History of Tuva


The territory currently known as Tuva has been occupied by various groups throughout its history. Sources are rare and unclear for most of Tuva's early history. Archeological evidence indicates a Scythian presence possibly as early as the 9th century BC. Tuva was conquered relatively easily by the succession of empires which swept across the region. It was most likely held by various Turkic khanates until 1207. It was then ruled by Mongols until the 18th century, when it submitted to Manchu rule under the Qing dynasty. Slow Russian colonization during the 19th century led to progressive annexation of the region to Russia in the 20th century. The region was then controlled by the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union before finally joining the Russian Federation in 1992. Throughout this whole time, the borders of Tuva have seen very little modification.

Early history

There are few written sources for the history of Tannu Uriankhai prior to the mid-18th century. Moreover, these sources often do not distinguish between the Tannu Uriankhai, the Altai Uriankhai, and the Altainor Uriankhai. In general, the land has played only a passive role in the history of Inner Asia, passing without much difficulty from one conqueror to another. It was dominated by a series of Turkic khanates of northern Mongolia; Turks, Uighurs and Kirghiz although, it appears that the real Turkification of the region began with the flight of Turkic tribes into this area after the rise of Genghis Khan in the 13th century.
Archeological finds indicate a long occupation of what is now Tuva. Tombs have been found dating back as far as the late Paleolithic Era. Probably the most spectacular Scythian finds known to archaeologists have been discovered in northern Tuva near Arzhaan. Dating to between the 7th and 9th centuries BC they are also among the earliest known, as well as the easternmost. Following restoration in St Petersburg, the sumptuous gold treasure hoard is now on display in the new National Museum in Kyzyl.
The Xiongnu ruled over the area of Tuva prior to 200 AD. The identity of the ethnic core of Xiongnu has been a subject of varied hypotheses and proposals by scholars including Mongolic and Turkic. At this time a people known to the Chinese as Dingling inhabited the region. The Chinese recorded the existence of a tribe of Dingling origin named Dubo in the eastern Sayans. This name is recognized as being associated with the Tuvan people and is the earliest written record of them. The Xianbei defeated the Xiongnu and they in turn were defeated by the Rouran. From around the end of the 6th century, the Göktürks held dominion over Tuva up until the 8th century when the Uyghurs took over.
The indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Tuva Republic are a Turkic-speaking people of South Siberia, whose language shows strong Samoyedic and Mongolian influences. The name "Tuva" probably derives from a Samoyedic tribe, referred to in 7th-century Chinese sources as Dubo or Tupo, who lived in the upper Yenisei region. These people were known to the Chinese and Mongolians as Uriankhai. Most scholars trace the name to the Uriankhai of the Greater Hinggan Range, a Jurched people who as a result of extensive migrations gave their name to several peoples living in the region from east Siberia and northeast China to the Altai mountains. These should not be confused with the Altai Uriankhai, the Altainor Uriankhai, and the Khovsgolnor Uriankhai.
Tuvans were subjects of the Uyghur Khanate during the 8th and early 9th centuries AD. The Uyghurs established several fortifications within Tuva as a means of subduing the population. The Uyghur Khanate was overthrown in 840 AD by a rebellion of the Yeniseian Kyrgyz who came from the upper reaches of the Yenisei. During this period, some Uyghurs were absorbed into Tuvan society. The Khirghiz ruled Tuva until the 13th century.

Mongol rule

In 1207, Tuva was conquered by Mongols under Jochi, the eldest son of Genghis Khan. This was the beginning of Mongol suzerainty over the Tuvans. Tuvans were ruled by the Khalka Mongol leader Sholoi Ubashi's Altyn-Khan Khanate until the 17th century.
The state of the Altyn-Khan disappeared due to constant warring between the Oirats and the Khalka of Jasaghtu Khan Aimak. The Tuvans became part of the Dzungarian state ruled by the Oirats. The Dzungars ruled over all the Sayano-Altay Plateau until 1755.
The historic region of Tannu Uriankhai, of which Tuva is a part, was controlled by the Mongols from 1207 to 1757, when it was brought under Manchu rule until 1911.
It then came under the dominion of the Yuan Dynasty in China, and with the fall of the Yuan it was controlled by the Oirots until the end of the 16th and early 17th centuries. Thereafter, the history of western Mongolia, and by extension Tannu Uriankhai, is a story of the complex military relations between the Altan Khanate and the Oirots, both competing for supremacy in western Mongolia. The territory of current Tuva has been ruled by the Mongolic Xianbei state, Rouran Khaganate, Mongol Empire, Northern Yuan and Zunghar Khanate.

Qing rule

The Qing dynasty established its dominion over Mongolia as a result of intervening in a war between the Oirots and the Khalkhas, the dominant tribe in the eastern half of Mongolia. In 1691, the Kangxi Emperor accepted the submission of the Khalkhas at Dolon Nor in Inner Mongolia, and then personally led an army into Mongolia, defeating the Oirots near Ulaanbaatar to "inform the Uriankhais of edicts" in order to prevent "something untoward from happening." The Uriankhais appear to have accepted this arrangement without dispute, at least none is recorded. Qing subjugation of the Altai Uriankhai and the Altainor Uriankhai occurred later, in 1754, as part of a broader military offensive against the Oirots.

Tannu Uriankhai

The Tannu Uriankhai were reorganized into an administrative system similar to that of Mongolia, with five khoshuns and 46 or 47 sumuns . Each khoshun was governed by an hereditary prince nominally appointed by the Qing military governor at Uliastai. In the latter half of the 18th century, one of the khoshun princes was placed in charge of the others as governor in recognition of his military service to the dynasty.
Tannu Uriankhai occupied a unique position in the Qing Dynasty's frontier administration system. Qing statutes rigorously defined procedures to be followed by the nobles of Outer and Inner Mongolia, Zungaria, and Qinghai for rendering tribute, receiving government stipends, and participating in imperial audiences. However, they are silent regarding Tannu Uriankhai. After the demarcation of the Sino-Russian border by the Treaty of Kyakhta in 1727, the Qing placed border guards south of the Tannu-ola Mountains separating Tannu Uriankai from Outer Mongolia, not along the Sayan Mountains separating the region from Russia. This fact was used by 19th-century Russian polemicists, and later Soviet writers, to state that Tuva had historically been "disputed" territory between Russia and China. The Qing military governor at Uliastiai, on his triennial inspection tours of the 24 pickets under his direct supervision, never crossed the Tannu-ola mountains to visit Uriankhai. When problems occurred meriting official attention, the military governor would send a Mongol from his staff rather than attend to the matter himself. After this treaty, inhabitants of Uriankhai without citizenship ties to either side were required to pay taxes to both Russia and China.
Indeed, there is no evidence that Tannu Uriankhai was ever visited by a senior Qing official. Chinese merchants were forbidden to cross the pickets, a law which was not lifted until the turn of the 20th century. Instead, a few days were set aside for trade at Uliastai when Uriankhai nobles delivered their annual fur tribute to the military governor and received their salaries and other imperial gifts from the emperor. Thus, Tannu Uriankhai enjoyed a degree of political and cultural autonomy unequalled on the Chinese frontier.

Russian colonists

During the 19th century, Russians began to settle in Tuva, resulting in an 1860 Chinese-Russian treaty, in which the Qing Dynasty allowed Russians to settle providing that they lived in boats or tents. Russian gold prospectors came as early as 1838 to mine gold from the upper Systyg-Khem. In the following decades, gold was mined on the Khüt, Öök, Serlig, and northern tributaries of the Bii-Khem and Ulug-Khem. By 1885, almost 9,000 kilograms of gold had been extracted.
In 1881 Russians were allowed to live in permanent buildings. By that time a sizeable Russian community had been established. Their affairs were managed by an official in Russia. These officials also settled disputes and checked on Tuvan chiefs. By 1883 the total number of Russian miners had reached 485.
Russian merchants from Minusinsk followed, especially after the Treaty of Peking in 1860, which opened China to foreign trade. They were lured by the "wild prices," as one 19th-century Russian writer described them, that Tuvans were willing to pay for Russian manufactured goods-cloth, haberdashery, samovars, knives, tobacco, etc. By the end of the 1860s there were already sixteen commercial "establishments" in Tannu Uriankhai. The Tuvans paid for these goods in livestock-on-the-hoof, furs, and animal skins. But crossing the Sayan Mountains was a journey not without hardships, and even peril; thus, by 1880-85 there were perhaps no more than 50 Russian traders operating in Tannu Uriankhai during the summer, when trade was most active.
Russian colonization followed. It started in 1856 with a sect of Old Believers called the "Seekers of White Waters," a place which according to their tradition was isolated from the rest of the world by impassable mountains and forests, where they could obtain refuge from government authorities and where the Nikonian rites of the Russian Orthodox Church were not practiced. In the 1860s a different kind of refugee arrived, those fleeing from penal servitude in Siberia. More Russians came. Small settlements were formed in the northern and central parts of Tuva.
The formal beginning of Russian colonization in Tannu Uriankhai occurred in 1885, when a merchant received permission from the Governor-General of Irkutsk to farm at present-day Turan. Other settlements were formed, and by the first decade of the 20th century there were perhaps 2,000 merchants and colonists.
By the late 1870s and in the 1880s the Russian presence included a political presence. In 1878 Russians discovered gold in eastern Uriankhai. There were rumors of fabulous wealth to be gained from this area, and the Russian provincial authorities at Yeniseisk received many petitions from gold miners to mine. Permission was granted. Merchants and miners petitioned the Russian authorities for military and police protection. In 1886 the Usinsk Frontier Superintendent was established. Its primary function was to represent Russian interests in Tannu-Uriankhai to Tuvan nobles and to issue passports to Russians traveling in Uriankhai. Over the years this office quietly began to unofficially govern at least the Russians in the region, managing taxation, policing, administration, and justice. These powers officially belonged to, but were effectively relinquished by, the Qing. Shortly after the office of Superintendent was created, the "Sibirskaya gazeta" brought out a special edition, congratulating the government on its creation, and predicting that all Tannu Uriankhai would someday become part of the Russian state.
In general, the Tsarist government was reluctant to act precipitously in Uriankhai for fear of arousing the Qing. It generally preferred a less obvious approach, one that depended on quietly encourages colonization rather than military action. This that fundamentally distinguished ultimate Russian dominion over Tannu Uriankhai from that of Outer Mongolia, with which it has often been compared. In the former, the Russians were essentially colonists; in the latter, they were traders. The Russians built permanent farm houses in Uriankhai, opened land for cultivation, erected fences, and raised livestock. They were there to stay. What gave the Russian presence added durability was its concentration in the northern and central parts of Tannu Uriankhai, areas sparsely populated by the natives themselves. It was Russian colonization, therefore, rather than purposeful Tsarist aggression, that resulted in Tannu Uriankhai ultimately becoming part of Russia in the following century.

Qing reaction

The Qing government was not oblivious to the Russian presence. In the 1860s and 1870s the Uliastai military governor repeatedly reported the influx of Russians to the Qing. During negotiations leading up to the Tarbagatai Protocol of 1864 between the Qing and Russia, the Russian representative insisted that all territory to the north of the Qing frontier pickets should belong to Russia. Moreover, the Uliastai military governor obtained a Russian map showing the Tannu-ola Mountains as the Sino-Russian border. These incidents worried the Qing.
But in the second half of the 19th century, the Qing government was distracted by internal problems and could not deal with these issues. Instead, local officials on the frontier were left to manage the Russians as best they could, an impossible task without funds or troops. The military governors at Uliastai could only provide limp protests and inconclusive investigations.

End of Qing rule

By the early 20th century the Uriankhai economy had seriously deteriorated, resulting increased poverty in the region. The causes of this decline were varied: declining number of fur-bearing animals probably due to over-hunting by both Uriankhais and Russians; declining number of livestock as a result of the export market to Siberia; and periodic natural disasters, which further decreased the livestock populations.
The decline in the number of squirrels also led to marked inflation since Uriankhai trade with Russians was conducted on credit using a complex system of valuation principally pegged to squirrel skins. Furthermore, Russians encouraged credit purchases at usurious rates of interest. If repayment was not forthcoming, Russian merchants would drive off the livestock either of the debtor or his relatives or friends. This resulted in retaliatory raids by the Uriankhai.
Due to Qing policy, Chinese traders were kept out of Uriankhai. These policies had actually been applied, unlike in other frontier regions such as Mongolia. In 1902, Chinese traders were allowed to cross the border in order to break the Russian monopoly of the Uriankhai economy. By 1910 there were 30 or so shops, all branches of Chinese firms operating in Uliastai. Due to, among other things more aggressive selling, easier credit terms, and cheaper and more popular goods for sale, the Chinese were soon able to dominate commerce just as they had in Mongolia. Soon, the Uriankhais, commoners and princes alike, had accumulated large debts to the Chinese.
The end of Qing rule in Tannu Uriankhai came quickly. On 10 October 1911, a revolution to overthrow the Qing broke out in China, and soon afterwards many Chinese provinces rapidly declared their independence. The Outer Mongolians declared their own independence of China on 1 December and expelled the Qing viceroy four days later. In the second half of December bands of Uriankhai began plundering and burning Chinese shops.
Uriankhai nobles were divided as to the best political course of action. The Uriankhai governor, Gombo-Dorzhu, advocated becoming a protectorate of Russia, hoping that the Russians in turn would appoint him governor of Uriankhai. But the princes of two other khoshuns preferred to submit to the new Outer Mongolian state under the theocratic rule of the Jebstundamba Khutukhtu of Urga.
Undeterred, Gombu-Dorzhu sent a petition to the Frontier Superintendent at Usinsk stating that he had been chosen as leader of the independent Tannu Uriankhai state. He asked for protection, and proposed that Russian troops be sent immediately into the country to prevent China from restoring its rule over the region. There was no reply because three months earlier the Tsarist Council of Ministers had already decided on a policy of gradual, cautious absorption of Uriankhai by encouraging Russian colonization. Precipitous action by Russia, the Council feared, might provoke China.
This position changed, however, as a result of genuine concern for the safety of Russian lives and property in Uriankhai, pressure from commercial circles in Russia for a more active approach, and a petition from two Uriankhai khoshuns in the fall of 1913 requesting to be accepted as a part of Russia. Other Uriankhai khoshuns soon followed suit. In April 1914 Tannu Uriankhai was formally accepted as a protectorate of Russia.
Russian interests in Tuva continued into the twentieth century.

Annexation to Czarist Russia

During the 1911 revolution in China, tsarist Russia encouraged a separatist movement among the Tuvans. Tsar Nicholas II ordered Russian troops into Tuva in 1912, as Russian settlers were allegedly being attacked. Tuva became nominally independent as the Urjanchai Republic before being brought under Russian protectorate as the Uryankhay Kray on 17 April 1914. It was then part of the Yeniseysk Governorate. This move was requested by a number of prominent Tuvans, including the High Lama. A Tuvan capital was established, called Belotsarsk. Meanwhile, in 1911, Mongolia became independent, though under Russian protection.
Following the Russian Revolution of 1917 which ended the Tsar's rule, most of Tuva was occupied from 5 July 1918 to 15 July 1919 by Aleksandr Kolchak's "White" Russian troops. Pyotr Ivanovich Turchaninov was named governor of the territory. In the autumn of 1918 the southwestern part was occupied by Chinese troops and the southern part by Mongol troops led by Khatanbaatar Magsarjav.

Independence

From July 1919 to February 1920 the communist Red Army controlled Tuva, but from 19 February 1920 to June 1921 it was occupied by China under governor Yan Shichao. On 14 August 1921 the Bolsheviks established the Tuvan People's Republic, popularly called Tannu-Tuva. In 1926, the capital was renamed Kyzyl, meaning "Red". Tuva was an independent state between the World Wars.
The state's first ruler, Prime Minister Donduk, sought to strengthen ties with Mongolia and establish Buddhism as the state religion. This unsettled the Kremlin, which orchestrated a coup carried out in 1929 by five young Tuvan graduates of Moscow's Communist University of the Toilers of the East. In 1930 the pro-Soviet government began to reform the writing system, first replacing Mongol script with a Latin script, then adopting a Cyrillic script in 1943. Under the leadership of Party Secretary Salchak Toka, ethnic Russians were granted full citizenship rights and Buddhist and Mongol influences on the Tuvan state and society were systematically reduced.
In World War II the state contributed infantry, armored, and cavalry troops to fight against Nazi Germany. Under Soviet command a number of units distinguished themselves and received Tuvan medals.

Annexation to the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union annexed Tuva outright in 1944, apparently with the approval of Tuva's Little Khural, though there was no referendum on the issue. The exact circumstances surrounding Tannu-Tuva's incorporation into the USSR in 1944 remain obscure. Salchak Toka, the leader of the Tuvan People's Revolutionary Party, was given the title of First Secretary of the Tuvan Communist Party, and became the de facto ruler of Tuva until his death in 1973. Tuva was made the Tuvan Autonomous Oblast and then became the Tuva Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on 10 October 1961. The Soviet Union kept Tuva closed to the outside world for nearly fifty years.

Modern history

In February 1990, the Tuvan Democratic Movement was founded by Kaadyr-ool Bicheldei, a philologist at Kyzyl University. The party aimed to provide much needed jobs and housing, and also to improve the status of Tuvan language and culture. Later on in the year there was a wave of attacks against Tuva's sizeable Russian community, resulting in 168 deaths. Russian troops eventually were called in. Many Russians moved out of the republic during this period. To this day, Tuva remains remote and difficult to access.
Tuva was a signatory to the 31 March 1992 treaty that created the Russian Federation. A new constitution for the republic was drawn up on 22 October 1993. This created a 32-member parliament and a Grand Khural, which is responsible for foreign policy and any possible changes to the constitution, and ensures that Tuvan law is given precedence. The constitution also allowed for a referendum if Tuva ever sought independence. This constitution was passed by 53.9% of Tuvans in a referendum on 12 December 1993.