Transculturation as a model of preservation of the cultural originality of the Kalmyk ethnos

Abstract

In the Mongolian-speaking world Kalmyks are often identified as a “detached” part, a splinter of the large Asian cultural continent. The author insists that it is more correct to use such categories as “transculturation” and “cultural borderland” when analyzing the ethnic and cultural identity of Kalmyks. Obviously, Kalmyks cannot be characterized as the “ethnos without a culture” as they represent the “ethnos between the cultures”. This ethnos is known to have created and preserved its own original border culture. The peculiarity of the Kalmyk culture should be studied by means of the transcultural theory as Kalmyks are a people which is, on the one hand, a typically oriental one (considering its anthropological features, mentality, language, religion, etc.) and, on the other hand, they live in Europe between the large Christian and Muslim worlds.