Sibirica

Abstract: The article provides a review of various strategies the peoples of Siberia undertake to reestablish their identity, their cultural identity, and rights to their land. The article aims to analyze the modern challenges that the indigenous peoples of Siberia face and their responses to such challenges. The article presents five models of survival strategies used by the peoples of Siberia.

This article examines the book culture of the Buryat Buddhists of the Southern Siberia. Based on social archaeographic studies, the article posits a link between local book culture and the stable identity of Buryat Buddhist. Defining Buryat Buddhist identity based on an analysis of different aspects of their worldview, cultural life, and historical past, this article reveals how Buddhist book culture and home life are the most important aspects in the formation of local identity. The analysis confirms that a radical change in the mechanism of the transfer of tradition, social changes, and the economic crisis led to the transformation of the vector of development in the traditional book culture of the Buryats, highlighting that the main priority is not the religious but the ethnic component.

Ethnic cultures experience great transformations that affect their sustainability and holistic nature. However, the traditions related to life and death are, remarkably, persisting. This articles focuses on funerary customs and burial rituals that are significant for the Khakass people. In this research of the Khakass burial rituals we bring together archaeological, ethnographic, and folklore material that reveals unique data about funerary customs. The article reviews the burial rituals in historical perspective and focuses on changes the rituals have undergone. It concludes with the summary of transformations in contemporary burial practices.

This article discusses the normative and legal foundations, laws, principles, approaches, means and methods of organizing the educational process and analyzing the content of the authors’ ethnopedagogical program—Olonkho pedagogy. The article relies on the aspiration of ethnic groups to preserve their own distinctiveness and maintain their ethnic and cultural identity despite the current circumstances of globalization. By basing its approach on the Sakha heroic epic tradition—the Olonkho—the article describes how this tradition can introduce children to ethnocultural traditions, customs, and ceremonial rituals. The article examines manifestations of civic and ethnic identity among students, as well as their values and attitudes toward their native language and the cultural and historical heritage of their ethnic group.

A circle dance, a fundamental element of many traditional cultures, exists in many parts of the world. Scholars have been fascinated by historical and contemporary, mythical and cultural, ritual and semantic aspects of circle dances. The article discusses the Yakut circle dance, osuokhai, influenced by ancient practices and religious ideas of Eurasian nomads. The article reflects on the historical transformations and on the semantics of the osuokhai.

This article discusses indigenous methodology in the context of Tuvan studies. Tuvan studies have a rich history, with significant contributions by local Tuvan researchers as well as Russian and foreign scholars. This article presents an overview of this research before, during, and after the Soviet period. The paper examines possible strengths and weaknesses of both “insider” (indigenous) and “outsider” research, with the consideration that these opposing categories are not so easily delineated. Through case studies describing the work and insights of the renowned Tuvan researcher Valentina Suzukei and the cultural “thesaurus” approach of Lukov and Lukov (2008), the article assesses the potential of indigenous methodology in the field of Tuvan studies.

The article provides an overview of recent initiatives spearheaded by indigenous peoples in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) that seek to improve the existing language policy put forth by the state government. Although there has been some research conducted on the activities of public organizations and associations of indigenous peoples in the region, more must be done to better understand activities specifically related to language policy. The article presents a history of indigenous and minority organizing in the republic since the end of the Soviet era, with special attention paid to the campaigns regarding the status of native language and its presence within the educational sphere. It then analyzes the results of a 2011 sociological study regarding people’s beliefs about responsibility for native language maintenance and revitalization.

The article discusses professional teaching training for tutoring and primary education at a small-scale rural school, where there are prolific opportunities for individualizing the educational process and creating conditions that foster personal development of primary schoolchildren. Educational quality is indicated by the formation of ethnocultural identity and ethnic self-knowledge; this is the basis for the development of harmonious interethnic relations in multicultural societies. The article presents a model for the development of ethnopedagogical competence in the primary school teacher, the ethnopedagogy of the educational process, and the formation of the pan-Russian civic identity as a condition for the successful implementation of the new primary school standards.

The Nenets people have various forms of worshipping spirits in their sacred landscapes. The article examines the history, definitions, and classifications of forms of worship of the Nenets sacred places (khebidia ia). Cult structures (khekhe) include objects of nature as well as effigies of various deities installed at sacred sites or residential areas. Images of a master spirit carved in stone or wood (siadei) mark tribal or general significant sites of worship. The main activities carried out on these sacred sites relate to seasonal rituals of the life cycle and to subsistence practices such as fishing and hunting. The most important of them were sacrificial rituals.