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Where Two Worlds Met: The Russian State and the Kalmyk Nomads, 1600–1771
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the expanding Russian empire was embroiled in a dramatic confrontation with the nomadic people known as the Kalmyks who had moved westward from Inner Asia onto the vast Caspian and Volga steppes. Drawing on an unparalleled body of Russian and Turkish sources―including chronicles, epics, travelogues, and previously unstudied Ottoman archival materials―Michael Khodarkovsky offers a fresh interpretation of this long and destructive conflict, which ended with the unruly frontier becoming another province of the Russian empire. Khodarkovsky first sketches a cultural anthropology of the Kalmyk tribes, focusing on the assumptions they brought to the interactions with one another and with the sedentary cultures they encountered. In light of this portrait of Kalmyk culture and internal politics, Khodarkovsky rereads from the Kalmyk point of view the Russian history of disputes between the two peoples. Whenever possible, he compares Ottoman accounts of these events with the Russian sources on which earlier interpretations have been based. Khodarkovsky's analysis deepens our understanding of the history of Russian expansion and establishes a new paradigm for future study of the interaction between the Russians and the non-Russian peoples of Central Asia and Transcaucasia.
280 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1992
About the author
Michael Khodarkovsky
12 books11 followersMichael Khodarkovsky is a Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago where he teaches courses in Russian Empire, comparative empires, colonialism, and Western civilization. He specializes in the history of Russia's imperial expansion into the Eurasian borderlands.
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December 18, 2020
herds vs. plows
One of the last great groups of horse-riding nomads, the Kalmyks, appeared from Xinjiang into what is now southern Russia in the early 1600s. With their herds and fierce posture, they took over a large swathe of land north of the Caspian Sea that at the time was contested by several parties, but really didn’t belong to anyone. By 1771, two-thirds of this people, disaffected and nearly dispossessed of their grazing grounds, launched on a trek back to Xinjiang (or Jungaria as it was called then). About 100,000 people died from hunger, cold, disease and attacks. It was one of the most disastrous migrations ever, but it is totally forgotten in the West today. The one-third who remained in Russia became one of the small, minority peoples under the thumb of the Russian czars, then the Communists. There is a small republic today inside Russia called Kalmykia with about 280,000 people. Just over half are actually Kalmyks.
Khodarkovsky’s book is excellent, well-written with a large number of sources used. It’s up to you if you want to know the history of this rather remote people. You should have a good memory for new terms, otherwise you are not going to grok such sentences as this in their fullness—“It is noteworthy that the zargo consisted of zayisangs solely from the khan’s ulus.” (p.44) I would certainly recommend it, not because every reader is burning to know the names of Kalmyk khans or chieftains or the rivers they crossed. This book fits into a much wider range of studies of the relations between sedentary peoples and nomads, of people belonging to states with those who have no state. I found it fascinating to compare the Kalmyks with the Plains Indians of North America once they got horses. At the outset, the Kalmyks were far stronger than the Russians in battle. They could shoot several arrows in a minute, while it took Russian musketeers at least a couple of minutes to load one more bullet. Their horses were fast and the Kalmyks were masters of steppe warfare. But, just as in North America, a sedentary, crop-growing society can produce more children that survive and the Russians were in touch with European technology, unlike the Kalmyks. More people, more guns, cannon---and after a hundred years, the Russians were on top.
The cultural and political environment differed to some extent from North America because in general the Indians could not get help or ally themselves with foreign powers. Yet, throughout North American history, the Indians did play off the English, the French, the Spaniards, Americans, Mexicans and other Indian peoples. The Kalmyks had trade-raid relationships with neighboring peoples like the Nogay, the Bashkir, the Kabarda, the Kazakhs, the Kuban, the Crimean Tatars, various Cossack groups, and of course, the Russians themselves. As Tibetan Buddhists by religion, they maintained ties with far away Tibet (a one year trip), and sent embassies or even received aid from China, Ottoman Turkey, and Persia. They were potent and active, major players in the politics of the time. What they lacked was a strong central government, a capital, and any source of food other than their herds or fishing. Civil wars continually racked their society because they could not agree on succession to leadership.
Khodarkovsky illustrates very well that line in “Cool Hand Luke” (with Paul Newman)—“what we have here is a failure to communicate!". Neither Russians nor Kalmyk really understood each other’s culture. Raids and small local wars were a way of life for Kalmyks, not for Russians. [Similarity to Plains Indians again.] There were very few translators on either side—many messages were misunderstood, but the very concepts used were foreign to each side. Diplomatic etiquette differed drastically. The Russians, like the Americans, took an arrogant view of Kalmyk “primitives” and looked on them as child-like subjects of the Czar. The Kalmyks believed themselves independent. Each side had its own set of symbols meaning important things to them. The symbols of one side were generally not considered by the others. For example, the Russians failed to understand that there was no real “chief”; different bands, under various leaders, operated independently. They kept on trying to make the nomads sign treaties and peace agreements when the signature of one person did not mean that everyone agreed. The Kalmyks did not recognize the superiority of an agricultural society with industry and central organization until it was too late.
By the 1730s, Russia had contained the Kalmyks, using bribery and “divide and rule” tactics to dominate. They co-opted the Kalmyk elite. With money and alcohol, plus Christian conversions (and by taking many children as slaves), the Russians prevailed. Russian settlers poured onto the fertile steppes along the Volga and other rivers, excluding the nomads from their grazing grounds, just as the white Americans prevailed over the Plains Indians by killing the buffalo. In the end, the Kalmyks were reduced to a small people, seldom heard from.
The comparison with North America is strictly my own idea. The author does not mention it at all, so any disagreements can be blamed on me. It’s a very interesting book, but probably not for everyone.
One of the last great groups of horse-riding nomads, the Kalmyks, appeared from Xinjiang into what is now southern Russia in the early 1600s. With their herds and fierce posture, they took over a large swathe of land north of the Caspian Sea that at the time was contested by several parties, but really didn’t belong to anyone. By 1771, two-thirds of this people, disaffected and nearly dispossessed of their grazing grounds, launched on a trek back to Xinjiang (or Jungaria as it was called then). About 100,000 people died from hunger, cold, disease and attacks. It was one of the most disastrous migrations ever, but it is totally forgotten in the West today. The one-third who remained in Russia became one of the small, minority peoples under the thumb of the Russian czars, then the Communists. There is a small republic today inside Russia called Kalmykia with about 280,000 people. Just over half are actually Kalmyks.
Khodarkovsky’s book is excellent, well-written with a large number of sources used. It’s up to you if you want to know the history of this rather remote people. You should have a good memory for new terms, otherwise you are not going to grok such sentences as this in their fullness—“It is noteworthy that the zargo consisted of zayisangs solely from the khan’s ulus.” (p.44) I would certainly recommend it, not because every reader is burning to know the names of Kalmyk khans or chieftains or the rivers they crossed. This book fits into a much wider range of studies of the relations between sedentary peoples and nomads, of people belonging to states with those who have no state. I found it fascinating to compare the Kalmyks with the Plains Indians of North America once they got horses. At the outset, the Kalmyks were far stronger than the Russians in battle. They could shoot several arrows in a minute, while it took Russian musketeers at least a couple of minutes to load one more bullet. Their horses were fast and the Kalmyks were masters of steppe warfare. But, just as in North America, a sedentary, crop-growing society can produce more children that survive and the Russians were in touch with European technology, unlike the Kalmyks. More people, more guns, cannon---and after a hundred years, the Russians were on top.
The cultural and political environment differed to some extent from North America because in general the Indians could not get help or ally themselves with foreign powers. Yet, throughout North American history, the Indians did play off the English, the French, the Spaniards, Americans, Mexicans and other Indian peoples. The Kalmyks had trade-raid relationships with neighboring peoples like the Nogay, the Bashkir, the Kabarda, the Kazakhs, the Kuban, the Crimean Tatars, various Cossack groups, and of course, the Russians themselves. As Tibetan Buddhists by religion, they maintained ties with far away Tibet (a one year trip), and sent embassies or even received aid from China, Ottoman Turkey, and Persia. They were potent and active, major players in the politics of the time. What they lacked was a strong central government, a capital, and any source of food other than their herds or fishing. Civil wars continually racked their society because they could not agree on succession to leadership.
Khodarkovsky illustrates very well that line in “Cool Hand Luke” (with Paul Newman)—“what we have here is a failure to communicate!". Neither Russians nor Kalmyk really understood each other’s culture. Raids and small local wars were a way of life for Kalmyks, not for Russians. [Similarity to Plains Indians again.] There were very few translators on either side—many messages were misunderstood, but the very concepts used were foreign to each side. Diplomatic etiquette differed drastically. The Russians, like the Americans, took an arrogant view of Kalmyk “primitives” and looked on them as child-like subjects of the Czar. The Kalmyks believed themselves independent. Each side had its own set of symbols meaning important things to them. The symbols of one side were generally not considered by the others. For example, the Russians failed to understand that there was no real “chief”; different bands, under various leaders, operated independently. They kept on trying to make the nomads sign treaties and peace agreements when the signature of one person did not mean that everyone agreed. The Kalmyks did not recognize the superiority of an agricultural society with industry and central organization until it was too late.
By the 1730s, Russia had contained the Kalmyks, using bribery and “divide and rule” tactics to dominate. They co-opted the Kalmyk elite. With money and alcohol, plus Christian conversions (and by taking many children as slaves), the Russians prevailed. Russian settlers poured onto the fertile steppes along the Volga and other rivers, excluding the nomads from their grazing grounds, just as the white Americans prevailed over the Plains Indians by killing the buffalo. In the end, the Kalmyks were reduced to a small people, seldom heard from.
The comparison with North America is strictly my own idea. The author does not mention it at all, so any disagreements can be blamed on me. It’s a very interesting book, but probably not for everyone.
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