Etnografia Polska 59 Z. 1-2 2015 (2016)

In the paper, the author addresses the issue of different ways of understanding the authenticity of the various elements of culture of Western Buryats living in Irkutsk Oblast. Social conditions in which the question of authenticity exist are determined by Western Buryats’ double minority status (compared to the Russian majority and to Eastern Buryats). The problems result from the interruption of the intergenerational transmission as a result of Stalin’s repressions and the process of building a unified communist society. In the policy of ethnic culture revival which Buryat activists and intelligentsia pursue problems of authenticity of tradition appear constantly. The question of authenticity is not only a problem for anthropologists, historians and social activists. First, it is a question of power: who determines how the Buryats’ past looks like determines also their socio-political status in the modern world. Secondly, it is a problem of everyday life, as it determines health and success in this life and after death. However, in situations where the intergenerational transmission has been broken, there is a competition between the authorities that speak about the past – between local knowledge and the ethnographic and historical data

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