Independence movement grows in Kalmykia

According to supporters it is a prerequisite to preserve the local language and culture. Independents against the 'mad centralisation and militarisation' of Russia. Separatist sentiments also on the part of Bashkars, Hertzians, Buriates and Chechens.

Moscow (AsiaNews) - Activists of the Congress of the Oirati and Kalmyks, Mongolian peoples who are heirs of the ancient Zungars and Čuulgani, settled in the Lower Volga region, have approved and circulated a document in which they support the cause of their own full independence, as a prerequisite for preserving their Kalmyk language and culture.

The Congress was established in 2015 in the capital city of Elista, and in 2021 several of its members were arrested and imprisoned, some managed to escape abroad.

The 'Declaration of State Independence of the Republic of Kalmykia' has been signed by several exponents both abroad and in Russia, including the former director of the Centre for the Development of the Kalmykian Language Arslang Sandžiev, the leader of the local branch of the Liberal Party 'Yabloko' Batyr Boromangaev, and other rather well-known political figures in the region such as Vladimir Dovdanov, Erentsen Doljaev and Albert Šarapov.

The text is a supplement to another declaration, approved by the Supreme Soviet of Soviet Kalmykia in 1990, before the end of the regime. Back then, the people's deputies voted in favour of the legal and democratic sovereignty of the Kalmykian state, based on the right of peoples to self-determination.

The current exponents of European Mongolian ethnic politics believe that the principles of that first document have never been realised in the practice of the autonomous republic, incorporated into the Russian Federation and led for many years by the first president Kirsan Ilyumžinov, let alone after the election of Vladimir Putin as president of Russia and the current administration of Batu Časikov, loyal to him.

The declaration lists the main demands to be presented to the Moscow regime, first and foremost that of being able to emancipate themselves from the 'insane centralisation and militarisation of the country' and the Kremlin's 'total interference in the cultural and linguistic life of the peoples conquered by Russia'. The calmucchi independence activists denounce the 'violations of international law' and five other points directed against the authoritarian and imperialist character of Russian policy.

According to the authors of the text, the rights of citizens are ignored in the Russian Federation, subjected to constant repression, recalling the deportations of Kalmyks in Stalin's time and afterwards, and the problem of 'illegally expropriated land'. Kalmykia, like other former Soviet regions and nations, also makes territorial claims against its neighbours, specifically the neighbouring Astrakhan region, dating back to the Stalinist partitions of 1943. Doljaev, one of the authors, has been arguing for years that the entire Astrakhan area should be part of the independent Kalmykia, as it is the historical territory of the migration of the Kalmyks from Central Asia.

The Oirati and Calmucchi demand 'liberation from colonial dependence', and announce their intentions to obtain the republic's exit from Russia, proclaiming their own sovereignty, against the backdrop of the revival of many ethnic separatisms. Independence is 'the necessary condition for the survival of the Chaluz people', and they appeal to all states and regional and world governments to support the liberation, under the slogan 'let justice for all peoples triumph!

The independentists also refer to the 'League of Free Nations', which met last June at the international level via the web, and to the 'Forum of Free Peoples' organised by Tatar exponents and others in Warsaw and Prague in May and June. These events were also joined by exponents from Bashkia, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Buriati, Chechnya and other nationalities living in the territories of the Russian Federation. 

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• calmucchia
• indipendenza
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