Tuva

Tuva (/ˈtuːvə/; Russian: Тува [tʊˈva]), or Tyva (/ˈtɪvə/; Tuvan: Тыва [tʰɤ̀ʋɐ]), officially the Republic of Tyva, is a republic of Russia. Tuva lies at the geographical center of Asia, in southern Siberia. The republic borders the federal subjects of the Altai Republic, Buryatia, Irkutsk Oblast, Khakassia, and Krasnoyarsk Krai, and shares an international border with Mongolia to the south. Tuva has a population of 336,651 (2021 census). Its capital city is Kyzyl, in which more than a third of the population reside.

Historically part of Outer Mongolia as Tannu Uriankhai during the Qing dynasty, the last imperial dynasty of China, Tuva broke away in 1911 as the Uryankhay Republic following the Xinhai Revolution, which created the Republic of China. It became a Russian protectorate in 1914 and was replaced by the nominally independent Tuvan People's Republic in 1921 (known officially as Tannu Tuva until 1926), recognized only by its neighbors the Soviet Union and Mongolia, before being annexed into the former in 1944. A majority of the population are ethnic Tuvans who speak Tuvan as their native tongue, while Russian is spoken natively by the Russian minority; both are official and widely understood in the republic. The Great Khural is the regional parliament of Tuva.

The territory of Tuva has been controlled by the Xiongnu (209 BC – 93 AD) and the Xianbei state (93–234), Rouran Khaganate (330–555), Tang dynasty (647–682), Yenisei Kyrgyz Khaganate (7th–13th century), Mongol Empire (1206–1271), Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), Northern Yuan dynasty (1368–1691), Khotgoid Khanate and Zunghar Khanate (1634–1758). Medieval Mongol tribes, including Oirats and Tumeds, inhabited areas which are now part of the Tuvan Republic.

From 1758 to 1911, Tuva was part of China's Qing dynasty and administered by Outer Mongolia. During the Xinhai Revolution in China, Tsarist Russia formed a separatist movement among the Tuvans while there were also pro-independence and pro-Mongol groups. Tsar Nicholas II agreed to the third petition by Tuva's leadership in 1912, establishing a protectorate over the then-independent state. Some Russians, such as merchants, travellers, and explorers, had already settled in Tuva at that time. Tuva became nominally independent as the Uryankhay Republic before being turned into a Russian protectorate as Uryankhay Krai under Tsar Nicholas II, on 17 April 1914.

A Tuvan capital was established, called Belotsarsk (Белоца́рск; literally, "(Town) of the White Tsar"). Meanwhile, in 1911, with the collapse of the Qing, Mongolia seceded from China, entering Russia's sphere of influence. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917 that ended the imperial autocracy, most of Tuva was occupied from 5 July 1918 to 15 July 1919 by Alexander 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.

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 (governor was Yan Shichao [traditional, Wade–Giles transliteration: Yan Shi-ch'ao]), until their expulsion by the Bolsheviks in 1921. On 14 August 1921, the Bolsheviks established the Tuvan People's Republic, popularly called Tannu-Tuva. In 1926, the capital (Belotsarsk; Khem-Beldyr since 1918) was renamed Kyzyl, meaning "red". The Tuvan People's Republic was de jure an independent state between the World Wars. The state's ruler, Chairman Donduk Kuular, sought to strengthen ties with Mongolia and establish Tibetan Buddhism as the state religion. This unsettled the Soviet Union, 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 regime discarded the state's Mongol script in favor of a Latin alphabet designed for Tuva by Russian linguists. In 1943, Cyrillic script replaced Latin. 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 curtailed.

Tuva was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1944, with the approval of Tuva's Little Khural (parliament), but without a referendum on the issue. It became the Tuvan Autonomous Oblast, within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, after the Soviet victory in World War II. Salchak Toka, 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. The territory became the Tuvan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic on 10 October 1961.