When Everything Old Was New Again: Reclaiming Ethnonational Tradition in Post‐Soviet Buryatia
Journal: The Russian Review
Year: 2025

Abstract Why greet your family in Buryat rather than Russian? What does it matter how many times you fold the dough of a meat dumpling? How should one celebrate a holiday? In early twenty‐first‐century Buryatia, the Buryat Buddhist New Year, Sagaalgan, emerged as an important domain within which such small practices were reified as expressive of Buryat ethnonational affiliation. Amidst intense enthusiasm for cultural and linguistic revitalization, circulating texts, rituals, and performances aro