The account we have given of our journey on the banks of the Volga, and the steppes of the Caspian, will have afforded the reader an idea of the strange and striking habits of the nomade hordes that wander with their flocks over those vast deserts, and worship their Llamite deities with all the pomp and fervour of the nations of Thibet. Our historical and political sketch will serve as a complement to those primary notions. It is by no means our intention, however, to give a complete history of the Kalmucks; such a work would be too extensive, and would require too long and arduous researches to be compressed within our limits. At present we shall only cast a rapid glance over the past history of the great Mongol families; we shall dwell principally upon their actual condition, and then comparing our own observations with the statements of preceding writers, we shall try to cast some new light on the history of the Asiatic races that occupy the south of Russia.
Pallas and B. Bergmann, the only travellers who have taken pains to investigate the history of the Kalmucks in the government of Astrakhan, have left us some valuable details respecting their manners and customs, and their religion. But Pallas travelled in 1769, and circumstances have greatly changed since his day. B. Bergmann visited the Kalmucks in the early part of this century, and it is to be regretted that his work, which contains such important information respecting the languages and the religious books of the Mongols, takes no notice whatever of any matter connected with their political administration and organisation.
It is not surprising that so little is yet known of the Kalmuck hordes, for excursions through the remote Steppes of the Caspian Sea present difficulties and hardships which few travellers can withstand. One must unquestionably be impelled by a strong motive, to traverse those immense plains which are almost everywhere destitute of fresh water, where one often marches 100 leagues without seeing a trace of human life, and where the soil, bare of vegetation, offers no other variety than sands and brackish lakes. Yet in order to form an exact idea of the inhabitants of these deserts, of their character, and ways of life, it is necessary to dwell beneath their tents. It is in the vicinity of Sarepta that the traveller arriving from the north meets the first Kalmuck kibitkas. The camps then stretch away across the Manitch and the Kouma towards the foot of the great Caucasian chain. We have explored all that extent of country, have visited the remotest parts of the steppes, and seen the Kalmucks in an advanced social stage at Prince Tumene's, and in a primitive condition beneath their tents. It is thus we have been enabled to collect our information respecting the history and present condition of this unique people of Europe.
According to the unanimous opinion of all historians, the regions adjoining the Altai mountains, and especially those south of that great chain, appear to have been from time immemorial the cradle and domain of the Mongol tribes. At first divided into two branches, always at war with each other, the Mongols were at last united into one great nation under the celebrated Genghis Khan, and thus was laid the basis of that formidable power which was to invade almost the whole of eastern Europe. But after the death of Genghis Khan, the old discord broke out with renewed violence, and only ended with the mutual destruction of the two great Mongol tribes. The Mongols proper were forced to submit to the Chinese, whom they had formerly vanquished, and the four nations that formed the Dœrbœn Œrœt, scattered themselves over all the north of Asia. The Koïtes, after long wars, spread over Mongolia and Thibet; the Touemmoites or Toummouts settled along the great wall of China, where they remain to this day; the Bourga Burates, who already in the time of Genghis Khan inhabited the mountains adjacent to Lake Barkal, are now beneath the Russian sceptre; the Eleuthes, the last of the four, are better known in Europe and Western Asia under the appellation of Kalmucks.
According to ancient national traditions, the greater part of the Eleuthes made an expedition westward, and were lost in the Caucasus, long before the time of Genghis Khan. It is to that epoch that some historians refer the origin of the word Kalmuck, which they derive from kalimak, severed, left behind, and they suppose this designation was applied to all those Eleuthes who did not accompany their brethren westward. According to Bergmann, kalimak signifies likewise unbeliever, and this name may very naturally have been given by the people of Asia who adhered to the primitive religion, to the Eleuthes, when they had become converts to Buddhism. We leave to competent judges the task of deciding which is the more rational or probable explanation.
The Eleuthes or Kalmucks allege that they dwelt in old times in the countries lying between Koho Noor (Blue Lake) and Thibet. Their division into four great tribes, each under an independent prince, dates probably from the dissolution of the Mongol power. These tribes, whose remains exist to this day, are the Koshotes, Derbetes, Soongars, and Torghouts. The Koshotes, whose chiefs consider themselves to be lineally descended from a brother of Genghis Khan, were partly destroyed in intestine wars with the Torghouts and Soongars, and partly subjugated by China. Only a small remnant of them accompanied the Derbetes to the banks of the Volga.
The Soongars originally united with the Derbetes, constituted the most formidable tribe in Asia, in the beginning of the seventeenth century. Their princes, who resided on the river Ily, had then subdued all the other Kalmucks; they could bring 60,000 fighting men into the field, and the Khirghis and Turkmans paid them tribute. Their pride augmented with their success, and a war they undertook against the Chinese Mongols became the cause of their downfall. The Soongars were enslaved or scattered, and a branch of the Derbetes shared their fate. It was about this period that the first emigration of Kalmucks took place into Russia; 50,000 Soongar or Torgout families encamped on the banks of the Volga, in 1630, and Astrakhan owed its safety only to the death of their prince Cho Orloëk, who was slain in an assault on the town. Subsequently, however, about 1665, Daitchink, the son of Cho Orloëk, was forced to acknowledge himself a vassal of the empire, and to swear fealty. His example was followed by his son. But this submission was merely nominal, and did not at all affect the real independence of the Mongol hordes.
The first Kalmuck emigrations towards the west were speedily followed by others. The Derbetes and other Torghouts arrived in the steppes of the Caspian and Volga to the number of more than 10,000 tents. In 1665, Aiouki Khan, grandson of Daitchink, an enterprising and ambitious man, succeeded, in defiance of Russia, in extending his sway over all the Kalmuck tribes. This chief pushed his excursions up to the foot of the Caucasus, and being opposed on his march by the Nogais of the Kouban, he completely defeated them in a general engagement. The bodies of his slain foes were cast by his orders into a pit dug under a great tumulus, situated on the field of battle, and still known in the country by the name of Bairin Tolkon (Mountain of Joy), bestowed on it by the victorious khan in memory of his triumph.
Aiouki's forces then took part in Peter the Great's famous expedition against Persia, in which they rendered great services to Russia. The Kalmuck prince had a brilliant interview on this occasion with the Tzar. Peter received him on board his galley on the Volga, near Saratof, and treated him and his wife with all the honours due to sovereigns. Aiouki was then at the height of his power, and cared little for the oath of allegiance to Russia taken by his predecessors. Peter required 10,000 men of him, and he furnished 5000. It was about this period that an embassy, under the special protection of Russia, arrived from China, by way of Siberia, and waited on Aiouki Khan, ostensibly for the purpose of treating with him for the restoration of one of his nephews, who was detained at the imperial court for reasons unknown to us. But we believe that the principal object of the embassy was to keep up political relations with the Kalmucks, whom the Chinese government wished to bring back under its own sway. Aiouki, following the example of his predecessors, had not broken off all communication with the celestial empire, and had even sent rich presents to the emperor in 1698. It was, therefore, important to cherish this favourable disposition, of which the Chinese hoped to avail themselves sooner or later. Of course it is not to be supposed that these views were avowed officially; and we cannot but wonder at the indifference of the Russian government, or the adroitness with which the Chinese availed themselves of the aid of Russia herself to compass their ends. But in the various interviews between Aiouki and Toulichen, the head of the embassy, the question of keeping up an intimacy between the two nations was largely discussed, and all necessary measures were arranged to avoid awakening the suspicions of Russia, and thus closing the only means of communication that lay open to them.[37]
Aiouki reigned about fifty years. After his death, in 1724, the old dissensions broke out again among the Kalmucks; Russia made good use of the opportunity to break down the independence of the hordes by directly interfering in their domestic affairs, and their princes soon became subject to the imperial sceptre. Thenceforth the dignity of khan was conferred only by the Muscovite tzars, and the tribes were put under the special control of a Russian commander called a pristof.