The article examines participation of the Buddhist clergy in social and political life of the Kalmyk uluses and interaction with the government of Russia and regional authorities after 1771. The exodus of a considerable part of Kalmyks to China determined creation of a new system of social and political contacts between the Russian government and Kalmyk secular and clerical elites, a new structure of interaction between Buddhist monastic complexes of the Kalmyk uluses. The measures implemented by the government for isolation of the Kalmyk Buddhist clergy from their coreligionists in China and Tibet and those of the regional authorities aimed at isolation of politically dangerous lamas to prevent further decampment are analyzed in the article. Specific changes in missionary activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Kalmyk uluses in the 1770-1780s are investigated. Defined are the main directions of restrictive policies imposed upon the Kalmyk Buddhist clergy by the Russian government at the same time striving to retain constructive bilateral contact in the context of the social and political crises in the Kalmyk uluses. Using a set of unpublished historical records (correspondence between Astrakhan governor N. Y. Arshenevskiy and Sobing-bagshi) formation of the new interaction system between the Kalmyk clerical elites and Astrakhan governors in the 80-90s of the 18th century has been described.

After abolition of the Kalmyk Khanate in 1771 and through the February Revolution of 1917 its population was administered by the Astrakhan Governor’s Executive Office. In accordance with the Provisional Government’s policies a reorganization of the Kalmyk people’s administrative system was initiated. At the First Congress of the Kalmyk people held in March of 1917, the curatorial system was abolished and a decision was made to introduce local self-government headed by the Central Committee for Kalmyk People’s Administration in Kalmyk Steppe. Pursuant to introduction of the zemstvo an attempt was made to reorganize Kalmyk Steppe into a self-governing region (oblast). At the same time movement for conversion of the Kalmyks to Cossacks was initiated. After the establishment of the Soviet regime in Astrakhan Governorate, a Kalmyk Section was formed under the Governorate’s Executive Committee. It was able to create a system of soviets (councils), hold a number of the soviets’ meetings and form the Kalmyk Executive Committee with sectoral government bodies. The Kalmyk Executive Committee directed its activities to create national statehood on the principles of internal territorial self-determination.

The article deals with the formation of the legal basis for anti-religious policy in the Soviet State during 1917-1929. Having come to power in unstable political situation the Soviet government issued the first decrees and resolutions establishing the legislative basis of the new Russia. For years these documents determined the foreign and domestic policies of the state, regulated lifestyles during that period of time. Religious legislation served not only the basis for religious policy but also regulated activities of establishments and organizations in this direction. Legislative provisions pertaining to religion were reflected in the first Constitution of the RSFSR (1918) and in some decrees. The main regulations that determined attitude of the Bolshevik Party and Soviet State toward religion, church and clergy were developed, amplified and set forth in the basic legislative act - Decree on the Separation of Church from State and School from Church signed by V. I. Lenin and issued by the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR on 23 January 1918. Proceeding from the principle of freedom of conscience, the Decree declared religion to be a private affair of individuals in Russia. This is why the 1918 Constitution of the RSFSR (Article 13) admitted and guaranteed “Freedom of religious and anti-religious propaganda” (later corresponding amendments would be adopted to the regulation). Striving to undermine the centuries-old faith in God, separate the population from religion and church, compel people to give up religious prejudices and implant a materialistic world outlook in the “toiling masses”, the Communist Party initiated an active anti-religious (i.e. atheistic) propaganda as the main part of its ideological work. Conducted on a regular basis and in accordance with the party and state policy, anti-religious propaganda was supported by state-funding and required considerable efforts with all factors considered (social environment, peculiarities of the national character, faiths, etc.), including world public opinion. According to the VTsIK Decree on Religious Associations of 8 April 1929, religious communities were not to do anything but meet religious needs of citizens. All its regulations were to prevent religious communities from participating in social life. They were prohibited from giving social support to the population, holding educational and religious events, administering charity and other activities except for ritual ones. It was also noticed that the priests’ sphere of work was limited to church members’ homes and meetinghouses. Thus, the clergy had just the role of performers of religious ceremonies, while the rest of the functions were completely monopolized by the state authorities.

This article examines the specific features of Buddhist priests’ training in Kalmyk Cossack communities within the Ural Host, their ordination and religious services. It is noted that isolation of the Ural Kalmyks from Buddhist religious centers adversely affected the level of religious education and resulted in monks’ simplified, rote understanding of Buddhist divine services and rituals. The ethnoconfessional group of Kalmyk Buddhists that took shape within the Ural Cossack Host by the early 20th century was the smallest part of its military population. Settlements of Kalmyk Cossacks were located in all three military districts. No description of the confessional structure of the Buddhist community within the Ural Cossack Host during the late imperial period has been found. This might be due to the loss of the archives during the Russian Civil War. The unique exception being an ethnographic survey - the Report on the Trip to Terek, Ural and Orenburg Kalmyks in 1911 by the Ministry of National Education Council member, professor of Saint Petersburg University Alexey M. Pozdneev. The expedition undertaken by A. M. Pozdneev was aimed to study daily religious activities of the local Kalmyk population. The materials collected during the trip were to serve as the basis of the draft Bill on Administration over Spiritual Affairs of Lamaist Buddhists. Due to the fact Kalmyks were dispersed unevenly among settlements, the Ural Buddhists practiced two systems of teaching the fundamentals of religious doctrine. In case the believers were numerous enough, confessional schools were established. When the believers were few, one or two students were assigned to Gelongs who tutored them individually. According to the 1835 Rules enacted by the Ural Host Office, priests attached to houses of worship were to be elected to a vacant position by the population and then appointed by the Ural Regional Government. The indispensable condition for such appointment, as determined by the regional authorities, was that the candidate priest should submit a Certificate of Ordination issued by the Office of the Kalmyk People’s Supreme Lama. Such Certificate served as a formal document to confirm the elected priest is competent enough to hold the vacant position. As distinguished from the Buddhist clergy of the Astrakhan and Don Kalmyks, acquiring the official status of a Getsul (Sramaneri) or a Gelong (Bhikkhu) the Ural priests neither became monks nor went to seclusion. They continued to lead a secular life, fulfilled family obligations, brought up children, were engaged in fatigue duties and field works. The only responsibility the employed priests bore was to take part in divine services on certain days and read various prayers upon the requests of believers.

The article examines the problem of registration and legalization of activities by the central and local government bodies in respect of the German religious organizations in the Kalmyk ASSR in the second half of the 1950-1980s. Once the German population returned to Kalmykia from places of deportation in the late 1950s, revival of Protestant organizations was initiated. Groups of Baptist, Pentecostal and Lutheran adepts appeared in the areas of compact settlement of Germans in Gorodovikovsky and Yashaltinsky districts. Since the second half of the 1960s Evangelical Baptists, the most numerous community as compared to other Protestant organizations, boosted their activities to get their groups registered by government bodies. Under various pretexts the republican and municipal authorities refused their registration and at the same time strictly prohibited them from conducting religious worship. And it was the central regulatory body - Council for Religious Faiths under the Council of Ministers of the USSR - that put an end to confrontation of the two sides by registering the largest Baptist organizations in the villages of Ulyanovka (Yashaltinsky district) and Vinogradnoe (Gorodovikovsky district) in 1969 - despite protests of the republican authorities. Their legalization was determined not only by internal but rather by foreign policy factors. No other Baptists were afforded registration in the 1970-1980s, while small groups usually numbering 6 to 15 members were incorporated into larger associations. During the late 1950-1980s there were five groups of Pentecostals in Kalmykia each numbering 7 to 35 members in various years. All of them were in the areas of compact settlement of Germans in Yashaltinsky and Gorodovikovsky districts. The Soviet authorities characterized Pentecostals’ religious doctrine as “pernicious” and those could not be subject to registration which resulted in their illegal operation in Kalmykia during the period under consideration. In the Kalmyk ASSR there were also two groups of Lutherans residing in Yashaltinsky and Gorodovikovsky districts. One of the groups (in Krasnopolye) was too small and had no chances to be registered, the other one (in Yuzhny, Gorodovikovsky district) was registered only in 1986 after some positive changes in the state religious policies had been promoted. The work has been written from materials of the National Archives of the Republic of Kalmykia, most of them have never been introduced into scientific discourse before.

The article deals with the Cossack restoration movement in Kalmykia. In the late 1980s and early 1990s a social process termed “Cossack restoration” began to develop in Russia. Emerging Cossack organizations united Cossack descendants and other activists who campaigned for restoration and preservation of the Cossack culture and historical truth about Cossacks. In Kalmykia the movement developed quickly. It has united Kalmyk Cossacks and ensured restoration and preservation of historical memory of that community, its cultural traditions, and helped establish close connections between Cossacks of Kalmykia and Cossack organizations from other regions of Russia. Though the restoration process in Kalmykia shared many common features with those in other regions, it had a number of distinctions. Those were primarily caused by the ethnic and cultural grounds of Kalmyk Cossacks and also by the fact that the cultural traditions of that community had been eroded and suppressed in much larger degree than those of Cossack communities in other regions. Kalmyk Cossacks had been displaced from their historical territory and there are no original Kalmyk Cossack stanitsas (villages) left. One can say that Kalmyk Cossacks were repressed by state authorities twice: first as Cossacks and later as Kalmyks. Nevertheless Kalmyk Cossack descendants were able to retain memory of their Cossack origin. In the 1990s they took an active part in the Cossack restoration movement. The article gives details about formation of the first Cossack organization, its goals, and organizational stages of the Cossack restoration movement in Kalmykia. Also the periods are distinguished when Kalmyk Cossacks were unified as a community organization and then entered the Paramilitary Cossack Community “The Almighty Don Host”. General lines of activity of Kalmyk Cossack organizations followed the restoration process seen as revival of the key elements and factors of the Cossack existence prior to the 1920s. The elements specified by all Cossack organizations in the south of Russia were as follows: special system of Cossack land use, military service, and self-governance. Apart from this, support and promotion of the Cossack culture and participation in patriotic education of the youth proved important spheres of Cossack organizations’ activities. Kalmyk Cossack organizations were engaged in all those activities. In the 1990s Cossacks were active in economic life, whilst in the 2000s they shifted their main efforts to state service and patriotic education, particularly after their organizations had been introduced into the state register. The principal activities of Cossack organizations in Kalmykia included formation of Cossack volunteer squads and pre-service training of young men. The participation of Kalmyk Cossack organizations in social and economic processes in the 1990s and early 2000s contributed to their social importance. Government bodies were created in Kalmykia to supervise and support the Cossack organizations’ activities in the republic. Thus, the Cossacks were recognized an important part of Kalmykia's life.

The research activities of the Imperial Moscow Archaeological Society founded by count A. S. Uvarov in 1864 were first concentrated mainly in the fields of Russian history, archaeology, traditional culture. The 5th Archaeological Congress held in 1881 in Tiflis laid the foundation for systematic studies of the Caucasus. Further archaeological, historical, folklore and linguistic researches among different peoples of the North Caucasus resulted in the establishment of the Oriental Commission as part of the Imperial Moscow Archaeological Society in 1887. The aim of the Commission was to study all non-Slavic peoples of the former Russian Empire. Since the Commission comprised specialists of mostly Caucasian origin that worked in various scientific and educational institutions of Moscow, peoples of the North Caucasus and Transcaucasia became central to their research. In 27 years the Oriental Commission conducted a number of archaeological expeditions throughout the Caucasus; its employees were engaged in searches, investigation, translation and publication of diverse manuscripts and printed materials on various peoples of the Caucasus, made a huge contribution to the identification, restoration and preservation of valuable cultural artifacts of Caucasian history for future generations; contributed a lot to the education of the first national intelligentsia representatives among different peoples of the Caucasus who were to explore their native land. The results of this truly herculean work that can hardly be overestimated were systematically published in several periodicals. A series of works of the Ancient East (journal) published by the Oriental Commission are especially noteworthy. Not only academic works of the Oriental Commission employees were regularly published but also the records of its regular meetings at which these works had been discussed carefully were published in the Ancient East. A careful study of all these documentary sources has allowed the author to not only have a close look at the history of the creation of the Oriental Commission but also evaluate that enormous amount of work carried out at the turn of the 20th century. Moreover, researches conducted by members of the Oriental Commission largely determined the path of development of Caucasian studies in the 20th century.

The article discusses the history of collecting, preservation and use of the documentary heritage of South Korea. It also analyses the historical experience of collecting sources since ancient times. It is underlined that in Korea special attention has traditionally been granted to history and archives since the establishment of the History Department in the 10th century. The paper describes the main stages in the formation of the archival heritage of Korea. It deals with the notion of the so called “silllok” - the sources for the “chonsa” dynastic records - that turned out to be short everyday notes and weather chronicles. It is emphasized that seven hand-written South Korean historic masterpieces were included in UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme. The history of the creation of different national archives, manuscript departments and libraries as well as the main trends in their activities are being analyzed; the article also features the composition of the archives and the contents of their documentary funds. A network of the contemporary archives of the Republic of Korea is presented. The article accentuates that it is necessary to study and use the South Korean experience in electronic document management in present-day practice, including the system of electronic document turnover at state organizations which is connected with the electronic archives and the verification system of historic electronic signatures.

The article deals with the history of development of livestock farming among the Irmen people in the Late Bronze Age. The authors’ analysis of a number of research works revealed that Irmen population had a pastoral type of economy with cattle prevailing in the livestock and a smaller proportion of horses and sheep. In addition, it was revealed that the main trend in the pastoral farming development was the formation of distant-pasture cattle rearing. The review of scientific studies showed that the Irmen people of the forest-steppe part of West Siberia had both summer and winter settlements and practiced winter cattle housing. Cattle grazing was conducted within floodplain valleys of large rivers, as well as on remote pasture fields. The conclusions about the use of horses primarily as riding and draft animals, as well as those about their specific ritual role in the Late Bronze Age are rather essential. A conclusion was drawn about individualization of horses’ burials in funeral complexes and connection between burials of horse skulls and certain buried subjects. As a rule, those are cases of men who acted as community leaders. Burials of such men usually marked a series of mounds within Irmen barrows. The rise of the tradition in the Irmen culture is explained in terms of the gradual increase of horses’ role in the economy of southern West Siberia. A hypothesis was also drawn according to which orientation of horse skulls to the northeast or southwest symbolized the rising of the sun in the northeast during the summer solstice and its setting in the southwest during the winter solstice. And the number of horse skulls in Irmen burial mounds symbolizes the number of months during which the sunrise and sunset points make significant shifts to the northeast and southwest respectively. Thus, horse skulls turned to the northeast symbolize the spring and summer months that “carry” the sun towards warmth and increasing daylight. The skulls turned the southwest, on the opposite, “carry” the fading sun towards the cold of winter. The mythological and calendar symbolism stems from the traditions of the early Andronovo sepulchral complexes with their southwestern orientation of buried horses (imitating a yoke) and those of Andronovo burials with the southwestern orientation of human remains. It was understood that the steady tradition of horse burials took shape in the livestock-raising communities of the steppe and forest-steppe zones of Eurasia. In terms of archaeology, the sources of the tradition are well fixed in Bronze Age artifacts and found interpretation in Indo-European rituals. The privileged position of the horse found its archaeological reflection in Irmen house-building, burial and commemorative rituals. The location analysis of animal bone remains within the sacral space of Irmen burial mounds has shown that heads (skulls) and skins of horses had been used by the Irmen people most frequently during burial and subsequent commemorative ceremonies of the funeral cycle.

The article characterizes the unique high-rise monumental architectural structures of the 18th century - tower and crypt buildings on the territory of Chechnya that form a special complex of historic monuments and material artifacts of the Chechens. As compared to residential towers the military ones are the pinnacle of the ancient Chechens’ architecture and engineering. The Chechen military towers are especially distinguished by “mashikuls” - small protective balconies in the upper floor for successful defense - and large stylized depictions of crosses, snakes, animals and people carved in stone. Some of the tower complexes on the territory of Chechnya can be referred to as “castles” (Pakoch Castle in the valley of the Chanty-Argun river; Aldam-Gezi in the village of Kezenoy; a castle near Galanchozh). A substantial proportion of the architectural monuments in the mountainous areas of Chechnya are those of sepulchral nature - underground and semi-underground crypts as well as elevated ones (malkh-kash). At times the crypt constructions made up “towns of the dead” with houses of various shape and size - the local necropolises. Next to the “towns of the dead” Chechens used to build up sanctuaries - temples. There were two types of sanctuaries. In the 16th through the 18th centuries the pagan sanctuaries and Christian temples were replaced by Muslim mosques that were built of stone and retained features of the traditional architecture. During the period under consideration the Chechens’ settlements were located both in the mountains and on the plains. Living conditions on the plains were found more comfortable by the local population.

The article provides an overview of Buddhist sculpture in the museum collection of the KIH of the RAS. The object of the study is the traditional art in the form of devotional articles. The author considers the sculptural images and reveals the structure, essence and ethnic peculiarities of works of Buddhist art created in Kalmykia. The collection of Buddhist sculpture compiled since the establishment of the KIH Museum (RAS) in 2000 for the districts of the republic should be subject to further studies that would combine methods of museology, ethnic culturology, etc. The pieces of art in the Buddhist collection of the KIH Museum (RAS) are part of the traditional culture of the Kalmyks. The religious sculptures gathered in the early 21st century make a section in the permanent exhibition of the Zaya Pandita Museum of Traditional Culture. Being the cultural heritage of the nomads in terms of the peculiar way they reproduced the Buddhist iconographic canon, the exhibit items represent the ethnic tradition that can be identified in the artistic image.

The aim of the study is to analyze the internal migration from the Republic of Kalmykia to other regions of the Russian Federation, mostly to Moscow. The ethnographic study draws upon interviews and the author’s observations made in rural districts of the Republic of Kalmykia in 2006-2015. Kalmykia is one of the regions that get depopulated as a result of the migratory exchange with other subjects, while the mortality rate - especially in rural areas - is high. However, the real extent of temporary labor mobility is underestimated in the present-day literature and the actual number of non-permanent migrants is significantly higher whereas most of them are not reflected in the official statistics. The paper argues that there is no border between different types of temporary, permanent and circular mobility for our respondents. In terms of inter-ethnic aspects, the migration changes the traditional norms. People involved into the migration develop a hybrid identity of belonging to different communities. Nevertheless, temporariness can affect the various choices of migrants and their families including the trends to use practices of shadow economy because of the official Moscow policy with its bureaucratic barriers aimed at preventing mass migration into the city and the fact the owners avoid helping both internal and external migrant workers with registration in their apartments. The “internal migrants” are regarded as “alien migrants” in public discourse and this leads to a separation and marginalization of internal non-Russian ethnic migrant workers in the city which reduces potential benefits of the mobility. Like international labor migrants, internal migrants want to maintain or improve their living standards, however, temporary migration implies harsh and uncomfortable living and working conditions. The study of migration processes in the local context helps understand different aspects of internal mobility and the influence of migrants’ social life on local communities.

A unique role of the language in the history of mankind is an undeniable truth. From this perspective, the history of languages is of great interest for scientists. Of course, the Persian language is no exception in this regard. It was one of the three main languages (Turkish, Arabic and Persian) of the Middle and Far East during the middle Ages, still those were non-Persian, particularly the Azerbaijani poets, writers and lexicographers who had contributed to the development of this language. It is no coincidence that the beginnings of Persian lexicography took shape in the work “تفاسیر” (“Tefasir”) of the great Azerbaijani scholar and poet Qatran Tabrizi in the beginning of the eleventh century. This article explores the works by the famous statesmen and Azerbaijani scholars Hindushah Nakhchivani and his son Mahammad ibn Hindusah Nakhchivani in the field of the Persian language of that time and scientifically substantiates their role in the formation and development of the lexicography of this language.

The article summarizes results achieved by scholars representing different generations and linguistic traditions in studies of Mongolian sentence information structure. The notion of information structure was introduced by M. A. K. Halliday on the grounds of V. Mathesius’s theory of “the actual division of the sentence” (or “thematic-rhematic articulation of the sentence”), but the former developed his own view on this issue. The principal distinction between these two theories is that M. Halliday treats such entities as givenness, focus, topic, etc. as matters of individual cognitive process, whereas V. Mathesius considers them to depend mainly on context and “consituation”. Currently, M. A. K. Halliday’s information structure theory is deemed to be more consistent and, therefore, referred to more frequently. Nevertheless, back in the 1980s when first articles on Mongolian sentence information structure started to appear the views of the Prague Linguistic Circle were more widely accepted among Soviet specialists in Mongolian studies, and the pioneer works on information structure of a Mongolian sentence were written in the mould of structuralism. The first papers written on the subject belonged to Moscow and Leningrad scholars Z. K. Kas’yanenko (1973), M. N. Orlovskaya (1984), Z. V. Shevernina (1984), and the American linguist L. B. Hammar (Indiana University Bloomington) who had presented her Ph. D. thesis under the title “Syntactic and Pragmatic Options in Mongolian: a Study of Bol and N” (1983). Those works by the afore-mentioned linguists mostly concerned word order in a Mongolian sentence from the perspective of the “actual division”, and special particles, which are viewed in modern linguistics as topic, focus, verification, and emphasis markers. A couple of decades later, Mongolian scholars attempted to describe their native language in terms of the latest trends of the world linguistics and their works - those by M. Bazarragcha, Z. Guliranz, G. Jambalsuren, B. Purev-Ochir - have become a valuable source of examples, showing various types of structures, such as thetic sentences, sentences with preposition of rheme and so on. Lately several works on intonation in the contemporary Mongolian language have been published. However, unfortunately, one can hardly find any comprehensive study of the relation between information structure and intonation in modern Mongolian. This subject is likely to be a fruitful field for further research.

The article focuses on the analysis of the principles of technical terms systemic organization within the terminology. Despite the general acceptance that systemacy is important in understanding the nature of the terminology lexicon, it has not been studied in detail and is usually mentioned in research papers when generalizations about structural or semantic regularities of technical terms belonging to a certain terminology are revealed. The hypothesis is that the peculiarities of systemacy as one of the key and defining characteristics of technical terms may be studied by means of modeling the terminology system using principles of semantic network construction. Consequently, the authors claim that the semantic network may reveal the adjacent technical terms as well as their overall number for each separate technical term in a terminological system and study the degree of systemacy and character of their systemic interaction. These constitute the objectives of the study. The examples are drawn from the actively developing terminology of nanotechnology sphere to illustrate and support the findings. A terminological network may be considered a type of a semantic network the vertices of which represent technical terms and arcs express the semantic relations between them. The suggested approach to terminological network construction presumes the division of the semantic relations as well as the classification of vertices into defined types that reflect the natural stratification of technical terms into categories in accordance with the specificity of their referents that makes it different from some earlier proposed methods. Thus, the terminology network allows a somewhat different perspective and more detailed study of the systemacy of technical terms within a given language for special purposes because it helps to identify the features of their organization and position of each technical term in relation to the adjacent technical terms. It may also shed light on the semantic relations that a given technical term sets up with the adjacent terms as well as those that are typical for certain categories of technical terms. The degree of adjacency is defined by means of division of the adjacent terms into the first order (that appear in the definition of the given technical term) and the second order (the conceptual relationship with which becomes clear in specialized texts). The analyzed fragment illustrates that nanopowder is related to technical terms of certain categories. Technical terms of the second order predominate. The technical terms of the first order (representing a generic concept, characteristics and constituent parts) establish AKO, At and PO semantic relations with the given technical term. Among the types of vertices predominate the category of process and the technical terms that refer to it are linked to nanopowder by R and Obj semantic relations. The article discusses why nanopowder does not establish some semantic relations with the technical terms of certain vertices types.

The article focuses on the other national, particularly Kalmyk component in I. I. Lazhechnikov’s historical novel “The Ice House” (1835). Ethnographic details of the Kalmyk national culture and everyday life presented in the novel are supposed to expand the image of historical and ethnographic aspects of life of different peoples in the multinational Russia and show the growing interest of the Russian romanticists in “other” nationalities, alien culture. The author of the article analyses characteristic features of the way Lazhechikov depicts facts of Kalmyk life that are ethnographic by nature and add to its specific historical colouring: national portrait details (the Kalmyk’s “mole eyes”); Kalmyk weapon (“a quiver of arrows”); a special form of offerings performed by Kalmyks to deities during Buddhist rituals (figures of dough and butter - “torma”); a means of transport (“Kalmyks riding camels”); types of Kalmyk traditional clothing (Kalmyk sheepskin coat, fur coat). The author of the article points out that references to the Kalmyks, elements of their culture and everyday life scattered through the text of the novel are rather informative and laconic, thus, indicating, on the one hand, the writer’s attempt to make his narrative historically verisimilar and, on the other hand, the emergence of ethnographic trends in the Russian literary process in the first third of the 19th century. Particular attention is drawn to one of the main characters of the novel - Akulina Savvishna Podachkina whose prototype was a Kalmyk woman Evdokia Ivanovna Buzheninova, Anna Ioannovna’s court jester. The plot of the novel is based on the well-known historical fact of the “ice” wedding between the Kalmyk female court jester Buzheninova and a disgraced nobleman, the court appointed entertainer Golitsyn. The author of the article compares the historical prototype with the character in the novel, revealing Podachkina’s temper and role of in the plot of the story. The character sketch of the “lady’s maid” Podachkina remains mentally unidentified, Lazhechnikov does not indicate the female character’s national identity, though the repeated references to the Kalmyk people and thorough study of scholarly works on the steppe people’s life show his good acquaintance with Kalmyk culture and everyday life. Lack of attention to the female character’s nationality is determined by the insufficient biographical information regarding the Kalmyk female court jester and the author’s position who deliberately ignores the fact and moves the emphasis from the historical truth to depiction of the moral climate of the age. The article touches upon the problem of historicism of the novel and the reasons of non-compliance with historical truth in the works of the romantic writer.

In the 1930s national literatures began developing rapidly. Poets and writers of that time often turned to folklore. It influenced the formation of artistic structure and definition of the poetics of literary texts. One of those works is the poem “Ereller” by the Tabasaran writer Abumuslim Dzhafarov. The article analyzes the mythological stories and images that served the basis for the creation of the poem. The work is relevant because the creativity of one of the founders of Tabasaran literature A. Dzhafarov has never been subject of special studies. The present analysis and identification of folklore stories in the works of this author will serve as the initial step for further studies of A. Dzhafarov’s works. The principle of analysis and conclusions made in the article will be useful for future researchers working in the fields of Dagestan literary criticism and folklore studies. The aim of the study is to identify mythological motifs, themes and images in the poem “Ereller” by A. Dzhafarov. The object of the research is Abumuslim Dzhafarov’s poem “Ereller”. The subject of this study is the analysis of the ideological and artistic, genre and compositional features and topical identity of the poem. The main research method is the historical and typological one.

The spiritual literature distributed in the Urals and Volga region as well as in the North Caucasus was quite diverse and consisted of a large number of scientific and literary genres. Literary genres like syrah (Sirat al-nabi), hajj-name, munajat, nasihat, migradzh-name, mavlyud (mawlid), fadaail, khutbah, mavaiz and bait were widely spread in the Bashkir and Tatar literature. In the folklore and literature of the Volga-Ural peoples, Arab-Muslim legends and kissas are mixed with Sufi ideas or apocryphal works, or take the form of folk tales and change beyond recognition. Spreading in the region, myths and legends about the prophets formed new plots, narrative and poetic forms and genres. For example, during its long history in the vast territories of Central Asia and the Ural-Volga region new Mavlyuds often called “Qasida mavlyudan-an-nabi” were created. The wide circulation of the genre was also promoted by the belief according to which the house where Mavlyud and Salavat (prayer of Muhammad) were read got purified and sanctified. Every attendee gets sauab (heavenly reward on the Day of Judgment). One of these works is “Rasul and the Koran” by Ya. Yumaev. Through the example of Ya. Yumaev’s works the plot, compositional, ideological and thematic features of this genre are considered in the Bashkir literature of the early 20th century. In his work the author tries to show that all the positive changes in society, emergence and the prosperity of science are connected with the activities of Muhammad. Ya. Yumayev compares the prophet’s birth to a beam of light in the realm of ignorance (Jahiliyyah). Using artistic and compositional techniques the author tries to show that the period of darkness and ignorance is over. Although these works had no noticeable impact on the development of national literature, they do attract researchers’ attention as brilliant examples of the religious literature of that time.

In terms of its folklore value, the Karachay-Balkar mythological fairy tale remained unstudied for a long time. The majority of scientists (A. I. Karaeva, A. Z. Holaev and F. A. Urusbieva) did not define it as a distinct version of the genre and viewed as part of magic or anymalistic fairy tales system. Nevertheless, the KBIHR and KChIHR archival funds store extensive materials on the mentioned problem that formed the basis for the present work. The originality of poetics of the plot and composition of some texts are analyzed in the article, with special attention paid to mythological motifs. Such works as The Water and Fire, The Sun and the Moon, The Evening Star (Venus), Was There a Rainbow… and others reveal the complex of ancient views, religious concepts of the Karachay-Balkar people. The studied materials have shown that authors of mythological fairy tales were inclined to assign anthropomorphic features to the characters. This could be caused by their wish to make the explanation of the existing order of things more comprehensible. It was also revealed that those are the dialogues that play the key role in the development of the action and describe the characters in similar narrations.

The multi-genre Kalmyk folklore has incorporated a complex system of symbols that reflect the national distinctness and peculiarities of Kalmyk culture. In the present article, the author studies the image of the spider that has several denominations in the Kalmyk vocabulary: araaljin - the cross spider that lives in a house and the web it weaves is called araljna goelm - “spider’s web”. The spider acts as a cultural hero: by virtue of it or imitating its actions people learn the art of weaving which is often viewed as the very first handicraft caused by the need for creation. The spider’s second name that arises in spells is uncle Mandzhi which implies people’s reverence for the spider. The image of the spider occurs in Kalmyk folklore texts (in spells, superstious beliefs, seventy two fables), in the pictorial system of Mongolian fairy tales and epic poems. The image of the spider is also reflected in the artworks of the Kalmyks. For example, the Kalmyk silver jewellery is distinguished by an abstract ornament which is different from others. It is called araljnamoer zeg (spider footprints). Studies of the animal kingdom in Kalmyk folklore shall contribute to investigating the zoological code in the multi-genre Kalmyk folklore.

Poetics of folk songs reflects the history and context of the artistic phenomena of the Kalmyk people at different stages of its development. It served the basis and determined the essence of national identity, aesthetic criteria and priorities, ideological orientation and structure of art works. This article analyzes the poetic features of Kalmyk folk songs. The article contains a brief historical overview of the issue which is important for understanding its problems and arguments. The study of the poetic organization of the Kalmyk folk song is based on a review of records of Kalmyk folk songs made at different times (1909-1911, 1926, 1940, 1978) and published in collections as well as those gathered by the author during expeditions throughout the Republic of Kalmykia. The Kalmyk folk song is structured in accordance with certain rules of prosody, its rhythm was formed under the influence of not only music as such but also the tread a horse - a constant companion in life of the nomadic Mongolian people. As collective work products, folk songs are characterized by variability - in the content and form. The poetic structure of Kalmyk folk songs is determined by meters that can be viewed as a specific verbalization of a measure compiled in time with the tread or gallop of a horse - a constant companion in life of nomads among whom were the ancestors of the Kalmyks. Texts of Kalmyk folk songs are in the couplet form and contain poetic forms which are as follows: alliteration, anaphora, rhyme, etc. Alliteration and anaphora play a very important role in rhyme formation in the Kalmyk folk song poetry. Analysis of the verse structure of Kalmyk folk songs collected from various sources reveals examples of different forms of alliteration (strophic (between words), internal (between verses), complete, incomplete). Thus, the poetics of Kalmyk folk songs is diverse in its poetic forms and styles. Rhythmic songs organization is particularly noticeable in the beginning, middle and end of the verses. Alliteration (harmony of consonant sounds), widely represented in the Kalmyk song poetry, enhances the expressiveness of the artistic language. Distinguished by vivid poetic structure, Kalmyk folk songs retain a dominant position on the list of song samples recorded during expeditions on the territory of the Republic of Kalmykia in the early 21st century.

The article deals with a type of families - the single parent family - the number of which has been increasing dramatically in recent decades. Statistical data signify that there is regional disparity in terms of the proportion of single parent families within the common structure of family units. The incomplete family rate in the Republic of Kalmykia is the highest one among the regions of the Southern Federal District. Broken down by districts and the republic at large, analyses of data on the basic factors that cause single parenting have been conducted. A single parent family appears as a result of family disruption (divorce, death of the spouse) or births of children to an officially unmarried woman. The statistical data analysis testifies of an increase in the number of divorces and illegitimate births. The 1989, 2002 and 2010 Censuses results denote a growth in the number of incomplete families: the share increased from 12,9 % to 31,8 % of the total number of families. Calculations of the relative share of single parent families in the districts of the republic help single out territories with high indices (over 30 %) and those with lower ones (below 25 %) within the common structure of family units. Analysis of statistical data on divorce allowed to identify districts with the highest growth of divorce rates during 1995 through 2013 (Ketchenerovsky, Maloderbetovsky and Yustninsky Districts). Analysis of data on illegitimate births allowed to conclude that the relative share of children born to officially unmarried women has decreased. The trend is also common for most of the districts, with the only exception being Priyutnensky District where there is a high rate of illegitimate births. Besides, there has been an inverse trend in the district during the past decade - the share of children born to officially unmarried women increased from 25,6 % to 42,8 % of the total numbers of births in 2000 and 2012 respectively.

The article examines the issues of ethno-cultural education in the Republic of Kalmykia within the general framework of maintaining balance between the all-Russian and ethnic identities. The authors explore the dynamics and ways of introducing ethno-cultural content into education standards since the early 1990s. At the same time special attention is paid to the reducing influence of ethno-cultural education on shaping the all-Russian civil identity. The empirical studies aimed at discovering the experience of implementing ethno-cultural educational component in Kalmykia indicate a rather balanced combination of ethno-cultural and all-Russian civil educational subjects. The analysis of the empirical survey results has identified a difference in understanding the meaningful focus of ethno-cultural subjects by generations of parents and pupils. In parents’ opinion, the main goal of teaching those subjects is to shape the ethno-cultural identity. The young people, on the one hand, take a pragmatic approach to the use of this aspect of knowledge but, on the other hand, they do understand that the knowledge is targeted at maintaining customs and traditions. To actualize the interest of Kalmykia’s youth in ethno-cultural education it is required to proceed to active methods of education that would meet their present-day needs. The collected data also points out that a common civil identity prevails in the republic alongside the trend towards reproduction of ethnic culture.

The objective of the article is to provide a general description of the rural Russian population of the Republic of Tatarstan and types of settlements, with an emphasis on their ethnic and cultural potential. This approach allows to identify the prospects for development of rural settlements, the possibility of their inclusion in the ethnic tourism system. The study is based on a variety of sources (documentary, ethnographic, ethno-sociological, statistical ones) including the authors’ field data, and is actual due to the following reasons: insufficient studies of the issue; a number of negative trends in the development of ethnic Russian villages; the need to preserve historical and cultural heritage. The authors analyze the statistical parameters that describe the settlements of Russians, such as their density on the territory of major administrative units (districts); proportion among the settlements with a different ethnic composition; population size. It is shown that ethnic Russian settlements are characterized by a rich ethnic and cultural landscape, i.e. presence and maintenance of monuments of material and spiritual heritage, existence of ethnically marked elements in everyday life, festive and ritual practices; results of inter-ethnic contacts with the outside multiethnic population which is dominated by the Tatars and other peoples of the Volga-Ural region (the Chuvashs, Bashkirs, Mari people, Mordvins, Udmurts). The positive experience of the use of the national public resources to promote the equality of the Tatars and Russians, Orthodox and Muslim cultures in the Republic of Tatarstan is shown. Described are the measures of support for preservation of cultural heritage, including those on maintenance of material objects (religious buildings, monuments) as well as arrangement of folk festivals and traditional crafts, being taken at the national level. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis of their potential, the article proposes a few models (the complex, historical, architectural ones, etc.) of ethnic and cultural landscapes of the Russian rural settlements.