No 4 (2023)

In the history of religions, in addition to large religious denominations and smaller ethnic specific cults and practices, there are a number of movements that combine local and ethnic features with global trends and patterns. The generalizing designations of such religious forms are diverse: these are folk or traditional religions, movements of social adaptation, archaic social movements, cult renewal or revival, etc. We are talking about the creative rethinking of the legacy of the past, its transformation, expansion, “reformatting”, re-imagining, and inclusion in a broad modern worldview context. Sometimes they play their role as catalysts for other movements and trends. They set off and complement the main lines of the historical development of other religions, and sometimes contrast with them. Almost always, they are associated with the formation of ethnic-cultural identities, the demarcation or, vice versa, strengthening of ties - real and imaginary. This article, for the first time in Russian ethnographic scholarship, examines the models and strategies for the formation and transformation of the “new old” religions of the East (especially South Asia), which have already become a noticeable phenomenon in the social, political, and cultural life of the region. The article introduces a special thematic section that features contributions by E.A. Renkovskaya, S.I. Ryzhakova, L.A. Streltsova, A.A. Bychkova, and M.B. Shcherbak.

Sanamahism is a noticeable phenomenon in the religious picture of the Indian state of Manipur, the ethno-national religion of the Meitei people, which began to form on the basis of old traditional cults in the 1930s. Adherents of Sanamahism initially opposed their religion as the main form of expression of ethnic identity Meitei (Meiteilon) to Hinduism: they emphasized the forced conversion of Meitei to Hinduism, and the organizations they formed, “Apokpa Marup” in 1930 and “Meitei Marup” in 1945, were in a tough fight against the “Brahma Sabha”. The creators of Sanamahism opposed the caste division of society and emphasized the originality of the mythological narratives and ritual practices of Meitei. The peculiar theology of the “new ancient” religion is based on the interpretation of the image of the god Sanamahi as the main creative principle of the world and the supreme God. The most important element of Sanamahism is a kind of myth-history that uses traditional mythological, ritual and cult elements, but organizes them in a new way. In the last decade of the twentieth century the confrontation between Meitei Hindus and Sanamahists has decreased, and at present there are even some attempts to proclaim the Sanamahism as a sort of “local Hinduism”.

In the late 1920s, on the territory where Naga tribes resided in the North East India, there emerged a mass religious reformation movement triggered by certain political and economic factors. Over the hundred years that have passed since, this movement has undergone changes. There appeared a new mythology and new religion called Heraka. Not only did heroes of past times remain in the social memory, but they continued to live their own lives and keep playing important roles in the political arena of the region and the country. I attempt to examine the images of real human characters in the context of evolution of the historical memory and gain the understanding of the place that Heraka occupies in the new official mythology. I argue that the development of Heraka is related to the split between the dividing lines of two nationalist ideologies: the ideology of forming an independent Christian state of Nagalim within the territory of residence of Naga tribes and the ideology of Hindutva.

The article presents a discussion focused on Regna Darnell's concepts of critical paradigm and transportable knowledge in relation to contemporary studies in history of anthropology, put forward in her essay based on the text written for the keynote address at EASA's History of Anthropology Network and reproduced in BEROSE International Encyclopaedia of the Histories of Anthropology. Assessing the changing disciplinary scene of humanities and social sciences, Darnell argues that an urgent rethinking of paradigmatic bases underlying the practices of historians of anthropology is necessary. She reviews the legacy of George Stocking, Jr., and the often-discussed opposition between historicism and presentism, as well as the legacy of Boas and his contemporaries, to examine the paths taken and not taken in understanding the historical development of the anthropological knowledge. Darnell's arguments and suggestions are discussed by an international group of scholars in their contributions including “Presentism and Historicism in the Histories of Anthropology in Russia and North America” by Sergei Alymov, “After the History of Anthropology” by Dmitry Arzyutov, “On the Critical Paradigm for the History of Anthropology” by Jason M. Gibson, “Doing History of Anthropology in a Post-Colonial and International World” by Frédéric Keck, “Boas and Stocking in Russian Anthropology (on ‘Sacred Cows')” by Igor Kuznetsov, “The Struggle for Recognition and Parahistory” by Axel Lazzari, “On the Margins of Darnell's ‘Critical Paradigm'” by Herbert S. Lewis, “Paradigmatic Basics, or What Do We Mean by Paradigm?” by Nancy J. Parezo, “Writing Transnational Histories of Anthropologies” by Gustavo Lins Ribeiro, “History(-ies) of Anthropology: Some Remarks on Reflexivity” by Nathalie Richard, and “Distance as an Issue in the Discipline's History Research” by Sergei Sokolovskiy.

The article presents a critical discussion of arguments made by V.A. Tishkov in his essay on Counting the Peoples or Deconstructing Population Censuses [O perepisyvanii narodov, ili dekonstruktsiia perepisei naseleniia] where the author, taking the approach of social constructivism, examines the practices and experience of conducting population censuses in various countries, reviews the outcomes of the 2020-2021 Census in Russia, makes suggestions about the principles of census organization in regard to recording information on ethnicity, nationality, and language, and advances propositions and recommendations on studying the ethnic composition of the population and general ways of understanding ethnicity. These issues are addressed and scrutinized in contributions by V.V. Bublikov (“What Exactly Shows the Question about ‘Nationality' in Russian Censuses?”), E.A. Varshaver (“Census through the Prism of the Constructivist Approach to Ethnicity”), and V.V. Stepanov (“Observed Society: A Register Instead of the Census”)