Pagan revival, re-enchantment, and new forms of rituality in Hungary: the case of the Kurultaj festival

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores how ancestry is displayed in the Kurultaj festival where historical reenactment clubs, contemporary Pagan leaders and their followers, politicians, physical anthropologists, and archaeologists as well as folk ensembles gather to celebrate present-day Hungarians’ purported Central Asian origins. Considering this event as an instance of re-enchantment closely connected with the Pagan revival, the article’s objective is twofold. On the one hand, it attempts to understand how Pagan conceptions of the past exceed the strict limits of groups engaged in (re)creating pre-Christian religious beliefs and practices, reaching a wider public and interweaving spirituality with politics and historical sciences. On the other hand, it suggests that the Pagan revival, as re-enchantment, might be characterized not only by the sociological, economic, historical, and ideological background of the persons and groups that instigate it but also by the new forms of rituality that compose it.