2 vol set
Volume I
East of the Kama River, beyond the borders of the Udmurt Republic, a Finno-Ugric diaspora has maintained a distinctive way of life in the heart of Muslim-majority Bashkortostan. The Eastern Udmurts are widely known for the resilience of their language, cultural creativity, and the continuing role of indigenous religion in everyday life and identity.
Drawing on a decade of interdisciplinary fifieldwork from 2013 to 2024 and close collaboration with local communities, this first volume offers an accessible and richly detailed portrait of Eastern Udmurt society and cultural expression. The chapters trace historical change and schooling, explore language shift and literary voices, and follow folklore, music, festivals, mythology, and contemporary healing practices. The volume closes by reflecting on fieldwork itself and on film as both method and record of lived tradition.
Together, these studies open a rare window onto a European indigenous culture as it adapts to rapid social change while keeping deep local continuities alive.
Volume II
East of the Kama River, beyond the borders of the Udmurt Republic, the Eastern Udmurts have preserved a distinctive animist ritual tradition in geographical Europe. This second volume offers an accessible and richly detailed account of that living religious world, from collective sacrificial ceremonies for rain, health, and a good harvest to family rites that bind together households, ancestors, and place.
Drawing on long-term collaborative fifieldwork in Bashkortostan, the chapters show how rituals are prepared, carried out, and remembered today. They follow the seasonal cycle of village and multi-village ceremonies, examine sacred sites and the organisation of ritual groups, and trace the disruptions of the Soviet period alongside the revitalisation that has gathered pace since the 1990s.
Special attention is given to ritual specialists and to words in performance, including prayers and incantations as ritual speech addressed to non-human beings. The volume shows how ritual authority is built, transmitted, and contested, and how a living tradition persists through both disruption and revitalisation
