Ethnic minorities in Russia

W artykule Autor opisuje jeden z elementów pamięci o wojnie ojczyźnianej w Federacji Rosyjskiej – narrację o bohaterstwie i poświęceniu „zwykłych ludzi” mieszkających w Związku Radzieckim. Pamięć o nich przeszła proces mityzacji i stała się odporna na wszelką krytykę i rewizję. Stała się ponadto elementem spajającym społeczeństwo Federacji Rosyjskiej bez względu na jego narodowe i etniczne zróżnicowanie.

In the paper author addresses the issue of different ways of understanding the authenticity of the various elements of culture of Western Buryats living in Irkutsk Oblast. Social conditions, in which the question of authenticity exist, are determined by the double minority status (compared to Russian majority and to Eastern Buryats), in which Western Buryats live. The problems result from the interruption of the intergenerational transmission (as a result of Stalin’s repressions and building a unified communist society). Buryat activists and intelligentsia pursue the politics of ethnic culture revival in which problems of authenticity of tradition appears constantly. The question of authenticity is not only a problem for anthropologists, historians and social activists. First, this is the question of power – the one who determines how the Buryats past looks like, also determines their socio-political status in the modern world. Secondly, this is a problem of everyday life, as it determines health and success in this life and after death. However, in situations where the intergenerational transmission has been broken, there is a competition between the authorities, who speak about the past – between local knowledge and ethnographic and historical data.

In the paper authors analyze conflicted actions focused on revival of Buryat ethnic minority culture and state unification policy on the local level, in the Siberian part of the Russian Federation. Using the example of the fifteen-year history of a Siberian ethno-cultural festival authors show how manipulation of categories of “traditional culture”, “autochthonic peoples” and “multiculturalism” can serve for taking the symbolic control over part of state territory and how the minority group performs its ethnicity in the frames imposed by the majority group. In the successes and defeats of the festival’s organizers one can reconstruct the process of neutralization of Buryat culture in favour of multiethnic unity. Detailed analysis of the way of using ethnographic and historical sources and processes of negotiating the right to be the host and the guests of the festival is presented in the paper. The festival constitutes the platform for performance of ethnic and religious identities. These performances build multilevel meanings of the festival – from the tourist attraction through celebrating the unity of Eurasia peoples to the shamanistic rite of the fundamental importance for local community.