The presented article is devoted to the analysis of data extracted from the “Travel Book of Evliya Celebi”, an Ottoman historical and geographical source of the XVII century. The detailed reports of the traveler, a huge factual material about such regions as the Volga region, the Don region and the North Caucasus, as well as a description of the life and way of life of the peoples who lived in these territories, are very interesting and valuable. From December 1666 to January 1667 E. Chelebi had meetings with nomadic people — Kalmyks. He communicates closely with the Kalmyk Taish and the common people, describes in detail the places of their settlement; describes the appearance and physical characteristics of men and women; tells about the language of the Kalmyk people. In the narration described by Evliya Celebi, the religious ideas of the Kalmyks are revealed, which are bizarrely expressed in the elements of rituals. The traveler describes in great detail the traditional customs and some specific rituals of the Kalmyks, which were never peculiar to either the Mongolian-speaking, or even more so to other nomadic peoples who inhabited the Russian Empire. We are talking about ritual cannibalism. Apparently, the Turkish traveler, describing under the ethnonym Kalmyk various peoples who inhabited, in particular, the European North, used the imaginary information about the Samoyeds that reached him. The fiction about the Samoyeds, which was widely used in the XVI–XVII centuries, was actively used by German, English, French and other authors, including E. Celebi. Nevertheless, the author of the article “The Travel Book of Evliya Celebi” is a valuable source material for a comprehensive analysis of the nomadic Kalmyk people, who have a rich history and culture. The significance of Evliya Celebi’s historical work is obvious and undeniable. It is the most important written source of the XVII century, a significant contribution to the world treasury of knowledge.

This article is devoted to the main problems of nomadism and nomadic societies. The author of the proposed article proposes to abandon the old traditional conceptual apparatus based on the characterizing term “nomadic”. Studies of modern foreign and Kazakh historians and ethnologists on nomadic civilization and nomadism have shown that there are much more stationary settled population in the arid zone of Eurasia than those groups that had the opportunity for seasonal movements. The categories of “nomadism” and “pasture” include full-fledged sectors of the economy: crop production, gardening, crafts, fishing, trade, employment in management, etc. The author comes to the conclusion that the steppe civilization is characterized by features that determine its deep essence. This is, first of all, pastoral animal husbandry with a combination of settled life of the nomadic population; the presence of a society in the arid zone, united by economic interests; an organized migration process with a sustainable route; the diverse nature of relations in the sphere of land ownership; observance of ecological balance between society and the environment; the formation in nomadism of a supra-communal, centralized power capable of generating various forms of state power; the predominance of tribal ownership of pastures and on the path of seasonal movements; the limited nature of class exploitation and, finally, the dominance of grazing in the economic life of a nomadic society.

In this article, on the basis of various historical evidence, the location of the Khazar cities is studied. A comprehensive description of the geographical objects indicated in ancient documents makes it possible to determine their localization. The data of Persian and Arab historians and chroniclers have been studied. The routes of the Arab armies, which made campaigns against the Khazar possessions, were studied. The analysis of the mentioned landmarks made it possible to find out the localization of the cities and regions of al-Khasin, Bar’uza, Balanjar, Vabandar, Samandar, al-Bayda. On the basis of written sources, the approximate borders of the “internal” Khazaria and the external limits to which the Khazar influence extended were established. The localization of the Sarkel fortress, which acted as a military and commercial outpost in the Black Sea region, was determined. The location of the Khazar capital Itil, located in front of the Volga delta, was established. It was determined that Balanjar, one of the early Khazar capitals, was located on the territory of the present city of Makhachkala. The location of Samandar, located on the right bank of the Sulak River, on the Khodum mountain of the Nadyrbek ridge, was revealed. Along with historical sources, the author draws on the results of modern research from related fields. The proposed article gives a fresh impetus to the study of the archaeological data of the region under consideration, allows us to take a fresh look at old problems.

The author of the article explores the issue of mentioning tribes known as “Oirats”, “Dzhungars” and “Kalmyks” in medieval sources. It is noted that in the literature this topic is reflected in oral traditions and written sources since the Middle Ages. To date, almost all major Kazakh legends and epics have been recorded, digitized and included in the register of written sources. Given that this topic requires fundamental research, the author deliberately confines himself to the chronological framework of the events of the XIV-XV centuries. During this period, the Oirats (Kalmyks) entered into versatile relations with the peoples and state formations of Mogolistan, the Khanate of Abulkhair and the Kazakh community. The author of the article gives a brief historiographical overview of the topic and expresses a number of hypotheses. At the same time, it is emphasized that information about the Kalmyks is available in the works of major medieval authors, for example, in the works of Muhammad Haidar Dulat, Mahmud bin Emir Wali, Masud Kukhistani, Fazlallah Ruzbikhan and others. Many of them were once introduced into scientific circulation in Kazakhstani historiography, but are less known in the historical science of Kalmykia. Based on the study of sources, the author believes that when considering this problem, the previously dominant political imperatives about the eternal enmity of the Kazakhs and the Dzungars, the Oirat-Kalmyks are already outdated and require a new understanding. Conservative approaches of the past prevented an objective study of the problem under consideration, which explains the relevance of the chosen topic.

This report is an extension of the author’s presentation at the Tenth Forum on Northeast Asian Ethnic Cultures held on November 15, 2019, at the Central University for Nationalities under the auspices of the Society for the Study of Northeast Asian Ethnic Cultures of the Chinese Ethnological Society. The presentation was given in Mongolian and interpreted into Chinese. Although this international symposium could have been held to celebrate the development of One Belt, One Road, no collection of papers is expected to be published until 2022. This article is the English translation of Japanese original text “Mongol ni okeru Uma no Keiro ni kansuru Bunruimeisho no Meineigenri” written by Yuki Konagaya and published in 2022 in “Biostory” (2022, 38: 85-94). According to the wide variety of horse coat colors, there are many Mongolian words. In this article several main folk terms of horse coat color are clearly classified and you can grasp how people categorize the terms according to the key criteria of their taxonomy. These folk terms are very useful for nomads specially when they should find the missing horses that usually graze autonomously far away from the campsite.

The Oirats, after moving to the borders of Russia, to the Lower Volga, managed to preserve their epic “Dzhangar”. The key role in this was played by the dzhangarchi, the performers of heroic songs, who traditionally enjoy great respect among the Kalmyks. The article is devoted to a detailed textual analysis of the legends about the heroes of the Kalmyk heroic epic “Dzhangar”, recorded at different times by Russian researchers, as well as creatively reproduced in the works of national authors. The author for the first time introduces into scientific circulation the legend about the miraculous rescue of fishermen by the heroes of the epic, heard from his father. The legends he considered preserved the phraseology and intonations of the epic. The content of the legends is not directly related to the plots of the epic, there are separate episodes inspired by the spirit of the heroic epic of the Kalmyks. The artistic structure, the whole style of oral stories about “Dzhangar” fully correspond to the legend genre. Comparison of the plot of the legend, heard by the author from his father, with the previously known plots of legends about the origin of the national heroic epos, the receipt of the storytelling gift by its performers — dzhangarchi, allows us to conclude that its storyline is original, as well as artistic and visual means. A comparative analysis of the legends about “Dzhangar”, existing in the national selfconsciousness of the Kalmyks, is the subject of this article.

In the article, the Russian researcher I. I. Popov’s research book “Jangar” has been tried to analyze as a basis. The Kalmyk text of one chapter of “Jangar” occupies 14 pages (the volume is 1814 poetic lines). At the end of the song is written the name of the storyteller (Badma Dorzhinovich Obushinov), the date of recording (night, 12. 1901) and the place — Middle Ayuula (now the territory of the Tselinsky District of the Rostov region). The text was written in Cyrillic, without dividing it into poetic lines, using additional signs to indicate Kalmyk sounds and long vowels. Only a few corrections were found in the original document. Other variants of word entries are given in parentheses. Generations of Russian scientists found little news about Popov’s notebook “Jangar” and mentioned it in research. However, in order to correct the misstatements of some scientists, the author also put forward his ideas in five sections: “Depository issues”, “Manuscript classification issues”, “ Table of contents issues”, “Pagination issues” and “Content issues”.

The article presents the author’s interpretation of the information space of the ancient Kalmyk tanka Green Tara, created for the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty, which was celebrated in the Bolshederbetovsky ulus in 1913. There is no doubt that the creation of the iconographic image of Green Tara was a deeply thought-out act of the Buddhist clergy and sovereign noyons of the Bolshederbetovsky ulus in whose power was the ulus. The object of this study is the Kalmyk tanka “Green Tara” as a Buddhist monument of the pre-revolutionary period of cultural and religious life in the Kalmyk steppe. The purpose of the author is to show the versatility and spiritual significance of the Buddhist icon “Green Tara” in the life of the Kalmyk people, its role in the formation of national ethno-religious consciousness in the aspect of Buddhist psychology. The article discusses the history of its creation, analyzes its artistic, cultural and iconographic features. The relevance of this topic is due to the author’s approach to the study of the symbolism of Buddhist iconography in the psychological aspect on the example of the traditional image of the Bodhisattva Green Tara. The psychological interpretation of the information field of the Kalmyk tanka is an absolutely new direction in the study of Buddhist iconography, which opens up a huge field for further understanding.