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<p>This paper analyses highly creative and hybrid practices which tie the Indigenous Siberian, European Christian and Soviet worlds in unexpected ways. Reflecting on the Forest Nenets reindeer herder, poet and intellectual Yuri Vella’s understanding of the religious, the authors discuss an episode of turning an icon-like painting of Madonna with Child into a Nenets ‘god’. This took place in Paris half a year before Yuri’s death. First, we present his short biography, emphasising the key moments that shaped his cosmological and religious sensibilities. Then we depict a ritual of ‘god-making’ by using the ethnographic technique of thick description and then comment on it from various angles and discuss what they reveal about Yuri’s understanding of personhood and agency, relations with deities and other humans. Finally, we explain how animist notions and Christian elements become entangled in his religious thinking.</p>
</abstract>

This paper analyses highly creative and hybrid practices which tie the Indigenous Siberian, European Christian and Soviet worlds in unexpected ways. Reflecting on the Forest Nenets reindeer herder, poet and intellectual Yuri Vella’s understanding of the religious, the authors discuss an episode of turning an icon-like painting of Madonna with Child into a Nenets ‘god’. This took place in Paris half a year before Yuri’s death. First, we present his short biography, emphasising the key moments that shaped his cosmological and religious sensibilities. Then we depict a ritual of ‘god-making’ by using the ethnographic technique of thick description and then comment on it from various angles and discuss what they reveal about Yuri’s understanding of personhood and agency, relations with deities and other humans. Finally, we explain how animist notions and Christian elements become entangled in his religious thinking.

Buying a God in Paris: Cultural Hybridity in the Thinking of Yuri Vella, Forest Nenets Intellectual

Associate Professor Department of Ethnology

Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

This paper analyses highly creative and hybrid practices which tie the Indigenous Siberian, European Christian and Soviet worlds in unexpected ways. Reflecting...

Buying a God in Paris: Cultural Hybridity in the Thinking of Yuri Vella, Forest Nenets Intellectual

Publié en ligne: 16 déc. 2022

Pages: 22 - 42

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2022-0012

Mots clés
animism, cultural hybridity, Forest Nenets, Notre-Dame de Paris, sacred objects

© 2022 Eva Toulouze et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Buying a God in Paris: Cultural Hybridity in the Thinking of Yuri Vella, Forest Nenets Intellectual

Publié en ligne: 16 déc. 2022

Pages: 22 - 42

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2022-0012

Mots clésanimism, cultural hybridity, Forest Nenets, Notre-Dame de Paris, sacred objects

© 2022 Eva Toulouze et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Mots clés
animism, cultural hybridity, Forest Nenets, Notre-Dame de Paris, sacred objects