The directions of the development of the Kalmyk nomadic economy in the late XIX – early XX centuries

Aleksandr Narmaevich Komandzhaev, Evgeny Aleksandrovich Komandzhaev, Mergen Sanalovich Goryaev

Kalmyk State University, Russian Federation, 358000, Elista, Pushkin St., 11

DOI : http://dx.doi.org/10.13005/bbra/1968

ABSTRACT: The article describes the trends of the development of Kalmyk nomadic economy in the late XIX - early XX centuries. Based on the degree of the scrutiny of the problem, the authors have implemented the following tasks: they described the changes in the development of Kalmyk nomadic economy, revealed their causes and analyzed their consequences. The article is based on the use of a large range of literature and sources, many of them are archival materials. The most important among them are the materials of annual reports of the Administration of the Kalmyk people of the Astrakhan province and the chief police officer of nomadic peoples of the Stavropol province. In some cases, the authors used observations and notes of the researchers, contemporaries of the described events. An analysis of the specific material revealed that in the late XIX - early XX centuries the most significant changes related to the transition to a settled way of life and to market conditions occurred in nomadic Kalmyk economy in the process of integration of the region into all-Russian market. During the period under study the number of animals increased, species content of the herds changed (there was an increase in the number of cattle and fine-wool sheep and stabilization of the number of camels and Kalmyk breed sheep). Kalmyk population was engaged in laying in fodder for the winter, breeding animals, building reservoirs for livestock. In some areas of Kalmykia, an intensive transition to agriculture took place.

KEYWORDS: nomadic farming; animal husbandry; Kalmyk ulus; marketability; economic regionalization; intensification; breeding

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