Where Two Worlds Met: The Russian State and the Kalmyk Nomads, 1600-1771 0801425557, 9780801425554

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Where Two Worlds Met

Where 1\vo Worlds Met The Russian State and the

Kalmyk Nomads, 1600-1771 MICHAEL KHODARKOVSKY

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

Publication of this book was made possible, in part, by a grant from Loyola University of Chicago.

Copyright © 1992 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, 124 Roberts Place, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 1992 by Cornell University Press.

International Standard Book Number 0-8014-2555-7 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 92-5282 Printed in the United States of America Librarians: Library of Congress cataloging information appears on the last page of the book.

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To my parents

En1um yHp 6HHJI: MeArm"lr yra. (One does not know one's own smell) A Kalmyk proverb He coiiJJIHCh o6bi'IaeM, He 6LIBaTb Apy)K6e. (If customs

are different, friendship is impossible) A Russian proverb

Contents

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Maps and Illustrations Acknowledgments Abbreviations Note on Transliteration Kalmyk and Oirat Rulers Introduction Kalmyk Nomadic Society Mutual Perceptions The Arrival of the Kalmyks The Rise to Power of Ayuki Khan Uneasy Alliance: Ayuki Khan and Russia, 1697-1722 Succession Crisis, 1722-1735 Russian Colonization and the Kalmyks' Decline and Exodus Conclusion Appendix A Kalmyk-Muscovite Diplomatic Confrontation, 1650: A Translation Bibliography Glossa~

Index

vii

viii ix xi xiii xiv 1 5 58 74 100 134 170 207 236 243 251 263 267

Maps and Illustrations

Maps 1. Eurasia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 2. Volga-Yayik-Emba region 3. Black Sea-Caucasus-Caspian Sea region 4. Kalmyk pastures in the second half of the seventeenth century

6 19 20

101

Illustrations 1. A Kalmyk encampment

11

2. Interior of a tent 3. A Kalmyk monastery (khurul)

25 35

4. Kalmyk clergy

36

5. Iconostasis of a mobile church bestowed by Peter I upon Petr Taishin, the grandson of Ayuki Khan

viii

181

Acknowledgments

I owe debts and thanks to many people who in different ways made this book possible. Some offered friendship and support, others engaged me intellectually. My foremost gratitude is to my teachers at the University of Chicago, Richard Hellie and Halil Inalcik. An Ottoman historian, Halil Inalcik introduced me to the world of Turkish culture and history, which opened new vistas of research. Richard Hellie was more than a teacher, always ready to extend his hand in support at the most critical moments. He was and remains an example of hard work, fairness, and uncompromisingly high standards. I am grateful to the late Alexandre Bennigsen, who encouraged my interest in Kalmyk and Turkish history. My special thanks are to Robert Dankoff, who taught me Turkish and much more. I extend my thanks to many of my colleagues whose work and advice benefited me greatly, and particularly to those who took the time to read and comment on various parts of the manuscript: Thomas J. Barfield, Arash Bormanshinov, Bernard Cohen, Robert Dankoff, Chester Dunning, Valerie Kivelson, Beatrice Manz, Victor Ostapchuk, and Frank E. Sysyn. I am particularly grateful to John Masson Smith of the University of California at Berkeley. His comments were an example of truly constructive and helpful criticism. My thanks also to Stephen R. Meyer and my editor for Cornell University Press, Trudie Calvert, who painstakingly edited the manuscript. I am grateful to the publishers who kindly permitted the use of materials from articles of mine that appeared in Central Asian Survey 7, no. 4 (1988), and Russian History 15, no. 2-4 (1988), and on which Chapters 3 and 5 are based. ix

x

Acknowledgments

This book would not see the light at this time without the generous support of several agencies and foundations. A Fulbright-Hays Fellowship from the U.S. Department of Education provided me with an opportunity to conduct research at the Ottoman archives in Istanbul, Turkey. Social Science Research Council Dissertation and Postdoctoral Fellowships supported me throughout the critical stages of the manuscript preparation. The Russian Research Center at Harvard University provided a congenial and comfortable environment, where the final revisions were made. Finally, Kalamazoo College and my former colleagues in the department supported me wholeheartedly in this endeavor, as has, more recently, Loyola University of Chicago. MICHAEL KHODARKOVSKY

Chicago, Illinois

Abbreviations

AGS Arkhiv gosudarstvennogo soveta. 5 vols. St. Petersburg: Tip. 11-go sobstv. Ego Imp. Vel. otdeleniia, 1869-1904. AI Akty istoricheskie, sobrannye i izdannye Arkheograficheskoi komissiei. 5 vols. and index. St. Petersburg, 1841-43. AluB Akty, otnosiashchiesia do iuridicheskogo byta drevnei Rossii, izd. Arkheograficheskoi komissiei. 3 vols. and index. St. Petersburg, 1857-1901. AluZR Akty, otnosiashchiesia k istorii Iuzhnoi i Zapadnoi Rossii. 15 vols. St. Petersburg, 1861-92. AKAK Akty, sobrannye Kavkazskoiu arkheograficheskoiu komissiei. Edited by Ad. Berzhe. 12 vols. Tiflis: Tip. Glavnogo upravleniia namestnika kavkazskogo, 1866-1904. AKV Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova 40 vols. Moscow: Tip. A. I. Mamontova, 1870-95. AMG Akty Moskovskogo gosudarstva, izdannye Imp. Akademiei nauk. Edited by D. Ia. Samokvasov. 3 vols. St. Petersburg: Tip. Imp. AN, 1890-1901. AVD Akty, otnosiashchiesia k istorii Voiska Donskogo. 3 vols. Novocherkassk: Tip. A. A. Karaseva, 1891-94. BA BashbakanlikArshivi, Istanbul, Turkey. ChOIDR Chteniia v imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom universitete. Sbornik. Moscow, 1845-1918. DAI Dopolneniia k aktam istoricheskim, sobrannye i izdannye Arkheograficheskoi komissiei. 12 vols. and index. St. Petersburg, 1846-75. DRV Drevniaia rossiiskaia vivliofika Compiled by Nikolai Novikov. 2d ed. 22 vols. Moscow: Tip. kompanii tipograficheskoi, 1788-91. Reprint. Slavic printings and reprintings, 250/1, ed. C. H. van Schooneveld. The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1970. HJAS Harvard Journal ofAsiatic Studies. KNIIaLI Kalmytskii nauchno-issledovatel'skii institut iazyka, literatury i istorii. Elista, 1960-. ODAMM Opisanie del Arkhiva morskogo ministerstva za vremia s poloviny 17 do nachala 19 stoletiia 9 vols. St. Petersburg: Tip. V. Dimakova, 1877-1906. xi

xii

Abbreviations

ODB Opisanie dokumentov i bumag, khraniashchikhsia v Moskovskom arkhive Ministerstva iustitsii. 21 vols. Moscow: Sinodal'naia tip., 1869-1921. ODD Opisanie dokumentov i del, khraniashchikhsia v Arkhive sviateishego pravitel'stvuiushchego sinoda. St. Petersburg, 1868-1914. PB Pis'ma i bumagi imperatora Petra Velikogo. 12 vols. St. Petersburg and Moscow, 1887-1977. PDRV Prodolzhenie drevnei rossiiskoi vivliofiki. 11 vols. St. Petersburg: Imp. Akademiia nauk, 1786-1801. Reprint. Slavic printings and reprintings, 251, ed. C. H. van Schooneveld. The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1970. PDS Pamiatniki diplomaticheskikh snoshenii drevnei Rossii s derzhavami inostrannymi. 10 vols. St. Petersburg, 1851-71. PSPR Polnoe sobranie postanovlenii i rasporiazhenii po vedomstvu pravoslavnogo ispovedaniia Rossiisskoi imperii. 19 vols. St. Petersburg, 1869-1915. PSZ Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii. Sobranie pervoe. 45 vols. St. Petersburg, 1830. RIB Russkaia istoricheskaia biblioteka 39 vols. St. Petersburg and Leningrad, 1872-1927.

SA Senatskii arkhiv. 15 vols. St. Petersburg, 1888-1913. SK Siileymaniye Kiitiipkhanesi, Istanbul, Turkey. SRIO Sbornik Russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva. 148 vols. St. Petersburg, 1867-1916.

TOEM Tarikhi Osmani Enjiimeni mejmuasi. 8 vols. Istanbul: Devlet Matbaasi, 1910-31.

ZhMNP Zhurnal Ministerstva narodnogo prosveshcheniia. St. Petersburg, 18341917.

Z/00/D Zapiski Imp. Odesskogo obshchestva istorii i drevnostei. 33 vols. Odessa, 1844-1919. ZIRGO Zapiski Imp. Russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva. 13 vols. St. Petersburg: Imp. Akademiia nauk, 1846-59. ZIRGOOE Zapiski Imp. Russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva po otdeleniiu etnografii. 44 vols. St. Petersburg, 1867-1917. ZIRGOOG Zapiski Imp. Russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva po obshchei geografii. 52 vols. St. Petersburg, 1867-1917. ZVOIRAO Zapiski Vostochnogo otdeleniia Imp. Russkogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestva. 25 vols. St. Petersburg, 1886-1921.

Note on Transliteration

Inevitably, difficulties arise if one attempts to use a unified transliteration system for the Russian, Turkish, Mongol, and Chinese languages. For the Russian terms I chose to use the Library of Congress system. For Turkic and Mongol words I used the Turkish language transliteration system found in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, new ed. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960-), except that I have employed ch instead of r; and j instead of c. Finally, Chinese words are transcribed in the pinyin system.

xiii

Kalmyk and Oirat Rulers

Kalmyk/Torgut Rulers Kho-Urliik (chief tayishi) (?-1644) Daichin Khan (1647-61) Puntsuk (chief tayishi) (1661-69) Ayuki Khan (1669-1724) Cheren-Donduk Khan (1724-35) Donduk-Ombo Khan (1735-41) Donduk-Dashi Khan (1741-61) Ubashi (viceroy) (1761-71)

Oirat/ Jungar Rulers Kharakhula (chief tayishi) (?-1634) Erdeni Batur khong tayiji (1634-53) Senge Khan (1653-70) Galdan Boshoktu Khan (1671-97) Tsevang Rabtan Khan (1697-1727) Galdan Tseren Khan (1727-45) Aji Khan (1746-49) Erdeni Lama Batur khong tayiji (1749-53) Davachi Khan (1753-55)

Where Two Worlds Met

Introduction

Throughout the centuries the steppes of the North Caspian region, with their lush pastures, plentiful rivers, and mild climate, were a preferred habitat of numerous nomadic peoples. The "nomadic factor" was everpresent in the history of Russia from the days of Kievan Rus' to the late eighteenth century, when this western comer of the Inner Asian steppes became South Russia. The appearance of the Kalmyks near the Volga River in the early seventeenth century represented the last wave in the traditional pattern of migration of nomads from their homelands in Inner Asia to the Caspian steppes. This book tells the history of the Kalmyk people, their relations with Russia, and the impact of this relationship on both societies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Because the Kalmyks' arrival at the Caspian steppes occurred in the seventeenth century, their relations with Russia were far better documented than Russia's contacts with other nomadic peoples had been in the past. We have, therefore, a rare opportunity to study a nomadic people from the moment of their arrival at Russia's southern frontier to their ultimate political and military demise. An examination of the Kalmyks throughout this period confirms previous anthropological findings in regard to other societies on several crucial issues. It clearly demonstrates that the increasing power of the Kalmyk khan and the centralization of authority in Kalmyk society were not indigenous phenomena but rather a function of the Kalmyks' relations with the Russian state. It also demonstrates that sedentarization among the Kalmyks came as a result of major social changes brought about by their contacts with Russia. Some members of the Kalmyk elite chose to seek power outside their own society and turned to the Russian 1

2

Introduction

government for patronage and favors, while the impoverished ordinary Kalmyks found means for survival in the Russian markets. Among the Kalmyks sedentarization was a process of downward mobility. This book is also a study of the Russian government's policies in its southern borderlands. Although the government's goals of stabilizing the frontier and using the Kalmyk military against its adversaries remained the same throughout the period under examination, its policies toward the Kalmyks underwent substantial changes, evolving from mere containment to the ultimate goal of incorporating them into the Russian empire. In the initial stages, Moscow, unable to exercise control over the Kalmyks, had to rely on a system of payments and rewards, but by the early eighteenth century the expanding frontier and modernized Russian military allowed the government to exert more direct military and economic pressure. The Kalmyks' increased dependence on Russian markets and military support caused the government to resort to a broad range of policy tools. These included the continuous co-optation of the Kalmyk elite, increasing benefits to those who converted to Orthodox Christianity, incentives to settle down and join the military payroll, the provision of employment for destitute Kalmyks, and the introduction of Russian laws and institutions. It may be argued that these policies were typical of Russia's relations with the nomadic peoples along its southern frontier throughout the centuries. Yet there were differences as well, and even though the migration of the Kalmyks continued the pattern of nomadic movement from Inner Asia, their arrival did not have the same significance for Russia as had the previous migrations of nomadic Turkic and Mongol peoples. The military superiority of the nomadic archers of the past was ended by the firepower of musketry and cannons in the seventeenth century. When in the next century the Chinese military destroyed the Oirats-the last powerful nomadic confederation in Inner Asia-and the Russian settlers achieved the same purpose by compelling the Kalmyk nomads to flee in 1771, the era of the nomad effectively came to an end. The bow and arrow were no match for the cannon and the plow. The study of nomadic-sedentary interaction traditionally has been the domain of anthropologists. A number of anthropological works have examined specific cases to determine the links between nomads and sedentary states, as well as to address the question of sedentarization. 1 1 0nly a few important works are Fredrik Barth, Nomads ofSouth Persia: The Basseri Tribe of the Khamseh Confederacy (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 19641; Jacob Black [Black-Michaud], "Tyranny as a Strategy for Survival in an 'Egalitarian Society': Luri Facts versus an Anthropological Mystique," Man 7 (1972): 614-34; William Irons, "Nomadism as a Political Adaptation: The Case ofthe Yomut Turkmen," American Ethnologist 1 (19741: 635-58.

Introduction

3

Such studies usually approach the nomad-settler relationship at a particular time and do not attempt to examine its evolution over a longer period. 2 Several attempts have been made to write the history of the Kalmyk people. N. N. Pal'mov, for example, wrote a monumental five-volume study in the 1920s, but his reliance on Russian archival sources alone, as he admits in his introduction, inevitably led him to a Russocentric view of Russo-Kalmyk relations. Soviet historiography followed this traditional approach. Two volumes of Ocherki istorii Kalmytskoi ASSR, published in the late 1960s, as well as numerous articles published by the Kalmyk Research Institute of Language, Literature, and History (KNIIaU) in Elista, USSR, all portray the Kalmyks as the sometimes nefarious subjects of an always benevolent Russian suzerain. The only serious and systematic attempt to acquaint Western readers with Kalmyk history was undertaken by Charles Riess in his dissertation "The History of the Kalmyk Khanate to 1724," completed at Indiana University in 1983. Like many before him, however, he shied away from exceeding the cultural boundaries of a Russocentric approach and chose to follow Pal'mov and his interpretation. The focal point of this book is the history of the Kalmyk people and their relations with Russia, not only from the Russian viewpoint but from the Kalmyk as well. By giving validity to the point of view of the nomads and by showing how Kalmyk society functioned and perceived itself and its neighbors, I intend to demonstrate why the notions and values of a sedentary, state-organized society such as that of Russia could not automatically be applied to the nomadic, tribal society of the Kalmyks. Each society saw in the other a reflection of its own political system with its intrinsic values. This projection of cultural values and political notions led to fundamental misunderstandings and unrealistic expectations on both sides. My methodology rests on the fundamental thesis that Kalmyk society must be approached and understood on its own terms, that is, from within the conceptual bounds of a traditional Kalmyk-Mongol view. The major obstacle to developing such an approach is that one has to rely predominantly on sources compiled in the sedentary societies, which are necessarily biased. To recti(y the situation, I attempted to discern from a variety of sources a broad range of sociopolitical and economic categories that existed in Kalmyk-Mongol nomadic society. I then constructed a frame of reference through which to view Kalmyk society. 2 The most notable exception is the recent study by Thomas J. Barfield, The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China (Cambridge, Mass.: Basil Blackwell, 1989). This is the

most comprehensive and sophisticated examination of the history of interaction between Inner Asian nomads and China.

4

Introduction

Applying such a framework to Russian sources shows that Russian documents are often misleading and must be approached critically. Further to reduce the bias of the sources, I compared, whenever possible, Russian documents with Ottoman-Crimean ones. Ottoman sources often interpret the same event differently and thus provide a valuable corrective to the Russian materials. Chapter 1 offers a historico-anthropological reconstruction of Kalmyk nomadic society. It aims to lay the theoretical ground for an understanding of Kalmyk society and to give the reader an idea of its organization and functions. The chapter deals with such aspects of Kalmyk society as its socioeconomic and military organization, law, and religious beliefs. Chapter 2 addresses the issues of diplomacy and political ideology in both Kalmyk and Russian societies and reveals that each had fundamentally different goals for, and expectations of, their relationship. Chapters 3-7 deal with two centuries ofKalmyk history, focusing in particular on relations with Russia. The account begins with the arrival of the Kalmyks in the Caspian steppes in the 1630s-a landmark in the history of both the Kalmyks and Russia-and ends in 1771, the year of the Kalmyks' departure for their traditional homeland in Jungaria. The history of the Kalmyk people and their relations with the Russian state reveals numerous parallels with the history of other nomadic peoples. The dynamics of Russo-Kalmyk relations thus point to a pattern in the relationship between nomads and the sedentary state, suggesting that it was the Kalmyks' growing dependence on Russia that caused profound changes in Kalmyk society and ultimately resulted in its sedentarization. Moreover, this book raises the issue of the role of the southern frontier in Russian history. I suggest that the Kalmyks, along with other nomadic peoples who preceded them, made a substantial impression on Russian society. The Russian state was forced to adapt to meet the challenges posed by the southern frontier, with its open steppes and constant exposure to the threat of raids by the highly mobile nomads. The losses sustained as a result of numerous nomadic incursions and the efforts to stabilize this frontier by both constructing a chain of defense lines and paying off the nomad elites took an enormous human and material toll on Russian society. The identity of the Russian state and its political ideology were also crystallized in the course of the constant struggle with the "infidel" nomadic peoples, which ended only with their incorporation into a multiethnic Russian empire.

1

Kalmyk Nomadic Society

The People and Their Name During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Mongol people were scattered across a large region of modem Outer Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, the northwestern provinces of China, and some adjacent areas of the former Soviet Union. Eastern Mongols were known as KhalkhaMongols, while Western Mongols were called Oirats and were concentrated in Jungaria (now Xinjiang province in China) (see Map 1).1 The Kalmyks were Western Mongols, or Oirats. The name Kalmyk in reference to the Oirats was first used by their Turkic neighbors and can be traced back to the mid-fourteenth-century work of the Arab geographer Ibn al-Wardi. 2 Traditional etymology derives the name from the Turkish verb kalmak-to stay, to remain. No one, however, has succeeded in attaching a relevant historical meaning to this etymology. Other scholars have attempted to trace the meaning of the name back to various Mongol roots. 3 It is reasonable to assume, however, that the 1A competent discussion of the Chinese sources concerned with the ethnic composition of the Oirats and the origins of the name is offered by Ch'i Yii Wu, "Who Were the Oirats?" Yenching Journal of Social Studies 3, no. 2 (1941): 174-219. The same issues have been thoroughly discussed by Hidehiro Okada, "Origins of the Diirben Oyirad," Ural-Altaische Jahrbiicher 7 (1987): 181-211. 2 E. V. Bretschneider, Medieval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources, 2 vols. (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner, 1910), 2:167. 3 N. N. Poppe cited Gegen Dilova-Khutukhtu, who suggested that Kalmyk came from the Mongol khal'kh, meaning overflow, spill over (Poppe, "Rol' Zaya-pandityv kul'turnoi istorii mongol'skikh narodov," in Kalmyk Monograph Series, no. 2, Kalmyk-Oirat Symposium (Philadelphia: Society for Promotion of Kalmyk Culture, 1966), 60. A. Sh. Kichikov suggested

5

Map 1. Eurasia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Kalmyk Nomadic Society

7

name indeed came from the Turkish kalmak. The most important distinction between the various Mongol tribes was between those who traced their lineage in the male line to Chinggis Khan and others outside this lineage. Until the seventeenth century only direct descendants of Chinggis could bear the title of khan. This unwritten law was so inviolable that even the all-powerful Tamerlane did not dare to appropriate the title for himself. The Oirats, unlike other Mongols, were not descendants of Chinggis Khan, which prevented them from making any legitimate claims to supremacy. 4 That is why the Mongols proper referred to the Oirats as "aliens.'' 5 In addition, the expression Dochin Dorben khoyar, that is, forty and four, 6 meant forty tiimen of the Mongols and four of the Oirats and thus clearly drew the line between the two. Some structural differences also remained, as the Oirats were least affected by Chinggis Khan's newly introduced military division into "thousands," which dealt a severe blow to the traditional kinship organization of the Mongol tribes? These points suggest that the word kalmyk is likely to be a calque or a corruption of some Mongol or Chinese word used to refer to the Oirats since the time of Chinggis Khan. In this context the meaning of the term kalmyk as to stay, to remain behind acquires some historical validity. Whether it was the actual case, however, still remains to be shown. To avoid confusion, I will follow W. L. Kotwicz and reserve the name Kalmyk only for the group of Oirats who came from Jungaria to roam the Caspian steppes in the early seventeenth century.8 In the period under discussion, the Kalmyks consisted of four main tribes: the Torgut, Derbet, Khoshut, and Jungar. 9 The majority of the Kalmyks who left Jungaria belonged to the Torgut and Derbet tribes. By the 1630s to 1640s they had an etymology from the Mongol word khal'mag meaning swift, headlong, flying IKichikov, "K voprosu o proiskhozhdenii slova 'kalmyk,'" Uchenye zapiski KNilaLI 5 [1968]: 133-34). 4 Bretschneider, Medieval Researches, 2:171. SJunko Miyawaki, "On the Oyirad Khanship,'' in Aspects of Altaic Civilization, vol. 3, ed. Denis Sinor (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 19901, 143. 6 Batur-Ubashi Tiimen, "Skazanie o derben-oiratakh," trans. Iu. S. Lytkin, in K.almytskie istoriko-literaturnye pamiatniki v russkom perevode IE!ista: N.p., 19691, 19; B. Ia. Vladimirtsov, Obshchestvennyi stroi mongolov. Mongol' skii kochevoi feodalism (Leningrad: AN SSSR, 1934), 135. This expression was still remembered by the Oirats and Mongols in the middle of the seventeenth century llkh Tsaaz ["Velikoe ulozhenie"J. Pamiatnik mongol'skogo feodal'nogo prava 17 v., trans. S.D. Dalykov [Moscow: Nauka, 1981], 13). 'Vladimirtsov, Obshchestvennyi, 109-10. 8 W. L. Kotwicz, "Russkie arkhivnye dokumenty po snosheniiam s oiratami v 17-18 vekakh," Izvestiia Rossiiskoi akademii nauk, nos. 12-15 (1919): 791. 9 V. P. Sanchirov, "Etnicheskii sostav oiratov 15-18 w. po dannym 'Iletkhel shastir'," in Jz istorii kapitalisticheskikh otnoshenii v Kalmykii IE!ista: N.p., 19771, 3-33; Paul Pelliot, Notes critiques d'histoire kalmouke (Paris: Librairie d'Amerique et d'Orient, 1960).

8

Where Two Worlds Met

succeeded in driving out the Nogay people ofthe Caspian steppes 1 o and took over their pastures along the Emba, the Yayik, and the Volga rivers. By the end of the century the Torguts and the Derbets were joined by two other tribes. Contemporary Russian sources often failed to differentiate between the Kalmyks of the Caspian steppes and those of Jungaria. An apparent lack of consensus among the different Kalmyk tribes only added to this confusion. As late as 1761 the Khoshut and Jungar referred to themselves and the Torgut tribe as Oirats, not Kalmyks. The Torguts used the name Kalmyks for themselves, as well as for the Khoshuts and the Jungars, but believed that this name had been given to them by the Russians.U Ninety years later, the Khoshuts still referred to themselves as Oirats, as the nineteenth-century Russian ethnographer Pavel Nebol'sin obsmved.12 It was only in the course of the nineteenth century that the Kalmyks adopted the name Ka.lmyk to identify themselves. Even then it was predominantly used in relations with outsiders and with neighboring states. The most important criteria for differentiating among themselves remained tribal and clan affiliation and location of pastures.13 In summary, the name Ka.lmyk was used by the Kalmyks' neighbors as a generic term to include several tribes. The name was imposed from the outside and in time included not only the Kalmyks proper but also the Mangyshlak Turkmen and various Nogay tribes, which at various times joined them. As it was used by the Kalmyks' sedentary neighbors in the 1 "The area was known to various Turkic peoples under its Persian name, Desht-i Kipchak, i.e., the steppes of the Kipchak people. Others called it the Sarmatian, Nogay, or Kalmyk steppes after the names of the peoples who inhabited the area at the time. I chose to call these steppes Caspian to give the name a more permanent sense. 11 This observation was made by Vasilii Bakunin, a Russian official who dealt with the Kalmyks at length and knew them well IBakunin, "Opisanie istorii kalmytskogo naroda," Krasnyi arkhiv. Istoricheskii zhumal3 [1939): 194). 12 Pavel Nebol'sin, Ocherki byta kalmykov khoshoutovskogo ulusa 1St. Petersburg: Tip. Karla Kraia, 1852), 10. This makes sense because the Khoshuts, unlike three other Kalmyk tribes, were originally a Mongol tribe that joined the Oirat confederation in Jungaria relatively late, in the mid-fifteenth century !Okada, "Origins," 203-7). It is also remarkable that the Kalmyk historical accounts of Gabang Sharab and Batur-Ubashi Tiimen, written in 1737 and 1819, respectively, are entitled "A Tale of the Oirats," and refer to well-known noyons and khans of the Caspian steppes as Oirats. Only the anonymous chronicle written in the 1840s uses the name Kalmyk in reference to these noyons and khans. Yet this chronicle too was originally written in the Oirat language and only later translated into Kalmyk IIu. S. Lytkin's introduction to "Istoriia kalmytskikh khanov," trans. Iu. S. Lytkin, in

Kalmytskie istoriko-literaturnye, 50!. 13\Nhen a Kalmyk or Mongol nomad met another, the first questions were: "What clan and tribe do you belong to? Where are your pastures? What are your father's and mother's names? What is your name?" IShara-Bodon, in Mongolo-oiratskii geroicheskii epos, trans. B. Ia. Vladimirtsov [Petersburg and Moscow: Gos. izd-vo, 1923), 237, 243; also David F. Aberle, The Kinship System of the Kalmuk Mongols [Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1953), 40).

Kalmyk Nomadic Society

9

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the name implied the existence of a consolidated ethnic group, the Kalmyk nation. Such a concept was as yet alien to the Kalmyk people and in reality stood for a confederation of different Oirat and some Turkic tribes with different degrees of consolidation at different times.

Socioadministrative System Historical sources of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries contain little information concerning the social structure of Kalmyk society. Yet some principal social categories can be discerned, and I briefly outline them here, proceeding from compound to elementary units. In classical Mongol times a tribe was equated with the category of ulus-the largest organizational entity composed of a variety of kin groups and united by their political allegiance to the chief, who bore the Chinese title of tayishi. 14 Territory occupied by such a tribe-ulus was called nutug (yurt), and its pastures were in common tribal possession.15 In the middle of the seventeenth century, perhaps under pressure from the growing numbers of people and herds, it became common practice for a Kalmyk tayishi to divide the tribe-ulus equally among his sons, without regard to seniority. 16 The name ulus, then, began to mean a social and administrative unit. It became the property of a certain tayishi, his appanage.It is in this sense of an appanage organized on social and political principles that the word ulus was used in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century sources. The ulus consisted of a number of ayimag-a group united by a patrilineal descent and sharing a common pasture groundP At the head of the ayimag was the zayisang. 18 Some claimed that the ayimag was 141n Russian documents and in most of the critical literature of the Russian and Soviet periods, the word taisha is incorrectly used as a singular noun, perhaps because of the association of the ending "-i" with the Russian plural. The correct rendering for the singular is tayishi, from the Chinese tay-ishi-literally grand preceptor (Vladimirtsov, Obshchestvennyi, 138; Charles 0. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China [Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1985], 481, no. 6213). For the histocy ofthis term see Hency Serruys, "The Office ofTayishi in Mongolia in the Fifteenth Centucy," HJAS 37, no. 2 (1977):

353-81.

Vladimirtsov, Obshchestvennyi, 111. The Torgut tayishi Daichin seems to be the first to have divided his ulus equally among his three sons, although he left a larger part for himself (Gabang Sharab, "Skazanie ob oiratakh," trans. Iu. Lytkin, in Kalmytskie istoriko-literaturnye, 151). 1 7Viadimirtsov, Obshchestvennyi, 136-37. 18Like the tayishi, this term is also of Chinese origin (Vladimirtsov, Obshchestvennyi, 138); David Aberle stated that according to his informants, the ayimag was made up of people sharing the same grazing area and not based on kinship (Aberle, Kinship System, 8). 15 16

10

Where Two Worlds Met

divided into ange-clans-which had disappeared by the nineteenth century. 19 Other observers thought that the ange was a larger unit comprising several ayimags.20 The number of households or tents per ayimag varied. In the middle of the eighteenth century, an ayimag could include anywhere from one hundred to one thousand tents.21 As the number of people and herds dramatically diminished at the end of the eighteenth century, one ayimag was reported to have two hundred to three hundred tents. 22 One step down in this administrative hierarchy was the division into khoton headed by an elder or headman called akha In terms of kinship the khoton was a compound and not a clearly delimited group, politically structured around the headman.23 The khoton consisted of several ger-tents situated around the central tent of the akha. 24 In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries a khoton consisted of ten to twelve tents.25 The khoton was the basic economic and social group of Kalmyk society. As well as the classification into ulus-ayimag-khoton, the Kalmyks had other ways of distinguishing among themselves. For instance, the Kalmyks were divided by yasun- "bone" - a notion with different meanings at different times. By the seventeenth century, it had become primarily a social category, classi(ying the Kalmyks into tsakhan yasun ("white bone") and khara yasun ("black bone"), that is, nobility and commoners.26 Another traditional system of organization in Mongol society was the 19 G. Bembeev, "0 rodo-plemennykh izmeneniiakh u kalmykov,'" in Problemy etnogeneza kalmykov IE!ista: N.p., 1984), 69. zoNebol'sin, Ocherki byta kalmykov, 8. 21 Bakunin also mentioned some ayimags that included five or ten tents. He probably confused it with khoton, for it is unlikely that an ayimag could be that small (Bakunin, "Opisanie," Krasnyi arkhiv 3 [1939]: 241). zzBenjamin Bergmann, Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmiiken in den Jahren 1802 und 1803, 4 vols. (Riga: Hartmann, 1804-5), 2:35. 23Vladimirtsov, Obshchestvennyi, 170. Barth, Nomads of South Persia 61. 24 0n various forms of the ger and its evolution see D. Maidar and D. Pimveev, Ot kochevoi do mobil'noi arkhitektury !Moscow: Stroiizdat, 1980), 12-36; also I. A. Zhitetskii, Ocherki byta astrakhanskikh kalmykov: Etnograficheskie nabliudeniia 1884-1886 gg. (Moscow: Tip. M.G. Volchaninova, 1893), 1-17; Peter Simon Pallas, Reise durch verschiedene Provinzen des Russischen Reichs, 3 vols. 1St. Petersburg: Kaiser!. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1771-76; rpt. Gratz-Austria: Akademische Druck-und Verlagsanstalt, 19671, 1:312-14. For more about the khoton and the arrangement of the tents in it, see Zhitetskii, Ocherki byta, 33-35; F. I. Leontovich, K istorii prava russkikh inorodtsev: Drevnii mongolo-kalmytskii iii oiratskii ustavvzyskanii (Tsaadzhin-Bichig) !Odessa: N.p., 18791, 159. 2 -