Yakuts

Yakuts

Flag of the Sakha Republic
Total population
ca. 450,000[1]
Regions with significant populations
Russia 443,852 (2002 census)  United States 48,978 (2008 census)  Canada 29,326 (2001 census)  Australia 8,742 (2010 census)  Germany 8,211 (2006 census)  European Union 15,000-20,000 (2005 census)  China 2600 [2]  Ukraine 300 [3]
Languages
Sakha, Russian
Religion
Predominantly Russian Orthodox Christianity, with a significant part of the population practicing Shamanism

Yakuts (Yakut language: Саха, Saxa), are a Turkic people^[4] associated with the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic.

The Yakut or Sakha language belongs to the Northern branch of the Turkic family of languages. There are about 444,000 ethnic Yakuts (Russian census, 2002) mainly in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the Russian Federation^[5], with some extending to the Amur, Magadan, Sakhalin regions, and the Taymyr and Evenki Autonomous Districts. Their share of the population of Yakutia lowered during Soviet rule due to forced immigration, and other relocation policies, but has slightly increased since.

The Yakuts are divided into two basic groups based on geography and economics. Yakuts in the north are historically semi-nomadic hunters, fishermen, reindeer breeders, while southern Yakuts engage in animal husbandry focusing on horses and cattle.^[6]

Origin

Yakut dance with traditional clothing

Yakuts originally migrated from Olkhon and the region of Lake Baikal to the basins of the Middle Lena, the Aldan and Vilyuy rivers, where they mixed with other northern indigenous peoples of Russia such as the Evens and Evenks.

The northern Yakuts were largely hunters, fishermen and reindeer herders, while the southern Yakut raised cattle and horses.

In the 1620s Russians began to move into their territory and annexed it, imposed a fur tax, and managed to suppress several Yakut rebellions between 1634 and 1642.

Russian brutality in collection of the pelt tax (yasak) sparked a rebellion among the Yakuts and also Tungusic-speaking tribes along the River Lena in 1642. The voivode Peter Golovin, leader of Russians, responded with a reign of terror: native settlements were torched and hundreds of people were tortured and killed. The Yakut population alone is estimated to have fallen as a result by 70 percent between 1642 and 1682. ^[7] The discovery of gold and, later, the building of the Trans-Siberian Railway, brought ever-increasing numbers of Russians into the region. By the 1820s almost all the Yakuts had been converted to the Russian Orthodox church although they retained, and still retain, a number of Shamanist practices.

In 1919 the new Soviet government named the area the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. There was a uprising in Yakut, known as the Yakut Revolt, led by Cornet Mikhail Korobeinikov.

In the late 1920s through the late 1930s, Yakut people were systematically persecuted, when Joseph Stalin launched his ruthless collectivization campaign. The Soviet regime established numerous forced labour camps (generally known as the GULAG system) where hundreds of thousands from all over the Union were sent for imprisonment. Tens of thousands of Yakuts also disappeared there, and not until the late 1960s had the Yakut population recovered to pre-collectivization levels.^[8]

Cuisine

The cuisine of Sakha consists predominatly of traditional drink kumis, dairy products of mare and reindeer milk, sliced frozen salted fish (strogaanina), loaf meat dishes (oyogos), venison, frozen fish, thick pancakes, and salamat - a millet porridge with butter and horse fat. Kourchah, a popular dessert, is made of mare milk or cream with various berries. Indigirka is a traditional fish salad. This cuisine is only used in Yakutia.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Music of the Sakha Republic
• Yakut American

Notes

1. ^ SIL Ethnologue reports "Ethnic population: 443,852", with 363,000 speakers of the Yakut language as of 1993. The Russian census of 2002 reports 443,852 ethnic Yakuts.
2. ^ http://www.joshuaproject.net/peoples.php?peo3=18726
3. ^ http://www.joshuaproject.net/peoples.php?peo3=18726
4. ^ Yakut - a member of an Eurasian people of northeastern Siberia: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Yakuts
5. ^ about 422,000 according to "The Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) - overview" Russia Trek dotcom source: Yakutsk State University;
6. ^ "Yakuts". Centre for Russian Studies. http://www.nupi.no/cgi-win/Russland/etnisk_b.exe?Yakutian. Retrieved 2006-10-26. 
7. ^ The massacre in history, Mark Levene,Penny Roberts, page 155, 1999
8. ^ Sakha Republic (Yakutia)

References

• Leontʼeva, Sargylana (2002) "Comments on Ойуун Уол 'shaman fellow': a Yakut historical legend." In John M. Clifton and Deborah A. Clifton (eds.), Comments on discourse structures in ten Turkic languages p. 287-291. St. Petersburg, Russia: SIL International.
• International Business Publications (ed.) (2001) Sakha Yakut Republic Regional Investment and Business Guide (US Government Agencies Business Library) (3rd ed.) International Business Publications, USA, ISBN 0-7397-9012-9
• Opyt Etnograficheskogo Issledovaniya (ed.) (1993) Yakuty (The Yakuts, text in Russian, w/illustrations) Opyt Etnograficheskogo Issledovaniya, Moscow

External links

• Yakut language site with lyrics, mp3 and video
• Yakut newspaper site
• A good brief description of Yakut Society
• Russian translations of Yakut texts (heroic poetry, fairy tales, legends, proverbs, etc)
• A multi-language dictionary: Yakut - Classical Mongolian - Khalkha - Russian - German - English
• Historical and administrative background
• Korolenko, Vladimir Galaktionovich (1980) "Sibirskie rasskazy i ocherki" Hudozhestvennaya literatura, Moscow in Russian
• Ethnic groups -Yakuts