Altaians
Altai (officially Oiroten until 1948 ) are now counted among the Turkic peoples whose settlement area is in the Russian Republic of Altai on the one hand and in the Altai region on the other . Their language is Altaic .
Their ethnogenesis lies in the Kipchak tribes, an ancient Turkic people to which the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz also belong. There are different views as to whether the Altaians represent a “ people ” or a “group” of closely related ethnic groups. The same goes for their language. As a whole, the Altai people belong to the indigenous peoples of Siberia.
Groups and names
The Altai people are divided into a northern and a southern group. In the Russian Empire , the northern group was known as the Kuznetsk Tatars ( kusnezkie tatary ) or Tschernowye tatary or Oiroten ( orioty ), and they included the tubalars (Russian: tubalary ), which lived on the left bank of the Bija River and on the northeast bank of the Telezkoje Lake (Russian: Telezkoje osero / Телецкое озеро ) settled, their number was 1565 in 2002. The Chelkans (also: Lebediner , 2002: 855) settle in the valley of the Lebed River , the Cumandians (2002: 3114) live on Middle reaches of the Bija.
The southern group includes the largest subgroup, which, like the entire group, is called Altaians (2002: 67,239). The Telengites (2002: 2399) settle on the Chulysman , Chuja and Argut rivers . The Teleuts (2002: 2650) live mainly in the Belovo district of the Kemerovo Oblast , a smaller part in the Altai Republic. The Telese (population unknown) settle on the Chulyshman and Chuja rivers and the Majmalaren (also not recorded in the 2002 census) on the Majma River.
history
The Altai came under Russian rule in the 18th century. After the October Revolution, the Soviets established the Oirotic Autonomous Region within the Russian republic of the Soviet Union . In 1948 this area was renamed the Gorno-Altai Autonomous Region. With the end of the USSR in 1991, the area became the Altai Republic within Russia. Today there are between 70,000 and 75,000 Altai people.
religion
Before the Russian rule, the religions were Buddhism with a Lamaist orientation and shamanism, after which most Altaians were converted to the Russian Orthodox faith. At the beginning of the 20th century there was a renaissance of Lamaism.
See also
Indigenous peoples of the Russian north
literature
- Rudolf A. Mark : The peoples of the Soviet Union Opladen Westdeutscher Verlag 1989, ISBN 3-531-12075-1
- Roland Götz / Uwe Halbach: Political Lexicon of Russia , Munich, CG Beck´sche Verlagsbuchhandlung 1994 ISBN 3-406-35177-8
- Agnieszka E. Halemba: The Telengits of Southern Siberia: Landscape, Religion, and Knowledge in Motion. Routledge, 2006. ISBN 978-0-415-36000-5
Web links
- The Altai - website with rich bibliography (Russian)
- The Altai people on the Novosibirsk University website (in Russian)
- The Altai report of the radio station "Voice of Russia"
- The Tubalars and the Chelkans Report from the radio station "Voice of Russia"
- Teleuts and Telengites Report from the radio station "Voice of Russia"