Objects of Religious Worship: a Case Study of Kalmykia

Abstract

The system of Kalmyks’ objects of religious worship comprises landscape and anthropogenic complexes developed over a few centuries. The history of such objects is closely connected with the history of the people, and their studies help identify stages as follows. The period from the arrival of the Kalmyks in the Volga territories to the 18th century was the initial stage in the formation of sacred environment within the new natural and landscape conditions: the people were adapting their view of the world to the new terrain. The stage is characterized by mythologization of natural objects, establishment of sacred places in the new territories — the so-called ‘places of power’. From the 18th century another stage characterized by cult construction activities began — the first stationary cult buildings appeared in the late 18th c. At the second stage, the bulk of the people decamped which resulted in dramatic changes in the territorial boundaries of the nation and its ethnic composition. Those were accompanied by corresponding changes in the system of Kalmyks’ objects of worship. The established system existed as late as the 1930s when within the framework of militant atheism policies, a deliberate process of elimination of sacral objects was initiated, which was further aggravated by the forced deportation of the Kalmyks (1943–1957). The modern stage of development began in the 1990s.