Official Correspondence of the 18th Century Between Russian and Kalmyk Authorities: Aspects of Scientific Research (Based on the Documents of the National Archive of the Republic of Kalmykia)

Introduction. The object of the analysis is the official correspondence of the 18th century between Russian and Kalmyk authorities. Methods and materials. The article considers documents of the 18th century of the Kalmyk Commission at the Board of Foreign Affairs, stored in fund 36 of the National Archive of the Republic of Kalmykia, and uses historical-descriptive, source study, content, formal, documentary, and linguistic analysis. Analysis. It is determined that the correspondence is represented by two types: Russian-Kalmyk (where the initiators are from the Russian authorities) and Kalmyk-Russian (where the initiators are from the Kalmyk authorities), while justifying the expediency of using the term Kalmyk rather than Oirat. The letters reveal the relations between the Russian state and the Kalmyk Khanate, the activities of individuals, their interaction, the specifics of official communication, and the procedure for conducting office work in the field of interstate relations; they reflect the rules of speech etiquette and the peculiarities of the Russian and Kalmyk languages and their mutual influence (in Russian there are Kalmyk and European borrowings, outdated words, and features of actual pronunciation). The material demonstrates systematic features of an official letter as a document text. Results. The Russian-Kalmyk correspondence of the 18th century is proved to be a significant source on the history of Russia and Kalmykia and of the Russian and Kalmyk languages, as well as an independent object of study. At the same time, both aspect studies of correspondence and its comprehensive analysis are possible from the point of view of the speech organization of texts and the documentary properties of letters determined by external conditions – the historical context, office work, specific events, and relations between the authorities and their individual representatives. It is necessary and promising to study the sources through the joint efforts of specialists in the fields of history, philology, ethnography, and other sciences. Author’s contribution. D.A. Suseeva proposed the idea of the article, justified the term Kalmyk for the designation of the people, their language, and writing in the 18th century, described the procedure for working with Kalmyk letters in Russian institutions, gave an example of an interdisciplinary study of Russian-Kalmyk-Kazakh correspondence, and selected documents for analysis. O.A. Gorban analyzed the selected texts, revealing the possibilities of their comprehensive research in the source, linguistic, genre, and documentary aspects, and wrote the final text of the article.