The transformation of Altaians' modern festive culture (on the example of El Oyun - 2016)

This article studies the problem of Altaians'' ethnic identity formation. The content determined us to study modern ethnocultural processes related to symbolic formation of ethnonation idea. Field data and regional newspaper articles analysis allowed us to describe the changes in festive culture of the regional indigenous Turkic speaking population and to find out basic foundations of ethnonational ideology. By studying sociopolitical discourse related to El Oyun it became possible to discover the following images that were used for presentation of regional culture: throat singing, nomadism and related handicraft traditions, folklore, natural landscape elements, archaeological sites, the ideas of Eurasianism. Concluding the analysis of festive culture it can be said that in 2000s ethnicity actualization processes shifted from political sphere to cultural. Ethnic culture, folklore, heritage, images of the past for Altaians became symbols of mobilized ethnic identity.