Lamazhaa Ch.K-o. Tuva kak limitrofnaia zona: iazyk, religiia i identifikatsiia naseleniia [Tuva as a limitrophe zone: language, religion and people’s identity]. New Research of Tuva, 2021, no. 3, pp. 178-194 (In Russ.). DOI: https: ...

Abstract

The article sees Tuva as a limitrophe zone – that is, a territory located between civilizations, under their influence in various aspects of its sociocultural life. A limitrophe always remains a borderland and never fully becomes part of any civilizational field. This position is evident after an analysis of various aspects of the region’s sociocultural life. On the one hand, for many centuries Tuva has been a part of the Buddhist, Shamanist and nomadic Inner (or Central) Asia. On the other, for the last two centuries it has also been part of the Russian civilization. In various aspects of its life, the population is dominated by different civilizational influences, which means that over a range of issues, Tuva gravitates towards different civilizational bodies. Building on a wide range of bibliographic material, as well as data from the empirical studies made by the author, the article examines the civilizational influences in the Tuvan linguistic sphere, as well as Tuvans’ religious adherence and self-identification. In each of these spheres, the analysis covers a historical retrospection shedding light on Tuvans’ historical choice over a specific issue, and on the rise and development of a certain factor. Linguistically, Tuvans have been found to have possessed a limited Tuvan-Mongolian bilingualism, later to be replaced by a Tuvan-Russian one. Given the generational changes, the current trend is towards the gradual rise of a Russian-Tuvan bilingualism. The linguistic influence of the Russian civilization is increasing, but also growing is the impact of the Tibetan Buddhist civilizational community which Tuvan Buddhist associate themselves with. The impact of the Chinese civilization remains minimal – unlike the political consequence the politics of the Chinese empire has led to. Tuvans also feel affinity with the Mongolian culture, but it is limited by the difference between the two languages and the language families they belong to. Tuvan religious preferences, in their turn, antagonize them from many other Turkic nations, where most people follow Islam. These and other factors contribute to the feeling of a special Tuvan ethnic identity.