Editor's Introduction: New Religious Movements: Cosmic Buddhism in Kalmykia and Ak-Jang in Altai

Abstract

Human groups are notoriously fractioning, particularly religions in times of trouble. New religious movements have been widely studied as a wellknown social phenomenon, with some scholars arguing that Christianity and Buddhism are themselves variations on new religious movements established by charismatic and self-sacrificing leaders. Japanese scholars consider some spiritual revitalization movements to be spinoffs of relatively recent others, to the point where they discuss “new, new religious movements.” It is logical that the spiritual experimentation and political-economic instability of the post-Soviet period have provided substantial contexts for local variations on new religious movements in various parts of Eurasia. Fearful or conservative outsiders often derogatorily name such movements “sects” or “cults.” However, they manifest a range of group “insider” dynamics and a potential feast for open-minded searchers for processes behind cultural change. Focus in this issue is on two movements in traditionally Buddhist regions within the Russian Federation: the republics of Kalmykia and Altai. The kernel of this project began with a delightful, unsolicited email from Valeria Gazizova, a talented Tatar–Russian woman with a doctorate in anthropology from the University of Oslo. She has been working since 2011 with a group of nativist Kalmyk proselytizers of a religious movement that advocates returning to Kalmyk roots, specifically Anthropology & Archeology of Eurasia, vol. 57, no. 1, 2018, pp. 1–4. © 2018 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1061-1959 (print)/ISSN 1558-092X (online) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10611959.2018.1484011