The Korean Presbyterian mission in Ulan-Ude and the awakening of ethnic identity in Buryatia, 1995-2007

In this paper explores the reception of Presbyterianism in Buriatiуa in the context of the general religious and national awakening that occurred in Russia under Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris El‘tsin. Rather than provide a final answer to the reasons for the extraordinary successes of the Korean mission, the author has turned my lens to the reception of the Korean kerygma under the particular historical conditions of the 1990s. Under Gorbachev, important legal changes provided greater religious freedom and more cultural autonomy to ethnic communities; the new legal regime transformed the nature of the market of ideas and collective identities. In 1990 a new law that permitted the creation of national-cultural centers allowed the Koreans and other nationalities of the Republic of Buriatiуa to develop a secularized collective identity that emphasized their shared historical experience. In the same year, a new law granted unprecedented religious liberty to Soviet and also gave foreign missionaries the opportunity to offer new religious collective identities.