RFBR extended funding for the Russian-Mongolian international project of religious scholars from AltSU
The Russian Foundation for Basic Research has extended the international Russian-Mongolian project prepared by religious scholars from Altai State University under the guidance of Elena Shershneva, Candidate of Historical Sciences, an associate professor of the Department of Regional Studies of Russia, National and State-Confessional Relations. The project is called "The influence of ethno-cultural and political processes on the religious situation in Siberia and adjacent regions of Mongolia in the 19th - early 21st centuries."
Elena Shershneva commented on the areas of research under the grant:
“This project aims to study the transformation of the religious landscape in the transboundary space of Siberia and Mongolia in the context of ethno-cultural processes and the experience of implementing state policy in the 19th and early 21st centuries. The key concept of the project is the religious landscape, which is understood as a historically changing system of relationships between society and religious communities in a certain geographical space in the context of ethnic, socio-economic, cultural and political processes. Southern and Western Siberia, as well as the adjacent regions of Mongolia, are a unique historical and cultural territory, one of the striking features of which is ethnic and religious diversity. At the same time, the main ethnic groups, which lived in this region (Mongols, Russians, Altaians, Kazakhs, Tuvans, and Tatars) during the XIX-beginning of the XXI centuries, were constantly in intercultural interaction, which naturally impacted the dynamics of the religious situation in the transboundary space.
The project is tripartite. The co-executors of the project are a team of colleagues from the Mongolian State University under the leadership of Doctor of Philosophy, Professor, a leading researcher of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences Magsarzhav Gantuyaa. The Russian part is represented by colleagues from the Tuva Institute for Humanitarian and Applied Socio-Economic Research under the guidance of Ph.D. Ulyana Bichildey. This combination allows for the most optimal solution of the tasks, given the rather large area of study.
As part of the project, the study of the legal status and activities of Orthodox, non-Orthodox and other confessions in South-Western Siberia in the 19th and early 20th centuries is underway. Particular attention is paid to the study of state religious and ethnic policy in relation to the so-called non-native population of Siberia, including those living in the border regions. The activity of religious communities in Siberia in the Soviet period is also studied, taking into account changes in the state-confessional policy. With regard to Mongolia, the main principles of religious policy in the period of building socialism in the 20th century are studied. In addition, an important direction is the study of religious processes in the transboundary space of Southern Siberia and Mongolia in the context of the development of state-confessional policy in the Russian Federation and Mongolia at the present stage.
The study is carried out as part of an interdisciplinary study of a wide range of archival, written sources, legal documents, ethnographic materials and the results of sociological surveys. The main results of the project implementation are published in publications indexed in the RSCI, Scopus, and Web of Science, with those included in the 1st quartile.
Elena Shershneva emphasized:
“Starting from 2008, we have been annually implementing international grants from the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RGNF) - the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sports of Mongolia. This is already the 8th international project of our department in recent years with the support of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. In addition to grants, we cooperate with our Mongolian colleagues in the framework of the development of the international journal "Peoples and Religions of Eurasia," the editor-in-chief of which is Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department Petr Dashkovsky. The journal is included in the list of the Higher Attestation Commission of the Russian Federation and is indexed in various domestic and international databases. The editorial board includes scientists from various foreign scientific centers, including Professor Gantuyaa.”