Marlene Laruelle
The ideological recompositions of the post-Soviet world have led, in some intellectual
circles, to a spiritual quest for a “return” to ancient mythical national religions. In
Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan (but also in Tatarstan, Buriatia and Mongolia), this religious
quest has taken the shape of Tengrism. Tengrism reshapes the identity of the ancient
religion of the nomadic Turkish-Mongol peoples who used to pray, before the arrival of
Islam, a god called Tengri — a word meaning “God” in most Turkic-Altaic languages.
Nowadays, this movement, all at once a religious, philosophical and nationalist movement,
develops mostly in Kyrgyzstan and in Tatarstan and mainly affects intellectual circles.
BACKGROUND: The Tengrist movement appeared in the 1990s in Central Asia and in Russia.
It particularly developed in Tatarstan, where, since 1997, the only Tengrist periodical, Bizneng-Yul, has been published. It later spread throughout Central Asia. However, the movement, which has so far been little institutionalized, starts to organize itself: there is now a Tengrist society in Bishkek, which officially claims almost 500,000 followers (a figure which is obviously excessive and unrealistic), and an international scientific centre of Tengrist studies. Both institutions are run by Dastan Sarygulov, the main theorist of Tengrism in Kyrgyzstan and a member of the Parliament. Publications committed to the subject of Tengrism are more and more frequently published in scientific journals of human sciences in this republic, as well as in Kazakhstan. The partisans of this movement endeavor to influence the political circles, and have in fact succeeded in spreading their concepts into the governing bodies. Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev, and even more frequently former Kyrgyz president Askar Akayev, have several times mentioned Tengrism as the national and “natural” religion of the Turkic peoples. Tengrism appears to be a monotheist natural religion whose last traces would be found in shamanism. The followers of Tengrism assert that this religion offers a cosmogony that is perfectly adapted to the contemporary world: it is ecological and calls men to live in harmony with nature. Moreover, it is tolerant and accepts to coexist with other religions. It is individualistic, does not have a holy text, and the religion is without a clergy, without dogma and interdictions, and finally the concept of prayer is unknown. Thus, Tengrism brings together numerous features of new religious movements: the claim to modernity, increased interest in ecology, a call for individualism, and a willingness to take part in globalization by creating new so-called “natural” spiritualities. The current dissemination of Tengrism can probably be accounted for by the legacy of Soviet atheism: a portion of the intellectual elite looking for a strictly national faith have difficulties committing to a Muslim or a Christian message, and are more easily able to make sense of a so-called religion that demands neither regular ritual observance, nor a theological background, and which is limited in fact to extolling the nation and the Mother Earth.
IMPLICATIONS: If the “followers” of Tengrism are in fact very few, the discourse of rehabilitation of this so-called “national religion” reaches much larger social layers and is spreading through intellectual circles. Tengrism, attempting to rehabilitate the ancient cult of the god Tengri, is also presenting Islam as a faith foreign to the Turkic populations. As such, this movement is mainly found in the nationalistic parties developing in Central Asia. Indeed, by denying the universality of the great monotheist religions and by asserting that Islam aids foreign interests, Tengrism represents the religious version of many Kazakh, Kyrgyz or Tatar nationalist discourses. Thus, the most radical Tengrists do not conceal their political commitment: in Tatarstan, they favor the independence of the republic, while in Kyrgyzstan they favor a “purification” of the country from all foreign influences, whether they come from Russia or the Middle East. Some strains even openly express anti- Semitic ideas (since Islam, disparaged, is considered as a Semitic religion in the same way as Judaism). Tengrism can thus be analyzed as the Turkic version of Russian neo-paganism, which is already well established in intellectual circles in Russia. This Slavic neo-paganism can also be found in Ukraine, while other versions of Tengrism are present among the Crimean Karaits. The rehabilitation of Zoroastrianism in Tajikistan stems from the same tradition. This tradition is extremely striking because of its exploitation of the religious element, which is in fact entirely submitted to nationalist sentiment alone. Tengrism can indeed be distinguished by its fierce nationalism. It is not limited, indeed, to advocating the “return” to a national religion, but also claims to be an ideology of the Turkic community, since it calls on all Turkic speaking peoples to once again become aware of their unity, to reject their current religious divisions, and to start a religious and cultural process, which will in the long term become a political process of reunification. Tengrism also represents a mode of refusal of the westernization process that has been pronounced in the post-Soviet societies of Central Asia for about fifteen years.
CONCLUSIONS: Tengrism represents a paradoxical but important element of spirituality in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. It partakes of the reappropriation of a national past which is as much real as it is reconstituted, and of the emphasis on national traditions within which the memories of the ancient religions plays a major part. It also allows, in urbanized and deeply Russified circles, a hope for reconnecting with the past: nomadism, yurts, cattle breeding, the contact with nature, all those elements that form part of the Kyrgyz and Kazakh national imaginative world which people have tried to rehabilitate since the disappearance of the Soviet Union and its ideology. Tengrism also reveals how Islam in limited but influential circles, not considered as being the obvious religious starting point. One can, however, notice the risks of a radicalization of the Tengrist discourse into words tinged with anti-Semitism, anti-western views and xenophobia, which would consequently affect in negative terms a much understandable spiritual quest.
AUTHOR’S BIO: Marlene Laruelle is a Research
Fellow with the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars, and its Kennan Institute, in
Washington, D.C.
