Paper abstract:

Despite the transformations that the epic “Manas” underwent during the 20th century, Soviet anti-religious policies failed to disenchant it. Today, traditional bards continue to believe that their commitment to recite the epic is a sacred obligation that comes down from a transcendent Elsewhere – the World of Manas. Before acquiring the gift of reciting the epic, every bard encounters Manas or his companions in dreams or visions. Typically, the spirits from the World of Manas unequivocally order their this-worldly interlocutors to recite about the life and deeds of the famous warrior. While the bards do not doubt the divine nature of “Manas,” there is an increasing disagreement about the theological essence of the epic. More specifically, the question of whether “Manas” is an Islamic or a shamanistic tradition has been intensely debated by bards, academics, religious leaders, as well as lay people. The proposed paper focuses on this debate by engaging with two contemporary bards – Kamil Mamadaliev and Talantaaly Bakchiev. Drawing on my ethnographic fieldwork in Kyrgyzstan and extensive conversations with these bards, I shed light on the workings of Soviet secularity and the ways in which it conditions contemporary disagreements on the origins and content of “Manas.”

According to all major versions of the epic, Manas is an explicitly Muslim hero fighting against aggressors-unbelievers – the Kalmaks and the Chinese. While traces of shamanism are noticeable in every version, the epic clearly divides the world into Muslims and unbelievers, placing these key Islamic categories at the centre of its narrative arc. Increasingly, however, some bards downplay the Islamic dimension of the epic, arguing that “Manas” is shamanistic in nature and manifests a non-Islamic essence of Kyrgyz spirituality. To be clear, the controversy is less about the content of the epic – even the most vocal critics of Islam don’t deny that it is full of Islamic concepts – and more about whether to define it as inherently Islamic or shamanistic.

My interlocutors, Kamil and Talantaaly, represent two conflicting positions regarding “Manas” – one suggests that “Manas” cannot be understood other than being an Islamic tradition, while the other argues that Islam is only a superficial narrative layer covering the epic’s shamanistic core. The paper interrogates these opposing views, arguing that the disagreement between these bards is located within the problem-space of post-Soviet secularity and is profoundly conditioned by Soviet history.