From Culture to Experience: Shamanism in the Pages of the Soviet Anti-Religious Press
Contemporary European History May 1, 2020 DOI: 10.1017/s0960777320000041 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Historical analysis Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Topics | Shamanism |
| Citations | 67 |
| Key points | Argues that the 1960s transformation of shamanism's representation in Soviet anti-religious journals reflected a shift in the Soviet atheist project and highlights parallels with Western modernist projects. |
Abstract
Abstract In the 1960s a shift occured in how shamanism was represented in Soviet anti-religious journals, in which shamanism was transformed from an ethnographically documented cultural practice peculiar to Siberian indigenous populations, into an – albeit ‘primitive’ – form of a universal human capacity for altered states of consciousness and a precursor of various forms of mysticism. The article argues that this shift coincided with a shift in the Soviet atheist project, as well as a point of comparison that reveals similarities and differences between Soviet and Western modernist projects.