ABSTRACT
Referring to ‘Nature’ is all the more important in these peoples’ present-day identity claims, since they hold it to be inherent in shamanism: their country, Siberia, as the land where the term shaman originates, is entitled to serve as its representative. A proximity to ‘Nature’ is mentioned in many Western definitions of shamanism, though with certain nuances. At the time of Enlightenment, its use was aimed at banning the shaman’s figure from the civilized world: appearing animal-like because of his ritual behaviour and attire, this figure was classified as wild, backward, unruly-therefore devilish. By contrast, romanticists discovered poetry, purity and greatness in this destitute magician’s struggle with ‘Nature’. In Russian and Soviet literature, closeness to ‘Nature’ was connoted negatively. Nowadays, the very idea of ‘Nature’ has acquired positive connotations with the recent political changes brought about by the fall of the Soviet regime and with the help of world-wide ecological trends. Moreover, due to the post-modern fancy for shamanism, this alleged link to ‘Nature’ is what best supports the idea that shamanism is
universal and authentic as a joint physical and spiritual expression of human ‘nature’, regardless of the cultural framework.
