Visual anthropology of religion. The renovationism in Buryat Buddhism on the example of film «Baikal» (1928)

Abstract

The great film series project about the life of different ethnic people groups of the USSR called «Cinema-Atlas of the USSR» was initiated by the Soviet government in 1920s. To realize the project a number of film expeditions to different regions of the Soviet Union were organized and the first one by the All-Russian photocinema joint-stock film company «Soviet Cinema» (SOVKINO) took place in Buryat-Mongolia. From the film materials obtained during the expedition, educational «film aids» were made, one of them was «Baikal» (1928). The focus of the article is that unique archival film document, which expands the boundaries of research in the field of ethnography, visual anthropology, as well as anthropology of religion, in particular, Buryat Buddhism. Today, the newsreel footage becomes a valuable visual source for studying the material and non-material culture, religious rites and cults of the Buryats. The film «Baikal» documents one of the central Buddhist religious ritual the Maidari Hural – the festival dedicated the Bodhisattva Maitreya (Maidari) known as the Buddha of the Future. The ritual takes place at Khoymorskij (Khandagaitai) datsan A religious architectural monument, the only monastery that has not been preserved to our days and the only monastery that fully functioned according to the principles of the Renewal movement in Buryat Buddhism in the early twentieth century.