The Dörbet (, ), known in English as The Fours, is the second largest subgroup of

Mongol people Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China (Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family of ...

in modern

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

and was formerly one of the major tribes of the Four Oirat confederation in the 15th-18th centuries. In early times, the Dörbets and the Ööld were overruled by collateral branches of the Choros lineage. The Dörbets are distributed among the western provinces of Mongolia,

Kalmykia Kalmykia, officially the Republic of Kalmykia,; , ''Khalmg Tanghch'' is a republic of Russia, located in the Volga region of European Russia. The republic is part of the Southern Federal District, and borders Dagestan to the south and Stavr ...

and in a small portion in

Heilongjiang Heilongjiang is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country and contains China's northernmost point (in Mohe City along the Amur) and easternmost point (at the confluence of the Amur and Us ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. In modern-day Mongolia, the Dörbets are centered in Uvs Province.

History

A Dörben clan existed within the

Mongol Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China (Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family of M ...

tribe in the 12th–13th centuries, but the Dörbets appear as an Oirat tribe only in the latter half of the 16th century. What their relation, if any, is to the Dörben clan of the 12th–13th centuries is unclear. The name probably means "döröv"; "four" ( Middle Mongolian: dörbe). In the 17th century, the leader of Dörbets was Dalai Taishi (d.1637). In order to unite the Oirats, Dalai Taishi used the method of

marriage of convenience A marriage of convenience is a marriage contracted for reasons other than that of love and commitment. Instead, such a marriage is entered into for personal gain, or some other sort of strategic purpose, such as a political marriage. Cases whe ...

; Dalai Taishi and

Khoshut The Khoshut (Mongolian language, Mongolian: Хошууд,, qoşūd, ; literally "bannermen," from Middle Mongol language, Middle Mongolian ''qosighu'' "flag, banner") are one of the four major tribes of the Oirats, Oirat people. They established ...

leader Güshi Khan married the

Torghut The Torghut ( Mongolian: Торгууд, , Torguud, "Guardsman", ) are one of the four major subgroups of the Four Oirats. The Torghut nobles traced their descent to the Mongol Keraite ruler Toghrul, and many Torghuts descended from the Keraites. ...

leader Kho Orluk sisters. During the Dalai Taishi period (circa 1625), the Oirat tribes lived in harmony. In 1616, Dalai Taishi established diplomatic relations with the

Tsardom of Russia The Tsardom of Russia, also known as the Tsardom of Moscow, was the centralized Russian state from the assumption of the title of tsar by Ivan the Terrible, Ivan IV in 1547 until the foundation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great in 1721. ...

. The next year Dalai Taishi's son Solom Tseren joined the

Kalmyks Kalmyks (), archaically anglicised as Calmucks (), are the only Mongolic ethnic group living in Europe, residing in the easternmost part of the European Plain. This dry steppe area, west of the lower Volga River, known among the nomads as ...

on the

Volga The Volga (, ) is the longest river in Europe and the longest endorheic basin river in the world. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchment ...

with 4,000 households. In 1699 a body of the Dörbets joined the

Don Cossacks Don Cossacks (, ) or Donians (, ), are Cossacks who settled along the middle and lower Don River (Russia), Don. Historically, they lived within the former Don Cossack Host (, ), which was either an independent or an autonomous democratic rep ...

, eventually becoming the Buzava Kalmyks. Trapped west of the Volga, the Do'rbets could not join the 1771 flight of the Torguds, and hence dominated the remaining Kalmyks. In the early 19th century, they had split into the Lesser Dörbets, living in northern

and the Greater Dörbets, living around

Lake Manych-Gudilo Lake Manych-Gudilo () is a large salt lake, saltwater reservoir lake in Kalmykia, Russia. Part of the lake lies also in Rostov Oblast and Stavropol Krai. It has an area of about 344 km2 and average depth of only about 0.6 m. Lake Manyc ...

Meanwhile, the Dörbets in the Oirat homeland remained a major sub-group of the Dzungars. In 1753 during a worsening civil war amongst the Oirat, three Dörbet leaders submitted to the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...

. They were resettled first in Bayankhongor Province, and then in Uvs Province in 1759. They formed into 16 banners of the Sain Zayaatu Leagues. The Dörbets nobility's 15,000 subjects included Bayids and a small number of Khotongs. From the 1880s, the

Khalkha The Khalkha (; ) have been the largest subgroup of the Mongols in modern Mongolia since the 15th century. The Khalkha, together with Chahars, Ordos Mongols, Ordos and Tumed, were directly ruled by Borjigin khans until the 20th century. In cont ...

influenced Dörbet socio-economic trends. The Kalmyk Dambijantsan headed the anti-communist disturbances; and separatist feeling remained strong until the 1930s.

Number

The Dörbets in

numbered 55,200 in 1989. In 2000 - 66,706.Хойт С.К. Последние данные по локализации и численности ойрат // Проблемы этногенеза и этнической культуры тюрко-монгольских народов. Вып. 2. Элиста: Изд-во КГУ, 2008. с. 136-157. - in russian
.

Notable people

* Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal – former Prime Minister of People's Republic of Mongolia and general secretary of Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party * Begziin Givaan – the Hero of the People's Republic of Mongolia * Nasanjargaliin Darjaa – Former minister of Food and Agriculture * Puntsagiin Ulaankhuu – former vice minister of Agriculture * Zodoviin Omboo – Mongolian notable physicist

Notes

References

* ''Хойт С.К.'' Белые пятна в этногенезе дэрбэт // Молодежь и наука: третье тысячелетие. Материалы II республиканской научно-практической конференции (Элиста, 30 ноября 2005 г.). Элиста: АОр «НПП «Джангар», 2006. стр. 104-122. - in Russian
''Ovtchinnikova O., Druzina E., Galushkin S., Spitsyn V., Ovtchinnikov I.'' An Azian-specific 9-bp deletion in region V of mitochondrial DNA is found in Europe // Medizinische Genetic. 9 Tahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Humangenetik, 1997, p. 85.

''Galushkin S.K., Spitsyn V.A., Crawford M.H.'' Genetic Structure of Mongolic-speaking Kalmyks // Human Biology, December 2001, v.73, no. 6, pp. 823–834.

''Хойт С.К.'' Генетическая структура европейских ойратских групп по локусам ABO, RH, HP, TF, GC, ACP1, PGM1, ESD, GLO1, SOD-A // Проблемы этнической истории и культуры тюрко-монгольских народов. Сборник научных трудов. Вып. I. Элиста: КИГИ РАН, 2009. с. 146-183. - in Russian
* [hamagmongol.narod.ru/library/khoyt_2008_r.htm ''Хойт С.К.'' Антропологические характеристики калмыков по данным исследователей XVIII-XIX вв. // Вестник Прикаспия: археология, история, этнография. № 1. Элиста: Изд-во КГУ, 2008. с. 220-243.] * [hamagmongol.narod.ru/library/khoyt_2012_r.htm ''Хойт С.К.'' Калмыки в работах антропологов первой половины XX вв. // Вестник Прикаспия: археология, история, этнография. № 3, 2012. с. 215-245.]
''Boris Malyarchuk, Miroslava Derenko, Galina Denisova, Sanj Khoyt, Marcin Wozniak, Tomasz Grzybowski and Ilya Zakharov'' Y-chromosome diversity in the Kalmyks at theethnical and tribal levels // Journal of Human Genetics (2013), 1–8.

External links

* ELAR archive o
Durvud Oirat language documentation materials
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dorbet Mongol peoples Ethnic groups in Mongolia Kalmykia Kalmyk people Oirats Nirun Mongols