The Study of Religious Customs and Traditions of the Nanai in Russian Science (Pre-Revolutionary Context) and the Experience of Their Systematization in the Literary Ethnography of Venedikt Mart

In the 19th – early 20th centuries, the Nanai were one of the largest Tungus-Manchu peoples of the Russian Far East. A close study of their traditions and customs began in the middle of the 19th century, when numerous ethnographic expeditions of researchers (L.I. Shrenk, R.K. Maak, K.I. Maksimovich) were sent to the Amur. First of all, the researchers were interested in the material culture of the Nanai, the issues of religion were touched upon in the mainstream of ethnographic research. In the last quarter of the 19th century, the attention of researchers was directed to the description of Nanai rites of passage (D. Kropotkin, P.P. Shimkevich). Scientific expeditions of the early 20th century were aimed at describing the spiritual culture of the Nanai and its reflection in material culture (I.A. Lopatin, L.Ya. Sternberg). The description of the religious beliefs of the Nanai was recorded as a result of the missionary activities of Blagoveshchensk and Vladivostok dioceses. In 1932, the former Far East writer Venedikt Mart published the story “Dere – the Water Wedding”, where he accumulates and systematizes the accumulated knowledge about the Nanai people in literary form, introducing certain elements of fiction. Despite the fact that Venedikt Mart writes about the denial of religious customs and traditions by the new generation of Nanai, nevertheless, the story itself is, in fact, clearly fixed at its core by the content of the wedding ceremony