Aspects of establishing the Buryat-Mongolian Soviet Socialist Republic

The article considers the stages of Buryat nation building in 1921-1923. The first stage was the establishment of Buryat-Mongolian autonomous regions within The Far Eastern Republic (FER) and The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). We have analyzed the legal nature of their documents. The legal status of autonomous regions in the constitutions of the FER and the RSFSR was described variously. We also note that usually the republics of the RSFSR were formed by the decision of the highest state authorities, but in Buryat-Mongolia the initiative to establish a single national autonomy came from local leaders among the Buryat communists. Thus, on May 30, 1923 (the date is now celebrated as the day of the republic’s founding), the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of the RSFSR, having considered the draft decision on the unification of Buryat-Mongolian autonomous regions, adopted a resolution: «1) to unite Buryat-Mongolian regions of Siberia and the Far East in one Buryat-Mongolian Socialist Soviet Republic with its center in Verkhneudinsk...» [35]. The Buryat-Mongolian ASSR was founded.