Scythian Neo-Paganism in the Caucasus
The Ossetian Uatsdin as a ‘Nature Religion’
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.39114Keywords:
Ossetia, Caucasus, Scythians, Alans, Uatsdin, neo-paganism, nature religionAbstract
The Scythians, a warlike, pastoral-nomadic, Iranian-speaking people who dominated the Eurasian steppes throughout the first millennium BCE, are known to us through the accounts of Herodotus and other Greek writers of antiquity. The Scythians’ language and many of their cultural customs survive today among the Ossetes of the Central Caucasus, among whom an attempt to revive the ancient religion has been underway since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Uatsdin or ‘True Religion’, as this revived system has been named, consists of rituals associated with the ancient deities of war and hunting, along with such natural phenomena as thunder, wild and domestic food animals, and wolves. This movement can be analyzed within the framework of nation-building ideologies, similar to other movements taking place across the former USSR and beyond.
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Arzhantseva, I. 2002. ‘The Christianization of the North Caucasus’, in W. Seibt (ed.), Die Christianisierung des Kaukasus (Vienna: VOAW): 17-36.
Bachrach, B.S. 1973. A History of the Alans in the West from Their First Appearance in the Sources of Classical Antiquity through the Early Middle Ages (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press).
Dzhanaïty, S. Kh. 2007. Tri slezy Boga (Vladikavkaz: SOIGSI).
Dzhanaïty, S. Kh. 2019. Personal communication. Vladikavkaz, 9 June.
Foltz, R. 2013. Religions of Iran: From Prehistory to the Present (London: Oneworld Publications).
Foltz, R. 2020. ‘The Rekom Shrine in North Ossetia-Alania and its Annual Ceremony’, Iran and the Caucasus 24.1 (forthcoming).
Herodotus. 2013. The Histories (New York: Penguin).
Jackson, Peter, and David Morgan. 1990. The Mission of Friar William of Rubruck: His Journey to the Court of the Great Khan Möngke, 1253–1255 (London: The Hakluyt Society).
Kochieva, I., and A. Margiev. 2011. Georgia: Ethnic Cleansing of Ossetians, 1989–1992. Online: https://www.osce.org/odihr/83387.
König, M. 2004. ‘The Georgian–South Ossetian Con?ict’, OSCE Yearbook. Online: https://ifsh.de/en/publications/osce-yearbook/yearbook-2004.
Kuchiev, R. 2019. Personal communication. Vladikavkaz, 11 June.
Lawrence, B. 1989. Defenders of God: The Fundamentalist Revolt against the Modern Age (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press).
Littleton, S., and L. Malcor. 2000. From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail (London: Routledge, 2nd edn).
Lubotsky, A. 2015. Alanic Marginal Notes in a Greek Liturgical Manuscript (Vienna: VOAW). Doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1vw0q57.
Makeyev, D. 2007. Religioznoye mirovozzreniye v Nartskom epose (Vladikavkaz: SOIGSI).
Makeyev, D. 2017. Æss Din: Narodnaya religiya (Vladikavkaz: A. Iu. Tsopanova).
Makeyev, D. 2019. Personal communication. Vladikavkaz, 26 May.
Mamiev, A. 2019. Personal communication. Vladikavkaz, 26 May.
Salbiev, T.K. 2018. ‘Freski Nuzalsogo khrama kak pamyatnik vzaimodeistviia dvukh dvukhovnyk traditsii’, Izvestiia Soigsi 28.67: 5-18.
Shnirel’man, V.A. 2002. ‘“Christians! Go Home!”: A Revival of Neo-Paganism between the Baltic Sea and Transcaucasia (An Overview)’, Journal of Contemporary Religion 17: 197–211. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13537900220125181.
Shtyrkov, S. 2015. ‘Orthodox Traditionalism in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania: The Ethnicization of Religion as the “Internal Mission” of the Russian Orthodox Church’, State, Religion, Church 2.1: 75-105.
Sreda 2010. Arena—Atlas of Religions and Nationalities. Online: http://sreda.org/arena.
Strmiska, M. 2000. ‘Ásatrú in Iceland: The Rebirth of Nordic Paganism?’, Nova Religio 4.1: 106-32. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.2000.4.1.106.
Tolz, V. 1998. ‘Florging the Nation: National Identity and Nation-Building in Post-Communist Russia’, Europe-Asia Studies 50.6: 993-1022. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/09668139808412578.
Tuayev, R.G. 2018. Obychai Osetin/Iron Æg’dæwttæ (Vladikavkaz: Respekt).
Published
2020-01-24
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Foltz, R. (2020). Scythian Neo-Paganism in the Caucasus: The Ossetian Uatsdin as a ‘Nature Religion’. Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 13(3), 314-332. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.39114
