Buryats as Siberian autochthones in I. Kalashnikov’s novel “The Daughter of the Merchant Zholobov”

The paper deals with the image of the Buryats as a Siberian autochthonous population in I. Kalashnikov’s novel “The Daughter of the Merchant Zholobov.” Kalashnikov was the first to introduce the Buryat ethno-cultural image in Russian literature. Lake Baikal and its surroundings represented exotic Siberia and Buryat ethno chronotope. It is not the Russian population that confronts Buryats in “friend-foe” opposition but the robbers who rule on the shores of Lake Baikal. By emphasizing both friendliness and unwarlike attitude of Buryats as their national marker, Kalashnikov offered an interpretation of the ethnonym “brotherly people.” The function of the Buryat characters in the novel is to help and guide Russians in the Baikal locus. In the novel, Buryats ethno-cultural markers are represented by their everyday life and beliefs. The ideological basis of the Buryat faith (pagan polytheism) is comprehended in the Christian paradigm for Russian characters. The perception of shamans in line with the Russian folk tradition of the demonic portrayal is due to leveling the meaning of cult forms and emphasizing their anti-estheticism. Shamans appear in the same category with such ambivalent characters of bailichka as wizards and witches. By naming woman-shaman as Sibyl and Pitonissa, the author introduces the antique code of interpreting her as the heiress of pagan prophetess. The juxtaposition between the Buryats and the Russians is centered around the dichotomy of “savagery - civility.” By drawing parallels with the Antique world, the author shows “alien,” i.e., Buryat culture, to be the initial stage of unified human aspiration towards enlightenment and monotheism.

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