in political anthropology, ethnicity and religion.
Jonutytė applied the “Page 99 Test” to her new book, Between the Buddha and the New Tsar: Urban Religion and Minority Politics at the Asian Borderlands of Russia, and reported the following:
Page 99 of my book Between the Buddha and the New Tsar talks about urban Buddhism as it is practiced and perceived in contemporary Buryatia (Russian Federation). Here, readers will find the final passages of an ethnographic story of a Buryat Buddhist family who encountered financial and other difficulties while moving from a small town to the capital city Ulan-Ude and retreated to numerous ritual interventions – Buddhist and shamanic – to cope with them. Beyond being a coping mechanism at difficult times, however, “religion is at the core of pursuing a meaningful and prosperous living in the city. In this, it provides an alternative not just to the otherwise powerful Soviet secular modernity project but also to idealized imaginaries of traditional pre-Soviet Buryat life, as well as to current Russo-centric mainstream visions of the good life in the city… In these cases and many others, Buddhism plays a key role in urban aspirations and their pursuits rather than playing an ornamental role to the seemingly more concrete materialities of the city.” Towards the bottom of the page, a new section begins where I demonstrate that my interlocutors in Ulan-Ude saw Buddhist infrastructure such as temples as “normal human needs”, comparing them to…public toilets!Learn more about Between the Buddha and the New Tsar at the Cornell University Press website.
Page 99 test works very well for my book since it places in-depth ethnographic stories with the broader socio-political and historical context of contemporary Buryatia. At the core of the book are ethnographic stories of Buryat Buddhists who navigate often precarious livelihoods in contemporary Ulan-Ude and creatively engage with religion to conjure divine power, own agency, and community support. This takes place in a complex multi-ethnic and multi-religious setting where people engage in Buddhist but also shamanic, Christian, secular, and other kinds of ritual and religious practices. Despite being the titular ethnic group in the region, Buryats constitute only about a third of the population there, while the majority are ethnic Russians. This minoritisation is highly relevant to the contemporary religious life where Buddhism continues to surge since the 1990s, following the Soviet repressions of religion. On the one hand, Buryat Buddhists are striving to be adequately represented in Ulan-Ude urban space where secular Russian/Soviet modernity still prevails. On the other, Buddhism constitutes not just a faith, but a complex socio-cultural milieu that destabilises prevalent Russo-centric interpretations of history, authority and sociality in contemporary Russia.
An important strand of the book that is not well reflected on page 99 is the oppressive militant regime of contemporary Russia that Buryat Buddhists live under. The current war in Ukraine is an important part of it, and the official leadership of Buryat Buddhism is complicit in it through supporting the Russian regime and its war efforts and mobilising Buryats and other Buddhists to enlist in the army. The Buddhist leader Khambo Lama Ayusheev has even claimed that the guardian deities, past leaders of Buryat Buddhism, and even the Buddha supports the militant pursuit of Russia. This book aims to show a more complex picture of Buryat Buddhism where everyday religion does not neatly comply with such official pronouncements but often reveals apolitical or even subversive attitudes and practices. Apart from the current war, Buryat religion and society today are shaped by the significant effects of the long history of colonisation, extraction, and marginalisation within the multi-ethnic but Russo-centric Russian state.
--Marshal Zeringue
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