Vladimir Bohoras’s ‘Minimum of Religion’

This review discusses a 2018 collection of Vladimir Bogoras's works on shamanism, prepared by Marianna Shakhnovich and Ekaterina Teryukova. It summarizes the book's contents and examines its design, focusing on the scholars who compiled the archival materials. The discussion covers Bogoras's main ideas about the religious consciousness of Siberia's indigenous population. A comparative analysis of his early and later works shows that his core concept of animism remained unchanged, though his later writings show traces of political pressure and Marxist censorship.

Study at a glance

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.