AT THE INTERSECTION OF THREE RELIGIONS: KEREMET, MOSQUE AND CHURCH IN THE ETHNO-CONFESSIONAL SPACE OF AN UDMURT SETTLEMENT
The research is based on the archive and published sources and examines the confessional history of inhabitants in the village of Bolshoy Gondyr of the Kuedinskiy district, Perm Krai. This village is an administrative, cultural and religious centre for the Udmurts of the Trans-Kama River area; it was founded and settled by the Udmurts in the second half of the 17th century. First inhabitants were pagans; their most venerated shrine was a sacred grove named as Keremet. At the end of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th century, some inhabitants, mostly well-to-do peasants, converted to Islam. Islamization of the Udmurts evoked responses from Perm orthodox missionaries, who established a church in this village. Furthermore, those acts reinforced the process of Islamization, and as a result, a mosque was built up and a number of Udmurts even being Muslims officially became Islamized and began to consider themselves as Bashkirs. Confessional resistance in the region was reflected vividly in the archive documents and press reports of that time.