In this article I intend to explore the way in which early ethnographers, missionaries and travelers approached the relationship between Russian Orthodox faith and intellectual development among the indigenous peoples of Western Siberia and Russian North (the Nenets, Khanty and Mansi). My aim was to reveal the most characteristic topics of discussions concerning the influence of Christian ideas on the indigenous peoples that were proposed by the authors who published descriptions of the North between the 18^th and the early 20^th centuries. I studied travel notes and ethnographies of the period in order to map repeatedly expressed ideas about connection of Russian Orthodox and animist concepts, ritual practice and everyday moral conduct. I analyzed this evidence in the framework of theoretical and philosophical ideas of cultural evolutionism of the 19^th century, as well as of recent discussions in the domain of anthropology of Christianity. I examined available ethnographic evidence about the Russian North and Western Siberia regarding specific relationship between Eastern Christianity and modernization. I disclosed that in ethnographic descriptions of the period, the main tropes concerning connection between the northern indigenous peoples and Russian Orthodoxy encompassed ideas concerning limited influence of Christianity on the northern tribes, appropriation of selected Christian ideas by indigenous shamanistic groups and restricted prospects for development of the northern peoples who did not take Christianity seriously. The Russian North and Western Siberia were marginal regions of spreading the Russian Orthodox faith from the 18^th until the early 20^th century. Also, material modernity penetrated the region rather slowly. The Russian Orthodox Church and scholarly community both attempted to endorse social, material and mental development in the region during the early period of missionary work as well as ethnographic studies. Besides, ethnographers and missionaries both viewed animism as a prominent obstacle of development. But, differently from the Church, scholars regarded folk religion also as a valuable reserve of indigenous knowledge.

The belief in magic effects of a holy text, sacred name of a deity, a prayer word or sound is very strong in the culture of Mongolian peoples. This primarily manifests in Buddhist church service and related rituals, but also fills everyday life of the Mongols. Reading canonical tracts, magic formulas (mantras and dharanis), including these in various writings, attributing magic powers to specific books, using prayer wheels and flags - this all pervades the Buddhist Mongols’ view of the world order. A local tradition that existed in the capital of North Mongolia at the close of the 19^th and beginning of the 20^th century stands out - a belief that saying the name of the local lama Dashdorj and telling about some episodes of his life are vested with similar miraculous powers. Some oral legends of him, portraying Dashdorj as a miracle worker, have been recorded. The roots of these legends are rather unclear. There are some mentions of one Dashdorj in historical sources who used to be a senior lama (da-lama) in a monastery in the capital. He was well known for criticizing Manchurian authorities and corrupt Mongolian officials. His anti-Manchurian views and outspoken opinions might have become the reason for his popularity and for attribution of specific sanctity to his name.

The paper dwells on the “lived eschatology” of the Altaians. Its primary goal is to study of the social contexts of the existence of eschatological texts. The author has chosen the pragmatics of mythological text, as well as situational approach and microethnographic description in sociocultural anthropology, to act as methodological framework of the research. The concept of the situation of narration / storytelling of eschatological knowledge is defined as central. The main research problem is unfolded upon through typological analysis of situations of narration in which an eschatological message is transmitted. The author distinguishes between two main groups of situations of storytelling - namely, the “mythological” and “real” situations, and then analyzes their variations and draws a typology of them. Steady transmission of “lived eschatology” is carried out by interrelated processes of legitimation and storytelling. The main role in the legitimation of eschatological knowledge is born of “mythological” situations of storytelling.

This paper provides a different interpretation of Kazakh kinship and argues that the impact of clans upon mainstream politics in Kazakhstan is overestimated. After the collapse of the Soviet state, kinship functioned as a ‘shock absorber’ in several post-socialist countries. The importance of kinship solidarity and Islamic norms rose due to Nazarbayev’s politics of promoting Kazakhness. Kazakh perception of traditions includes following a complex set of norms behaving in a way that is in accordance with be according to Islamic values, and mutual support. Kazakh families are large strong networks that cover the country, and the main driving force behind the networks is the practice of reciprocity and an obligation to help one’s relatives. These social norms are confirmed and recreated in civic and family rituals like Nauruz, weddings and other social gatherings. This paper discusses the ideology and practices of kinship networks to demonstrate how Kazakh moral values are embedded within the functioning of private and state structures.

The paper dwells upon Buddhist prayer wheel which are wildly spread in the Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism in Central Asia . Prayer wheel ( mong. maanii hurd or nomiin hurd, bur. khurde) spins on its axis and contains sacred Buddhist texts - mantras (mong. maani ) and dharani (mong. tarni ) (pic. 1, 2). Such a maani hurd can be found in various sizes and types, they are installed around monasteries, next to revered objects (mountains, springs, stupas) or on the way to those (pic. 15, 17). In Mongolia and Buryatia, there are many different practices involving these wheels, for example, small hand-held prayer wheels are offered to tankas (images of Buddhist saints) and statues, they are placed on home altars, solar-powered prayer wheels are kept in cars. They are not only used as offerings, but they themselves are the objects to which offerings are made. Food, money, various things (praying beads, books, pendants, broken and unnecessary things, photographs, dunza salt wrapped in paper) are offered to the wheels. Believers put their offerings on the beams that support the prayer wheels (pic. 16). This essay will focus on one of the practices - dedicating a prayer wheel to a deceased ancestor wishing him a better birth. The structure of the texts that the believers write on such wheels will also be addressed in detail.

Among the Buryats living in the Russian Federation there is a constant process of formation of identity and its rethinking. This is a two-way process: on the one hand, the importance of local and clan identity increases, on the other hand, different sub-ethnic groups consolidate into a single Buryat ethnos. Besides, there is a simultaneous process of invention of a new type of identity - the hybrid identity, equally common to various ethnic groups living in this territory (Buryats, Russians, Tatars). Ritual practices borrowed by these ethnic groups from each other play an important part in this process. The article is based on the data collected in 2010 and 2016 during the fieldwork in Osinsky and Bokhansky districts the Irkutsk region. The analysis mostly focuses upon (1) the influence of folk narratives and ritual practices on the identification and self-representation of the locals and (2) the influence of their self-identification of the locals on traditional narratives and ritual practices, which undergo some important changes.

The article presents the results of the authors’ field season of 2019, that were collected in three villages on the Chulym River: Tegul’det, Belyj Yar and Kuyanovskaya Gar’. Among the results are some narratives concerning shamanic practices; some rare fragments of nearly extinct tribal legends about the bogatyrs, ancestors of Chulym Turkic families; a plentiful array of stories about the tayga kizhi / tayga kizi (“taiga men”, “taiga people” - the legendary, supernatural forest folk of the Chulym Turkic folklore texts); some particularly interesting rituals; and, last but not least, some rather surprising texts about the historical memory of Soviet times. Beside that, the authors sketch the outlines of a potentially possible ethnogeographic classification of present-time settlements of the Chulym Turki; and make some assumptions concerning the existence of shamanic traditions in Middle Chulym area during the Soviet era. The authors also introduce some field data from the collections of Eleonora L. Lvova to academia for the first time - and discover some parallels to said data in the contemporary field materials.

The article describes “The legends of the Don Kalmyks” manuscript from the archives of Ivan Ivanovitch Popov, a collector of Kalmyk folklore, which are kept in the State Arkhive of Rostov region. I.I. Popov had recorded examples of various genres of Kalmyk folklore - tales, riddles, proverbs, “factual legends” and a song from the Kalmyk heroic epic of Jangar. Only a song from the epic of Jangar and some of the tales have been introduced into academic discourse of all this material. Folklore texts recorded in 1890-1894 have not been properly described and introduced to academia for 125 years. One of such under-researched genres of Kalmyk folk tradition recorded by I.I. Popov are legends. This article is a preliminary description of the manuscript with examples of such, with its full contents presented for the first time ever with a full list of the legends. It has been discovered that the manuscript is incomplete - only sixteen of the twenty-nine texts declared in the contents have been included. There is an idea about where the missing copybooks might be - their introduction to academia is extremely important for Kalmyk folklore studies. The peculiarities of how I.I. Popov used to record oral texts are examined: folklore data both in Old Kalmyk Clear Script and in Cyrillics (with auxiliary symbols) with a parallel translation into Russian and detailed comments, pasportisation and variants of the tale. The fact that of sixteen legends presented in the manuscript, fifteen had been recorded from the same storyteller - the Don Kalmyk Kirsan Atinov - is also characteristic of the manuscript. Six legends are transliterated and translated into Russian, four of them are introduced to academia for the first time.

The second international conference “The Mongols: traditions and modernity” took place in the Russian State University for the Humanities, on September 11-13, 2019. This conference was initially established as an international research forum convening once in 3 years and connecting scholars in various aspects of Mongolian culture. The event aims to facilitate the exchange of knowledge regarding new ideas, topics, approaches and projects concerning Mongolian studies and related academic fields. The thematic frame of this event includes a number of topics concerning cultural, religious, ritual and mythological, folklore, literary, artistic and other traditions of the Mongolian people, the past and present forms of said traditions.