A Place of One’s Own: Pilgrimage and the Reinterpretation of Culture in Russia’s Ural Region

Abstract

This article engages with the negotiation of Russian history and culture, focussing on the concept of tradition. Instead of contesting the concept of tradition as it is used by the state authorities, members of the Muslim minority in Russia tend to indicate tradition to claim their own culture, distinct from a new national culture stressing Orthodox Christianity and Slavic origins. By undertaking a pilgrimage to sacred sites in the south of Perm Krai, Muslim believers from the Russian Urals reconnect with the land and help to restore a lived Muslim culture that has suffered from Soviet repression and which is mostly ignored by the more recent nation-building strategies.