The south of Russia and the transboundary Caspian region are an important geographical and historical-cultural place in the world where there were territories of nomadic civilisation. The unique geographical location at the crossroads of roads between Europe and Asia has contributed to the development of trade routes here. The natural landscape and the way nomads farmed influenced their lifestyle and mentality. The authors look at the specifics of nomadic society using the example of the Kalmyks, Nogaians and Kazakhs. Nomadic civilisation is one of the most striking pages in the history of mankind on the path of human development. The problem of studying nomadic civilisations is one of the most topical in modern historiography and at the same time complex. Some scholars deny the role of Turkic-Mongol nomadic peoples in world history. This direction in historical scholarship, associated with the dominant role of European peoples and the one-sided underestimation of the level of development of the nomadic civilisations of the East, is called European centrism. This article deals with two important aspects: the nomadic lifestyle of the Kalmyks, Nogaansi and Kazakhs in the past and the beginning of their transition to sedentarism. The article chronologically covers the period from the second half of the 18th to the first half of the 19th century, when the history of the nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppes was determined by certain geopolitical conditions, especially by the beginning of their integration into the Russian Empire, whose fate they largely had to share.

   The object of the article is the identity of the Kalmyk khansha Dzhan, a Kabardian by nationality, the second wife of the Kalmyk khan Donduk-Ombo. The image of Janet in these different guises has forever remained in the historical memory of the two peoples, becoming an iconic symbol of a certain era. It was and remains a “bridge” connecting different peoples and cultures. In the proposed article, historically, the life path of the Kalmyk khansha Dzhan is explored, her place in the history of Russia, the Kalmyk Khanate is comprehended, an assessment is made of the role of this outstanding woman
in building the initial Kabardino-Kalmyk relations. The relevance of such a study is due to the need to show a comprehensive, holistic, integral history of the Kalmyk people in the pre-revolutionary period. The authors raise the topic of the role of women in political life in the past, her place in the everyday life of the Kalmyks of that time. After the death of her husband, remaining a widow, she went along with the Kalmyk people who became her native people, a difficult, martyr’s path.

   The purpose and objectives of the study are to reveal the tragic fate of this outstanding personality through the study of direct and indirect connections with his contemporaries, ancestors, descendants, the Russian Empire, the history of the Kabardian and Kalmyk peoples.

   The authors explore historically the image of the Kalmyk khansha Dzhan, relying on the descriptions of Russian historians, trying to comprehend her role and place in the history of the Kalmyk people. The relevance of such a study is undeniable. The article lifts the veil of secrecy over the personality of the khansha and adds new touches to her historical portrait. In historical and genetic terms, against the background of Kabardian-Circassian and Russian parallels in the history of the origin of double surnames, the origin of the legendary Kabardian surname of Princess Janet Kurgokina (Atazhukina) is considered. The article presents the genealogy of the Dondukov-Korsakov family, the ancestor of which was the Kalmyk khansha, the widow of the Kalmyk khan Donduk-Ombo, who later became Princess Vera Dondukova by royal command. The Dondukov-Korsakov clan has a wide branching, is represented by famous names that glorified Russia with military, labor and public affairs.

   The presented scientific research is devoted to the problems of nomadic management in the traditional Kalmyk society. The article deals with the issues of cattle breeding in Kalmykia in the XIX century in the context of the decline of traditional livestock industries. The gradual increase in the role of cattle in the Kalmyk economy was directly related to administrative and natural and climatic factors. The Caspian steppe, with its sharply continental climate, periodically suffering from droughts and largely devoid of fresh, usable sources, from winds that force seriously reckoning with the problem of
blowing soils and crops, obliged the imperial authorities to pay attention to the problems of the region. To provide assistance, it was necessary, first of all, to find reliable reserves of fresh water to overcome the crisis of Kalmyk cattle breeding. In addition, any adverse phenomena of nature invariably led to the death of livestock, especially among steppe pastoralists, who keep cattle in the open air all year round. Entire generations of Kalmyk pastoralists tirelessly fought against the natural elements for the possession of fresh water sources and, thus, as a result, to a certain extent, managed to organize and adapt to the harsh natural and climatic conditions in the arid territory. Considering the traditional Kalmyk economy, it should be noted that, taking into account geographical conditions, by the end of the XIX century the main type of livestock in the Kalmyk economy was cattle. All animals in the Kalmyk farm, without damage to health, could relatively easily tolerate prolonged frosts, cold winds, heat, etc. Cattle were also distinguished by their endurance, unpretentiousness to fodder, and ability to travel long distances. The meat of the Kalmyk breed was highly valued. Cattle met the Kalmyks’ daily needs for food, materials for clothing and footwear, etc.

   The presented scientific study examines the history of the emergence of Kalmyks in Russian provinces and regions, their daily life outside the Kalmyk steppe, both in the imperial period and in the first post-revolutionary years. An attempt is made to analyze the many years of socio-economic experience accumulated by them during their long residence in other Russian regions, which later, after migrating and moving to the Kalmyk Autonomous Region in the early and mid-1920s, played an important role in the socio-economic development of the steppe region. The reasons that caused the spontaneous
migration to the KAO during the famine years of the Kalmyks living in other areas of the Russian Empire are investigated. The measures taken by the Soviet authorities on the organized relocation of groups of the Kalmyk population to the KAO in the 1920s are considered. They had to build and equip their lives almost from scratch, adapt to the unusual natural and climatic conditions of the territory. State assistance of financial and material order, support of fellow tribesmen in the KAO helped the Kalmyk migrants to quickly and less painlessly adapt to new living conditions. Kalmyk migrants from the first days after moving to KAO began to actively participate in the process of radical restructuring of the political and socio-economic systems of Kalmyk society, introducing their fellow tribesmen to a settled way of life, new forms of management. Today, most of their descendants live and work in the Republic of Kalmykia, an equal subject of the Russian Federation.

   Poetry is a literary genre. True poetry is magic. beauty, emotions, feelings, love and life can be expressed through words. In order to highlight poetry as a cultural manifestation, we need to discover the wonders of the poetic treasures created by the Mongols. Since 1980, there has been a significant transformation in poetry in Inner Mongolia. In earlier times, literature was almost like free poetry and historical fiction, except for the occasional appearance of natural imagery of life, due to the strict demands of partisan political ideology. Since the late 1970s, the people’s Republic of China has had to deal with foreign freedom and advance cultural exchange with countries, and a new generation of Chinese poets has developed a new tone in literature. The poetry of Inner Mongolia has taken on a new breath and has developed a new style of modernist poetry in the traditional style of National Poetry, reflecting on the history of the nation and expressing a completely new way of thinking about the fate of the nation. At this very historical time, D. Tserenvanzhil took a career in poetry from the beginning of the eighties and became a major in poetry for the New Times. D. Tserenwanzhil won the Supreme literary prize of Inner Mongolia, the Rainbow prize, for his composition “the world on a high rise” in 1987 at the age of twenty-six, and in 2008 at the age of forty-seven, for his composition “the horse who broke the secret”.

   In this article, the scientist of the Russian Federation K. N. Yatskovskaya’s work on Mongolian studies, including how she recorded and studied Oirad folk songs, was discussed in relation to the characteristics of Oirad Mongolian language and culture. Mongolist K. N. Yatskovskaya in 1988 published a research book called “Mongolian folk songs”. The text consists of two parts: song study and song text. In the research class, folk singers, folk songs, motifs of folk songs, methods of song description, folk poetry and modern poetry were compared. In addition to research, the book is composed of folk song texts, Russian translations of folk songs, folk song chains, a list of the names of singers covered, explanations of words, and bibliography. The book contains 219 Oirad folk songs collected by the author from Khovd and Uvs provinces of Mongolia, and those songs are written in Mongolian Cyrillic letters. Also, 37 songs were selected from these songs and translated into Russian. This book has become a significant and good research, and the 219 folk songs that followed are still very valuable source materials for many scholars of the world who are studying Mongolian folk songs.

   At the beginning of the I millennium BC, one of the largest events in the history of the peoples inhabiting the mountainous expanses of Eurasia took place — the transition of steppe tribes to a nomadic lifestyle, to nomadic cattle breeding. The presented study examines the heroic epic «Manas» — one of the oldest epics in the world, which reflects not only the life and way of life of the nomadic Kyrgyz people, their ethical norms, but also religious cult rituals and actions.

   The main goal of the author is to reveal the religious foundations of the epic «Manas», which made it possible to formulate two key tasks: on the one hand, the identification of peculiar historical «signs of time», traces of various epochs found in the work, and the analysis of religious images of «Manas», on the other.

   Both tasks are inextricably linked and reflect, in fact, different sides of the same problem. ьThe author examines in detail the issues of reflection of early religious beliefs (totemism, animism, ancestor cult), as well as Muslim motifs in the epic text. The main purpose of the scientific analysis of religious motifs is to clarify their ontological and axiological value in the context of nomadic existence. The article presents the totemic beliefs on the example of the zoomorphic goddess Ak-Bugu very vividly. It tells how Ak-Bugu (literally, the Holy Deer-girl) feeds baby Semetei with her milk, and his mother seeing it,
perceived it as a good sign. In ancient times, the deer, elk, argali, as well as the wolf or the leopard, were considered sacred animals patronizing the Kyrgyz tribes. The researcher also considered one of the most ancient and vivid female characters of the epic Manas, namely Aichuryok. Her image in “Manas” is associated with the motive of hero’s revival by his wife, which is widespread in the epic of Turkic-Mongolian peoples.