E-mail: maxmikhalev@yahoo.com Tel.: +7 (495) 938-03-09
32a, Leninskiy av., Moscow, 119334, Russian Federation
PhD (Law), post-doc fellow, N. N. Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Russian Academy of Sciences
In the beginning of the 1990s, the status of the traditional Buryat New Year festival Sagaalgan was elevated to that of state holiday inside the Russian Federation’s Republic of Buryatia, marking the beginning on a new period in its development. Soon this originally family and community aff air with distinctive religious fl avor has evolved into an important socio-political event, which signifi cance amounts to areas lying far beyond its traditional sphere of infl uence. At the same time, among those Buryats, who live in Shenekheen district of Inner Mongolia Autonomous District in China and who have managed to preserve their traditional culture almost intact, Sagaalgan’s sacredness is gradually eroded being replaced by the characterless urban rituals common all over China. Th is tendency can be partially explained by the fact that in China, unlike in Russia or Mongolia, the Buryat traditional festival is intentionally coincided with the date of all-nation Spring Festival. As a result, the Chinese holiday eclipses that of Buryats. Holiday’s destiny manifests two opposing national calendar strategies: either of integrating or of sidelining minority people’s festivals. Th is paper elaborates on the impact of the state policies on the survival of the traditions of minority groups and on the reciprocal eff ect that these national traditions can have on the state integrity in return.
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