Between Christ and Burkhans: The 'Double Faith' of the Transborder Evenks and Imperial Bordering in Inner Asia

• In Event: Imperial Boundaries and Borderland Communities: Exploring Injustice in Eurasia

Abstract

The Evenki are a community directly related to the Sino-Russian border management in Inner Asia. The Russian conquest of the Transbaikalian region resulted in a long-term migration of Tungus tribes to the south (Hulunbuir in China) or north (Yakutya in Russia). Generally, all groups of the Chinese Evenki have had negative experiences related to the Russian (the Solon) and Soviet (the Khamnigan and Reindeer Evenki) models of border management. Following 1917 in Russia and 1949 in China the Evenki were subject to frontier socialism. The socialist countries introduced consistent nation-building policy that required adapting the Evenki culture to the models of socialist culture. An important result of these practices on both sides of the borderline was creating the canons of the official past, the emergence of discourses about the Evenki contribution to the history of their fatherland and the selection of cultural elements recognized by the state as Evenki and preserved as labels of “true Evenkiness.” The state policy influenced all the spheres of the Evenki life, e.g. it weakened their Buddhist tradition as unnatural to the traditionally shamanistic Evenki. In the border areas, Evenki shamanism was influenced not only by Buddhism, but also by Orthodoxy. This led to the emergence of syncretic forms of faith and complex processes of Evenkization of Christianity. On the one hand, the Evenks are trying to combine the ideas of missionaries with their own ideas about the world, on the other, the frontier Orthodox communities are involved in complex connections with shamanic practices that complement or even displace Orthodox practices and ideas. The purpose of the presentation will be to present the influence of Christianity on the culture of the Chinese Evenks and their difficult position in the network of apocalyptic “folk” Orthodoxy of the border areas.

Author

• Ivan Peshkov, Adam Mickiewicz U (Poland)