The article examines the events during which the Oirats were involved in the political life of Tibet in the 17th-18th centuries; special attention is paid to the peculiarities of historiographic approaches to some facts. The prominent role played by the Khoshut ruler Güshi Khan in the establishment of the Tibetan theocracy is recognized universally. However, in a 18th century work by cleric Sumpa Khenpo he is actually referred to as a savior of the religion, defender of the faith and reincarnation of the great Buddhist teacher Padmasambhava; the bestowing of the title ‘Dharmaraja’ on Güshi Khan was reported to have been preceded by some airglow around him. A 20th century Tibetan researcher, W. D. Shakabpa, claims that his title of King of Tibet was rather formal, and the position of Khan within the Tibetan community was lower than that of Desi / Diba who acted as the chief administrator - which is illustrated by the place assigned to him at audiences in accordance with special rules based on hierarchy and age. W. D. Shakabpa recognizes his religious zeal and devoted worship of the Dalai Lama, and mentions a fact testifying that before Güshi Khan’s conquest of Tsang the Tibetan hierarch preferred that the Khoshut ruler would return to Kokonor (Qinghai). Though it is usually considered that the Khoshut protectorate over Tibet was established in 1642, the Tibetan scholar mentions that “all political activities were conducted by Desi”. At the same time, W. D. Shakabpa points out the gross mistake introduced in a number of Chinese sources according to which the Mongols have since ancient times been viewed as vassals to the Chinese and, thus, Güshi Khan is erroneously reported to have been a Chinese representative. Under Güshi Khan’s heirs, the role of Khoshut rulers in Tibetan policies decreased dramatically which resulted in an attempt by his descendant, Lhabzang Khan, to seize real power. Tsewang Rabtan, the Khan of Dzungaria, was to become another ‘Güshi Khan’ - a savior of the Buddhist church from the usurper Lhabzang - and gain certain influence on Tibetan rulers. But the international situation had changed over the past decades which determined the historical landscape when Dzungars were invited to settle the internal socio-political crisis. The article analyzes the events during the mentioned crisis in Tibet that resulted in a growth of Manchu political presence.

Insight into relations between the Dzungar and Kazakh Khanates in the 17th - mid-18th centuries shows the important and essential historical role performed by the Oirats in Central Asia during the period under consideration. At the same time, the once complete and well-established Soviet range of views on the history of Russia’s and Kazakhstan’s peoples, as well as other Central Asian states and nations during the mentioned period, tends to fall to pieces nowadays. This requires deep and critical analysis of the accumulated experience pertaining to contemporary historiographic studies (in Kazakhstan) of Kazakh-Dzungar, Russian-Kazakh, Russian-Dzungar relations, including the issues of organizing research on the history of the Dzungar Khanate and Oirats by Kazakhstan’s scholars who, to a certain extent, revise the existing historical ideas which results in a ‘new reading’ of the Kazakh history and that of other peoples involved in centuries-old mutual relations. Thus, when it comes to Kazakh national historiography, the years of state sovereignty are marked by significant development of ‘historical mythology’. This historiographic world-view is vividly represented in the form of Kazakhstan’s ‘alternative history’ which, following the new trends, re-examines historical events one-sidedly. So, the present-day Kazakh historiography introduces significant ‘corrections’ and distortions into the history of Kazakh-Dzungar relations. The article provides a detailed analysis of a number of contemporary Kazakh historiographic works on the history of the Dzungar Khanate; it notes both positive and negative stereotypes inherent to the historical science of Kazakhstan. The 17th - mid-18th cc. Dzungar-Kazakh relations were a key stage in the development of Kazakh statehood and a crucial direction of international relations in the whole of Central Asia. The topic has been investigated in a number of works by western, Chinese, Japanese and Kazakh researchers. And it is the Kazakh historiography which is abundant in most specific accounts of the period under study. The paper considers some concepts adopted by contemporary Kazakh scientists on the topic of Kazakh-Dzungar relations.

With evidence from Russian and Oirat primary sources as well as the oral tradition, the articles investigates the ancestry and clan history of Mazan Baatar and clears up some mistakes introduced by previous researchers. Apart from the fact that Mazan Baatar was actually a historical person, the statement found in some sources that his father’s name was Öljeitü is wrong: a number of texts written in the Clear Script testify that the latter’s name was Očir. Furthermore, Mazan Baatar was a relative of Ayuka Khan of the Torghuts. As reflected by Russian archival materials, he held the title ‘Prince’ and, thus, was a representative of the royal family of the Torghuts possessing a high social status in the Kalmyk Khanate. Members of the Erketen clan within the Volga Torghut Khanate were not mentioned as Mazan Baatar’s subjects but had been first attested in the time of his great-grandfather, Cecen Noyan, and might have existed even earlier. Taking part in numerous wars and battles, Mazan Baatar spread the fame of his clan and got it deeply ingrained in the memory of the Oirat people so that even in the time of his son Yaman the Erketen clan retained its independence. After Yaman’s death reported to have been Mazan Baatar’s most eminent son, the internal turmoil, disputes and struggle for leadership among the nobility of the Torghut Khanate - which was aggravated by Russia’s pressure - resulted in the fact that the Erketen clan was successively ruled by different nobles and, finally, became subject to Russia while some of its branches were absorbed by the diverse Kalmyk clans.

The article focuses on the international situation in the Caucasus in the early 19th century when the region became a battlefront - both in terms of diplomacy and war - between the Persian Empire and Imperial Russia (1804-1813), and the active interference of Britain and France which significantly contributed to further escalation of the conflict. The paper provides a retrospective overview of external political arrangements by the King of Kartli and Kakheti, Heraclius II, a Persian subject, in between the Sublime Porte and Russia. The 1801 Manifesto by Paul I who was eager to settle the question of Kartli and Kakheti only exacerbated the situation in the East Caucasus. At the same time, there was an evident growth of pro-Russian sentiments in the North-East Caucasus. The mentioned factors aggravated by the siege of Ganja consequently resulted in the 1804-1813 Russo-Persian War. Presented are the reasons for the active participation of East-North Caucasian peoples in the events under consideration and the split in the community of highlanders on the topic of external political preferences caused by disinclination of most highlanders to follow the anti-Russian propaganda. With references to documentary evidence, it is shown that France and Britain not only took active part in the escalation of tensions between the Russian Empire and Persia, including by financing Tehran’s military campaign, but invested certain efforts for the establishment of an Ottoman-Persian alliance and their military coalition in the Caucasus. The article describes the reasons for Russia’s military and political success as well as the terms of the Treaty of Gulistan.

After Kalmyk instructors who had worked in Mongolia were sent to their home country in 1925, relations between Kalmykia and Mongolia became stagnant. Still, it does not mean that there was no interaction at all. In 1927, the Congress of Mongolian and Kalmyk Youth was held in Astrakhan; Ts. D. Nominkhanov, V. A. Khomutkinov and M. T. Bimbaev worked in Mongolia in 1928, 1929, and 1936 respectively. Furthermore, in 1939, Kalmyks who were serving in the 7th Samara Cavalry Division of the Belorussian Military District were directed to Mongolia to work as instructors for the Mongolian Armed Forces in view of the escalating battles of Khalkhyn Gol. The Soviet Government was interested in sending to Mongolia specialists who could communicate with ethnic Mongols without an interpreter. For this purpose, Kalmyk Orientalists, such as D. A. Pavlov, A. I. Suseev, and others were recruited. A. I. Suseev’s cooperation with Mongols began in the 1930s. Since 1933, the student of Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies, A. I. Suseev, worked as an interpreter and then as a teacher for Mongolian students at the Stalin Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV). Since 1935, A. I. Suseev for three years worked as a teacher of Russian and Mongolian at Tashkent University of Central Asia - at exactly the time when Tseren-Dorji Nominkhanov worked there. In spring of 1935, A. I. Suseev and Ts.-D. Nominkhanov together with Mongolian students organized the first celebrations of Tsagan Sar in Tashkent. In 1938, the former moved to Moscow where he taught students from Mongolia the History of the Bolshevik Party in Mongolian. In July 1941, according the decision of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs, A. I. Suseev was to be sent to the Soviet consular agency in Mongolia but due to the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War he was unable to leave. Kalmyk and Mongolian students who were studying in Moscow had warm relations. E. g., as was mentioned above, the famous Kalmyk writer A. I. Suseev, who worked as a journalist of The Red Star journal in Mongolia, had close relations with Mongolian students since he had taught and been in charge of them in the USSR, and also met with Marshal Kh. Choibalsan. Moreover, during the 1945 war of liberation, Red Army troops included a number of ethnic Kalmyk soldiers. Unfortunately, once the Great Patriotic War was over in Soviet Russia, representatives of the Caucasian peoples, including Kalmyks, were exiled. As a result, Kalmyk instructors who had been working in Mongolia were sent back and distributed throughout different regions of the USSR; thus, relations between Mongolia and the Kalmyks were terminated.

The article - through the analysis of state educational policy, educational spaces and practices of employment of deportees in the educational sphere - attempts to characterize the heterogeneity of the status ‘special contingents’ in the context of a special administrative regime. It is established that the educational environment of the 1940-1950s has evolved considerably as compared to the period of ‘dispossession’ of the early 1930s: since the 1937 school year children of special settlers were formally educated on a common basis (in schools, colleges and universities); as distinct from the 1930s, no attempt had yet been made to use literature in national languages and establish any national schools for deportees; teachers-representatives of the ‘punished peoples’ were to teach their compatriots only in Russian; in the mid-1950s ‘significant drawbacks’ in the education of ethnic deportees were acknowledged (those were mentioned short before the lifting of restrictions on the special settlements in view of the need to ‘fix’ the repressed people in the areas of their forced settlement). There was a general vector of development of the educational environment: the wave of ethnic deportations and the increase in ethnic diversity of the special settlements were accompanied by increased unifying trends in education - which resulted from the refusal to take into account any national features of ethnic deportees. The ambivalence of the government’s actions regarding the educational environment of the special settlements was explained by the desire of the Soviet system to transform the ‘suspicious’ population into loyal individuals who would work in state indicated territories and have only those professional knowledge and skills that were required by the state. Analysis of a set of documents relating to the history of the settlements suggests that state educational policy in the special settlements supported the hierarchy of ‘contingents’ and ‘in-contingent’ groups established by administrative and operational methods (socially dangerous and socially close), the position of which was determined by the opinions of the authorities regarding the degree of loyalty of a particular category of special settlers. The Germans and Kalmyks were considered to be ‘more loyal as compared to other special contingents’ and could get employed in educational institutions, while ‘less loyal ones’ (‘the Baltic contingents’, deportees from the North Caucasus, Crimean Tatars and Ukrainian Nationalists) were virtually deprived of this opportunity. The government’s ‘bottleneck policy’ inflicted significant damage on the deportees: the general level of education of the special settlers was reduced to the pre-war level; disparities in the proportions of different specialists, especially those to engaged in the humanities, occurred.

The emergence and development of national formations in the interwar period was due to a number of objective factors and should be considered in the overall context of the development of the country’s armed forces and state national policy. The influence of these factors varied in different periods. National formations were established in the mid-1920s on the wave of political emancipation of the USSR’s national regions and the mass introduction of the korenization practice (Soviet ‘localization policy’) - a special state policy in the national regions aimed at major promotion of national cadres, development of national cultures and languages. In addition, it was planned to use national formations for further revolutionary expansion into neighboring countries of the East. The article analyzes the development of national military units as a special institution within the Red Army which survived during the 1930s and reached its zenith, as well as the period of its rapid decline. The paper notes that the fate of the national parts was determined not only by the peculiarities of development of the Soviet armed forces on the eve of the major war but also by the vicissitudes of big-league politics and ideology, namely, the change of the course - from world revolution to construction of a national socialist state to be accompanied by the Great Purge and discreditation of national movements. Prospects of a big war and Red Army’s accelerated reorganization revealed a discrepancy of national formations with dictates of the time. Since the late 1930s, mass conscription of citizens of all nationalities of the USSR and their extraterritorial distribution throughout military units (outside their homeland regions) was introduced. For these reasons, further existence of any national troops became irrelevant since those were in conflict with the goal of mass mobilization and reserve accumulation. We should also note the absence of a certain official responsible for the construction of a corresponding national structure within the Red Army. This resulted, on the one hand, in the chaotic development of national units in the first half of the 1930s, and, on the other hand, in the absence of lobbyists inside the Defense Ministry, subsequent to which those were abolished without any discussions.

In the spring of 1942, the Soviet-German front - from Leningrad to the Kerch Peninsula in the Crimea - became a theater of operations that proved the epilogue to the Red Army’s strategic offensive conducted in the winter of 1941-1942, and served as the overture to the summer campaign of 1942. The summer advances of Wehrmacht troops and troops of Germany’s allies on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front was preceded by large spring 1942 battles on the Volkhov Front where near Myasnoi Bor the 2nd Shock Army of general A. A. Vlasov was encircled and crushed; in the Northwest Front, the powerful counterthrust of the German troops through the settlement of Ramushevo deblocked the main forces of the 16th Field Army at Demyansk. The 33rd Army of general M. G. Efremov was beaten near Vyazma, in the rear of the Army Group Centre, military forces of the 1st Guards Rifle Corps and 11th Cavalry Corps of the Western Front were encircled. During the operations, due to the errors of the commanders of troops aggravated by scarce supplies and replenishment, a number of armies of the Volkhov, Northwest, Kalinin and Western Fronts were crushed. The catastrophic defeats of the armies of the Crimean and Southwestern Fronts in May 1942 had especially heavy effects on the Soviet troops in the south. The main reasons for the failure of the Soviet offensive operations in the southern wing of the Soviet-German front were as follows: mistakes at the planning stage, insufficient strengthening of flanks of the shock groups, absence of fortified belts in the rear of the armies and fronts with obligatory placement of troop reserves, artillery and military engineering units on such rear boundaries. The neglect of meteorological conditions (forecasts) in the zone of action of the Southwestern, Southern and Crimean Fronts, the insufficient information regarding the counter-forces and their actual assets, reserves and action plans resulting from the poor performance of the army reconnaissance and secret agent intelligence, frequent losses of control over the troops due to continuous wire communications failures within the ‘front - army - corps - division’ chain, weak and inept use of radio communication resulting in overdue reaction of the commanders to sudden changes in combat situations - all these factors contributed to the catastrophic result of the battles in the Crimea and at Kharkov in May of 1942. The tragedies dramatically worsened the strategic situation on the southern wing of the Soviet-German front and let the German generals recapture the strategic initiative. Materials and evidence for the article were searched for in the Central Archive of the Russian Ministry of Defense; memoirs and articles by Soviet and German military commanders as well as scholarly works of the post-war (Soviet) and modern periods also proved sources of data for the paper. The historical and situational, comparative and narrative methods were applied in the work; those imply studies of certain facts in the context of the era under consideration - in conjunction with the “adjoining” events and facts on the principles of “historicism”.

The work on graphic reconstruction of field documentation has been conducted as part of the project for studying the heritage of the large-scale archaeological surveys implemented by expert teams headed by professors I. V. Sinitsyn and U. E. Erdniev in the early 1960s. From 1961 to 1972 a number of famous archaeological monuments were explored, namely the burial sites of Lola (I / II), Arkhara, Elista, East Manych, etc. The distinctive feature of the explorations, as compared to the pre-war ones, was that those were rescue excavations, i. e. the monuments were endangered with total destruction and, thus, all of them without exception were excavated. The construction of the Chogray Reservoir’s dam and subsequent flooding of the East Manych valley proved one of the largest projects during the revival of the republic. The East Manych burial site comprised seven mound groups that were investigated from 1965 to 1967; a total of 329 mounds containing 1 541 burials were excavated. The vast and diverse materials have been published in a series of scholarly articles and monographs issued by various publishers, so the qualities of printed illustrations (schemes, drawings, photographs) varied as well. Some of the published photographs were of low quality and looking at them one could hardly trace the general silhouette of an object with the minor elements and ornaments being totally unperceivable. The paper states the low-quality illustrations may have contributed to the fact that the exploration results from the East Manych mound groups are somewhat underrated. In the course of the conducted work on filling the gaps that had appeared during the publication of the results from the 1967 archaeological investigations of the East Manych mound group (the right bank; VMPB-67) a database of archaeological findings from the burial site was created; the findings were once again - processed, systematized, described, their corresponding drawings and photographs were made. Careful studies of the archival materials (in-field diaries) indicated that those are informative enough to identify the actual sizes of mounds and burials. The unpublished schemes of burials from the site under consideration have been reconstructed according to the in-field diaries and the research report - by the aid of a new method for reproducing schemes involving the use of diverse data and latest technologies. As a result, the materials once viewed upon as incomplete sources have been re-introduced into scientific discourse. Further development and sophistication of the method shall allow to conduct similar work for sources on explorations of other burial sites which would enable to conduct research at a totally new level. The advantages of the method comprise ease of editing schemes and high processing speed; in addition, data storage and communication in electronic format is easier and more practical than those in print or other formats.

Kumyshka is traditionally studied by scholars specializing in Udmurt regional ethnography. The article provides an overview of archival documents describing the ritual and everyday use of the product. Being the traditional alcoholic beverage of the Udmurt people, by no means could kumyshka escape the attention of the state. From the mid-18th century corresponding bans were systematically imposed by authorities, and in the periods when it was legalized - significant restrictions were introduced. The ban on its sale was the main one; its alcoholic content was also limited. The existing restrictions were aggravated by corruption. The very term ‘kumyshka’ apparently derives from the Russian ‘kumushka’ (‘godmother’), its occurrence being related to the mass Christianization of Udmurts. In the early 19th century, kumyshka was used not only in the traditional prayers but also during Orthodox holidays which may testify of significant elements of religious syncretism since thus - through the use of kumyshka - traditional Udmurt cults and Orthodox ceremonies were connected. Initially, cauldrons for its preparation could be made of both iron and copper. Some archival documents about kumyshka provide a unique opportunity to study the everyday life of peasants. Those contain information about the peculiarities of contacts between individuals, their economic activities, food, household items, one can learn about their formal and informal names as well as some small tricks of peasants (e.g., men and especially women would pretend to be ignorant of Russian), etc. According to the study results, the idea of small-scale spread of alcoholism in the pre-revolutionary period rooted in present-day public consciousness proves to be biased propaganda. Still, of course, alcoholism of separate individuals does not mean that drunkenness was inherent to the nation in general. Kumyshka-related events are reflected in some archival documents. Those represent a unique opportunity to highlight the ordinary everyday life of Udmurt peasants at a time when no systematic studies were conducted by pre-revolutionary ethnographers. And, moreover, the documents provide significant materials that characterize a number of other elements of material and spiritual culture of the peoples which had inhabited the region, contain ethnographic sketches that can add to the existing scientific ideas (trends) of the ‘bygone nature’.

In the second half of the 18th century, the Russian Academy of Sciences arranged five physical expeditions under the supervision of outstanding scientists mainly of German origin. The objective of those expeditions was to increase knowledge regarding the bordering regions of the Russian Empire. One of the main points of the program of those academic expeditions was to study the traditional medicines of the peoples of Russia. The topic was especially actual and interesting since the relevant knowledge was scarce enough. One of the reasons the knowledge was that poor was that such kind of information was hard to obtain. For example, for the Kalmyks medicine was closely connected with religion and Kalmyk priests did not want to share their knowledge with other scientists. One of the scholars who provided lots of interesting materials regarding the topic was Johannes Jährig (1747-1795). His role in the collection of medical data and his personality is little known to the public. At the same time, he was admitted into the Russian Academy of Sciences upon P. S. Pallas’ request since 1774 and worked as his informer on various subjects for over sixteen years. Among Jährig’s materials there were numerous reports regarding the Kalmyk ethno-medicine of the late 18th century. Some of those reports were published in the leading journals of the Russian Academy of Sciences and other periodicals world-wide. The remaining materials are Johannes Jährig’s archived unpublished manuscripts. The most interesting of the latter are reports about application of snakes for treatment of tumors, application of magical spells and different medicinal herbs for treatment of varied diseases. Jährig’s materials also describe the Kalmyks’ methods for treatment of domestic animals, especially horses and hunting birds. In general, Jährig’s reports regarding the Kalmyk ethno-medicine of the mid-to-late 18th century are unique and many-sided materials for further historical studies, as well as for modern human and veterinary medicine which adds to the actuality of the research and signifies its cross-disciplinary nature.

The article provides an overview of Buddhist paintings stored by the Kalmyk Scientific Center of the RAS. The object of research is the traditional pictorial art of Kalmykia. Buddhist iconography is characterized by certain compositional fundamentals, iconometry, symbolism of lines and properties of the canonic images that were implemented taking the form of a religious ceremony. Since icon-painters never autographed their works, monuments of Buddhist fine arts are basically anonymous to meet the canonical requirements. An image created by an ordained icon-painter zurachi or sculptor urun with due account of the traditional (canonical) performance technique - naturally became sacred. When it comes to historical and cultural studies of the 19th - early 20th century art of Kalmykia, one should keep in mind the regional peculiarities of religious life mainly determined by the actual ethno-cultural landscape. The mass and official conversion of the Oirat-Kalmyks to Buddhism in the 16th - early 17th cc. was followed by quite a long period during which corresponding professional knowledge and skills were acquired and accumulated by representatives of Kalmyk khuruls - Buddhist monasteries. Development of the national style was accompanied by transformation of the Tibetan iconographical canon through the prism of indigenous ethnic aesthetics and view of the world. This determined the structure of the Kalmyk Buddhist pantheon which proved an ethnic Central Asian version of the latter - largely common for Tibetans and Mongols but containing separate local distinct features. Kalmyk monasteries gave rise to the regional school of easel hieratic painting and sculpture. The study aims to identify and describe the peculiarities of Kalmyk icon-painting which introduced ornamental motifs into Buddhist iconography. From the perspective of the canon, the paper reveals the local features of composition, proportions, color and attributes of Kalmykia’s Buddhist art objects. Decorativeness of paintings consisting in application of ornaments around canonical images and plots is inherent of the ethnic hieratic art. This was mainly characteristic of the late period of its development and was often accompanied by certain breakaways from conformities of Buddhist pictorial art. The long artistic process of acquiring and accumulating professional knowledge in the sphere of Buddhist pictorial art was due to the two trends, namely the canonical and folklore ones which are perceivable enough in the context of iconography. The folklorization of the canon originating from the active interactions of the diverse traditions reshapes the style-developing process in Buddhist art which is influenced by ethnic culture. The interaction between the canon and the national tradition set forth in the local peculiarities of artistic process determines the emphasized decorativeness of a picture. This is expressed by introduction of ornamental motifs and, in particular, in the interpretation of the conventional landscape of hieratic paintings. The comprehensive study of the mentioned works comprises methods of art criticism, history, ethno-cultural studies within the framework of museology and characterizes the local Kalmyk school (tradition) of icon-painting. The subject of research are pieces of Buddhist pictorial art from the collections of the Zaya Pandita Museum of Kalmyk Traditional Culture created at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The article deals with the cult of Muslim saints in Western Kazakhstan. Religious minimalism has been inherent to western regions of the country which made the territory different from Southern Kazakhstan where Islam had occupied strong positions throughout the religious worldview and practices, where ancient mosques and mausoleums have become not only objects of pilgrimages but rather state-protected museums, their history being made part of the national ideology. Western Kazakhstan was the first region to have been included in Russia’s sphere of influence with subsequent modernization and Europeanization of the community, secularization of all aspects of life in the Soviet period. Following the changes in religious life, the cult of saints and pilgrimages became a distinct feature of the Kazakh ethnocultural landscape. In the 1990s, the sacralization of space occurred, e. g., mass venerations of burial places of saints (mazars) and pilgrimages to their graves. There also appeared a number of advocates of such manifestations and organizers of corresponding religious practices. The article provides materials collected during the international expedition Following the Route of P. S. Pallas (2010 and 2011). En route, places and graves of revered saints were fixed, oral legends and practices associated with visiting and honoring these places (including related folk healing practices) were collected. The 20th century cultural revolution and proximity to Russian territory resulted in the loss and dramatic minimization of religious practices and sacred places; so, the daily Islam has been mystified excessively. Contemporary Kazakhs tend to revere graves and attribute holiness to ‘folk mullahs’ of the Soviet period, i. e. those who had followed religious rules (observed fast days, learnt and read the Quran), engaged in healing practice, read prayers over the dead and recited the Quran’s ayats at the request of villagers during different rituals. Nowadays, their immediate descendants are alive and some of them organize pilgrimages to graves of ancestors; still, others refute the opinions about sanctity of the latter and insist that emphasis should be laid on Muslim education. At the same time, rural dwellers retain and pass on oral stories not only about lives and abilities of those people but also about miracles shown in the times of atheism and opposition to governmental authorities, about spirit patrons - aruaks. Special attributes are being installed around such graves which results in a peculiar architecture. Thus, such aul’ya become patrons and saviors of certain auls (settlements), and currently almost each aul has its own spirit patron. Except for direct descendants, there are also other followers, those usually engage in folk healing and even shaman practices.

The article describes ethno-confessional processes in present-day Tuva and the spiritual revival that began in the 1990s. The paper discusses and examines the formation of a new cultural and moral system and the youth’s actual value paradigms. The authors emphasize the importance of preservation of the spiritual heritage of the past, including ethnic and religious forms of Tuvan traditional culture. The article also examines the relationships between religion and ethnicity, the peculiarity of Tuva as a multiconfessional region with quite a variety of religions. On the basis of the authors’ research, the current state of religiosity is described, including the phenomenon of religious syncretism. Thus, the current polyconfessional picture of religious life in the Republic of Tuva also determines prospects of further processes that take place as part of the situation. Polyconfessionality is quite a positive phenomenon which testifies of freedom of spiritual choice. The characteristic feature of modern Tuva’s religious life is that amid a significant growth in the numbers of believers and adherents of the historic ethnoconfessional communities, there are a number of confessions that had been unknown before. And those undoubtedly influence the spiritual, cultural, social and ethnopolitical processes in the region. Modern society must be competent enough to communicate with the diverse confessions, which requires that such phenomena be subject to comprehensive studies.

The article deals with the history of cultural and educational institutions of Kyzyl in the period of radical transformations experienced by the Tuvan people and associated with Tuva’s incorporation into the USSR. The study is relevant due to the fact the culture of Kyzyl during the Tuvan Autonomous Oblast period (1944-1961) has not been subject to any special historical research. It is noteworthy that in recent years there is growing public interest towards the regional history, life of ordinary citizens and their everyday activities. Those were local periodicals which had most fully and consistently reflected all aspects of Kyzyl’s life that served as the main sources for the paper. The article introduces into scientific discourse a number of materials from the State Archive of the Tuva Republic, including protocols of meetings of the City Executive Committee. The 19441961 cultural life of Kyzyl was developing at an accelerated pace. The main objectives of the authorities were to eradicate vestiges of the past and introduce new types of leisure activities aimed to acquaint the Tuvinians with the ideals of the Soviet way of life. The most important innovations and qualitative changes within the Tuvan traditional society were introduced in the sphere of public education resulting in a significant rise in educational level. Due to the rapid growth in the number of literate people that in the early years of the Soviet rule had been provided only with elementary education, there was increase in the number of secondary schools. In the 1950s, there were established the first colleges - medical, pedagogical, agricultural ones. In 1952, the Teachers’ Institute was opened in Kyzyl; this marked the beginning of higher education in the region. An important role in the organization of the leisure-time system was played by the museum. One could learn there not only about the natural resources of the region but also about the socio-economic and political history of Tuva. As townspeople grew to like visiting the library, a culture of reading was created. Socio-political and classical literature was especially popular. The library also organized exhibitions, lectures and conferences celebrating important historical events. Tuvan national literature and painting stem from the same the period. The fashion of Tuvan young writers and artists’ works was set and predetermined by the state ideology.

The deliberate influence of the society onto the language is the key factor to the functional development of languages. This influence manifests itself in the domains of organized communication which presume the possibility of language planning through the realization of certain principles in the language policy. In a multinational state, the language policy implies the impact of the state onto the language, social, and ethnic factors. This policy is aimed at adjustment of multi-ethnic relations in the regions and promotes the mutual understanding, tolerance in society. The article analyzes the interrelationship between the language policy and language situation. In order to avoid language conflicts in a multinational state, it is necessary to take into account the cultural and language demands of different language communities. Another important part of the language policy is the language unity in a multinational state. These two objectives call forth to take into count both the language diversity and the language unity of the state. However, these two trends come to an opposition to each other which leads to national language conflicts, e.g. in Moldova, Ukraine, and Baltic states. In order to achieve the language agreement, it is necessary to strive for the strict compliance of the language policy with the language factors and the language situation. Following the reasons mentioned above, the legislation on languages is adopted by the state where the languages gain their status. In the Russian Federation, the model of the language policy is multicomponent: the legislation on languages has been adopted in 22 republics, 34 languages gained official status. Along with the system of laws on languages in the Russian Federation, there have been attempts to ratify and apply the European Charter for Regional Languages which was signed by the President of the country but has not been ratified by the State Duma. In this connection, there have been attempts to plan the domains of language functioning in Russia, taking into consideration the main requirements of the European Charter for Regional Languages. One of the attempts has been analyzed in the article, namely the plans to expand the requirements of the Charter onto more than 100 languages in the Russian Federation. These plans were considered at the meeting of the round table at the Ministry of Regional Development of the Russian Federation - European Charter for Regional Languages and Minorities: Main Problems and Perspectives of Ratification, 27 November 2006. The languages of Russia are divided into three groups: regional languages with an official status (34), regional languages without an official status (12), regional languages of minorities (44). It was proposed to plan the functioning of the languages in full compliance with the main principles of the European Charter, to consider these languages as the means of expressions of the cultural asset of the peoples, to respect the geographical area of each language, follow the necessary measures in order to protect and preserve the languages and their use in different domains, organize the system of education in these languages. Following the principles mentioned above, there have been attempts to plan the scope of the language functions in education, administration, governmental services, media, culture, economy, i.e. in all domains of organized communication which are to be subject to further planning. It was an example of the language planning in a multinational country. However, the application of the principles of the European Charter in the situation of a recession is quite a challenging task. Nowadays, we see not a positive shift but rather a negative one in the development of social functions in a number of Russia’s languages (see the example of the Khakass language). That is the reason why the European Charter has not been ratified yet in the Russian Federation. Along with the mentioned obstacles, it is considered that the existing legislation of languages in Russia is sufficient enough. However, in the present situation, there have been some attempts to ratify the European Charter by the State Duma of the Russian Federation.

The article analyzes the role of mother tongue in present-day polyethnic countries, specificity of ethnic language identity, correlation between the level of ethno-linguistic identity and language competence through the example of the Oirat-Kalmyks. In recent decades, research of the ethno-linguistic factor in ethnic identity of ethnos has become especially urgent that is caused by a trend of growth in ethnicity level world-wide. Each individual perceives reality through language which reflects the entire life experience, history of the ethnos. Language is one of the symbols of ethnic unity, so that when the national identity of an ethnos gets promoted - a revival of the ethnic language comes first. Changes in ethno-linguistic identity and in native language have affected both Russia’s Kalmyks who have a separate administrative territory, the Republic of Kalmykia, and are an integral part of the Russian nation, and Oirat-Kalmyk communities represented by diasporas in different regions of the world. Attempts to form a new ethnic identity of the Kalmyk ethnos at the present time suggest that the revival of ethnic identity - in terms of culture and policy - is urgent for the Kalmyks who lost it due to various objective and subjective reasons. The main social and psychological factor affecting the vitality of a language is ethno-linguistic identity. High level of ethnic identity, as a rule, neutralizes negative factors in the functioning of the language, while its low level results in a loss of the language; moreover, younger generations can sometimes adopt ‘language nihilism’ towards the mother tongue. But this interaction between language and ethnic identity is ambiguous. For example, the Oirats of China and the Volga Kalmyks have a high level of ethnic language identity but the virtual level of language competence in mother tongue among the Kalmyks of Russia as compared to that of Xinjiang Oirats is much lower. The difference is in the approach to the phenomenon of ‘native language/mother tongue’. ‘Mother tongue’ usually means the language of the family in which primary speech skills are formed. ‘Ethnic language’ stands for the language of the ethnos, i.e. it is an ethnic symbol. The Volga Kalmyks in most cases confuse these notions and, unable to speak the native language, by the ‘mother tongue’ mean an ‘ethnic symbol’. Probably, this mother tongue knowledge gap in the high level of ethnic identity of Volga Kalmyks is compensated by other important elements of their ethnic identity, such as common historical past, ethnic traditions, customs, religion, etc. The Kalmyks of Russia have experienced a strong cultural influence of the dominant community, Russification process takes place but the high level of ethnic identity is still retained. For the Oirats of China the ‘mother tongue’ is actually their mothers’ language, the language of family communication which forms their primary speech skills. The main distinguishing feature of China’s Oirats is that they are more integrated into their own ethnos, their native language which is the bearer of traditions, history, culture of the people, functions as an intra-ethnic communication mean. It should be also noted that the significance and degree of use of language depend on historical, social, geopolitical factors. On the materials of the sociolinguistic research performed from 2002 to 2016, the author has considered these peculiar aspects of the role of the native language in the development of Oirat-Kalmyk communities, the structure of their ethnic identity and language transformations in the ethnic groups of the Oirat-Kalmyks residing in different regions of the world.

The article describes the grammar of order inherent to inflectional affixes of participles in the Kalmyk language. The term ‘inflectional model’ stands for an abstract scheme according to which a real inflectional chain with due account of morphophonological compatibility laws and semantic rules is formed. The research is based on the data from the Kalmyk National Corpus (kalmcorpora.ru) currently comprising nearly 9 million tokens which is sufficient enough to obtain objective information on inflectional chain modeling. The importance of the research lies in the necessity to classify, systematically describe and analyze associative properties of morphemic units in the synthesis of lexical units (‘wordforms’ if defined broadly) of the Kalmyk language. During the analysis of the materials of the Kalmyk National Corpus over 190 Kalmyk participial inflectional models have been identified. A number of the models are dialectal by nature, e.g., the model Base + Dur + Fut + ConfPart (=n) is found in the texts whose authors speak the Dorbet dialect of the Kalmyk language. The list of models contains both well-known and frequent schemes as well as those newly introduced into scientific discourse (e.g., the model Base + Caus + Dur + Hab + ModPart (=dzh)).

The article studies Manchu toponymy. The main emphasis is laid on the study of the toponyms mentioned in the 1743 Manchu literary work “Han-i araha Mukden-i fuǯurun bithe”, or The Ode to Mukden Written by the Emperor. The composition is one of the few authentic Manchu literary monuments authored by the Qianlong Emperor, and it is the most famous authorial text in Manchu being Qianlong’s first work to have been translated in Europe. The research discovered that Manchu toponymy has never been subject to any special studies. Studies of regional and substrate toponyms seem to be important and relevant enough since no special research in the field of Manchu onomastics has been conducted yet. The territory of Manchuria traditionally embracing Northeast China as well as present-day Russian-owned Primorye and Priamurye (‘Outer Manchuria’) has always been an area of special and diverse scientific interests which is evidently due to the fact it has long been inhabited by ancestors of Tungusic peoples. Nowadays, almost the whole of Northeast China’s toponymy is of Chinese origin which resulted from the systematic renaming, assimilation processes and adaptations to the Chinese language. As for Russia’s aboriginal toponyms, they can well be considered authentic ones though - since the vast territory was primarily inhabited by kin peoples of the Manchus - in most cases the place names are of Tungusic rather than of Manchu origin as such. Toponymy is a cross-disciplinary area which comprises elements of geography, history and linguistics, and, thus, reflects the historic, natural and linguistic peculiarities of an ethnos. The paper considers the names of cities, villages, mountains, rivers and burial mounds. Studies of the toponyms make it possible to reveal the most common patterns for the formation of the Manchu toponymic system. Research of Manchu toponymy is of great scientific and practical interest for further studies of historical, ethnographic and linguistic problems of the Far East and the relations with other nations of the region since this area of onomastics is relevant enough to modern science.

Euphemisms in the “language of Kalmyk women”, occurring due to taboos on mentioning the names of elder relatives of the husband, are an important aspect of Kalmyk women’s conversational etiquette and have a certain impact on the functions and development of the language. Such euphemisms are part of the whole system of ethical behavioral norms for Kalmyk women. The research results show that they have been created with due regard to the social and cultural conditions characteristic of the Kalmyks’ nomadic mode of life. Euphemisms are, like the system of ethical behavioral norms for women in general, supposed to strengthen the most important part of society - the family with the housewife / wife being its central figure, and tend to serve as means of fostering children, the future generations of the family and society. The paper presents a short critical review of the conducted research that dealt with euphemisms in the “language of Kalmyk women”. The first part of the review presents an analysis of a strictly linguistic aspect of the issue. The examples and their description show that those euphemisms, their structure and the way they form constitute a broad functional sphere in Kalmyk speech. This is the absolute character of the taboos on names that give rise to euphemisms, namely the names of older relatives are subjects to permanent taboos. Firstly, it does not matter whether the person the mention of whose name is tabooed is present or not at the moment of a woman’s speech. According to the second rule, taboos are applied not only to the names of living elder relatives of the husband but also those who had passed away long time ago, down to the tenth generation. Thirdly, the names of complete strangers are tabooed if those are identical to or resemble the names of the husband’s elder relatives. Fourthly, since many Kalmyk names comprise common words denoting household items, plants, minerals, the latter take a wide range of forms. The second part of the paper presents quotations that illustrate different opinions regarding the social and cultural judgments of euphemisms. Some respondents characterize euphemisms as a means to subjugate women designating them as vestiges of the past. The respondents are public persons. There is also a presentation of opinions regarding moral and ethical behavioral norms for women, traditional behavior for men and women in daily life, e.g. during dancing events and outdoor meetings. Those characterize people’s behavior in personal daily and social life that used to (and still do) take forms of high culture. The critical analysis of the existing research studies as well as the independent research of definite materials allow to conclude that euphemisms in the “language of Kalmyk women” are a cultural phenomenon and constitute a part of the system of ethical behavioral norms for Kalmyk women.

At present, investigations of diverse concepts - such as ‘size’, ‘color’, ‘form’, ‘flavor’, ‘temperature’, etc. - constitute one of the most relevant research trends within modern linguistics. The article examines adjectives somehow related to temperature characteristics of objects - in view of the work on developing definitions for a Definition Dictionary of the Language of the Kalmyk Heroic Epic of Jangar. Songs of the Jangar epic and data from the Kalmyk National Corpus served as materials for the research. The Kalmyk heroic epic of Jangar has accumulated the material and spiritual culture of the people, their cultural values and magnificent traditions. Materials of the epic largely confirm the relations between the archetypal image of the world and the common, daily objective perception of things. Adjectives denoting temperature are widely used in the Kalmyk language, e. g., khalun ‘hot’, kiitn ‘cold’, bülӓn, dulan ‘warm’, serün ‘cool’. Words denoting low temperatures signify negative emotions: kiitn nüdn ‘cold eyes’, kiitn üg ‘cold words’, kiitn khӓlӓts ‘cold look’; at the same time, words denoting high temperatures stand for positive emotions: khalun mend ‘heartiest greetings’, khalun durn ‘passionate love / firm friendship’, bülӓn nüdn ‘warm eyes / soft glance’, bülӓn khӓlӓts ‘warm look’, bülӓn üg ‘warm words’, bülӓn kharγlt ‘warm / amicable meeting’. The formulae / definitions of temperature adjectives introduced in the article make it possible to conclude that figurative meanings constitute a temperature range but, as distinct from Russian, the Kalmyk language - due to peculiarities of the national culture and mindset - is characterized by emotional self-restraint, and most adjectives are employed in the direct meaning.

The article examines the noun case paradigm which is relevant to virtually all nominative parts of speech in Old written Kalmyk. As is known, a Kalmyk word - like words of any other agglutinative language - can be divided in two parts, namely: an uninflected part - a stem, and an inflected one - affixes. Moreover, the stem of a word is to be followed by word-forming affixes and particles in a strict order. Nouns of Old written Kalmyk are characterized by grammatical categories of case and number; they can also be followed by indicators of possessiveness. The strict order according to which indicators of the grammatical categories are to be added to the stem is as follows: an indicator of the plural comes first, it is followed by case and possessive suffixes respectively; the latter sometimes merges with the case suffix and, thus, makes an integral indicator. All suffixes can be written separately from the stem-word; in this case they are divided by hyphens when transcribed. When it comes to the case paradigm of Old written Kalmyk, one should distinguish the nominative case and forms of oblique cases that are basically suffixal. Suffixes of all oblique cases have phonetic variants (allomorphs) to be determined either by the final sound of the previous morpheme (root or suffix) or by vowel harmony; sometimes both the factors should be taken into consideration. It is noteworthy that the earliest works on the grammar of Old written Kalmyk describe the phonetic, lexical and grammatical processes that occurred in the written language of the 18th-19th cc. A. Bobrovnikov pointed out the gap between the literary language and the actual speech of the Kalmyks in the 19th century.

The article discusses the traditional formulas of Kalmyk fairy tales. Internal median formulas are determined by corresponding plots and play a significant role in fairy-tale texts defining the main characters and summarizing their most important actions. The fairy tales recorded by G. J. Ramstedt in the early 20th century reflect the actual poetic and stylistic tradition of the Kalmyks. The texts of the fairy tales are abundant in initial, median and final formulas. Following the classification introduced by the Romanian scientist N. Rosianu, the paper examines medial formulas from the Kalmyk fairy-tale texts. Those are 1) formulas that define images of fairy-tale characters or describe objects they posses, 2) formulas describing actions of fairy-tale characters, 3) formulas from dialogues (typical expressions of certain fairy-tale characters), 4) ‘magic formulas’, 5) formulas containing elements characteristic of initial formulas. In the considered fairy tales, among the formulas that define images of fairy-tale characters or describe objects belonging to them, special attention is paid to a formula depicting the main character’s beauty who is usually a tengri - ‘inhabitant of Heaven’. Alongside this, another fairy tale contains an episode when the beauty of the heroine is associated with the fact that she was obsessed by a shulma (‘a demonic creature’). The ability of shulmas to turn into beautiful girls is reflected in demonological views of the Kalmyks. The analyzed texts primarily contain formulas that describe fairy-tale characters’ actions: formulas that indicate long journeys of heroes; formulas depicting difficult tasks; a formula that conveys dual feelings of the character; a formula depicting the motif of the hero’s visit to the other world; formulas of reward and punishment. Typical expressions of individual fairy-tale characters also act as formulas included in their dialogues. The fairy tales recorded by G. J. Ramstedt are characterized by a ‘modernization’ (according to N. Rosianu) of the authentic traditional formulas - since the storyteller uses the modern concept of time when it comes to space and paths. The ‘modernization’ process testifies of some changes that had occurred in the social and economic life of the Kalmyk people. Still, the variation of stable stylistic structures with elements of the ‘modernization’ remains within the framework of the oral tradition of Kalmyk folklore.