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- Key People:
- Esen Taiji
Oirat, also spelled Oyrat, any of the peoples speaking western dialects of the Mongol language group.
In the 13th century the western Mongols were enemies of the eastern Mongols of Genghis Khan’s empire. During the following centuries the western Mongols maintained a separate existence under a confederation known as the Dörben Oirat (Four Allies, from which the name Oirat is derived); at times they were allies, at times enemies, of the eastern Mongols in the Genghis Khan line. Part of the western Mongols remained in their homeland, northern Xinjiang, or Dzungaria, and western Mongolia. Another part of the Oirat confederation, including all or some of the Torgut, Khoshut, Dorbet (or Derbet), and other groups, moved across southern Siberia to the southern Urals at the beginning of the 17th century. From there they moved to the lower Volga, and for a century and a half, until 1771, they lived as nomads both to the east and to the west of the lower Volga. During the course of the 18th century they were absorbed by the Russian Empire, which was then expanding to the south and east. In 1771 those on the left bank, to the east of the Volga, returned to China. The right-bank Kalmyk, comprising the contemporary Torgut, Dorbet, and Buzawa, remained in Russia.
In addition to some 150,000 Oirat speakers living in the Russian Federation, considerable numbers of Oirat continue to live in the Xinjiang and Qinghai regions of northwestern China, where more than 150,000 speak Oirat dialects. More than 200,000 speakers lived in western Mongolia, where they were dominated by the numerically preponderant Khalkha.