Labor in post-socialist ethnic culture: the cases of Buryats, Kalmyks and Tuvans

The article analyzes the phenomenon of labor in the culture of three Turkic-Mongol peoples — Buryats, Kalmyks, and Tuvans. The author proves the typological unity of their labor culture. These peoples were unified by the Turkic-Mongolian ethnogenesis, as well as by the common experience of being reformatted as Socialist nations in the course of Soviet modernization. The key moments in the development of their labor cultures can be outlined in accordance with the stages of their ethnicity formation and their transformation into Socialist nations: the period of the Mongol Empire; accession into the Russian Empire; the Soviet period. Two basic models of labor were competing within the labor history of these ethnic groups: that of a nomadic livestock breeder (and, connectedly, a warrior) and that of an agricultural worker. Finally, the labor model of a sedentary living worker has appeared in the course of Soviet modernization. The article also considers how the change of labor models and images occurred during the period of social transformations that began in the early 1990s. The economic collapse of the post-Soviet society helped elaborate various survival strategies, including a turn to the archaic in ethnic regions. Such labor strategies include the revival of pasture livestock breeding, the legalization of shamans and healers (medglchi), whose work is recognized as a source of legitimate income