Vladimir Bohoras’s ‘Minimum of Religion’
Essays on Religious Studies June 17, 2026 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.71294/ers.2019.12 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
This review discusses a 2018 collection of Vladimir Bogoraz's archival works on shamanism, compiled by Russian scholars Marianna Shakhnovich and Ekaterina Teryukova. It summarizes the book's design and examines Bogoraz's key ideas about the religious consciousness of Siberia's indigenous peoples. Comparing his early and later writings, the review concludes that his core concept of animism remained consistent, while only his later works show influence from Marxist political pressure and censorship.
Study at a glance
| Design | review |
|---|---|
| Key finding | Vladimir Bogoraz's basic concept of animism remained unchanged throughout his works, with only his later writings showing traces of Marxist ideological influence. |
Abstract
Abstract. This review discusses the book Bogoraz, Vladimir Germanovich. From the Archive: Selected Works on Shamanism, 1934–1936 (2018), prepared for publication by the Russian researchers Marianna Shakhnovich and Ekaterina Teryukova. The review briefly summarizes the book and discusses its design, focusing particularly on those scholars who compiled the archival materials. The discussion then moves to Vladimir Bogoras’s main ideas, especially regarding the religious consciousness of the indigenous population of Siberia. A brief comparative analysis of the author’s early works and the publications presented in the collection follows. It is then concluded that the basic concept of animism remained unchanged throughout Vladimir Bogoras's works, and that only his later writings contain traces of exposure to the political conjuncture and censorship of Marxist ideology.