Sacralization of archaeological sites in the Southern Urals: a look through social networks (based on the analysis of online communities)

In the context of the global internetization of society, when the influence of digital technologies is growing not only in the household, public, but also in the religious spheres, the problem of studying their impact on socio-political processes in society and the livelihoods of individuals and groups is becoming more urgent. The article analyzes the representation of the practice of pilgrimage of people to the graves of saints ((aulia), mostly dedicated to the sacred monuments of archeology) in the social networks of the Internet. The authors propose to study pilgrims as a special socio-cultural group based on both traditional field and new methods of online research (netography) of online communities. In the course of the research, the Internet group "Sufi RB", created and moderated by followers of the Naqshbandi tariqa Haqqaniah, was studied using digital netnography methods. Grave analysis of the published materials, as well as the activity of the group's audience, indicates the high interest of the actors in Sufism and events organized by Sufis at holy sites – Mount Narystau (Miyakinsky district), the graves of Ural Batyr (Beloretsky district), the graves of Aldar Batyr (Burzyansky district), etc. Community leaders organize mass events (up to 10,000 people) every year in order to mobilize followers at holy sites and sacral archaeological sites in the Republic of Bashkortostan. As a result of studying the data obtained, it was revealed that in the target audience of the community there is a slight predominance of women over men and people over 50 years of age over all other age categories of subscribers. Most of the group's actors, except for the regional capital, live in settlements located in the southern and southeastern parts of the region. The results obtained are almost completely correlated with the data collected during the 2013-2018 field trips. The positive result of conducting a study of pilgrims as a socio-cultural group using digital ethnography methods, supplemented by the results of field research, allows us to consider it effective and gives grounds to use it in scientific research. The experience gained by religious online communities in building the organization of interaction between people and sacred archaeological heritage sites in the Internet space can be used for the development of tourism, etc.

The Southern Urals, archeological monuments, holy places, aulia, pilgrimage, Sufism, social networks, netography, online communities, ethnography