BURYAT ETHNIC SELF-IDENTIFICATION: NEW TRENDS AND ASPECTS IN THE 21ST CENTURY

The post-Soviet period in the history of ethnic development of the Buryat people is marked by a mobilization of ethnic identity and ethnoterritorial self-organization. At present, communities based on the territorial principle are losing their importance. Tribal unions of Buryats have become an alternative, and their reconstruction has become an urgent task of modernity. Today, the Buryats of the Khongodor and Khori tribes follow this path of self-organization. The idea has also won support from other groups, like the Bulagats and Ekhirits. In the context of this process, ethnic ideologems and mythologems (the mythical ancestors of the Buryats, epic heroes) serve as mobilization symbols of national cultural revival.