This article examines the issue of the general endoethnonym of the Ingush societies of the XVI–XIX centuries. The purpose of the article is to conduct an additional study of historiographical sources to confirm the opinion about the pan-Ingush character of the endoethnonym gIalgIai in the XVI–XIX centuries, as well as to analyze the reasons for the appearance of a version about the local nature of this designation. The chronological framework of the study is due to the fact that the formation of the late territorial societies of the Ingush by researchers dates back to the end of the XVI – beginning of the XIX centuries. The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that, despite the available work, among modern Caucasian scholars, the problem of having a single name for Ingush territorial groups in the period under review is still an open question and requires additional research. When studying this issue, the author used historical-genetic, historical-chronological, narrative, historical-comparative and comparative methods. In the course of the study, the author concludes that the term "gIalgIai" in the period under study was a common endoethnonym, at least for most of the Ingush societies. However, the Kekellin families sought to become the sole bearers of this common Ingush name. This caused a backlash from some societies and eventually they managed to defend their right to be called Gulgai. Scientific novelty is determined by the formulation of the problem. The scientific novelty is also due to the fact that the author presents his point of view, to a certain extent different from the vision of other Caucasian scholars. The opinion about the general Ingush meaning of the ethnoethnonym "gIalgIai" has been expressed by researchers before (E. N. Kusheva, E. I. Krupnov, etc.). These works, in our opinion, do not exhaust this topic, and some of the theses of respected authors can be adjusted and significantly supplemented.
Magomed Mikhailovich Albogachiev (Mon,) studied this question.