The people who once shook the universe and created an empire from sea to sea in ancient times now live peacefully in a small Asian country. Having left the fragments of related tribes and peoples along the path of their conquests, the descendants of which live in Russia, China and Central Asia, the Mongols are now a small people. The main part of the population of modern Mongolia since the 15th century calls itself the Khalkha-Mongols.
General information
In modern Mongolia, Halasians are the most numerous of the peoples inhabiting Mongolia. Approximately 2.14 million Khalkha-Mongols live in the country, which is approximately 82.04% of the total population. Historically, they inhabited the eastern regions of Mongolia, now - the central and southern regions. The country is home to some peoples who are close in language and culture to the Khalkha-Mongols, including Sartuls, Darigangs, Eljigens, Hotogoyts.
The language of the people is called Khalkha (Mongolian), it is the basis of the modern literary Mongolian language and belongs to the Mongolian group of the Altai language family. Since 1940, after rapprochement with the Soviet Union, the country has been using written scripts based on the Cyrillic alphabet. Khalkha-Mongols living in China use Old Mongolian writing, and the original Mongolian writing has been known since the 13th century. In 1990, this writing was given official status in Mongolia, but its scope remained very limited.
The main religion of the country is Buddhism-Lamaism. The main traditional occupation is nomadic cattle breeding.
Etymology: Version 1
As with almost any term rooted in antiquity, the exact origin of the name of the people of the Khalkha-Mongols has not been established, there are several hypotheses of origin.
According to researchers, the bulk of the population of Mongolia are Khalkhins, which are usually called the Mongols. The term "Mongol" is not the self-name of the ethnic majority of the country. Currently, the common name of the population is the lexeme "halha". The territory where the nomads were located, which served as a base for rest and preparation for new raids, was called "halhamin", which translates from ancient Mongolian as "my shield." In modern languages of the Mongolian group, the word "Khalkha" has a similar meaning - "cover", "screen", "shield 2. It is believed that at first the name was transferred from a small territory to the whole country, and then they began to call the ancestors of the Khalkha-Mongols.
Etymology: Version 2
In the XV-XVI century, great changes were carried out in the country by Khan Dayan, during which a new people began to emerge: a significant part of the population of Mongolia was concentrated on the banks of the rivers Khalkha, Bor-Nora and Lower Kerulen. The united tribes received the name of the Khalkha-Mongols. From here they, expanding the territory, settled westward to Ubea-Nora, expelling the Oirat tribes.
Subsequently, this name was rooted for most of modern Mongolia, as well as for the eastern Mongol tribes, the descendants of which bear the ethnonym Khalkha-Mongol.
Origin
As a people, the Khalkha-Mongols were formed not on the basis of one tribe, but as a result of a mixture of various steppe and forest tribes. Initially, the Khalkhas consisted of ancient Mongol tribes and clans, including Darigans, Hotogoys, Uzumchins, and dozens of other Mongolian and non-Mongol tribes, including the Tanguts, Tungus, and Sartul. Some of them did not know their history and did not keep a chronology of their ancestors.
Gradually, this hodgepodge of tribes and nationalities began to lose strict tribal division, and by the XVII-XIX centuries. the tribe or clan from which the Mongol came finally lost its meaning. Thus, by mixing and absorbing dozens of small tribal groups and clans in Central Mongolia, a new people appeared - the Khalkha-Mongols with their own language. The new language is slightly different from the language of the southern Mongols, Oirats and Kalmyks - the great Mongolian people of Russia.
A bit of history
The history of the Khalkha-Mongols begins from the XV-XVI centuries, when the Tungus-Manchu tribes, mixed with the locals, poured into the territory of modern Mongolia. By this time, a significant part of the indigenous tribes had gone along with the troops on campaigns to the west, to Iran and Central Asia, and their families left the Mongols along with the army.
In the middle of the sixteenth century, Dayan Khan allocated 12 Khalkhas tribes, which he gave to his sons to control, the descendants of seven of them, transferred to the 11th son of Geresenze, became Khalkha-Mongols.
Even the researchers of Mongolia of the 18th-19th centuries noted that the once warlike people are now completely peaceful, and unlike other nomadic peoples, the same Kyrgyz and Kazakhs, they completely lack the traditions of horse-stealing, and ordinary theft is found only in cities. The almost complete disappearance of the military spirit is explained by the influence of Buddhist clericalism.
The first Buddhist monastery was built in Mongolia in 1586, and by 1921 there were already 750 of them. A significant number of the male population were monks who kept a vow of celibacy. There was practically no population growth until the early twenties of the twentieth century, when repression against the Buddhist clergy began.