Ysyakh: organisation and practice of a Sakha (Yakut) national holiday
Summary of research
The proposed project investigates a non-Russian traditional holiday, the Sakha people’s Ysyakh, to see how changes in Siberian regional contexts can affect the functioning of local institutions – and in turn, how these changes are translated into popular identities, expectations and aspirations, through their capacity to shape the organisation of key public events. The Sakha Ysyakh is one of the most prominent public occasions in the Sakha people’s titular Republic, Sakha (Yakutia). Organising the yearly Ysyakh is a significant item on every regional and sub-regional administration’s agenda. The Ysyakh has played a major role in the post-Soviet Sakha cultural and religious revival, acting as a forum for the expression of new identities, aspirations and religious beliefs. Studying the process of this occasion’s organisation, in tandem with the ritual itself, will show the interaction between experiences and representations of Sakha identity and culture, and Sakha (Yakutia)’s political, social and physical context. This project addresses all three of the research themes identified by the Siberian Studies Centre, with a particular emphasis on the third – ‘technological and infrastructural changes in relation to orientation, communication, social networks and identification’.
Research Topic
The Ysyakh is the Sakha people’s most important traditional holiday. A relatively large proportion of Sakha (Yakutia)’s population is made up of ethnic Sakha: the 2002 census showed that 45.5 per cent of the Republic’s population is Sakha, while 41.2 per cent is Russian. This demography is matched by a significant presence of ethnic Sakha in the Republic’s administrative and business hierarchies. Prominent Sakha politicians and businessmen have helped turn the Ysyakh into one of Sakha (Yakutia)’s most important public events. The contemporary Ysyakh encapsulates a number of cultural trends occurring in the entire Russian Federation – in particular, a popular interest in folk culture, national identity, and revivalist spirituality, which interacts with politically motivated attempts to manipulate the popular perception of ethnicity, and the growing influence of post-Soviet mass consumerism. The Ysyakh is an opportunity for both the articulation of popular Sakha culture, and political attempts to manage popular Sakha affiliations. However, Sakha (Yakutia)’s remote situation makes the Ysyakh sufficiently self-contained to enable a detailed account of the various political, religious and lay actors involved – and hence of Sakha (Yakutia)’s administrative and business institutions, and the social and technological context within which they operate.
The Ysyakh has its roots in pre-Soviet Sakha shamanism: its central aim is to secure the good will of the local area spirits by offering them fermented mare’s milk (kumys). Some contend that the Soviet administration was never able to ban the Ysyakh entirely, instead organising sports tournaments or fairs that were intended to replace it. The Soviet government has nonetheless ruptured the Sakha shamanic tradition to the extent that the present Ysyakh ritual had to be constructed out of pre-Soviet ethnographic data, and remains a subject of academic controversy. The festival was officially revived in 1990, as part of the Sakha nationalist republican administration’s attempt to strengthen the republic’s political autonomy within the Russian Federation.
The influence of the Sakha nationalist administration over the revived Ysyakh has not prevented it from becoming extremely popular. The Ysyakh provides what is clearly a welcome excuse for Sakha citizens to explore their interest in their traditional culture, in shamanism, alternative medicine and spirituality, while relaxing with their families and friends. Large organisations, clans, regional networks (zemliachestva) and Sakha diasporas have started organising their own Ysyakh, which take place alongside the main government-sponsored Ysyakh in the Republic’s capital, and its equivalents in the Republic’s regions. Even Sakha (Yakutia)’s branch of the federal police force runs an Ysyakh, despite being dominated by ethnic Russians. The Ysyakh’s popular appeal leads it to manifest the increasing influence of foreign cultural products and post-Soviet consumerism over Sakha (Yakutia)’s popular culture; for example, the main ritual site is decorated with Native American totem poles, copied from Hollywood Western films.
The Ysyakh is also a site for political communication on Sakha ethnic identity. The concern Sakha (Yakutia)’s politicians have over popular Sakha identity has been intensified by the Putin administration’s drive to centralize the balance of power in the Russian Federation, and thus reduce the potential for non-Russian identity politics. These attempts at centralisation exist in tension with the continuing efforts of the Republic’s remaining Sakha nationalists to promote Sakha identity and culture.
The organisation of the various Ysyakh festivals involves a large proportion of Sakha (Yakutia)’s population, at every level of the Republic’s public- and private-sector institutions. A great deal of time, money and effort is needed to stage an Ysyakh, and the sports tournaments and public entertainments that accompany it. The challenges this enterprise poses have altered over the post-Soviet period, along with the changes in Sakha (Yakutia)’s demography, economy, and politics. A detailed ethnography of an Ysyakh’s organisation will show how governing administrations, academic, cultural and religious institutions and businesses negotiate the difficulties and opportunities the Ysyakh presents, thereby revealing the way they function, their central priorities, and the environment within which they operate. The Ysyakh that results will show the effects these infrastructures are having on the articulation of Sakha culture and identity, and in doing so shed light on the way Sakha individuals perceive their social environment, and the possibilities it affords.
My PhD research provides an example of the Ysyakh’s capacity for manifesting the nature and effects of Sakha (Yakutia)’s institutions. It revealed that rural Sakha communities exist as strong vertical hierarchies, headed by the regional administration. These vertical hierarchies are reflected in the Ysyakh ritual itself. For example, the Ysyakh starts when the head of the local regional administration, dressed in Sakha national costume, leads the respected guests to their places; the various ritual acts are punctuated by speeches from the regional head; they are the first to drink the kumys, after it has been blessed by the presiding white shaman. The Ysyakh ritual thus both reveals and perpetuates the traditional Sakha respect for powerful individuals, along with its corresponding acceptance of hierarchy. It also encourages a Sakha tendency to perceive the claim of an association with prominent Sakha as integral to a Sakha identification, while expecting other nationalities to do the same.
Research plan
The social environments in Sakha (Yakutia)’s sub-regions, or ulusy, vary considerably from that of the Republic’s capital, Yakutsk. I will explore this variation by comparing the central Republican Ysyakh in Yakutsk with a sub-regional Ysyakh. This comparison would also reveal the effects of one of Sakha (Yakutia)’s most challenging features – its huge size – on its governance, social networks, and, through the Ysyakh, the Sakha people’s self-representation. I will gather data by building up a close personal acquaintance with a select group of key organisers and their associates, while conducting multiple interviews with politicians, religious and academic specialists, and lower-level public- and private-sector workers. I will follow my main informants’ activities through the months leading up to the Ysyakh, and during the festival itself. Talks and interviews will be conducted through Russian and/or Sakha.
Ysyakh celebrations take place all over Sakha (Yakutia) during the final weeks of June. I will go to the 2010 Ysyakh, in order to extend my network of contacts and select a suitable ulus to study, before the main field trip. I will spend October 2010 to July 2011 between Yakutsk and my chosen ulus, interviewing politicians, cultural workers, academics, religious practitioners and lay participants, and attending the rituals. I will return to Sakha (Yakutia) in June and July 2012, in order to monitor the changes that may have occurred over the preceding year.