From Culture to Experience: Shamanism in the Pages of the Soviet Anti-Religious Press
Contemporary European History May 1, 2020 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.1017/s0960777320000041 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
In the 1960s, Soviet anti-religious journals changed how they depicted shamanism: it shifted from being presented as a specific ethnographic practice of Siberian indigenous peoples to being portrayed as a universal human capacity for altered states of consciousness and a precursor to mysticism. This transformation reflected a broader shift in the Soviet atheist project and highlights both similarities and differences between Soviet and Western modernist approaches.
Study at a glance
| Design | historical analysis |
|---|---|
| Key finding | The shift in Soviet representations of shamanism from a localized ethnographic practice to a universal human capacity coincided with changes in the Soviet atheist project and reveals comparative insights with Western modernism. |
Abstract
Abstract In the 1960s a shift occured in how shamanism was represented in Soviet anti-religious journals, in which shamanism was transformed from an ethnographically documented cultural practice peculiar to Siberian indigenous populations, into an – albeit ‘primitive’ – form of a universal human capacity for altered states of consciousness and a precursor of various forms of mysticism. The article argues that this shift coincided with a shift in the Soviet atheist project, as well as a point of comparison that reveals similarities and differences between Soviet and Western modernist projects.