Mari Followers of Traditional Religion Expanding Their Formal Organizations -- and Promoting Both Nationalism and Democracy

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Feb. 3 – The Mari, a Finno-Ugric nation in the Middle Volga most of whose members are followers animism, are now engaged in the establishment of new structures that will help them ensure the survival not only of their religion but their nationality and democratic traditions as well (mariuver.com/2025/02/03/mtr-birskogo-rajona/#more-80467 and birskpress.ru/news/natsionalnye-proekty/2025-02-02/v-birskom-rayone-poyavitsya-organizatsiya-traditsionnoy-mariyskoy-religii-4105419).
    This is the second wave of such organizational efforts and seems likely to follow the earlier one in the 1990s when the advancement of the traditional faith played a major role in promoting Mari nationalism and Mari democracy. (On those interrelationships, see Victor Schnirelmann, “’Christians! Go Home’: A revival of Neo-Paganism Between the Baltic Sea and Transcaucasia,” Journal of Contemporary Religion 17:2 (2002) 197-211.)
    What makes this latest report of broader import is that all too often analysts dismiss animist groups as rural and backward-looking when in fact they may be the hearths on which the flame of democracy can spark. That is what happened with the Mari in the 1990s, and it appears to be what it happening with them again in the 2020s.