Country: Russia

Group: Kalmyk

Date: Nov 16, 2022

Name: Austyn Evans (lead), Esha Kubavat, Anthony Un, Jacob Kebe, Madison Schultz

Content Warnings: Ethnocide, lethal violence

Approximate Time Period: 1770s – present

The Kalmyk lived as nomadic herders who originated in western Mongolia. They are an ethnic minority from the Kalmyk-Khalmg Tangch Republic in the Russian Federation. In 2010 there were 183,372 Kalmyk people (Minority Rights Group, 2020).  In the 1920s and 30s Stalin ordered that the Kalmyk people’s Buddhist temple as part of the Soviet Union’s goal to eliminate religion through control, suppression, and property confiscation (Sinclair, 2008). The entire population of Kalymks were deported by the Russians. One-fifth of the Kalmyk population died when deported to Siberia (Minority Rights Group, 2020).  In 1957 they were allowed to return home. The Russian Federation changed the Kalmyk language to the Cyrillic script. The Kaylmyks never regained all of their land and their initial population size. 20% of Kalmyk’s land belongs to national reserves, parks, and hunting plots. The Kalmyks are currently working to gain independence from the Russian Federation. In 2012 a language club of Kalmyk had its first meeting (New World Encyclopedia, 2022).

Sources

  1. Minority Rights Group. (2021, February 6). Kalmyks. Retrieved November 17, 2022, from https://minorityrights.org/minorities/kalmyks/
  2. New World Encyclopedia (n.d.). Kalmyk people. Retrieved November 17, 2022, from https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Kalmyk_people
  3. Sinclair, T. (2008). Tibetan Reform and the Kalmyk Revival of Buddhism. JSTOR, pp 241-259. Retrieved November 16, 2022, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/23615096?seq=2#metadata_info_tab_contents