Kalmyks
Kalmyks, archaically anglicised as Calmucks, are the only Mongolic people found in Europe, residing in the easternmost part of the European Plain.
This dry steppe area, west of the lower Volga River, known among the nomads as Itil/Idjil, a basin on the northwest shore of the Caspian Sea, was the most suitable land for nomadic pastures. Itil or Idjil, the ancient name of the Volga River, written in the archaic Oirat script, means exactly that: the "pastures".
The ancestors of Kalmyks were nomadic groups of Oirat-speaking Mongols, who migrated from Western Mongolia to Eastern Europe three times: in early medieval times, establishing in the 6th–8th centuries the Avar Khanate; in medieval times, establishing the Ulus of Juchi and Il-Kanate as Khuda-in-laws of Genghis Khan; and finally, in early modern times, establishing the Kalmyk Khanate in the 17th century.
The Oirat language belongs to the western branch of the Mongolic language family, whose speakers include numerous sub-ethnic groups across a wide geographical area of Uvs and Khovd provinces of Western Mongolia, and in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China. Ethnic groups of Oirat speakers in the Republic of Kalmykia, Russia include Torguts, Derbets, Buzavas and Khoshuts. Up until today the Kalmyks have retained their distinguished sub-ethnic groups, being quite separated from their geographical neighbours in Russia and northeast Caucasus.
The Kalmyks are the only traditionally Buddhist ethnic group who are located inside Europe. Through emigration, small Kalmyk communities have been established in the United States, France, Germany, and the Czech Republic.
Origins and history
Early history of the Oirats
The contemporary Kalmyks are a branch of the Mongolian Oirats, whose ancient grazing-lands spanned present-day parts of Kazakhstan, Russia, Mongolia and China. After the fall of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China in 1368, the Oirats emerged as a formidable foe against the Khalkha Mongols, the Han-led Ming dynasty and the Manchu-led Qing dynasty. For 400 years, the Oirats conducted a military struggle for domination and control over both Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia. The struggle ended in 1757 with the defeat of the Oirats of the Dzungar Khanate against the Qing Empire, in the Dzungar–Qing Wars; they were the last of the Mongol groups to resist vassalage to Qing.At the start of this 400-year era, the Western Mongols designated themselves as the Four Oirat. The alliance comprised four major Western Mongol tribes: Khoshut, Choros, Torghut and Dörbet. Collectively, the Four Oirat sought power as an alternative to the Mongols, who were the patrilineal heirs to Genghis Khan. The Four Oirat incorporated neighboring tribes or splinter groups at times, so there was a great deal of fluctuation in the composition of the alliance, with larger tribes dominating or absorbing the smaller ones. Smaller tribes belonging to the confederation included the Khoits, Zakhchin, Bayids and Khangal.
File:Kalmyk Encampment.jpg|thumb|A traditional Kalmyk encampment. The Kalmyk yurt, called a gher, is a round, portable, self-supporting structure composed of lattice walls, rafters, roof ring, felt covering and tension bands.
Together, these nomadic tribes roamed the grassy plains of western Inner Asia, between Lake Balkhash in present-day eastern Kazakhstan and Lake Baikal in present-day Russia north of central Mongolia. They pitched their yurts and kept herds of cattle, flocks of sheep, horses, donkeys and camels.
Paul Pelliot translated the name "Torghut" as garde de jour. He wrote that the Torghuts owed their name either to the memory of the guard of Genghis Khan or, as descendants of the Keraites, to the old garde de jour. This was documented among the Keraites in The Secret History of the Mongols before Genghis Khan took over the region.
Period of open conflict
The Four Oirat was a political entity formed by the four major Oirat tribes. During the 15–17th centuries, they established under the name "10 tumen Mongols", a cavalry unit of 10,000 horsemen, including four Oirat tumen and six tumen composed of other Mongols. They reestablished their traditional pastoral nomadic lifestyle during the end of the Yuan dynasty. The Oirats formed this alliance to defend themselves against the Khalkha Mongols and to pursue the greater objective of reunifying Mongolia.Until the mid-17th century, when bestowal of the title of Khan was transferred to the Dalai Lama, all Mongol tribes recognized this claim and the political prestige attached to it. Although the Oirats could not assert this claim prior to the mid-17th century, they did in fact have a close connection to Genghis Khan by virtue of the fact that Genghis Khan's brother, Qasar, was in command of the Khoshut tribe.
In response to the Western Mongols' self-designation as the Four Oirat, the Eastern Mongols began to refer to themselves as the "Forty Mongols", or the "Forty and Four". This means that the Khalkha Mongols claimed to have forty tümen to the four tümen maintained by the Four Oirat.
The Oirat alliance was decentralized, informal and unstable. For instance, the Four Oirat did not have a central location from which it was governed, and it was not governed by a central figure for most of its existence. The four Oirats did not establish a single military or a unified monastic system. Lastly, it was not until 1640 that the Four Oirat adopted uniform customary laws.
As pastoralist nomads, the Oirats were organized at the tribal level, where each tribe was ruled by a noyon or prince who also functioned as the chief taishi "chieftain". The chief taishi governed with the support of lesser noyons, who were also called taishi. These minor noyons controlled divisions of the tribe and were politically and economically independent of the chief tayishi. Chief taishis sought to influence and dominate the chief taishis of the other tribes, causing intertribal rivalry, dissension and periodic skirmishes.
Under the leadership of Esen, Chief Taishi of the Choros, the Four Oirat unified Mongolia for a short period. After Esen's death in 1455, the political union of the Dörben Oirat dissolved quickly, resulting in two decades of Oirat-Eastern Mongol conflict. The deadlock ended during the reign of Batmunkh Dayan Khan, a five-year-old boy in whose name the loyal Eastern Mongol forces rallied. Mandukhai Khatun and Dayan Khan took advantage of Oirat disunity and weakness and brought Oirats back under Mongolian rule. In doing so, he regained control of the Mongol homeland and restored the hegemony of the Eastern Mongols.
After the death of Dayan in 1543, the Oirats and the Khalkhas resumed their conflict. The Oirat forces thrust eastward, but Dayan's youngest son, Geresenz, was given command of the Khalkha forces and drove the Oirats to Uvs Lake in northwest Mongolia. In 1552, after the Oirats once again challenged the Khalkha, Altan Khan swept up from Inner Mongolia with Tümed and Ordos cavalry units, pushing elements of various Oirat tribes from Karakorum to the Khovd region in northwest Mongolia, reuniting most of Mongolia in the process.
The Oirats would later regroup south of the Altai Mountains in Dzungaria. But Geresenz's grandson, Sholoi Ubashi Khuntaiji, pushed the Oirats further northwest, along the steppes of the Ob and Irtysh Rivers. Afterwards, he established a Khalkha Khanate under the name, Altan Khan, in the Oirat heartland of Dzungaria.
In spite of the setbacks, the Oirats would continue their campaigns against the Altan Khanate, trying to unseat Sholoi Ubashi Khuntaiji from Dzungaria. The continuous, back-and-forth nature of the struggle, which defined this period, is captured in the Oirat epic song "The Rout of Mongolian Sholoi Ubashi Khuntaiji", recounting the Oirat victory over the Altan Khan of the Khalkha in 1587.
Resurgence of Oirat power
At the beginning of the 17th century, the First Altan Khan drove the Oirats westward to present-day eastern Kazakhstan. The Torghuts became the westernmost Oirat tribe, encamped in the Tarbagatai Mountains region and along the northern stretches of the Irtysh, Ishim and Tobol Rivers.Further west, the Kazakhs – a Turco-Mongol people – prevented the Torghuts from sending its trading caravans to the Muslim towns and villages located along the Syr Darya river. As a result, the Torghuts established a trading relationship with the newly established outposts of the Tsarist government whose expansion into and exploration of Siberia was motivated mostly by the desire to profit from trade with Asia.
The Khoshut, by contrast, were the easternmost Oirat, encamped near the Lake Zaysan area and the Semey region along the lower portions of the Irtysh River, where they built several steppe monasteries. The Khoshut were adjacent to the Khalkha khanates of Altan Khan and Dzasagtu Khan. Both khanates prevented the Khoshut and the other Oirat from trading with Chinese border towns. The Khoshut were ruled by Baibagas Khan and then Güshi Khan, who were the first Oirat leaders to convert to the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Locked in between both tribes were the Choros, Dörbet Oirat and Khoid, collectively known as the "Dzungar people", who were slowly rebuilding the base of power they enjoyed under the Four Oirat. The Choros were the dominant Oirat tribe of that era. Their leader, Erdeni Batur, attempted to follow Esen Khan in unifying the Oirats to challenge the Khalkha.
Under the dynamic leadership of Erdeni Batur, the Dzungars stopped the expansion of the first Altan Khan and began planning the resurrection of the Four Oirat under the Dzungar banner. In furtherance of such plans, Erdeni Batur designed and built a capital city called Kubak-sari on the Emil River near the modern city of Tacheng. During his attempt to build a nation, Erdeni Batur encouraged diplomacy, commerce and farming. He also sought to acquire modern weaponry and build small industry, such as metal works, to supply his military with weapons.
The attempted unification of the Oirat caused dissension among the tribes and their Chief Tayishis who were independent minded but also highly regarded leaders themselves. This dissension reputedly caused Kho Orluk to move the Torghut tribe and elements of the Dörbet tribe westward to the Volga region where his descendants formed the Kalmyk Khanate. In the east, Güshi Khan took part of the Khoshut to the Tsaidam and Qinghai regions in the Tibetan Plateau, where he formed the Khoshut Khanate to protect Tibet and the Gelug from both internal and external enemies. Erdeni Batur and his descendants, by contrast, formed the Dzungar Khanate and came to dominate Central Eurasia.