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There is ethnic revival in modern Russian society that makes us to comprehend the dynamics of ethno-confessional processes, including historical ones. After the collapse of state socialism and in the conditions of the unfolding dramatic process of transformations of the religious landscape, ethnic identification began serving to preserve the sociocultural specificity of an ethnic group. Based on this, one of the primary questions for us is the analysis of the influence of religious revival on the Jewish population of Dagestan and the identification of the totality of the features and problems of the Jewish population in the ethno-confessional space of the national region. The so-called “Jewish issue”, which took place during the time of Imperial Russia, remained relevant for a sufficiently large Soviet period, and became topical in the post-Soviet period. The practical relevance of this issue is primarily associated with an increase in interethnic tension and xenophobia in modern Russian society. There is a problem of Jewish identification in the 1985–2000s in this article associated with the growth of migration processes among them. This process intensified after the adoption of the religious legislation of the 1990s. This study was conducted with using archival documents from the Central State Archive of the Republic of Dagestan. Author concludes that, despite the upheavals in the political life of our country and the growth of migration activity among the Jews of the republic, there was a religious identification with Judaism as part of the culture. In the compartment of features and problems associated with the Jewish population in the post-Soviet space, the author also points out the role of clergy, their interaction with authorities in solving pressing social problems.

Keywords: Russia, Dagestan, religion, Jewish population, Judaism

DOI: 10.22250/2072-8662.2020.4.95-101

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About the author 

Olga B. Khalidova – PhD (History), Senior Researcher at the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of Dagestan Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences;
75 M. Yaragsky str., Makhachkala, Dagestan Republic, Russia, 367030; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.