Buddyzm buriacki: tradycja i współczesność

Abstract

Buryatia is a country in southeast Siberia, situated near Lake Baikal, occupies 351 300 km and has about one million inhabitants, mainly Russians, Buryats, Ukrainians and representatives of other nations. Ethnic Buryats represent only one third of the whole population in Buryatia. Tibetan Buddhism in Russia and its Buryat, Kalmyk, and Tuva variety has never been ranked amongst prevailing religions. In spite of that, it has had its position in the Russian, later Soviet, history, including the most recent history. Tibetan Buddhism has formed the religious background from which the politics of Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union, and contemporary Russia were determined in terms of ethnic and religious minorities which were integrated in, not absorbed by the multinational Russian state. Russian policy towards Buddhism in this territory of the empire has always been ambivalent. On the one hand there was official recognition and an effort to coexist in peace (the policy of coexistence) and on the other hand an effort to Russify and Christianize the Buryat nation (the policy of assimilation). The following periods in the history of Buryat Buddhism are analysed in this article: 1) spreading of Buddhism from Mongolia and Tibet to Trans-Baikalia (17th-18th century); 2) recognition of Buryat Buddhism as state religion in Trans-Baikalia (1741); 3) development of Church structure and creation of the network of monasteries on the territory of today’s Buryatia (Cis-Baikalia and Trans-Baikalia, the 1850’s to 1920’s); 4) destruction of religious activity by the Soviet government (the 1920’s to 1930’s); 5) the first and second restoration of Buryat Buddhism (in the second half of the 20th century).