Kremlin-Backed Buddhist Forum Declaration Suggests Moscow May Drop Judaism from Its List of Favored ‘Traditional Religions of Russia’

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Aug. 20 – Perhaps the most important aspect of the just concluded Fourth International Buddhist Forum in Tyva was not the greetings from Putin or the fact that some 1,000 people from 20 countries took part but rather the meeting’s declaration which violated long-standing practice concerning which are the traditional religions of Russia.

            Since the end of Soviet times, Moscow has been consistent in declaring that there are four traditional religions of Russia – Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism – giving special deference to these and reducing others like Protestantism and Catholicsm to a lesser status (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2019/02/kremlin-divides-churches-subordinate-to.html).

            While the Russian Federation does not have a formalized ideology that the Soviet Union did, it does have certain formulations such as about “the four traditional religions of Russia” which are almost never violated. That makes what happened at the Tyva conference so intriguing.

            The forum concluded with a declaration that said in part that “Russia is a multi-confessional, multi-national country where Buddhism, Orthodoxy and Islam live in peace and harmony, failing to mention Judaism in its list (asiarussia.ru/news/52107/ and egov-buryatia.ru/press_center/news/detail.php?ID=208193).

            That a meeting as important as this one should do so is striking and suggests that even though Putin himself has continued to meet with Jewish leaders on occasion and other groups have used the standard formulation in recent months, there appears to be a greater willingness than in the past to change that formulation and drop the reference to Judaism in this favored list.

            That list continues to matter not just as a declaration but as a guide to policy. Putin himself has worked hard to marginalize all faiths not on the list (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/04/putin-seeks-to-marginalize-or-even.html); and groups as diverse as Protestants and Shamans have sought to join it (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/07/putins-war-in-ukraine-has-divided.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/02/russias-4000-shamans-seek-official.html).

            If what the Buddhists have now done at a Kremlin-backed meeting is a harbinger of the possible ideological fate of Judaism in Russia, that could presage a major change in Moscow’s policies toward Jews. At the very least, it will encourage those Russian nationalist groups that they may be able to act more aggressively against Judaism than in the past.