E. M. Shilling as a researcher of the religious beliefs of the people of the Caucasus: a case study based on the documents and artifacts collections from the State Museum of the History of Religion

Abstract

This article is aimed at reviewing the documents and artifacts collections of the prominent Russian specialist in Caucasian studies Evgeniy Mikhailovich Shilling (1892–1953) that are currently stored in the State Museum of the History of Religion. The scientific heritage of Shilling has repeatedly been the subject of scientific research, and a number of articles have been written about Shilling’s cooperation with the Central Museum of Ethnography, as well as his pedagogical work at the Department of Ethnography of the Moscow State University, expeditionary work in the Caucasus in the 1940s, and the materials collected in the field works that are stored in the Russian Museum of Ethnography and the Kunstkamera. However, Shilling’s cooperation with the Central Anti-Religious Museum in Moscow was not under discussion until now. Drawing from documentary sources (The Report on the Caucasus Expedition (1938), typewriting of the unpublished article “Eastern Caucasus Amulets”, Expedition Diary, 1934) this article fills this gap. As part of the study, three archive folders were identified which belonged to Shilling and contain his expedition materials commissioned by the Central Anti- Religious Museum. Crucially, all of them elucidate his field work in the Caucasus region in the 1930s. Contrary to his Caucasus expedition in the 1940s, this period was not previously studied in depth. The article examines that in spite of the seemingly fragmentary and random character of materials, these three folders form a holistic data base on the dynamics of religion in the Caucasus region in 1929–1940.