is a fascinating … summary of Russian-language sources of Siberian ritual practitioners (‘shamans’). … the book is interesting and useful both for students and specialists. … The book is particularly noteworthy for the fact that it records the variety of local terms that are used for ‘shamans’. I have already recommended the book to postgraduate students … . the volume is well-edited. … This book is a welcome addition to a new generation of analytical work on forms of indigenous spirituality." (David G. Anderson, Polar Record, Vol. 41 (4), 2005) Table of contents : Front Matter....Pages i-viii Russian and Soviet Perceptions of Siberian Shamanism: An Introduction....Pages 1-42 Recording Shamanism in Old Russia....Pages 43-130 Siberian Shamanism in Soviet Imagination....Pages 131-278 Records of Siberian Spirituality in Present-Day Russia....Pages 279-358 Back Matter....Pages 359-371
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 2014
A significant body of Muslim religious rites, with roots in Sufi devotional practice, continued to be conducted in Central Asia well into the Soviet era, despite Soviet antireligious policies and pressures. Reflecting communal adaptations of the Sufi dhikr, or "remembrance" of God, as part of healing or funerary ceremonies, these rites were reclassified, in Soviet ethnographic literature, as vestiges of "shamanism," and thus largely escaped notice by western observers of "Soviet Islam," who imagined 'Sufism' in terms of clandestine militant organizations intent on undermining the Soviet regime. This paper explores the reclassification of Sufi activity as shamanism, notes historical evidence on the diffusion of Sufi rites into wider public circles, and suggests some implications of these developments for our understanding of Soviet Islam, Central Asian Sufism, and the phenomena of "shamanism."
Shamans Emerging From Repression in Siberia: Lightning Rods of Fear and Hope
Horizons of Shamanism: A Triangular Approach to the History and Anthropology of Ecstatic Techniques, 2016
To honor the broad ranging legacy of Åke Hultkranz, this article focuses on the changing social and political ramifications of indigenous people's spiritual revitalization in Siberia. My approach balances Hultkrantz's sensitivity to commonalities of shamanism throughout the circumpolar North with attention to more specific aspects of shamanistic practices and beliefs in Far Eastern Siberia, especially the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), over time. Shamans and shamanic prophets can be found in many kinds of communities, from rural Siberia to Native North America to urban Korea. Over-generalizations behind standard or "ideal type" distinctions among "shamans," "priests," and "prophets" limit our understanding of the richness of shamanic cultural traditions. Research featured here is based on long-term fieldwork, many return trips to Siberia over the past thirty-five years, and work with the Sakha diaspora. It analyses the resurgence of post-Soviet shamanic healing practices, the organization of an Association of Folk Medicine, and shamanic leadership in an ecology activist movement. Shamans explain that their crucial imperative to heal and protect their clients and communities survived the Soviet period. Shamans and others, by adapting shamanic belief systems, can engage, if not soothe, the legacies of social as well as personal suffering. Yet many shamans were killed or repressed in the Soviet period, rituals were suppressed, and the reputations of shamans have long been ambiguous, depending on whom they protect and how. In socially fraught, crisis-ridden contexts, the personal becomes political. Shamans' How to cite this book chapter:
Behind shamanism: Changing voices of Siberian Khanty cosmology and politics
Social Science & Medicine, 1987
Siberian shamanism has roots in hunting traditions. kinship organization and soul beliefs which have changed under Soviet rule. Aspects of shamanic epistemology and curing survive. although native medical logic sometimes clashes with modem positivist medicine. Assumptions behind Siberian, particularly Khanty. shamanism are examined throug,h analysis of training. seances and cosmology. The changing social context of shamanism is explored m a framework of Soviet pressure to reject shamanic 'superstitution' and 'exploration.' Shamans themselves have adapted their politics, diagnoses and symbolic actions to an increasingly cold social climate. Data results from ethno-historical and field research. including a summer 1975 trip to the Ob-Ugrian Khanty (Ostiak).
The "Vertical of Shamanic Power": the Use of Political Discourse in Post-Soviet Tuvan Shamanism
Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research, n°1, 2013
This article addresses the use of political discourse and the shaping of institutionalized organizations in post-Soviet shamanism in the south Siberian Republic of Tuva. It argues that many organizational features of today's shamanism result from the creative integration of legal, academic, and political concepts that have been mostly elaborated under the Soviet/Russian centralized state governance and were thus historically alien to shamanic practice and discourse.