Gender in Russian Rodnoverie (original) (raw)
Related papers
Kaarina Aitamurto’s study deals with Russian neopaganism and consists of a detailed description of the narratives used by adherents of the native faith to present their movement. Focusing on two well-known native faith communities (the Circle of Pagan Tradition and the Union of Slavic Communities of the Slavic Native Faith), the author attempts to make sense of neopaganism in Russia in the context of modern theories of religion. The review examines how certain theoretical and methodological preferences of the author’s have influenced her interpretation of the material that she has collected.
Based on the expedition materials received by the authors in 2014, the article reveals the cultural and psychological characteristics of the sub-ethnic group of Kryashen-pagans in the village of old Tyaberdino, the Republic of Tatarstan. The purpose of the article is to study the ethnocultural characteristics of the Kryashen pagans. The main attention in the article is paid to the traditional rituals and customs of the life cycle, and the issues of ethnic self-awareness and self-identification of "unbaptized Kryashens" are raised. The article demonstrates the way paganism and Christianity are closely intertwined in the Kryashen calendar, festive and everyday traditions, folk beliefs and customs. First of all, such a synthesis of pagan and Christian rituals is due to the geographical location of the area and interaction with neighboring peoples. Secondly, during the periods of mass Christianization, paganism was not completely ousted from the consciousness of the Kryashen people, and Christianity was not fully understood yet. The authors of the article also describe the sacred rituals and places of worship that have survived at present among the Kryashen pagans. The materials of this article can be useful for ethnologists, social and cultural anthropologists, historians, museologists and culturologists, as well as anyone interested in this topic.
Masculine Strategies in Russian Orthodoxy: From Asceticism to Militarization
Gender and Power in Eastern Europe, 2020
The chapter gives an outline of masculine strategies in the context of sociocultural preferences of post-Soviet Orthodoxy. The chapter reveals the specific features of deformation and distortion of normative masculine strategies in the conditions of religious conservatism and the post-secular resort to patriarchal norms, which causes a lack of men in the Orthodox Church, i.e., a certain masculinity crisis. The author subjects to verification the traditional view of gender imbalance, showing that this imbalance is diminishing, although there are still fewer men in the church (participating in worship and church life) than women. The evidenced decline of the percentage disparity between men and women in the church environment over the past 30 years allows us to acknowledge a partial overcoming of masculinity crisis in the Orthodox environment. Analyzing the limitations of ways to realize normative masculinity in the Orthodox environment, the author shows that the way out of this crisis are three ways of hypercompensation: consumerization of the church space, involvement in the global imperial project of Orthodox civilization and cultivating of a special religious attitude toward the war, accompanied by the militarization of the church culture. At least the second option and the third one involves a certain resort to neopatriarchy as they are shifting priorities to the side of primordial masculinity with a greater value of physical strength, authoritarianism and military exploit.
This paper focuses on a set of mythic-ritual complexes that form the core of the veneration of female saints in Central Asia. It addresses a theo-retical issue of the historical roots of the phenomenon. Despite the fact that the cult of saints in Central Asia has repeatedly been the subject of much research (Sukhareva, 1950; Basilov, 1970; Snesarev, 1983; Muminov, 1996; Malikov, 2010; Zarcone, 2007), the problem of its genesis is still open to discussion and requires further investigation. Researchers who have studied the cults of local saints point to the archaic origin of some saints of the Central Asian hagiology and their primordial connection with deities worshiped in the region in pre-Islamic times. Some ethnographers developed this theory in the context of beliefs and practices associated with female saints. These investigations (An-dreev, 1928; Snesarev, 1969; Gorshunova, 2007; 2008) have revealed the Iranian, pre-Islamic roots of well-known female saints (Bibi Seshanbi, Bibi Mushkilkusho), who are revered throughout Central Asia and beyond. Yet, these publications are few and do not cover all aspects of the phenome-non, which is widespread in the region and represented by a variety of female saints' cults. So far, the cults of other female saints, little-known and revered by inhabitants of a village, district or province, have not been sufficiently investigated. Meanwhile, because of large number of these saints and their great impact on daily lives of local saints' devotees, they of undoubted interest both for understanding of this phenomenon as a whole, and for revealing its primordial ideological basis. This research, based mainly on the empirical material obtained in the course of my fieldwork in Central Asia, especially in the Fergana Valley, in the first decade of the 21st century, aims to remedy the lack of infor-mation about female saints cult in existing publications. Most of the mate-rial has been obtained in the course of ethnographic interviewing of pil-grims, custodians (shaikh) of shrines and female spiritual practitioners (otyn), as well as by observation of rituals at sacred places (mazar), both in the Fergana Valley, and in the mountain areas surrounding it. Further-more, this research is undertaken to reveal and to outline at least in gen-eral terms the features of the Central Asian cult of female saints by com-paring images, status and functions of saints, as well as through a seman-tic analysis of symbolism of rituals and attributes associated with the saints of different ranks (from the most little known to the most popular). This analysis led me to conclude that there are many individual fea-tures in each of images of the saints. Their particularities are manifested in specific names, in different mythological stories of them, in various ways of their connection with places of venerations and the environment, etc. Despite this all of the saints regardless of prevalence of their cults demon-strate a number of similarities found in their appearances described in legends and stories of custodians of holy sites and spiritual practitioners, who performs the rites and rituals dedicated to female saints. One of the most obvious similarities is the abundance of symbolism of white in female saints’ cults. White as a symbol of sanctity is found in many details of the saints’ images. In myths, holy patronesses always are described as a woman dressed in white. In legends, they are depicted ei-ther as an elderly woman ‘with white (gray) hair’, or as a young virgin ‘with a beautiful white face’. In their worshipers' dreams and visions, fe-male saints often spring up in the form of a white animal (snake, horse, bird or cat), flower or plant. Spiritual practitioners and attendants of the cult use mostly white items for conducting ceremonies dedicated to fe-male saints. Ethnographic evidence from elsewhere in the region confirms that oklik (literally ‘whiteness’) is a universal symbolic sign of female per-sonages of the Central Asian hagiology. Though white color has also spe-cial meaning in Islam, where it is associated with an individual’s personal spiritual purity, in these cults, it appears as an attribute of female saints and as a sign of their sanctity. The obvious similarity of various mythic-ritual complexes associated with female saints are also found by comparing status and functions of the saints. They all are referred to be ‘great patrons of women and children’, whose main functions are to provide female fertility, and to augment and preserve the off-spring. Furthermore, female saints are venerated as protectresses of families and custodians of homes and as patrons (pir) of birth attendants, healers, weavers and spinners. Sustainability and prevalence of female saints veneration, as well as some striking similarities that are manifested in mytho-ritual complexes of the saints give grounds for asserting that cults of different female saints have a common origin and had been formed and developed in the Central Asian cultures in the framework of a single religious system.