Continuity and Revitalisation in Sacrificial Rituals by the Eastern Udmurt. Part I
Continuity and Revitalisation in Sacrificial Rituals by the Eastern Udmurt. Part I

The Collective Sacrificial Rituals by the Bashkortostan Udmurt: Rooted in Tradition

Summary/Abstract: This article focuses on a marginal Udmurt group living in Bashkortostan, which has retained, in a Muslim environment, its original Udmurt religious practice. In some places, in spite of decades of anti-religious Soviet policy, the Udmurt were able to pursue their traditional rituals, thus warranting full continuity of their practice. In other places, the tradition was discontinued for some longer or briefer periods. But everywhere there has been a revival at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries. The aim of this article, which is based on the authors’ fieldwork in one district, is to examine these processes and analyse them. In the first instalment, we introduce the geographic, cultural and mostly historic context explaining the resilience of the Udmurt religious practice. We show how much was retained and how in some villages full continuity of religious practice was achieved.

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