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Paper short abstract:

In the Altai Republic, Buddhism, Orthodox and Evangelical Christianities, shamanism and Burkhanism are associated with local, national or transnational political ideologies. How the issues coping with these denominations were revised following the sending of native conscripts to the Ukrainian front?

Paper long abstract:

The Altai mountain range has been characterised by the historian A. Znamenski as the "Palestine of Asia" (1999), due to the great variety of religious currents that have always been concentrated there. In the present-day Republic of Altai (Southern Siberia in the Russian Federation), all religious movements have the particularity of being associated with local, national or transnational political ideologies. Thus, while Orthodox Christianity mirrors Russian federal politics, Buddhism promoted by the local indigenous intelligentsia is seen as a means of integrating the Republic of Altai into the larger family of Buddhist states. Evangelical Christian denominations inscribe their followers within the global Christian brotherhood, and shamanism and Burkhanism (a pre-Soviet messianic millenarianism), both revived, convey a representation of the Altai tinged with Russian ethno-nationalism, scientism and New Age, and undermined by contemporary ecological concerns. My presentation will show how these different denominations appeared in post-Soviet Russia, the issues associated with them, and how these were revised following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the sending of Indigenous conscripts to the front.