Kalmyk

The article is devoted to the documentation of music-related phenomena of the Togrun Bi (Crane dance of Kalmyks). The traditional music of Kalmyks is deeply rooted in the culture of Oirad. The new geographical and ethnic environment changed and transformed it. The most obvious shift took place in the dances and musical instruments (their organology, performing style, and tunes). At the same time, on this outskirt of the Mongolian world, some unique forms and genres have been preserved. The sources of the present research are field materials collected by author in late 1990 th in Kalmykia: non-fiarytale prose, two-string dombra tunes with singing, onomatopoeia, and round dances. The participants of Сrane praising ritual were women and children. Similar components are revealed in the ritual Togrugan biilulkhm (Force Crane to dance) and Ova täkh (a sacrifice to a host-spirit of the place). In personal stories and memoires, the mythologic idea of the curse cast by cranes made a connecti...

The Kalmyk Cultural Heritage Documentation Project aims to video-audio document Kalmyk culture in the broadest sense and to produce a comprehensive database on the endangered cultural heritage of the Kalmyks in Russia and their kinsmen, the Torghuts, in China. The project hopes that this on-line knowledge will not only provide the communities with a resource that they can draw upon to compare, study and popularise their culture but also contribute to cultural preservation and revitalisation both in Kalmykia and beyond. The majority of documentation will be carried out in the Republic of Kalmykia - the focus area of the project - and the adjacent Astrakhan region. In China, we will document the cultural heritage preservation activities in three widely dispersed Oirat/Torghut communities: Chengde /Weichang in Hebei, Ejene in Inner Mongolia, and Bortala/Hoboksar in Xinjiang, respectively. The project is a collaborative endeavor involving international academics from the UK, Mongolia, Russia, China and other countries.

The Kalmyks are a unique people of Mongolian origin, known both for engaging in the last long-distance nomadic migration in world history, and also as 'the only Buddhist nation in Europe'. The Kalmyks are the most western of all the Mongolian peoples in this respect. Having settled in the lower Volga region of Russia in the first half of the seventeenth century after a long migration from Dzungaria (today corresponding to the northern half of China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the western part of Mongolia and eastern Kazakhstan), half of the Kalmyk population returned to their homeland of Dzungaria in 1771.

By 'Kalmyks' we mean those people who separated from the Oirats of Dzungaria in the seventeenth century, went to Russia, formed the Kalmyk khanate (1633 - 1771), and thereafter scattered. We hold that these people have a common culture, even though as a result of historical migration processes some of them later adopted other identities and now are no longer called Kalmyk (in China and Mongolia they are known as 'Torghut').

Kalmyk culture has been considered to be endangered not only by international scholars but by Kalmyks themselves. The Kalmyk Cultural Heritage Documentation Project focuses on five different locations in Russia and China, which are home to the majority of the world Kalmyk population of about 300,000. In collaboration with local scholars, the project aims to undertake an extensive audiovisual documentation of the endangered elements of Kalmyk cultural heritage, including material, intangible, religious and other aspects of culture.

Birtalan Ágnes:
The snake: harming force, spouse, helping spirit. Varieties of the snake-motif in Kalmyk folk tales
The snake takes numerous forms in the mythology and folk belief (folk religion) of Mongolian ethnic groups. The respect and fear determines the Mongols’ relation towards the serpent-like (Mong. moγai) and mixed, i. e. dragon-like (mong. luu) beings. The fundamental mythologem of the eternal fight of Good (a bird of pray, the Garuda or a human hero) against the Bad (snake or dragon) is essential in many myths and tales. Besides, the generous spirits of waters and earth having either serpent-form or a half man, half snake shape (Mong. luus) are necessary in the life of the communities. These spirits bestow fortune, luck and fertility for people, if they behave themselves properly towards the nature. These ideas about the serpent-like beings form the part of the mythology, folklore and folk religion and find their reflections in tales, too.
Here, I examined the morphology and functions of the snake in a particular Kalmyk tale corpus recorded by Gábor Bálint of Szentkatolna in 1871. The main roles of the snakes in tales are: the devastator snake, the snake-spouse and the generous chthonic snake shaped spirits.

KAZAKH-KALMUK STRUGGLES IN 18th CENTURY
ABSTRACT
One of the events that left deep traces in Turkestan history is the invasion of Kalmykia. The most important reason for the Kalmuk invasion, the last Mongol invasion of Central Asia, was to seize the Turkestan geography and gain wealth. In addition, population growth, internal struggles and the desire to live away from internal struggles can be considered. From 1635 to 1758, the Jungar Khanate, a dangerous state for Turkestan, aimed to establish dominance over its western neighbors, Kazakhs and other Turkestan khanates. Furthermore, the Jungars who established political and religious relations with their cognate Volga Kalmuks, tried to realize the idea of establishing an imperial state like Genghis Khan. The invasion of Kalmykia caused the burning and destruction of Turkish countries from Jungaria to regions Volga and Syr Darya. As a result of the struggle of the Kazakhs with the Jungars, their already weak political unity was further weakened and they lost considerable population. Especially the Aqtaban Shubirindi incident in 1723 left deep traces in the memory of the Kazakh people. In 1726, the Kazakhs decided to unite their armies and defeat the Jungars in Anikaray. After the death of Bolat Khan in 1730, the Kazakhs, who went to the election of khan, fell into disagreement and their political unity was completely disrupted.
The Kalmuk attacks weakened the peoples of the region and further facilitated the Russian invasion of Central Asia. After the great Kazakh - Cungar struggles of the early XVIIIth century, the Kazakh Juzhs, which were completely independent of each other, would gradually be subject to the Russian occupation. For this reason, in this article, the Kazakh struggle for independence and the general political situation before the Russian occupation was discussed in the XVIIIth century.
Key Words: Kazakhs, Jungars, Volga Kalmuks, Aqtaban Shubirindi.

Работа посвящена исследованию различных, главным образом историографических, аспектов этногенеза кереитских групп и их потомков, вошедших в состав различных современных народов Евразии. Книга предназначена историкам, филологам, этнологам, антропологам, а также всем интересующимся путями сложения современных монголо-, тюрко- и тунгусоманьчжуроязычных народов.

Дөрвөн ойрадын торгууд голдуу ноёдын удирдлаган доор Ижил, Зай мөрний газар ирж нутагласан түүхийг хэн бүхэн мэдэж байвч тэдний дотор Зүүнгарын өөлдүүдбас багтаж байсан тухай өнөө хир тусгайлсан судалгаа гарсангүй билээ. Үүнд, тус өгүүлэлд Оросын эртний түүхийн баримтын архив (РГАДА) хадгалагдаж буй “Халимагийн хэргүүд”, “Доны хэргүүд” хөмрөгийг ашиглан, торгуудын дараа Зүүнгараас нүүж очсон өөлд нарын тухай авч үзнэ.

В данной статье на материалах архивных документов и малоизвестных первичных источников анализируется проблема рецепции и интерпретации российскими буддистами смысла российских коронационных торжеств. Торжественная церемония восшествия российских императоров на престол была призвана
поражать воображение подвластных народов и внушать им мысль о превосходстве империи и православной религии, с которой тесным образом был связан коронационный обряд. Тибетоязычная поэма бурятского буддийского монаха, являвшегося членом бурятской депутации на коронацию Николая II в 1896 г., выразительно иллюстрирует идею о том, что коронация как политическое
и культурное явление обладала большей сложностью, чем можно было предполагать ранее. “Иноверцы” могли не просто разделять со своими православными соотечественниками торжественный пафос и “верноподданнический экстаз” венчания на власть императора России, но и придавать ему свой смысл в рамках собственного религиозного мировоззрения.

The Mongolic-speaking Kalmyks currently inhabiting the steppes of the Volga region have Central Asian ancestry and are organized into the tribal groups. The genetic relationships among these tribes and their origin have remained obscure. We analyzed 17 short tandem repeat and 44 binary polymorphisms of Y-chromosome in 426 individuals mainly from three major tribes of the Kalmyks (the Torguuds, Dörwöds and Khoshuuds). Among these tribes, the Dörwöds and Torguuds, as well as the Kalmyks collectively as an ethnic group, showed relatively close genetic affinities to each other and to the Mongols and Altaian Kazakhs, whereas the Khoshuuds were clearly separated from all of them, gathering with the Manchu, Tibetans or Evenks (depending on the algorithm used to calculate genetic distances). The genetic results also indicate that paternal gene flow from East Europeans to the Kalmyks is very little, despite their cohabitation in the North Caspian Steppe during the last 380 years. The occurrence of unique cluster of N1c-Tat haplotypes in the Khoshuuds, which dates to about 340 years and is likely to have East European ancestry, is considered as a result of interethnic contacts occurred soon after the appearance of the Kalmyk tribes in the Volga-Ural region.

Crossing Central Asia; The Voyages of Nicolaos Spatharis, Vasilios Vatatzis, Panayotis Potagos and the "Great Game" in the East (17th - 19th c.)
From the 15th to the 19th century, the great explorations of our planet were
achievements of, mainly, western Europeans. Yet, despite Greeks being, for the
most part of this period, under Ottoman rule (until the foundation of the modern
Greek state from 1830 onwards) and cut off from the scientific developments
of the European West, there have been cases of Greeks, in those dark ages, who
roamed the world and contributed to the geographical knowledge of our planet.
Three such cases, who ventured deep into the volatile center of Eurasia,
either with the support of foreign rulers or on their own initiative, are examined
here. Nicolaos Spatharis, Vasilios Vatatzis and Panayotis Potagos disregarded
the dangers of such an endeavor and contributed to the increase of geographical
knowledge of their time, supporting their travel descriptions not only with topographical and geographical information but, also, with ethnographical, political,
diplomatic and military material. For the most part of their itineraries, these three
voyagers travelled along the ancient tracks of the Silk Routes, recording information
that complemented ancient and medieval authors, whom they mentioned
frequently in their texts and maps.

In the 17th century, the Zunghar branch of the Oirat Confederation pioneered the local manifestation of the ‘Military Revolution’, which was sweeping the wider world.  This revolution had begun a century earlier when important innovations related to firearm technology effectuated large-scale modifications to military tactics and strategy. These innovations and modifications resulted in the pronounced increase in the sheer scale of warfare, and perhaps most importantly, in the greater impact of war upon society in terms of its destructiveness, economic costs, and growing administrative challenges for governments. Improvements in musket and cannon technology allowed some empires, including the Tsardom of Russia and the Great Qing, to attain their ends more easily than in the past, while at the same time putting new insuperable obstacles in the path of the smaller and weaker nomadic polities situated on the steppes.  Nomadic polities entered a period of unceasing decline, primarily owing to fundamental changes in military technology.  The notable exception to this larger trend was the nomadic Zunghar, who were able to indigenously produce and incorporate large quantities of muskets and cannons into their armed forces.

In this short paper, old and new loanword etymologies for Kalmyk bird names are discussed, having been borrowed from Russian or Turkmen sources (or in a few cases from Kyrgyz sources). The etymologies are briefly discussed in phonological and semantic terms, and some thoughts on previous etymologies are also given.

The article considers one of the earliest written sources on Ayuka Khan of the Kalmyks and his relations with the Russian Empire; it was discovered in the Kalmyk Affairs Funds of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts. The transcribed and transliterated document as well as its history connected with the 1685 Kalmyk embassy to Moscow — have never been published before. The content of the letter reveals the actual political situation
in Southern Russia and the character of Russian-Kalmyk relations during the mentioned period. Ayuka’s letter is a perfect sample of the epistolary genre characteristic of the diplomatic correspondence between the Kalmyk noblemen of those days. Ayuka’s red square seal (tamga) — the origin of which is still unclear — was attached to it. Further discoveries and investigations of letters by Kalmyk Khans and taishas (princes) form quite a promising research trend in Mongolian studies.

Son of an official of the Christian Orthodox Patriarchate, Vasileios Vatatzis was born in 1694 in Tarabya (Istanbul) and at an early age decided to travel as a merchant. His first voyage was to Moscow, where he arrived via Moldavia and Kiev in the late 1700s. Soon after his return, he set up for Brasow, Hungary and Poland and from there to Moscow again; then he started for Persia via Astrakhan. A second trip from Moscow led him to Ghilan, Kazvin, Qum and Isfahan (1716). After returning again to his native city, he decided to travel to Transoxania and set up in 1727 for Moscow, whence he visited Khiva, Boukhara, Khorasan and Ghilan. After a last voyage to Western Europe, he returned to Moscow, where apparently he wrote his travel account in Greek verse, having already printed in London an annotated map of Central Asia; he is also the author of a history of Nadir Shah, published in 1939 by N. Iorga. The account has been published in 1886 by Emile Legrand but has drawn little attention heretofore. It contains a detailed description of Central Asia, with reports on the Kalmuks, the Baskirs, the Turkmens, the Karakalpak, the Kazakhs, and other Turkish tribes and khanates of the region. Vatatzis’ itinerary provides rich ethnological and political information on the Central Asian steppes of the early eighteenth century from the point of view of an Ottoman Greek merchant.

During my fieldwork in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia, I encountered a particularly rare dance song with the title " Doldoi zeerd biyelgee " (Dance of the fiery chestnut horse). This song can only be heard in a very small area and is performed by only a few old people belonging to the Zakhchin, a subgroup of the Oirat ethnic group. The versions of the text I recorded differ considerably from the usual song texts of the dance genre in question. While the motifs of the latter include, above all, scenes from the daily life of the herders, the " Doldoi zeerd biyelgee " – in the versions I got access to – does not only differ in that it is more similar to epics, but its text also has a mythical epic character. The latter is of particular interest as epics, in contrast to dance songs, belong to the ritual genre. Apart from characterising the same heroic figure that also features in the Jangar Epic, the recorded texts describe his special everyday life as a leader of a people as well as the battles he fought together with his soldiers. As can be gathered from the song title, considerable room is also given to his favourite horse. Not only the literary similarity of the recorded parts of the text to the Jangar Epic is of interest, but also particular details of events that cannot be traced back to the Oirat areas of settlement. The comparison with other examples of the same genre suggests that this dance song is older and that its motifs are more widespread. The origin of this dance song seems to go back to the Jangar Epic, which was widely disseminated from Asia to Europe.

The paper deals with several versions of the Tibetan translation of Vajracchedikā-prajñāpāramitā-sūtra found in the ancient Dunhuang manuscripts, the Mdo mang collection printed in Kumbum in the 18th century and the 18th century Kalmyk manuscript scroll. The study of the latter brought about this textological research.

Хураангуй: This article dealing with the oath custums of oirat mongols of the 17th century in their relationship with Russian Tsar'. According to detailed analysis of written sources we could unveil two layers of oarh customs : 1) more traditional related to the shamanistic rites, such as cutting the dog, licking the edge of knife or hole gauge; 2) newly coming rites related with the Buddism, like to pray to Buddha. Түлхүүр үг: XVII зуун, ойрадууд, тангаргийн зан үйл УДИРТГАЛ XVII зууны эхэнд Төв Азийн олон улсын нөхцөл байдал өөрчлөгдөж, Орос, Манж гэсэн улсууд хүчирхэгжин гарч ирж, газар нутгийн түрэмгий бодлого явуулах болов. Тэр үед Монгол улс Өвөр Монгол, Халх Монгол, Ойрад гэсэн гурван том хэсэгт хуваагдан оршиж, тус тусдаа бие даан гадаад бодлого явуулах болжээ. Өвөр Монголын ноёд Манжийн төрд дагаар орох, дайсагнасан, найрамдсан зэрэг олон хэлбэрээр харилцаж байв. Монголын баруун талд байсан ойрадууд Орос улстай хэрхэн харилцаж байсан нь бидний анхаарлыг татна. Өгүүлэн буй үеийн Ойрад-Оросын харилцааны нэг онцлог бол Ойрадын ноёдын элч нар Москва болон Сибирийн хотуудад Оросын хаанд "үнэнч байх" тангараг өргөж байсан явдал юм. Тэрхүү тангаргийг Ойрадын ноёдоос Оросын хаанд дагаар орж, чин үнэнчээр зүтгэх тангараг хэмээн шууд ойлгох нь буруу юм. Ойрадуудын хувьд тангаргийг ихэвчлэн тэр үеийн маргаантай асуудлыг шийдэх зорилгоор өргөж байсан билээ. Иймд тангараг нь Ойрадын тайш, ноёдын жинхэнэ зорилгын дипломат халхавч байсан юм. 1 Монголын түүхийн судалгаанд XVII зууны эхэнд Өвөр Монголын ноёд Манжийн хаанд үнэнч байх тангараг өргөснийг түлхүү бичиж ирсэн байдаг. Өвөр Монголын ноёдоос Манжийн хаанд ямар зорилго, ямар зан үйлээр тангараг өргөсөн нь хэдийнээ тодорхой болсон зүйл юм. Харин Монголын баруун талд хүчирхэгжин гарч ирсэн Орос улсад ойрадууд болон хотгойдууд хэрхэн тангараг өргөж байсан талаар Монголын түүх судлалд төдийлөн хөндөн авч үзээгүй байна. Энэ нь Монголын түүх судлалд XVII зууны эхэн үеийн Ойрад-Оросын харилцааны түүх харьцангуй бага судлагдсан байсантай холбоотой болов уу. Ойрад-Оросын харилцаан дахь тангаргийн зан үйлийг тодруулан судлах нь Ойрадын DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5564/pmas.v56i2.717 1. В.Т.Тепкеев. Калмыки в Северном Прикаспии во второй трети XVII века.-Элиста, 2012, с. 45.

В статье утверждается, что до 1680-х годов политическая культура в верхнем Прииртышье опиралась на лидерство хошутов. Ведущая роль хошутов существовала не только в военно-политической, но и в религиозной сферах. Хошутский Аблай-тайджи, основатель монастыря Аблай-кит, сделал многое для укрепления своих позиций в ойратском мире. Он наследовал и продолжил политику сотрудничества с Московией, пытаясь получить выгоды от ее торговли с Китаем. Сообщения ранних исследователей, а также последние исследования развалин Аблай-кита и найденных там рукописей, говорят о том, что в середине XVII века этот монастырь мог быть наиболее значительным религиозным центром Прииртышья. К 70-м гг. XVII века хошутский род постепенно приходит в упадок. Вытесненный братом со своих кочевий Аблай терпит окончательное поражение. Данные выводы и заключения в статье сделаны в результате использования метода аналитического сопоставления разнообразных письменных источников и исследований других ученых.

In Greek myth, Amazons were fierce women of exotic lands who gloried in hunting and war. The greatest Greek heroes, Heracles and Achilles, proved their valor by killing Amazon queens. But were Amazons mere fantasy? Thanks to archaeology, we now know they were modeled on real steppe nomads of Eurasia. The Greeks were not the only ones to describe warlike females. Amazons appear in other ancient cultures, but with a twist. Non-Greeks desired the warrior women as allies and companions. This paper describes the archaeology of warrior women and recounts Amazon tales of the Caucasian steppes, Greece, Persia, Egypt, the Caucasus, and Central Asia featuring Penthesilea, Tirgatao, Tomyris, Sparethra, Amage, Zarina, Valdusa, Blue Lotus, Saikal, and Gulaim.

Small diasporas of Russian Mongols, Buryats and Kalmyks, living practically in all European countries are specifically distinguished among the Mongolian diasporas in the European Union. Women predominate among migrants. The desire to create and disseminate the cultural and media image of their nation and their historical homeland is a special
feature of the strategy of integration of Buryats and Kalmyks in the host country. Methods of presentation of culture features vary from professional cultural projects to national cuisine and folk songs.

On May 29, the third Chuulhn Congress convened in Elista, the capital of the Republic of Kalmykia, in southwestern Russia. The convocation of the Congress was sparked by numerous problems in Kalmykia, among them: the discrimination of the rights and interests of the local Oirat-Kalmyk people as well as the devastating social, economic and political situation in the republic.

This piece appeared on the British Library's Asian and African Studies Blog on 21 November 2019. In it, I look at the connections between the Buddhist faith and the history of Turkic communities. I do this via items held within the British Library's collections, exploring both Buddhist materials in Turkic languages, such as Uyghur and Tuvan, and through Turkic accounts of Buddhists, from the Sefaratname of Evliya Çelebi through to 20th century historiographical accounts.