To the Question of the Buryat Residency in Northern Manchuria in the XVII - the First Third of the XVIII Centuries

Abstract

The study contributes to the ongoing scientific discussion on the issue of the residence of Buryats in Northern Manchuria in the 17th - first third of the 18th centuries. The novelty of the study is that, based on the analysis of the names of the Buryats, Bargu-Buryat and some other ethnic terms, an updated history of the Mongol-speaking ethnic groups of northeast China at the indicated time is presented. It is established that the word Buryat (from Mong. Buraa ʻ forrest ʼ) is the archetype of the ethnonym Buryat . It was the name of a tribal association, located west of Lake Baikal in the middle of the XVI-XVII centuries, on the basis of which, with the coverage of Transbaikalia, by the end of the XVIII century a Buryat nation was formed. It has been proved that the Buryat community was given the byname Bargu-Buryat living south of the Mongolian steppes. It was especially emphasized that at the beginning of the 20th century in the local history literature on the population of the right bank of the Argun the byname Bargu-Buryat was transferred to the two ethnic communities of the old Barguts and new Barguts that lived in the region, who did not participate in meso-ethnogenesis, and therefore never called themselves Buryats . It was found that the researchers were misled by the word Bargu(t) in the names. There was a distorted opinion that has a definite effect on modern authors, that the Buryats during the period of the Manchu rulers from Nurhatsi to Yongzheng were residents of Northeast China.

Keywords

• ethnonym buryat
• byname bargu-buryat
• ethnic communities
• old barguts
• new barguts
• northern manchuria