Transgression of Kalmyks of the Astrakhan province in the Lower Volga frontier

Abstract

Article is devoted to a problem of transgression of kalmyks of the Astrakhan province in the territory of the Lower Volga frontier. Transgression in the territory of the frontier is considered by the author as a way of adaptation to new living conditions.

Wandering in the Lower Volga steppes, kalmyks were involved in rather difficult and chronologically long process of formation of the polycultural environment of the Astrakhan province. Settling of edge happens under the supervision of the Russian government seeking to fix these territories. Suburban position of the province, leaves a certain mark on the structure of the population: it both dissenters, and the Cossack population, and inhabitants who were turned out here central provinces of the Russian Empire, and the kyrgyz-kaysaki (kazakhs) of the Bukeevsky horde, and also other numerous ethnoses. In the course of cohabitation in one space and continuous contacts, the model of the world of the Kalmyk begins to change gradually. Its conduct of life changes, traditional ways of managing change, language changes. All this forces to overstep the Kalmyk population the habitual bounds of life. Nomadic patriarchal patrimonial life of the Kalmyk people gradually collapses, as a result of interaction with the Russian, Tatar, Turkmen population, kalmyks adapt to new cultural models, many of which successfully begin to practice in everyday life.

The author, leaning on archival and ethnographic material, gives the examples of manifestation of different types of transgression in the environment of the Kalmyk population which were a consequence of close cross-cultural interaction of the settled and nomadic population of the Astrakhan province.