ABOUT THE BURAT ETHNIC COMMUNITY AND THE EXOETHNONYM BARGU-BURAT (IN CONNECTION WITH THE ETHOGENESIS PROBLEM OF THE OIRATS)

Abstract

The article considers some complex and difficult issues that regularly excite the researchers’ minds when referring to the early period of the Oirats’ ethnic history. Where the original homeland (ancestral homeland) of the Oirats was, what their ethnic composition was, the Oirats were migrants or autochthons of Western Mongolia, the Buryats participated in ethnogenesis of the Oirats, the Oirat-Buryat ethnic community really existed. The author paid special atten-tion to the analysis of the ethnic term bargu-burat.