The Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China, as well as Buryatia and Kalmykia of Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family of Mongolic peoples. The Oirats in Western Mongolia as well as the Buryats and Kalmyks of Russia are classified either as distinct ethno-linguistic groups or subgroups of Mongols.
The Buryats are a Mongolic ethnic group native to southeastern Siberia who speak the Buryat language. They are one of the two largest indigenous groups in Siberia, the other being the Yakuts. The majority of the Buryats today live in their titular homeland, the Republic of Buryatia, a federal subject of Russia which sprawls along the southern coast and partially straddles Lake Baikal. Smaller groups of Buryats also inhabit Ust-Orda Buryat Okrug and the Agin-Buryat Okrug which are to the west and east of Buryatia respectively as well as northeastern Mongolia and Inner Mongolia, China. They traditionally formed the major northern subgroup of the Mongols.
Kalmyks are the only Mongolic-speaking people living in Europe, residing in the easternmost part of the European Plain.
The Mongolian People's Republic was a socialist state that existed from 1924 to 1992, located in the historical region of Outer Mongolia under the Qing dynasty. It was officially recognized by the Nationalist government as independent from the Republic of China in 1946. Until 1990, it was a one-party state ruled by the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, and maintained close political and economic ties with the Soviet Union, as part of the Eastern Bloc.
Khorloogiin Choibalsan was a Mongolian politician who served as the leader of the Mongolian People's Republic as chairman of the Council of Ministers (premier) from 1939 until his death in 1952. He was also commander-in-chief of the Mongolian People's Army from 1937, and chairman of the Presidium of the State Little Khural from 1929 to 1930. His rise to power in the 1930s was personally orchestrated by Joseph Stalin, and his rule was maintained by a repressive state and cult of personality. Choibalsan led a dictatorship and organized Stalinist purges in Mongolia between 1937 and 1939 as head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
Peljidiin Genden was a political leader of the Mongolian People's Republic who served as the country's first President and the ninth Prime Minister (1932–1936). As one of three MPRP secretaries, Genden was responsible for the swift compulsory implementation of socialist economic policies in the early 1930s. In 1932, he was granted Joseph Stalin's support to become Prime Minister, but then increasingly resisted pressure from Moscow to liquidate institutional Buddhism and permit increased Soviet influence in Mongolia. His independent temperament, outspokenness, and growing nationalist sentiments ultimately led to his Soviet-orchestrated purge in March 1936. Accused of conspiring against the revolution and spying for the Japanese, he was executed in Moscow on November 26, 1937.
The Soviet Union introduced forced collectivization of its agricultural sector between 1928 and 1940 during the ascension of Joseph Stalin. It began during and was part of the first five-year plan. The policy aimed to integrate individual landholdings and labour into nominally collectively-controlled and openly or directly state-controlled farms: Kolkhozes and Sovkhozes accordingly. The Soviet leadership confidently expected that the replacement of individual peasant farms by collective ones would immediately increase the food supply for the urban population, the supply of raw materials for the processing industry, and agricultural exports via state-imposed quotas on individuals working on collective farms. Planners regarded collectivization as the solution to the crisis of agricultural distribution that had developed from 1927. This problem became more acute as the Soviet Union pressed ahead with its ambitious industrialization program, meaning that more food would be needed to keep up with urban demand.
Buryatia, officially the Republic of Buryatia, is a republic of Russia located in the Russian Far East. Formerly part of the Siberian Federal District, it has been administered as part of the Far Eastern Federal District since 2018. It borders Irkutsk Oblast and Lake Baikal, the deepest lake in the world to the north, Zabaykalsky Krai to the east, Tuva to the west and Mongolia to the south. Its capital is the city of Ulan-Ude. It has an area of 351,300 square kilometers (135,600 sq mi) with a population of 978,588. It is home to the indigenous Buryats.
The Tofalarpeople, are a Turkic people who live in Tofalariya, in the southwestern part of Nizhneudinsky District, Irkutsk Oblast of Russia. The Tofalar population is highly mixed with Russians due to the presence of Russian settlers and high rates of intermarriage.
The Soyot are an ethnic group of Samoyedic and Turkic origin who live mainly in the Oka region in the Okinsky District in Buryatia, Russia. They share much of their history with the Tofalar, Tozhu Tuvans, Dukha, and Buryat; the Soyot have taken on a great deal of Buryat cultural influence and were grouped together with them under Soviet policy. Due to intermarriage between Soyots and Buryats, the Soyot population is heavily mixed with the Buryat. In 2000, they were reinstated as a distinct ethnic group.
The Buryat Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as Buryat ASSR, was an autonomous republic of the Russian SFSR within the Soviet Union.
The Stalinist repressions in Mongolia was an 18-month period of heightened political violence and persecution in the Mongolian People's Republic between 1937 and 1939. The repressions were an extension of the Stalinist purges unfolding across the Soviet Union around the same time. Soviet NKVD advisors, under the nominal direction of Mongolia's de facto leader Khorloogiin Choibalsan, persecuted thousands of individuals and organizations perceived as threats to the Mongolian revolution and the growing Soviet influence in the country. As in the Soviet Union, methods of repression included torture, show trials, executions, and imprisonment in remote forced labor camps, often in Soviet gulags. Estimates differ, but anywhere between 20,000 and 35,000 "enemies of the revolution" were executed, a figure representing three to five percent of Mongolia's total population at the time. Victims included those accused of espousing Tibetan Buddhism, pan-Mongolist nationalism, and pro-Japanese sentiment. Buddhist clergy, aristocrats, intelligentsia, political dissidents, and ethnic Buryats and Kazakhs suffered the greatest losses.
The 1932 armed uprising in Mongolia, also known as the Khuvsgul Uprising was a popular revolt against the "left course" policies of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP) as directed by Soviet Bolsheviks and Comintern agents in the People's Republic of Mongolia. Principally led by lamas, the uprisings covered the northwest part of the country and lasted from April–November 1932. Most rebels consisted of common herders but even many party members and the local bureaucrats joined the rebellion. The insurgents were spurred on by rumors of support from the Panchen Lama and the Japanese. More than 1,500 people were killed in the violence as both insurgents and Soviet-backed Mongolian troops sent to quell the rebellion engaged in atrocities. Special study revealed that this uprising corresponds to generally accepted criteria of civil war. Suggestions that the uprising was inspired or supported by Japan or the 9th Panchen Lama are not confirmed by archival documents.
The occupation of Outer Mongolia by the Beiyang government of the Republic of China after the revocation of Outer Mongolian autonomy began in October 1919 and lasted until 18 March 1921, when Chinese troops in Urga were routed by Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg's White Russian and Mongolian forces. These, in turn, were defeated by the Red Army and its Mongolian allies by June 1921.
Buddhism in Buryatia, a region in Siberia, Russia, has a deep-rooted history dating back to the 17th century when Tibetan Buddhism first arrived in the area. Initially adopted by ethnic groups like the Selenga and Zede Buryats, Buddhism gradually spread throughout the Transbaikal region. In 1741, it gained formal recognition as an official religion in the Russian Empire, with the establishment of Buddhist monastic universities known as datsans. Despite facing significant challenges during the Soviet era, including persecution and the closure of religious institutions, Buddhism in Buryatia has persisted and experienced a revival in the post-Soviet period.
Bat-Ochiryn Eldev-Ochir was a prominent political figure in early years of the Mongolian People's Republic who, between 1928 and 1937, was one of three secretaries of the Central Committee of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP). He served as the party's First Secretary from 1929 to 1930 and again for a month in 1932. As party leader, Eldev-Ochir pushed for rapid implementation of socialist policies during the “Leftist” period of the early 1930s, led the persecution of institutional Buddhism in Mongolia, and backed Soviet-sponsored purges of counterrevolutionary elements, particularly Buryat-Mongols, during the Lkhümbe affair in 1934-1935. He died in 1937 after being injured in a car crash.
The Kazakh famine of 1930–1933, also known as the Asharshylyk, was a famine during which approximately 1.5 million people died in the Kazakh Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic, then part of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic in the Soviet Union, of whom 1.3 million were ethnic Kazakhs. An estimated 38 to 42 percent of all Kazakhs died, the highest percentage of any ethnic group killed by the Soviet famine of 1930–1933. Other research estimates that as many as 2.3 million died. A committee created by the Kazakhstan parliament chaired by Historian Manash Kozybayev concluded that the famine was "a manifestation of the politics of genocide", with 1.75 million victims.
Anti-Mongolianism, also called anti-Mongolian sentiment, has been prevalent throughout history, often perceiving the Mongols to be barbaric and uncivilized people with a lack of intelligence or civilized culture.
The Buryat liberation movement is the centuries-long social and military confrontation of ethnic Buryats against the Russian Empire, which actually colonized the region. In modern history - rallies and actions against the policy of the Russian Federation.
Buryat Genocide - repressions, ethnic cleansing, mass forced resettlement, and direct extermination of the Buryat people by the Russian Empire, the USSR and the modern Russian Federation.
Soviet Union