“All is white”: The prohibitions of the doctrine and practice of the Mari sect Kugu Sorta

Abstract

The research article scrutinizes fundamentals of the Kugu Sorta’s doctrine. The Mari sect Kugu Sorta appeared in the 1870s in Yaransky Uyezd of the Vyatka Governorate. It affected the religious situation in the region greatly. Its doctrine was based on the sturdy system of bans and prescriptions that were meant to establish clear identity’s boundary lines in the polyethnic area. The article reviews the causes of those bans and prescriptions, ways it was manifested and determines the place of the bans and prescriptions in the sect’s religious system. As a primary source, the article considers the “Petition to the Highness”, forwarded to obtain a permit to stick to the doctrine, elaborated by members of the sect in 1787. The petition has a form of Kugu Sorta’s presentation and contains its basic provisions.