Contemporary Forms of Buryatian Shamanism

RESUMÉ V ANGLICKÉM JAZYCE Since the 1980s, a revival of religious traditions, whose continuity was disrupted considerably in the Soviet-era Russia, has been in motion in the entire area of Siberia and Central Asia, among the so called 'rooted nations'. While major religious groups, such as buddhism and islam, could successfully pick up the threads of their religious traditions thanks to their written resources; religions based mainly on oral transmission are facing the opposite situation, shamanism not being an exception. Intense tension coming from the spirituality of their own ethnic traditions, which spontaneously opened after many years of the Communist secularization, in the case of shamanism hit the barriers of how to adequately re- establish the disrupted traditions (lack of living bearers and experts on their own traditions, initiated and uninitiated shamans, and other ceremony specialists, ignorance of symbolism). The whole process of rebirth, revival or revitalisation of shamanism is entirely consistent with the context of current issues concerning constituent societies, which naturally carries the legacy of Soviet culture. Political and economic changes in the post- Soviet space also enabled the bearers of traditions to become open to a wide range of new influences from abroad. Revitalization..