The Shaping of Autonomous Entities in the RSFSR, 1920s: Problems of Population and Territory (An Insight into Materials from Kalmyk Autonomous Oblast)

Introduction. Soviet Kalmykia’s historiography comprises quite a cluster of publications to have dealt with the shaping and development of the ethnic statehood. Such works primarily focus on preparatory and constitutive activities, economic beginnings. However, the formation of Kalmyk Autonomous Oblast’s territory and population have been covered by separate papers only fragmentarily. Goals. The study aims at investigating Kalmykia’s border-related problems and migrations of dispersed Kalmyk groups towards the region. In order to facilitate this, the article shall explore why territorial and border-related issues turned essentially difficult tasks and how the problems were being solved, describe the roadmap of the Kalmyk Oblast Executive Committee to comprehensively tackle the emerged territorial and migration challenges. Materials and Methods. The paper centers around archival sources, quite a share of the latter being thus newly introduced into scientific discourse. The key methods employed are those of comparativism and source analysis. Results. According to the nationalities policy set forth by the Bolsheviks in 1920, the Soviet Government granted the Kalmyk people an ethnic statehood in the form of an administrative autonomy within the latter’s historical territory — Kalmyk Steppe. Once the autonomy was established, its territory and borders were determined in accordance with the then state policies and without any essential dissents from neighboring provinces. Migrations of minor Kalmyk groups to the autonomous oblast were supported by the Government and encountered no resistance, except for disputes between the Salsk Okrug Executive Committee and that of Kalmyk Autonomous Oblast over the territorial issue when it came to the resettlement of Salsk Kalmyks. The prolonged mutual tension resulted in the establishment of Kalmytsky (‘Kalmyk’) District within Salsk Okrug of North Caucasus Krai. 

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