In the Mongolian-speaking world, it is widely accepted that Lama Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug school of Buddhism, known for his great contribution to the maintenance and promotion of Buddhist teachings, was an ethnic Mongolian. However, the question of whether there is any factual evidence to support the claim is still open. The present article aims to examine the issue of his Mongolian background and identify the grounds for this widespread opinion. This is of relevance because the issue has not been discussed in detail so far. Both textological and historical methods were used for analysis. The major source for the study was an obscure text written by a prominent Mongolian researcher Chahar-Geshe [Tibetan: cha har dge bshes blo bzang tshul khrims, 1740–1810] «The Life of Tsongkhapa: The Source of All Boons and Fortunes» [Tibetan: tsong kha pa chen po’i rnam thar go sla bar brjod pa bde legs kun gyi ‘byung gnas]; other Tibetan sources were also examined. The article focuses on the data found in the sources that associates with Lama Tsongkhapa’s father and family, place of his birth, etc. Results. The examination of Lama Tsongkhapa’s biography shed useful light on the historical and cultural processes in Inner Asia. The author’s main conclusion is that he may have been an ethnic Mongolian on his father’s side, and the fact may have been of relevance for the promotion of Gelug in Mongolia.

Introduction. The article discusses Mongolian-Russian relations in the 20th century, paying particular attention to the definition of the concept “Mongolian World”, an important instrument of the bilateral relations, which has had a variety of interpretations so far. Analysis, as well as understanding of the five factors that this article indicates are of relevance to serve as tools for further expansion of the bilateral cooperation, including the field of cultural relations, which is naturally in the center of attention of both Russia and Mongolia.  The subjects of the “Mongolian World” in the Russian Federation are seen as the research object of the present study, which aims to analyze the concept and to identify its role in the Mongolian-Russian relations.  Methods used are general scientific, both empirical and theoretical. The application of comparative-functional and systemic approaches, as well as of modelling and logical parameters, was useful in identifying the essential and content-rich components within the framework of cooperation in the Mongolian world. Conclusions. As a result, the author concludes that the factors of the Mongolian world were instrumental in different periods of history in the interaction of Russia and Mongolia. Also, the article highlights the idea that the factor of the “Mongolian World” is constantly expanding in the bilateral relations.

The article aims to introduce a new source on the Kalmyk Khanate’s history, namely, “Vypiska o derbetevykh vladel’tsakh i o ikh ulusakh sochinennaia” (An extract about Derbet owners and their ulus, composed). The document was discovered in the National Archive of the Republic of Kalmykia, repository 36, “Sostoiashchii pri kalmytskikh delakh pri Astrakhanskom gubernatore (To Kalmyk affairs under the Astrakhan governor). Results. The record made on 70 sheets of paper, originated from the Collegium of Foreign Affairs; it was sent along with the imperial decree for the governor to familiarize himself with the policy pursued in relation to the ulus. The source contains significant data that sheds additional light not only on the history of the Derbet ulus but also on the Kalmyk Khanate overall. It describes the history of the ulus since the early eighteenth century, with a focus on the events between the 1740s and mid-1750s. The document has to do with the events that took place on the Don, where the Derbet ulus used to roam; special attention is given to the Derbet owners’ attitudes to the strife that took place in the first half of the century. Conclusions. “Vypiska o derbetevykh vladel’tsakh i o ikh ulusakh sochinennaia” is one of the detailed records describing the history of the Derbet ulus in the eighteenth century based on the government’s documents of the first half of the century. That is why there is a detailed description of the events related to the ulus’s move to the Don, indicating the ulus owners’ attitudes to the strife that took place at the time in the Khanate. There is every reason to believe that the document was written by Vasily Bakunin, the Collegium member who was most knowledgeable about the affairs of the Kalmyk Khanate.

The article aims to analyze the principal directions in the activities of Buryat-Mongolian State Institute of Culture (1929–1936) / Buryat-Mongolian State Institute of Language, Literature and History (1936–1944), the successor of the first scientific organization in Burya­tia — the Buryat-Mongolian Scientific Committee (1922–1929). It focuses on the achievements and problems in the organization and implementation of scientific research in the humanities in the 1930s. Materials. The sources used are unpublished documents of the Center for Oriental Manuscripts and Xylographs of the IMBT SB RAS, such as annual plans and reports on research work, minutes of meetings of the Directorate, expedition reports, presentations, abstracts and minutes of conferences, correspondence with various organizations and offices, and other materials that were instrumental in reconstructing the history of reorganizations of the scientific institute under study, in following the changes in its scientific program, and in showing its effectiveness and efficiency. Results. In the 1930–1940s, the studies in the field of history, language, literature, and arts of the Buryat-Mongolian people were the principal directions of research in the Institute.  Archaeological expeditions were useful in drawing a general picture of the ancient history of Buryatia and the first cultural-historical schemes. Historians’ work resulted in publishing a significant number of documents devoted to the history of the Buryat-Mongolian people, the publications included materials on issues of the pre-revolutionary Buryat-Mongolia, the revolutionary movement and the Civil war period, culture, and education, including monographs on the history of Buryatia recognized today as classical scientific works. Within the framework of the established ideological attitudes, there was a discussion on controversial issues of the history of Buryat-Mongolia, which accepted the one-line nature of the historical process in Buryat studies. Thanks to the successes of Buryat linguistics, a reform of the Buryat-Mongolian writing was carried out, first based on the Latin, and then on the Cyrillic alphabet. The linguists of the Institute made a decisive contribution to the elaboration of the literary Buryat language, enriching its lexical resources and standardizing spelling and grammar. Collection, systematization and study of oral folk art and musical folklore, adding to the Manuscript Department of the Institute manuscripts and woodcuts in Tibetan, Mongolian, Buryat-Mongolian languages, as well as uligers, chronicles, and other historical and literary monuments, and translation work — these and other areas of scientific research shaped the development of the humanities in Buryatia in the 1930–1940s. Throughout the period of persecutions and repressions, despite personnel shortage and everyday hardships, the Institute’s team continued their work, conducting large-scale studies of the socio-political and economic history, the culture and art of Buryat-Mongolia.

The aim of the present article is to introduce the new data on the history of ethnographic studies of Mongolian peoples. In 2018–2019, Mongolian Studies published abstracts from the diary of the ethnographical team of the Soviet-Mongolian Complex Expedition for Historical-Cultural Studies; the publications deal with the year 1969, the first season of the Expeditions’ work in Mongolia. The 2020 article in Mongolian Studies includes the materials of the diary that deal with the next field season in Mongolia in 1970. This article continues the series of ethnographical diary publications and deals with the third season in 1971, focusing on meetings with scholars from different countries in Ulan-Bator and the Expedition’s work in the central and western aimaks of Mongolia.

The article aims to study the information context of the body signs and the perception of this information by Inner Asian nomads in terms of man and nature interaction. Methods. The research is based on general scientific methods and particular methods of historical science, such as the historical-comparative research method and the method of cultural-historical reconstruction. Materials. In terms of studies of humans as social and biological beings, it is relevant to examine the human body in the system of traditional somatic representations of the Turkic-Mongolian peoples of Inner Asia. In their worldview, the human body represents a specialized “map” of messages of a physiological nature, where organs and body parts were seen as symmetrical and their messages were perceived as negative or positive, depending on location on the left or on the right. Of relevance was also whether the sign came from the upper or lower part of a particular organ. Special attention was paid to the “movements” of the liver and the heart. Conclusions. The study shows that the world that surrounds a person appeared as a complex multidimensional information space, with sensory information playing an important part in its perception. This information was not limited to images created by the senses. In fact, the entire body, including internal organs, was perceived as such a conductor, with various manifestations of a physiological nature, such as trembling, noises, itching, and pains serving as “messages”. Individuals that had special body sensitivity were described as those of “open flesh” or of “light bones”; these were usually the only child in the family or one of the twins.

The article aims to analyze the issue of Buryat religious views as discussed in the works of Ts. Zhamtsarano in the 1900s. The purpose of the study is to identify the specifics of Zhamtsarano’s approach in the formulation of the research issue. In particular, the article analyzes the impact of his scientific and social activities on the course of his creative thought, as well as compares his interpretation of Buryat religious movement with that of M. N. Bogdanov, one of outstanding researchers of Buryat history. To analyze the impact of his cultural-historical environment on Zhamtsarano’s views, it was necessary to examine the scholar’s diaries he kept at the time of his ethnographic expeditions in Buryatia in 1903–1906 in comparison with his published works of the same period.  As a result, it was possible to identify his key positions on the issue of the Buryat religious movement in the early twentieth century. Conclusions. The analysis of Zhamtsarano’s works shows that the Buryat religious movement had a long history, with its ethnoterritorial features gradually being formed. The reason for its acceleration in the 1900s was that many Buryats at the time were largely dissatisfied with their dominant religion, hence their search for new forms of spirituality. According to Zhamtsarano, the general direction of this movement was towards cultural pan-mongolism; this conclusion was based on his own active involvement in the activities for the Buryat cultural renaissance. Also, the scholar saw the religious movement of the Buryats in the 1900s as part of the global trend for secularization of the enlightenment.

Introduction. In 2019, thanks to Dani Savelli, Associate Professor of the University of Toulouse Jean Jaures (Toulouse, France) and Ms. Jacqueline Chasselut, the collection of archival materials of a Kalmyk emigrant family in France was received by the Archive of the Kalmyk Scientific Center. The collection contains unique documents testifying to the life of the Kalmyk diaspora abroad. The purpose of the article is to give a general overview of the collection, as well as to examine it as a source on the history of Kalmyk Buddhism. Results.The Zol´vanovs’ collection, now a part of the records of the Archive of the Kalmyk Scientific Center includes 66 items, such as photographs and copies of photographs, official and personal letters, postcards, Buddhist texts, and images of Buddhist deities (prints, photographs, and postcards). Thus, despite the relatively small size of the collection, it is an important source as an example of a Kalmyk family abroad both in terms of history of Russian emigration and of Buddhism of the Russian peoples. The article publishes some rare photographs illustrative of the ties between the Kalmyk emigrants settled in different parts of the world, as well as of their interaction with Tibetan monasteries.

Introduction. The written heritage of Kalmyk Buddhist lamas has not been sufficiently discussed in scientific literature. Most of written documents from their personal libraries have not been published, hence they remain unavailable to researchers. Importantly, the scholarly publication of such texts contributes to the source database of Buddhist studies. The present article aims to describe, transliterate and translate “The Sutra of Atonement for All Sins” (Oir. Xamuq kilince namančilaxu sudur), which was part of the astrological collection that belonged to a Kalmyk zurkhachi, i. e. to introduce the document for the attention of scholars in the field. Materials. To clarify the translation of some difficult passages in the text of the Oirat Sutra written in “todo bichig” (“Clear Script”), Tibetan texts of similar content were used. One of them, created in the framework of the “terma” tradition, was published in French by E. Schlagintweit. The other text was taken from the collection “Sundui”. Results. The translation of the Oirat Sutra clearly indicates the character of Buddhist astrological collections in terms of their composition: in addition to specific tables, diagrams, and figures, they included the texts of prayers. Also, the textual analysis of the source shows the importance of such issues as the selection of equivalents of Buddhist terms and of the names of the deities of the Buddhist pantheon in translating Buddhist texts, which is directly related to the approaches and principles of translation of Oirat and Kalmyk translators of Tibetan texts.

Introduction. In the system of artistic and visual means, the epithet occupies one of the important places. To create a heroic image, the narrator uses epithets that characterize the status of the hero, age and heroic merits of the heroes. Goal and tasks. The purpose of the article is to study artistic-identifying combinations - epithets in the recordings of the song “Shara Gyurgyu” at different times, to identify their preservation and change over time. To achieve the goal, the following tasks were solved: epithets were identified in three different-temporal texts of the song “Shara Gyurgyu” (1862, 1970, 1971), a comparative analysis of artistic-identifying combinations in the texts of different dzhangarchi was carried out. Method. To study the poetical and stylistic texture, we applied the comparative method. The material of the research was records of different times: 1) “The Song about how the famous Ulan Shovshur of the mangas khan of the Ferocious Shara Gyurgyu reproached the Maloderbet cycle of 1862; 2) an audio recording of “Songs about the duel of a lion [-the hero] Ulan Khongor the Beautiful with the Ferocious Shara Gyurgyu” by Jangarchi Telty Lidzhiev 1970; 3) audio recording of “Song of Shara Gyurgyu” by jangarchi Mikhail Mandzhiev 1971. Results. The study of epithets in recordings of the song “Shara Gyurgyu” at different times showed that over more than a century that has passed since the first recording, the epic text in its artistic embodiment has undergone changes. The song “Shara Gyurgyu” of the Maloderbet cycle of 1862 is distinguished by an abundance of epithets, while in the recordings of the late tradition of the epic, there is a transformation of the artistic level of the text. Storytellers Teltya Lidzhiev and Mikhail Mandzhiev adhere to the main plot structure in the process of performance, without sharpening attention to poetic tropes. Observations of the texts of different storytellers at different times show that Dzhangarchi, having a wider epic knowledge, performs the song in accordance with the criteria of fidelity of reproduction, following the tradition of the epic school to which he belonged. A comparative analysis of recordings of the song “Shara Gyurgyu” at different times allowed us to identify constant units at the level of textual embodiment, which accumulate the poetical and stylistic basis of the epic narrative and mark the key links of the epic narration of the Kalmyk heroic epic “Dzhangar”.

Introduction. There are a great number of “familiar” motifs and plotlines in Kalmyk folklore that originate from mythology. One such archaic story of a universal character in the Turkic-Mongolian world is a cosmogonic myth of the heavenly hunter and the three red deer. The article aims to attempt at reconstructing this cosmogonic myth in the Kalmyk epic heritage. Importantly, such reconstruction requires typological comparisons because the story is easily “identified” in a variety of traditions. The research materials used are the texts of early Baga Tsokhur cycle sagas of Kalmyk heroic epic “Djanggar”. The analysis was based on structural-semantic, structural-typological, and comparative methods. As a result, the author comes to the following conclusions. The structural-semantic analysis of the motif manifests its archaic roots originating from the ideas of cosmogonic beginnings of the universe. The epic story relating of Savar Warrior following the moon path while hunting deer and red deer originates from a cosmogonic myth of the heavenly marksman [Sirius] and the three red deer [the stars from the belt of the constellation Orion]. Moreover, the character of Savar Warrior shows some elements that may be associated with the archaic myth of a bear-hunter chasing the deer that stole the sun. The results of the present study agree with other researchers’ views, according to which, the principal symbols that the archaic calendar of the Kalmyk ancestors included were the images of a hoofed animal and a bear and that the image of the heavenly hunter of the ancient myth relating of the world beginning characteristic of a number of folklore traditions was a substitute of the mythological bear, the liberator of the sun. 

Introduction. Explanatory constructions in the Buryat language, namely, those with verbs of speech as their main predicate, have not been studied in detail so far. Their systematic study involves a detailed analysis of both the semantics of the predicate of the main clause and the structure of the entire construction. The purpose of the article was to identify the correlation between the semantics of verbs of speech and the structural type of constructions. For the purpose, it was necessary i) to identify the group of verbs of speech, ii) to make an inventory of the structures in question, iii) to identify their structural types and specific characteristics, iv) to distribute verbs of speech according to structural types, and v) to study the interdependence between the semantics of verbs and the types of constructions. Original literary texts of the Buryat electronic corps served as material for the study. Linguistic observation, description, component analysis, and structural modeling were used as methods of the analysis. Research results. Buryat explanatory clauses are of the three structural types: participial, participial with postpositions, and bifinite constructions. Each of them specializes in expressing information of a particular level of abstraction: bifinite constructions introduce direct speech; participial constructions with the accusative case of the dependent predicate convey indirect speech; participial constructions with postpositions name the theme. As the analysis of the distribution of verbs of speech by structural types shows, verbs with semantics suggesting a long speech act like ‘to tell’ are more often used in bifinite and postpositional constructions. Those with the meaning of a short speech act, or of the type ‘to add’, implement the valence of the speech in constructions with direct speech and conjunction gezhe. Verbs of speech that differ in their role in communication, for example, asuu-, hura- (ask), implement the valence of the speech in bifinite constructions with gezhe and participles in the accusative case. The author concluded that the structure of the constructions under study is largely dependent on the semantics of the verbs of speech.

Introduction. The article discusses the semantics of paired causative verbs in the Buryat  language, which has not been the subject of a special study yet. The aim  was  to study the semantic features of  Buryat  paired causative verbs by way of identifying: 1) the types of paired causative verbs, 2) the contribution of each semantic component of a verbt of  its general semantics and their correlation, and 3) paired causative verbs as a special case in expressing causative semantics. Materials and methods. The data was collected from works of  fiction in the Electronic Corpus of the Buryat language; contextual and distributive analysis were used as the primary methods of research. Results. Semantic analysis of paired causative verbs, illustrative of causative relationships in the linguistic picture of the Buryat world, indicated that in pairs of non-causative + causative verb the latter is a leading component, which demonstrates the power of causative semantics; the verbs of this type most often express various emotions associated with impact and subjective assessment. The other type are represented by pairs of synonymous causative verb + causative verb that are effective in expressing the intensity of the impact; with the semes of the synonymous verbs combined, the meaning of causation in such pairs is enhanced, and their expressiveness and emotionale valuation aspects come to the fore.

История фольклора неразрывна с историей народа. Изучением фольклора занимались и занимаются исследователи разных наук, а фольклорное наследие как исторический источник является одним из объектов национального культурного достояния [Агапкина, Виноградова 1994;  Гацак 1989; Неклюдов 2008; Новик 2004; Рифтин 1970; и др.].
Полевые записи фольклористов, сделанные на территории России и в местах компактного проживания бурят за ее пределами, на сегодняшний день практически не доступны широкой аудитории. Вместе с тем накопленный материал по результатам работы фольклорных экспедиций требует активного освоения в научно-исследовательской и образовательной деятельности специалистов разных гуманитарных направлений. С этих позиций работа в двух книгах «Фольклор бурят Внутренней Монголии КНР» [Цыбикова 2020а; Цыбикова 2020б], составленная из аутентичного фольклорно-этнографического материала, представляется весьма ценной, так как она иллюстрирует живое бытование традиционного фольклора бурят в современных условиях, помогает проследить историческую жизнь народа и несёт в себе информацию в первую очередь об эмоционально-психологическом восприятии действительности в обществе в тот или иной исторический период.