Overview

This book traces the story of a Nenets indigenous community in Siberia and how their lives were transformed by religious conversion in post-Soviet and Putin’s Russia. Based on over a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in a region now largely closed to outsiders, it offers an intimate account of faith, power, and endurance in one of the Arctic’s most marginalized communities. Nenets nomads, long shaped by Russian colonialism and Soviet modernization, experienced sweeping conversions in the mid-1990s, culminating in the creation of a tundra church tied to a radical evangelical movement. Amid Putin’s tightening control—when indigenous peoples and minority faiths faced renewed surveillance and harassment—the book follows Nenets and missionaries whose encounters across the tundra sparked tensions between converts and non-converts, faith and state. Through stories of hope, loss, and resilience, it reveals how global evangelical Christianity intersects with local traditions, reshaping kinship, belonging, and modernity in the Siberian tundra.

Full Product Details

Author:   Tatiana Vagramenko
Publisher:   Pallas Publications
Imprint:   Pallas Publications
ISBN:  

9789048575152

ISBN 10:   904857515
Pages:   310
Publication Date:   30 June 2026
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Note on Transliteration and Terminology Part 1. Ethnography of Marginality in a Difficult Field Introduction Chapter 1. The Nenets Conversion Story: Voices, Choices, and Ethical Dilemmas Part 2. Religion, Power, and Modernity: From the Soviet Era to the Putin Regime Chapter 2. Modernity: Russian, Unequal, Contaminating Chapter 3. The Politics of Religion After Socialism and the Predicament of Religious Life in the Russian Arctic Chapter 4. Religion and Power: The Rise of the Putin Regime Chapter 5. Contested Identities: The Rise and Fall of Indigenous Movements in Russia Part 3. Continuity and Rupture: Nenets Christianities Chapter 6. Burning the Sacred: Christian Conversion and Cultural Discontinuity Chapter 7. The Nenets Christian Project: Ethnotheology and Re-Indigenization Chapter 8. The Production of Christian Fundamentalism in the Nenets Tundra Part 4. Lived Religion in the Nenets Tundra Chapter 9. Blood and Faith: Rethinking Kinship Through Christ Chapter 10. More About Love: Gender, Family, and the Return to Tradition Conclusion Bibliography

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Author Information

Tatiana Vagramenko, Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at University College Cork and Ramón y Cajal Fellow at the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, works at the intersection of anthropology, religious studies, and digital humanities. She studies religion and surveillance in Soviet and post-Soviet contexts and is co-author of The Lives of Soviet Secret Agents (2025).

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