The article studies the history of creation and contents of topographic descriptions of the Lower Volga Region written in the 1770s - early 1800s. Topographic descriptions are a special form of scientific works aiming to comprehensively analyze the geography, natural surroundings, history and economy of a single governorate or province. In the last quarter of the 18th century, several dozen topographic descriptions of various Russian provinces and governorates were written. In the course of our research, four similar works dedicated to the Lower Volga region were discovered, namely: Introduction to Astrakhan Topography by the first correspondent of the Russian Academy of Sciences P. I. Rychkov; Description of Saratov Vicegerency by Saratov Governor I. I. Polivanov; Historical and Topographical Description of Saratov Province written under the editorship of Saratov Governor P. U. Belyakov; and The Economic Description of Astrakhan and Caucasian Governorates by Astrakhan official I. V. Rovinsky. Creation of a topographic description required purposeful large-scale work in terms of empirical data collection. In this connection, P. I. Rychkov failed to complete work on his topographical description and, thus, limited himself to publishing an Introduction to Astrakhan Topography. I. I. Polivanov who worked on the description of Saratov Vicegerency in the early 1780s was probably able to collect more materials but, however, only a short version of his work was published, while other collected materials were not preserved. Saratov Governor P. U. Belyakov and Astrakhan official I. V. Rovinsky were able to complete their works on topographic descriptions. As distinguished from earlier works about the Lower Volga Region, their compositions were largely based on local sources of information - documents, annals, historical legends of local inhabitants. Provincial officials who had to write detailed works devoted to their territories had to use such sources for the first time, since they had limited opportunities to work with scientific literature in Astrakhan and Saratov. The use of a wide range of sources, high level of erudition of the authors allowed them to create unique encyclopedic scientific works depicting the Lower Volga Region. The authors not only collected huge empirical data but offered some original critical interpretation. For the first time ever and on a high professional level, the topographic descriptions analyzed lots of issues related to the history, current state and prospects for the development of the region. Not all topographic descriptions were published. One of the most interesting composition containing topographical and historical descriptions created under the editorship of Saratov Governor P. U. Belyakov was sent to Moscow and St. Petersburg. In Saratov, the manuscript of this work was not preserved and remained unknown to local researchers until the 1920s. In view of the mentioned difficulties, the topographic descriptions had no serious impact on the development of scientific thought in the Lower Volga Region. Unfortunately, the data collected in topographic descriptions, recommendations for the development of the region made by the authors on the basis of their analysis were not applied in practice by the state bodies of the region.

The paper ‘Non-Christians in the Orthodox State: Buddhism in Late-Imperial Russia (Evidence from Buryatia)’ discusses the problem of relations between institutionalized Buddhism and the only state religion of the Empire - Russian Orthodoxy. Drawing evidence from various archival and scientific materials, the author examines the history of the competition between Orthodoxy and Buddhism in the late-imperial times on conditions of full support to the state religion on behalf of the state. The author argues that despite recourse to administrative resources, Orthodox clergy failed to achieve significant success in suppressing Buddhism in Transbaikalia. Moreover, despite wide-scale baptizing policy among Buryats, Buddhism found its way in the Prebaikalia areas inhabited by Buryats-shamanists who were the main object of Christianization. Buddhist leaders saw their task in preserving the Buddhist community and strengthening its positions in Russia. The mechanism for this was in the big adaptive ability of Buddhism that allowed it to get incorporated into the Russian political culture. In addition, according to an ancient tradition, the Buddhist clergy promoted upbringing of Buryats in the spirit of loyalty to the monarchy up to deification of the Tsars and their families.

The article identifies the main concepts of Russia’s cotton policy during the Soviet and post-Soviet periods and provides a comparative analysis of implementation of cotton production development programs in one of the peripheral regions - Kalmykia. The first attempts to introduce cotton cultivation in Kalmykia had been made in the 1920s. From the perspective of local authorities, cotton production could become one of Kalmykia’s export industries, and the then political leaders believed that this could serve as a means of transforming Kalmykia into a world cotton market participant. But the key problem was that there were few qualified specialists, which was aggravated by lack of decent water supply and special financial support. In the pre-war period, cotton planting in Kalmykia was underproductive and got no widespread use. During the first ‘five-year plans’ at the turn of the 1920s-1930s, the Soviet agrarian policy forcibly introduced cotton cultivation programs within the steppe region which was traditionally inhabited by cattle breeders. In 1997-1999 and 2007-2012, the regional authorities made additional attempts to participate in cotton planting ‘pilot’ projects: experimental cotton seeds were sowed in test fields of the republic. The second short-lived experiment proved far less productive and was not developed properly since there was no special federal target program and, thus, no full-scale state financial support. The conducted analysis reveals achievements and shortcomings of cotton production arrangements in the region during the periods under consideration and suggests further prospects for the development of cotton cultivation in Kalmykia.

The article investigates the problem of restructured relations between the state and the Russian Orthodox Church in Kalmykia in the late Soviet period. It analyzes the religious situation in Kalmykia, reviews changes that had occurred in relations between the state and local Orthodox organizations, alongside with corresponding factors, studies behavioral patterns of the clergy and changes in the activities of the parishes. The first conciliatory gestures towards the ROC were made by the Government in 1987, but it was the 1988 celebrations of the 1000th anniversary of the Christianization of Rus’ that accelerated the development of state-Church relations in a positive way. The favorable changes proved possible largely due to the democratization processes within the Soviet society and state. In Kalmykia, the changing times coincided with the emergence of young and energetic Orthodox priests who collaborated with the authorities and preferred a strategy of adaptation, i.e. established positive relationships with power structures and observed the legislation on religious cults. They had also come into contact with the organs of Church self-administration and believers.  The legislative liberalization and already favorable attitudes of the authorities towards religious organizations provided the ROC with wider opportunities for the revival of Orthodox Christianity in the society. Kalmykia witnessed a sharp increase in church attendance (although there were only two Orthodox houses of worship), religious ritualism and incomings of the Church; foundation for further development of church infrastructure was laid.  In the late 1980s, the Russian Orthodox Church enhanced its educational and cultural activities, opening a Sunday school, the first one in the republic; and since 1989, two main Orthodox holidays were celebrated with the assistance of the authorities. A new phenomenon in public and political life of the republic was that the Orthodox clergy were involved into it, and some representatives participated in the 1989 elections of Soviets and activities of the diverse public and even political organizations. Noting the undoubted fact of the evolution of relations between the authorities of the republic and the chief executives of the Russian Orthodox Church in Kalmykia from confrontation to cooperation, however, it is important to note that the process never ended during the Perestroika period. The work is based on materials of the National Archive of the Republic of Kalmykia, most of them are newly introduced into scientific discourse.

The article considers the use of the directional case with evidence from multi-temporal records of the Kalmyk heroic epic of Jangar. The language of the epic - oral-poetic by nature with its certain impact in the development of the national literary language - definitely reflects the living colloquial language at the time the epic songs were recorded and, thus, preserved. The language of the epic comprises both new forms and some archaic features that stand for a certain stage of language development. The analysis of multi-temporal Jangar texts reveals that within the early records (the first half of the 19th century) the directional case formant -ur/-ür was not used. This is supported by some data on Kalmyk grammar issued at approximately the same time. However, A. Bobrovnikov points out special particles -γur; -gür (-uur; -öür in Kalmyk and colloquial Mongolian) and defines their functional-semantic meaning as ‘the one describing the path to follow or line of action’. Along with this, we have also examples of an affix etymologically similar to that of the directional case and initially found within adverbs semantically denoting the direction of motion or place. The directional case as such was first mentioned in the Grammar of Colloquial Kalmyk by V.L. Kotwicz. Records of the first half of the 20th century (the epic cycle of Eelyan Ovla, epic cycle of taleteller Mukebyun Basangov, epic cycle of taleteller Dava Shavaliev, a song from the repertory of Badma Obushinov) already contain forms of the directional case (-ur/-ür) in nominative parts of speech. Besides, the directional affix is often followed by possessive markers (-n/-n’). Of special interest is the fact that there is an adverbial suffix (-uur; -öür in Kalmyk and colloquial Mongolian) etymologically similar to that of the directional case (-ur/-ür) and semantically denoting the direction of motion or place. We may conclude that during the formation of the directional case there were two mutually approaching processes: the adverbial suffix (-uur; -öür in Kalmyk and colloquial Mongolian) semantically merged with the postposition-adverb uruγu→uru →ruu (rüü / luu / lüü) → uurр (üür) ‘downwards, towards’. Thus, it can be concluded that the directional case took its final form in colloquial Kalmyk at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, absorbing some functions of the dative-locative and instrumental cases; it was also accompanied by decrease in the use of the postposition tal ‘towards’.

The article deals with Oirat Buddhist terms used by Zaya Pandita Namkhaijamts in his translation of the poetic foreword to the Middle Length Lam-Rim composed by the founder of the Gelug Tibetan Buddhist tradition - Je Tsongkhapa. The analysis of the Tibetan and Oirat texts of the poetic foreword to the Middle Length Lam-Rim accompanied by a modern Mongolian translated text of the composition revealed some clarifying words introduced by Zaya Pandita to precise the meanings of the verses, inexact translations of Buddhist terms, peculiarities of Mongolian translation of personal names of Buddhas and Buddhist Teachers as well as some general concepts of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy.

In 1847, A.V. Popov published the todo-script text of ‘Mongolin Ubashi Hong Taijiin Tuuj’ in Kazan (Russia). It is an important original manuscript of Oirat-Mongolian literature. The present paper discusses the origin, history of edition and content of the significant todo-script manuscript comprising three parts. First of all, it introduces conditions of research of ‘Mongolin Ubashi Hong Taijiin Tuuj’ with evidence from the Russian, Mongolian, and Chinese texts and materials. As for its origin, the Russian researcher A. V. Popov mentioned in his Kalmyk Language Grammar: ‘In 1838 I conducted field work in Kalmyk territories and published this book using the materials collected there’. Following his words, it is evident that A. V. Popov was the first person who had discovered the original manuscript of ‘Mongolin Ubashi Hong Taijiin Tuuj’ and published it. The paper also gives an account of some problems related to its edition. Finally, the article provides a comparative study on the texts of ‘Mongolin Ubashi Hong Taijiin Tuuj’ by A. V. Popov and G. Gomboev dated back to different periods.

D. ravjaa’s poetry is connected with works of modern literary artists at the level of motifs, artistic images and textual coincidences. The paper aims to determine the features of mortal and vital codes in Mongolian poetry. In this respect, it is urgent to study the problem of literary texts coding, the ways they incorporate quotations and allusions to traditional symbols, and interpret culture-specific archetypical literary themes. Being a universal principle for the interpretation of texts, the semantic-hermeneutical method allows to create a unified system of meanings of texts within a paradigm of numerous interpretations. The Buddhist idea of an indissoluble chain of existence contributes to the quiet and contemplative perception of life. The concept gives rise to the special mortal code inherent to Mongolian poetry. For example, in one of his poems, the famous poet Damdinsuren refers to D. ravjaa’s code and does not repeat the keyword in the text but rather designates it only in its name. Here, the new ordered sense is detected in an unusual sense of the original. The poet celebrates the five feelings, depicts the beauty of perception of the world in each stanza, and every last line of the stanzas glorifies the most perfect aspect of all those already mentioned. Damdinsuren’s text is transparent for reading. He applies D. ravjaa’s recognizable code of perfect quality as an unambiguous vital code, makes reconstruction of elements of the code according to his individual poetical principles. The article considers D. ravjaa’s vital and mortal codes, specifics of their functioning and transformation in works by modern poets. Identification of the code of D. ravjaa allows to determine the role of his works in the development of modern poetry. The mortal code of both the optimistic and pessimistic in modern Mongolian literature is closely connected with the Buddhist philosophical concept of death as infinity. It has features as follows: life as expectation of death, death as a benefit, love to death, quiet perception of death. The work reveals the close interrelation between mortal and vital codes in D. ravjaa’s poetry that are used in modern poetry in the transformed type. As a result, it is concluded that the code of D. ravjaa is included in modern Mongolian poetry in the form of a hint or a direct quotation of his Buddhist philosophical concept. Motifs and details of the code are used in direct and reduced forms.

The article considers the motif of maternal curse through the example of the Bashkir mythological bait ‘Sak and Sok’ which is also widespread among the Tatar and Chuvash peoples. According to the plot, following a slight prank, the mother curses her twin children so that those immediately turn into birds and fly away. The conducted research has revealed two types of maternal curse: accidental and intentional ones. Accidental curse is that issued by mother by negligence, in a blaze of anger, wishing no actual harm to her children. Deliberate maternal curse could be found in various rituals. The curse issuing time is of special importance. In some cases, the curse is aggravated by mother’s milk which contradicts the Bashkir national mindset and the Holy Quran. The paper also considers variants of the bait that have been found among the Chuvashes where, like in Bashkir baits, in some cases maternal curse proves to be intentional. In a number of cases, children are cursed with magical rituals conducted by a wicked stepmother. There are also variants of the Bashkir bait where children are cursed by father or both parents. It seems that launching a feather hat in the wind is one of the curse rituals. The curse act results not only in the transformation of children into night birds but also has other consequences, for example, eyes get filled with blood. In some cases, maternal curse is empowered by supreme forces: a large oak falls on the children in the forest which might stand for the activity of punishing spirits. In one version, mother curses children with her tears since those had played with bread dough. God who watched this, sympathized with the woman and punished her disobedient children. The pair of black horses often mentioned in the bait, in our opinion, is one of the attributes that carry a person into the afterlife. Parents also suffer consequences of the curse imposed by them on children. In our case, the children turn into birds and can neither meet each other nor return home, and the parents - no matter how much they grieve - cannot return the words of the curse back. It is known that the Bashkir and Tatar peoples had a curse related to the names of these twins. Thus, upon examination of ‘Sak and Sok’ mythological bait, we see the intertwining of several rituals and types of curse. To date, the mythological plot of ‘Sak and Sok’ bait is the most vivid example of the use of curse in Bashkir national folklore.

The article provides a brief introduction to Tibetan heroic epic ‘Gesar’ studies in China (1931-2016). The history of Tibetan heroic epic ‘Gesar’ studies can be traced back to earlier periods. In China, the Tibetan heroic epic ‘Gesar’ was first mentioned by Ren Naiqiang (任乃强, 1894-1989) in May of 1930. The period from 1930 to the late 1970s was devoted to studying the achievements of foreign scientists and the formation of scientific and methodological positions in research the epic ‘Gesar’ by Chinese scientists. During this period, a lot of work was done to collect versions of the epic in different regions of Tibet. From the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, Chinese scholars approved the ‘Gesar’ as an academic discipline in the study of the oral literature of the peoples of China. Since the 1990s until now work has been conducted on in-depth study of the epic and the formation of ‘Gesar’ studies as an independent scientific direction.

The article comprehensively investigates the key trends and features of the socio-economic development of the North Caucasus region in the period of systemic transformation of Russian society. It analyzes the main results of the economic reforms in industry and agriculture, identifies the causes of the 1990s socio-economic crisis. The most important economic indicators analyzed per capita in the North Caucasus, in comparison with all-Russia figures, are as follows: the gross regional product, retail sales, cash income, employment and the labor market, poverty, income and expenses of territorial budgets. It is noted that in terms of the level of living standards, social and economic development the regions are, in general, inferior to other regions of Russia. Particular attention is given to identifying the main factors that led to the emergence of ethno-political tension in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia. The analysis of the current socio-economic situation in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia suggests the necessity for urgent actions to concentrate all the efforts of the executive bodies of state power and local self-government and conduct a comprehensive and systematic work aiming to further contribute to and promote the economic, social and cultural development of the regions.