The mentality of the Kalmyk ethnic group: traditions and the modern state

Abstract

Mentality as a scientific term has already been recognized by psychologists, historians, and philosophers. Philosophers began to use this term in their works long ago trying to consider the specificity of a people’s attitude to the world etc. As to the Kalmyk people, their mentality has not been properly studied yet either by phil osophers or by culturologists. The author shows that the mentality of Kalmyks has been influenced by their historical and social development as well as by their specific economy. The most significant historical facts that have determined the formation of the Kalmyk mentality are the following: the ethnogenesis of Oirats, the period of the Mongol imperia, the Kalmyk Khanate which existed for more than 100 years, the voluntary entry of Kalmyks into the Russian state and the further development of the Kalmyk people within the boarders of Russia, the complicated and tragic peripeteias of the 20th-century history, etc.