Introduction. The articles examines etymologies and semantics of Mongolic words denoting the sky. The system of astronomical terms in Mongolic languages is structurally complicated due to multiple layers of pre-Buddhist, Buddhist and other beliefs adopted by proto-Mongols. Goals. The work aims to identify etymological and semantic dominants characterizing this thematic group within the common Mongolic vocabulary. The concept of sky clusters with most basic ones, and lexemes to denote it are to be found in each and every language. Materials and methods. The study examines dictionaries of Mongolic languages, involves reliable proto-Mongolian lexical reconstructions by H. Nugteren and O. Mudrak. Furthermore, the paper analyzes various etymological works and Altaic dictionaries, as well as databases on semantic transitions and colexifications. Results. The Mongolic vocabularies contain four lexemes denoting the sky and two for air/airspace — all of them being largely associated with different beliefs and faiths across different areas and in different eras. So, the word *teŋgeri attests to some elements of the cult of heaven had been practiced by earliest Mongols and the latter had maintained contacts with Turkic groups. The second lexeme *hogtorgui is a Buddhist scholarly term semantically derived from the one denoting emptiness, i.e. a suggested semantic calque from the Sanskrit word that was borrowed to northern Mongolic languages from translated texts of the Buddhist Canon. The third name *köke is a hapax from the Muqaddimat al-Adab that may have arrived in western Middle Mongolian from Chagatai Turkic. The fourth word *asman is a later borrowing from Persian to vocabularies of Muslim Mongols, sometimes via Turkic languages. The fifth lexical unit *agaɣar may have been included from Buddhist Sanskrit, and the sixth word *kei — from Middle Chinese. The unexpected conclusion is that the original proto-Mongolian word to have denoted the sky simply cannot be reconstructed. Evidently, the ancient word had been displaced by the loanwords throughout most intensive cultural contacts.
Goals. The article seeks to reconstruct everyday life in the Kalmyk ASSR in the years straight after the return from the deportation, and view newspaper materials as a source for investigating mundanity, print media serving a universal means of mass communication and data translation. Materials. The paper analyzes photographs published by the national newspaper Khalmg Ünn in 1957-1959. Despite the periodical was essentially 'state-backed', one could still trace key mundanity patterns and issues dealt with by commoners. The continuous sampling method was employed to select materials of 1957-1959 for the reconstruction, special emphasis being laid upon photo analysis rather
Introduction. Museum items tend to arouse significant research interest since they make it possible to trace household activities inherent to a certain community, i.e. aspects of life usually overlooked by archival documents. Astrakhan Reserve Museum houses an authentic collection of Buddhist icons examined in the present study. Goals. The paper attempts an analysis of Kalmyk dartsigs (Buddhist icons) as a source for historical and ethnographic research. Materials and methods. The ‘Kalmyk’ Collection of Astrakhan Reserve Museum numbers over 220 items, including 49 dartsigs. The work analyzes 48 icons, since dartsig 49 is attributed to the modern tradition and has no authentic value. The employed research methods are the historical/genetic, statistical, descriptive, anthropological ones, that of comparative analysis and others. The study is based on an interdisciplinary approach instrumental in providing multifaceted insights. Results. The shaping of the ‘Kalmyk’ Collection took place in the prerevolutionary and Soviet periods. The cultural artifacts were collected and donated to the Museum for a number of reasons, the primary one having been that members of Peter the Great Society for the Study of Astrakhan Land were seeking to preserve cultural heritage of peoples to have inhabited the region, lest the latter should be destroyed by the Soviets or lost in the swirl of history. Our comparisons of the current ‘Kalmyk’ Collection and other sources yield a list of certain Buddhist images that have been lost and are still of great scholarly interest. The well preserved thangkas without passe-partouts had been purposely painted and passed to Peter the Great Society, the poorly preserved ones with traces of soot had once been used in homes of Kalmyk commoners, while the larger and fine images are likely to have been attributes of Buddhist temples or estates of wealthy Kalmyks. The analysis of passe-partouts attests to that Kalmyks were actually handling the icons with utmost veneration, which is evident enough in the qualities of textiles the former were sewn from.
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