Hidden Rituals and Public Performances is dedicated to the study of the religion, rites, and song traditions of three Siberian Finno-Ugric groups in the post-Soviet context. The book focuses on the intersection between the traditions of the many Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia as well as on the Russian and Tatar (or other Turkic) influences. The authors emphasize the long-standing cultural exchanges among these peoples and how this phenomenon has affected their beliefs, rites, and songs. They also address the changing nature of folk tradition as a tool to present minority identity in a multicultural country and in a globalizing world.

The book is divided into four sections. Part One, Representations of the Russian Finno-Ugrians, deals with the history of the study of the Russian Finno-Ugric peoples by scholars from Finland and Hungary as well as by Russians from the nineteenth century to the post-Soviet period. This section takes issue with anthropological and sociological scholarship on the evolution of societies toward a post-traditional state. The authors critique Western approaches to traditional, local culture as a “static, closed system characterised by the epithets cold, repetitive, ritualistic, predetermined, differentiated and organised, in contrast to the hot, experimental, reflexive, undifferentiated or unorganised modern/post-modern West” (22). Rather, they hope to show that the folk practices of the Khanty, Komi and Udmurt have always been in dialogue with other ethnic traditions. As such, their societies and folk traditions have been constantly renegotiated on the basis of socio-political and cultural contexts. Building upon this premise, the authors turn to the question of how folkloristics can and must cope with globalizing forces to “examine complex processes of tradition and identity-formation in diffuse networks of diverse interconnections, of ideological, economic and power relations” (24). Of particular concern is how and why the Siberian Finno-Ugric peoples have chosen to present and adapt their folk practices (described as neo-tradition) to post-Soviet society.

Part Two, The Khanty: Preserving and Performing Religious Traditions, examines the religious beliefs and rites of the Shuryshkary Khanty along the northern the Ob’ river in the Yamal-Nenets National Area of Russia. This section presents an overview of the socio-cultural organization of the northern Khanty with an emphasis on kinship and gender. The authors take issue with Western approaches to vernacular religion, arguing that ethnic religions such as this one cannot be perceived as closed systems, from the normative point of view of Western religious institutions, or understood only on an individual level, as Leonard Primiano has suggested. [1] They argue for a consideration of the complex ethnic cross-pollination among these peoples as well as for the importance of the social worlds of these religions. The authors examine relationships to protective spirits and deities, the secret holy spaces where they are propitiated and fed, the concept of the multiple human souls, and funerary and commemorative rituals. This section concludes with a study of the post-Soviet shamanistic revival. Both Christianization, beginning in the eighteenth century, and the official Soviet policy of atheism, forced religious practices underground. In the 1990s, after the fall of the USSR, public shamanic rites, connected both to religious holidays and to official, secular festivals, e.g., the 160th anniversary of the regional political center held on St. Elijah’s Day, reemerged. The authors assert that the public shamanic séances were chosen to represent the Khanty on the public stage to “reconcile differing, even contradictory interpretations of ritual by honouring the original Khanty culture as well as highlighting the importance of connections between ethnic history and ethnic values” (197). While this argument is compelling on its surface, the authors could offer a more nuanced analysis, particularly from the growing field of post-socialist studies, of the fascinating ethnographic data. Another weakness is the failure to mention the provocative parallels between some of the commemorative rites for the dead and those in the Russian Orthodox tradition. While the authors argue that much Christian belief has been abandoned, given the long-standing interaction between the Khanty and the Russians, a major focus of the work, this issue merits comment at least.

Part Three, The Komi: Proliferating Singing Traditions, turns to the folk revival in the singing traditions in the Upper Vychegda region of the Komi Republic. This section focuses on the interaction of Russian and Komi song traditions since the latter’s Christianization in the fourteenth century. The authors present a convincing case for how Soviet intellectual views of folklore and the establishment of cultural clubs in the 1930s led to the rise of female singing groups among the Komi. The singers in these local, regional, and in some cases, (semi-) professional, ensembles not only perform traditional women’s songs but also have adapted traditional men’s songs to their repertoires. Likewise, they have borrowed from the canon of official Soviet songs as well as from Russian and Komi popular and literary sources in their creation of this song tradition. Despite these sources, the authors demonstrate that the songs are characterized by regional variants, have been adapted to folk language, and are passed on orally. Of particular note is the coded use of adapted literary texts written by Komi poets officially banned during the Stalin era as a means to convey ethnic belonging and values in the face of the official governmental policy. The authors consider the entire range of festival performances, including pre-festival gatherings, practice sessions, and informal singing evenings, to demonstrate how these events should be classified as part of the folk tradition. They conclude that these singing groups have become the mark of Komi identity on the public stage.

The one significant weakness in this section is that the authors do not provide clear guideposts for the reader. The theoretical basis for the approach to the material is outlined nearly fifty pages into the section, well after the actual analysis has begun. The discussion of examples is particularly hard to follow at times. In the analysis of songs and their relation to literary sources, for example, the original poem may be mentioned, but the authors may not provide the text; it is often unclear which variant of the songs under discussion is being presented because variants are not clearly labeled; in some cases, variants are discussed in detail, but yet another version is presented; or a translation of the Komi version is given, but not of the Russian source.

Part Four, Comparisons and Observations, gives a brief overview of preservation of the Udmurt nature religion during the Soviet period and its post-Soviet public revival in the context of two iterations (1993 and 1996) in the national Gerber festival organized by the Udmurt Cultural Society. The discussion centers around the dilemma of conveying a unified Udmurt identity, minimizing the divide between Udmurt believers in Christianity or in the nature religion, as well as a consideration of the role intellectuals, political forces, and the media play in these festivals. The rest of the chapter contrasts how these representative subsets of three Finno-Ugric minorities use neo-traditional folklore to present their identities to each other, to their fellow citizens in Russia, and to the global populace.

While occasionally in need of more thorough argumentation or improved organization and presentation of material, this book is a welcome addition to the literature in English on the Siberian minority peoples, if for the intriguing ethnographic data alone.

Footnote

[1] See Leonard Primiano, “Vernacular Religion and the Search for Method in Religious Life,” Western Folklore 54 (1995): 37-56.

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[Review length: 1227 words • Review posted on September 26, 2012]