abstract
| - The ancestors of the Kalmyks, the Oirats, migrated from the steppes of southern Siberia on the banks of the Irtysh River to the Lower Volga region. The Kalmyks settled in the wide open steppes from Saratov in the north to Astrakhan on the Volga delta in the south and to the Terek River in the southwest. This area under Kalmyk control would eventually be called the Kalmyk Khanate. Within 25 years of settling in the lower Volga region, the Kalmyks became subjects of the Tsar. The Kalmyk Khanate reached its peak of military and political power under Ayuka Khan (1669–1724). During his era, the Kalmyk Khanate fulfilled its responsibility to protect the southern borders of Russia and conducted many military expeditions against its Turkic-speaking neighbors. After the death of Ayuka Khan, the Tsarist government implemented policies that gradually chipped away at the autonomy of the Kalmyk Khanate. Catherine the Great abolished the Kalmyk Khanate after many Kalmyks left in a failed attempt to return to their homeland, transferring all governmental powers to the Governor of Astrakhan. After the October Revolution in 1917, many Kalmyks joined the White Russian army and fought during the Russian Civil War. Before the Red Army broke through to the Crimean Peninsula, a large group of Kalmyks fled from Russia. In the summer of 1919, Lenin issued an appeal to the Kalmyk people, calling for them to aid the Red Army. Lenin promised to provide the Kalmyks, among other things, a sufficient quantity of land for their own use. The promise came to fruition on November 4, 1920 when a resolution was passed proclaiming the formation of the Kalmyk Autonomous Oblast. Contrary to the proclamations of the Executive Committee and of the Bolshevik propaganda slogan promising the "right of nations to self determination," the Oblast and its successor government were not autonomous governing bodies. In spite of the efforts of Soviet authorities to gain popular support, the Kalmyk people remained loyal first and foremost to their traditional leaders. In 1931, Stalin ordered the collectivization of farms in the area, closed the Buddhist monasteries, and burned the Kalmyks' religious texts. The forced collectivization was unsuited to the Kalmyk temperament and was a social, economic, and cultural disaster. On June 22, 1941 the German army successfully invaded the Soviet Union. By August 12, 1942 the German Army had captured Elista. After capturing the Kalmyk territory, German army officials established a propaganda campaign with the assistance of Kalmyk nationalists, including white Kalmyk exiles. But by December 1942, the Soviet Red Army retook the Kalmyk ASSR, forcing the Kalmyks assigned to those units to flee, in some cases, with their wives and children in hand. On December 27, 1943, Soviet authorities declared the Kalmyk people guilty of cooperation with the German Army and ordered the deportation of the entire Kalmyk population. Due to their widespread dispersal in Siberia their language and culture suffered possibly irreversible decline. Khrushchev finally allowed their return in 1957, when they found their homes, jobs and land occupied by imported Russians and Ukrainians, who remained. In the following years bad planning of agricultural and irrigation projects resulted in widespread desertification, and economically nonviable industrial plants were constructed. The Kalmyks, however, did eventually manage to become the largest ethnic group in the area again by 1983.
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