Introduction. Although the national liberation movement of the Mongols in the early 20th century was studied generally well, the so called Kharachin movement and the Kharachin issue have been understudied yet. The article concerns, first of all, the period following the death of its leader Babujab. Data on Babujab’s detachments after his death are fragmentary.
Goals and materials. The paper aims to reconstruct the situation faced by these detachments at that time as evidenced from archival data, first of all, reconnaissance and diplomatic reports contained in the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire (Rus. AVPRI) and Russian State Archive of Military History (Rus. RGVIA), as compared to previously published data.
Results. After Babujab’s death in October 1916, the movement in Inner Mongolia did not stop. Some of his followers surrendered to the Chinese, dispersed for robberies, while others (ca. 1 200 men) relocated to Zuun Uzumchin Banner of Inner Mongolia. In early December, a detachment of 1 800 men was in Solun Shan area. Since mid-December, Mongolian guerrillas started to move from Uzumchin to Linzhixian and Chifeng counties. In late December 1916, one of Kharachin leaders, Fushengge, visited Hailar in Barga (Hulunbuir) claiming provision for the Mongolian guerrillas and removal of all Daurs from the government of Barga. The latter declined the claims and started mobilization of troops. According to Fushengge, the detachment of guerrillas consisted of 6 000 Mongols, 400 Chinese, 4 Japanese officers and 218 Japanese soldiers. The guerrillas had Japanese guns. On December 1, 1916, leaders of guerrillas elected the gung Chadarbal to replace the deceased Babujab (Sebjingge, a more skillful military leader, had refused). On the advice of the Japanese, Mongolian guerrillas moved to the southern bank of the Khalkhyn Gol River where they encamped till the spring of 1917. The total number of guerrillas in that camp was estimated sometimes up to 10 000 men, still most probably being 3 000–5 000. The guerrillas planned to participate in restoring the Manchu Qing Dynasty to power.
Conclusions. The paper provides detailed descriptions of that camp and life of the guerrillas, as well as some data on their raids to Outer Mongolia. Hailar became the first target of the guerrillas.

Goals. Proceeding from multi-year field research data, the paper attempts to review some trends in the development of Buryatia’s contemporary shamanism.
Methods. The work applies historical-comparative and comparative-contrastive research methods; a variety of field ethnographic research methods were used to collect corresponding analytical materials.
Results. The study provides an overview of current shamanistic practices in Buryatia. It is noteworthy that the new generation of shamans are university-educated individuals with experience in different specialities. Thus, the ‘shamanistic intelligentsia’ has taken shape. Their practices include not only traditional rites but also public conversations in the media aimed to facilitate the promotion of shamanistic beliefs and world outlooks. They write books, appear in documentary films, leave their ancestral lands for different Russian and foreign cities to perform their practices there — which has been frown upon in classical shamanism. The emergence of associations and alliances of shamans have resulted in that nowadays they engage in publishing and teaching (educational) activities. The new challenges required that personalities of traditional shamans change accordingly, and the new generation of in-demand shamans do possess such personal qualities.
The article comprises two parts. Part One generally characterizes the topic and depicts portrayals of three female shamans — representatives of the mentioned ‘shamanistic intelligentsia’, namely: Nadezhda Stepanova, Yeshir-Khorlo Tsybikzhapova, and Vera Taglasova. Their shamanistic evolutions are traditional enough and have included certain stages, such as shamanistic illness and shamanistic roots (even in cases of mixed parentage). At the same time, all the mentioned present-day female shamans of Buryatia have university degrees (in the humanities and culture), maintain close relations with academic circles, stay at the forefront of public life, being activists of shamanistic associations and regularly promoting corresponding beliefs and representations.
Part Two examines places of shamans and their associations in the new Russia. The paper shows that the newly emerged shamanistic organizations seek to keep performing their practices in changing environments when, acting as an official, shamans can register their sacred places as specially protected territories. On the other hand, another challenge of theirs is to protect the public from pseudo-shamans that have significantly increased in numbers recently. This part also contains sections to deal with the issues, such as ‘shamans and scientists’, ‘shamans and ecology’. Both the parts of the article to be published in two consecutive issues of the journal shall be supplemented with complete references.

Introduction. The article deals with felting arts that constitute an indigenous phenomenon of Mongolic cultures. The study basically stems from the understanding that in terms of social development prospects traditional arts act as genetically related predecessors of modern ones. This is the reason there is certain interest in origins and development trends of ethnic traditions that figuratively mirror people’s mentality. The work focuses on the artistic vision of ancestors, their spatial picture of the world. Within the framework, it is urgent enough to identify peculiarities of worldviews developed by Mongolic nomads — the source materials for the first time ever being Kalmyk artistic felting patterns.
The study aims to analyze ornamental patterns that serve as core structural elements to create decorative felting compositions; to introduce into scientific discourse corresponding felting-related materials contained in the Museum of the Kalmyk Scientific Center of the RAS.
Methods. The interdisciplinary research methodology is predetermined by the comparative analysis of ornamental patterns aiming to reveal local features of Kalmyk felting arts. The traditional visual thinking, its symbolic fundamentals are investigated within the framework of art history and related academic disciplines, such as museology, ethnology, and culturology.
Results. In terms of expressive means, the examined ornamental patterns manifest logical features of the ancestors’ visual thinking, the former being arranged along elements of the nomadic world. The archetypes repeatedly inherited within the traditional ethnic system constitute certain peculiarities that form the folk Kalmyk applied arts style typical for the traditional artistic handicraft artifacts — including felting ones — contained in the Zaya Pandita Museum of Traditional Culture (KalmSC of RAS) and other museums of the republic.
The museum’s funds constituted by a number of nomadic lifestyle collections, including those of the Buddhist cult, serve as a source to explore folk decorative and applied arts, the latter being viewed within the system of Kalmyk artistic culture. The typical ornamental patterns of Kalmyk felting works are geometrical compositions characterized by distinct linear properties and laconic color schemes. The symmetry of ornamental decorative elements is underlined by respective fixed centers. Every certain quilting has top-and-down, central, left and right dimensions. Geometrically reversible ornamental patterns are also typical for Kalmyk decorative felting works. These are the spatial parameters of decorative felting items in the people’s traditional culture.
Conclusions. The paper identifies the archetypes of the traditional worldview of Kalmyk nomads and respective local peculiarities manifested in decorative felting arts. The common ethno-genetic backgrounds of Turko-Mongols includes certain ethnic peculiarities that take corresponding forms within spatial parameters of ornamental felting patterns.

Introduction. The second half of the 18th century is an important stage in the development of expeditionary activities by the Russian Academy of Sciences. Between 1768 and 1774, several expeditions across Russia were equipped, each being designated its special route and program. The majority of leaders the research teams were of German origin. Professor Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin was in charge of the expedition which headed towards the Caspian Sea. His instructions prescribed to collect and investigate various aspects of national economies, issues of culture, religion and language of local populations, natural resources, flora and fauna, etc. From a political perspective, the most important point was to study the Kalmyk ethnos, especially the organization of power (administrative) relations, genealogical tables of the Kalmyk nobility, their history and causes of the mass exodus of Kalmyks to Dzungaria in 1771 after the abolition of the autonomy of Khans. The sources to characterize S. G. Gmelin’s research activities in Astrakhan Governorate have been dispersed throughout various Russian and foreign archives.
Goals. The paper aims to systematize the data and provide an objective historical overview.
Methods. The research applied the methods of semantic analysis and translation of 18th-century handwritten sources, methods of microhistorical analysis and methods of prosopography.
Conclusions. The conducted analysis of archival sources results in a number of conclusions as follows. Firstly, the range of tasks and areas of work of S. G. Gmelin’s research expedition in Astrakhan Governorate was extremely wide and required the involvement of a large team of specialists from different fields of knowledge. That is why the professor would often turn to locals, most of the latter being members of Sarepta community. Secondly, under the pretext of scientific work, the academic detachment pursued, in particular, intelligence goals. This is confirmed by the widest range of tasks and the nature of data members of S. G. Gmelin’s party were looking for in the Kalmyk Steppe and uluses. Thirdly, the materials collected during the expeditionary work are of great interest for modern ethnographic studies, since they contain unique information about culture, language, national economy, and everyday life of the Kalmyks in the mid-to-late 18th century. But the fate of the last S. G. Gmelin’s works is still in question – he compiled the latter in 1773–1774 — as some part of the materials came into the possession of the Astrakhan merchant Nikolai Rentel, and a certain part was submitted to the Russian Academy of Sciences.

The article aims to introduce into scientific discourse Tibetan travel notes made by the member of the Russian Geographic Society Ovshe M. Norzunov at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries. The notes were published in the early 20th c. in French by the famous French natural scientist and anthropologist J. Deniker never to have been published in Russian. The diary notes have been translated from French into Russian by D. K. Voronina, edited and commented by B. L. Mitruev.
Between 1898 and 1901, Norzunov took three journeys to Tibet. The first journey – its route passed through Urga – took place in 1898–1899 and aimed to deliver some presents and Agvan Dorzhiev’s letter informing the Dalai Lama about the negotiations. The second attempt to reach Tibet from Darjeeling was made in early 1900 but Norzunov’s endeavor failed, and he was deported back to Russia. In late 1900, Norzunov joined a group headed by Khambo Lama Agvan Dorzhiev that on 28 February 1901 entered Lhasa. Norzunov was granted an audience with the 13th Dalai Lama and took the photographs of Lhasa to be subsequently published by J. Deniker and the Russian Geographic Society.
The travel materials collected by O. Norzunov are contained in St. Petersburg archives of the Russian Geographic Society. In 1901, Ovshe M. Norzunov was awarded a Big Silver Medal to distinguish his achievements in the service of the organization. In the same year, a photograph of his picturing the Potala was published by J. Deniker in the October issue of La Géographie (magazine). So, O. Norzunov became the first to have authored a published photograph of Lhasa.
In 1903, the RGO Bulletin (Rus. Izvestiya RGO) published a report by G. Ts. Tsybikov along with lists of best photographs by O. Norzunov and G. Tsybikov (45 and 32 images respectively). The lists were supplemented with 9 photographs of Lhasa by Norzunov picturing the Ganden and Tashi Lhunpo Monasteries (the latter being the Panchen Lama’s residence). Later the lists and corresponding photographs were printed additionally.
In the West a number of photographs by Norzunov and Tsybikov were published in various journals in 1903–1905, including as supplements to two articles by J. Deniker. Those provided a detailed narrative about Norzunov’s three journeys, the second publication being a French translation of his travel notes. Both the articles contained photographs taken by O. Norzunov in Lhasa and on his way to Tibet.
No Russian translation of Norzunov’s travel diaries have been published before. The paper provides a commented translation of O. Norzunov’s diaries, the source text being that of the French edition.

Introduction. The article analyzes the results of archaeological excavations conducted by a joint expedition of the Kalmyk Research Institute of Language, Literature and History, Kalmyk Republican Ethnography Museum, and Saratov State University in the territory of Kalmykia between 1961 and 1970. The works were directed by Uryubdzhur E. Erdniev and Ivan V. Sinitsyn. The historiographic review deals with publications of results of archaeological excavations held within mound burial sites (Lola 1 and 2, Arkhara, Elista, East Manych, Kermen Tolga, and Gashunsky) and analytical papers based on data obtained during explorations of the mentioned monuments.
Goals. The paper aims to analyze published works by I. Sinitsyn and U. Erdniev and gradually reintroduce the 1961–1970 studies into scientific discourse.
Methods. The work applies both common scientific methods (typology, comparison, analogy) and specific history research ones (the comparative-historical and typological-historical methods).
Results. The insight into results of I. Sinitsyn and U. Erdniev’s archeological surveys reveales that the bulk of the publications deal with monuments investigated between 1961 and 1970, and when it came to reconstruct elements of material and spiritual cultures data from archeological studies once held in adjacent territories were used. Certain parts of the works examine results of field excavations, namely, describe the mounds, burials, sacrificial sites, and discovered remains of the buried individuals and accompanying utensils. Some publications deal with outcomes of field excavations only, being released in the form of separate articles in a number of collections, while others are essentially analytical papers investigating monuments of certain cultures and periods that were published as articles conference reports. The publications consolidated results of the large scale archeological excavations, and were – then and there – unique ones to have described cultural and historical processes inherent to ancient and medieval communities that had inhabited Kalmykia and adjacent territories.
It is also noteworthy that in the face of the then vigorous economic activities within the Ergeni Upland and Kuma-Manych Depression all the investigated monuments were threatened with complete destruction. And it was only due to U. Erdniev and I. Sinitsyn’s initiatives and efforts that the numerous monuments never disappeared but were preserved for science, and the results of those works were used in their reviews and reports, and are still applied by contemporary researchers.

Introduction. The words denoting tools of trade are of particular interest since those are integral to the lexical layer which can be defined as ‘household vocabulary’, while, it would be no exaggeration to say, this lexical layer forms the basis of any language and reflects the processes occurring in the language, particularly the facts of contacts with other cultures that would have resulted in linguistic borrowings.
Goals. The article deals with the vocabulary denoting tools of trade in The Secret History of the Mongols. The study primarily aims to track the etymology of the words in question and discover their parallels in the modern Khalkha, Buryat and Kalmyk languages, since, in some cases, when the etymology is unclear, the fact of presence of phonetically and semantically identical lexical units in the mentioned major Mongolic languages to have acquired official state and republican status may be regarded as an additional evidence of the common Mongolic origin of the vocabulary under study.
Materials. The language of The Secret History of the Mongols is the oldest physically existing (written) and, thus, analyzable form of the literary Mongolian language.
Results. It has been chosen as a source of linguistic material because the conclusions regarding the forming processes of household vocabulary would have thus a solid basis. The paper describes the following lexical items: büleü/büleür ‘churning staff, a wooden stick with two cross-pieces or a disk on one end for beating kumiss’, aur ‘mortar; vessel in which substances are pounded or rubbed’, kituqay ‘knife’, süke ‘axe’, šiüci ‘chisel’, šibüge ‘awl’, tebene ‘a large needle used for sewing leather and other stiff material’, čalir ‘iron bar for demolishing rocks, breaking ice, etc.; crowbar, wrecking bar’, gölmi qubčiur ‘large fishing net’, gü:rege ‘bellows’, uqali ‘adze’, kirüe ‘saw’. It has been revealed that most of the words listed belong to the common Mongolic household vocabulary, and the words tebene ‘a large needle used for sewing leather and other stiff material’ and gü:rege ‘bellows’ are related to their common Turkic equivalents.

The article contains a concise frequency ranking dictionary of Mongolian word forms ― a list representing a basic vocabulary of modern Mongolian. The General Corpus of Modern Mongolian (Rus. GKMYa) served as a source of data to calculate frequencies of respective word forms. A most distinctive feature of the dictionary is that the introduced items have been structured categorially and semantically. The latter shall contribute to resolve further typological tasks with respect to world languages, i. e., it is reckoned to secure potential typological compatibility of the dictionary with similarly structured dictionaries of other languages. The work is based on principles of quantitative Mongolistics developed by the author in a number of preceding papers. So, the article provides 454 basic modern Mongolian word forms applied within GKMYa-1a, the absolute frequency of use exceeding 255 ipm and the relative one exceeding 220 ipm respectively. The table includes: (I.) name of a word form acc. to its quasi-orthographic record. A quasi-orthographic record differs from an essentially orthographic one in that the whole of case differences (upper case / lower case) are discarded; (II.) generalized grammatem (i. e., this includes not only grammatems as such but also clusters of homographic grammatems); (III.) generalized lexeme (i. e., this includes not only lexemes as such but also clusters of homographic lexemes); (IV.) semantic marking gloss attached to a certain word form or lexeme (strictly speaking, it is attached to a member of the cluster of homographic segments coinciding with the word form’s name). This column functions as an non-formal mnemonic reminder for the user/typologist (especially one with no expertise in Mongolian) clarifying a lexical meaning of that word form; (V.) categorial-semantic marking assigned to the word form (i. e., the cluster of homographic word forms) within GKMYa; (VI.) absolute frequency of the word form (i. e., the clustered homographic word forms) within GKMYa-1a; (VII.) rank of the word form (i. e., the clustered homographic word forms); (VIII.) number of GKMYa-1a-indexed texts to contain the word form (i.e., the cluster of homographic word forms); (IX.) rank of the word form (i. e., the cluster of homographic word forms) within the frequency dictionary in decreasing order by quantity of GKMYa-1a-indexed texts. The ranking dictionary of word forms is represented in the form of a table structured acc. to decreasing values of parameter VIII (and increasing values of parameter IX respectively).

Materials. The article examines A Grammar of Spoken Buryat-Mongolian issued by A. Orlov in 1878. A. Orlov’s Grammar was written as a practical guide to study the Buryat language. The work aims to revisit the category of voice within the Grammar in comparison with the facts of modern Buryat, to compare Grammar’s language materials dealing with the category to present-day grammatical voice structures.
Goals. The paper ascertains that A. Orlov’s Grammar contains quite precise characteristics of the Buryat verb, including voices of the verb, their morphological indicators. The illustrative materials indicate his sufficiently deep knowledge of lexical and grammatical features of the Buryat language.
In the Introduction to the ‘Verb’ section, A. Orlov divides verbs into primitives and derivatives, exemplifying the differences throughout extensive materials, revealing a deep understanding of the structure of Buryat verbs derived from nominal parts of speech, adverbs and particles which was extremely rare for a non-native speaker in those times.
When examining the language, the paper seeks to highlight A. Orlov’s scientific approach to Buryat grammar studies: his Grammar considered all varieties of the Buryat voice, ways of expression, marking and partially ― polysemy markers; it also considers the morphological indicators of the verb selected by A. Orlov as indicators of the voice. The analysis of the voices in modern Buryat revealed as follows: it is difficult to say that morphological indicators of the Buryat voices unequivocally convey meanings of the passive, or сausative, or reciprocal, or any other voices. For example, suffixes of the causative (hortative) can have a passive meaning, and it may be necessary to turn to the semantic-syntactic level of the language to differentiate between the meanings.
Results. In modern Buryat, voice meanings are often transmitted in a syntactic or lexical way (e. g., reflexive meaning). The verbal suffixes listed in Orlov’s Grammar received further development, their taxonomy was replenished, and the category of voice has been considered wider ― including lexical, semantic, syntactic levels of the Buryat language, although after a century and a half after the release of the Grammar morphological indicators have basically remained unchanged.
The article draws conclusions about the need to consider the voice from the viewpoint of its multi-level expression; description of the understudied forms -ootey, eetey, -aatai which, in the author’s opinion, arose under the influence of the Russian language.
In the Buryat language — like in other Mongolian languages when it comes to convey grammatical meanings within a word — the influence of the lexical meaning is often observed, especially in cases when the grammatical category has no specialized, regular means of expression. In the category of voice, the expression plan and the content plan are asymmetric, so nowadays one can say that it is the functional-semantic field that gives rise to lexical-grammatical microfields.

Goals. The article is devoted to the study of Proverbs of the Bashkir language represented by one-member verbal sentences. All productive models of one-member verbal sentences in Bashkir Proverbs are analyzed in detail, the statistics of distribution of sentences by syntactic types are presented.
Materials. The texts of paremiological genres included in the Corpus of folklore texts of the Bashkir language were used as a material. Today, the proverbial database of the Corpus under consideration is the most representative in the Bashkir paremiology and includes texts of the proverbial genre published in separate volumes of the multi-volume academic publication “The Bashkir Folk Art”, expedition materials issued by the staff of the Department of folkloristics of the Institiute of History, Language, and Literature UFRC RAS wounds over the last 20 years.
Results. The authors show that the functioning of Proverbs in the Bashkir language with the structure of one-member verbal sentences is primarily associated with their generalizing character, which is expressed by the personal-temporal use of the verbal predicate. In the sentences under study, predicates expressed by a finite verb and analytical forms report actions and States regardless of a particular person. The subject of the action acts as a generalized person.
It is revealed that in the Corpus of folklore of the Bashkir language Proverbs of the considered type consist of generalized-personal, impersonal, indefinite-personal sentences.
The prevalence of the imperative in Bashkir Proverbs in comparison with other verbal categories is determined, which points to the characteristic feature of the Bashkir paremia, aimed at expressing the will and didactics, which states the function of Proverbs in statistical terms is much inferior to the imperative.

Introduction. The modern way of self-cognition and that of the surrounding world is a systematic and consistent assessment and interpretation through language pictures of the world. Comparative education is one of the means to determine the ethno-linguistic core of the linguistic consciousness of language speakers.
Goals. The paper – on the basis of materials from a number of Turkic and one Mongolic (Kalmyk) languages – aims to investigate the main typological forms to express comparative relations through three main objectives as follows: a) identification of lexical-semantic groups; b) identification of their respective grammatical forms; c) determination of their typological affinity within the languages under consideration.
Materials. With evidence from Turkic and Mongolic (Kalmyk) languages the paper investigates the basic typological forms expressing relations of comparison by three major groups: a) ones with lexical indicators of comparison, b) comparative constructions with morphological indicators of comparison, c) comparative constructions with indicators included into predicative units and explicit phrases. Those are two prose books by the classic of Soviet Kalmyk literature B. Dordzhiev - a novel in two parts 'The Right Way' and a collection of essays and short stories 'People of My Generation' - that serve as research illustrative materials. Turkic samples have been borrowed from newspaper and folklore texts, as well as fiction books. The continuous sampling method has been used to collect over 200 diverse forms of comparative constructions from the mentioned texts for further conclusions.
Results. The three main lexical and syntactic groups of comparative constructions in the Mongolic and Turkic languages examined along with their functional and grammatical characteristics make it possible to speak about a typological proximity of mechanisms and types of comparative patterns in the explored languages.

Introduction. The article considers and analyzes efforts of domestic and foreign folklore specialists to compile indexes of folklore genres. So far there is no universal index to have united epic materials of various cultures. The index of epic motifs being developed is based on texts of six songs of the Baγa-Tsokhor and Baγa-Dorbet cycles of the Kalmyk heroic epic of Jangar recorded in the mid- and late 19th century.
Goals. The work aims to develop principles and methods of compiling an index of motifs traced within the early cycles of the Kalmyk epos of Jangar (Baγa-Tsokhor and Baγa-Dorbet ones).
Methods. A structural-semantic approach allows to study this perspective in detail, to disclose semantics of a certain motif and more widely consider a motif fund of the Kalmyk epic tradition which will is, in turn, compared with the all-Mongolic epic fund of motifs.
Results. The research identifies three motif blocks, namely: ‘epic time and space’, ‘a feast of heroes’ and ‘the hero’s biography’ that also to be divided into separate motifs. The first block, ‘epic time and space’, reflects motifs of an epic prolog ― the ‘exposition motifs’ which are least dynamic within an epos plot. The early cycles contain sizeable epic prologues which make a third in some epic songs. Motifs of a prologue most informatively reflect a picture of the world, give important information and serve as codes for interpretation of cosmogonical representations of the ethnos. The second block of motifs, a feast of heroes’, contains the ‘linking motifs’ facilitating further deployment of a plot. A feast in the Kalmyk epic serves a starting point of an epic plot. A message about intentions of antagonists predicted by the prophet or an antagonist hero to have arrived to a feast acts as a dynamic beginning of the sequence of events. This is followed by that a hero to tackle the challenge is determined by a lot or self-promotion. And it is here that the place and time of another meeting of heroes is discussed. The feast comes to an end after a departure of the chosen hero. Pictures of the feast in a prologue and a final part are similar. The third block of motifs, ‘the hero’s biography’, reveals stages in the biography of the epic hero and contains sections, such as miraculous birth, heroic childhood, marriage collisions, combat collisions, death. This block contains the main standard motifs, most dynamic ‘event motifs’, ‘motifs of action’.
Conclusions. The Baγa-Tsokhor and Baγa-Dorbet cycles of the Jangar represent the earliest records (19th century) the Kalmyk heroic epic. The cycles retain a rich archaic motif fund stemming from mythology and preceding epic traditions. Systematization of epic motifs is based on the biographic description of an epic character and is constructed according to a song plot.