Animal husbandry of Kalmykia in the natural and climatic conditions of the region and the transition to settlementity of the nomad population in the 1930s

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the state of animal husbandry in Kalmykia and the problems of settling of the Kalmyk population in the 1930s. During this period, as is known, the Bolshevik government began to accelerate the process of uniting individual peasant farms into collective farms (collective farms and state farms), as well as transferring nomads to a sedentary lifestyle. In this study, the task is to analyze the main reasons that led to a catastrophic reduction in the number of livestock in Kalmykia during the period of continuous collectivization of agriculture, to find out how the Kalmyk people settled and what were the consequences of the voluntary decisions of the Soviet government aimed at changing the models of agricultural production, the way of life of nomads: economic for the region and socio-psychological for population. The novelty of the work lies in the fact that it highlights from new methodological positions, with the involvement of archival materials and published works on the problems of research.

Keywords

• animal husbandry
• kalmykia
• natural and climatic conditions
• nomadic
• semi-nomadic and sedentary population