https://doi.org/10.7592/FEJF2018.72.udmurt1 CONTINUITY AND REVITALISATION IN SACRIFICIAL RITUALS BY THE EASTERN UDMURT PART I. THE COLLECTIVE SACRIFICIAL RITUALS BY THE BASHKORTOSTAN UDMURT: ROOTED IN TRADITION Eva Toulouze Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris, France Department of Ethnology, University of Tartu, Estonia e-mail:
[email protected] Ranus Sadikov Department of Ethnography, Kuzeev Institute of Ethnological Research Ufa Science Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russia e-mail:
[email protected] Laur Vallikivi Department of Ethnology, University of Tartu, Estonia e-mail:
[email protected] Liivo Niglas Department of Ethnology, University of Tartu, Estonia e-mail:
[email protected] Nikolai Anisimov Department of Folkloristics, Estonian Literary Museum, Estonia e-mail:
[email protected] Abstract: This article focuses on a marginal Udmurt group living in Bashkortostan, which has retained, in a Muslim environment, its original Udmurt religious practice. In some places, in spite of decades of anti-religious Soviet policy, the Udmurt were able to pursue their traditional rituals, thus warranting full continuity of their practice. In other places, the tradition was discontinued for some longer or briefer periods. But everywhere there has been a revival at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries. The aim of this article, which is based on the authors’ fieldwork in one district, is to examine http://www.folklore.ee/folklore/vol72/udmurt1.pdf Eva Toulouze, Ranus Sadikov, Laur Vallikivi, Liivo Niglas, Nikolai Anisimov these processes and analyse them. In the first instalment, we introduce the geographic, cultural and mostly historic context explaining the resilience of the Udmurt religious practice.