Разговоры о сакральном

Abstract

The introductory paper deals with theoretical issues related to the study of ritual and the sacred in secular and post-secular cultures. Social research in recent decades shows that the unambiguous opposition between religion and secularism is not quite workable as a socio-historical concept, and that perceptions of the sacred in modern societies turn out to be dynamic and contradictory in their own way. The articles collected focus on various anthropological aspects of the production of the sacred in Russia in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries. The results of these studies allow making several general observations. First, we observe a very dynamic picture of the processes of sacralisation and ritualisation in various segments of everyday life. Secondly, in present day culture, personalised ritual agents are gradually losing their status and generally giving way to impersonal (and accordingly poorly controlled) forces. Thirdly, the types of sacralisation observed in contemporary society are related to the formation of a new ontology that blurs the boundaries between natural, social and moral order.