Dolgans (; ; ) are a Turkicized Tungusic ethnic group who mostly inhabit

Krasnoyarsk Krai Krasnoyarsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia located in Siberia. Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Krasnoyarsk, the second-largest city in Siberia after ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. They are descended from several groups, particularly

Evenks The Evenki, also known as the Evenks and formerly as the Tungus, are a Tungusic peoples, Tungusic people of North Asia. In Russia, the Evenki are recognised as one of the Indigenous peoples of the Russian North, indigenous peoples of the Russi ...

, one of the

Indigenous peoples of the Russian North The Indigenous minority peoples of the North, Siberia, and the Far East of Russia () is a Russian census classification of local indigenous peoples, assigned to groups with fewer than 50,000 members, living in the Russian Far North, Siberia, or R ...

. Dolgans are the most closely related to the

. They adopted a

Turkic language The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

sometime in the early 19th century. The 2010 Census counted 7,885 Dolgans. This number includes 5,517 in Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District. Dolgan speak the Dolgan language, which is closely related to the

Yakut language The Yakut language ( ), also known as the Sakha language ( ) or Yakutian, is a Siberian Turkic language spoken by around 450,000 native speakers—primarily by ethnic Yakuts. It is one of the official languages of the Sakha Republic, a republic ...

History

In the 17th century, the Dolgans lived in the basins of the Olenyok River and

Lena River The Lena is a river in the Russian Far East and is the easternmost river of the three great rivers of Siberia which flow into the Arctic Ocean, the others being Ob (river), Ob and Yenisey. The Lena River is long and has a capacious drainage basi ...

. They moved to their current location, Taymyr, in the 18th century. The Dolgan identity began to emerge during the 19th and early 20th centuries, under the influence of three groups who migrated to the Krasnoyarsk area from the Lena River and Olenyok River region:

Yakuts The Yakuts or Sakha (, ; , ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to North Siberia, primarily the Republic of Sakha in the Russian Federation. They also inhabit some districts of the Krasnoyarsk Krai. They speak Yakut, which belongs to the Si ...

, Enets, and so-called tundra peasants ().

Culture and livelihood

Originally, the Dolgans were

nomadic Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and trader nomads. In the twentieth century, the population of nomadic pa ...

hunters and

reindeer The reindeer or caribou (''Rangifer tarandus'') is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, taiga, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only re ...

herders. However, they were prevented from following a nomadic lifestyle during the

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

era and required to form ''

kolkhoz A kolkhoz ( rus, колхо́з, a=ru-kolkhoz.ogg, p=kɐlˈxos) was a form of collective farm in the Soviet Union. Kolkhozes existed along with state farms or sovkhoz. These were the two components of the socialized farm sector that began to eme ...

y'' (rural

collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an e ...

s) that – in addition to their traditional activities – engaged in reindeer breeding,

fishing Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (Freshwater ecosystem, freshwater or Marine ecosystem, marine), but may also be caught from Fish stocking, stocked Body of water, ...

dairy farming Dairy farming is a class of agriculture for the long-term production of milk, which is processed (either on the farm or at a dairy plant, either of which may be called a dairy) for the eventual sale of a dairy product. Dairy farming has a h ...

and

market gardening A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. The diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically from under to s ...

. In 1983, the anthropologist Shirin Akiner claimed: "Dolgans enjoy full Soviet citizenship. They are found in all occupations, though the majority are peasants and collective farm workers. Their standard of housing is comparable to that of other national groups in the Soviet Union."

Religion

Most Dolgans practice old

shamanistic Shamanism is a spiritual practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness, such as trance. The goal of this is usually to direct spirits or spiritual energies into ...

beliefs; however, most are influenced by

Eastern Orthodox Christianity Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

Notable Dolgans

* Ogdo Aksyonova – a poet, the founder of Dolgan literature

References

Ethnic groups in Russia Turkic peoples of Asia Indigenous peoples of Siberia Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East Modern nomads {{Russia-culture-stub

History

Culture and livelihood

Religion

Notable Dolgans

See also

References