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This article focuses on the ethnic history and religious traditions of the Khanty (formerly known as Ostiaks), a Finno-Ugric people dwelling in the north of Western Siberia and its responses the global influences. With 40 other widely dispersed small peoples of the Russian North Siberia, they are classified as aboriginal small-numbered people of the North and Siberia. The last three decades of their ethnic history was marked by a stormy process of ethnic and religious mobilization started in the context of the environmental crisis of the 1980-90s, which threatened their traditional land use. This article aims to analyze the rapid changes that occurred over past three decades in the ethnic history of the Khanty in the context of the overall development of the country and the region. It focuses on the Khanty religious renaissance, its forms manifestations. The study is based on data from all-Russian population censuses, open information from the state and regional websites, municipal and public organizations, ethnographic materials from the late 20th to early 21st centuries.

Siberian indigenous people; Khanty; indigenous religions; Christianity; religious change; ethnic history; religious renaissance