On the Specificity of “Obligatory Relations” of the Kalmyks

The article is devoted to social interactions research, particularly to dependency relations in the Kalmyk society of the 17th–19th centuries in the context of a discussion about social structure of nomadic people. The scientific relevance of the research is due to the fact that these problems remain understudied and controversial. Nomadologists disagree on many issues of nomads’ social organization in general and individually that of the Kalmyks. There still remains some influence of former methods and social formation in the study of the Kalmyks’ social system. The analysis of law sources, especially the Mongol-Oirat laws of 1640, is particularly important. A given assessment of these laws served as the basis for ideas of many researchers. During the operational period of Ministerial committees, which were preparing the draft law on the abolition of dependency relations in the Kalmyk society, a consensus was formed: the essence of mandatory dependency of common Kalmyks is expressed as the right of Kalmyk upper classes to collect money from their dependent Kalmyks. As long as this law had the nature of a property, it could be concluded that its abolition needed to be rewarded. Obviously, the government understood and emphasized the difference between “mandatory relations” in the Kalmyk society from serfdom in the Russian countryside. Some researchers have turned their attention to the role of the Russian government in legal arrangements of Kalmyk privileged classes’ possessory interest, which in our opinion, resulted from its attempt to organize relations in the Kalmyk society by using “familiar” means and methods.