Migrations of Tuvans to Mongolian People Republic: Background, Reasons and Circumstances

In the present paper, the author dates the process of unofficial resettlement of groups of Tuvans from Tuva to the Mongolian People Republic (MPR) territory (the 1930–1970s) and connects it, first of all, with Tuva state policy, and then the Soviet government policy in this district. So, the activation of migratory sentiment in the Tuvan People Republic in the early 1930s explained by the growing authorities pressure on Tuvan society, the persecution and oppression of those who are objectionable, the attempts to collectivize, lack of goods, the attack on cult representatives and traditional culture and also the Pan-Mongol sentiments of the southern Tuvans. The resettlement of Tuvans to the MPR continued and after 1932, when the cessation of uprisings and the introduction of a “new course”, which was designed to calm the outraged population and somewhat slow down the radical transformation of Tuvan society. The facts of such relocations became more frequent during the Second World War and after it due to the deterioration of the economic situation in the republic and the welfare of citizens, Tuva's accession to the USSR, the establishment of a strict border regime and the subsequent transformation of Tuvan traditional economy into Soviet standards. The author considers the facts of the resettlement of Tuvans from the Tuvan People's Republic to the MPR in 1930–1970s as a difficult choice for part of Tuvans who saw themselves as an integral part of the Mongolian world, and also tried to avoid the difficult economic situation in Tuva, political repressions, requisition of property and livestock, and sedentarization, mobilization to serve in the Red Army during the Second World War, the gradual Sovietization and Russification of Tuvan society. Relocation of Tuvans from Xinjiang in 1930–1940s can be explained by an attempt to escape from the troubled lands, on which uprisings of the Uigurs, Kazakhs, and Mongols broke out one after another against the Chinese authorities.