The Kalmyk Migrations

        The Kalmyk people have migrated on many different occasions.  From their origination of their culture during the migration of the Oirot Mongols from the Altai Mountains in 1636 to 1957 when the Kalmyk people traveled back to their homeland after the deportation, one can see that the Kalmyks have often traveled from one place to another.  In fact, members of the Kalmyk culture have migrated as recently as 1991 when a large population of the culture moved back to their homeland in Kalmykia from parts of the Soviet Union (Minahan 358).  In accordance with their migratory history, much of the Kalmyk culture remains nomadic even today.  This migratory, or nomadic life-style, allows the Kalmyks to exist as a mostly agricultural society.

Reference: http://russiasperiphery.blogs.wm.edu/transcaucasia/kalmykia/

        The origination of the Kalmyk culture began with the destabilization of the Mongol Empire (Minahan 358).  During this time, a branch of the Oirot Mongols left the Mongol Empire in 1636 as China began to take over.  After thirty-two years of migrating, they finally settled near the Volga River Basin.  However, in the later half of the eighteenth century, members of the Kalmyk culture who had settled east of the the Volga River returned to their homeland, which had since been dominated by China, in an attempt to stop the persecution of their Oirot relatives.  This migration consisted of a 2,000 mile journey in which only one third of the migratory population survived.  Many were killed due to harsh weather conditions, hunger, and attacks carried out by Russia (Minahan 359).  
        Another tragic form of diaspora of the Kalmyk people occured in the 1940s.  This took place when Joseph Stalin convicted the entire Kalmyk population of treason for their alliance with Germany, and he issued a culture-wide deportation of the Kalmyk people.  During this extremely horrific exile, the Kalmyk people were sent east in cramped cattle cars.  According to James Minahan, "Only three Kalmyk families escaped the brutal deportation" (360).  The deportation lasted around twenty-two days during which thousands of Kalmyks died of either malnutrition or disease.  This tragic ordeal destroyed half of the Kalmyk's pre-war population (Minahan 360).
        In 1957, many survivors of the tragic deportation made their way back to the area of Kalmykia.  This numbered to be about 6,000 people.  In 1958, the Kalmyks had reclaimed this area.  However, it remained under strict Russian surveillance.  By the 1970s, more Kalmyks had arrived, and this grew the population to about 174,000 by 1989.  So clearly, the members of the Kalmyk culture have been migrating up until fairly recently (Minahan 360-1).
        Other segments of the Kalmyk's diaspora exist in both the United States and in other parts of Europe.  This includes the Kalmyk "exile community."  The Kalmyk exile community amounts to about 1,500 members of the culture.  In 1987, reforms issued by Mikhail Gorbachev renewed ties between the Kalmyks in Kalmykia and the scattered exile communities.  This renewed relationship has aided the Kalmyks in their cultural and religious revival throughout the last two decades (Minahan 361).

Works Cited:
Minahan, James. One Europe, Many Nations: A Historical Dictionary of European National Groups. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000. Print.