Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948) 9789048535545

Citation preview

Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

North East Asian Studies This series presents groundbreaking research on North East Asia, a vast region encompassing the Russian Far East, Siberia, northern China, Mongolia, Japan, and Korea. Despite its strategic significance, studies of North East Asia remain fragmented and pigeonholed within the academic traditions of Eastern European, postsocialist and Asian studies. The series seeks to address this gap by publishing innovative monographs and edited volumes spanning the region beyond national boundaries. Ranging from migration and crossborder trade to urban development and climate change, the series foregrounds contemporary and emerging issues, and make critical interventions in both regional studies and in the field of social sciences. Series Editors Prof. Caroline Humphrey, University of Cambridge Franck Billé, University of California Berkeley

Editorial Board

Manduhai Buyandelger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bruce Grant, New York University Liu Xin, University of California, Berkeley Madeleine Reeves, University of Manchester Sonia Ryang, Rice University

Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Simon Wickhamsmith

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: B. Sharav (1869-1939), Uria (The Call), 1921 Source: Marzan Sharav Urlagiin Akadyemi Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Typesetting: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 475 2 e-isbn 978 90 4853 554 5 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462984752 nur 630 © Simon Wickhamsmith / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2020 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.

For Sunmin, always with love



Table of Contents

Transliteration and Mongolian Names

9

Introduction

11

1 Prefiguring 1921

25

2 Staging a Revolution

57

3 Landscape Re-Envisioned

95

4 Leftward Together

127

5 Society in Flux

165

6 Negotiating Faith

201

7 Life and its Value

237

8 The Great Opportunistic Repression

267

9 A Closer Union

291

Appendix: Brief Biographies of Writers

321

Index

345



Transliteration and Mongolian Names

The traditional vertical script (Mongol bichig) was gradually replaced by a modified version of Cyrillic between 1941 and 1950. This means that the majority of the texts mentioned in this book were originally printed in the vertical script. However, most of the texts available to readers and scholars inside and outside Mongolia – whether published before or after the Democratic Revolution of 1990 – have been reprinted in Cyrillic transliteration. For those who read Mongolian, transliterating the vertical script into Cyrillic affects the pronunciation and syllabification of the text, and therefore the rhythms, rhymes and essential sound that characterize the original are likewise compromised. That said, my intention in translating texts for this book has been to convey the meaning rather than the music of the language, and those who read either or both the vertical script and Cyrillic will be able to read the texts for themselves. To render the reading of Mongolian as easy as possible, I have chosen to use the Tibetan and Himalayan Library transliteration systems for both Cyrillic and the vertical script,1 although I use ‘v’ to transcribe the Cyrillic ‘в’. For Tibetan, I use the system laid out by Turrell Wylie.2 For Russian, I use the ALA-LC romanization system, and I use the traditional characters for Chinese. As far as the transliterations of titles and personal names are concerned, I have chosen always to use the Cyrillic versions of personal names (i.e. Buyannemeh rather than Buyannemekü) for the sake of consistency. For the names of works, however, I have used the transliteration appropriate for the cited text, so that if I cite a text printed in vertical script, it is cited and referenced using transliteration of the vertical script, while a Cyrillic text is transliterated according to the Cyrillic script. Mongolian names are given using the patronymic (occasionally matronymic) initial, followed by the given name. Thus the writer and scholar Damdinsüren, whose father was called Tsend, is Ts. Damdinsüren. There is but one exception to this rule. Chimid Dungaryn (D. Chimid) appears to have made a decision to use the more “Westernized” version of his name in 1 https://www.thlib.org/tools/scripts/wiki/Mongolian%20Transliteration%20%7Camp​ %7C%20Transcription.html [accessed 12 December 2019]. 2 ‘A Standard System of Tibetan Transcription’. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies (1959): 261-267.

10 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

his written work, with his given name placed first, and so I refer to him as Chimid Dungaryn or, where contextually clear, as Chimid. This patronymic system was initially introduced around 1934, and the convention of using the initial letter of patronymics was only adopted in 1943. For this reason, many writers whose careers did not continue into the mid-1930s are identified only by their given name, and their identities are therefore very hard to establish. All translations are my own, unless otherwise indicated.

Introduction Abstract Politics and Literature in Mongolia 1921-1948 is an account of the contribution made by Mongolian writers in building a new society following the 1921 Soviet-backed revolution. The literature of this time helped to frame the ideology of socialism and the practice of the revolution for those Mongolians who had little understanding of what it could offer them. Through a discussion of key topics in the socialist program – education, health care, religious belief, labor – it reveals in the work of writers such as D. Natsagdorj, S. Buyannemeh, Ts. Damdinsüren and D. Namdag the organic relationship that came to exist between literature and politics and how this relationship changed over the course of almost three decades, culminating in the First Congress of Mongolian Writers in 1948. Keywords: revolutionary literature, Socialist Realism, cult of personality, Choibalsan, collectivization, industrialization, nomadic livestock herding

At the intersection of literature and politics, there is a feeling of potential, of what could be. Writers, whose craft with language can transport a reader’s heart and mind to unimagined realms, work together with politicians, the most adept of whom enthuse their constituents through an admixture of idealism and pragmatism, and so it is that story and image transform – and are transformed by – society. It is such a transformation, earnestly desired and believed in, that lies at the heart of this book. Mongolia was certainly transformed following its socialist revolution in 1921. Over time, people came to benefit from an education system that focused on basic literacy, a health care system based upon Western science, a political model in which local elected representatives came together to make decisions, and an infrastructure that made these developments more feasible. The revolution also brought political infighting, censorship, arbitrary power exchanges, draconian executions, the near-destruction of religion and the substantial weakening of certain aspects of cultural tradition.

Wickhamsmith, Simon, Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948). Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984752_intro

12 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Yet the period with which this book is concerned – from the revolution in the summer of 1921 until the First Writers’ Congress held during the first week of April in 1948 – was for Mongolia a period of sustained literary development, assisted in part through the financial and moral sponsorship of the Soviet Union, which allowed writers for the first time directly to apply themselves for the benefit of their fellow Mongolians. By 1948, Mongolian poets were experimenting with free verse, dramatists were exploring human psychology, and writers of fiction were developing ways to discuss, credibly and intelligently, those aspects of life that socialism had as yet been unable to transform. And while these benchmarks might not sound especially radical for 1948 – given the extent of the far greater and more radical experimentation of Russian writers well before the October 1917 revolution – for Mongolia, such advances were indicative both of the determination of the writers themselves and of the breadth of the political context in which they worked. One of my principle aims in writing this book has been to show how writers chose to represent the new, revolutionary Mongolia and how they also expressed, alongside the advances and benefits that accrued, the difficulties that necessarily accompanied them. Rather than seeing Mongolia, under Moscow’s increasingly stern grip, as a society of individuals controlled and manipulated by a Party driven solely by ideology and operating solely through threats and fear, the stylistic and thematic range of the literature at this time bears witness to the way in which the Party in fact worked together with the writers, and with both sensitivity and rigor, to fashion a new revolutionary literature. That said, there is no doubt that censorship, imposed through emotional, intellectual and physical coercion, was used right from the beginning to stifle many critical voices. Yet what has remained constitutes a remarkable body of work, and the senseless torture and deaths of individual writers should not detract from their legacies nor from those of their friends and colleagues who, whether through collusion or through happenstance, managed to survive. The process of researching a book such as this in Mongolia is complicated by a number of issues. Literary scholarship, based largely upon the Russian model, is descriptive and lacks the analytical and theoretical aspect of much Western scholarship. Moreover, while scholars before 1990 published work through the State Publishing House (Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar) about politically acceptable writers and themes in a politically acceptable way, contemporary scholarship is frequently self-published and so lacks the means by which it can reach a critical audience. Studies of the literature during this first quarter-century are especially scarce, and one is left with the impression

Introduc tion

13

that, for whatever reason, there has been very little interest – whether in Mongolia, the Soviet Union or the West – in closely examining this work or what it represented. Original texts fare little better. Before the establishment of the Party’s publishing section in 1936, books and journals had been published in a haphazard fashion, and although the process was made more streamlined by the Party’s support, the production of texts was not greatly increased until the early 1950s. From that time, limited runs were produced of individual titles, ranging from five to ten thousand copies. These were not systematically distributed, however, and did not necessarily find their way into libraries, nor were they generally reprinted when the supply was exhausted, and today the majority can only be found through Ulaanbaatar’s network of second-hand booksellers. My quest for materials dating back to the early 1940s and before has produced even more limited results: although extensive searching has generally turned up the sought-for poem or story, or at least one similar to it, in the pages of anthologies published in later decades, there remains the possibility that some texts are now all but lost. Research into the work of some writers necessarily revolves around their political status, especially in the years immediately following their deaths, and the way in which their legacy has since been handled. Those whose adherence to the Party fluctuated minimally or not at all tended to be rewarded with more publication opportunities, while those who were more critical were for the most part silenced, in death as in life. To some extent, it is this dynamic of censorship that produced the slow shifts in the corpus of Mongolian literature during the Soviet era. For instance, the works of S. Buyannemeh and Sh. Ayuush, executed respectively in 1937 and 1938, remained unavailable for more than 30 years. This meant that a full understanding of the first 15 years of revolutionary literature likewise remained largely unknown until a slim volume of Buyannemeh’s work was published in 1967, followed six years later by a similar one devoted to Ayuush. On the other hand, the work of D. Sengee, who died at the age of 40 in 1956, has never been out of print, most likely thanks to the constant support given to him by the Party and his loyal and determined service in return. In Ulaanbaatar’s second-hand bookstores, books are frequently sold ‘as is’, with missing pages, torn pages, annotations and random drawings (such as the full-length image, in leeching blue ink, of a woman in a rather revealing dress decorating a page of my copy of Buyannemeh’s complete works). Like these books, the social history of Mongolia during the first two or three decades after the revolution also has missing sections and personalized interventions, and it is almost impossible to know quite how

14 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

works of literature would have been understood, as much stylistically and thematically as ideologically, by readers at the time. The fact that they were published means they were in line with Party ideology, but beyond that, we can read what was written about the texts and their writers only in journals such as the Party newspaper Ünen or in publications focused on literature and culture such as Ardin Soyolin Zam (The People’s Road of Culture) or Zaluuchuudin Evlel (Union of Youth). The analysis I offer in this book, then, is simply one person’s viewpoint, seen through the prism of Party propaganda, and the occasional first-hand account of foreign writers. These issues of sourcing and analyzing both primary and secondary materials necessarily define the limitations of scholarship. However, they also allow for a scholarship in which the exploration and analysis of both what is probable and what is possible is raised to the status of a methodological framework. Much of this book, then, is based upon readings both of the texts themselves and of the supposed, or assumed, histories that accompany them, a method that brings into sharp focus the imagery and style of the work, albeit in translated form, alongside the conceptual, narrative and sociopolitical concerns of the texts’ original readers, performers and writers.1 Given the nature of research in Mongolia, then, and the importance among Mongolians of telling stories in order to establish a history that is workable if not provable, I have approached the narrative of this book in part as an exercise in literary ethnography. Throughout my research and writing, I have discussed with contemporary Mongolian writers and scholars the ways in which these texts, and others like them, might have been understood at the time they were composed, and in experiencing both Ulaanbaatar and the vast landscape that lies beyond it, I have tried to frame my analysis through a physical and spiritual apprehension of Mongolia’s natural world, amid whose cycles and variations the writers of these texts lived. In this way, I have sought to construct narratives, to read a text as an individual’s creative response to their own particular situation. So it is that microportraits of writers emerge, hazy because of the passage of time and relative paucity of material evidence, but illuminations nevertheless of their work, allowing 1 There are not many anthologies of Mongolian literature in English, but the reader could consult the following, either for further materials or for alternative versions of texts mentioned in this book: Charles R. Bawden (ed.) Mongolian Traditional Literature: An Anthology (London: Routledge, 2002), S. Narantuya and S. Dugarmaa Some Modern Mongolian Stories in Mongolian and English (Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2005), Henry Schwartz (ed.) Mongolian Short Stories (Bellingham: Western Washington University, 1974), and D. Tsedev (ed.) Modern Mongolian Poetry (1921-1986) (Ulaanbaatar: Mongol Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1989).

Introduc tion

15

us to see them seeking, amid the complexity of their own lives, to reveal the complexity of the lives of their fellow Mongolians. The story that such lives and works recount is represented here in a kind of thematic history, revealing the development of key policies – regarding, for example, education, collectivization and religion – through texts written in response to them. This approach allows us to read the texts as historical documents rather than simply as art, and this in turn means that their particular value is frequently in propagandizing Party policies. In some ways this is a shame, because one must presume that the majority of these writers wrote the majority of their works as much as creative expressions as instruments to promote ideas or to elicit behaviors. Yet in the language of most of the works covered here, the social or political message is clear, pointing to a Mongolia modeled on the Soviet Union, yet defined by a history and culture rooted in nomadic movement and, perhaps less obviously, in the legacy of Chinggis Haan. The literary scene during this period encouraged educated young people to experiment as much with the act of writing itself as with form and theme. The idea did not exist of a professional writer whose life was devoted exclusively to writing, and the majority of those whose works were published by the Party were deeply involved also as political organizers and activists or as administrators. It was only after the First Writers’ Congress in 1948 that the Party began to professionalize literature, although of course these professional writers were funded to write specifically in response to the Party’s social, political and ideological directives. With this in mind, we can see the trajectory of the present book as mirroring the gradual focusing of the Party’s ideological trajectory, starting with social equality in the new society which was a concern immediately following the revolution, followed in the late 1920s by education and health care, then religion and industrialization during the 1930s, through to the personality cults of Stalin and Choibalsan and the corresponding deepening of the Soviet-Mongolian alliance during the late 1930s and 1940s. The status of both the Soviet Union and its leader became coded into literature, whether explicitly or implicitly, such that, by the time of the Allied victory in 1945, the new wave of writers such as D. Sengee, who would a decade later be the first Mongolian to be educated at the Gorky Institute in Moscow, was engaged in the writing of encomia, dedicated less to Mongolians involved in the war effort than to the soldiers of the Soviet Union. The consolidation of Stalin’s power in 1929 impacted also the brief but disastrous ‘leftward deviation’ in Mongolia and precipitated the demise of many of the leading writers over the following few years, culminating in the

16 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Great Repression of 1937-1939. Even those who died of natural causes, such as D. Natsagdorj, had fallen under such constant and severe pressure that their silencing became a fait accompli; the likes of Rinchen and Damdinsüren only managed to survive because they were deemed of greater assistance to the Party alive than dead. Yet, rather than being a tale merely of cynicism and manipulation, the story of Mongolia’s early revolutionary literature is a multi-layered search for a way to express what was good in the new society. For those who survived, there were accolades and recognition both at home and abroad: among them were Rinchen and Damdinsüren, who both became outstanding scholars, Ya. Tsevel, a lexicographer who compiled what is still regarded as the standard dictionary of Mongolian, D. Namdag, a popular and influential dramatist, and B. Baast who, born in the year of the revolution, remained until his death in 2019 at the age of 98 spry and chatty, a voracious reader and the last remaining link with much of the work covered in this book. Mongolia’s accession into the Soviet sphere of influence was significant in terms of its culture in two key aspects. First, it was a predominantly nomadic society, and second, despite the surface vestiges of autonomy, it had been a colony of the Manchu until 1911 and then since 1919 of the Republic of China, under the warlord Xu Shuzheng. The combination of a constantly mobile population and control by an external power rendered Mongolia a somewhat singular case and offers a potentially interesting study of how revolutionary literature might grow from such an apparently complex brew. The transformation of a nation’s literature under a new revolutionary system – and although I will be talking here about Socialist or Communist revolutions, discourses of transformation hold good for other revolutions, such as the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran or even the National Socialist revolution in Germany between 1933 and 1945 – involves the activity of writers in defining and developing government policy and the activity of government in defining the latitude to be permitted regarding theme and style. With its largely illiterate nomadic population, Mongolia in 1921 was perhaps a special case, but in other revolutionary contexts we can see how the influence of the literature of the incoming revolutionaries defined both a ready-made adherence to the overlords of the new system and an explicit break with that of the defeated, colonizing power. In the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, for instance, as Tatiana Gabroussenko explains, early Soviet literature – and particularly the work of the architect of Social Realism, Maxim Gorky – was popular and influential for several decades, ‘and especially for the very traits […] that contemporary

Introduc tion

17

Russian critics ridiculed, such as its sentimentality and over-romanticizing’.2 These traits, of course, became a trope in the characteristics of an idealized loving and protecting father (not unlike those of Stalin and Choibalsan in Mongolian literature during the 1940s) attributed to Kim Il Sung right up until his death in 1994. Furthermore, much in the same way that many educated Mongolians during the period of Qing rule could read Chinese well enough to enjoy its literature, so could educated Koreans during the Japanese colonization of Korea read Russian writers in Japanese translation as well as Japanese literature in the original. When a revolutionary system replaces a system of colonization, the newly liberated readers have at their disposal the literature of the colonizing power as well as that of the liberators. And yet, the troubled relationship between the liberated and the liberators – such as the Soviet Union in both Mongolia and the DPRK – raises the question as to how much revolutionary power post-colonial indigenous writers can exercise over their work. As we will see in the case of Mongolia, the impact of Soviet ideology during the 1930s and 1940s had the effect of erasing religious culture and, somewhat precipitately, focusing on industrialization and collectivization. The effect of this ‘out of the frying pan, into the fire’ scenario on the writers in a liberated community becomes especially forced when applied to the imposition of key revolutionary discourses and themes. Gabroussenko describes how ‘the distribution of obligatory topics to North Korean writers […] in the late 1940s [rendered] many North Korea writers […] frustrated by the explicit demand to extol land reform and industrialization’.3 While Mongolian writers were generally given a little more freedom, they too were encouraged to focus on, for instance, the urban development of Ulaanbaatar or the importance of education and health care, with their efforts being rewarded with publication and with greater political approbation and power. The effect of these imposed narratives varied from the unrealistically upbeat quality of what Sheila Fitzpatrick describes as ‘the “boy meets girl meets tractor” genre’4 in Soviet Socialist Realism via North Korean novels such as Yi Ki-yŏng’s 1947-1948 work Land, composed ‘as a direct response to the Party’s request that North Korean writers reflect in their work the 2 Gabroussenko, 2010, p. 14. Gabroussenko’s entire first chapter addresses the reception of Russian and Soviet literature during the Japanese occupation and its influence in the early years of the DPRK. 3 Gabroussenko, 2010, p. 27. Shatro (2016, pp. 35-60) offers a similarly tense portrait of how Albanian writers dealt with the ideological expectations during the first fifteen years (1945-1960) of Enver Hoxha’s dictatorship. 4 Fitzpatrick,1992, p. 209.

18 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

“tremendous transformation” in the villages in the course of the recent land reform’5 to the transformative character of Mongolian Socialist Realism, found among the works described in Chapter 9. These texts were composed either at the behest of, or in a response to, the needs of the Party and represent a pragmatic approach to literary art that at once devalues (or at least bypasses) the creative genius of the writer while also emphasizing the writer’s proactivity in the revolutionary project itself and its presentation to the people.6 The colonization of Mongolia by the Manchu and by the Republic of China, and of Korea by the Japanese, suggests that the revolutionary literature of Mongolia and the DPRK should be considered postcolonial, notwithstanding their immediate and ostensibly ameliorating colonization by the Soviet Union. The way they combined liberation from their colonizers with a sense of new-found national identity mediated by Soviet Marxism-Leninism7 can be seen as complex yet fascinating iterations of what Dariusz Skórczewski describes, in his discussion of Polish post-colonial literary history, as ‘unique experiences of a double colonization’.8 Whether North Korea’s de facto break with the Soviet Union during the early 1960s renders it as doubly postcolonial – in the way that Mongolia after 1990 most certainly is – is clearly debatable. But the development of the initial postcolonial literary traditions – defined by juche in North Korea and by the characteristics of nomadic culture in revolutionary Mongolia – presented homogenized ‘imagined communities’ of the kind envisaged by Benedict Anderson,9 somehow inviolable and fixed, notwithstanding their previous colonization. 5 Gabroussenko, 2010, p. 93. An enlightening analysis of this work is found on pp. 93-101 of the book. Whether this or any other work of North Korean literature falls into the category of ‘Socialist Realism’ is open to debate. Myers (1994) contends that Socialist Realism failed in the DPRK, but he remains alone in this opinion among those scholars who have considered the question in any depth. 6 A similar case is that of Albania. According to Robert Elsie, the works written during the initial period of Hoxha’s dictatorship, prior to his break with the Soviet Union in 1961, were, ‘for the most part, not literary publications at all. They were politically motivated and educative in nature, often to the point of being cumbersomely didactic’ (Elsie, 1991, p. 258). Most politically driven literatures, Mongolia’s included, do at times fall foul of such problems, but I hope that the reader will see that the best of what was written in Mongolia during the period covered by the present study at least retained a sense of artistry and beauty, albeit frequently skewed in the direction of Moscow. 7 Indeed, it is arguable that the DPRK’s juche ideology was developed by Kim Il Sung from his understanding of Marxism-Leninism (although Kim Jong Il claimed that it represents ‘a new era in the development of human history’ [Kwak, 2009, p. 19]). 8 Skórczewski, 2014, p. 95. 9 Anderson, [1983] 2016.

Introduc tion

19

The impulse of authorities in sedentary societies to encourage nomadic groups to settle is one that has touched the literature of many indigenous peoples, and one notable problem that the Soviets encountered in Mongolia was the resistance – indeed, the disinterest – of nomadic society to accept this option. Despite a broad-brush approach to showing the benefits brought by the revolution, the Party’s original attempt at collectivization during the period 1929-1932, precipitated by a similar drive in the Soviet Union as part of the first Five-Year Plan, failed dramatically, although by the end of the 1950s, 97.7% of Mongolia’s rural population were now members of a negdel, or ‘association’.10 But when a nomadic group does settle in one locale, the dynamic of the new sedentary life can affect the culture on many conflicting levels, including the cultural and creative levels. The resulting settlement of what had been oral literature on the pages of a book is likewise an act that at once preserves and devitalizes the spoken word, trapping its imaginative and multi-dimensional wisdom, solidifying it into text, august and inviolable. The changes brought during the Soviet era to the literature of the peoples of Central Asia offer a similar account of how stories that had once flowed between and among their tellers now settled and became a ‘definitive’ version conceived and written by an individual ‘author’. Particularly during the years immediately after the revolution, Mongolian writers, as this book will show, were keen to extract revolutionary sentiment from the tropes and genres of folk literature. Indeed, throughout Soviet Central Asia, literature became a way by which nomadic readers whose traditions were being impacted by modernity could remain aware of what they were in the process of giving up, even as they were benefiting from education and improved health care. In her analysis of the Kazakh writer Mukhtar Auezov’s 1942 novel Abai Zholy (Abai’s Way), Diana Kudaibergenova describes how Auezov ‘conceptualizes and captures space as it was remembered by […] generations of the local nomads’11 and goes on to outline the organic and harmonious attitude with which nomads interact with their environment. In comparison to Kazakhstan, it is worth noting that literature in Mongolia in 1942 was in thrall to industrialization and labor and that the nomadic experience was visible only barely in the descriptions of landscape. That Kazakhstan’s nomadic herders – and those in other Soviet Central Asian republics – had only a decade earlier resisted collectivization by voluntarily slaughtering 10 Atwood, 2004, p. 115. 11 Kudaibergenova, 2017, p. 66.

20 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

up to half their livestock rather than collectivizing them 12 suggests that they had more to mourn and to remember when reading books such as Auezov’s than Mongolia’s herders might have, the majority of whom were still at that time independent. In its history and geography, the nomadic culture of Central Asia stretches northeastward through Siberia and beyond, over the Bering Strait and down towards the plains of North America. Through the writings of ethnographers and the work of indigenous writers, we can see that there exists a similar apprehension of, and relationship with, the natural world among the once nomadic tribes of North America as among the nomads of Central Asia.13 The conceptual and social shift from stories told about the ancestors or about a recent hunting trip to stories written especially for magazines and books is also a shift towards the technologies of print and broadcast media through which a writer’s texts may be enjoyed beyond their immediate friends and family. In Kazakhstan and Mongolia and the Canadian Arctic, this shift has brought a dynamic relationship with settlement and with stability. The point on the continuum of nomadism where a writer in one of these communities perceives themselves to be as they plan, write, distribute and read aloud their work will likewise exist in a state of flux: my own experience with Mongolians, for instance, is that, with a few exceptions, they are often itching to return to the countryside, to their homeland (nutag), and to the place where their ancestors have herded for generations. This is perhaps not so much nostalgia, though, as a sense of spiritual displacement. Yet the literature at the center of this book was part of a project, imposed largely from without by a sedentary and colonizing culture, which was intended to bring Mongolia’s nomads into the modern industrial world of the twentieth century and away from the ‘backwardness’ and ‘feudalism’ of traditional nomadic culture. It is this culture that many Mongolian writers today, like others in Central Asia, wish to revive but which their forebears, in a heady combination of revolutionary zeal and desire for the new, chose to ignore and deny. My original intention for this book was to follow Walther Heissig’s magisterial Geschichte der mongolischen Literatur, dealing simply with the literature as literature. It soon became clear, however, that the literature of the period immediately following the revolution was so closely connected with – and 12 See Conquest, 1986, pp. 194. 13 See, for instance, the understanding of the landscape among First Nations peoples in the Yukon in Cruikshank, 2005.

Introduc tion

21

indeed dependent upon – politics that it was necessary to present the two together. Thus it was that the text morphed into a kind of political history, observed through the lens of literature. The first chapter, then, is intended as an overview of where Mongolian literature found itself at the time of the revolution. My particular concern has been to present some important aspects of the literature that appear over the course of the book’s narrative and to show how elements of the modern and the traditional came together during the first two decades of the century. The end of the Manchu Empire and the brief period of autonomous rule in Mongolia provided a social and political context for the development of revolutionary ideas among the country’s intelligentsia, and the literature that would be used to support and promote the revolution grew out of the literature that came before it. Chapter Two addresses the development of revolutionary drama, which brought both the ideology and experience of the revolution to the large majority of Mongolia’s population, who were illiterate. Drama, moreover, offered a context in which a group of individuals could come together and, by working together towards a common end, reflect the focus of the revolutionary project. As they spread out from Ulaanbaatar across the country, local dramatic groups were able to show people, faster than any printed texts, the benefits already granted by the new society and hint at those to come. Chapters Three, Four, Five, Six and Seven deal respectively with the natural world, the battle between the left and the right at the end of the 1920s, education and social change, religion, and health, and so encompass the primary social and political developments of the period before the Great Repression. These chapters, each focused on a specific topic, represent reflected aspects of the whole, with education, for instance, supporting the introduction of scientific medical praxis, and the political negotiation of religion informing more general social shifts. These developments led to Mongolian writers’ initial interest in Socialist Realism at the end of the 1930s and to its introduction and imposition during the 1940s. Chapter Eight gives an account of the arrest, torture and execution during the Great Repression of September 1937 to April 1939 of several of the writers whose works are discussed in the previous chapters. The chapter also shows how those writers who managed to survive worked on their own literary development and how the Party began to impose more explicit control over their work. The ninth and final chapter concentrates on the ways in which writers adopted Socialist Realism and explored what might be possible from within

22 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

its boundaries. The increased association with and reliance upon the Soviet Union, the reflection of Stalin’s personality cult in that of Choibalsan, and the complex sociopolitical dynamic of the Great Patriotic War all led towards the First Writer’s Congress held in the spring of 1948, which established the nature of Mongolia’s literary community for the next four decades. This book has developed parallel with my experience in, and understanding of, Mongolia and its literature. When I first went to Mongolia at the invitation of one of the country’s leading poets and cultural critics G. Mend-Ooyo, he and his assistant O. Munkhnaran started to introduce me to modern ‘classics’ – works by D. Natsagdorj, S. Buyannemeh, B. Rinchen and Ts. Damdinsüren – which have formed the backbone of my education. Over time, through their help, and through the help of many others, my knowledge of early revolutionary literature has broadened and deepened. So I must first thank Mend-Ooyo and Munkhnaran but also other friends, acquaintances, and colleagues in Mongolia for their assistance in clarifying issues and finding texts, especially G. Ayuurzana, B. Baast, J. Bat-Ireedui, U. Erdenetuya, L. Hushaan, L. Ölziitögs, Ts. Munkhchimeg, J. Saruulbuyan, Anna Tsendina and D. Urianhai. In particular, Sh. Tsogt, whom I met on my first visit to Mongolia in 2006 and who died early the following year, was a man of rare kindness and understanding, and I feel keenly how his advice to me about the translation of Mongolian literature still pervades my work. D. Tsedev, a poet and scholar who knows more than I can ever hope to know about the literature of Mongolia, has most generously granted me access to his collection of rare materials from the period with which this book is concerned. Without his help, there would have been gaping and unsightly lacunae in several chapters, which would have been hard to negotiate. Among my Mongolist colleagues outside Mongolia, I thank Chris Atwood, Chris Kaplonski, Matthew King, Phillip Marzluf, Saruul-Erdene Myagmar and Henry Schwarz for their help, encouragement and advice. Susan Meinheit of the Library of Congress and Wayne Richter of Western Washington University library have helped with bibliographical conundrums. Thanks are also due to Ryan Womack for reading and commenting upon portions of the text. I thank Saskia Gieling and the production team at Amsterdam University Press as well as the series editors, who have patiently seen the text through from conception to production. Thanks also to my two anonymous reviewers, the majority of whose thoughtful comments I have incorporated into this final manuscript.

Introduc tion

23

Finally, I thank Sunmin Yoon, my wife and most treasured colleague who has patiently endured my writing of the book, for her sharp and apposite suggestions. It is only a small token of gratitude for all she has given me, but I dedicate this book to her nonetheless, with a heart full of love.

Bibliography Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. New York: Verso, [1983] 2016. Atwood, Christopher P. Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire. New York: Facts On File, 2004. Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the TerrorFamine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Cruikshank, Julie. Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005. Elsie, Robert. ‘Evolution and Revolution in Modern Albanian Literature’. In World Literature Today, Vol. 65, No. 2, Literature and Revolution in Eastern Europe (Spring, 1991): 256-263. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. Gabroussenko, Tatiana. Soldiers on the Cultural Front: Developments in the Early History of North Korean Literature and Literary Policy. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2010. Kudaibergenova, Diana T. Rewriting the Nation in Modern Kazakh Literature. Lenham: Lexington Books, 2017. Kwak, Tae-Han. North Korea’s Foreign Policy Under Kim Jong Il: New Perspectives. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. Myers, Brian. Han Sŏr-ya and North Korean Literature: The Failure of Socialist Realism in the DPRK. Ithaca: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1994. Shatro, Bavjola. Between(s) and Beyond(s) in Contemporary Albanian Literature. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016. Skórczewski, Dariusz. ‘Post-Colonial Poland – (Im)possible Project’. In Teksty Drugie: Post-colonial or Postdependency Studies? Warsaw: Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Science, 2014. Retrieved from http://rcin.org.pl/ Content/51835/WA248_71046_P-I-2524_skorczew-post-colon.pdf (accessed 12 December 2019).

1

Prefiguring 1921 Abstract The literature that formed the basis of Mongolia’s revolutionary writing was based upon the traditional shamanic nomadic herding culture of the steppe and upon the vajrayāna Buddhism that the population had practiced since the late sixteenth century. The themes that occupied these pre-revolutionary writers – social relationships, love, religious observance, the impact of the weather on livestock – were later adapted to fit with socialist ideology. In this way, the prayers and humor, the observations of how Mongolian society was changing, and the lyrics inspired by traditional Indo-Tibetan literature reveal both the thematic and stylistic contexts that would influence writers’ responses to the new society and the expectations of their readers. Keywords: traditional literature, Buddhism, nomadic livestock herding, pre-revolutionary culture, D. Bodoo, Zawa Damdin

The Mongolian writer G. Navaannamjil, a scribal clerk in the Bogd Haan’s autonomous government1 who in May 1915 served as secretary to the Mongolian delegation at the talks that concluded with the signing of the Treaty of Hiagt, was a man with such a gaze that his nom de plume was Red Eyes (Ulaan Nüd). In his fictionalized memoir ‘The Old Secretary’s Story’ (Övgön bicheechiin ögüülel), he describes how 13-year-old Anvaan (a play on ‘Navaan’, the first element of his own name) learnt how to read. Given that Navaannamjil had been born in 1885, we can reasonably imagine scenes similar to this taking place throughout Mongolia around the turn of the nineteenth century. Hishigt and Dambadorj made fun of him mercilessly, saying that there was no way he was going to get an education, he being a half-witted creature. 1 Following the collapse of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in 1911, the eighth Jetsundampa Hutagt and Bogd Haan Agvaanluvsanchoyjindanzanvaanchig (Ngag dbang blo bzang chos rje nyi ma bstan ’dzin dbang phyug c. 1870-1924) was elevated to the de facto rulership of the newly declared independent state of Mongolia.

Wickhamsmith, Simon, Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948). Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984752_ch01

26 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

The monk Tseren thought that Anvaan could become a good herder, but he was concerned about the boy’s situation and kept on at him. It was not that Anvaan’s mother Dulam wanted her son to be taught how to read and write, but she had no intention of sending him to work, herding the horses and such like. She placed him with a man named Rinchin, who knew well how to read and write, and he taught Anvaan the Mongolian script, and now that Anvaan no longer tended the livestock as a nomad, because his eyes came to understand the written letters, and because his mind followed suit, within a few months, he was able to write the letters in cursive form, and to read, and so his skill improved and soon he was able to put everything in writing and to understand it all. So it was that Anvaan’s mother Dulam knew that her son was talented at reading and writing, and she told the monk Tseren. It wouldn’t be so easy to get him into a school at the local banner office, but he asked Sündev, who previously had been director of the banner office, and Sündev said that if he could reach an agreement, then Anvaan could enroll, but should no agreement be forthcoming, then nothing more could be done. But the director in charge of the affairs of the hoshuu did agree, and so one day, young Anvaan followed the monk Tseren to the banner office.2

The haphazard manner in which promising students such as Anvaan might, or in certain cases might not, be permitted and encouraged to realize their abilities depended, it would seem, upon good fortune as much as upon aptitude. However talented a child might have been, without the support (whether proactive or not) of those with suitable influence, they would have had little chance of advancement. This book tells how a group of young people like Navaannamjil (and his alter ego Anvaan) placed their literary talents at the service of Mongolia in the first quarter-century following the Soviet-backed revolution of 1921 and how they helped to transform the society through a radical trivium of education, entertainment and propaganda. Their writing altered Mongolia’s traditional literary arts absolutely, radicalizing them not only in terms of politics but of creativity too, infusing the traditional nomadic verbal arts of poetry and folktales with socially progressive European ideas of modernism and Marxism and with the values of industrialization and the transformative and morally uplifting force of socialist labor. Yet the backdrop of this new writing continued to be the everyday lives lived by the vast majority of the Mongolian people, constant and unerring, who moved seasonally with their 2

Navaannamjil, 1956, p. 47.

Prefiguring 1921

27

five types of livestock,3 herding them across the landscape, whose every hill and depression and river recalled, symbolically through group memory, the lives and wisdom of the ancestors. In this regular and localized movement, the deities of Mongolia’s vajrayāna Buddhism and the local spirits of its indigenous shamanism, who embodied the topological features, were an ever-present guiding force, and people were able to access spiritual teaching and comfort in times of crisis through monasteries and wandering Buddhist practitioners and through shamans skilled in local knowledge both physical and metaphysical. On a more mundane yet no less practical level, the monasteries also functioned as local landlords, extracting dues from herders who grazed their animals on the monastic land while employing them to herd the monastic livestock. 4 Navannamjil’s account of how Anvaan came to learn how to read and write suggests the power of the written word to release an individual from the hardships of nomadic life. But while books – and especially religious texts, whether or not they could be read and understood – were regarded as sacred, they were nonetheless too heavy to transport in any quantity. For many, then, a book was perhaps more fetishized than practical and might only be read aloud when a literate visitor happened to call by. Writing about Mongolia’s book culture in the pre-modern period, Győrgy Kara offers the following description: Very little has been written about steppe libraries, about simple people, who sometimes were even barely literate. They carefully preserved, collected, and copied books, of which there were few enough anyway, and never sufficient on the steppe. In their trunks or cabinets in the honorary section of the round tent, they kept not only holy scriptures of the Yellow Faith, but compilations of the fairy tales, notebooks filled with wise words, subtle riddles, songs and narratives. The monasteries, rich in books, had separate buildings for libraries, and now at times, the personal library of a wealthy steppe booklover is kept in a separate tent (or in a wooden hut of Chinese type in the larch-beam fenced courtyard of the semi-settled). Ordinary monastery libraries customarily had between fifty and a hundred books, more or less sizeable volumes. The ‘reference library’ of a wandering monk is stored and carried in one oblong wooden box, or in a sack or bundle.5 3 The ‘five snouts’ (tavan hoshuu) of livestock are horses, sheep, goats, camels and cattle. 4 For an extensive analysis of the social and economic situation on which Mongolian society at the time of the revolution was founded, see Bawden, [1968] 1989, pp. 135-186. 5 Kara, 2005, pp. 284-285.

28 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

As repositories of knowledge, the monasteries held much of the intellectual and social power, and given that much scientific and religious understanding came through sources written in Tibetan, it tended to be those monks who showed the greatest facility in studying canonical texts in Tibetan as well as Indic texts written in Sanskrit (and translating them into Mongolian) who were especially highly regarded. Not only did the canon include religious texts to be read, understood and explained to others, but the Indo-Tibetan tradition also exhorted well-educated monks to become proficient in, among much else, what had been delineated by the Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyeltsen6 as ‘the five minor sciences’ (rigs gnas chung ba’i lnga). Among these five, poetry (snyan ngag), synonymy (mngon brjod) and metrics (sdeb sbyor)7 emphasized literary skill and the ability to craft ornate, meaningful and emotionally affecting language following the Indic tradition of Daņḍin’s Kāvyādarśa.8 It was outstanding ability with such linguistic creativity that led an individual to be acknowledged, and possibly materially rewarded, as a writer whose work could somehow benefit the community as a whole. Away from the monasteries, the ability to read and write came principally through tutors, and perhaps later through scribal work in the capital, and it was in this way that many of the writers who rose to prominence during the 1920s and 1930s received their introduction to literacy. D. Natsagdorj, for instance, whose family, although from the nobility, was not especially wealthy, was taught by his father, who was himself a scribe. This training enabled Natsagdorj, from the age of 11, to undertake scribal work for the Ministry of War and following the revolution to become personal secretary to D. Sühbaatar, who had been appointed Minister of the Army. Ts. Damdinsüren, who was a year younger than Natsagdorj, had at the age of about 10 been taught to read and write Mongolian by his father, who was an assistant to a local banner official. A few years earlier, when his elder brother, who was preparing to enter a Buddhist monastery as a novice, had reached about 6 or 7 years old, both boys had been taught Tibetan by a monk named Baldan.9 6 Kun dga’ rgyal mtshan (1182-1251), whose meeting in 1247 with Gödan Haan led to Mongolia’s first engagement with Buddhism, and the beginning of the relationship between the two which has lasted until the present day. 7 The other two ‘minor sciences’ were dance (zlos gar), and astrology (skar rtsis). 8 For an overview of Indic poetry in Tibet, see Kapstein, 2003, pp. 747-802. Kunga Gyeltsen’s Mkhas pa rnams la ‘jug pa’i sgo (Buddhist Digital Resource Center, https://www.tbrc. org/#!rid=W11393 [accessed 13 April 2018]) contains a partial translation into Tibetan of the Kāvyādarśa. See also the discussion below of the kāvyā tradition in Zawa Damdin’s work. 9 Damdinsüren, 1990, pp. 32-33.

Prefiguring 1921

29

Both Natsagdorj and Damdinsüren’s education came during the period of Mongolian autonomy (1911-1919), but as Phillip Marzluf suggests, this system of private tutelage, whether by a parent or by others, and notwithstanding the quality of the instruction, had for many decades previously tended to be the most likely way for any Mongolian child to become literate.10 But a privileged education did not necessarily mean a severing of family or regional ties. Nutag, or homeland, drew people back in the first two decades of the twentieth century as it still does a century later, and the themes addressed by even the most cosmopolitan Mongolian in the decades prior to the revolution spoke of the joys and vicissitudes of life lived in a ger, of herding livestock on the steppe, because such were the circumstances into which they had most likely been born and to which their audience would have best related. Nomadic herding communities in pre-modern Mongolia consisted of families who came together in a spirit of mutual benefit and cooperation, not so much pooling their livestock – this approach would become one of the most vehemently opposed aspects of the collectivization that the MPRP (Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party), encouraged from Moscow, would seek to impose during the late 1920s – as supporting each other’s efforts to develop their herds and thereby contributing by association to the betterment of the group. Out on the steppe, these herding communities had little or no outside entertainment, and so they made their own, singing and playing music and telling stories. The primary use of vernacular literary forms, as opposed to religious texts in Tibetan, was to express and represent to the community aspects of their lives and the lives of their ancestors. In their poetry and songs, they told of heroes from the epics (tuuli); of their lives and the animals and landscape that surrounded them; their satires made fun of those in power and of human foibles; and through their propitiations and prayers they requested for themselves health and prosperity, the health of their livestock, and the success of future generations. The relationship between these small communities and the poets and singers who moved among them offers a way of understanding the social role of literature in the years prior to the revolution. These wandering bards tended to settle in one region, often with the support of a local ruler, and to compose in response to the particular needs of the local inhabitants. One such poet was B. Gelegbalsan (1864-1923)11 who, during a severe drought in 1905, 10 Marzluf, 2018, pp. 21-25. 11 See also the discussion of Gelegbalsan’s works in Heissig, 1972, pp. 460-472.

30 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

composed a prayer to bring rain to the Gobi, and especially to the region under the control of his friend Tsedensambuu, a local banner official. Gelegbalsan had known Tsedensambuu since childhood, when together they had studied Tibetan and Mongolian literature and history. Gelegbalsan had spent time as a Buddhist monk before working during his 20s as a camel driver, traveling in caravans and trading throughout Inner Mongolia and China. On his return to the Gobi, from the mid-1860s onwards, his reputation as a poet had developed steadily, and he had become renowned as a yöröölch, a composer of prayers and blessings, many of which have come down to us in written form.12 As Gelegbalsan’s fame spread, he began to gamble, incurring extensive debts and inadvertently strengthening his relationship with, and loyalty to, Tsedensambuu: On one occasion, when Gelegbalsan lost a wager at the palace of the Bogd Haan, he took out credit from a local shop and thus ran up an unfeasibly large debt. At that time, Sain Noyon Haan Tsedensambuu said to him, ‘I’ll pay your debt. You must come and work as my advisor’, and he set up a ger on a hill for Gelegbalsan and appointed a cook for him. The local chief became aware of this and demanded that Tsedensambuu hand over the debtor Gelegbalsan. Gelegbalsan offered a prayer, that Tsedensambuu would pay his debt to the local chief, and indeed he sent Gelegbalsan to say that he would pay off Gelegbalsan’s debt with many silver ingots and an enclosure full of camels.13

Gelegbalsan’s Tenger-eče borogo qura guyuju talbigsan silüglel (‘A Poem Requesting Heaven for Rain’)14 was written at Tsedensambuu’s request, and his approach throughout is to focus on the mundane context in which people are suffering in the drought, and his request for rain is presented as a matter of physical survival rather than as a metaphysical negotiation with Heaven. He starts by praising Tsedensambuu’s treatment of those whose lives fell under his administration: For so long, these few small communities have grown used to their ways, 12 See, for instance, the eight texts of this kind by Gelegbalsan in Damdinsürüng, 1959, pp. 589-599. 13 http://www.mend-ooyo.mn/news/153.html (accessed 7 March 2018). 14 Damdinsürüng, 1959, pp. 587-589.

Prefiguring 1921

31

have spoken in agreement: in these circumstances, with such rough punishment handed down, the banner official Tsedensambuu has never ceased from easing everyone’s burden, has never covetously gathered in corruption, but he has raised his own few livestock, protected the monastery herds, and offered the best of their milk, thanks to the senior monks, to all those, young and old, who have passed through. So let us pray to the undeceiving triple jewel, and bow down, with true and honest faith.

Notwithstanding the standard Buddhist prayer that closes this section, Gelegbalsan’s attitude here is largely secular: there is little recourse to spiritual language, and the acknowledgement of people’s suffering, of their struggle in the face of such great difficulty, indicates a repurposing by Gelegbalsan of the yörööl genre, in which praise and request now offer a way to talk about the needs of people and society rather than a simple desperate act to propitiate divine beneficence.15 In writing from this viewpoint, Gelegbalsan is moving away from the spiritual and towards the social, and while we cannot be sure of what reports were reaching Mongolia of events in Russia at the time,16 we can speculate that news of the concerns of agrarian laborers and calls for increased democracy that provoked the Russian revolution of 1905 was affecting the way in which intellectuals and well-traveled individuals such as Gelegbalsan were thinking about the function of, and inequities within, their own society. We should not, however, read this poem as merely a precursor of socialist literature. While he may not regard the drought as divine punishment, as a yöröölch, Gelegbalsan’s motive is to use language – its sound and its meaning – to attract the rain through a kind of enchantment, and so revive the landscape. He presents the situation as so desperate that he 15 See Damdinsüren (1959), in which he examines the work of pre-modern writers (such as Gelegbalsan and Injannashi) for evidence of what he calls “democratic” (ardchilsan) thinking. 16 As we will see later in this chapter, in the account given by Pozdneyev, Mongolians did receive news of political developments abroad and, while Japan’s victory in the 1905 RussoJapanese War seems to have garnered more attention within Asia than the Russian Revolution of that year, Gelegbalsan’s poem may reflect a general understanding of current events outside Mongolia.

32 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

would leave for another region, a place that for him would necessarily be inferior. The desperation in Gelegbalsan’s voice is palpable, and the thoughts he expresses, as though uttered by those among whom he lived in the Gobi, bring together the emotional anguish of individuals fearing for their well-being and that of their family, and the acuity and vision of a poet recording his own timely observations of the social and personal consequences of the drought. Beginning from the whitening of dawn, wandering until my joints rattle, from noon until late no voice is heard to speak. I might be relaxing on my bed at evening, but I have an education in cause and effect, and yet I cannot steel myself to acknowledge it. I say I’ll rest at noon. The animals I’ve always known, when they suffer and die, truly my heart cannot bear it. I say I’ll move to my lover’s region. I say I’ll go over to the Harchin, for the lands nearby are similar, they say. I will set down the skirts of my ger, and dwell in friendship, far from my ancestral home, and yet wherever I go, I will regard that place as inferior, saying the people have great faults, saying that they are unwilling workers.

The melding of the personal, the political and the spiritual in Gelegbalsan’s poem is a primary element of pre-revolutionary Mongolian literature. For, in the same breath that he praises the honorable behavior of his friend Tsedensambuu, he is praising also the local administrative system under whose control the majority of herders in Mongolia lived in considerable hardship and against whom the revolution, in large part, was directed. However, by constructing his poem as a yörööl, or blessing prayer, Gelegbalsan used a spiritual form to focus on secular concerns, only in the conclusion of his poem returning once more to speak directly to the divine, asking the sky god

Prefiguring 1921

33

Tenger for forgiveness and reiterating the need for the people’s immediate release from their suffering: We who grieve have spoken our thoughts, and written them down on red-lined paper, and we, who continually have suffered in our homeland, with voices flustered and tearful, have been wailing, and will again. You Tenger, lord, please look happily on this earth, without anger and ire, without upset or distress, please send down shimmering water, please grant the grasses full growth, like a river, and please forgive our dumb animals.

There is a story associated with this poem telling how, when Gelegbalsan went out and spread a piece of white felt on the ground, made offerings to Tenger and recited the poem, a cloud appeared in the otherwise clear sky, and the rain began to fall. A reciter of such blessings, of course, can only become as famous as Gelegbalsan through the success of his poetry, and such successes would have raised his standing among those on whose behalf he had recited his poem. Gelegbalsan’s work as a yöröölch, then, was grounded in a deep grasp of both humans’ imaginative capacity and the social, spiritual and sonic power of the word. The spiritual context of pre-revolutionary Mongolia, founded upon shamanism and Buddhism, depended much upon the power of prayer, incantation and mantra: indeed, one of the principal caricatures of Buddhist monks in revolutionary literature was that they controlled the poor and uneducated population through the use of such recitations, for which they generally demanded money or payment in lieu. As an example of how precatory language was used in Mongolian society, Gelegbalsan’s prayer for rain shows the complex warp and weft of human need and the character of the natural world as well as the necessity of good governance within a local area. In representing the voices of the herders

34 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

among whom he lived, Gelegbalsan included powerful social commentary in which we can hear Mongolian literature’s early attempts at revolution. Indeed, if we think of how words in prayers such as Gelegbalsan’s were charged with emotional and political power, it is but a short distance to recognizing a similar power in words such as red and labor and in names such as Lenin and Sühbaatar in poems written only two or three decades later. The position of a singer of benedictions such as Gelegbalsan within Mongolian society was at once highly traditional, offering praises and making prayers according to prescribed ancient forms, and yet always modern, for whatever they wrote had to be as meaningful as it was effective. Gelegbalsan’s was a utilitarian tradition, it spoke of life in the Gobi in order also to speak to the immanent forces of nature. Poetry for the sake of poetry – in which touching an audience through art alone was of scant importance – was not part of Mongolia’s world of letters, in which texts were written and performed with clear social and practical intentions. Part of the work of a poet, perhaps especially a poet within a largely oral and mobile community, is to represent that community to itself. The work of the Inner Mongolian poet Gamala (also called Dugarsüren, 1871-1932) may have been, as Walther Heissig describes it, ‘folksy and traditional’,17 but his was observational poetry also, using humor and descriptive force to comment on social and political concerns and to represent the life of nomadic herders. Having begun to compose poetry at an early age, and to attract through it both a following and a source of income, Gamala became a banner official in the final years of the Qing Empire. With the collapse of the empire, however, came his own gradual decline, in terms both of his political and literary influence and his subsequent death, hastened by a debilitating bone disease. Sometime during the early years of the twentieth century, Gamala composed a long poem entitled Nayir-un Böke (The Festival Wrestlers),18 in which he describes wrestling, one of the traditional ‘three manly games’ (eriin gurvan naadam) held even today across the country as part of local festivals (nair, naadam). The poem’s 39 stanzas consider many aspects of the experience of wrestling, from the perspective of the audience and of the wrestlers themselves. But what is interesting about Gamala’s poem is what it says about the actual experience of wrestling. For instance, below is a passage describing the moment that the crowds have been waiting 17 See Heissig (1972, pp. 817-184) for a detailed account of Gamala’s poetry. 18 Damdinsürüng (1959, pp. 583-586). The date of this poem’s composition is not given.

Prefiguring 1921

35

for, the fight itself, yet it is not so much the bout that is described as the psychology of the fighters. Three times they sing out the summons, ‘Wrestlers to the ring!’, and the large, solid wrestlers are placed before all. On both sides, from far away, many wrestlers have come. They’ve stopped wandering about and lean in, calling hoos hoos! The foreign wrestlers are unusual. They must be experienced. When they break away, they cover up. When they grip tightly, they push with their fists. When they miss one another, they tumble over. When they focus hard, they have the upper hand. They trample each other’s throats, and stop all utterance. The winner is decided. He gazes about to his heart’s content. He shows off his manly power, and checks his virile strength. Many are they who leave, without revealing the strength of their hands, and straightaway fall. Many are they who wear upon their shoulders, a manic pride, and then they slip and fall. Many are they who, raising their game, only blunt their thoughts. Many are they who, lacking cunning, are taken by surprise, and tumble down.

Gamala’s skill was to write poetry that engaged an audience’s emotions, and this is reflected in his more politically charged satire as much as in his more

36 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

lyrical poems. Like Gelegbalsan’s verses, Gamala’s poems often approach common experiences from uncommon perspectives, and in so doing they in part lay the framework for the kind of poetry written – with a brief nod towards European modernism and Soviet poets – in the years following the revolution. His use of observational humor, which already featured widely in dramatic works and which would become an important tool of political propaganda, meant that what was conveyed to the audience was their own experience – here in this poem the experience of those who watched and enjoyed the spectacle of wrestling, narrated in another’s voice. The traditions and structures of nomadic life such as those described by writers like Gamala represented to Mongolian readers a cultural continuity that underpinned their experience of the world. This continuity was never in doubt, yet with the political upheaval of the early twentieth century, increased foreign influence during the period of autonomous rule, and the role of the Soviets in the revolution of 1921, writers felt the need to reflect in their work the new world as much as the old. This was particularly the case following the death of the Bogd Haan and the declaration of the Mongolian People’s Republic in 1924. But Mongolia’s gradual opening to, and interest in, Western ideas had already catalyzed writers to experiment and to explore social and political developments through the forms common to traditional literature. In 1910, Gamala wrote what Walther Heissig refers to as ‘an admiring concession by an otherwise conservative poet’, a praise poem (magtaal) to the automobile (Ciicaa-yin magtagal ‘In Praise of the Car’).19 Heissig’s comment is especially apposite in relation to works by Gamala such as ‘The Festival Wrestlers’, and despite Gamala’s apparent preference for more traditional material, his wonder at this novel mode of transport – very few of which had reached Mongolia at this time, and which he somehow must have encountered directly – produced a poem that prefigured the attempts by writers over the next two decades to understand the place of technology in revolutionary Mongolia. This thing they call a car is formed with steel and iron. This thing they call a car emerged as taught in the Tanjur and Kanjur. […] 19 Heissig, 1972, p.823. Note that the word ciicaa is a Chinese load word (from 汽車 qìchē), indicating that Gamala’s understanding of modernity cane from China, rather than Russia.

Prefiguring 1921

37

This thing they call a car moves along by fire and oil. This thing they call a car shortens the distant road.

The verses of this simple poem reveal developments that would soon become part of the Mongolian political landscape. The construction of the car from iron and steel, and the combination of oil and fire in making it mobile, may be the first indication in Mongolian literature of the power of industry, a theme that would have great significance during the 1930s. Gamala’s observation, while exhibiting neither the sophistication nor the depth of understanding with which he addressed more traditional subjects, suggests nonetheless a level of curiosity and inquiry which, taken up by younger writers, would be important in framing the subsequent literary treatment of transport and industrialization as political and social phenomena.20 Maybe even more important than such general comments on construction and power, the idea of shortening travel on distant roads raises specific questions about modernity and tradition that would become central to revolutionary discourse. The cyclical, seasonal movement of Mongolian nomads has its own, far more leisurely timeframe: even today, motorcycles and jeeps augment rather than replace horses and camels when a family moves from one pasture to the next. Movement in Mongolia’s traditional literature is founded upon travel by horse and defined by the pleasures and difficulties that that entails: the nineteenth-century monk-poet Danzanravjaa even used travel on horseback as a Buddhist metaphor for the long journey to enlightenment.21 But Gamala’s is a praise poem, and the shortening of distance – and thus the increased speed of travel – afforded by the car is viewed here as a positive quality. Increased and more rapid movement across the country would become a sub-theme in revolutionary texts, and this feeling of wonder is still palpable in works from the late 1930s, such as when Has-Erdene travels from Arhangai to Ulaanbaatar by bus in M. Yadamsüren’s ‘Three Girls’ (1936).22 But it is Gamala’s reference to the automobile as having been ‘taught’ (nomloj gargasan) in Buddhist scripture that is most surprising and conceptually most disquieting. Exactly what he means by this is unclear: perhaps he 20 See, for instance, Buyannemeh’s car dialogs in Uran ügsiin chuulgan (1929), discussed in Chapter 4. 21 See Wickham-Smith (2015, p. 165). 22 See the discussion of this story in Chapter 5.

38 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

is pointing to the car as a teaching on ‘cause and effect’ or even, as suggested in the work of Danzanravjaa, as an updated vehicle for enlightenment. Whatever his meaning, Gamala’s engagement with Buddhist thought in describing an automobile is both thematically innovative and philosophically catholic and seems also to hint at a future dominated by the kind of progress represented by this novel piece of machinery. While Heissig’s appraisal of Gamala’s work as ‘conventional lyric’ (konventionelle Lyrik) is clear, it fails to acknowledge the depth of feeling that Gamala brought to his work. Reading both ‘The Festival Wrestlers’ and ‘In Praise of the Car’, his simple and direct language belies a fascination with the systems and protocols of, in the one poem a highly traditional and ritualized sport, and in the other a new-fangled and unforeseen development, imported from the world outside Mongolia. Gamala’s willingness to look at his experience from such unusual angles indicates that he was a more modern writer than has previously been suggested. For the last ten years of his life, a broken man and in considerable pain, he wrote very little, and he died in 1932, largely neglected by Mongolia’s new community of literary revolutionaries. When the Russian orientalist and folklorist A.M. Pozdneyev traveled to Mongolia in 1892, he encountered a striking level of disquiet among the people, which he incorporated into the exhaustive account that he wrote about his journey. Visiting the monastery of Amarbayasgalant in Selenge province, a discussion with the monastery’s representative of the Shavi Yamen – the office in Urga that administered the affairs of the Jetsundamba Hutagt – turned to the behavior and attitudes of local hierarchs. The representative, whose name was Yondon, asked Pozdneyev whether I had not now found out about the character of their noyons [princes], and also said, ‘Indeed, your noyons are not at all like ours. The Buryats said of you that you are a Russian amban [official], and here you travel like a commoner and talk to everyone. Last year your heir-apparent even traveled over his dominions and saw the contentment or distress of his people. But our nobles never see, indeed, never even hear of the misfortunes of the people!’23

Accounts like this reveal that among the classes of nobles there was not so much an atmosphere of violence and cruelty, which would become the 23 Pozdneyev (1971, p. 31). The ‘heir-apparent’ here would have been the future Nicholas II (1868-1918), who became Tsar in 1894.

Prefiguring 1921

39

focus of literature during the early revolutionary period, as one of ignorance and disinterest. Pozdneyev found a country whose local rulers and their underlings had little knowledge of how the people were living on the land which they supposedly controlled, which resulted in the administration being founded on general neglect, with occasional gestures of beneficence. Nomadic communities tended towards self-government, with intervention from external authorities being largely impersonal, and it was this feeling of how disengaged the nobles and other officials actually were that fueled resentment and that in turn produced the impetus for social change. In some cases, however, power had corrupted those who wielded it, and this meld of abuse and negligence rendered the lives of many nomads – and life in nomadic communities as a whole – bleak and hard. As much as those who would come to be called the ‘black and yellow feudals’ (har shar fyeudal) were so distanced as to be ineffective administrators of the lives of the common people, so there were clearly some who were psychotically brutal as well as being corrupt and malfeasant. Social satire – of the kind that would find a clear political purpose following the revolution – addressed such corruption head on, mocking those in power and championing the weak. Stories featuring anthropomorphized animals had been a staple of Mongolian written literature since the time of Agwangkayidub (Ngag dbang mkhas’ grub, 1779-1838) and most likely of oral literature for far longer than that. This form had developed in part under the influence of the Pañcatantra, and there are frequent stylistic and thematic similarities between this Sanskrit epic poem and some of the stories through which the üge tradition developed during the nineteenth century.24 One of the most popular animal stories from the early twentieth century is The Story of the Hare, the Hogget and the Wolf (Taulai, tölüge, činua gurbayin üliger) by Dorj Meiren (1878-194025). Dorj, whose family traced their line back to the Borjigid clan of Chinggis Haan, had learnt Mongolian, Tibetan, Manchu and Chinese at an early age and had taken up employment as an official in the Manchu banner system, rising to the senior rank of Meiren before the fall of the Qing in 1911. In the new autonomous Mongolia, Dorj wrote frequently for the influential and innovative newspaper Shine Toli (New Mirror), founded and published by the Buryat intellectual Ts.

24 See Damdinsüren ([1957] 2017, pp. 198-364) for a comprehensive account of the influence of Sanskrit literature in Mongolia. 25 These are the dates given by Damdinsüren (1959, p. 582), but Heissig (1972, pp. 628-631), claims that Dorj died in 1943.

40 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Jamsrano.26 Shine Toli had a broad and deep impact on the intellectual life of post-Qing Mongolia, publishing the first translations of the work of Western writers such as Jack London and Jules Verne as well as essays that provided an insight into the political and social concerns circling in Europe at the time.27 With increased attention being paid by Mongolia’s intellectuals to political ideas such as socialism and democracy, Dorj’s writings brought the traditional oral literature into the modern world. The Story of the Hare, the Hogget and the Wolf, while ostensibly a story of how a cunning hare outsmarts a voracious wolf who is intent on eating a naive sheep, can also be read as social commentary in which the behavior of those who have – or imagine themselves to have – power is revealed and defeated through native intelligence and cunning. As with Gelegbalsan’s prayer for rain, and like the commentary offered to Pozdneyev by the representative of the Shavi Yamen, Dorj’s story indicates a real possibility of political change. The narrative is as simple as it is effective. A sheep, belonging to the flock of a family explicitly described as rich (bayan), is out walking in the pastures when he encounters a hare. At the same time, a wolf spots the sheep and makes to pounce. Seeing a piece of red paper bearing writing (bichig-tu ulagan khagudasu), the quick-thinking hare picks it up and starts to ‘read’: An instruction from the god Hormusta, issued from the Ministry for Determining Wicked and Meritorious Behavior among Animals. Sent to the Minister, the Hare from Zambudvip, appointed according to this instruction. As for the reason why it has been issued: the same Ministry has announced that, in examining and clarifying all which is done, both wicked and meritorious, by the inferior animals who have ceased their avoidance of bad and wicked behavior, a name has been put forward from among the ministers appointed by the animals’ groups, and a statement issued, that the harm done by the wicked blue wolves of Zambudvip, who are a disgrace to the powerful wild animals in this 26 Tsyben Jamsrano (J. Tseveen; 1881-1942) was a Buryat scholar and translator. In 1921, he joined the Ministry of Education and, in November of that year, founded the Institute for Scripture and Manuscripts, which became the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. In 1932, he was dismissed from his positions and sent to Leningrad, where he worked for the Institute of Oriental Studies. He was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in February 1940 and died in prison on 14 May 1942. 27 The contents of the first edition, published in February 1913, included articles on geology; meteorology; the countries of the world and their systems of government; culture; business and transport; the relationship between Mongolia and Russia; and race and religion (Korostovetz 1926, p. 251).

Prefiguring 1921

41

single region, is most severe. This slaughter is especially harsh since, when they seize and eat the livestock which is the property of humans, they are not only satisfying their hunger, but also their tastes and their minds. From now, if these members do not change their ways, we are informing you that we will, in regard to any further wickedness which they might commit, without impunity, explicitly seek to improve the situation. We ministers have looked into this matter, and we find that the wolves have no other reason to kill and eat the best livestock, being born without power to nourish themselves and without their own property, and that if they were to eat thinking only to satisfy their hunger, that would be acceptable. But it is said that, caught up in their own voracious agility, they needlessly massacre the livestock which belong to humans; and not only do they commit the evil of taking many lives, they lurk with hatred for the livestock’s owners and gather much evil to themselves, and in the end all is unwarranted suffering. For this reason, while it is appropriate that they should immediately be ostracized, and the wickedness of their evil deeds stopped, since we ministers have no way of thinking about how this might be done, it is through the brilliance of Hormusta that what is written here has been revealed. We now declare, in this text for which you have been waiting, that in thinking to tame and subdue the evil wolves, we appoint the Hare as a minister and grant him a covered throne, and we request that he complete this work. Once the Hare, duly appointed by this instruction, receives the covered throne which has been granted him by the gods, he should immediately implement this order issued from above, and himself appoint those with ability. How will this case be carried out with regard to the wicked blue wolves? After examining what might be suitable, let them all come together and make preparations.28

The dénouement of the story, of course, has the wolf hurrying away and the sheep, having been raised by the Hare to the rank of Heaven’s emissary (elch), safe from harm. While the immediate effect of Dorj’s satire comes from the humor of the skillful duping by the hare of the wolf, it is only when applied to the human world that the story, following the overall schema of the üge tradition as a whole, switches register and becomes an attack on the foolish and cruel use of power by those who feel themselves impregnable. The structure of Dorj’s text is markedly similar to that of Chimid Dungaryn’s The Shelducks 28 Damdinsürüng, 1959, p. 582.

42 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

(1927),29 in which a group of determined small birds address the issue of their treatment by the larger and physically more powerful shelducks. Just as in Dorj Meiren’s story, where most of the text is taken up with the ‘instruction’ issued in the name of Hormusta, so in The Shelducks, the primary force comes from the revolutionary speech of the little birds’ leader. While Chimid was most likely aware of Dorj’s story, such punishment tales are by no means an uncommon feature of folk literature in general,30 and the cowardly arrogance of this particular wolf came to be reflected in the attitude shown in the literary characterization of the rich and powerful that developed during the 1920s. The image of Mongolian society that resonates through these pieces by Gelegbalsan and Dorj Meiren, written in the first few years of the twentieth century, is of a gradual shift in the political and social consciousness. With the waning of the Qing Empire and the escalation of political developments in both China and Russia, which would come to a head just over a decade later,31 Mongolians’ nationalism and their desire for independence, and the stirrings of modernization fomented by publications such as Shine Toli and by intellectual leaders such as Jamsrano, led to a more influential role for literature during the autonomous period.32 Continued low literacy among Mongolians meant that people did not read journals such as Shine Toli as individuals but listened to them in groups, which allowed for greater collective discussion of the essays, stories or poetry, and this was the kind of discussion that had the potential to facilitate social action. While Tibetan Buddhism had profoundly influenced the spiritual and social life of Mongolians since at least the sixteenth century, less obvious was the stylistic and thematic impact of Tibetan literature on later Mongolian literature. It is true, of course, that prayer genres such as Gelegbalsan’s and literary anthropomorphism used by writers such as Dorj Meiren are in no way regionally limited, but their cultural antecedents and formal influences 29 See Chapter 3 for a discussion of this story. 30 This motif is listed at B275 (‘Animal punished’) in Stith Thomson’s index of folktale motifs. See the full list at https://sites.ualberta.ca/~urban/Projects/English/Motif_Index.htm (accessed 13 March 2018). 31 The 1905 revolution in Russia was a rehearsal for the Menshivik and Bolshevik revolutions of May and October 1917, while the New Culture Movement (1915-1921) and the protests on 4 May 1919, from which the May Fourth Movement developed, catalyzed a period of profound political change in China. 32 See the overview of educational reforms, in particular those regarding literacy, during this period, in Marzluf, 2018, pp. 23-25.

Prefiguring 1921

43

are located on the one hand in the oral literatures of Turkic and Central Asian peoples and, on the other, along the historical trajectory of themes and styles of Vedic and Sanskrit literature, which were later adapted and developed by Tibetan writers. The Kāvyādarśa, by the eighth-century Sanskrit grammarian Daņḍin, is the earliest extant treatment of Indic poetics and as such became the foundation upon which Tibetan classical poetry developed. Daņḍin held that poetry’s effect came from the skillful use of 36 f igures of speech (alaṃkāra), and the Kāvyādarśa presents many examples of how this can best be achieved. Leonard van der Kuijp offers the following overview of Daņḍin’s work: The text of the Kāvyādarśa is divided into three chapters, the first of which delineates the general characteristics of ornate poetry and the features that distinguish the so-called southern from the eastern schools of literary composition. The second chapter catalogues and discusses those poetic figures that are based on the semantic relationships within a verse, and the third does the same for the poetic figures that have their origin in the phonological relations within a verse.33

Given that Mongolian writers would most likely have read Daņḍin in a Tibetan translation, the impact of the kāvyā tradition on Mongolian poetry was originally felt in works written in Tibetan. In the early years of the twentieth century, while many writers were beginning to turn their gaze towards European models, there remained those such as the Buddhist monk Zawa Damdin Luvsandamdin (Blo bzang rta mgrin 1867-1937) who, while aware of the cultural and political developments of the time, continued nonetheless to write firmly within this Indo-Tibetan tradition. Although Zawa Damdin focused in his writing on philosophy and scholarship, he also wrote poetry in Tibetan, and much of this was in the florid and complex kāvyā style. In 1912, Zawa Damdin wrote a poem praising Yanchenlham,34 which can be viewed in its totality as an exploration of Daņḍin’s poetic style. There 33 Van der Kuijp (1996, p. 395). See also Kapstein (2003) for further consideration of Daņḍin’s text. 34 This is the Mongolian transcription of the Tibetan name, Dbyangs can lha mo, of the Hindu goddess Sarasvatī. ‘Sarasvatī’ means ‘possessing water’ and originally referred to a river goddess (e.g. Ṛgveda 2.41.16), who over time became associated with learning and the arts. As Dbyangs can dkar mo in Zawa Damdin’s poem, the epithet dkar mo (Tib. ‘white’) links her symbolically with the white form of the goddess Tārā (Tib.Sgrol ma dkar mo)

44 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

follow the first four stanzas of the text, Dbyangs can dkar mo’i bstod pa snyan ngag brag cha’i glu dbyangs (The Melody of the Rock, in Praise of Yangchen Lhamo),35 showing the elevated register that distinguishes this poetry from the vernacular Mongolian poetry of writers such as Geligbalsan and Gamala. Namo guru Mañjughoṣaya36 Oh daughter of the swan, child of Brahma, you white-toothed water treasure, you ever-peaceful goddess! On the banks of the lotus pool, with my faithful heart I dare to speak of joyful music. The great tree of offerings, crystal white, whose body is free of defilements, the beautiful stream, precious child of the Buddha’s perfect and captivating signs, the constant emanation of the wondrous light of grace and youth: to this nectar of most fortunate eyes I pay my respects. Simply from the warm touch of the two moving eyes of the sky’s jewel, the smiling face which is their abode, the accumulation of youth born from water, striving for realization, the natural smile of a thousand-petalled prayer of liberation. The shining white body, the mandala of moonlike crystal, as a deer, as a lapis piwang, is beautiful. Trusting in her, whose sacred clothes are rainbow light there is new wonder deep in the ocean of melody.

Compared with poetry in a less formal style, the complexity of kāvyā poetry renders any translation, however accurate, ineffectual in conveying the many levels of meaning held within the original. To read through this text, however – which runs to 20 verses, each deploying a rhetorical figure to develop the description of, and so the praise to, Yangchenlham – is to recognize its dissimilarity from religious poetry composed in Mongolian, evident as much in the highly refined and elevated language as in the subject 35 This text is available via the Buddhist Digital Resource Center: https://www.tbrc. org/#!rid=W13536 (accessed 18 March 2018). 36 This is an invocation to Mañjughoṣa, a manifestation of Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva of wisdom in Mongolian and Tibetan Buddhism.

Prefiguring 1921

45

matter. Traditional religious poetry written by poets like Gelegbalsan in genres such as blessings (yörööl) and praise (magtaal) emphasized the immanence of a local spirit37 or of Tenger itself in propitiation for protection or for beneficent activity. Here, however, Zawa Damdin is developing a discourse that is both quite other, coming from a poetic tradition two cultures and eleven centuries removed from twentieth-century Mongolia, and yet focused entirely on the invocation of the goddess and the subtle qualities of creativity and absolute truth that she represents. This, then, is not simply an invocation by a creative artist of the highest expression of creativity. For the poet, we must assume, as for the practitioner who reads and contemplates it, it also transmits – in aiming for the literary perfection for which the kāvyā tradition strives – the essence of enlightenment. The abstruse and highly rhetorical style of Tibetan-language poetry would have minimal impact on Mongolian writers in the development of revolutionary literature, and despite his personal reputation as a monk and intellectual, Zawa Damdin’s exploration of the devices and stylistics used in kāvyā poetry went unnoticed by poets more concerned with substance than with style. However, despite this apparent lack of influence, the kāvyā tradition remains key to understanding the subtle effect of Indo-Tibetan literature on the negotiation by Mongolian writers of composition and stylistics. While the literary forms that were prevalent at the beginning of the twentieth century were predicated largely upon an admixture of Tibetan and Mongolian culture, both cultures were underpinned by more than the religious and spiritual aspects of Buddhism, and it was the intellectual, artistic, scholarly and historical perspectives that tended to remain most powerful. Those intellectuals who had received even a small part of their education prior to the revolution would have learnt to read and write using texts that were either Buddhist or at least founded upon a Buddhist worldview. Phillip Marzluf gives an idea of how such texts influenced literacy up until the immediate post-revolutionary period: Before the 1921 People’s Revolution, pastoral learners copied from Mongolian block-printed books and manuscripts sutras that had been copied from Tibetan, including the Golden Light Sutra (Altan Gerel), The Moon Cuckoo, The Magical Corpse, The Tale of the 32 Wooden Men, as well as many others. Damdinsüren lists the books that he could access at home 37 These are in Mongolian referred to by the Tibetan terms luu (Tib. klu, Skt. nāga: a spirit in the form of a water serpent) and savdag (Tib. sa bdag: local spirit).

46 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

and in the neighboring ger as An Ocean of Stories, A Drop from the Spring and its commentary, the Ushaandar epic, the Monk Molon stories, the Pancatantra poems, the Subhasid and its commentary, Lumbumgarva, the Diamond Sutra, the Key to Knowledge and The Kite.38

We should realize, moreover, that the majority of such texts, having come to Mongolia through Tibetan translations from Sanskrit, constituted a medium for literacy while at the same time expressing also the pedagogy of Mongolians’ worldview and their place within it from the viewpoints both of the spiritual and the secular. There was a natural breadth to these texts in that their origins were far beyond the physical boundaries of Mongolia, and even if they were used merely as reading practice, they promoted a cultural, artistic and ethical understanding that was quite other than the homespun literature of the steppe. To this broadly South Asian, Buddhist worldview, the journal Shine Toli added, between March 1913 and August 1914, a new perspective on Western society through a largely Russian filter. Despite its short print run, it challenged Buddhist traditions and introduced ideas that opened the minds of Mongolia’s intellectuals in directions that were different from those of the ancient Indo-Tibetan tradition.39 This mixture of influences, coupled with autonomous Mongolia’s freedom from imperial rule, provoked new ways of thinking about literature as well as about politics and paved the way for the emergence of writers such as Natsagdorj and Buyannemeh over the next decade. Among the ideas that the readers of Shine Toli were able to contemplate, the philosophical and cultural bases upon which social revolution was predicated were seen as central to how Mongolia was to negotiate its autonomous existence following the end of Manchu rule in 1911. The ideas that coalesced finally in the revolution ten years later were developed through a combination of resistance to the de facto Chinese rule of 1919-1921 and assistance from the Soviet Union. Such was the social and political climate in which writers like Dorj Meiren and Gelegbalsan continued to work, bringing the forms and styles of traditional literature to bear on modern ideas and using the written word to comment upon them and to encourage, where beneficial, progressive social ideas. 38 Marzluf (2018, p. 44). Ts. Damdinsüren’s account is found in Damdinsüren, 1990, pp. 24-25. See also Damdinsüren [1957] 2017, passim, for his commentaries on the texts mentioned here. 39 See Matthew King’s exposition of Shine Toli’s controversial influence on the Mongolian Buddhist establishment (2015, pp. 60-63).

Prefiguring 1921

47

Even as the threat of renewed incursions by China continued, the influence of Chinese literary culture remained, much as it had two or three decades earlier. The influence of the New Culture Movement in China on Mongolian writers and intellectuals remains untouched by scholars, but with the Mongolian-language newspaper Mongolyn Sonin Bichig being published in Harbin,40 it is unlikely that those Mongolians wanting to know more about the new ideas developing elsewhere in the region would not have at least taken pains to inform themselves about social and political developments. Moreover, since many Mongolian intellectuals were, to some extent, familiar with Chinese, they would have had access to the Shanghai newspaper New Youth41 or to the works of writers such as Lu Xun. 42 For young, educated Mongolians looking elsewhere for ideas during the autonomous period, perhaps Chen Duxiu’s remarkable essay ‘Call to Youth’ (敬告青年 Jìnggào qīngnián), published in the first edition of New Youth in September 1915, would have sparked some interest. Chen called on China’s youth to be ‘independent, progressive, aggressive, universalistic, utilitarian and scientific’, and his article ‘had the effect of a bombshell whose impact shook the very heart of the Chinese intellectual world’. 43 The important role played by young Mongolians in both the revolution and its immediate aftermath, while clearly influenced by the Young Pioneer movement in the Soviet Union, nonetheless echoes many of the principles discussed by Chen and others in the pages of New Youth. One of those who may have read articles such as Chen’s was the Mongolian correspondent of Mongolyn Sonin Bichig, D. Bodoo (1885-1922). A highlyeducated monk fluent in Tibetan, Manchu and Chinese, Bodoo had worked previously as a scribe for the Shavi Yamen44 and had later been a correspond40 Around 300 editions of Mongolyn Sonin Bichig were published in Harbin between 1909 and 1918. The newspaper employed journalists from Buryatia, Outer Mongolia and Inner Mongolia. See Sampildendev, 2006, p. 51. 41 新靑年 (Xīn Qīngnián; New Youth) was established in 1915 in the French concession of Shanghai (La Jeunesse was its alternative title, printed on the cover of each issue) by the revolutionary socialist author and philosopher Chén Dúxiù (陳獨秀 1879-1942) and was one of the organs of the New Culture Movement. As with Shine Toli in Mongolia, and with much the same intention, New Youth published Chinese translations of foreign language f iction. Following the 1917 October Revolution in Russia, it began promoting Marxism and was influential in the activity that developed out of the May 4th Movement in 1919. See also Feng (1996) and Kuo (2017). 42 Lǔ Xùn (魯迅 1881-1936) was the pen name of the writer Zhōu Shùrén (周樹人), one of the leaders of the New Culture Movement and the author of stories written in the vernacular and criticizing both Confucian ideals and the Chinese character. 43 Huang, 1975, p. 8. 44 The Shavi Yamen was the ministry in charge of religious affairs under the Bogd Haan.

48 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

ent for, and editor of, both Shine Toli and the Mongolian newspaper Niislel Hüreenii Sonin Bichig. 45 In addition to being a journalist, between 1910 and 1920, Bodoo had also written some ten books of poetry and prose, the vast majority of which were destroyed after his death. But there remains one extant text – and possibly a second – which, given Bodoo’s later involvement in the anti-Chinese resistance, the establishment of the Mongolian People’s Party in 1920 and the revolution of 1921, his brief time as Prime Minister, and his execution in August 1922 on charges of counterrevolution, serve not so much as an indication of the state of revolutionary literature in Mongolia at the time but rather as an indication of how one of the revolutionaries himself understood literature, both as a cultural force and as a personal pursuit. Such was Bodoo’s status, and perhaps also the circumstances of his demise, that his work came to be considered a potential source of income. According to Bodoo’s biographer, G. Dashrentsen, There was a man from Nalaih, named Nürenzed, who sold the journalist Ts. Navagdamba a few poems and longer prose works, claiming that they were the work of D. Bodoo. Navagdamba was an influential journalist who himself was purged. He hoped that Bodoo’s writings had indeed not been destroyed, and handed over a few tögrög. But Nürenzed was a cunning socialist, and this had all been a swindle. 46

What is interesting about this story is that Bodoo, whose literary output is not much known in Mongolia today, was considered sufficiently interesting as a writer for the possible existence of some texts to have attracted such curiosity. It is probably an exaggeration to suggest that Bodoo’s literary output was regarded highly in its day as literature rather than as the legacy of a disgraced revolutionary. But the fact that a second copy of his small collection of writings had been produced, as Dashrentsen points out, and placed in the library of the Academy of Sciences in Ulaanbaatar indicates that someone at least had considered it worth keeping. However, Nürenzed may himself have been, in part, the victim of a hoax, for it turns out that, while the poetry ascribed to Bodoo was perhaps the work of another writer, and written during the 1920s, 47 the story that was sold 45 This latter was published in Mongolia’s capital, which, during the autonomous period, was called Niislel Hüree. 46 Dashrentsen, 2015, p. 217. 47 This poem, Uyangat Shüleglel (A Lyrical Poem), is a 24-verse work published in the 21 December 1990 edition of the newspaper Utga Zohiol (Literature). Its manuscript is dated precisely: ‘08:18, 4th May 17’ (17.5.4nii 8 tsag 18 minut). However, as D. Tsedev points out, it is this dating

Prefiguring 1921

49

to Navagdamba was identical to that in the Academy of Sciences. This text, Shüren Erihiin Büleg buyuu Üzemjit Ögüülel (The Coral Rosary, or A Pretty Tale), 48 is perhaps best described as a novella and was most likely written in about 1910, before Bodoo had become either a journalist or a political figure. The story is also known by the title Üiliin Chanarig Ülgerlesen Üzemjit Ögüülel (A Pretty Tale about The Quality of Deeds), 49 which speaks a little more directly to the ethical dimensions that lie at its heart. In their brief introduction to the first publication of Üzemjit Ögüülel, L. BatOchir and G. Tserendorj point out that there exist ‘indisputable’ (margaangüi) similarities between Bodoo’s text and a story translated from the Chinese called Altan Suvd (The Golden Pearl),50 and these similarities have been analyzed in some detail by H. Sampildendev.51 But Bodoo’s novella is noteworthy for the way he develops plot and character in a style influenced more by popular late-nineteenth-century chinoiserie52 (or conceivably by whatever Russian literature Bodoo might have had access to) than by Mongolian narrative tales. Bodoo’s position as one of the leaders of the two groups that came together as the Mongolian People’s Party led, following the revolution, to his being appointed as Prime Minister, in which capacity he oversaw in late 1921 a controversial ‘modernization’ of the outward trappings of Mongolian society, such as cutting away the long cuffs from Mongolians’ traditional long jackets, or deels, the removal of women’s jewelry, and even the cutting of their long hair.53 This campaign was promoted by the Comintern, principally through the premier of the Far Eastern Republic Boris Shumyatsky,54 and that raises questions of authorship: ‘If we read this in the way it’s generally understood, then 17 refers to 1927. By that time, Bodoo was dead. But if we understand it as referring to 1917, then Bodoo might have written the poem. It could also be that 1927 was the date this copy of Bodoo’s text was made.’ (email communication, 20 February 2018). 48 The text can be found in Dashrentsen, 2015, pp. 218-252. 49 This is the title given in Ayuurzana and Ölziitögs, 2006, pp. 33-60, which notes also that the MS copy refers to the author as ‘Bodoi’. 50 Bodoo, 1991, p. 3. Bat-Ochir and Tserendorj also refer to a 1990 article by Z. Lonjid that mentioned a version of this story whose title includes a Mongolian transcription of the Chinese translation of ‘golden pearl’, Jian shin he, which we should most likely read as a corrupted version of 金色珍珠 jīnsè zhēnzhū. I have been unable, however, to locate either a copy of this text or its Chinese original. 51 Sampildendev, 2006, pp. 57-60. 52 Works such as the historical novel by V. Injannashi (1837-1892) about the Yüan Dynasty Höh Sudar clearly show the influence of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Chinese popular fiction. See Hangin, 1973. 53 See Sandag and Kendall 2000, pp. 26-27. 54 Boris Zakharovich Shumyatsky (1886-1938) had been involved in the 1905 Russian revolution and had subsequently been in exile with Josef Stalin. During the late 1920s, he taught at the

50 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

we can assume that Bodoo was chosen because of his sympathy with the ideas of equality and social reform. Notwithstanding that Üzemjit Ögüülel might be an adaptation of an earlier Chinese story, Bodoo’s narrative of the dishonor and reconciliation of a married couple reflects the kind of social relationships described by previous travelers such as Gilmore and Pozdneyev and this became a staple of the dramas and stories produced in the decade or so following the revolution. While this revolutionary literature, however, tended to focus on the repression of the poor by the rich and their liberation from repression, Bodoo’s story revolves primarily around the fortunes of his wealthy protagonists. Üzemjit Ögüülel tells the story of the adulterous relationship between a merchant named Balbar and Myadagmaa, the wife of another young merchant, Radnaa. The liaison is coordinated by a go-between, Dumaa, who orchestrates a situation for Balbar that exploits and compromises Myadagmaa during a time when Radnaa is trading away from home. The consequence of Balbar’s behavior is his death, plotted by his own wronged wife, Hand, and Myadagmaa’s eventual reconciliation with Radnaa. The development of such a narrative is unremarkable, but it is Bodoo’s poetic commentary on the events as they unfold in dialog and descriptive prose that make this work especially interesting. Following a versified opening section about the destruction brought about when ‘lies and greed destroy a husband’s honor’, the final section of verse both summarizes the action and admonishes the audience: A rich young merchant named Balbar was ruined when he looked for another. A married girl named Myadagmaa was beautiful, yet when she returned, she was ashamed to go out. You who see how Dumaa, that demonic girl, hatched an unjust trick, and destroyed the laws of upright people: avoid the work of such shabby go-betweens! Having gone as a stranger to a distant land, a married woman, Hand, who had been in Hovd, Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV). Although he had had no connection with cinematography, from 1930 to 1937, at Stalin’s command, he was in executive control of the Soviet f ilm industry. Following his denunciation of the f ilmmaker Sergei Eisenstein in March 1937, he was arrested and tried for conspiring to subvert the film industry. He was found guilty and executed by firing squad on 18 June 1938.

Prefiguring 1921

51

had Balbar, her husband, killed, and – this is interesting – she went to Radnaa. By an act of Heaven, she got her due, who was the grandchild of the honest minister Buyan, she wandered then, and came to Tagna, and found again the girl named Myadagmaa. Since simply being beautiful is not a certain source of calm, don’t be greedy for the fate of others, don’t go beyond what you’ve found and ruin everything.55

These lessons in ethical behavior, and what can happen to those who abandon it, reflect Bodoo’s training as a monk as much as they do traditional Mongolian teachings about honest and righteous action. But it is as a lesson in how the law can work in such cases, when properly applied, that the story is most effective. Bodoo’s awareness of juridical process outside Mongolia and his understanding of Marxism and of the importance to society of a legal system that privileges neither class nor wealth informs the investigation that ‘the honest minister’ Buyan carries out at the end of the story. His investigation concerns the death of a poor old man who had caught and killed a fine black sable and of whose murder Radnaa had been accused. Unlike in later treatments of justice in the post-revolutionary society, such as in Buyannemeh’s Maral and Shar,56 Bodoo’s narrative does not suggest any sense of due process based upon a specific foreign model. Rather it hints, through the questions asked by Buyan, at the kind of jurisprudence that would later be promoted as crucial to the modern, Soviet-influenced approach to the law. As an example, he asks the old man’s son Byamba: ‘How old was your father?’ Byamba answered, ‘Sixty-seven.’ Buyan asked him, ‘Is it not likelier for an old man who is poor and starving to have simply passed away, rather than to have been bludgeoned to death?’ Byamba replied, ‘He was undoubtedly beaten and killed.’ Buyan replied, ‘We’ll find out if we ask about whether there was a wound or not […] ‘.

Not only does Buyan establish that, since there was no physical evidence of violence, the old man is most likely to have died of old age (he adds, ‘It is common for old people approaching seventy to die’), but the old man’s 55 Dashrentsen, 2015, p. 261. 56 See Chapter 7.

52 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

two children are finally satisfied (‘How brazen would we be not to follow the gentleman’s decision?’ they say of Buyan’s judgment). This kind of trial was not uncommon in pre-revolutionary Mongolia, but that Radnaa ‘was extremely happy to see that the minister had been able to decide the matter without resorting to torture’ indicates an acknowledgement by Bodoo of a system open also to hearsay and violence masquerading as justice. As someone who was not local to the region, Radnaa is immediately the focus of suspicion, and only a fair and well-conducted investigation is able to establish the facts, to exonerate the accused, and to satisfy the grieving parties. Buyan’s appearance in the story comes towards the end, once Radnaa’s wife Myadagmaa has been deceived by the duplicitous go-between ­Dumaa and dishonored by Balbar. This in turn has dishonored Balbar’s wife Hand, who further dishonors herself by having her husband killed for his behavior. Buyan is described as a minister (tüshmel)57 coming to Hüree from the important trading post of Hiagt on the border with Russia, which identifies him here as a representative for modern ideas of governance and administration.58 With this character, Bodoo brings his readers into the modern age: by challenging the standard themes of marital infidelity, of deceit and trickery, and of the failure of localized systems of justice, his narrative shows what can be achieved through a more considered and rational approach.59 Bodoo uses Buyan’s presence also to resolve the central discord of the story, which has developed, thanks to the malfeasance of Balbar and Dumaa, between Radnaa and Myadagmaa. Although the power of Buyan’s rank means that everyone defers to his presumed wisdom and the rectitude of his judgment, he has nonetheless in his gift the socially ordained power to reconcile a broken marriage, and this he does, bringing the couple into his ger to offer them advice. The two of them stood there and, between bouts of weeping, they told him everything. The minister asked ever more searching questions, and 57 The name Buyan was commonly adopted by Chinese living in Mongolia, and this particular official might be the local Chinese official ( jarghuci) responsible for Chinese affairs. 58 Hiagt, now called Kyakta, in the Russian republic of Buryatia, was where the Treaty of Hiagt was signed in 1915 between Russia, China and Mongolia and the site of the establishment on 13 March 1921 of the People’s Provisional Government of Mongolia, supported by the Soviet Union. 59 For an account of Mongolian justice and the prison system during the 1870s, see Gilmour (1970, pp. 280-298). While Bodoo’s story was written some 30 years later, the general situation remained much the same as Gilmour’s account suggests.

Prefiguring 1921

53

Myadagmaa fell to her knees and said, ‘If you punish this lowly woman with death a thousand times, that will be suitable. This man is this woman’s former husband.’ Radnaa knew that he shouldn’t hide, and he knelt and looked again at how he had treated his former wife, his lover from previous days, and as soon as they accepted one another once more, they embraced and wept. The minister Buyan also shed tears, he said, ‘When your minds come together in such a way, how can I, a minister, bear to separate you? By chance, over these three years, you have produced no offspring. Quickly go, and live together once more’, and the two of them bowed to him.60

Üzemjit Ögüülel occupies a curious position in the literature of Mongolia’s pre-revolutionary period. As one who would have a radical voice in the political and intellectual community, Bodoo had created a piece that shows one way, enacted by means of the law, by which discord even among the nobles and between nobles and their servants might be settled. But however fair and reasoned Buyan’s method might appear, it also illumines the lack of clarity, the lack of fairness and reason, which otherwise characterized Mongolia’s legal system as a whole, and especially as it was applied to the common people. Moreover, there is no indication that the character of Buyan, nor the legal process which he conducted, were part of the Chinese text presumed to be the original of this story. If this was indeed Bodoo’s adaptation of a Chinese text, then this addition is of great importance to how we are to understand his work, both in the light of his development as a political leader and as a foreshadowing of the social changes that the Party he helped to form would begin to implement during the latter half of 1921. In the introduction to his history of Mongolian literature, Walther Heissig offers his readers a brief but comprehensive summary of the breadth and depth of the writing with which he would be concerned: Mongolian literature, from its beginnings under Chinggis Han and his successors until the onset of the modern era around 1924, is the literature of a gradually declining feudal period. The range of noteworthy literary texts that can be traced from this period ranges from the princely poetry concerning Chinggis Han’s lineage, epic poetry, gnomic-didactic pedagogical poetry, ceremonial, customary and occasional poetry, shamanic 60 Dashrentsen, 2015, p. 260.

54 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

conjurations, folk-religious prayers and fairy stories, poetry, sociocritical pamphlets, repartee and songs, theater plays concerned with nation and history, and the first prose novels.61

The ‘gradually declining feudal period’ would continue, although in a more dramatic and politically defined decline, for some time after the Bogd Haan’s death in 1924, but Heissig’s statement emphasizes that, despite the development of a wide variety of literary forms, the fundamental nature of Mongolian literature had not much altered for several centuries prior to the revolution. The works of Gelegbalsan, Dorj Meiren, Zawa Damdin, Gamala and Bodoo are the works of writers of their own time, shaped by the social and political contexts in which they were raised and according to whose shifting fortunes they worked. Each developed their themes and chose their genres not only in response to their own creative preferences but, even more importantly, in response to what their audiences expected. Despite the radical political and social changes brought about by the revolution, the appearance of the literature, its stylistic and thematic forms, and the ways in which it was consumed did not alter quickly: rather, there were realignments, such as when the ideals of justice expressed by Bodoo in Üzemjit Ögüülel became applied directly to the poor and downtrodden, while monks and nobles – the ‘black and yellow feudals’ – became summarily rendered as class enemies (angiin daisan). It is especially notable that, with very few exceptions, the literature written even in the very first years of Mongolia’s new society was created by people who had come to maturity with the revolution.62 Of the five writers discussed in this chapter, none exercised any literary influence after 1921. This being the case, and despite such a demarcation being somewhat artificial, it is hard not to draw a clear boundary between pre- and postrevolutionary literature. What does seem to have happened is that the leaders of the Party tended to promote and encourage young radicals such as S. Buyannemeh, Sh. Ayuush, and M. Yadamsüren, who were sufficiently motivated to forge an organic relationship between the new society and 61 Heissig, 1972, p. vii. 62 The two obvious exceptions are G. Navannamjil (1885-1956) and D. Ishdulam (1871-1937). Although both were suff iciently engaged in Ulaanbaatar’s literary scene, and with the new Revolutionary Writers’ Group, to have had work included in the anthology Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan in 1929 (see Chapter 4 and Galbayar 2013), neither seems to have occupied more than a tangential position, and neither left a particularly strong literary legacy. Navannamjil was, however, singled out to lead a group of writers and intellectuals sent to Moscow in 1927 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Prefiguring 1921

55

the new literature they were creating, rather than writers of their own generation (of the seven revolutionary leaders, Choibalsan, born in 1895, was the youngest) who might already have had, or who would later come to foster, ideas about literature’s place within a socialist society antithetical to those of the Party.63 Yet once the revolution was enacted, during the first week of July 1921, those whose interest lay in literature and in the arts in general had to find a way to explain and present the new order to their audience. With most Mongolians unable to read, it was necessary to bring the revolution to them in ways they could readily understand as well as in a form that was both mobile and, in the main, required little financial outlay. For this reason, then, it was upon the stage that Mongolia’s literary revolution began.

Bibliography Ayuurzana G., and L. Ölziitögs, eds. Mongolyn Songomol Tuuj. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2006. Bawden, Charles. The Modern History of Mongolia. London: Kegan Paul International, 1989. Bodoo, D. Üzemjit Ögüülel. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 1991. Damdinsüren, Ts. ‘Huuchin Mongolyn uran zohiolyn dotorhi Ardchilsan Chiglel’. In Ts. Damdinsüren Soyol Öviig Hamgaaliya. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Töv Muzein Tüühiin Tasag 1959, pp. 16-21. Damdinsürüng, Če., ed. Monggol uran jokiyal-un degeji jagun bilig orusibai. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 1959. Damdinsüren, Ts. Namtryn huudsaas. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1990. —. Erdem shinjilgeenii büteeliin chuulgan VI: Mongolyn uran zohiolyn toim. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., [1957] 2017. Dashrentsen, G. Dogsomyn Bodoo. Ulaanbaatar: Nepko, 2015. Feng, Liping. ‘Democracy and Elitism: The May Fourth Ideal of Literature’. In Modern China, Vol. 22, No. 2 (April 1996): 170-196. Galbayar, G., ed. Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan 1929. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian National University, 2013. 63 While this is speculative, it should be remembered that in 1921, just four years after the October Revolution, the new Soviet literature was already beginning to fragment under the weight of disputes regarding the nature of political literature, disputes that had already been developing in the minds of many of the leading revolutionary writers for several years prior to 1917. See Ermolaev (1963, pp. 9-26) for a discussion of some of these disputes.

56 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Gilmour, James. Among the Mongols. New York: Praeger, 1970. Hangin, John Gombojav. Köke Sudur (The Blue Chronicle): A study of the first Mongolian historical novel by Injannashi. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1973. Heissig, Walther. Geschichte der mongolischen Literatur. 2 Vols. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1972. Huang, Sung-K’ang. Lu Hsün and the New Culture Movement of Modern China. Westport, CT: Hyperion Press, 1975. Kapstein, Matthew T. ‘The Indian Literary Identity in Tibet’. In Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, edited by Sheldon Pollock, pp. 747-802. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Kara, Győrgy. Books of the Mongolian Nomads: More than Eight Centuries of Writing Mongolian. Bloomington: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 2005. King, Matthew. ‘Modernities, Sense Making, and the Inscription of Mongolian Buddhist Place’. In Buddhism in Mongolian History, Culture and Society, edited by Vesna Wallace, pp. 53-69. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Korostovetz, Iwan Jakowlewitsch. Von Cinggis Khan zur Sovjetsrepubli. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1926. Kuijp, Leonard W.J. van der. ‘Tibetan Belles-Lettres: The Influence of Daņḍin and Kṣemendra’. In Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, edited by José Ignacio Cabezón and Roger R. Jackson, pp. 393-410. Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1996. Kuo, Ya-Pei. ‘The Making of the New Culture Movement: A Discursive History’. In Twentieth-Century China, 42, no. 1 (January 2017): 52-71. Marzluf, Phillip P. Language, Literacy, and Social Change in Mongolia: Traditionalist, Socialist, and Post-Socialist Identities. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2018. Navaannamjil, G. Övgön bicheechin ögüülel. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin hevleliin gazar, 1956. Pozdneyev, A.M. Mongolia and the Mongols. Bloomington: Indiana University Publications, 1971. Sampildendev, H. Mongolyn shine uran zohiolyn tuurvilzüin zarim asuudal. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2006. Sandag, Shagdariin, and Harry Kendall. Poisoned Arrows: The Stalin-Choibalsan Mongolian Massacres 1921-1941. Boulder: Westview Press, 2000. Wickham-Smith, Simon. ‘A Literary History of Buddhism in Mongolia’. In Buddhism in Mongolian History, Culture and Society, edited by Vesna Wallace, pp. 160-178. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

2

Staging a Revolution Abstract Since the vast majority of Mongolia’s population was illiterate, its revolution was initially acted out upon the stage. Amateur actors and revolutionary youth groups came together – the former portraying the ideological material promoted by the latter – in an attempt to develop a new understanding of, and approach to, theatrical performance. In this way, small theater groups spread across the country, performing ideological education to show, through satire and through historical and social drama, the misery and inequality of pre-revolutionary Mongolia and the benef its the revolution had brought. The influence of Soviet agitprop led to more innovative, amateur productions, while the opening of a national theater in the late 1920s and the arrival of directors – and later actors – from the Soviet Union brought credibility to the theatrical arts and led to professionalized roles for actors, set designers, painters, singers and musicians. Keywords: literacy, literature of propaganda, amateur theater, youth theater, Red Corners, Sühbaatar Club, Mongolian National Theater

In early January 1927, a Chinese specialist in borderland affairs, Ma Ho-t’ien, attended a performance of a contemporary play in Ulaanbaatar, a description of which he later included in his account of his visit to Mongolia, Chinese Agent in Mongolia.1 Ma doesn’t mention the play’s title, and his outline of the eight scenes helps little towards identifying it, but its themes and dramatic trajectory were common elements of Mongolia’s theatrical works during the years following the revolution. From the opening scene, as Ma tells it, the social and political focus of the drama is clear:

1 Ma, 1949. Ma refers to Ulaanbaatar by its pre-revolutionary name Urga. The account of this play is found on pp. 136-138.

Wickhamsmith, Simon, Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948). Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984752_ch02

58 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

The curtain rose on a duke and his wife on raised seats, beside which sat a noseless Taiji (noble’s son)2 and a retainer. The family was kitted out in knobbed hats, long gowns and short outer jackets with square designs on front and back. A servant entered and knelt down to address them. He aroused the ire of his masters and was slapped by the retainer until his hat fell to the ground. Some grooms who came to report the escape of their horses were immediately given a sound upbraiding and were remanded to a prince’s office for punishment.

The revolutionary context in which this play had been created was one of stark social distinctions, marked by the kind of cruel and random determinations of fate suggested by Ma’s description. But even as the servants are being treated harshly, it is the nobleman’s ‘noseless’ son who offers the audience the most explicit social commentary. This deformation, in which the bridge of the nose collapses, is a symptom of advanced syphilis and provides a visceral and visual satire on the elevated status and behavior of this particular family and on men from the nobility in general.3 The play’s narrative is simple: the syphilitic young man’s father wants to find him a bride and sends his men to find a suitable woman. They arrive at the home of a poor family, whose beautiful daughter is already engaged to be married to the son of another poor family. Her parents, pressured by the nobleman’s servants, agree to marry her to his son. On meeting her new fiancé, and, in Ma’s words, ‘seeing that he was brainless as well as noseless’, the young woman runs home in tears. However, her father, fearful of the nobleman’s reaction, insists that she return to marry the duke’s son, and this she does at the play’s close, in a state of great unhappiness. Ma’s account of the play reveals how lacking in subtlety Mongolian drama was at this time: the arrogance of the nobles and their treatment of their servants and the poor working people, the lascivious and conniving monks, and the unrolling against this backdrop of a doomed love story were all common theatrical tropes. But whereas Ma is clear to point out how ‘[t]his modern Mongolian drama is shot through with revolutionary propaganda’, there is no revolutionary ending to this particular play, no downfall of the nobles and no reuniting of the loving couple. It is a strange production, therefore, 2 The term ‘taiji’ (or ‘taij’) comes from the Chinese 太子 (t’ai tzu) and indicates an heir apparent. 3 During the 1930s, D. Natsagdorj wrote a series of brief and pointed vignettes and poems concerning public health and sexual health in particular. His 1930 sketch Aali ügüigees hamar ügüi (You’ll Lose Your Nose Flirting), discussed in Chapter 7, is an explicit warning against the kind of libidinous behavior in which we may imagine the ‘noseless’ young man to have been indulging.

Staging a Revolution

59

in the context of the immediate post-revolutionary period, and seemingly out of keeping with the general trend of drama at this time, which was to show how the revolution had replaced such misuse of power with the enlightened and modern attitudes of Soviet socialism. The despair of the young couple whose story Ma witnessed is reminiscent of dramas in the pre-revolutionary period, the most popular of which continued to be staged as the Party sought to develop drama in new and politically progressive ways. One of these, a repartee song (hariltsaa duu) named Sumiya Noyon (Lord Sumiya), 4 was the first piece of revolutionary theater to be staged, at the end of 1921, by a loose collective of actors and members of the intelligentsia.5 Sumiya Noyon is essentially a brief vignette that begins with a young woman, Juuyaar, waiting impatiently for her lover Lord Sumiya. Once he arrives, their love for one another is clear: Juuyaar: I dreamt that, at the peak of the western mountain, hö6 the lotus flowers were blooming. I dreamt, Lord Sumiya, whom I’ve loved from childhood, that we were speaking words of joy together. I dreamt that, at the peak of the eastern mountain, hö there were many flowers blooming. I dreamt, Lord Sumiya, the love of my heart, that we were speaking heartfelt words together. Sumiya: I dreamt, when the rain fell from the sky, that the golden world grew wet. I dreamt, my sweet love Juuyaar, that we shared a cup of arhi. I dreamt, when the rain fell from the Heavens, that it made the golden world wet. I dreamt, my old love Juuyaar, that we shared a goblet of arhi.

4 See the script given in Sampildendev, 1988, pp. 139-145. 5 Sumiya himself was played in this production by one of the leading actors of the day, Ts. Gombojav (1903-1937), a brief biography of which is given in Oyuun, 1989, pp. 216-220, and in Ganhuyag, 2007, pp. 124-125. 6 The filler hö is common in Dörvöd or Zahchin oral lyrics. My thanks to Sunmin Yoon for pointing this out.

60 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

When Sumiya goes out to have a drink, a monk enters and proceeds to flirt with Juuyaar and to suggest that Sumiya might not be as faithful to her as she imagines. And whereas the direction of Juuyaar and Sumiya’s conversation has been led by Juuyaar, now it is the monk who takes the lead and Juuyaar who responds: Monk: A ring is certainly a ring, hö refined from gold in Beijing, hö and if Sumiya’s body and mind has fallen in the trash, my Juuyaar, how will you get the ring back? Juuyaar: Noble monk, when I gave my ring, I gave it completely with body and mind. If sadly I complain about my ring, then bring the women to scold me.

The repetition and variation of the repartee form builds up to the climax of the drama when Sumiya, frustrated by what he observes of Juuyaar’s conduct towards the monk, and despite her protestations of innocence, walks out on her, declaring: Sumiya: Are you speaking out of love? Or has your heart grown dark hö? You chased your beloved monk away hö but will you now oppress me?

In the context of revolutionary drama, Sumiya Noyon reveals the malfeasance of the so-called ‘black and yellow feudals’, with the monk representing the monastic community, and Sumiya and Juuyaar the nobles, easily gulled and concerned primarily with material possessions (in addition to the ring from Beijing, the monk taunts her with various silks and with smart shoes). As though to emphasize the hopeless behavior of all three characters, the final words of the drama are spoken to the audience by Juuyaar’s serving girl: Was she abandoned by her nobleman in her lust for things to own?

Staging a Revolution

61

Please think on this, hö that, in the end, you’ll all be left alone hö!

The simple story at the heart of Sumiya Noyon lays the groundwork for much of Mongolia’s theater during the 1920s. The dynamic between the three main characters arises from ignorance, greed and deceit, while the wisdom of the laboring poor is the message with which the audience leaves the theater. In this case, moreover, the serving girl’s message is also a Buddhist teaching on cause and effect, that greed leads to ultimate loss, and that we all die alone, spoken while her mistress has collapsed on the floor, crying, ‘What am I to do now?’ This re-envisioning of a traditional, tragi-comedic performance as revolutionary drama was part of a deliberate re-envisioning of art for the new society. In October of 1921, just three months after the revolution, the leading revolutionary D. Sühbaatar gathered about 20 individuals involved in the arts – including S. Buyannemeh, who was already a central figure in the youth wing of the Party and a promising young writer – and exhorted them to produce ‘new works of literature and art which can be performed for the education of the people’.7 Very soon after this meeting, Sumiya Noyon was introduced as a revolutionary text, an event that prepared the way for a new theater that used both traditional and modern theatrical forms to develop the themes that would come to define Mongolia in this new era. Following the Bolshevik revolution, Soviet theater had become embroiled in a discussion about the extent to which the new theater could, or should, assimilate traditional Russian drama. The People’s Commissar of Education, Anatoly Lunacharsky, proposed the creation of Tsentroteatr, which Sheila Fitzpatrick calls ‘a central organ of theatrical administration’,8 one of whose roles was, in the words of Lunacharsky’s proposal, ‘bringing the theater closer to the popular masses [and] to the socialist ideal’.9 While those on the left, specifically members of the Proletkult,10 demanded a more radical solution favoring the complete abandonment of pre-revolutionary and traditional theatrical forms, Lunacharsky’s proposal was passed on 26 August 1919, and on 9 September, Izvestiya published a decree from the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom), the ‘Declaration on the Unification of Theatrical Affairs’, which presented the new regulations in full. 7 E. Oyuun, 1989, p. 23. 8 Fitzpatrick, 1970, p. 144. 9 Ibid. 10 See Chapter 4 for a brief overview of Proletkult and early Soviet literary groups.

62 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

The ideas laid out in this decree appear to have been instrumental also in the establishment of Mongolia’s revolutionary new drama. Unlike that of the Soviet Union, Mongolia’s theater was traditional and, prior to the revolution, largely non-professional,11 and in 1921 there were no tense debates between diehard opponents, the one arguing for creative and political autonomy and the other for radical and experimental nationalization.12 Lunacharsky’s position that traditional theater be directed explicitly to the education of the working masses would likely have found support among the group with whom Sühbaatar had spoken so encouragingly, and the choice of Sumiya Noyon to initiate the new theater indicated a general desire for the theater to show the corruption of the ruling classes in the form of the nobles and monks alongside the wisdom and strength of the laboring masses. The performance of Sumiya Noyon notwithstanding, it was only in March of 1922, with the founding of a theater group under the auspices of the newly formed Revolutionary Youth Group, that Mongolia’s revolutionary theater was brought into the Party mechanism. Writing in 1936, the playwright Sh. Ayuush explained how this group13 organized and acted in the 3 March 1922 staging of the first play to be written in the aftermath of the revolution, Buyannemeh’s Oirhi Tsag-ün Tovchi Teüke (A Brief History of Recent Times).14 In his introduction to the play,15 Buyannemeh points out the lack of interest among Mongolians in educating themselves and how he wishes his 11 There were, however, professional non-Mongolian (predominantly Chinese) actors in Mongolia prior to the Revolution, reflecting the pervasive influence of Chinese oral and written literature. 12 See Fitzpatrick (1970, pp. 139-162) for an account of the development of the Soviet theater in the years between the October revolution and 1921. 13 Ayuush, 1973, pp. 134-135. He names the following individuals ‘among others’ as being active in the group: the actor N. Nasanbat (see Ganhuyag 2007, p. 328), himself and another writer, S. Buyannameh, the actor Ts. Gombojav, and the as yet unidentif ied Möndgöö, L. Sodnom, Halzanhüü, Dorjhüü, Ölziihand, the ‘sharp-eared wolf’ (delden boohoi) Ch. Lovsansodnom, and Shagdarjav. 14 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, pp. 512-583. This play is also known by the name Sando Amban (Governor Sando), which is the name by which the first of the play’s five acts was known when performed separately (Tsedev and Wang 2009, pp. 477-511); note, however, that in the original manuscript of Oirhi Tsag-ün Tovchi Teüke, this act is missing the final five of its eight scenes). This play was originally credited to the Theater department of the Revolutionary Youth Group as a whole, an accreditation reiterated by the Soviet scholar Ludmila Gerasimovich (Gerasimovich 1970, p. 49). It is now understood to have been Buyannemeh’s work alone, thanks to the research of D. Tsedev and Wang Mandoha (see the following note). Whether the original attribution was simply made in error is uncertain: in emphasizing the collective work of the Revolutionary Youth Group, the group tends to overshadow its individual members, a politically expedient approach that might have been favored by Mongolian and Soviet scholars of the period. See also Newyear (2004). 15 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, pp. 515-516.

Staging a Revolution

63

play to provide an understanding for audiences in the present and in the future of the historical prelude to the events of 1921. Ayuush’s description of Oirhi Tsag-ün Tovchi Teüke, written more than a decade removed and in quite a different political climate, nonetheless shows, notwithstanding its apparently simplistic account, the play’s importance in educating the people about the revolution. The play told, in the style of the revolution, how Mongolia was oppressed by the Chinese Manchu Emperor, and about what happened between the time when Governor Sando came to our Mongolia as the representative of the Manchu government and the establishment of the People’s Government.16

The commitment shown by those involved in the production illustrates that this was not merely entertainment but a significant plank in the development both of the group’s revolutionary resolve and of the revolution itself. Oyuun points out 17 that most had government jobs – Buyannemeh had himself cofounded the Revolutionary Youth League in 1922 – and that each had taken time from their jobs to work on the play’s performances18 and paid for their own food, a situation that continued at least until the Third Party Congress in 1924. The five ‘books’ (devter) of A Brief History of Recent Times proceed chronologically, from the end of the Manchu period (Book 1, Sando Amban) through the establishment of the Bogd Haan’s government (Book 2) and the long period of wrangling for influence over Mongolia by Russia and China (Books 3 and 4) to the revolution and the establishment of the People’s Government (Book 5). As the narrative unfolds, Buyannemeh’s script – beginning with the fully scripted drama of Sando Amban – becomes more a set of stage directions to guide the actors, suggesting that the actors were encouraged to improvise dialog and to adapt the drama as they wished. The fact that the events covered by the drama were all part of the audience’s recent history may have made acting some of the roles especially taxing. We can only imagine how different, for example, would have been the job of the actors playing Sühbaatar (the role created by N. Nasanbat) 16 Sh. Ayuush, 1973., p. 134. 17 E. Oyuun, 1989, pp. 32-33. E. Oyuun (1917-2001) was a dramatist in her own right as well as being an actor, director and translator, but it is primarily as Mongolia’s leading first-hand historian of the theater that she appears in this book. See the short biographies of her in Bold and Bold (2011, pp. 81-82) and Ganhuyag (2007, pp. 359-361) and J. Saruulbuyan’s interview with her in Saruulbuyan, vol. 1 (2013): 213-223. 18 Tsedev and Mandoha (2009, p. 512) cite an unnamed text that speaks of multiple revivals in 1922 and 1924 (but which omits details for 1923).

64 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

at the height of his power in 1922, and then following his death in 1923, or how an audience would have received the reenactment of the founding of the People’s Government. As it was both ideological and educational in its message, the play needed to be not only accurate (or at least faithful to the official understanding of events) but also sufficiently entertaining to convey its message and so warrant future performances. One of the ways in which the new theater addressed the tension between the need for ideological conformity and entertainment was to continue the use of traditional material alongside modern drama. Ayuush lists 16 plays in the immediate post-revolutionary period that exhibited what he refers to as ‘new revolutionary characteristics’ (shine huvisgalt chanartai):19 1 Sando Amban 2 The Great Hural of the Autonomous Period 3 The Poor Elderly Couple 4 The Story of Belen Sengee 5 The Story of Myangan Yondon 6 Sumiya Noyon 7 The Foreign Bandit 20 8 The Loose Young Woman and the Lecherous Monk 9 The Mongol Character 10 How Foreigners like the Chinese Have Deceived the Mongolian People 11 Light Comedy 12 The Monk who Forgot his Promises and Sullied his Religious Vows 13 The History of Sainbileg 14 Ushandaa21 15 Altantsetseg22 16 The Five Continents

Reading down this list, we can conclude that for Ayuush (most likely this was the general opinion), Buyannemeh’s Sando Amban (by which we must 19 Ayuush, 1973, pp. 135-136. 20 This play went by the alternate name Sipailo and dealt with the torture and killing of Russians living in Mongolia under the orders of the chief of Baron Ungern-Sternberg’s secret police, Leonid Sipailo. 21 This is the jataka tale (a story of the historical Buddha’s previous incarnations) of Prince Vessantara, whose selflessness is such that he gives away all that he owns, including his children. A Mongolian version is given in Damdinsürüng, 1959, pp. 397-404. 22 The folk tale of Altantsetseg was adapted by Chimeddorj in 1926 into a play called Juramt Ohin Altantsetseg (The Faithful Girl Altantsetseg).

Staging a Revolution

65

presume Oirhi Tsag-ün Tovchi Teüke) was the most important – or at least the most memorable – play, perhaps both because Buyannemeh had, by 1936, become the primus inter pares of the Mongolian literary establishment and because the subject matter was so contemporary. Many of the other texts in his list might perhaps have proved more entertaining, but the political and social heft of this play clearly remained in Ayuush’s memory. This list also shows how drama was beginning to reflect the formation of post-revolutionary Mongolia. The stories of arrogant and oversexed monks who break their vows,23 though not new in themselves, had a different gravity now that the oppression of the old society, in which the monasteries had played a considerable part, had been overthrown: now these monks seemed perhaps more pathetic than fearful, and the ‘loose young women’ (zavhai hüühen) more opportunistic and foolish than unlucky.24 Also in the ascendency was the favorable comparison of life before and after the revolution, of which the topos of the poor elderly couple (yaduu emgen övgön tuhai) was an example. The clear and unsophisticated narrative of such plays illustrates how, prior to the revolution, a married couple had had neither food nor drink, but that now, in their advancing years, they had both, and that it was the revolution and the Party that had provided them with an easier life. This theme remained central to dramatic narratives throughout the 1920s, drawing on the basic scenario of the oppressed worker who is exploited by the nobles and/or the monastics and finally saved by the Red Army, the Party, and the revolution, and who enters happily into the new society. In 1924, the first such play to be based around an explicitly nomadic hero, Honichin Hüühen (The Shepherd Girl), was staged in Ulaanbaatar. It tells of Tsetsegmaa, who is in love with a young man who herds horses, while a local prince also wants Tsetsegmaa for himself. The young couple decides to flee, but Tsetsegmaa finds herself unable to make their tryst, and the young man leaves alone. The Prince continues to abuse Tsetsegmaa, plying her with drink and fighting with her until one day, a brigade of Partisans enters their region, among them her young horse herder. The Prince and the other oppressive nobles and ministers are taken prisoner, and the loving couple are reunited. Honichin hüühen not only brought the oppression of working people by the nobles to the revolutionary theater, it also gave a voice to nomadic 23 There is another play, performed around 1922 and 1923, called Beejin Lam, whose title can be translated (in what are synonymous readings) either as ‘The Monk from Beijing’ or as ‘The Foppish Monk’ and whose satire is focused on the decadence of the monastic community. 24 See Chapter 6 for more on the treatment of religion.

66 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

livestock herders: the capture of the nobles by the Partisan brigade stressed the genuine liberation that had been achieved by and for the people. Moreover, the casting of the 14-year-old D. Ichinhorloo25 in her first stage role as Tsetsegmaa foregrounded Tsetsegmaa’s youth and vulnerability as well as the Prince’s abusive lechery and laid the ground for future drama highlighting the particular oppression of women and the social equality promised by the Party. At the beginning of 1924, the Russian-language newspaper Urginskaya Gazeta announced that, for writing plays, 115 lan26 would be paid to S. Buyannemeh, and 50 lan each to D. Natsagdorj and Ts. Gombojav, while the actor N. Nasanbat would receive 35 lan to write a history play.27 The amount of Buyannemeh’s fee indicates that it was he, rather than Natsagdorj, who was most highly regarded among the country’s writers. Natsagdorj’s commission, moreover, remained unfulfilled when he left for Berlin two years later. The death in May 1924 of the Bogd Haan precipitated an increase in Soviet influence and a concentration of political power in the Mongolian People’s Party, leading to the founding of the Mongolian People’s Republic on 26 November of that year. These developments encouraged an increased focus on the social problems caused by the financial and political pressure still exerted by the monasteries and the nobility, and audiences watching comedies such as Ganbold’s Badam Hövgüün (Young Badam, 1924)28 were shown how the people might use their new power to redefine the values of the new society. Badam Hövgüün is about a young nobleman named Badamlyanhua, whose parents – his cruel father Tsedenhüü and his pushy mother Dalai Dari Eh – wish to marry him off to Oyuun-Erdene, the daughter of a noble named (somewhat confusingly) Badam. When a fire breaks out at Tsedenhüü’s home, the family is left destitute, but when Badamlyanhua reaches Badam’s home, he is turned away because he is now poor. Nonetheless, Oyuun-Erdene’s love for Badamlyanhua remains firm, and even as they live together in 25 For further information on D. Ichinhorloo (1910-1975), see Bold and Bold (2011, pp. 53-56) and Ganhuyag (2007, pp. 254-255). 26 This is the Mongolian for Chinese liang 兩, or tael, equivalent of one ounce of silver. 27 Cited in Oyuun, 1989, p. 42. 28 Oyuun (1989, pp. 42-43) describes a similar play, which she calls Badam Dorj Shanzdav (Badamdorj Plays the Shanz). Whether this is the same play is unclear, since she does not mention the author’s identity, but the similarities are striking. My account is adapted, then, a little tentatively, from both Oyuun’s and from Damdinsüren, Sampildendev and Ariyasüren’s (1985, p. 364).

Staging a Revolution

67

poverty, they are exploited by their rich and powerful neighbors. In the end, however, they remain united, despite their treatment at the hands of their oppressors. The play offers an interesting perspective on the inequality from which the revolution had supposedly released the laboring poor. It is clear from this play, notwithstanding its caustic satire, that social standing rested more on what a person owned than their lineage. Badamlyanhua’s speech at the end of the play – in which he says ‘the behavior of the nobles and ministers is like that of livestock: how shameful and disgusting it is to give preference to appearances’ – presumably reflects the general feeling about such people and the Party’s continued willingness at this point to accept into its ranks reformed nobles and administrators, whose experience and knowledge it could well use. It also, however, hints at a Buddhist theme. The name Badamlyanhua refers to the lotus flower, the symbol of purity which grows in muddy waters, and Badamlyanhua’s realization in the light of his changed fortunes could be an indication that those who wished for a return to the feudal society should be like him and change their attitude.29 One of the most significant developments following the Bogd Haan’s death was the establishment by the Party’s Central Committee of the Sühbaatar Club. The group had originally been formed in late 1921 as the People’s Amateur Musicians group (Ündesnii högjmiin sain duryn uran saihanchdyn bülgem) and would in 1927 be merged with the People’s Entertainment Theater. After its relaunch in 1925 as the Sühbaatar Club,30 the group’s influence spread beyond music to encompass all aspects of performance and incorporated artists who had been involved in the local cultural centers, or People’s Houses.31 According to Ayuush, members of the Sühbaatar Club were especially involved in developing the performances of new revolutionary songs and dramas, and these became a benchmark for the arts’ response to life in the new society, and particularly in the regional centers outside Ulaanbaatar: At this time, our comrades from the Party’s Central Committee on Publishing went into the countryside and added to the groups there, giving leadership and developing the arts, such as song and theater, in 29 But see also Chapter 6 for a discussion of the development of the so-called ‘pure’ Buddhism as a political and literary theme. 30 According to Jamsranjav (1969), this took place in 1924. The Chair was Natsagdorj’s first wife D. Pagmadulam, and the vice-Chair was Tseveen Jamsrano’s wife Badamjav. 31 The Russian term Nardom (narodnyi dom) was used to signify a place where people could come together for political, social or cultural reasons. The f irst such Nardom had been set up immediately following the revolution, in July 1921, by the Soviet emissary Okhtin, for the performance of plays in both Mongolian and Russian.

68 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

different rural areas. Comrades who were involved in the theater were especially instrumental in using their own pre-revolutionary experience to promote the growth of the arts in the countryside.32

It is tempting to see clubs such as the Sühbaatar Club as Mongolian versions of the Soviet workers clubs, which were important in the spread of proletarian education and creative life at the time. However, whereas the Soviet clubs were, in John Hatch’s words, ‘a mechanism through which the state might influence the proletariat’s cultural and political development’,33 in Mongolia the clubs had a subtly different focus, primarily as a way to bring people together in order to create a context for public entertainment as well as for political and social instruction. Whereas Soviet workers’ clubs were aimed at raising the cultural and intellectual level of the proletariat, Mongolia did not have the arrangement of social strata that necessitated such a focus. The lack of formal education meant that clubs in the countryside, as well as in Ulaanbaatar, needed to function as places where locals came to socialize, and through socializing explore in what ways they might be educated politically, and so benefit from, and themselves benefit, the revolution.34 In basing their dramas upon what they had themselves experienced before 1921, those involved with the creation of the early revolutionary theater were keen to make the narrative of their work sufficiently familiar so that audiences could relate to it personally and fully grasp what the revolution meant for working people. By doing this, the groups and local centers that staged these dramas were involved also in the necessary educational work of the Party. The result of this outreach into the regions was that increasing numbers of people took part in the Party’s activities, whether they were producing the productions or watching them. The educational benefits of such involvement were more than political, for they included the development among nomadic herders of literacy as well as of organizational and administrative skills, all of which would, it was hoped, create a better educated and more skilled populace willing to contribute to the political and economic growth of the nation.35 32 Ayuush, 1973, p. 138. 33 Hatch, 1990, p. 3. 34 By 1935, though, Ayuush was enthusiastically pointing out how these clubs had now effectively become Mongolian versions of the Soviet Workers’ Clubs: ‘A club is not an organization for the theatrical arts, but rather is a particular kind of organization which works with different kinds of people to promote Party propaganda alone’. (Ayuush 1973, p. 162.) 35 See, for instance, the instructions regarding Clubs issued following the Fifth Party Congress in 1925, in Zagdsüren (1967, p. 14).

Staging a Revolution

69

The physical home of the People’s Theater bore the nickname ‘The Green Dome’ (Bömbögör Nogoon), because of the domed roof that rose over its central section. The original plans for this building were developed in 1926 or 1927 at the instigation of the Secretary to the Central Committee Ts. Dambadorj, N. Jadamba – who was by now Chair of the Central Committee of the Revolutionary Youth Movement, which he had established in 1922 with Buyannemeh – and the Minister of Education Erdenebathaan.36 The building was designed as a center for performing artists and to offer a place where Ulaanbaatar’s inhabitants could experience drama and other types of public entertainment. Moreover, by establishing a theater space, the Party hoped that audiences would develop a more modern and cosmopolitan view of drama, bringing them into line with Soviet and European audiences. The architect of the theater was a Hungarian engineer named Jósef Geleta, a self-described ‘escaped prisoner-of-war’. His brief account of the theater provides us with a rare first-hand description of the building: The most popular public institution is the National Theatre – designed by me – which also serves as their Parliament. Formerly the theater to the Mongolian people was represented by the mystery plays performed by lamas in the temple courts. At the conclusion of a religious festival, the crowds used to pour into the temple court and eagerly watch the dialogue scenes from the lives of the Buddha and his saints, performed by lama-actors wearing huge masks, on the stage-like balcony of the temple gate. The new Mongolian Government, however, did everything in its power to create a Mongolian dramatic literature free from Chinese and other influences, offering valuable prizes for Mongolian plays. That was how Djenghis Khan,37 a mighty historical drama, came into being. The play, which consists of scenes from the greatest figure in Mongolian history, was first performed in the National Theater in 1926. The performance lasted four hours and was such a success that it had to be repeated a number of times. The actors were all amateurs, and so was the producer – a group of young people who were entire novices in the f ield of the theater and 36 For Ts. Dambadorj (1900-1934), see Chapter 6, footnote 14. N. Jadamba (1900-1939), who in 1922 had co-founded the Revolutionary Youth Union with Buyannehmeh, was arrested in 1937 and, having served time in prison, died of poisoning in 1939. The MPR’s first minister of Education Erdenebathaan (1888-1948?) – originally called Bathaan, but later the moniker ‘precious’ (erdene) was added in recognition of his learning – was a victim of the purges against the Buryats during the late 1940s. 37 The play Djenghis Khan in fact refers to Buyannemeh’s Baatar Khövüün Temüjin (1928). For the script of this play, see Tsedev and Wang, 2009, pp. 632-667.

70 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

the drama, yet their production was suff iciently good to create an intense interest in the drama. The performances of Djenghis Khan were naturally also attended by foreigners, principally Russians, and later the Russians made a film on the subject, in which the majority of Urga actors co-operated. The new theater is 100 feet long and 50 feet high and is an up-to-date building in every sense. There is an imposing vestibule, a library and a restaurant. The auditorium is of the usual horse-shoe shape, with boxes and stalls, and a total seating capacity of 1,200. The whole theater is electrically ventilated, and the stage has the most modern lighting equipment.38

Geleta was clearly proud of his achievement, and not without reason. The internal decor of the theater was in the hands of a Russian named Klimov, who enlisted two artists – one a Russian named Pomerantsov, the other a Mongolian named Soyoltoi39 – to create colorful murals, including images of an old horsehead fiddle player and, rising above the large stage curtains, a scene of pastured livestock. The theater opened with a concert on 14 September 192740 and quickly became the focus of Ulaanbaatar’s creative life, with regular performances of newly written plays. Despite popular enthusiasm for the theater, the actors remained amateurs. In 1930, though, the Education Ministry issued an invitation to the Russian director Andrei Efremov. 41 Efremov had been a pupil of Konstantin Stanislavski42 and on his arrival, he and the actors Ts. Gombojav and Yo. 38 Forbath, 1936, pp. 225-226. 39 These artists remain unidentified. Whether Soyoltoi was the Mongolian’s real name or a nickname is unclear: the word soyoltoi means ‘artistic’. 40 According to Oyuun (1989, pp. 53-54), this concert was organized by Buyannemeh and Nasanbat and included Mongolians, Chinese, Russians and Tibetans performing songs, dances and magic tricks (the latter including some by Buyannemeh himself) 41 Before studying with Stanislavski, and at the same time with Nemirovich-Danchenko, Andrei Andreyevich Efremov (1905-1968) had been a student of the actor Sofia Vasilievna Haliutina (1885-1960) at the Moscow Art Theater. On his return from Mongolia, Efremov taught at the Soviet National Theater College, where he directed students from Kabardino-Balkar. Following World War II, he continued to teach, at State Theater Colleges in Tashkent and Minsk. See Ganhuyag (2007, pp. 208-211) for a more extensive biography. 42 Konstantin Sergeievich Stanislavski (1963-1938) was an actor and director who had cofounded the Moscow Art Theater in 1898 with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. Stanislavski had developed a system of acting in which an actor was asked to understand the psychology behind the actions and behavior of the character they were playing. This later developed into the Stanislavski Method, the Method of Physical Acting, and became an important aspect of the theater’s response to Socialist Realism.

Staging a Revolution

71

Sharavdoo43 selected about 25 young actors and musicians44 whom he set about training in the method he had learnt from Stanislavski.45 Gombojav, Buyannemeh, Namdag and Ö. Chimid, who appear to have already had some understanding of the method, gave initial instruction, and then Efremov developed and extended what the group had learnt. In this way, the Mongolian acting community expanded in its skill and repertoire. Stanislavski’s method represented the most adventurous experiment in Soviet dramatic art, and Efremov’s presence and knowledge gave this group of performers – who were both the most accomplished and among the more politically stable of the nation’s players – the opportunity to grow into professional actors and, through their performances, to enhance and promote the Party’s ideals and ideology. Efremov’s arrival in Mongolia and the gradual development of Mongolia’s theater led to the opening of the State Theater in the Green Dome on 12 November 1931. Gombojav was named as its director, while Efremov continued in an advisory capacity. According to Namdag, while Efremov had found several actors whose skills he could hone and develop with some success, he regarded Buyannameh alone as a dramatist with any measurable ability. 46 For the grand opening of the State Theater, Efremov directed and produced Buyannemeh’s new play Ünen (The Truth). 47 Ünen reproduces the common theme of how, through revolution, the Mongolian people are able to overcome the twin oppressors, the nobility and the monastics. What is striking about Buyannemeh’s approach, however, is the use of symbolism, with the people depicted as slaves wearing blindfolds, and a red podium placed stage left. In the first part, a line of slaves files 43 Biographies of Yo. Sharavdoo (1910-1998) are given in Bold and Bold (2011, pp. 171-172) and in Ganhuyag (2007, pp. 569-570). 44 Oyuun (1989, p. 92) gives the following (possibly incomplete) list of the individuals involved: the actors Ts. Gombojav (1903-1937), D. Namdag (1911-1984), M. Luvsanjamts, Luvsandamdin, L. Sodnom, D. Daridulam, D. Bat-Ochir (1905-1970; see Ganhuyag, 2007, pp. 55-56), Sosorbaram, Ch. Tseveen (1901-1956), B. Jigmiddorj (1910-1983; see Ganhuyag, 2007, p. 323), L. Damdinbazar (1889-1937; see Ganhuyag, 2007, pp. 150-151), Ch. Luvsansodnom (1895-1931; see Ganhuyag, 2007, p. 268), L. Tsendsüren, and D. Majaa; the musicians D. Ishdulam, O. Dashdeleg, Yu. Tserendorj, M. Radnaabazar (the writer M. Yadamsüren’s brother who was married to the actor D. Ichinhorloo; he was also a commissar, and during the Great Repression acted as State Procurator), D. Tüdev, S. Tüvden, L. Maam and the flutist L. Tserendorj. 45 Efremov had gained experience in teaching acting – and Staniskavski’s method in general – by teaching in Worker’s Club training courses. 46 Namdag, 1988, p. 34. 47 The script for this play has been lost. Namdag says that the play ‘was as though almost without words’, and it appears to have been a kind of agitprop piece for which, in lieu of a formal script, Namdag gives his own summary (Namdag, 1988, pp. 35-37).

72 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

out onto the stage who are summarily addressed by a man (‘You slaves are good enough, but come here all the same’) who proceeds to beat them with a cudgel. A monk appears and exhorts them to pray: ‘The gods, and the Buddhas and Protectors around us are always watching you. There is no power greater in this world than your teacher the lama and the Triple Jewel’. Then a Chinese revolutionary general comes out, and the monk fearfully plies him with expensive gifts. Finally, a representative of the Comintern, wearing bright red overalls, walks onto the stage and ascends the podium. He says, Listen, people of the world’s smaller nations, you who have been suppressed by the violent forces inside and outside your countries! The time has come to find the power inside you to struggle and to destroy the enemies at home and abroad! The yellow and black feudals and the Chinese revolutionary start to panic. The slaves silently rise up and stumble towards the Comintern representative. Help, help! they say, and the Comintern tells them Take your blindfolds off and look for yourselves! The first removes his blindfold and opens his eyes. He is happy, and removes the others’ blindfolds. They stretch out their hands to the Comintern representative and ask, Weapons! Weapons! The Comintern representative says, You have weapons in your hands, and the first slave looks at what he is holding, takes off the cover, and finds a gun. He is very happy and, with the rest of the slaves, he attacks the violent feudals, who flee away […].

Namdag’s description is sufficiently clear to indicate the ideas behind Ünen and its staging. Although he fails to mention the way in which the drama was acted, the fact that it was under Efremov’s direction suggests that he had drawn the actors from his group of students48 and that both the symbolism and the emotional force of the slaves’ liberation were expressed according to Stanislavskian principles. But what Efremov saw in Buyannemeh’s play that made him choose it for this important occasion is not obvious. It may have been a new work from the country’s leading writer, but the contrast between this agitprop drama and the more formal stage pieces that would have been available – or which Buyannemeh, who had already had success with Maral Shar 48 This was certainly true of those who played the main characters. Namdag tells us that the noble was played by Pürevsüren, the monk by Sharavdoo, the Chinese revolutionary by Gombojav, the Comintern representative by Luvsanchültem, and the first slave by Namdag himself.

Staging a Revolution

73

hoyor (Maral and Shar) two years earlier, could have written – is striking.49 Namdag passes no comment on the play itself and remains modestly silent on his own portrayal of the first slave. Perhaps it was the combination of political ideology and emotional intensity, together with the portrayal by the country’s leading actors of stock revolutionary characters, which made this work so attractive as the symbolic starting point of the state’s new theatrical tradition.50 The establishment of the State Theater marked not only a key moment in the development of Mongolian drama, but it was equally a response to the social and political machinations that had led to the repression of Dambadorj, Jadamba and Erdenebathaan and the advancement of those such as Choibalsan and Ö. Badrah (the latter had been a founding member of the Revolutionary Writers’ Group in 1929) who favored a movement to the left and closer ties to the Soviet Union. The original intention behind the building of the Green Dome and having a central theater for the arts had been to bring together the country’s performers and artists and to present their work to as much of the population as possible.51 To this was gradually added, with the strengthening of the power of the anti-rightist element at the end of the 1920s, the importance of acknowledging the moral and practical help of the Soviets, increasing 49 In fact, Ünen was paired with another, more formally theatrical piece, Sharavdoo’s Margaash (Tomorrow). 50 This tradition became quickly established through the staging of works by the country’s leading writers. In 1935, Ayuush wrote a commemorative poem (Ulsin töv tyeatrin 5 jiliin oin bayart zoriulan tüünii högjliig tovchlon zohioson ‘Ene Bügd’ gedeg amid sonini zohioloos tovchilson ni; ‘A brief living newspaper called “All of These”, written to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the State Theater and outlining its development’), which listed 15 plays that had been performed at the State Theater as well as mentioning the children’s theater and the performances of song and dance. Each play is allotted a description in verse; in order, they are: Ünen (The Truth; Buyannemeh, 1931), Arvan Jil (Ten Years; author and date unknown), Balmad Huuli (‘Wild Law’; author and date unknown), Helberel Nugalgaa (Deviation; author and date unknown), Shöniin Bug (The Night Demon; Buyannemeh, 1933), Övgön Bürged (The Old Eagle; author and date unknown), Goviin Hüühen Gündegmaa (Gündegmaa, the Girl from the Gobi; Ayuush, 1934), Haranhui Zasag (Dark Power; Buyannameh, 1933), Uchirtai Gurvan Tolgoi (Three Interesting Characters; Natsagdorj, 1935), Bi Bish (Not I; Natsagdorj and Namdag, 1934), Gurvan Davhar Talhilt (Three Levels of Oppression; Ayuush, 1934), Erdenet Soyombyn Ezen Erelheg Janjin Sühbaatar (The Lord of the Precious Soyombo, General Sühbaatar; Buyannemeh 1934), Mongol Hüü (A Mongolian Son; Ayuush, 1934), Halhyn Baatar (The Hero of the Halh; Yadamsüren, 1934), and Hatan Dolgor, Harts Damdin (Lady Dolgor and Damdin the Commoner; Ayuush, 1935). See Sh. Ayuush, 1973, pp. 113-118. 51 See Namdag, 1988, p. 12.

74 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

the focus on issues such as education and collectivization, and wresting the last traces of power from the monks and nobility. It was in this new and more radical atmosphere in which the arts were seen as an ever sharper and stronger weapon in the revolution that Sh. Ayuush’s work grew in influence. Ayuush had been educated in Moscow during the 1920s and had been an active member of the Sühbaatar Club in its early days. Now, though, in his mid-20s, he was instrumental in bringing Soviet agitprop theater to Mongolia and, significantly, in developing a more sophisticated approach to how social issues were to be presented to the public. A radical dramatic and political sensitivity runs through Ayuush’s work. Unlike the work of Buyannemeh or Natsagdorj or Namdag, there is a rawness to how Ayuush structures both narrative and dialog, how he locates his characters in relation to the events that unfold around them, revealing a mind constantly seeking to better understand the nature of the revolution, even as he presents the aspects most salient to his purposes. In 1936, he wrote a poem called Manai Tyeatr (Our Theater)52 whose three verses (each marked to be repeated [dahilt]) are written in language reminiscent of revolutionary songs from the previous decade: The focus of our theater protects the herding people. Certainly it will realize the teachings of Marx and Lenin. It will realize absolutely the directions of the Comintern, and relate between our nations all that will happen in the future. It will always try to develop culture and education, and destroy with direct strength the forces of violence and greed.53

Such sentiments located Ayuush at the center of the arts’ response to the new direction pursued by the Party following the repudiation of the ‘left 52 This is the most likely date, given that the poem is included in a larger work of that year, Niislel deer tolini tuya (Light On The Capital). 53 Ayuush, 1973, p. 105.

Staging a Revolution

75

deviationists’ by the Ninth Party Congress in 1932. Soviet influence and Mongolian needs combined to promote an adherence to shared goals and values and a collaborative focus through which Mongolia could develop its own cultural expression. The development of Ayuush’s approach to constructing a narrative and holding an audience’s attention indicates a singular originality, even considering how artistic expression had been restructured during the late 1920s and early 1930s. The four extant plays54 by which his art – and his potential – can be gauged show a growing sensitivity to the unfolding of a story and in the end to the kind of psychological insights revealed in the fiction of Yadamsüren. To examine Ayuush’s dramatic works is to chart how Mongolian theater was beginning to respond to social issues in the increasingly fraught years of the 1930s and how what had gone before had laid the groundwork for this response. Ayuush’s theoretical writings offer extensive ideas about the theater arts (tyeatrin uran saihan) and about the relationship between actors and writers and the audience. Amid Sonin (Living Newspapers, 1929)55 was a direct adaptation of the work of the Soviet Blue Blouse56 theater, which had reached the height of its popularity during Ayuush’s sojourn in Moscow during the mid-1920s. The script for this agitprop production functions more as a set of stage directions, with the dialog presenting contemporary political messages free from any nuance of language or dramaturgy. There is a feeling in this text reminiscent of the state of early Soviet revolutionary theater, as described by Serge Orlovsky, with ‘no sets and no costume […] [and scripts] written hurriedly on themes of the moment’.57 Orlovsky goes on to discuss the improvement to this radical new theater brought by the experimentation of Vsevelod Meyerhold: although there was nobody bringing to the Mongolian theater anything approaching what Meyerhold was offering, Ayuush, with his concern for the integration of music with 54 Amid Sonin (LIving Newspapers, 1929), Hatan Dolgor Harts Damdin (Lady Dolgor and Damdin the Commoner, 1933), Goviin Hüühen Gündermaa (Gündermaa from the Gobi, 1934) and Yag Arvan Naim (Just Eighteen, 1936) are Ayuush’s surviving plays. At least one source (G. Düinherjav in Ayuush, 1973, p. 11) mentions other plays (Henii buruu ve? [Who’s at Fault?], Baruun züünii nugalaa [The Right and Left Deviations], Gurvan davhar talhigdal [Three Levels of Oppression, 1934] and Guchin gurav jil bolson ni [Back in Thirty-three]) for which the scripts appear to have been lost. 55 Ayuush, 1973, pp. 19-43. 56 The Blue Blouse (Sinyaya Bluza) was a popular agitprop theater group, initially set up under the auspices of the Moscow School of Journalism in 1923 by Boriz Yuzhanin. See Mally (2000), pp. 65-73. 57 Serge Orlovsky ‘Moscow Theaters 1917-1941’ in Bradshaw (1954), p. 20.

76 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

dramatic events, with his precise directions for the unfolding of elements of a scene, and with his concern for the audience, whom he describes as ‘yearning to educate themselves in the culture of their own class’,58 is as close to Meyerhold’s vision as the Mongolian stage came at this time. Four years after Living Newspapers, Ayuush wrote Hatan Dolgor Harts Damdin (Lady Dolgor and Damdin the Commoner),59 in which a young woman is taken from her husband and forcibly married to a powerful noble. This play’s plot rehearses the idea of the oppression of the poor by the nobility and so is not especially different from the many such dramas staged prior to the Seventh Party Congress. But in his title, Ayuush emphasizes Dolgor’s steadfast character,60 which both focuses the audience on this trait from the beginning of the play and reinforces the importance of social equality between the genders, which had already been emphasized in stories such as Damdinsüren’s Gologdson Hüühen (1929).61 Just as Amid Sonin had molded key directives from the Party into a teachable, dramatic form, so this play featured a strong female character who could be seen as upholding revolutionary qualities of loyalty and socialist resolve. Most notably, Hatan Dolgor Harts Damdin is primarily a piece of musical theater, with three melodies used interchangeably by all the characters to carry the text. This play, then, like Living Newspapers, presents a modern piece of theater in a form which, while not in itself unusual,62 was remarkable in being a contemporary production about issues that remained vital even after the revolution.63 One central plank of the leftward movement that occupied the years 1929-1932 was the centralization of power, which necessitated the destruction of the power of the nobles whose extensive administrative experience had been used by the Party leadership until 1928. Over the course of Hatan Dolgor Harts Damdin’s five short scenes, the violent force of the 58 Ayuush, 1973, p. 176. 59 Ibid., pp. 43-55. 60 The word hatan means both ‘lady’ and ‘steadfast’, so the title is both a play on words and a comparison between the high-born Dolgor and the lowly Damdin. 61 See Chapter 5. 62 The monk, scholar, poet and dramaturge Danzanravjaa (1803-1856) had organized theatrical events in the Gobi in the early nineteenth century, from which tradition, in addition to the experimental theater he had experienced in Moscow, we can imagine Ayuush drawing inspiration. 63 According to his friend B. Sodnom, Ayuush ‘consulted with the actors about the content, and developed the piece on stage. At the time this was a very innovative approach to writing for the stage.’ (Sodnom, 1966, pp. 83-84). Sodnom uses the term duuri (opera) to describe this piece, although this term might have been influenced more by his knowledge of the European operatic tradition from his time as a student in Germany during 1926-1929 than by the musical aspect of Ayuush’s drama.

Staging a Revolution

77

nobles escalates a personal conflict into a reflection of the national situation: having been abducted by the nobleman’s henchman, Dolgor meets with Damdin where they are both to be executed for their refusal to capitulate. The brief final scene, here presented in its entirety, reveals an important topos in Ayuush’s writing: the catalyzing power of a lone and apparently powerless voice, which by speaking out transforms everything: When the curtain opens, on the stage are the Chinese governor,64 Dolgor, Damdin and the rest of the crowd. The melancholic music of the song Goolingoo65 is being played, and the crowd are all standing, looking towards the right. Four men come out to supervise the execution of Dolgor and Damdin, at which the people in the crowd show tremendous grief and suffering. Dolgor (to the tune of Goolingoo) We two lovers thought to live in love together, but oh, seized by the power of a violent lord, even our love we will lose. Süren, a woman of the Halh (to the tune of Goolingoo) Will the lord not show a loving heart to us poor folk? at which all the crowd sing, to the same tune, Hey, you poor things, you don’t understand! How hard is your suffering! Everyone looks towards the lord and kneels respectfully, and sings to the same tune: Our divine lord and ruler, please forgive their lives of love. Each of us asks forgiveness for our lives of love. 64 The presence of the Chinese governor (Hyatadin amban) indicates that the play is set during the Qing Empire, which ended in 1911. However, the fact that this character has no speaking role suggests that he is simply a historical cipher, and presumably the drama could equally have been presented without him, in a more contemporary (i.e. revolutionary) setting, highlighting the political dynamic between the oppressive nobles and their oppressed subjects. 65 ‘Goolingoo’ (My Elegant One) is a love song, one of a genre called Hüree duu (Hüree songs), popular songs that had developed in Ulaanbaatar before the revolution (Hüree being the name by which the city was known until 1924). The actress D. Ichinhorloo (see footnote 25 above) was the f irst to popularize the song and the f irst to record it, on a disc released in 1935. See Chuluunchimeg (2013, p. 82) for the lyrics and score.

78 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

A determined commoner (to the third tune66): It is hard for such peaceful people as ourselves to be oppressed and killed in such a way. The burden of the people is to struggle, to oppose these cruel nobles, and to gain our freedom! At which the lay feudals issue the order (to the third tune): You have lost control, do you oppose the rule of law? Lay hands on those cunning rascals! A policeman orders the determined ard be seized, but some of the crowd rush forward two steps and say loudly Don’t lay a hand on them!, at which the policeman is fearful and confused. Brass instruments are heard from behind the curtain, and as the people’s piety declines, the curtain descends.67

Ayuush pushes the crudity and directness of agitprop theater here into new territory, overlaying upon this ‘people’s theater’ a narrative of the power dialectic between the common people and the ruling nobles and showing the power of an individual to initiate change. This play also places the idea of revolutionary activity into the hands of the actors, notwithstanding the extensive stage directions, and allows them an immediate and timely agency in expressing for the people how the people might overthrow the feudal rulership. A clear conceptual link exists between Hatan Dolgor Harts Damdin and the play that Ayuush produced the following year. Goviin Hüühen Gündegmaa (Gündegmaa from the Gobi)68 is also about a young woman’s abduction from her husband by a noble. But rather than the implied subversion of the nobleman’s power in the first play (for neither Dolgor nor Damdin are explicitly shown to have been liberated by the end), Gündegmaa is able (with the help of a mendicant monk) not only to escape from her abductor but also finally to be reunited in Ulaanbaatar with her husband Javhlant, who has by now joined the Red Army. The development of Ayuush’s narrative over the course of these two plays gives an insight into the continuing revolutionary changes occurring in Mongolian society. Following the anti-government uprisings in 1932, the New Turn Policy had brought the abandonment of collectivization and a more liberal policy towards religion. In his characterization of the mendicant 66 In addition to Goolingoo, three principal tunes are used in the play. 67 Ayuush, 1973, pp. 54-55 68 Ibid., pp. 87-102.

Staging a Revolution

79

monk, Ayuush shows the human side of the ‘yellow feudals’, in the garb of a wandering hermit, portraying him as the person who supports Gündegmaa by preparing a horse for her escape. Ayuush’s achievement in these two plays is to write female characters who elicit the audience’s sympathy for reasons other than their having been taken from their husbands to be the spouse of a noble. Gündegmaa, in particular – like Damdinsüren’s ‘rejected girl’ Myadag in Gologdson Hüühen – possesses the strength of mind to leave her home and, despite her lack of knowledge of the world beyond the Gobi, she finally reaches the capital. This key moment, at which she enters into a new world, is marked by a vignette in which an old woman in a market accuses Gündegmaa of stealing a comb and an iron ring. Market Woman: Now my girl, what will you buy? Speak plainly! Gündegmaa: Would you exchange these two things for a marmot skin? Market Woman: You’re a pathetic thing, my girl! You can’t pay for this! Gündegmaa: I have nothing else, madam. I’ve just come from the countryside. Market Woman: No, girl, I don’t care – you can even pay me with fat. Gündegmaa: I’m just a traveller, madam. I don’t have milk or anything. Suddenly, from behind the curtain comes the sound of soldiers singing. Gündegmaa (listening; and then, with a happy voice): My husband’s in that army. As she’s speaking, she walks away with the comb and ring. Market Woman: Hey, what about the comb and ring…!? That little hussy… (and as she goes after Gündegmaa, the people watch with fascination, laughing at the two women. And then, from behind the curtain, she screams) Police, hey! Police! Get that swindling thief! A whistle sounds and there is the sound of a woman being seized. Gündegmaa (from behind the curtain): My husband’s with those soldiers. How can you just lay hold of me? Hey, Javhlant, come over here! (And the people around her laugh. Some of them say ‘she’s crazy’ and others, ‘she’s from the country – she’s trouble’). Policeman: Keep back, comrades! Move away now. You, girl, come here. Old woman, where are these things of yours, then? Market Woman: They’re here. I left them alone. This girl knows if anything’s gone. The policeman takes Gündegmaa and the old woman, and all the others watch them. Policeman: Young lady, did you take anything from this old woman? Gündegmaa: No, sir. I’m from the countryside – I don’t know much. I came here without my husband, all alone. I haven’t been able to find my

80 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

husband until now. But he’s here today with the Red Army. So I was in a hurry, and I took this woman’s things, but I didn’t just run off without returning them – I wasn’t thinking right. Policeman: Did she really steal them, then? Market Woman: Basically, yes, she did. She heard the soldiers and took those things with her. Market Trader: This woman can’t just call her a thief. Poor young girl’s just in from the countryside, she knows nothing. If she’s doing anything, sir, she’s just playing about. Policeman (agreeing): That’s true, yes. Old woman, are you bringing a charge? Market Woman: No, sir. Gündegmaa: Where are the soldiers we just heard? Please help me find them. I’m worried I’ll not be able to find my husband again. What’ll happen then? (Some of the people in the market laugh. Others ask the policeman to help her. Everyone agrees.) Policeman: Come with me, young lady. (And he takes her off.)

It is clear from this penultimate scene – which predictably leads into the reuniting of Gündegmaa with her husband, to the accompaniment of a revolutionary song – that the audience in Ulaanbaatar might be conflicted, feeling both for the old woman, for those in the crowd who so disparage Gündegmaa’s naiveté, and for Gündegmaa herself. While the Party sought to attract nomadic herders to the city to help build a new and progressive society, the resulting social tension was reflected in works such as Damdinsüren’s Gologdson Hüühen and Yadamsüren’s Gurvan Hüühen, which show both the positive and negative aspects of arriving in Ulaanbaatar from the countryside, Ayuush’s portrayal, however brief, of the prejudice that existed among Ulaanbaatar’s population is a rare and decidedly non-comedic insight into Mongolia’s social problems at the time. In the final scene, reunited with Javhlant, Gündegmaa performs in a show, singing a song to the tune of the Mongolian Internationale about the revolutionary value of art. By having Gündegmaa sing this song, the revolution is given a female voice, a voice that moreover expresses the necessary place of the arts in the revolutionary struggle and their power, in the words of Lenin, to be a weapon with which to overcome the enemy. Through art, we will spread revolutionary red culture. Through the red revolution, we will bring the enemy to their knees.

Staging a Revolution

81

Amid Sonin illustrates the vital contribution of the Soviet agitprop arts to Ayuush’s thinking about the relationship between the arts and revolution. This theme runs throughout his theoretical writing69 also, and his use of music in Gündegmaa’s final appearance, as in Hatan Dolgor Harts Damdin, reinforces this potent connection while providing the audience with entertainment. Moreover, in showing the enthusiasm and resolve of the young country girl Gündegmaa, the audience sees how, by renewing traditional cultural forms in revolutionary garb, even those with little experience can also support and fight for the people’s future. In so simple a transformation as befalls Gündegmaa and the power that comes from her brief turn as a singer, Ayuush illustrates through drama how valuable an individual’s contribution to the revolutionary struggle can be. In fact, even as the Party focused on the importance of the group as the human manifestation of the State, so the theme of Ayuush’s plays shifted more towards the individual. Yag arvan naim (Just Eighteen),70 written in 1936, presents the limitations of the monastic life when set against the developments of the modern world. The action revolves around two monks, Oidov (who is just about to turn 18) and Sambai (who is 19), and their chance meeting with a progressive young woman named Gavaasüren. The action, which leads to Oidov’s public rejection of Buddhism before his peers and the senior monks at Ganden monastery and Sambai’s apparent decision in the play’s final lines to do the same, is precipitated by an evening spent in Gavaasüren’s home, where she talks about the modern world and teaches Oidov how to dance the foxtrot.71 It is the friendship that develops from such simple and innocent circumstances that leads Oidov to reconsider the trajectory of his life. It is not that Oidov has fallen for Gavaasüren (although this is part of Oidov’s charm in this scene and an indication of gentle humor on Ayuush’s part), but it is Gavaasüren who senses in him a crisis of faith – both in Buddhism and in himself – and who provokes him to reconsider his future: Oidov recognizes Gavaasüren and goes alone towards the monastic hall. Gavaasüren recognizes Oidov and comes out wearing a traditional dancing costume, and she meets him and takes him aside. 69 See for instance his principal study on the theater Tyeatrin uran saihan (The Art of the Theater), Ayuush 1973, pp. 152-178. 70 Ibid., pp. 55-86. 71 Ibid., pp. 62-63. In Scene 6 of the play (pp. 77-81), when Oidov renounces Buddhism, he is accused by his teacher of breaking his vows by having associated with a woman.

82 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Gavaasüren: Where were you going? Were you going inside? Oidov: It doesn’t matter. I came with my teacher. I just didn’t go in. Gavaasüren: Why have you been at my place these past few days? Are you frightened of being laicized? Oidov: My teacher’s not going to let me leave. He’s been day and night trying to convince me. It’s like he wants to frighten me that I’m going to become a bad person. He did a divination, he said to me, ‘If you become a layman, you’ll be drafted into the army and you’ll certainly die’. Gavaasüren: Ah then. Why is your teacher telling you such nonsense? It’s painful to think of you leaving and what would happen to you, even if I’m a member of the Party. Oidov: We’re even then. One of us fears the teacher, the other fears the Party members. (laughing) Gavaasüren: But that’s easy enough. You need to know your focus. What are you thinking about today? Oidov: My teacher followed me here. I’m not thinking of becoming a layman. He told me strictly that I couldn’t say anything else. So if I become laicized now, all manner of terrible things will happen to me. Gavaasüren: Really? It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me. If you become a layman, though, I’ll help you out. It doesn’t matter if your teacher follows you. He can’t suppress your mind. But you need to decide for yourself today whether to escape this torment. Oidov: I want to be your lover forever and to be happy for myself, and because you said you’ll not renounce me I’ve decided to be a layman. But I’ll be squashed now in my teacher’s grip. (Sighs.) I wonder what’s going to happen if I become a layman now? Gavaasüren: I’m not really thinking of your being my lover forever. You don’t even need to think about that. If you don’t think about whether to become a layman or not, are you going to carry on being a monk? You should know that, in that case, I’ll not be able to marry you. Go and die in that hole then! But I’ll not look back at you. Oidov: But then I’ll be in more pain than you. I’m going to leave.72

For Oidov – and for Sambai, too, at the close of the play – the decision to continue as a monk or to become a layman is presented as lying entirely in his hands. From 1936, the Party sought to make monasticism a political and class issue,73 and Gavaasüren is appealing to the fact that, should Oidov 72 Sh. Ayuush 1973, pp. 71-72. 73 See Kaplonski, 2014, pp. 155-156.

Staging a Revolution

83

choose to be laicized, his teacher would be powerless to stop it, and that his teacher’s threats were nothing but a cynical means of control.74 Gavaasüren’s reaction is clear and decisive, and whether she is genuinely disinterested in a romantic liaison, she is concerned that Oidov should make an informed choice rather than staying under his teacher’s control. From the way Ayuush writes the characters of Oidov, Sambai and Gavaasüren, it seems that his aim is to show the importance of making an informed decision about their commitment to their faith. So many monks had been placed in monasteries by families unable to support them that many of them, like Oidov and Sambai, remained only because they could not imagine what else they would do. Moreover, as Oidov says twice in his renunciation speech, the Party had declared religion to be a matter of personal choice.75 In the final scene of the play, when Oidov is deciding what he will do now that he is a layman, Gavaasüren suggests working in one of the new shops that are opening in Ulaanbaatar. And to this she adds, ‘In three years, everything will have changed’, to which he replies ‘Yes. Stories like [ours] will have been forgotten by then!’ In writing these words, Ayuush could not have known how accurate his characters’ words were. By May 1938, no monasteries remained open and functioning in Ulaanbaatar 76 and the country was transformed, with experiences such as Oidov and Sambai’s, while recent and fresh in people’s minds, having been overtaken by increased industrialization and by the kind of commerce mentioned by Gavaasüren. The internal dynamic of Ayuush’s plays speaks to the development of Mongolian society between the implementation of the New Turn Policy in 1932 and the Great Repression, during which Ayuush was executed in 1938. The almost wholesale reversal by the Ninth Party Congress in June 1932 of the leftist agenda advanced by the Seventh and Eighth Party Congresses 74 Indeed, his teacher Sanzai tries to convince him that he has been possessed and that, if he fails to repent, his behavior will have disastrous consequences: ‘Some evil and corrupt spirit has been eating away at your body with syphilis, I see that your gaze will have no vision, you’ll be rushing about with no legs, your stark naked body will be among boiling sands in the September heat, you will have no food to eat, you will have nothing to drink, you’ll sit beside garbage heaps and chew on pale bones, your friends will be the dogs, you will have nobody to take pity on you, you will have no companions to look after you, you will be quite solitary, you will die alone. And then, a thousand times you will be reborn as a maleficent demon.’ (Ayuush, 1973, p. 80). 75 This remained the Party policy, although there was social pressure to renounce one’s beliefs. As late as 1945, Ts. Damdinsüren’s story Lamin Rashaan (The Monk’s Spring Water) emphasized that religion was an individual matter (see Damdinsüren, 1956, pp. 230-237). 76 See Kaplonski (2014, pp. 203-221) for an account of the closures of the monasteries.

84 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

in 1928 and 1930 had brought about a more liberal approach to religion, economics, business and, to an extent, to political dissent. The independent spirit of women such as Gündegmaa, who found her way out of a forced marriage, and Gavaasüren, who offered a dissatisfied monk the means of his own liberation, reflects the Party’s temporary turning away from leftist repression. The progress of Ayuush’s writing over these six years reflects the deepening of his understanding of how theater could illustrate the psychological complexity of the human mind when faced with a difficult decision. The specifics of Dolgor and Damdin’s situation, or of Gündegmaa’s, are clear enough: they find themselves the subject of cruelty and oppression and they seek, in their own way, to escape. But at the end of Yag arvan naim, Oidov’s friend Sambai frets back and forth about whether he, too, should leave the monastery and become a layman. In Sambai’s panic, and in what appears to be its resolution, Ayuush’s dialog reveals a sophisticated grasp of psychology: Oidov: Well then, Sambai, goodbye. Let’s meet soon. [To his teacher Sanzai] My teacher, I wish you well. I’ve spent the best twelve years of my life in your grip. If I hadn’t met Gavaasüren, I’d still be rotting in the depths of this temple. You shouldn’t forget her. You’ve all been cursing her. Now she’s my wife, my best friend. She’s helped me so much, she has no fear of your attacks, she’s saved me from your clutches. (To Gavaasüren:) Let’s go. (He leaves.) Sambai: Hey, Oidov. Let me say something. Oidov: What is it? Sambai (looking at [his teacher] Sanzai, and moving towards them): Listen, really. You know what? I also… what to do?… I also… Gavaasüren: You want to get away from those devils? Sambai: Yes, right. No, it’s so hard. No, I feel awkward though. All these people saying prayers… so… oh I don’t know, I’ll be alone… on my own here… Oidov: You want to become a layman? Sambai: I do, yes. No…, it’s so hard though… Oidov: If you don’t, it’s fine. You should think long and hard about it. Sambai: I’ve thought enough about it. I don’t know how I can do it alone. Oidov: Come to our place tomorrow. We can talk then. You can get some work. You can even read, after all. Sambai: Right, then, I’ll do that. Goodbye! Gavaasüren: We’re still at the same place. Please come. Goodbye! (Leaves)

Staging a Revolution

85

Sambai (Left alone, watching as they leave): No, this will be fine. (Glancing back at Sanzai) Oh, teacher! Are you going or not? (Sanzai stands up. Sambai looks at Gavaasüren and Oidov, and sheds a tear) No…, but it’s so hard…77

Ayuush does not simply show Sambai’s dilemma as a decision to reject an oppressive or outdated model in favor of modernity and freedom, but he reflects what would have been the reaction of many in a similar position, that at the same time as making a fundamental life choice, they would also have been rejecting both their home and their community. Sambai’s anguish is palpable, and when even in his final words he is vacillating between his teacher and the oppressive yet secure system that his teacher represents, and the unknown secular world that Oidov and Gavaasüren are offering him, a contemporary audience would have felt their own uncertainty as Ulaanbaatar, under the increasing power of Choibalsan, moved closer to Stalin’s Moscow, and as renewed political and social pressure again threatened to compromise religious expression. According to the playwright D. Namdag, Mongolian theater had two teachers. The first was Andrei Efremov, and the second was Viktor Boreisho,78 an actor and director who arrived in Ulaanbaatar in 1936. Boreisho had for many years been working to build up the theater in Turkmenistan and had come directly from there to Mongolia where, at the request of the Party, he was to do the same work. Boreisho’s arrival indicates the increasing importance placed upon Soviet influence on Mongolian cultural life and the desire on the part of the Party that the Mongolian State Theater grow in stature, professionalism and artistry. One way in which this growth was to be achieved was through the staging of plays by Russian writers. Sergei Tryetiyakov’s ‘Roar China!’79 was produced in 1934 under the direction of Efremov and Gombojav, and a year later, a Russian named Shatilov, employed by the Interior Ministry, volunteered

77 Ayuush, 1973 pp. 85-86. 78 See the brief biography in Ganhuyag, 2007, pp. 81-83. 79 Sergei Mikhailovich Tretiyakov (1892-1937) was an avant-garde writer who co-founded the constructivist journals LEF and Novyi LEF. His experimental work fell out of fashion and led to his arrest and to his execution on 10 September 1937, coincidentally the day on which the first arrests were made in Mongolia’s Great Repression. ‘Roar China!’ (Rychi Kitai, Mongolian Hyatad ornoos hürhregtün) was written in 1930. See Clark (2018) for an account of Tryetiakov’s travels in the Far East during the 1920s.

86 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

to direct Nikolai Gogol’s ‘The Government Inspector’.80 This latter play was not, however, a suitable selection for Ulaanbaatar’s theatergoers in Namdag’s estimation: At that time, the audience for plays in Ulaanbaatar numbered about three thousand, half of whom might have seen this production. The audience, too, was not educated, and so thought that they couldn’t understand it well. But in my opinion, this was not the real reason. First, our production was poor. Second, the audience’s interest followed the central character and his ability to gain such wealth in his life. In this way, to have produced a Russian comedy which could not have come out of the feudal world of Gogol’s time, instead of encouraging trust in the audience, must have appeared like a fairytale. Furthermore, the artistry sent the audience into a state of fantasy, in which they imagined this might be their own fate. This is why Lenin said, ‘Art belongs to the people’. Although our production of ‘The Government Inspector’ could not educate the people, it was nonetheless their first encounter with one of the world’s important plays, and, as a test for ourselves, it was quite successful.81

Namdag’s honest appraisal speaks to the state of Mongolia’s cultural life during the 1930s. The education of even those who went to watch Russian theater was not sufficient to grasp exactly how and why the civil servant Khlestakov might be mistaken for a government inspector, but they did see the evident pleasure and financial gain that the mistake brought. Their ‘first encounter with one of the world’s important plays’ allowed them to dream a little, but more importantly, it showed them a little of what Russian drama had to offer and allowed Namdag and the other actors to stretch themselves beyond the limits of Mongolian theater at the time. Efremov had brought technique to Mongolia, and this had been learnt and incorporated into homegrown Mongolian dramas over the previous three or four years. Now, under Boreisho (and, in Gogol’s play, under Shatilov), they had the opportunity to practice these techniques on a type of Western classical theater that did not exist in Mongolia. Boreisho brought a new approach to Mongolian theater. His production of Ayuush’s Yag Arvan Naim in 1936 was realist, and whereas Namdag’s 80 The Russian dramatist Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol (1809-1852) had written ‘The Government Inspector’ (Russian Revizor; Mongolian Baitsaagch Tüshmel) in 1836, but there is no indication that the State Theater’s production was intended to mark its centenary. 81 Namdag, 1988, pp. 86-87.

Staging a Revolution

87

experience was positive – ‘this was the first time I had experienced realism in the theater’ – Ayuush himself was unable to understand this treatment of his play, and this appears to be at least one of the reasons why he stopped writing.82 Namdag says that Boreisho had had Yag Arvan Naim translated into Russian and specially bound, and that his understanding of the play was ‘quite different from our own’. […] the action was simple, the language absolutely precise, the ideas clear. Apart from attracting my own interest, though, when I saw the way in which Boreisho taught the young actors, it was fascinating how, in his speech and in his every movement, the meaning became clearer. For that reason, I feel a deep respect for him.83

There is something in Ayuush’s writing in Yag Arvan Naim that seems modern, more psychologically sensitive, and such were the aspects of theater that were most suited to the kind of direction that had developed in Russia, and then the Soviet Union, through the influence of Stanislavski and the Moscow Art Theater. As a young playwright – he was eight years younger than Ayuush – Namdag had only been involved in the theater for a relatively short time, and, having received some education in Germany during the late 1920s, he had had some exposure to the European theater. The simplicity and realism that so affected him in Boreisho’s direction came to influence his own dramatic writing, which began in 1934 with ‘Temtsel’ (The Struggle).84 In August 1934, the Writers’ Union organized a competition with the theme ‘the people’s heroic revolution, which expressed the bravery of Mongolia, and its leader Sühbaatar’. Sühbaatar had been dead for more than a decade and was, like Lenin in the Soviet Union, now seen as a leader who remained untainted by the political machinations that had taken place over the previous decade. Moreover, in its ongoing implementation of the New Turn 82 Namdag, 1988, p. 92. Exactly why – or, indeed, whether – Ayuush deliberately stopped writing will, I suspect, never be known, but from Namdag’s suggestion that it might have been due to this staging of Yag Arvan Naim we might conclude either that Ayuush was an especially sensitive young man or that Boreisho’s production had severe flaws. Whatever the true situation, and despite his praise of Boreisho, Namdag says that the director wasted time when directing, and hints that the production was not in the end as good as it might have been. 83 Namdag, 1988, p. 91. 84 Namdag, 1987, vol.1, pp. 42-85. This was also the name of a 1954 opera based, a little confusingly, around another of Namdag’s plays, Shine Zam (The New Road, 1937), for which B. Damdinsüren composed the music. See pp. 133-177 for the script of Shine Zam and pp. 447-474 for the libretto of Temtsel.

88 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Policy, the Party intended to safeguard both the ideals of the 1921 revolution and the progress Mongolia had made with the help of the Soviet Union. A mythology was developing at this time around the memory of Sühbaatar,85 the circumstances of his life and death now sufficiently far removed to be mythologized, and this competition was announced as well as judged with this process in mind. In May 1935, the State Committee on the Arts declared that, from the ten entries submitted, D. Ichinhorloo’s Odoo Medlee (Right Then!) had been awarded third place and was to be performed. The plays placed first and second were not announced, but in May 1936 three of the entries – Buyannemeh’s Erdenet Soyombin Ezen Erelheg Janjin Sühbaatar (Mighty General Sühbaatar, Lord of the Precious Soyombo),86 Ayuush’s Mongol Hüü (A Mongolian Son) and Yadamsüren’s Halhin Baatar (Hero of the Halh) – received special commendation and were also performed at the State Theater, with Ts. Tsegmid, B. Jadambaa and Z. Tsendeehüü87 respectively taking the role of Sühbaatar. Sühbaatar’s appearance on the stage in these plays was as a perfected hero rather than a hero of real and recent events. Mongolia had moved on since his death, and the New Turn Policy had transformed the country’s social and political focus. Even the titles of these plays suggest an otherworldly hero, and the fact that the competition’s theme had explicitly linked Sühbaatar with the revolution was an indication to playwrights of how he was to be portrayed. Moreover, the close alliance that had existed between Sühbaatar and Choibalsan, which was now emphasized more and more, meant that whatever might be written of the former would cast its glow over the latter. While it is unlikely that the members of the Writers’ Union had Choibalsan’s future uppermost in their minds when they announced the competition, to preserve and enhance Sühbaatar’s memory would have done no harm to the fortunes of the surviving revolutionaries, most notably Choibalsan, nor to those responsible for the competition. To remind audiences of the events of the revolution, and so also of Sühbaatar’s part in it, was evidently one of the intentions behind Namdag’s 1937 play Shine Zam (The New Road) , in which the character of Sühbaatar plays a significant role.88 Although there is no indication that this play was 85 See Chapter 9 for a more comprehensive treatment of how literature shaped Mongolia’s cult of personality. 86 See the script in Tsedev and Wang, 2008, pp. 796-862. 87 Biographies of Tsegmid (1905-1963) and Tsendeehüü (1905-1980) can be found, respectively, in Bold and Bold, 2011, pp. 133-136 and pp. 141-142, and in Ganhuyag, 2007, pp. 526-528 and p. 532. B. Jadambaa (1900-1953) acted in over 100 plays at the State Theater (see Ganhuyag, 2007, p. 217). 88 See footnote 84 above.

Staging a Revolution

89

written for this competition, given how favorably its characterization and plotting contrasts even with Buyannameh’s entry, Namdag could well have been seeking to advance his own talent against other relatively simplistic compositions while at the same time currying favor with Choibalsan. In Shine Zam, Sühbaatar is shown as a respected young general, but Namdag’s writing places an imaginative space between this portrayal and whatever image might have existed in the minds of his actors and audience. The drama presents the country on the brink of revolution and the Mongolian and Soviet military (led, Namdag implies, by Sühbaatar) on the brink of defeating the forces of the White Russian Baron Ungern-Sternberg, which had occupied Mongolia between February and June of 1921. Namdag wrote of this portrayal that, ‘instead of having [Sühbaatar] be impressive, I particularly wanted to show him as a regular man, and how he had emerged from the people, how he himself was struggling for their freedom’.89 In the play’s final scene, Sühbaatar reads a telegram from Lenin promising the support of the Red Army, and in his final speech, to the sound of the Mongolian Internationale, he declares, ‘With the help of the Soviet Red Army, we will rout Baron Ungern, and create a new Mongolia, in the new sun and new air!’90 Namdag reminds his audience of the debt of gratitude Mongolia owed to the Soviets, and he indicates that, while Sühbaatar had indeed been one of those who had laid out the ‘new road’ along which Mongolia had traveled in the 16 years since the revolution, by showing him as a ‘regular man’ (engiin hün), his play emphasizes the central role taken by the Mongolian people in the nation’s subsequent development. Of all the dramatists at work during the 1930s, Namdag’s voice is especially clear. His plays do not introduce striking new themes – Temtsel is about the struggle against the monks and nobility, Ami ba amidralin üne91 is about the benefits of Western health care in comparison with the traditional health system operated by the monasteries, and Shine Zam is about the events leading up to the revolution – but they are characterized by an unusual level of psychological depth. Namdag’s experience as an actor learning Stanislavski’s method under Efremov and his subsequent observation of Boreisho’s approach meant that, unlike writers such as Buyannemeh, 89 Namdag, 1985, p. 105. 90 Ibid., p. 177. Note, too, that the words of the Mongolian Internationale was actually taken from a play which Buyannemeh had written in 1923 (two years after the events portrayed in Shine Zam), Mongolyn hureelsen ezerheg ulsuudin horondoo baidliig uzuulsen tüüh (A History of What Happened Between the Aggressive Powers Whom the Mongolians Had Surrounded). The poem and the play are reproduced in Tsedev and Wang, 2009, on pp. 14-15 and 583-633 respectively. 91 See the discussion of this play in Chapter 7.

90 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Yadamsüren and even Ayuush, his work as a dramatist developed entirely during the first period of Mongolian drama under the tutelage of foreign directors and was thus influenced by their experience and insight. With actors giving increased emphasis to Stanislavski’s method and to realistic acting from within the role by seeking to understand the motivation behind their character’s behavior, dramatists likewise had to pay greater attention to how they wrote, revealing characters’ doubts and complex motivations as well as the knots in the relationships portrayed on stage. Boreisho’s approach reflected the dialectic foundation of Socialist Realism, which had been the official cultural policy in the Soviet Union since 1932. At a literature seminar held in April 1938, he discussed how the effect of his approach to directing could benefit the revolution: There are many approaches to art: for instance, the view that we should emphasize the outer appearance and not be concerned with the inner essence, which is called formalism […]. And then there is naturalism, in which one copies the situation in everyday life willy-nilly. We should not adhere to either of these two. But if we ask to which view we should adhere, we should investigate the most significant aspects of life, and we should observe what is true and false according to revolutionary thought, and also what is true and false in everyday life, showing the influences on society and noting the struggle also to make a new situation. Comrade Stalin referred to this artistic style as revolutionary realism and if we only use this style, we will correctly create revolutionary art.92

When Boreisho came to direct Namdag’s 1938 play Süreg Chono (The Wolf Pack),93 it might have seemed that the script – in which a Party leader slowly and painfully discovers that his circle of friends and associates is plotting to overthrow the Party – was fully in line with Socialist Realism. However, there were problems even at the initial reading, which was held in front of a group of Party Committee members, led by the head of the Division of Sciences, Banzragch. Their main objection, as expressed by Banzragch, was that a work such as Namdag’s ‘needed to exaggerate the poisonous and destructive activity of anti-revolutionaries, and to show how calculating such poisonous activity was’. The implication was that Süreg Chono was too subtle and that it presented the anti-revolutionaries in too nuanced a way. Namdag’s retort was that a work such as his needed to present faithfully 92 Ünen, 11 April 1938, cited in Damdinsüren, Sampildendev and Ariyasüren, 1985, p. 73. 93 Namdag, 1985, pp. 178-236.

Staging a Revolution

91

rather than in an exaggerated way how such anti-revolutionaries behaved so that they could be discovered and apprehended. Although the initial script was rejected by the Party Committee, Namdag persisted and eventually he and Boreisho were called to the Interior Ministry, where they met with a Russian whom Namdag dryly describes as being ‘of few words, with a weather-beaten face, and nary a smile’. He had read the script, he told them, and would authorize it, without requiring any edits. Exactly why this decision had been made, why the original decision of the Party Committee had so completely been overturned, remains unclear, and perhaps even at the time no suitable explanation would have been forthcoming. Namdag’s play went ahead, and after the first performance, he met with Choibalsan and Party Secretary Luvsansharav, who had been among the audience. When asked his opinion, Choibalsan remarked laconically, ‘It’s good.’94 The lead character in Süreg Chono is Danzan. His situation is compromised from the beginning of the play, for his is a life of relative luxury, despite the Party’s attempts to eliminate the inequalities associated with rank. A senior Party official, Navaanjav, attempts to draw him into his coterie, even lending him his Chinese cook Shushmaa.95 But as the play goes on and Danzan gets increasingly caught up in a relationship with an educated young woman named Tsetseg, which threatens to destroy his marriage to Daridulam, he becomes suspicious of Navaanjav’s motives. At the center of the play, Navaanjav threatens to expose Danzan’s financial irregularities unless Danzan works with him to destroy the Party: Navaanjav: If you really love your life, you people who work hard for the nation need to lend your strength to our side. Danzan (surprised): Did you say ‘our side’? Navaanjav: You’re also not an observant man. Everyone knows – it’s one of your biggest faults. Danzan (surprised): I don’t understand. Navaanjav: No matter. I’ve already started now, no need to say anything more. If you see what’s happening in the world today, countries large and small are confused about their great enemy – you know how we’re all talking here about it, how the violent oppressive powers are seeking 94 For a more detailed account of the play and its production, see Namdag, 1988, pp. 106-115. 95 This name derives from the Chinese Nǐ zài shuō shénme? (你在說什麼 What are you saying?) and is used as a derogatory term for a foolish person as well as for a Chinese person living in Mongolia. But, as the play proceeds, we realize that in Navaanjav’s comment to Danzan – ‘He’s not as stupid as he seems’ – lies a hint of the extent of Navaanjav’s sedition.

92 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

countries to colonize. But this is really not the case. They’re trying to destroy only the Russians who oppose the revolution. So if our little nation cannot distance itself from Russia, in the end we’ll perish along with Russia. This is a real revelation for our country. Soon, with the help of a powerful nation, we’ll revive the old Mongolia once again. And if you understand correctly, and if you come directly over to our side, how can we not offer you protection? Danzan: No – what are you saying? Is this some kind of dream? Navaanjav (laughing): You’re not dreaming. You’re too frightened of the government. I repeat, if you come over to our side, you’ll have nothing to fear. Danzan: It’s what you’re telling me that’s frightening me. Navaanjav: But why? Are you playing games with me? This is not an idea thought up by just a few people. Everyone wants it – from the senior and junior officials right down to the laypeople and the monks. Danzan: So there’ll be an uprising? Navaanjav: An uprising? Danzan: Like in ‘thirty-two. Navaanjav: Why should there be? There mustn’t be any dirty violence like that. As Mongols, we need to take care of each other! We all agree on what we want. There are people who don’t know what’s happening, but you should know that they don’t matter. Danzan sits silently. Navaanjav: My comrades and I will make sure that you’re not put in any danger. Do you agree? Danzan: I can’t support what you’re saying. Navaanjav: There is nothing for you to say. Just give me your answer by five o’clock tomorrow. Danzan: I can’t give you an answer, I’m lost among the sheep, I don’t even know whether I’m to sit or stand.96

Here Danzan’s human weakness, revealed already in his drinking and in the failure of his marriage, is revealed to be a potential threat to the stability of the state and of the revolution. But his discordant mind, his panic even, is deepened all the more by Navaanjav’s calm and reasoned tone. Namdag’s characters are all grey, as Banzragch’s objections had suggested, and Danzan especially shows a troubling weakness in his vacillating loyalty to the Party. In the end, Shushmaa the cook and Danzan’s paramour Tsetseg are both shown to be 96 Namdag, 1987, pp. 218-220.

Staging a Revolution

93

among Navaanjav’s counterrevolutionaries. Danzan is reunited with his wife, while Navaanjav slips quietly away before the authorities arrive to make their arrests. That Navaanjav’s fate remains unclear might also have been one of Banzragch’s committee’s original objections: not only is there no final justice, not only does the system fail to produce the expected result, but this lack of closure might have left the audience wondering whether the person sitting next to them in the theater might themselves be plotting against the Party. Writing later in his life about Süreg Chono, Namdag describes how in 1937 there was incessant discussion and rumor about Japanese spies and about the threat of anti-revolutionary forces within and outside Mongolia. His focus on producing plays that offered an exploration of the uncertainties and shadows shaping individuals and their behaviors and that provoked an audience to consider deeply their own lives and the lives of others came to dominate the work he produced during the 1940s and 1950s. Human complexity existed not only in the theater, of course, and difficulties like those that surrounded Süreg Chono’s arrival on the Ulaanbaatar stage in 1938, with absurdly contradictory signals coming from various departments of the Party, continued to be played out in other contexts. Acting, as Stanislavski himself had shown, brings the opportunity to grasp, through dialog and gesture, what is happening in a person’s mind and in their interactions with others, why they behave as they do, and how and why they forge relationships with the people around them. Arguably, it was on the stage that Mongolian literature had, by the time of the Great Repression, developed its most successful means of expression, and in Namdag it had found a writer who could present the ideals of revolutionary society through characters in whose psychology and emotional responses an audience could finally see themselves.

Bibliography Ayuush, Sh. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1973. Bold, B., and Ch. Bold. Soyol urlagiin altan üyeiinhen. Ulaanbaatar: Sodpress, 2011. Bradshaw, Martha, ed. Soviet Theaters 1917-1941. New York: Research Program on the USSR, 1954. Chuluunchimeg, L., ed. Mongol ardyn bogino duuny dagaltad tüüver. Ulaanbaatar: Monsudar, 2013. Clark, Katerina. 2018. ‘Boris Pilniak and Sergei Tretiakov as Soviet Envoys to China and Japan and Forgers of New, Post-Imperial Narratives (1924-1926)’. CrossCurrents: East Asian History and Culture Review (28): 27-47.

94 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Damdinsüren, Ts. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1956. —, H. Sampildendev and Ch. Ariyasüren. Mongolyn orchin üyeiin uran zohiolyn tüüh Vol. 1 (1921-1940). Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1985. Damdinsürüng, Če., ed. Monggol uran jokiyal-un degeji jagun bilig orusibai. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 1959. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Commissar of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of the Arts Under Lunacharsky, October 1917-1921. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. Forbath, Ladislaus. The New Mongolia. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936. Ganhuyag, N. Mongolyn tyeatrin nevterhii toli. Ulaanbaatar: Byembi San, 2007. Gerasimovich, Ludmila K. History of Modern Mongolian Literature 1921-1964. Bloomington, Mongolia Society, 1970. Hatch, John. The Formation of Working Class Cultural Institutions during NEP: The Workers’ Club Movement in Moscow, 1921-1923. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Center for Russian and East European Studies, 1990. Kaplonski, Christopher. The Lama Question: Violence, Sovereignty, and Exception in Early Socialist Mongolia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014. Ma Ho-T’ien. Chinese Agent in Mongolia. Translated by John DeFrancis. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1949. Mally, Lynne. Revolutionary Acts: Amateur Theater and the Soviet State, 1917-1938. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. Namdag, D. Tüüver zohiol. 3 Vols. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1987. —. Shine Mongolyn shine teatr. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1988. Newyear, Tristra. An outline of recent history: A translation of the Mongolian author Buyannemekhü’s first play. MA thesis, Indiana University, 2004. Oyuun, E. Mongolyn tyeatrin tüühen zamnal. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1989 Sampildendev, H. Ardin jüjig naadmin aman zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1988. Saruulbuyan, J. Gegeen Gerelt Hümüüsiin Jimeer. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2013. Sodnom, B. ‘“Hatan Dolgor, Harts Damdin” gedeg Duuri’. In Mongol Sudlal, 1966, Tomus V., Fasc. 15, pp. 81-86. Tsedev, D., and Wang Mandoha, eds. Sonombaljuur-un Buyannemekü, Vol. 1. Beijing: Ündesüten-ü Heblel-ün Qoriy-a, 2009. Zagdsüren, U. MAHN-aas urlag utga zohiolyn talaar gargasan togtool shiidverüüd (1921-1966). Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 1967.

3

Landscape Re-Envisioned Abstract One of the more complex developments in the post-revolutionary period was in the Mongolian people’s understanding of their traditional, intimate relationship with the landscape. Mongolian nomadic life has always been linked inextricably with the cycle of the seasons, with the weather, and with the topographical features, which function as both waymarks and as ancestral presence. Despite its impulse towards industrialization and urbanization, Mongolian socialism acknowledged such links, and writers drew on their own connection with their homeland (nutag) to enhance and promote the new revolutionary society through a literature that celebrated the interaction of humans, livestock and the steppe. A competition based upon the theme of the revolutionary response to ‘homeland’ (nutag) resulted in a greater interest in this dynamic, as shown in D. Natsagdorj’s 1933 poem ‘My Homeland’ (Minii Nutag). Keywords: steppe pastoralists, nomadic livestock herding, urbanization and industrialization, socialist lyricism

The idea that the natural world could or should be coopted and subjugated for the benefit of human beings is one that runs counter to the traditional outlook of Mongolia’s nomadic herders. Within the shamanic framework, the earth and the sky are seen as the mother and father of the world’s living creatures, and great pains are taken not to damage the ground, even in the erection of a ger.1 The landscape – the hills and the mountains, the rivers and the lakes – is seen as the dwelling place of local and ancestral spirits and as the very embodiment of Buddhist deities to whom ovoo, or stone cairns, are raised up as offerings. The land is animated by local gods, so that a spring or a lake, a knoll or a cliff, are protected by the sometimes fierce 1 See Süld-Erdene (2014, vol.1, pp. 209-230) for an exhaustive account of the practical and cultural aspects of how a ger is erected and disassembled.

Wickhamsmith, Simon, Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948). Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984752_ch03

96 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

spirits known as sadag and luu.2 Propitiatory prayers to these beings have been a constant element of Mongolia’s Buddhist and shamanic worship, and into the early twentieth century, as we saw in Chapter One, writers regularly composed poems of praise and supplication (magtaal and yörööl) to them. The interaction between humans and their environment remains strong today, and the tension that surrounds the lucrative mining industry, which has necessitated a rethinking of what it means to preserve the land and to honor the local guardians, has been felt throughout the country at all levels of society.3 We can moreover assume, I think, that such tensions were also felt when Mongolia started its push towards industrialization during the 1930s. In the years leading up to the revolution, the English explorer Douglas Carruthers, journeying among the Uriankhai in the northwest of Mongolia, pointed out the ubiquity of local spirits and how they were regarded: Most austere and religious principles forbade any conscientious Uriankhai from accompanying us on these visits to the mountain-tops. We even found it difficult to get answers to our questions regarding the existence or absence of mountain-ranges or snow-summits. Such weird localities were beyond the range of their imaginations. The genii of the storms and the elements lurked in those uncanny places where man had no need to go. Every summit of barren rock, which stood sentinel above the dark, sullen forest, was holy ground, the haunt of spirits, the abode of the gods. These spirits they alike venerate and avoid. Every hill-top throughout this part of Asia rejoices in the title of either ‘Bogdo’, i.e. holy; or ‘taiga’, i.e. the wild, the unknown, the incomprehensible; or ‘Khan’, i.e. King or chief. Every prominent feature is associated with some myth, every mountain is a monarch, every lake and river a deity. 4

Carruthers’ account appears romanticized, but while we should not forget that a few writers and intellectuals were at this time being educated outside Mongolia, the fact that even Choibalsan kept a Buddhist altar in his ger until 1929 indicates that spiritual and non-human forces continued to exercise a powerful influence over even the most powerful and ardent revolutionaries for some years following the revolution. 2 These are both Tibetan words: sadag (Tib. sa bdag) means ‘lord of the earth’, while luu (Tib. klu) refers to the nāga, the serpentine rulers and tutelary deities of bodies of water in Indic Buddhist mythology. 3 High (2017) offers an excellent contemporary treatment of this issue. 4 Carruthers, 1914, pp. 137-138

L andscape Re-Envisioned

97

Even before Stalin’s ‘great transformation of nature’ (velikoe preobrazovanie prirody), implemented during the second half of the 1940s, Soviet ideology had framed nature as a force to be tamed and transformed by the socialist state. Projects such as the infamous White Sea-Baltic Canal,5 constructed between 1931 and 1933, sought to combine social engineering (the Canal project functioned as a gulag for the ‘rehabilitation’ of prisoners) with the developments deemed necessary for the improved functioning of Soviet society. Even before this, the collectivization imposed upon Soviet agriculture during the late 1920s (discussed in Chapter Five in relation to Mongolia’s nomadic communities) was intended as much to bring socialist order to the perceived chaos of the natural world as it was to ameliorate the economic and social situation of livestock and their herders. Soviet literature continued to develop themes covered by pre-revolutionary works, engaging directly with nature as an external, often hostile force. The ideological dynamic of Stalin’s transformation developed out of Lenin’s understanding of nature as an exploitable commodity, which had in turn followed the thinking of Marx and Engels. In his study of the works of the Soviet writer Vsevolod Ivanov (1895-1968), Douglas Lind points out that Stalin’s approach was not too far away from that taken by the majority of Russians, and that (contrary perhaps to the idea of his policy on nature as extreme and despotic) this approach was a logical consequence of urbanization in pre-revolutionary society. Ivanov’s landscapes portray humans as morally frail subjects, enfeebled in body and spirit by the harsh conditions of reality coming from their relentless sovereign master, nature. Only by inverting the master-servant relationship, by coming to dominate and transform nature, do his characters think they can avoid the wretched fates nature, in its sublime indifference, has cast for them. Stalin thought the same. For him, nature was wasteful, inefficient, and hostile. His nation contained the vast, forbidding landscapes that formed the settings of Ivanov’s stories. To subdue those landscapes and transform them, even at the expense of desiccating lakes and diverting rivers, was to triumph over nature, not to destroy resources of intrinsic natural value.6

Given Mongolia’s almost entirely nomadic culture prior to 1921, it can be understood how bizarre and unthinkable these ideas and the imagery of 5 See Maxim, Averbakh and Finn, 1935. 6 Lind, 2009, p. 425.

98 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

domination and transformation would have been to its nomadic population. There was simply no intellectual or experiential foundation upon which such ideas could be developed, and it was only during the 1940s, with the almost wholesale redirection of the economy, labor and production towards supporting the Soviet war effort, that thoughts of factories and large-scale construction projects became either practically or emotionally feasible. The intimacy with, and regard for, nature that defines nomadic society – the knowledge of the land, the behavior of its wildlife, and the properties of the vegetation underfoot and the sky above – manifests in Mongolia’s oral poetry and stories. For nomads, it was through oral literature, in poems and stories, that such traditional knowledge was passed down. Indigenous collections such as the Üliger-ün Dalai (The Sea of Stories) and imported classics such as the Indic Pañcatantra contain stories in which animals are shown to behave as humans, in order to impart practical knowledge as much as to entertain. The üge (‘word’) tradition, which developed during the late nineteenth century,7 used humor to critique political and social behavior, and it is from these more sophisticated and knowing repartees that the stories and dialogs written immediately after the revolution developed. Beyond the livestock they herded, Mongolians’ keen and sympathetic observation of the natural world created a common language, a context in which the literary élite and the nomadic community (the latter being a sub-group of the former) could relate equally to the workings of the world in which they had been raised. All would have been aware, for instance, of the ways in which animals responded to sudden movements or to loud noises: for many people, the political events of the first half of the 1920s must have brought similar surprises – both positive and negative – and dramatic changes to their surroundings. S. Buyannemeh’s brief tale from 1926, The Decorated Pika (Jinst Ogdoi),8 might have been written to allay the fears of nervous readers, disturbed by the sights and sounds of the new world. Buyannemeh’s story is more a vignette, a brief comedic episode in which three pikas9 venture outside and find themselves engulfed by ‘the festival of the People’s Army’. Before leaving their holes, they discuss developments 7 See Chapter Five for a fuller treatment of this genre. 8 D.Tsedev and Wang, 2009, vol.2, pp. 119-121. Note that this story, like Gaihamshig Baidal (described in Chapter Six), was published in Ünen under the pen name Hada-yin Hüü (Son of the Rocks). 9 The specific taxonomy is uncertain. One of the pikas is described as üher ogdoi or Pallas’ pika. Another is urtin süült ogdoi or longtailed pika. The third is the jinst ogdoi after which the story is named: the implications of jinst (bearing buttons) seems to be a satirical indication of the buttons of rank of which the pika is so proud.

L andscape Re-Envisioned

99

in the world outside – ‘it looks as though the people’s power has grown a great deal’ says one of them, while another decides that this is precisely the time to show off his finery, rushing back into his hole to collect his hat. Buyannemeh’s tone is not harsh but rather affectionate and sympathetic, showing the folly of the pikas even as it emphasizes their smallness and insignificance. We can imagine that there were people, too, who felt drawn to attend revolutionary celebrations in their best clothes, more naively eager than vainglorious, but anxious also, like the decorated pika, about what was happening and what it might mean for them: ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry’, said the Pallas’s pika, and they took the decorated pika and the three of them looked gingerly out of the hole. Smoke bloomed all about like flowers, and there were innumerable people gathered happily and having all kinds of fun together. The three of them looked around. They left the hole and looked, and the long-tailed pika said, ‘This is the festival of the people’s army, isn’t it wonderful!’ The decorated pika said, ‘They all look extremely strong.’ He was really worried, ‘Is it really time for us to come out of the hole?’ The Pallas’s pika said, ‘Elder brother, don’t despair. Are we not all of us illustrious great gods? Today of all days, if we go out in our hats and our buttons of rank, they will naturally recognize our merit and pay us honor.’ ‘Yes, yes’, said the long-tailed pika, and he went back inside and brought out his hat decorated with buttons, and he put it on and as soon as the three of them were out of the hole, they headed towards the festival. Many people looked at them and laughed and applauded them and cheered, and, as the two pikas dragged the decorated pika with them, someone said of this strange spectacle, ‘Fix them to the cat cart, fix them to the cat cart!’ and the three pikas were thrown into confusion and they rushed about, leaving behind them their hats and coats, and everyone laughed.

Such a cartoonish ending is clearly meant to amuse, and Buyannemeh’s willingness to leave the pikas’ fate to the imagination also leaves his readers to judge for themselves the attitude of the pikas. But we should also be aware that the revolutionary government had, from the very first, been targeting the arrogance and corruption of the nobles and the monks – ‘the black and yellow feudals’. The folly of the pikas, and their comeuppance could have been intended as gentle warnings to those intent on using the revolution for their own self-aggrandizement. If indeed this was a gentle warning against the pride and vanity of the nobles, it confirms the government’s more accommodating attitude at this time

100 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

towards those perceived as inherently – if not always in reality – hostile to the revolution. The story was written during the ‘pan-Buddhist’ period, which spanned the years from 1924 until 1928, when the government promoted the idea of a ‘pure’ Buddhism free from religiosity and corruption but focused on social equality and well-being. At this time, before the radicalization pushed forward from 1928 by the Seventh Party Congress, revolutionary engagement was occasionally encouraged not only by monastics but also by some nobles, leading some to rethink their previous positions even as others merely pretended to do so in order to infiltrate the Party for their own benefit. Whereas the conclusion of Buyannemeh’s story is open-ended, with the pikas rushing around in confusion, there is a more revolutionary ending to D. Chimid’s 1927 story Angir Shuvuu (The Shelducks).10 This story again features the anthropomorphism derived from the üge genre,11 which is relatively common in early revolutionary work.12 The story exploits the fact that, in addition to anggir shuvuu, Mongolians also refer to the ruddy shelduck, or brahminy duck,13 as lam shuvuu, or ‘monk bird’. In his introduction, Chimid explains the reason behind this name and, key to the story he will tell, mentions a sinister characteristic of the bird: Following the cycle of the seasons, many flocks of shelducks bring their young to the streams and rivers and pools and lakes among the Hangai ridges for a cool breath amid such heat, enjoying themselves and singing out, loudly and elegantly, kang huwang. The people never treat them badly, they refer to them as ‘monk birds’. They have an elegant outer hue, a whitish yellow, and when they look at anyone, they really do seem like noble monks. As soon as it turns cold, a little before winter, they all settle themselves in warm spots, and in this way the shelducks live their lives in the demigods’ ocean of happiness without being encroached upon. Here is a short poem which relates the constant yearnings of the heart: In the clear wind, above all animals, amid the lonely skies, 10 Demči, 1927. Note that Chimid wrote this story under a pen name, reversing the syllables of his name. 11 See the description of this genre in Chapter 4. 12 See the discussion in Chapter Five of the stories by both writers that appear in Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan (1929). 13 Tadorna ferruginea.

L andscape Re-Envisioned

101

along the path of peaceful happiness, their eternal destiny is an easygoing joy. For many generations they have enjoyed all they have found. Born without guile, They reside at the peak, and for their artistic singing, they are worshipped. Attracted as well by their fine outer colors, the earth rumbles with their calling song – with just a single word, people everywhere admire them. The shelducks in the north follow what pleases them, they relentlessly move in and entrap those whom they encounter with the melody of their voices, and so eat up their food.14

The contrast between the popular depiction of these birds as elegant and with a beautiful song and their aggressive behavior towards smaller and less powerful birds15 became expediently transferred, in the political situation of the time, to the community of monks. Furthermore, while it is unclear whether the poem is Chimid’s own or part of the oral literature,16 the fact that he offers a poem as contextual proof for his story provides it with cultural capital, with the implied message about monks providing corresponding political capital. The unfolding of the story appears to represent not only the popular view of monks but more importantly the specific intention of the Party regarding monks’ rehabilitation and assimilation into revolutionary society. As I will show in Chapter Six, the intention prior to the leftward turn of 1928 was 14 Demči, 1927, pp. 30-31. 15 For an ornithological account of this behavior, see Heinroth, 1956, pp. 61-62. 16 It would seem to be in character for Chimid to have ‘quoted’ his own poem here. He was one of the more innovative writers of the time and, writing under the pen name ‘Ts.’, he wrote a story that purported to be excerpts from a diary he had ‘discovered’. This was published in Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan (1929) and is discussed in Chapter Five.

102 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

not to destroy Buddhism per se but either to marginalize or secularize it, bringing it into line with socialist ideology. The shelducks in Chimid’s narrative seek to control the other birds, physically attacking them, destroying their nests and stealing their food until, like the revolutionaries, the smaller birds rise up against their oppressors. The speech of the leader of these smaller birds, Gerel Ziluur (Bright Feathers), reveals a clear initial policy of accommodation for those who accept the new situation but a brutal response towards those who don’t: ‘Hey there, Comrades! If we consider the shelducks who, honored with the name of the noble monks, are a hindrance by being so envious and our seniors by dint of their association with the pure sangha, they may possess beautiful words and skilful voices. While they are revered and trusted by many creatures, yet we little birds especially have slipped into showing them great respect and treating them accordingly in what we say. We know now that their large form and fine colors are like paint that can be blown away on the wind, their skilful words are like dirt that can be washed away in water, and so it is fitting that we should forbid such shows of respect towards the shelducks and cleanse the indirect errors of those who follow after these dissolute birds. Now, through the great custom of showing compassion to all creatures, we will temporarily defer the prosecution of this matter, and we encourage the shelducks to understand that there will be a severe and suitable punishment for them, the justice of winged creatures, if they continue to beat our ears and poke our eyes. We will inform them that, from now on, they may choose – or not – to disregard their previous ways, by which they dirtied the respect of so many, and continually nourished themselves through destruction and through theft of others’ property […] .If the shelducks exhibit the same kind of behavior as before, dominating and controlling everyone and taking for their food the seeds and cereals of poor ones such as ourselves, then no matter what happens, may we not let it pass, we will use force to pacify the enemy, subjugate them and eliminate them!’17

The message here is that the shelducks/monks are bullies who use their social status, unthinkingly granted them by those whom they would oppress – the shelducks’ ‘voices’ are the monks’ prayers and invocations, the shelducks’ beautiful plumage the monks’ saffron and burgundy robes – to 17 Demči, 1927, pp. 34-35.

L andscape Re-Envisioned

103

retain their place, as Chimid’s poem has it, ‘at the peak’ of society. And while the shelducks might be bullies, Gerel Ziluur’s exhortation to the little birds to treat them with compassion and forgiveness (örösiyen nigüleskü) offers an example to the reader of how standard Buddhist social teaching, the kind of ‘pure’ Buddhism the Party wanted to promote, was seen to have potential for the development of a revolutionary attitude among those who were at odds with the worldview guiding the revolution. This policy allowed the revolutionaries, and the smaller birds, to take the moral high ground, only resorting to a morally justifiable version of the force they so disliked in their oppressors should the latter fail to accept the new order. While the explicit targets of Chimid’s piece were the monks, the nobles also used similar tactics to exercise power. Given that both groups had for centuries enjoyed a monopoly on local political and religious control, we can imagine the shock and, in some cases, genuine fear and confusion felt by some in the immediate aftermath of the revolution as the Party extended its reach beyond Ulaanbaatar. When he overhears Gerel Ziluur’s speech, one of the shelducks, feeling such confusion and alarm, hurries to praise the little birds’ resolve – ‘Now I understand, I know that yours are good and pure thoughts, and so may the fame of you, my younger brothers and sisters, with such wisdom and excellent merit, always be praised!’18 – and agrees to act as a mediator between the shelducks and the little birds. The story ends with a slightly tongue-in-cheek, yet realistic, evaluation of how the shelducks/monastics end up adapting to the new state of affairs: After that, the shelducks behaved with civility, and not as they had done previously, and their previous behavior grew rare. In general, when they saw a large number of the little birds, they straightaway hid in fear, and whenever they saw even a few of the small birds, they puffed up only very slightly. What’s more, it is said that those who supported the Party of the small birds increased.19

History did not treat the monks and nobles with quite as much compassion as did these little birds, but there were individuals who, for whatever reason, did indeed join the Party and actively or tacitly offered their support, even though their change of heart might have been superficial or for show. Both ‘The Decorated Pika’ and ‘The Shelducks’ speak to the Party’s initial 18 Demči, 1927, p. 36 19 Ibid., pp. 36-37.

104 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

acceptance and assimilation of many who were ostensibly unsympathetic to, and frequently antagonistic towards, its ideology. Whether the compassionate tone of these two stories, laced with gentle mockery, is historically accurate or in fact hides a crueler reality is unclear. But by portraying these social problems as part of the lives of non-human protagonists immediately familiar to most Mongolians yet sufficiently distinct from them to be understood as metaphors, Chimid was able to create a manageable buffer between the drama and the experience of its audience: realism is implicit rather than explicit, and the social and political message is softened. The listeners – for, given the low literacy rate, the audience for such stories would generally have been listening to someone reading them aloud – would have taken note in much the same way as they would of any such lesson presented in a newspaper or a journal, not as a special and discrete ‘piece’ of literature but as one among a collection of such pieces, as one of a set of tales told in company. The creation of these rural fables came to a gradual halt in 1928, when the Seventh Party Congress incorporated into its move against the Rightists a rejection of the kind of unrealistic stories in which birds stage political rallies and pikas dress in hats and coats.20 One account even records a directive that advised writers to ‘put a stop to the irregular publishing of untrue fictions […] and to the errors which confuse the heads of the masses, and always to aim at safeguarding the poor and middle classes’.21 Attitudes and directives of this kind brought a rupturing of tradition, encouraging audiences even outside Ulaanbaatar to develop a relationship, however uneasy, with the modern world being introduced from the Soviet Union. These refocused the gaze of readers and listeners away from the enchanted constancy of tradition and of the old, increasingly discredited values and towards the revolutionary and fact-based activity of the Party. And yet it was the landscape, the mountains and the waters among which the people herded their livestock and moved through the seasons and in which the models for these anthropomorphized mammals and birds lived out their lives, which remained central to the experience of the majority of Mongolians. It was this landscape, as a tangible and liveable place, that became a site for journeys both revolutionary and sentimental. 20 I say these stories came to a ‘gradual’ halt because Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan (1929) contains stories by Buyannemeh describing conversations between motor vehicles, and an account by Navaannamjil of a discussion between a mouse and a ground squirrel. However, this seems to have been the last time that such ‘unreal’ fictions were approved for publication, and within a decade this kind of imaginative fiction had given way to the beginnings of Soviet-inspired socialist realism (see Chapter Nine). 21 Jamsranjav, 1969, p. 134.

L andscape Re-Envisioned

105

Unlike its counterpart in the Soviet Union, the MPRP did not, even during the disastrous period of collectivization, attempt to destroy ‘any sense of local memory or homeland [and replace it with] feelings for the communal good’, in the words of Paul Josephson.22 The sense of place is so central to the life of Mongolia’s nomads, with generations of the same family moving season after season across the same area, and with an individual’s relationship with their homeland (nutag) being linked intimately and ancestrally to their relationship with family, that to have forcibly detached people from their homeland would most likely in practice have proved unworkable.23 Assistance from the Soviet Union and, with the ascent of Stalin at the end of the 1920s, direct economic and social pressure had no more than a superficial effect on Mongolia’s nomadic culture. The kind of changes in the Soviet Union described by Josephson, with ‘workers erect[ing] massive chemical combines, metal smelters and oil refineries […] paying little attention to the pollution they produced’,24 did not happen in Mongolia until much later. The non-existence of a working infrastructure was one reason, but it was the singular experience of nomadic society that was the primary factor in preserving the land and the people’s traditional relationship with it. While collectivization and industrial transformation might have been desirable among a more urban, intellectual demographic, the fact that Mongolia’s population before the revolution had been entirely nomadic, with the exception of traders and monastics, meant that even those at the highest levels of political power would have had a personal and emotional interest in retaining what was beneficial in the traditional lifestyle. The pervasive quality of nomadic culture remained a powerful influence as the Party moved towards the left and was a key theme in the anthology Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan, published in 1929 under the aegis of the newly formed Revolutionary Writers’ Group.25 In his long essay ‘On the Composition of Literary Works’, which functioned as an introduction to this volume, Buyannemeh used his own poems to encourage his fellow writers to describe ‘human existence and labor, and to show the lives lived with the livestock’.26 Buyannemeh’s essay was intended as an overview of literary forms and as 22 Josephson et al., 2013, p. 106. 23 This situation, however, was to change with increasing economic investment, and so increasing sociopolitical influence, from the Soviet Union. This eventually brought to Mongolia the establishment of the large mining-based towns such as Darhan (1961) and Erdenet (1974) and encouraged (and enforced) the resettlement of skilled and unskilled workers and their families. 24 Josephson et al., 2013, p. 71. 25 See the discussion of this text in Chapter 5. 26 Galbayar, 2013, p. 22.

106 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

a guide to effective revolutionary writing, and his focus on descriptions of nature and the lives of nomadic herders emphasizes the continued appeal of these subjects both to writers and to their potential audience. Yet the anthology’s tone was more political than lyrical. While previous work – such as the two short stories described earlier – might merely have implied political content, the content now tended to be more explicitly political. L. Tsendsüren’s evocative Als morin deer (Far Away On Horseback) begins in an apparently traditional way but moves gradually to include new developments. The north was covered with the work of grain meadows, with all the richness of the mountains and waters, while around Har Us there was a large number of gazelles. They were herding livestock to the south, and in Hovd especially, there were the old Manchu buildings which the bandit Dambii had destroyed during the final rebellion. What the destruction had brought had been consumed in the flames of a fire. Nowadays the appearance of the historical brick buildings in front of the ruined town and the broad highway is of lines of parks, their forms wonderful and austere. Beside the roads are gullies of water. The flowing water is like a deep river. In the lake which the waters have formed, a people’s auditorium has been built. The auditorium is surrounded by the lake. There are boats in the lake. The people in the boats are endlessly happy as they pull on their oars. Away from the lake, there is thickly wooded parkland. The locals use saltwort and caragana as fuel. There are many different ethnicities here. Education is separate from the monasteries and the temples. Commerce is carried out specifically for the purpose of business.27

The broad panorama of this text works not only as realism but also as metaphor. The horse of the title might equally be a metaphor, for there is no further mention of the horse nor of any rider. But so long and extensive a journey would necessarily have been made on horseback, for motor vehicles were for the privileged few, and this piece was written to engage a wide readership. The historical movement of the journey on which Tsendsüren takes his reader conjures up an unchanging landscape that is in fact in a state of flux. Even as Mongolia was beginning, as he suggests here, to introduce a Westernized education system quite distinct from that traditionally offered within Buddhist monasteries and to conduct business according to the new economy, it remained a land of nomadic herders. The land is seen as 27 Ibid., p. 79.

L andscape Re-Envisioned

107

a place to be appreciated – for instance, in the sensuous description of the rain and the earth in the opening section – but its development is also seen as simultaneously thrilling and disquieting. Gerard Friters, writing two decades later, notes that the harvesting of hay – Tsendsüren writes of the harvesting of saltwort and caragana – had been introduced by the Soviets, and ‘the example thus set […] copied with some success’.28 Tsendsüren’s final sentence, a heartfelt request that the reader become educated, especially in technical subjects, lays out the scientific and industrial developments that Mongolia had alreadybegun to explore in 1929. This extends to the reader an invitation to rethink their relationship with the landscape and with what might be possible for Mongolia eventually to achieve. There is no seeking to control or subjugate nature here, rather a feeling that the natural world has changed over time and that the changes wrought by human beings are both benign and beneficial. Tsendsüren’s is the last piece of prose in the anthology. If we assume that there was a clear editorial trajectory – guided from within by Party loyalists such as Buyannemeh, Chimid and Ö. Badrah29 – it is informative to speculate on the decision behind this placement. The most important practical decisions of the 1928 Party Congress30 concerned education and the collectivization of livestock, policies that were singled out by Tsendsüren. As I will show in Chapter Five, issues such as these following on from the Congress were raised throughout the anthology, but Tsendsüren’s conclusion stressing the potential among his readers for technical and scientific advance would have been seen as a stirring exhortation as well as a way to stress the work the Party expected to be undertaken during the first Five Year Plan. Ya. Tsevel’s Byatshan Nairuulga (A Brief Sketch)31 also develops ideas of education but as an outgrowing of an individual’s place within the natural world. Tsevel’s approach is to meld together images of nature and to draw from the reader the understanding that their place within this process is valuable and must not be wasted. He uses the language familiar to his audience from Buddhist texts – just as one season leads to the next, so the 28 Friters, 1949, p. 12. 29 Ö. Badrah (1895-1941) served as secretary to the MPRP between 1928 and 1932 and, although there is no record of his having written any literary work, was a founder member of the Revolutionary Writers’ Group. In 1932, he was expelled from the Central Committee for his part in the Left Deviation but then spent two years (1932-1934) as Minister for Health. In 1937, he was arrested on suspicion of counterrevolution and eventually sent for trial to Moscow, where he was executed on 30 July 1941. 30 Short History of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party 1917-1940, 1963-1964, pp. 78-81. 31 Galbayar, 2013, pp. 55-56.

108 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

passage of a human life leads from birth through aging to death – to urge them to benefit themselves through education. The imagery reflecting the cycles of the natural world appeals not only to the concrete lived experience of nomadic culture but also to its metaphysics. The symbolic panorama of Tsevel’s opening lines offer more than an evocation: they speak directly to readers who themselves might that morning have seen just such an image as he describes. In this way, within the context of this essay, as within the context of the anthology, as an instrument of the cultural revolution that had been set in motion by the Party, Tsevel is at once speaking to the timeless past of tradition and to the current potential of the new society, which he mentions at the close of the piece: There is a haze of clouds around the high mountain peaks. We rise in the morning and, when we look out, a sleety rain is falling and ice is forming on the banks of the broad lake. There’s no way we can set off the following day to look for our dung-strewn winter encampment, so we take shelter in the lap of the high mountain. We clear the trees in the north until they are but stumps and search out land to pasture the horses, mindlessly they chew at the grass close by and, as they stand peaceful and unaffected by the fearful harsh winds, ruling their patch of earth, all the while the grey season of inconstant time is moving in […].32

The language with which Tsevel describes the nomadic experience echoes the language of the poetic exemplars given by Buyannemeh in ‘On the Composition of Literary Works’: it is both literary and direct and reflects the real experience of being a livestock herder. But there is no indication in Tsevel’s text that such a life is either old-fashioned or politically undesirable nor that it should be exchanged for a more ‘modern’ or ‘socialist’ life. The horses and the sleet and the mountain peaks work together to illustrate the context in which the majority of Mongolians live; they act as a medium for the Party’s new ideas, a familiar and reassuring background against which these new ideas can be received. By the end of the text, Tsevel has moved from his own local narrative to a broader and more generalized one: But because it is a shame and a loss to waste the freedoms of the turning world, and by wandering in darkness, ignorant of culture, to consign this single life to emptiness, it is important to become knowledgeable and to be educated, and so physically and intellectually to assist in the great 32 Ibid., p. 55.

L andscape Re-Envisioned

109

work of consolidating the abilities of the nation and strengthening the State. In the end let us unite on the path of understanding and resolve to use the weapons to develop Communism.33

Unlike Tsendsüren’s piece, Tsevel’s draws a lyrical description of the familiar landscape to its conclusion in direct service of Communism (ev hamt). The trajectory of focus – passing sequentially from the changing seasons to the stages of human life to the importance of working together for political ends – is a dynamic precursor of the rhetoric used in future texts. Writers employed the imagery of animals and natural forces to direct and encourage their readers, drawing on a common cultural knowledge and on social teaching derived primarily from Buddhism but increasingly influenced by Marxism-Leninism. The essential quality of this common knowledge was that it was fundamental to the lives of writers and readers alike: for this reason perhaps (even to those who, like Buyannemeh, were motivated by the educational value of literature), its impact went largely unnoticed even as its effects became manifest. But in order to bring together the metaphysical and educational qualities of such writing with the practical task of unifying the readership for revolutionary work, it was necessary for the disparate nomadic populations to recognize their shared Mongol landscape as much as their shared Mongol heritage. Given Mongolia’s low population density,34 radio was a particularly effective way to bring people together. The first broadcast was made on 1 September 1934, and writers were soon regularly reading their work on air to a national audience. The following March, the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Literature group35 organized a literary competition whose theme was ‘Revolution in the natural world, and the changes of human life’. N. Navan-Yünden later recalled that many writers, including Buyannameh, Natsagdorj, Yadamsüren and himself, took part in this competition. According to Navan-Yünden, Buyannemeh was charged with compèring radio poetry programs. On one occasion, we who had been singled out through the competition read our poems on the radio. I clearly remember that the elder Natsagdorj 33 Galbayar, 2013, p. 56. 34 Mongolia’s population density was 0.48/km 2, according to the census which took place on 1 June 1935. (Development of the National Economy and Culture 1960, p. 8.) 35 Mongolyn Ardin Revolutionist Literaturist (MARL), formerly the Revolutionary Writers’ Group (or MARZ; see Chapter 5), which it had replaced on 15 January 1931. See Tsedev, 2016, (vol. 2), pp. 413-424 for documentation of some of the meetings of MARZ and MARL.

110 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

received first prize for his poem ‘The Four Seasons’. This is now a very famous poem. Second prize went to a poem by the younger Natsagdorj.36 My poem came third. After that broadcast, we received requests from many listeners for more.37

While Navan-Yünden’s account illustrates how popular, even at the beginning, broadcast recitations of poetry were, it also hints at the importance of this competition in shaping revolutionary consciousness as part of Mongolia’s traditional worldview. The poetic voice extolling the beauty of the landscape was now being heard on the radio; it had, as we have seen, already been featured f ive years earlier in Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan. The prose pieces in that anthology by Tsendsüren and Tsevel had been complemented by a short poem by B. Rinchen, ‘My Homeland’ (Minii Nutag), which displays no political message but simply presents the beauty of Mongolia: With lovely deep blue sky, with lovely wooded mountain ranges, with lovely clear air, with lovely pure waters, in the rays of the rising golden sun, in the rays of the glistening apple moon, my lovely and eternal homeland, the lovely land of Mongolia. With lovely thick grasses, with lovely colorful flowers, with lovely rocky mountains, with lovely eagles, tasting the lovely fresh water, smelling the scent of curds, 36 Baga Natsagdorj (the younger Natsagdorj) was T. Natsagdorj (1910-1968). The description of D. Natsagdorj as ih Natsagdorj is ambiguous and could refer either to his being the elder of the two or to the elevated cultural status he was later granted. 37 J. Saruulbuyan ‘Radio uran saihny nevtrüülelt oroltson mini’ in Saruulbuyan, 2013, pp. 155-158. Navan-Yünden’s recollection might not be entirely accurate, and an alternative account (http:// www.Mongolynternet.com/famous/TumerNatsagdorj.htm [accessed 29 August 2017]) claims that the competition was organized by the Party Committee on Art, chaired by Yadamsüren, and based around the specific theme of ‘the four seasons’ (dörvön tsag). According to this account, 27 poets entered their work. Buyannemeh’s poem ‘Time and Living’ (Tsag üye ba amidralgaa) shared first position with D. Natsagdorj; T. Natsagdorj’s ‘The Cycle of Four Seasons’ (Ergeh dörvön uliral) was second; see Ardin Üdesnii Erh 1935, no. 26, p. 44.

L andscape Re-Envisioned

111

my lovely and eternal homeland, the lovely land of Mongolia.38

This poem, a sensuous series of noun-phrases, with the word ‘lovely’ (saihan) repeated on almost every line, is echoed in D. Natsagdorj’s poem of the same name, written in 1933, which has since become arguably Mongolia’s best-known poem.39 Natsagdorj’s poem, far longer at 12 verses, also has a refrain (‘this is the homeland where I was born,/the lovely land of Mongolia’ [Ene bol minii törsön nutag/Mongolyn saihan oron]) which echoes Rinchen’s ‘my lovely and eternal homeland, / the lovely land of Mongolia’ (Mönh saihan nutag mini/Mongolyn saihan oron). It is unclear whether Natsagdorj was influenced directly by Rinchen’s poem, although there are structural and semantic indications that suggest this might have been the case. The initial publication of Natsagdorj’s ‘My Homeland’ in the wallnewspaper of the Committee on Science (Shinjleh uhaan hüreelen) gave the poem wide exposure and deepened its potential impact. Unlike Rinchen’s broad-brush approach, which neither specifies to which part of Mongolia’s highly varied geography he is referring nor suggests to the reader how his poem should be understood, Natsagdorj uses geography and landscape to define his focus. His verses move from one region, or from one topographical feature, to another, with the passage of time – from the Hünnü to the modern era – as an overarching theme: The high, lovely ridges of Hentii, the Hangai and Soyan, the forested mountains which ornament the north, the broad deserts of Menen, Sharga and Nomin, the sandy oceans which head out to the south – this is the homeland where I was born, the lovely land of Mongolia. […] The lovely rivers of Orhon, Selenge and Höhüi, the many mountain passes with their rich mines, the abandoned towns, those ancient monuments, the paved tracks leading into the distance – 38 Galbayar, 2013, p. 54. 39 Natsagdorj, 1961, pp. 115-117.

112 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

this is the homeland where I was born, the lovely land of Mongolia. […] With its lovely pastureland, where fine grasses grow, with serene and lovely homelands interlaced, with homelands of travel through the seasons, with earth and soil of five types of grain – this is the homeland where I was born, the lovely land of Mongolia. […] The rich lands between the Altai and the Hyangan, the homeland of eternal destiny where my parents lived, the land made peaceful in the rays of the golden sun, the earth which shines always in the light of the silver moon – this is the homeland where I was born, the lovely land of Mongolia. […] The homeland of my people, where I was raised, when greedy enemies come, will swiftly kick them out. Our revolutionary people will rise up in this predestined land, and build profound merit in the new world to come! This is the homeland where I was born, the lovely land of Mongolia.

Any similarity with Rinchen’s poem is transformed by the scale of Natsagdorj’s achievement. Natsagdorj had composed a piece at once both personal and public, with the deep affection for the landscape’s natural features transferred in its final verse to the feeling that Mongolia is ‘predestined’ to create a ‘new world’ through socialism. But the refrain constantly returns the reader not to the changing world of politics but to the constancy of homeland, to its physical beauty and, by implication, to the deep emotional ties that Mongolians have with the land. Even today, ‘My Homeland’ is a poem that children learn in school. In November 1976, at the height of the Cold War, in the stifling atmosphere of Yu. Tsedenbal’s premiership, the

L andscape Re-Envisioned

113

Party’s culture newspaper Uran Zohiol, Urlag, published a special edition marking the seventieth anniversary of Natsagdorj’s birth. In it, the Deputy Chair of the Party’s Committee on Mongolian Literature D. Navaansüren wrote that ‘My Homeland’ ‘does not so much describe Mongolia’s nature, rather this wonderful work is a national poem which helps the people’s lives, their customs, their culture, their previous history, their current development, and their future grow before their eyes and lodge in their minds’. 40 By this time, 20 years after Natsagdorj had been declared ‘the father of modern Mongolian literature’ and so had been elevated to the level of ‘great writer’ (ih zohiolch), the moniker used by Navaansüren and which remains in use today showed Natsagdorj as untainted by politics and occupying a place in Mongolian culture unchallenged even by the likes of Buyannemeh or Yadamsüren. The trajectory from Rinchen’s poem to Natsagdorj’s traces an important undercurrent in Mongolian literature during the leftward swing between 1928 and 1932 and in the years preceding the Great Repression. As the Party attempted to reach even the most remote herders and, through educational projects and the process of collectivization, to have them engage voluntarily with the revolution, so the literature too required a deeper engagement. While the competition mentioned by Navaan-Yünden encouraged writers to work with the natural world as their theme, the significance of the works produced lay in their ability to reach across Mongolian society and, in this case, through the power of radio, to reach those who otherwise would not have encountered modern poetry. For this, of course, was not the product of pre-revolutionary society but of a new world in which everyone was expected to participate and whose culture promoted industry and labor, free from the oppression of religion and class. In this way, as we see from the final verse of Natsagdorj’s poem, a revolutionary society was to be built by the people in their homeland, ‘the lovely land of Mongolia’. The revolutionary connection between the people and the Party, mediated by the natural world, became an increasingly powerful topos, molding society by means of culture and, specifically, by means of the literature that was written and read and now gradually more widely broadcast. Whether the official theme of the competition organized by the Party’s Committee on Culture was ‘Revolution and the natural world, and the changes of human life’ or ‘The Four Seasons’, either option offered considerable leeway for exploring what was ancient and unchanging in the 40 Navaansüren, 1976, p. 2.

114 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Mongolian landscape – the kind of ideas Natsagdorj had been developing in ‘My Homeland’ – and what was revolutionary in society and politics. However, neither Natsagdorj’s ‘The Four Seasons’ nor Buyannemeh’s ‘Time and Living’ – nor indeed Navaan-Yünden’s ‘Human Life in Four Seasons’ (Dörvön tsag hünii amidral), 41 which took third place – contains overtly political language, which suggests that the competition was concerned with the natural world as a physical and lived reality. Moreover, the political situation at the time of the competition was also conducive to a more contemplative, observational poetry rather than to socialist rhetoric. Following a series of civil uprisings in 1932 led largely by monks, the Party had sought to rein in its more radical leftist elements, and by 1934, not only had monastic vocations risen but Mongolia had entered a period of relative political calm. One likely explanation as to why the focus of this important national poetry competition might have been the turning of the seasons was the need to restore to readers and writers alike a sense of order and calm and to return to the timeless nature of the changing land, a theme that had yet to be politicized. No matter how they may have interpreted the intention of the Party’s Committee on Culture, individual poets wrote with their own sensibilities and from their own observations of the world. The title chosen by NavaanYünden – ‘Human Life in Four Seasons’ – allows us to read his poem as a simple meditation on how changes in life mirror the turning of the seasons. Where birds chirped sweetly among the mayflowers, where herders with their clear voices tended the kids and lambs – my beloved green meadows. Where the cuckoo sang in the deep green trees, where the livestock grew fat amid the mirages on the steppe – my gentle warm breeze, in the burgeoning of youth. The grass turns yellow and birds form southward lines. The lowing cattle remind us of our winter quarters. Silver hairs spread out across our aging uncles, the mountains. Wolf and fox weave across the velvet white snow, and camels in caravans spread out through the frosty air. Snowdrops cover the fresh graves. 41 Navaan-Yünden, 1976, p. 18.

L andscape Re-Envisioned

115

It is not hard to miss the moment at which the time frame changes from the past, in the first two verses, to the present, in the second two verses. Navaan-Yünden was only 23 in 1931 when this was written, so it might not be wise to interpret this in autobiographical terms. Is it possible that, at the height of the leftward turn and just before the monastic uprisings, he was suggesting that the Party – and so Mongolia as a whole – was moving into a period of decline, reflecting the transition from autumn to winter? The change in tense, after all, is deliberate and unequivocal. Yet why would Navaan-Yünden have intentionally entered this poem for this competition in 1934, after the ‘leftist deviation’ had been reversed, its leaders removed, and a new social and political approach been introduced? From his point of view, perhaps the country, while apparently enjoying a relaxation of political control, was in reality not much changed. The entries by Natsagdorj and Buyannemeh are rather longer than NavaanYünden’s, with each season covered, respectively, by four quatrains and by 12 enjambed lines. Buyannemeh’s vision of autumn (‘Autumn Leaves’ [Namryn navch]) hints also at unhappiness, with an image of a young man in despair, thinking about how little he has done with his life and, by implication, about his now declining years. No matter when, the autumn will inevitably come. Leaves and flowers will abandon me, and follow after the wind. A young man leans against a tree, and listens to the stag’s bellowing, he is in distress, thinking about his own story. The sun weakens, flowers close up, and once the earth’s seed ripens, even the little vole gathers in wheat and rice. The herds have grown fat on summer’s goodness, their powerful hearts are calm and happy, so why is he suffering? In his good times, when he was young and strong, he didn’t do the work of herding livestock and sowing grain,

116 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

so when the leaves turn yellow and life ceases, how can he comfortably play chess in his peaceful home?

Having seen in Navaan-Yünden’s poem a concealed political message as autumn deepens towards winter, it is tempting to do the same with Buyannemeh’s. But in 1934, Buyannemeh was still a powerful and influential figure and was Chair of the Mongol Ardin Revolutsionist Literaturist, a post he would hold until October 1936. There is no evidence that his private opinions about either the Party or the direction in which it was taking the country were particularly at odds with his public role. 42 Yet the young man’s predilection for chess suggests a Soviet connection, and although he is able to return to a comfortable home, the lost opportunities of his youth haunt him still. Such speculation about Buyannemeh’s intention in this cycle of poems cannot ignore the color and imagery of his verse. The entire sequence, of which this section on autumn is representative, describes the birds and the trees, the sun and the forests, the mountains and the earth. The young man, moved to despair by autumn, is the cycle’s only human character, 43 the poetry pivoting around his desolation. But it is the continuity and constancy of nature that controls the cycle. The parallel imagery of the human and the natural worlds means that, in bringing nature again to the forefront, Buyannemeh can express the apparent insignificance of an individual human life against the repeating cycle of nature. This is the overarching theme of the ‘four seasons’ topos, and it is the role of those token humans who populate Natsagdorj’s poem – the herder listening in spring to the wild geese, for instance, or the young people whose hearts feel delight ‘when a rain of flowers washes the face of the world’ in summer – to inhabit the landscape in the place of the reader, observing the changes in the landscape, the movement of birds, and the shifting colors. This reinforces these images, and memories of them, in the reader’s mind, strengthening the continuity of nature’s constantly shifting presence even 42 See, however, Chapter 8 for an account of his political views during the 1930s and his trial in September 1937, where he expresses unease about Stalin’s leadership and the relationship between the Soviet Union and Mongolia. 43 That is, with the exception of the young children who are mentioned in passing in the spring and winter poems. The young man in the autumn section is, in contrast, given a clear character and role in the cycle overall.

L andscape Re-Envisioned

117

amid the vacillations of political and social life. Placed next to Buyannemeh’s autumn, Natsagdorj’s treatment has an air of greater space and calm: The yellow sun of autumn touches me, touches you. In the swaying swaying season, we too are swaying. The male elk bellows, pleasuring the hills and waters, and the lowing oxen amuse the herders. Bare white clouds gather in the lovely sky, and young people go off to learn of distant places. A clear river flows gently, gently in utter silence, and the moon upon it smiles, quietly telling a story of love. When the morning hoarfrost shines white as with pearls, the horses tied up outside quiver and shake. The man rises early, goes off to hunt the fox and wolf, his wife and children distill the milk, and wait for him. A soft and gentle wind rustles the trees and grasses, and the hearts of young and old beat and beat. When leaves of yellowed trees fall in ones and twos, there are sad hearts everywhere.

The short and constricted lines of Buyannameh’s verse seem to contradict Mongolia’s breadth and openness. Natsagdorj’s longer lines produce a different visual effect and, while Buyannemeh’s are split at the caesura where Natsagdorj’s are not, they reflect a different understanding of, and approach to, the changing aspect of nature. By this time, Natsagdorj was growing increasingly disillusioned with the political direction taken by the Party. By 1935, when his wife and young daughter returned to St. Petersburg, perhaps having been deported, he had already begun the descent into alcohol which culminated in his death in July 1937. Yet the success of this poem in the Committee on Art’s competition is evidence that Natsagdorj remained a key figure in Mongolia’s literary community; the poem itself presents a vision of Mongolia’s nature that was both acceptable to the Party and likely to be appreciated by the people, befitting its critical and political acclaim. In fact, what is most noteworthy about this competition as a whole and the works that were ultimately successful is how the description of the Mongolian landscape and its seasonal changes, which caught the attention of the literary establishment in 1934, reflected

118 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

essential qualities quite unrelated to the Party or to the Soviet Union – or to any aspect of Mongolia’s contemporary political life. They were poems simply and exclusively about nature and, in passing, about the human response to nature, a calm exhalation before Mongolia tumbled into the brutality and chaos of the Great Repression. The instruction that writers should deal in their work with experiences and ideas common to the people as a whole required that these experiences be likewise placed against a familiar backdrop. Despite Buyannemeh’s discussion in ‘On the Composition of Literary Works’ about the potential of science fiction, the Seventh Party Congress had now placed a stricter emphasis upon realism and to a closer adherence to the lives lived by Mongolia’s laboring class. The use of landscape as a backdrop for the unfolding of a story emerges in short pieces like Chimid’s ‘Anggir Shuvuu’. As in the fables and folktales that acted as a bridge into fully fledged short fiction (ögüülel), here the narrative is immediately situated through a description of the return of birds in the spring and the vicious behavior of the shelducks which is the theme of the story. In Ts. Damdinsüren’s 1929 short story ‘Gologdson Hüühen’ (The Rejected Girl), however, there is for the first time a more expansive presentation of the landscape in which the opening of the story takes place, suggesting that its role in the developing narrative might be more than a backdrop now and inviting readers to consider some of the issues of class and society that form the story’s ideological basis. 44 In the gentle Gobi region of Belen Dalai, a land most pleasant to the mind, during that most pleasant time of autumn, a large herd of horses is massing together, and the gentle dry earth, trampled by the horses’ hooves, dances in a rosy dust, carried off on the wind, disappearing into the bright air. The well-fed and fiery horses are pastured out on the distant steppe, and their impoverished herder wants to head home. The horse’s owner likes being at home, the weary creature also and, although he turns his mount’s head with the power of the bridle, the horse turns towards the herd. The lasso and the pole tangle together, and the horse still struggles. A man alone out on the steppe, with his horse growing angrier amidst the herd […].

Considering Chimid’s brief comment on the migration of birds in the spring alongside the more leisurely descriptions in the stories of Yadamsüren and 44 These political and ideological issues are discussed in Chapter 5.

L andscape Re-Envisioned

119

Navaan-Yünden from the mid-1930s, it seems that Damdinsüren is here experimenting with how to lay out the context of his story more to add dimensionality than to establish essential information. Even this most cursory of descriptions of the Gobi in autumn, of the work of herding horses and of the ‘gentle dry earth’ that rises up during the herding, leads the reader into a world more tangible and real, more welcoming to listeners and readers, in which the action of the opening scenes is more readily believable. Coming so soon after the declaration by the Seventh Party Congress of the importance of representing the true situation of ordinary people, Damdinsüren’s choice to set his story in a specific place (the Gobi region of Belen Dalai) lent geographic credibility to its landscape and social credibility to its characters. Issues of credibility and realism, as much in setting as in narrative, were becoming political necessities. Over the next decade, as the leftward swing gave way to the New Turn Policy, which in turn led to the Great Repression, writers of fiction sought to create stronger personal connections with the people as well as stronger political empathy in the minds of their readers through descriptions of landscape that were both universal enough to have broad appeal and sufficiently detailed to be believable locales. In the wake of the 1932 uprising, which had spread from monasteries in the provinces of Zavhan, Arhangai and Hövsgöl, the Party’s more relaxed approach led to writers using geography to appeal to the emotions. For a while after the uprising, the mention of place or of well-known topographical features might stimulate powerful memories of home or painful memories of what had taken place during this time. Even if a text itself were not concerned with these events, people’s memories would underpin a writer’s assumptions of how a reader could be expected to read the text. Natsagdorj’s 1933 story Üzegdeegüi Yum (Things Which Had Never Been Seen),45 for instance, set in Zavhan, opens with a description of the Ider River. The course of the river and the sight of the mountains from which it flows draw the reader, almost as in a film, down into the lush pastureland at the base of the mountains and then into the community in which the story opens. The lovely River Ider came from the lovely ridges of the Hangai, dropping down from the high mountains, its flow ever quicker, and rushing like music. It was truly a pleasure to sit nearby and listen. Why had people passing by upon the road not previously noticed it? This pure clear river had flowed the same for thousands upon thousands of years, but the 45 Natsagdorj, 1961, pp. 249-257.

120 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

history of the humans and animals who dwelt upon its banks had changed over and over. The surrounding mountains were craggy and high, the protruding and overhanging rocks magnificent, the forests dense, the waters gurgling and babbling. The scattering of waterfalls down the gorge came together in the Ider, and drinking the waters awakened the senses within. In the first ten days of the first month of summer, when nature had not yet quite come forth, once the yellow rays of dawn had struck the withers of the eastern mountains, the cuckoos on the mountain peak sang out, and the boys watching the horses were pleased to hear their song, the birdsong gave them pleasure. The morning sun poured out in its rising, lit up the hollows where the river had its source, brought a pure air, truly the summer’s breath could be sensed now, and the white hoarfrost glistened among the flowers and the grasses, and in the forests a green haze settled, to lead the minds of the nomadic herders. On such a lovely morning, on a terrace on the southern side of the Ider, there are a few smart-looking white ger, blue smoke pluming through their roofrings, and livestock scattered all about.

Rather than move directly into the human world, as Damdinsüren had done at the start of Gologdson Hüühen, Natsagdorj here zigzags back and forth up and down the mountains, each time a little closer to the gers at its base: by retreating a little to the waterfalls that feed the river, he asks his readers to recall their own experience of tasting the spring water, listening to birdsong some way from their encampment, watching the livestock in the morning sun. The drama that will follow in the story, hinted at in the title, is far removed from this bucolic scene, and it is worth noting here how rare the incorporation of such descriptions of landscape into narrative fiction was at this time: it is here simply a way by which the writer can establish the action in a location that is familiar to the reader, whether experientially or imaginatively. Landscape brings to these texts a sense of continuity through its long and unchanging existence prior to, and presumably following, the action of the story. Üzegdeegüi Yum ends with a single brief sentence: ‘And the River Ider continues to flow as it always has.’46 This sentence, both in its stark declaration of fact and in its narrative finality, renders the drama that has come before – and perhaps even the real and catastrophic events surrounding the uprising of which it tells, its suppression by Soviet-backed forces, and the trial and execution of its leaders – an all but irrelevant 46 Natsagdorj, 1961, p. 257.

L andscape Re-Envisioned

121

part of the ongoing flow of nature. By 1933, Natsagdorj had already been imprisoned on false charges of counterrevolutionary activity, and we might see the river’s constancy in the face of social and political upheaval as his way of fostering a broader, more realistic perspective. As the ‘four seasons’ topos reveals the natural cycles of death and renewal, so the final image of the flowing river in this story offers reassurance that the land will always be present and that it will continue to support nomadic life. One of the few works of this period that deal directly with the relationship between the countryside and Ulaanbaatar is Yadamsüren’s Zaluu Hos (The Young Couple), written in 1937.47 This story exemplifies Yadamsüren’s interest in creating psychologically credible characters, a radical departure from the form taken by his contemporaries.48 Unlike the writer’s other novella Gurvan Hüühen (The Three Girls),49 in which the central character Has-Erdene travels from the countryside to Ulaanbaatar in search of education, in Zaluu Hos it is the young man Jaltsan who heads away from the city to the countryside in search of his lover Adilbish, when he hears that a truck in which she was traveling has been involved in an accident. In this apparent inversion of the modern, revolutionary movement towards industrialization and urbanization, the reader is asked to reevaluate their relationship with the Mongolian countryside and to engage with the revolution’s commitment to the nomadic herding communities. Yadamsüren’s positioning of the two main characters as inhabitants of Ulaanbaatar’s modern cityscape provides him with an opportunity, to show how the countryside gradually reveals itself as Jaltsan hurries on horseback westwards out of the city. For Jaltsan, the city is merely the situation in which he lives his life: he goes to the factory and home again, he visits workers’ cooperative cafés, and he spends time with his friend Myagmar and Myagmar’s wife Udval, talking together and playing chess. From the start of his journey, however, the countryside exercises a power from within the story, while from the outside its vast expanse and seemingly endless distance builds tension as he tries to find out what has happened 47 M. Yadamsüren, 1970, pp. 15-46. Translated in Wickham-Smith, 2012, pp. 61-92. 48 Gerasimovich’s brief analysis of Yadamsüren’s work (Gerasimovich, 1970, pp. 70-73) acknowledges the unusual quality of his writing. What Gerasimovich does not mention are the beautiful love letters that Jaltsan and Adilbish write to one another, nor does she bring up the way in which minor characters are given depth and personality. Perhaps the only contemporary story that comes closest to Zaluu Hos for its psychological insight is Natsagdorj’s Haranhui Had (1930) (see Chapter 5). 49 See Chapter 5.

122 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

to Adilbish. After riding through the night without discovering anything, Jaltsan moves on into the dawn light. The strong sun was smiling out its rays from beyond the eastern hills and tinting with pink the centers of the roof-rings on the ger on the hilltops and on the lower slopes. The small drops of dew which had spent the day sheltering on the grassy hills were disintegrating and dampening the hooves of Jaltsan’s horse. He dismounted on the near side of the southern scarp and could see clumps of blue smoke puffing from the roof-rings of three ger. The camp was full of sheep, roundels of white surrounded by a herd of cattle lying prone and drowsy, and of varying colors. Not far from the sheep’s encampment, two horses were tied up and chewing, in a lazy fashion, at the grassy hill. The poor countrywomen, having work to do round the clock, were already up at this hour, and Jaltsan felt uneasy interrupting their work. He went near to one of the ger and the guard dogs came rushing out. Although people were continually coming and going along the highway to where these country people were staying, who carried out their work day in and day out, nonetheless their interest seemed newly piqued by the sound of the dogs, and someone came out of each of the ger and stood there, in front of Jaltsan and behind him, amazed. As soon as Jaltsan came close to the ger, the women and the children shooed the dogs away and looked Jaltsan directly in the eye. Jaltsan hobbled his horse and went into the ger to his right, and behind him came a swirling crush of women and children.50

It seems that the people whose ger Jaltsan is visiting might never have met someone from Ulaanbaatar. The description of the scene, with the dawn rising over the flocks of sheep, is very different from the description of the gritty and industrial heart of Ulaanbaatar, which by the late 1930s was subject to considerable Soviet investment. Yadamsüren moreover takes the time to observe the landscape and the lives of its people, even as Jaltsan’s interest is focused on finding Adilbish. Perhaps for the very first time in Mongolian literature, the city-dweller’s view of the countryside is foregrounded – not only the land on which we might assume Jaltsan to have been born51 but 50 Yadamsüren, 1970, p. 36. 51 We are not told the age of either Jaltsan or Adilbish. Jaltsan is frequently referred to as ‘young Jaltsan’ (zaluu Jaltsan), and we could imagine him to be perhaps 18 or 19. While it is not impossible that a young man of that age would have been born and raised in Ulaanbaatar, it is demographically more likely that he would have come from the countryside, moving to the city for work in one of the factories that began to appear after the declaration in 1928 of the first Five-Year Plan.

L andscape Re-Envisioned

123

also the cramped conditions of the herders’ ger, even as their lives extend out onto the grasslands among the sheep. Jaltsan receives information he believes will lead him to Adilbish, and he rides away from the encampment. After journeying a while, he lies down to rest on the grass next to the remains of a fire. Jaltsan thought that this was certainly their fire, and he got down onto the earth of his homeland and loosened the horse’s bit, thinking he’d let it relax a while and nibble at the delicious grass, and he approached the stones at the campfire and there were bones and fat, as though from food just recently consumed. Jaltsan picked at what was left and lay down upon the silken meadow, and while he moved about, his elbow scrunched against something. He started up and looked, and there was a red packet of Mongol Coöp cigarettes, not the brand of cigarettes that Adilbish smoked, though would that it had been, and it suddenly came to him that his seeking her was all in vain. Without thinking, he opened the packet and saw that something had been inscribed and then partially erased on the cover, and he realised that it was in Adilbish’s hand, and he took a joyful breath and read it carefully once again, and the two couplets she had inscribed and then partially erased were these: The colored flowers of summer adorn the natural world in different ways. The sweet letters of a young man transport my mind in different ways.52

Jaltsan’s dramatic change of heart comes, then, through a most unusual medium. The grassland – described by so many other writers at the time in a lyrical and monumental, almost mystical, language – has yielded the key to Jaltsan’s search, the object on which the love story itself turns, in the form of urban detritus. Not tobacco or snuff, traditionally exchanged in greeting, but their very modern equivalent, an empty packet of cigarettes. The poem inscribed in Adilbish’s hand, an admixture of love and flowers of the kind found in premodern literature,53 is likewise at odds with the 52 Yadamsüren, op. cit., pp. 37-38. 53 It is not certain where Adilbish’s poem comes from, but it would seem likely to have been written by Yadamsüren himself for this story. There are echoes here of the nineteenth-century Mongolian monk-poet Danzanravjaa, with which Yadamsüren would have been familiar, as well as earlier Mongolian and Tibetan love lyrics.

124 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

object on which it is written. Yadamsüren’s use of a cigarette packet as Adilbish’s final love letter, discarded on the grass along with bones and fat from a meal only recently consumed, is another example of the new industrialized world – alongside Jaltsan’s factory work and the cooperative café in which he had first encountered Adilbish – into which Mongolia was being propelled under Soviet influence. It contrasts too with the landscape in which it is discovered, a hint of the progress that was already bringing industrial waste to Mongolia’s landscape. ‘Zaluu Hos’ was written at a pivotal time in Mongolia’s exploration of the Soviet model of what modern life could look like. As young, urban Mongolians, Jaltsan and his friends are examples of how the dream of socialism was changing Mongolia: Jaltsan’s factory job and his chaotic apartment are set against the lush greenness of the countryside, and in traveling from Ulaanbaatar in search of Adilbish, he returns nomadically to the land, romantically following his heart towards his lover, if not yet towards a home romanticized by dissatisfaction with modern urban life. The negotiation between the constancy of the landscape and the twists and turns of politics was catalyzed by the fact that the Party consisted of people who had been born as nomads and who understood what the natural environment meant to themselves as Mongolians, both practically and symbolically. If they supported the Soviet push for domination over the land – especially collectivization and the industrialization of agriculture – it was likely because they saw, in spite of the imperfections of politics, the possibility of greater happiness and security. The radicalization of society that Chimid had described in 1927 through observations of bird behavior had, ten years later, managed to survive the ‘leftward deviation’ and the subsequent monastic uprisings, yet what was certain was that Mongolia could no longer be considered a ‘backward’ land, that it was now on the cusp of full participation in the socialist utopia. At the end of ‘Zaluu Hos’, Jaltsan and Adilbish meet 57-year-old Tsogzol, who regales them with his observations on how Mongolia has changed since the revolution. He is a nomad of this new world and appreciates deeply the changes he has witnessed.54 By this time, even the countryside and herders such as Tsogzol had become a site of revolution. Young people today have the power to bore holes in mountains, to evaporate water, to go beyond the clouds and to pierce the moon: your intellect 54 In another of Yadamsüren’s short stories, Doljin, a few years older than Tsogzol, is likewise impressed by the flight of aeroplanes, one of which she believes carries her son, who has joined the army to serve his country. (See Chapter 6.)

L andscape Re-Envisioned

125

is sharp and your enthusiasm broad, and you can develop this culture, this society, to know the past and the future, to address the issues of the people, to equip itself with machinery and, when I see how this magical ability, glistering like a cleaned mirror, can unendingly do all things, my resolve rises unchecked and my mind is utterly happy.55

Bibliography Carruthers, Douglas. Unknown Mongolia: A Record of Travel and Exploration in North-West Mongolia and Dzungaria. London: Hutchinson, 1914. Demči [Chimid Dugarin]. ‘Anggir sibagun’. Qubisgaltu Zalaguchuud-un Eblel no. 9 (April 1927): 30-37. Development of the National Economy and Culture of the Mongolian People’s Republic from 1921 to 1958: A Statistical Compilation. Washington DC: US Joint Publications Research Service, 1960. Friters, Gerard M. Outer Mongolia and its International Position. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1949. Galbayar, G., ed. Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan 1929. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian National University, 2013. Gerasimovich, Ludmilla K. History of Modern Mingolian Literature (1921-1964). Translated by Members and Friends of the Mongolia Society. Bloomington: The Mongolia Society, 1970. Gorky, Maxim, Leopold Averbakh and Semen Georgievich Finn. The White Sea Canal: being an account of the construction of the new canal between the White Sea and the Baltic Sea. Translated by Amabel Williams-Ellis. London: John Lane, 1935. Heinroth, O. Contributions to the Biology, Especially the Ethology and Psychology of the Anatidae. Translated by Paul A. Johnsgard. N.p.: n.p., 1956. High, Mette M. Fear and Fortune: Spirit Worlds and Emerging Economies in the Mongolian Gold Rush. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017. Josephson, Paul R. et al. An Environmental History of Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Lind, Douglas. ‘The Crane, the Swamp, and the Melancholy: Nature and Nihilism in Soviet Environmental Literature and Law’. In Notre Dame Journal of Ethics and Public Policy 381, 428 (2009): 381-427. Natsagdorj, D. Zohioluud. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1961. Navaansüren, D. ‘Mongolyn orchin üyeiin utga zohiolig üüsgen büteelch’ Uran zohiol, urlag, 19 November 1976. 55 Yadamsüren, 1970, p. 46.

126 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Navaan-Yünden, N. Soyol Erdene. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1976. Saruulbuyan, J. Gegeen Gerelt Hümüüsiin Jimeer. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2013. Short History of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party 1917-1940. Ulan Bator: Party Institute of History, 1963-1964. Süld-Erdene, G. Mongol Nüüdelchiin Tailbar Toli. 2 Vols. Ulaanbaatar: Monsudar, 2014. Tsedev, D., and Wang Mandoha, eds. Sonombaljuur-un Buyannemekü, Vol. 2. Beijing: Ündesüten-ü Heblel-ün Qoriy-a, 2009. Tsedev, D. D. Natsagdorj: Büren zohiol. 2 Vols. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2016. Yadamsüren, M. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1970.

4

Leftward Together Abstract This chapter discusses the social innovations and industrialization that began to appear in Mongolia towards the end of the 1920s following Stalin’s accession to power and the implementation of increasingly leftist policies in the Soviet Union. It considers the establishment of the first Revolutionary Writers’ Group (Huvisgalt uran zohiolch naryn bülgem) and the publication in 1929 of the first anthology of Mongolian literature (Uran ügsiin chuulgan) in which revolutionary ideas were developed and promoted. The growing pressure on writers to conform to the Mongolian Party’s relationship to the policies advanced in the Soviet Union meant that what was published – and hence what was read – began to cleave more assiduously to this ideology. By presenting new or would-be writers with advice on how to create socialist literature, the introductory essays to the Anthology by S. Buyannemeh and Chimid Dungarin indicate how the Party focused on developing and using Mongolia’s literary talent to promote its ideology. Keywords: Stalinization, publishing, forced collectivization, Soviet influence, Choibalsan, new industry, literary experimentation

The political and social changes in Mongolia initiated by the Fifteenth Party Congress in the Soviet Union, held between 2 and 19 December 1927, affected the country on levels even deeper than the 1921 revolution. Indeed, until the late 1920s, Mongolia was not really functioning as a revolutionary state, and as Charles Bawden writes, it was ‘in fact making steady economic and social progress, not in the direction of communism, but along the divergent road of free enterprise’.1 And, just as the New Economic Policy instigated by Lenin had been abandoned with the rise of Stalin in 1928, so too was the

1

Bawden, 1968, p. 240.

Wickhamsmith, Simon, Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948). Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984752_ch04

128 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

left in Mongolia ready by the following year to turn the country towards the Soviet Union and have it cleave ever more assiduously to socialist policies. Much of the business of the Congress in the Soviet Union focused on the economic processes – rapid industrialization and collectivization – of what would become Stalin’s first Five-Year Plan (1928-1933), designed to put into practice the policy of ‘socialism in one country’.2 In addition, the internal disagreements within the Soviet Communist Party, characterized by the calls for greater freedom of expression from the so-called Joint Opposition led by Leon Trotsky,3 Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev, had been brought to an end by their expulsion. This made it possible for Stalin to push forward with his highly centralized plans for industrialization and collectivization, the latter of which included the elimination of the more prosperous peasants, or kulaks. 4 The radical centralization of political power in the Soviet Union and its concomitant control of those over whom this power was wielded had a powerful effect on literature. On an organizational level, 1928 was a year in which acronyms and leaderships changed and theoretical differences became more pronounced. The first All-Union Congress of Proletarian Writers took place during the first week of May, during which time the All-Union Organization of Associations of Proletarian Writers (VOAPP) was established out of a large number of separate proletarian groups. Of these, the Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) was the largest, its chief executive being Leopold Averbach, one of the most influential literary theorists of the time. The social and economic models emerging from the Soviet Union during the late 1920s became ever more significant with the Fifteenth Party Congress, while in Mongolia the power that Stalin’s centralized policies came to exercise over political and social development led to the development of Mongolia’s literary culture under a similar range of influences. Moreover, since many of Mongolia’s leading intellectuals had spent time during the 2 Stalin had initially suggested the concept of Socialism in One Country (sotsializm v odnoi strane) in his 1924 book Osnovy Leninizma (Foundations of Leninism). In 1925, responding to the collapse of socialism in Western Europe, Nikolai Bukharin had developed and expanded these ideas in relation to the Soviet Union, and early the following year, after Stalin had further explored them in his article K Voprosam Leninizma (On Issues of Leninism), the Soviet Union formally adopted Socialism in One Country as state policy. 3 It should be noted that the Five-Year Plan had in fact been advocated by Trotsky since 1923 and that many of the policies brought in by this Congress had been fundamental aspects of his program. 4 A good overview of these policies and their implementation is found in Fitzpatrick, [1982]1994, pp. 120-147.

Lef t ward Toge ther

129

1920s at Moscow’s Communist University of the Toilers of the East (the KUTV – Kommunisticheskii Universitet Trudjashchihsia Vostoka), they would have been exposed not only to the economic changes of the NEP5 but also to the ideological retreat from the original principles upon which the Bolshevik revolution had been put into action. Both countries, moreover, experienced in the late 1920s a repudiation of the ‘rightists’ and their sympathy with key aspects of capitalism and a corresponding strengthening of the ‘leftists’ and their emphasis on a centralized economic and social system. The explicit role of art in the Soviet Union’s Five-Year Plan was both to support the Party’s policies and to create an atmosphere conducive to their implementation. As Harriet Borland describes it, paraphrasing the journalist B. Ettinhof, ‘All forms of art must in every way help raise the mass consciousness and organize the mass will, mind, and enthusiasm for socialist construction and the great social reforms being carried out, and for international socialist education.’6 This brought into clear focus the blend of creative and theoretical viewpoints and the ideological fights that had defined the Russian arts since before the October Revolution. While these theoretical concerns exercised little direct influence on the Mongolian literary sphere, the fact that Mongolian writers had some information about these developments indicates that events in the Soviet Union at least informed how they responded to Mongolia’s own Five-Year Plan. In 1926, RAPP’s prior incarnation, VAPP,7 had launched a theoretical journal under the direction of Averbakh called Na Literaturnom Postu (On Literary Guard), which brought an exclusively literary focus to the journal Na Postu (On Guard). On Guard had been published between 1923 and 1925 by the communist literary group October, whose founding principle had been ‘to strengthen the Communist line in proletarian literature’.8 Following the establishment of VOAPP in 1928, Averbakh and his fellow Onlitguardists were in a position to control proletarian writers and to place their ideological framework around proletarian literary culture. 5 The NEP (New Economic Plan; Novaya Ekomichyeskaya Politika) was proposed by Lenin in 1921, following the Civil War, as a more market-oriented economic policy and included limited private enterprise and the attraction of foreign capital. The NEP was abolished by Stalin in 1928. See Ball, 1987. 6 Borland, 1950, p. 23. 7 The almost comedic litany of acronyms – in which VAPP gave way to RAPP, which was in turn subsumed into VOAPP – in fact represents important social and theoretical developments in Soviet writing during this period. See Ermolaev (1963) and Brown (1971). 8 Ermolaev, 1963, p. 27.

130 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Prior to the fifteenth Party Congress, a great deal of effort had been spent on understanding how to create and promote proletarian literature in the light of Lenin’s various statements on culture, in particular his essay ‘On Proletarian Culture’, in which he explicitly repudiated attempts to invent or create such a culture. In this ‘draft resolution’, written in response to the speech given by Anatoly Lunacharsky9 to the Proletkult 10 Congress on 7 October 1920 (and which Lenin claimed was in direct contradiction to what they had previously agreed), Lenin declared that ‘the All-Russia Proletkult Congress rejects in the most resolute manner, as theoretically unsound and practically harmful, all attempts to invent one’s own particular brand of culture’.11 The importance of this ongoing debate lay in whether culture could be created or whether, as Lenin insisted, it developed naturally from a dialectical assimilation of what was valuable in human endeavor. In a prefiguring of Stalin’s Five-Year Plan, the Onlitguardists had in 1927 put forward their own Five-Year Plan. As the latest incarnation of a lineage of militant revolutionaries, they proposed a ‘critical assimilation of bourgeois culture […] [through] a careful selection of its acceptable elements and a determined resistance to its pernicious influences’.12 This process of assimilation required the deepening of the class war and a strengthening of the cultural revolution. The ideas espoused by the Onlitguardists, then, complemented the direction in which Stalin was taking the Party, and Averbakh responded to the Fifteenth Party Congress by emphasizing the importance of putting into practice Lenin’s vision for cultural revolution through the policies of collectivization and centralization and through emphasizing rapid modernization through industrialization. The full panoply of theory proposed by RAPP and the Onlitguardists is beyond the scope of this book, but it behooves us to touch on two issues central to their project. The first is the idea, suggested initially by the Marxist philosopher Abram Deborin and appropriated into literary discourse by the critic Vladimir Ermilov, of the ‘harmonious man’, an individual who has harmonized, or balanced, the binary of psyche and ideology. According to Ermilov, the revolution would be naturally completed when the masses were 9 Anatoly Vasiliyevich Lunacharsky (1875-1933) was at this time the People’s Commissariat for Education, a post he held until 1929. 10 Proletkult (Proletarskaya Kultura) arose at the time of the 1917 revolution as a federation of cultural societies and representatives of the Russian avant-garde. Its focus was on forging a proletarian culture based upon the construction of the Soviet’s advanced society within traditional, agrarian Russia. See Ermolaev, 1963, pp. 9-26 and Mally, 1990. 11 https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/oct/08.htm (accessed 28 November 2016). 12 Ermolaev, 1963, p. 60.

Lef t ward Toge ther

131

controlled by the correct socialist ideology. This approach necessitated the kind of introspection and individualism that, as time went on, grew less in keeping with the view promulgated by the Party. How the ‘living man’ – the individual shaped by and living in the revolutionary world – was to be represented in culture stood at the center of theoretical discussions. The idea of the ‘harmonious man’ implies the dialectic development of the ‘living man’ and the development of the society of ‘living men’ towards the perfection of the revolution. In considering how this was to be achieved, the work of the poet Demyan Bedny 13 and the concept of ‘demyanization’14 became highly influential, especially when propelled by the likes of VAPP leader Yuri Libedinsky. It was Libedinsky who described the teleology of demyanization as ‘the victorious proletarian revolution, which fashions and remolds reality on a Communist pattern’.15 In demyanization, Soviet literary culture found a practical approach to the formation of a revolutionary society. One of Bedny’s most significant contributions to the debate was to stress that while there were proletarians committed to establishing the revolution, there were also individuals who were either disinterested, unwilling, or both. By becoming aware of such contradictions within themselves, Bedny was suggesting, revolutionaries could transform their own natures and so realize themselves as examples of the ‘harmonious man’. And while Bedny’s work was neither subtle nor elegant, it was popular with the masses and thus a powerful medium through which to promote among them dialectical materialism and the eventual cultural and social hegemony of the proletariat. The accusations of individualism leveled at Ermilov’s theory of the ‘harmonious man’ were perhaps more fitting in relation to the Pereval group, set up in 1924 by the critic and publisher Aleksandr Voronsky. Pereval’s position, first expressed in 1927, was that the revolutionary work of literature could only be put into action if the individual’s understanding of revolution was in complete agreement with the ‘social order’ as expressed by the working class through the Party. This understanding of revolution, it was suggested, should come through studying the traditions of realism, both in Russia and abroad. And even as the group embraced new ideas and new ways of understanding realism, it would not delimit the styles, methodologies or themes chosen by its members. In presenting literature in this way, without 13 The pseudonym of Yefim Alekseevich Pridvorov (1883-1945). 14 Odemyanivanie, a term that Averbakh claimed to have coined in 1923, in the first issue of Na Postu. 15 Ermolaev, 1963, p. 70.

132 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

recourse to ideological constraints, Pereval hoped to find the most suitable approach to revolutionary literature. Aside from Voronsky, the main theoretical writings produced by Pereval are found in the work of Dmitriy Gorbov and Abram Lezhnev. While the latter’s discussion of Pereval’s theory, as it compared with that of RAPP and the Onlitguardists, exposed the similarities between them, it also revealed that Pereval’s followed a more reasoned and logical trajectory rather than simply fashioning ways in which certain psychological ideas could be applied to literature. Lezhnev’s Marxism welcomed the advice and leadership of the Party and focused explicitly on a dialectic that would lead the proletariat forward, creating ‘an art that in today’s reality will be able to reveal the shoots of tomorrow, the seeds of the future’.16 Where Lezhnev offered a more sober understanding of RAPP’s proposals, Gorbov’s approach placed Pereval at some theoretical distance from RAPP. In accusing Averbakh – and thereby RAPP as a whole – of ‘[keeping] proletarian youth from creating its own truly living literature’,17 Gorbov emphasized the importance of artistic freedom and the ability of the writer to choose his own, personal direction. Moreover, he pointed out the need for the deliberate creation of a revolutionary aesthetics, in direct contradiction of Lenin’s statement regarding Proletkult. Gorbov also developed a theory of revolutionary creation around the Greek myth of Pygmalion and how the sculptor breathed life into his ivory sculpture Galatea. The desire of a true revolutionary artist was to animate his work in the same way as Pygmalion – to take the raw matter of reality and make of it something new and perfect, like the goddess Galatea herself. There is much in Gorbov’s theory that predicts the aesthetics of Socialist Realism. When Evgeny Dobrenko describes Socialist Realism as ‘a machine for transforming Soviet reality into socialism’, he qualifies the technology of this machine by saying that ‘its basic function was not propagandistic but aesthetic and transformative par excellence’.18 In Gorbov’s vision, Galatea symbolizes the perfect socialist state, animated through the labor and vision of social and political sculptors, aestheticized by a pure mind through the creative act. The discussion of literature as a creative act and of how best to develop revolutionary culture given the presence of the creative human spirit and its imaginative and aesthetic power in the process meant that even where RAPP 16 Ermolaev, 1963, p. 82. 17 Ibid., p. 85. 18 Dobrenko, 2007, pp. 5-6.

Lef t ward Toge ther

133

and Pereval disagreed, their theoretical framework had basic commonalities. Those who stood to the left of RAPP and the Onlitguardists, however, seemed to call into question the whole project of artistic creativity. These groups – the Left Front of the Arts (LEF) and the Constructivists – rejected the subconscious and focused on an aesthetic rigidly defined by what was rational and factual. The Russian avant-garde, so powerful in the years leading up to the October Revolution, had enthusiastically offered its services to the Party in the years immediately thereafter. LEF’s primary contribution was in the form of the journals LEF, which ran from 1923 to 1925, and Noviy LEF (New LEF), published between 1927 and 1928, both of which were edited by the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. The objective of the journal and of the movement itself was ‘to re-examine the ideology and practices of so-called leftist art, and to abandon individualism to increase art’s value for developing communism’.19 This abandonment of individualism led to the abandonment also of imaginative literature – which was seen as a desperate attempt by a society that lacked scientific research and factual information and was subject to political oppression – in order to experience ‘real life’ through the imagination. The antidote to this was ‘factography’, a term promoted by Mayakovsky in Noviy LEF that brought together specifically factual literature, such as historical and biographical writing, travel journalism, diaries and memoirs, reports and statistics. The writer thereby transforms from an artist into a craftsman, transforming through technical acumen the raw material of life into a product for the general public. The modernism and factography of LEF found a kind of extreme refinement in the theory of the Literary Center of the Constructivists (LTsK), established in 1924, which held that literature should be written ‘from the assumption that modern technology dominates and organizes all ideologies and cultural processes’.20 A poem had to be rationalistic, and poets were encouraged to introduce to their work factual material such as journalistic writing, technological and business discourse, statistics, and quotations from extraneous documents. The result of this, as with the factography of LEF, was that the literary object became at once an experiment in style and a reflection of specific key aspects of the modern world of technology. So brief an overview of the principal themes and groups in early revolutionary Soviet literature can only give a taste of the debates that were 19 See https://monoskop.org/LEF, where the entire run of these journals is archived (accessed 28 November 2016). 20 Ermolaev, 1963, p. 76.

134 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

underway at this time.21 The central issues in the years leading up to the Fifteenth Party Congress revolved around how best to make of culture an expression of the revolutionary ideal. Could revolutionary culture be created deliberately, if not ex nihilo then certainly from unproven and inchoate resources? Or should it, as Lenin had determined, be nurtured and brought forth from the best of what had already been fashioned? Furthermore, was revolutionary culture naturally objective, rational and factual, or was it in some way an expression of individual and imaginative creativity and art? And lastly, how were the revolutionary masses, all of them co-creators of this culture, to understand their own agency in relation to the Party? The announcement in 1928 of the first Five-Year Plan pressed Soviet literary culture forwards towards industrialization and collectivization. The corresponding developments in Mongolia that year, which began with the purging of the rightists and ended with the announcement of Mongolia’s own first Five-Year Plan at the Seventh Party Congress, while they were not characterized by the intellectual ferocity of the cultural debates in the Soviet Union, nonetheless exercised influence over the production of literary works and over the organization of those who would produce them. On 9 January 1929, just under a month after the Seventh Party Congress had closed in Ulaanbaatar, and in response to its directives, the Party Central Committee formed what it called the Group of Revolutionary Writers.22 According to Ts. Damdinsüren,23 the discussions that preceded the group’s establishment were led by Buyannemeh, Ö. Badrah and Chimid Dungaryn and focused on the role of literature in the development of the economy and culture and in breaking away from the feudal system and fully engaging with the revolution. An announcement appeared in the 8 February edition of the Party newspaper Ünen identifying 17 individuals who constituted the membership of the group. These 17 represented the future of revolutionary literature in Mongolia. None of them was tainted by association with the rightists, and each was committed to the political aims outlined by the Party Congress. Five of them – Buyannemeh and Damdinsüren, Yadamsüren, Rinchen and M. 21 See ibid. (pp. 55-89) and Brown (1971, pp. 58-87) for a more extensive theoretical and historical consideration of this material. 22 Huvisgalyn Uran Zohiolch Naryn Bülgem. 23 See ‘Zohiolchdyn bülgem üüsen tuhai temdeglel’ (Damdinsüren, 1990, pp. 104-113). This essay was written in 1978 and constitutes the most complete eye-witness account of the group’s formation. See also Jamsranjav (1969) which is a more scholarly, less personal history of the formation of the group.

Lef t ward Toge ther

135

Dugarjav – were chosen as the group’s leaders. Despite his importance in the group’s foundation, Chimid, who was known as ‘KUTV Chimid’, having been educated at the KUTV,24 was absent from the leadership. As for the remainder of the group, there was M. Yadamsuren; the lexicographer Ya. Tsevel (1902-1954), whose Mongolian dictionary would later become a standard reference work; G. Navannamjil (1884-1954), who had been active as a government secretary during the autonomous period and whose Memoirs of an Old Secretary25 (a fictionalized account of his life) became extremely popular when it was published in 1956; the politician Ö. Badrah, who had been Minister of Finance between 1924 and 1924 and who, as one of the radicalized leftists from outside Ulaanbaatar whom the Soviets had coopted into the Party to challenge the right, was influential in the implementation of the Five-Year Plan 26; as well as the elder Damdinsüren, Dashdemberel, Dogsüren, Horloo, G. Genden (b. 1894), Ochir, Shagdarsüren and L. Tsendsüren, whose lives and careers are now all but lost to us.27 Exactly how this group had been brought together is unclear. Badrah, a politician who was not known as a writer, most likely had an administrative and monitoring role, while Buyannemeh, whose literary ambition was as strong as his political fervor and who was one of the founders of the powerful Revolutionary Youth Union, was regarded as the de facto leader. In his memoir about the group, Damdinsüren provides some personal information on Chimid, whose journal of his travels through Moscow and Berlin apparently contained an account of learning to ride a bicycle, 24 It is worth noting that, in addition to Chimid, several of the Group’s members – Yadamsüren, Dogsüren, and Tsendsüren – had been educated at the KUTV. 25 Navaannamjil, 1956. 26 Badrah in fact would be one of those leftists singled out as having had an especially negative influence during the period of the ‘leftist deviation’; he was expelled from the MPRP Central Committee by an extraordinary plenum held in June 1932. 27 The Mongolian Writers’ Union website (http://writersunion.mn/index.php/about-us/ about-us-6 [accessed 25 November 2016]) offers a slightly different list of the Group’s 17 founding members. Most signif icantly it lists D. Natsagdorj, although in January 1929 he was still in Germany and seems to have joined later in the year. According to B. Rinchen (cited in Baatar, 2016, p. 68), there was initial objection to Natsagdorj’s membership based on the fact that he was from the family of a minor noble (taij), an issue that Natsagdorj himself addressed in a letter sent to the Education Ministry on 26 August 1929 (see Tsedev, 2016, vol. 2, pp. 370-371); this decision was overturned by Chimid Dungaryn on his return from studying at the KUTV in Moscow. The Mongolian Writers’ Union also lists a ‘Shagdarneren’ instead of Shagdarsüren, although, according to D. Tsedev (personal communication July 2017), Shagdarneren was a pen name of Buyannemeh.

136 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

and Navannamjil, whom Damdinsüren seems to have considered a skilled editor: Navannamjil and I worked together on Ünen for several years. At that time, Ünen was published once a week, and we would take turns preparing editions, with Navannamjil preparing the newspaper one week and I preparing it the following week. At that time, Ünen had no dedicated workers. The two of us would select and publish most of the material for the newspaper, and then we would show Dambadorj, who was head of the Party’s Central Committee, certain important articles. Navannamjil was famous for being a fast writer and gifted at composition.28

Badrah – whom Damdinsüren does not even mention in his brief account of each member’s background and work – was not the only member of the group who does not appear to have been much of a writer. Dogsüren ‘didn’t write literature’, Dugarjav ‘wrote a few stories under the name Soronzonbold’, and Tsendsüren is remembered as ‘Head of the Supreme Court’. Dashdemberel ‘mentions me as Tsend in some of his stories’.29 Of Horloo, who was a military commissar, Damdinsüren says he ‘never saw any of his writing’., Shagdarsüren ‘was a journalist who wrote under the pen names Ganbold and Chuluuhüü’, and Damdinsüren describes Ochir – also called Dendev-Ochir – as ‘a curly-haired man […] I don’t know whether he wrote anything or not’. G. Genden, whom Damdinsüren does not mention, had written many of the first articles in Ünen. He was Head of Education in the MPRP Central Committee and Chair of the Central Committee for Ideology, an educated man who was popularly known as surtlin Genden, or ‘Genden the Ideas Man’. Damdinsüren points out that he was called ‘little Damdinsüren’ because there was an older Damdinsüren who was a member of the group. But the precise identity of this older man remains unclear. J. Damdinsüren is generally listed as the elder Damdinsüren, and the younger Damdinsüren mentions that ‘he was the Head of the [Writer’s] Union Central Committee when I was working there’, that he wrote under the pen name Nersündamdin (a reversal of the elements of his name), and that among the ‘few poems’ he wrote had been a eulogy for the Prime Minister B. Tserendorj on the latter’s 28 Damdinsüren, 1990, p. 107. Ünen was the Party newspaper, modelled on the Soviet Pravda. Note that both únen and pravda mean ‘truth’. 29 Tsend was Damdinsüren’s father’s name, so this could have been an error on Dashdemberel’s part.

Lef t ward Toge ther

137

death in February 1928. ‘I am thinking’, writes Damdinsüren, ‘that this Damdinsüren might have been the one involved with the Writers’ Group. There was a young curly-haired man named Damdinsüren, but because he didn’t write literary works, I figure that he wasn’t involved with the Group’.30 This level of uncertainty, together with the suggestion that so many of these writers were not really writers, provokes some interesting observations about this group. Indeed, perhaps Buyannemeh, Yadamsüren, Rinchen, Chimid, and Damdinsüren himself were the only ones who could genuinely be described as literary writers. More importantly, not only were they all clearly acceptable to the Party, but they were all somehow actively working for the Party, many of them in high-level positions. The group was, then, self-selecting: the majority might have been writers manqués, and we can imagine that many – such as those about whose literary work Damdinsüren clearly knew very little – might have been persuaded to put their names forward for inclusion, yet they were sufficiently interested in literature and presumably in its political significance and in negotiating their own political heft to involve themselves in the group. Membership also meant being subject to especial scrutiny. Following the purging of the right wing, for instance, at the time the group was being formed, there were rumors that Buyannemeh himself might have had rightist sympathies. D. Namdag, who joined the group later in 1929, says that Buyannemeh ‘kept his distance from the right, as though they were infectious’,31 and notwithstanding the evidence of Buyannemeh’s dealings with the independence movement in Inner Mongolia, which would later inform much of the evidence used against him in his 1937 trial,32 he clearly remained sufficiently acceptable to the Party to play an important role in the group. Namdag was one of six additional members inducted into the group over the following few months. The remaining five were Natsagdorj, B. Sodnom, B. Dorjsüren and N-O. Navaan-Yunden – who had all been in Germany with Namdag – and T. Natsagdorj, who was called ‘little Natsagdorj’. This was the first time that the elder Natsagdorj, who would be elevated to the position of ‘father of modern Mongolian literature’ in 1956 on the 50th anniversary of his birth, had been associated with literary work. Serge Wolff, in his account of the time spent by the group of young Mongolians at school in

30 Damdinsüren, 1990, p. 105. 31 Namdag, 1988, p. 178. 32 See Chapter 8 for an account of Buyannemeh’s trial.

138 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Germany,33 remembered that Natsagdorj ‘didn’t impress me as particularly gifted, but then his Russian was poor and his German even worse’.34 This suggests that Natsagdorj worked very hard on his return to Mongolia to improve his Russian, to such an extent that he could undertake literary translation. But, unlike most of the original 17, these five were all young men who had an active interest in literature and who would all come to distinguish themselves in Mongolia’s literary culture. The establishment of the Writers’ Group in the wake of the Seventh Party Congress reflected the establishment of VOAPP in the Soviet Union at the first All-Union Congress of Proletarian Writers in May 1928. But whereas the latter was an attempt at consolidating and centralizing the many and disparate small groups involved in the production of literature and in the formulation of theory surrounding the vexed question of cultural revolution, the Group of Revolutionary Writers had been brought together to provide a framework for the development of contemporary literature within the context of Mongolia’s ongoing revolutionary project, and particularly as a mouthpiece for the first Five-Year Plan. The work they were to produce had not only to appeal to those who could read – and who therefore would be acting as readers for the majority who were illiterate35 – but also to convey to the public the fundamental ideas of socialism in an entertaining and meaningful way. The publication in December 1929 of Uran ügsiin chuulgan,36 an anthology of literary works by the Group of Revolutionary Writers, marked a new 33 Through this innovative educational project, negotiated with schools in Germany and France and organized by B. Ishdorj and Erdenebathaan on behalf of the Ministry of Education (of which the latter was head), 45 students, most of them in their early teens (Natsagdorj and his wife Pagmadulam were 20 and 21 respectively when they arrived in Berlin), were assigned to schools in the eastern part of Germany, with a view to their studying according to the European model. This it was hoped would lead to an improvement in Mongolian education. The Seventh Party Congress, however, quashed such internationalist leanings, and the students all returned early in 1929. See Mendsaihan (2015) for a full account, and Wolff (1971) for a more personal view. 34 Wolff 1971, p. 301. However, Bat-Ireedüi (2016) describes how Natsagdorj worked hard to learn German and compiled, under the tutelage of the Mongolist Erich Haenisch, two GermanMongolian dictionaries. 35 Official figures show that, in 1935 (admittedly six years after the events described here), 7.3% of the population was literate. (Development of the National Economy and Culture, 1961, p. 12) 36 The title translates as Anthology of Literature, and hereafter all references will be to ‘the Anthology’. See the facsimile version, accompanied by a version in Cyrillic, prepared by G. Galbayar (2013). This is the only reprint of the original ever produced, most likely due to many of the writers having been killed (and thereby written out of the official narrative) during the purges and to the relative obscurity, its historical importance notwithstanding, of the book’s contents. References to this volume indicate the page on which the Cyrillic transcription appears.

Lef t ward Toge ther

139

and important phase in Mongolian literary and social history. As Chimid Dungaryn wrote in the opening paragraph of the Preface, This is the first small volume of prose and poetry, under the title of Anthology of Literature, to have been published by the Group of Revolutionary Writers, from the Party Central Committee’s education department. The Group of Revolutionary Writers has developed its prowess in the study of modern revolution and is focused now on helping the poor ard class. By strengthening this resolve, the people will grow less weak.37

Much of what had been discussed at the Seventh Party Congress had promoted a similar message, and it was the betterment and education of the poor working class (through the process of eliminating the power of the monasteries, and through collectivization and industrialization) that this publication promoted. The book was produced in a print run of 5,000 copies. In addition to the front cover, printed in red and blue and depicting a stylized Mongolian landscape in which a pen rises obliquely to the top left while the sun rises red to the right, there was one full-color print of a parrot on the branch of a tree to accompany the following four-line poem by Buyannemeh: As the Bodhi tree dances and sways amongst the other trees, the parrot comes to sing out amongst the other birds. His feathers of five colors glide gently over the leafy boughs, a line of his sweet words as rich as a thousand silver coins.38

Of all the images that could have been used for this single page of color, there is significance in this choice. Of the book’s 36 pieces, 1439 were by Buyannemeh.40 Given that most of the contributors were contemporaries of his, even if they did not enjoy his close association with the Revolutionary Youth Union whose power would increase during the initial implementation of the Five-Year Plan, we can see the book as something of a medium through which Buyannemeh could stamp his authority over the literary scene. 37 Galbayar, 2013, p. 15. 38 Galbayar, 2013, p. 44. 39 15, if we count the poem ‘The Heroic Red Army’ (Baatar ulaan tsereg), which he wrote jointly with Dashnyam (Galbayar, 2013, pp. 88-89), who was most likely the 17-year-old Ch. Dashnyam (1912-1938). 40 Note that Buyannemeh uses three names in the book: Buyannemeh, Nemeh and Zasagch, the latter meaning something like ‘the editor’ or, more literally, ‘the corrector’.

140 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

But it was Chimid who wrote both the Preface and the first essay, ‘The Formation of Literary Writers’. These two pieces, together with Buyannemeh’s long benchmark piece ‘On The Composition of Literary Works’, 41 form the conceptual and ideological basis for the book’s remaining poetry and prose, encapsulating the social, political, historical and technical context in which it had been produced and in which it was intended to be read. Chimid’s approach in these opening statements is to discuss writing as a revolutionary necessity, citing as his model Maxim Gorky, who ‘has spent some thirty years involved [with writing], and is now recognized as a great proletariat writer’. Perhaps in response to some of the suggestions offered by Gorky in his exchange with Erdenebathan four years previously,42 Chimid concludes his essay with a list of criteria central to becoming a revolutionary writer: 1 Enrich your vocabulary through reading old and new books about a variety of subjects. 2 Examine the works of others. This will replenish your own thoughts. 3 Spend time with writers and scholars of literature and ask them questions. 4 Gather examples of colloquial speech, alliterative language, gossip, and the like. 5 Acquaint yourselves with the literature of foreign, and especially revolutionary, writers. 6 Focus on earlier writings and make summaries of them. 7 Carry a small notebook around with you and every day make notes about the thousands of things which happen to you and the special things that you see. 43

To anyone who has ever attempted creative – or even academic – writing, this might seem to be a simplistic list, and it shows, as does Buyannemeh’s text which follows it, the lack of sophistication and the lack of fundamental knowledge about literature among Mongolian writers at this time. Remembering, moreover, that this was a book produced under the Party’s auspices supposedly by the literate for the literate, it can also be seen as offering advice for those whose dream was to become a writer and so help the revolution. 41 Respectively in Galbayar, 2013, pp. 15, 16-17, and 18-29. 42 See Chapter 5 for information on this exchange. 43 Galbayar, 2013, p. 17.

Lef t ward Toge ther

141

Such a writer, indeed, was D. Perenlei, 44 who, while not mentioned in the contents list, had a brief essay devoted to his work.45 The first half of this text is a letter sent by Perenlei to Buyannemeh containing two short poems. In the second half, the writers (identified as the ‘Group’s committee’) exhort others to follow his lead and, ‘joining with the members of this Group, work hard to develop the culture of Mongolia’s poor working class’. Encouragement of such youthful writers, moreover, was intended to strengthen Mongolia’s literary future, 46 and the range of literature represented in the anthology bears witness to what remained politically and artistically feasible following the suppression of the right. Buyannemeh’s essay ‘How To Write Literature’ presented some basic ideas about the function and techniques of literature alongside a brief summary of literary genres. More than half of the text is concerned with poetry, its style and meaning and composition. It was in his analysis of poetic meaning that Buyannemeh developed an idea that, while acceptable at the time, would later come to position him against the approach advocated by the Party. His reading of poetry admitted the possibility of an aspect of poetic work that was not explicit and clear, something that needed to be contemplated and interpreted by the individual. However, rather than entering into the kind of Soviet dialectic that placed journalistic facts against feelings and emotion, Buyannemeh took a very different line: There are two types of meaning in poetry, the manifest and the hidden. The manifest meaning is understood almost as soon as you have read the poem, it is the simple poem which speaks its true nature, the poem in and of itself. This is what everyone in the general populace knows, who can read and write. The hidden meaning, on the other hand, is not understood as soon as you have read the poem, but reveals itself once you have thought about the text. Such a poem is written for those who have the ability to think

44 D. Perenlei (1911-1982), known as Countryside (Hödöögiin) Perenlei, or Perlee, had in 1929 begun to work as a schoolteacher in Hentii aimag. He eventually became well-known as a writer, historian and archeologist. 45 Galbayar, 2013, p. 81. It is not impossible that ‘the Group’s committee’ (bülgmiin zövlöl) was another of Buyannemeh’s pseudonyms. 46 Memoirs written by Mongolian writers who came of age in the 1930s and 1940s frequently mention how the publication of one of their early works in an important journal or magazine spurred them not only to write more but also to take part in the local or national branches of the Union of Mongolian Writers.

142 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

about this kind of poetry, as though it exists in order to help check one’s openness to, and understanding of, poetic ideas. 47

The concept of ‘ability’ in thinking about poetry reflects the debate about the expert, a debate that played out in Mongolia in response to the events following the 1928 Shakhty trials in the Soviet Union. 48 The ideas of egalitarianism and of the involvement in interpretative and creative work of unskilled individuals49 were greatly at odds with the kind of literary exclusivity discussed by Buyannemeh. Although no evidence on the basis of this text was brought against Buyannemeh at his trial, it is likely that, as time went on, such ‘élitism’ would have brought opprobrium upon him by the left of the Party, who ultimately orchestrated the Purges of which he was a victim. The extent to which Mongolian writers were aware of the specifics of the theoretical debates about literature in the Soviet Union is unclear. Those who had studied during the 1920s at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East would doubtless have come into contact with the effects of these debates, but in Mongolia, theoretical writings such as Buyannemeh’s essay simply tended to reflect the Party’s own discourse.50 The exposition of the themes of poetic technique and style in ‘How To Write Literature’ bear some similarity (as does its name) to that found in Vladimir Mayakovsky’s 1926 essay ‘How To Write Verses’.51 Yet Mayakovsky’s statement that ‘fine poetical work would be written to the social command of the Comintern, taking for its objective the victory of the Proletariat, making its points in a new vocabulary, striking and comprehensible to all […]’ (my italics) is quite different from Buyannemeh’s idea of poetry’s ‘hidden’ meaning. Buyannemeh’s text, unlike those of his Soviet contemporaries, contains in 47 Galbayar, 2013, p. 19. 48 In 1928, 55 managers and engineers in the northern Caucasus town of Shakhty were arrested on charges of conspiring with former owners of coal mines, exiled since the 1917 revolution, to break the Soviet economy. The show trial was built by Stalin on fabricated charges and used to attack and discredit the intelligentsia, political moderates and experts. See Bailes, 1978, pp. 69-94 for an account of the trials. 49 Sh. Ayuush’s 1929 play Amid Sonin (Living Newspaper) is a good example of such agitprop literature in Mongolia. See Ayuush, 1973, pp. 19-43. 50 With the exception of those who had studied in the Soviet Union, it is not known how well many Mongolian writers actually knew Russian. One explanation for the dearth of theoretical material is that their lack of linguistic capability meant that they were forced to improvise literary theory based solely upon Party directives. 51 Kak delat’ stukhi https://sites.evergreen.edu/se/wp-content/uploads/sites/146/2015/12/ Mayakovsky-How-are-verses-Made_-2.pdf p.52 (accessed 11 December 2016).

Lef t ward Toge ther

143

fact very little in the way of explicitly political thought, and his expectations about the political content of poetry amounts to the following three points: […] when we write poetry with political ideas so as to protect the glory of the truly poor classes, we will address (1) how the lifestyle of the poor and weak leaves them both deprived and painfully exhausted, (2) how the poor recognize their own glorious power, and how they struggle to move beyond their situation, and (3) the status of the class of rich nobles and how they exploit and repress the people.52

If this analysis of the oppression of Mongolia’s masses prior to – and even since – the revolution seems naïve, we must remember that the focus of his essay was how to write a piece of literature with which a writer could speak directly to the reader. It was not political theory but literary practice with which Buyannemeh was concerned: he had been involved with political activism since the early 1920s and, as a journalist and writer, he had likely encountered more intellectually complex and theoretically dense expositions of Socialism, both in written and oral form. His collected works lists only a handful of short political pieces written prior to the publication of the Anthology, and this essay can be seen as his first tentative responses to Soviet theoretical writings. We know from Damdinsüren’s account that the monthly meetings of the Group of Revolutionary Writers included political critiques of members’ works, and these must have been based upon some level of theoretical understanding. Buyannemeh’s attempts here to formulate a loose political discourse in which to locate literature is placed directly before concerns of aesthetics (the following two sections deal with the style and structural form of poetry), which are thereby made subservient to it. In fact, the brief discussion of prosodic and aesthetic considerations that follows culminates in two of Buyannemeh’s own poems, written especially for inclusion in the essay and for which he solicits his readers’ comments and critiques.53 These poems are political in that they are observations of the actual lives of herders out on the steppe, and by focusing on the condition of the poor, ‘[i]t is’, he writes, ‘as though I have written poems […] whose meaning is clearly found in what is true’.54 52 Galbayar, 2013, p. 19. 53 These two poems are ‘Övliin dotorh yaduu ger’ (A Poor Ger in Winter) and ‘Hadny deerh gants honichin’ (A Lonely Shepherd on a Rock) in Galbayar (2013, pp. 21-22 and 22-23). 54 Galbayar, 2013, p. 23.

144 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

There are obvious political aspects to the Anthology’s theoretical material in the two introductory essays by Chimid and Buyannemeh’s long exposition of literary composition. More significant, however, is how, even though the book was produced by the Group of Revolutionary Writers – itself set up as a direct result of the Party Congress that had eliminated the rightists and introduced to Mongolia the key elements of Stalin’s Five-Year Plan – it makes scant mention of anything more than the wretched situation of the oppressed poor and the need to suppress the rich and powerful nobles. Indeed, the section in Buyannemeh’s essay that deals with subject matter simply implies that ideas can appear to a writer at any time, yet he never indicates that certain themes might be more suitable than others. The social and political tone of the book’s contents do, however, reflect Chimid’s statements that ‘literary writing is a very strong weapon with which to develop cultural ideology’ and that, ‘through the Party’s instruction, which contains the characteristics of class, the path of our cultural ideology becomes quite suitable as the path of the truly poor proletarian workers’.55 The book functions more as a rallying cry than a theoretical exposition, and its wide range of subject matter and styles indicates, as I shall show, that its editors were seeking to reach far beyond the small group of literate intellectuals that made up its presumed readership. Following these three introductory essays, the Anthology of Literature contains ten poems, 11 pieces of prose (12 if we count the note about D. Perenlei), and one admixture of the two, followed by a discrete second section of 11 songs. The likelihood is that the works in the first section were specially composed for inclusion in the book. The songs, however, are an amalgam of some dating from the immediate aftermath of the revolution and others that had obviously been written in response to the 1928 Party Congress. The political thread running through these pieces is largely celebratory. The few moments of condemnation are reserved for monastic hypocrisy, for lazy officials and for the self-satisfaction of nobles who refuse to accept the new order. No mention is made of the ‘right deviation’ that had only just been suppressed nor of the industrialization and collectivization that was being planned. In discussing the process and effects of the revolution, it appears that care was taken to mention by name only Sühbaatar and Lenin, whose premature deaths had sealed their legacy. In Buyannemeh’s dialog ‘Sühbaatar, Who Crushed the Enemy’,56 the characters describe Sühbaatar as ‘preserving the 55 Ibid., p. 16. 56 Galbayar, 2013, pp. 30-32.

Lef t ward Toge ther

145

people’s freedom as though it was his own life, and entering the enemy’s poisonous ranks like an arrow’. They emphasize that, while Sühbaatar is dead (‘I heard this news, and immediately my heart missed a beat, it was as though I was crushed beneath a seven-story mountain’), his legacy remains in the Party’s recent activity: Now that all the sickness in the Party has been purged, its robust strength is striving for what the famed general Sühbaatar intended, and all across the eastern continent, its fiery standards are blazing red for him, they will crush absolutely whichever of the vicious demons remain.

There is a striking difference between what Buyannemeh writes here about Sühbaatar and what Navannamjil writes about Lenin in ‘Lenin’s Memorial’.57 The difference is not so much one of generation or age – 15 years separated Navannamjil from Lenin, and Buyannemeh was nine years younger than Sühbaatar – as it is cultural: a description of Lenin was a description of the source and theoretical hub of Soviet revolutionary activity, but also Navannamjil’s Lenin was observed from a distance, whereas Sühbaatar was Mongolian and so could be understood as existing within the same cultural and social sphere as Buyannemeh and his readers. In using dialog, then, Buyannemeh was able to write an account of a discussion of Sühbaatar’s achievements between two acquaintances (one of whom might be imagined as Buyannemeh himself), whereas Navannamjil’s memorial to Lenin is a litany of descriptions and achievements couched in extended lines written in the traditional holboot form.58 There exists no definitive evidence that Navannamjil ever met Lenin, although as the principal secretary in the early years of the Bogd Haan’s administration, he had been present at the discussions of key treaties surrounding Mongolia’s political autonomy. There is a detached and commentarial tone to the poem, a tone that is missing entirely in Buyannemeh’s account of Sühbaatar (whom both Buyannemeh and Navaannamjil had known), and which suffuses the poem’s 13 verses, such as the following: Just as before, our teacher Vladimir Ilych Lenin grants our poor workers his embrace. With this in mind, although this day marks the grievous memory of our teacher Lenin’s passing, 57 Ibid., pp. 34-36. 58 That is, with the sameletter or syllable at yhe beginning of every line.

146 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

his bright teaching, an inexhaustible aid, exists for the weak masses of our nation, and so in our united power lies the strengthening and expansion of the dynamic and heroic revolution.

Navannamjil was a prose writer of some ability, and this has the effect of being almost a prose-poem. It is not an especially elegant work, yet in the context of the Anthology, it acts as a foil to Buyannemeh’s paean to Sühbaatar which, in its intimacy, can lay no claim to representing the feelings of the Mongolian people en masse. ‘Lenin’s Memorial Day’, on the contrary, functions like a formal, even forced statement of Mongolia’s grief at Lenin’s untimely end. These opening texts provide important material for the reader as well as for a potential literary writer. Chimid’s opening remarks indicate the significance of the book as a product of the Party published under the auspices of the Group of Revolutionary Writers and offer suggestions on how budding authors might seek to develop and improve their craft. This is taken up by Buyannemeh, and his more theoretical approach allows the reader to understand the range of forms that a work of literature might take. The accounts of Sühbaatar and Lenin presage the increasing focus on personality that would come to dominate the literature from the late 1930s, following the ascendancy of Choibalsan, and they contrast the feeling of individual grief at the death of the Mongolian hero Sühbaatar with the official and somewhat constructed mourning on the death of Lenin. For the majority of Mongolians, these two texts reflected their experience of these two similar yet also very different events and spoke to them as expressions of Mongolian tradition in the visionary and very untraditional discourse of revolutionary socialism. Frequently in the Anthology, dialogs are used as a method of teaching revolutionary ideas or critiquing malfeasant officials in an entertaining manner. Although written dialogs do not carry the same dramatic weight as plays,59 there is still the power of repartee, of two characters putting forward differing views, either in opposition to one another or to offer varying approaches to the same idea. Already an established literary form in Mongolia, dialogs between animals or inanimate objects had developed

59 See Chapter 2 for a discussion of revolutionary drama.

Lef t ward Toge ther

147

from the oral literature into the nineteenth-century written genre of üge, or ‘word’.60 In her study of the genre, H. Süglegmaa describes üge as composed in the form of speeches, discussions and disputes between human beings and wild animals, or between inanimate objects, its main point being to show the world’s images and objects, their characters and customary behaviors […].61

Unlike regular stories framed by dialogic narrative, üge function like the stories influenced by the Pañcatantra, which managed satirically to divert the reader’s all too human embarrassment by loading human foibles onto non-human characters or by using non-human characters to observe and comment on these foibles from a sufficiently safe distance. The Anthology contains four of these dialogs, once more the work of Buyannameh and Navannamjil, each of them dealing with social and technological advances in Mongolian society. Buyannemeh’s three texts – ‘What the Steam Train Said’, ‘An Argument Among the Motor Cars’ and ‘The Tricycle’s Lament’62 – are overheard conversations between vehicles about the benefits and difficulties associated with recent developments in transportation. Navannamjil’s ‘Meaningful Words Between a Mouse and a Ground Squirrel’63 presents through the mouths of scavenging rodents the Party’s efforts to improve the lives of the poor in the countryside. The characters speak for the Party and for the people, reporting the Party’s achievements and the people’s opinions, but they are also exemplars of how the Party and the people, framed ideologically as one and the same, view one another in the ongoing development of socialism. Each of Buyannemeh’s stories presents a perspective on the benefits of motorized transport. The first two engage the reader in questions of suitability, and in both the narrator describes an overheard conversation between different types of vehicles.64 In ‘What the Steam Train Said’, a 60 The term üge in this context is a Mongolian translation of the Tibetan genre form gtam, which means ‘speech’, which might be a more suitable translation in this context than ‘word’. 61 Süglegmaa, 2005, p. 5. 62 Galbayar, 2013, pp. 37-39, 40-41 and 42. 63 Ibid., pp. 70-74. 64 At the beginning of ‘What the Steam Train Said’, there is an interesting commentary, possibly catalyzed by uneasiness with such fiction on the part of a leftist, more factual and journalistic approach to literature, in which Buyannemeh seems to be questioning the idea behind these üge-like dialogs between inanimate objects. The text opens with the following comic exchange: ‘Do you want to hear something interesting?’ ‘What?’

148 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

tired old steam train pulling a line of wagons meets a smart new engine, which has come from America. The latter asks the locomotive: ‘Would you not call me an elegant and richly decked out engine?’ The reader might wonder whether such pride reflected the Mongolian attitude towards the United States, and the subsequent conversation touches on questions of how innovation is being used to move goods around the city and around the country. The narrator’s final commentary is obviously supposed to leave the reader in no question about how they should understand this debate in the new era of industrialization, speed and efficiency. When you ride around on a train, wandering about as normal, this is not what we call progress. Is it not what we call progress when we advance quickly with our work? When we understand what these trains are telling us, it will be significant, and if we do not understand then it will be just steam.65

This theme is taken up by ‘An Argument Among the Motor Cars’ in which two official vehicles, one a new and shining green car, the other an old and shabby black model, argue about their relative worth. Of interest here – and in ‘The Tricycle’s Lament’ – is the importance of equality. The green car responds to the black car’s complaint by appealing to the egalitarianism that was a new focus of the Party both in the Soviet Union and in Mongolia. The old black car says: ‘Now the government is using cars from the tired and poor classes to look after the poor, while they don’t shrink from using all you brand new cars for the rich’, and the green car was extremely irate, he rose up and laid into the black car. ‘Don’t insult me! You’re an official vehicle, and I’m an official vehicle. Is it because you are a little advanced in years that you’re being used for the poor classes?’66

Buyannemeh’s concern in these stories was to hint not only at the true situation of the poor in Mongolia at this time when the forces of social ‘I heard some steam trains talking together about their official duties’. ‘What sort of insane talk is that? What do you mean, you heard some steam trains talking? You mean their drivers, surely?’ ‘No, no. Not the drivers – that’s what was so interesting. I heard the locomotives themselves talking.’ 65 Galbayar, 2013, p. 39. 66 Ibid., p. 41.

Lef t ward Toge ther

149

engineering were being developed according to the Soviet model, but also at the class resentment that lay beneath the surface of the revolutionary society. The overworked tricycle in ‘The Tricycle’s Lament’, who suffers by being ridden morning and evening by the ministers Ölziibat and Gonchigdamba,67 is another example of how the condition of the poor and laboring classes had not ostensibly improved during the eight years since the revolution. Navannamjil’s story takes its lead not from the kind of innovative, socially significant and largely urban technology that concerned Buyannemeh but from the changes in Mongolia’s livestock economy and the vast majority of the population who cared for it. This is the longest piece in the book (excepting ‘On the Composition Of Literature’), and over the course of their discussion, the mouse and the ground squirrel hear from other characters – among them a crow and a magpie, both a cow and the rather petulant cart she is pulling, and assorted cattle and camels – about the ways in which their lives (and so the lives of the nomads with whom they interact and whose labor they do) have been transformed by the Party and by the ongoing work of the revolution. One such example is given by the magpie, talking to one of the ox carts about what he had seen: Right nearby there was rushing along an iron cart called a car. And rumbling overhead there was an iron bird called an airplane. They’re made by skilled foreigners, they are not alive, yet they fly and move thanks to nuts and bolts, machinery, keys, water and steam, and in a single day they pass through so many relay stations, carrying cargo weighing a few thousand pounds. And many people can sit in them and quickly go wherever they were thinking about. Our Mongolia is preparing large numbers of these vehicles and then clumsy and slow ox carts like you won’t be needed, and the loads you carry will be transported by these cars and flying machines, and meadows are being prepared for your rest and wellbeing, and clinics to treat your sickness […].68

The magpie’s account promises relief for those laboring in the countryside. In being promised less work and better health through the improvements in veterinary medicine financed by Soviet money (which presumably also implies better health care for the people too), the reader is informed about two of the most important social developments taking place at that time in 67 I have yet to identify these two as ministers, or whether they were in fact purely fictional characters. 68 Galbayar, 2013, p. 72.

150 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Mongolia. But this is also an image of Mongolia’s growing centralization – the industrialized production of cars and planes – and, while the availability of veterinary medicine was never itself dependent upon the collectivization of herders, the implication of what the magpie is saying perhaps points to the confiscation of property during the autumn and winter of 1929, which was underway at the time of the Anthology’s publication. The use of non-human actors in these stories cannot be seen as simply an extension of a traditional genre, however. By having vehicles discuss the situation of transportation and by having animals discuss advances in veterinary medicine, Buyannemeh and Navannamjil are making meaningful emotional links between their readers and the working population as a whole through the use of humor as well as through an appeal to self-awareness and reason. The power of literature to communicate on many dimensions – what Mayakovsky and LEF had failed to recognize in their promotion of factology and in their disparaging of emotion – was central to establishing a connection with the people. The performativity in texts such as these – and we might imagine it being acted out for those unable themselves to read the text – suggests that a lot of fun could be had at the expense of the unhappy tricycle or the petulant ox cart and that this entertainment might have encouraged listeners more readily to accept what they were being told and so develop faith in the Party and its policies.69 This interdependence of the people and the Party – indeed the ideological construct of the Party as the people – meant that the interests of one became framed as the interests of the other. Antagonism against the powerful aspects of Buddhism and of religion in general had intensified by the latter part of 1929, and this is reflected in the language of the Anthology.70 The treatment of religion in the texts by Rinchen, Damdinsüren and Chimid’s diarist ‘Ts.’ is caustic and aggressive, but there are comparatively so few texts about the corruption and hypocrisy of Buddhism as it was practiced (or as its practice was framed by the Party) that it seems to have been a theme of only minor importance in the broad schema of the book. From what we have seen so far, the Anthology might appear to have been a vehicle for the work of Buyannemeh. This is a reasonable analysis, given his prominent position within Mongolia’s literary sphere and the sheer percentage of the Anthology taken up by his work. And yet we can look at 69 This was also a side-effect of the moral teachings in the üge genre as it had been with fables such as Aesop’s or the stories in the Pañcatantra. 70 See Chapter 6 for further discussion of Buddhism in the literature.

Lef t ward Toge ther

151

this from a different perspective: Buyannemeh’s position might have given him some degree of power, but it was the book itself that was of primary significance. Both the thematic range covered by the texts and their social and political relevance to the reader speak eloquently not only of what the Party would have the readers read but also of what might actually inspire and move the reader to political action. As much as Soviet-inspired revolutionary discourse was growing in influence, the audience for the Anthology was still Mongolian, whether or not they were literate, whether they had received any education, or whether they were urban or rural, nomadic or monastic, traders or teachers or herders. For this reason, among all the texts dealing with social and political issues, we find such pieces as Rinchen’s traditional ‘My Homeland’,71 and ‘The Cowherd Boy’ and ‘The Herders’ Foe’ by Sh. Ayuush72, which together carry us outside the revolutionary discourse to describe a timeless Mongolia of herders and their livestock. In its entirety, ‘The Herders’ Foe’ runs as follows: There’s a blinding blizzard today, a few livestock are missing. Utterly vanished. I’m coming in from the north, in the pitch-dark night, on foot and without a mount, and the night grows deeper. This land, with neither humans nor animals, has been gripped by a great sickness called snow. I’ve got nothing in my hands. On and on I go, through a pitch-black wood. Suddenly the whine of the wind over here, the whine of the wind over there, and suddenly a wolf over here, a wolf over there, approaching, approaching. Where are my livestock? I’ll destroy those wolves, so I will!

This and ‘The Cowherd Boy’ can be seen as Ayuush’s responses to Buyannemeh’s poems in ‘On the Composition Of Literature’, which present a similarly bleak picture of the lives of nomadic herders on the steppe. While they are bleak, these texts speak to readers outside the intellectual coteries of Ulaanbaatar, and they place the reality of the herding life alongside the kind of developments and innovations and revolutionary aspirations that are conjured up in the stories of talking cars and cows relaxing after lives of servitude. They ground and cohere the overarching narrative of the Anthology, they offer interludes showing experiences familiar to every Mongolian reader (Buyannemeh used the same everyday themes so as not to detract from the importance of his explanation of poetic structure), and

71 See Chapter 3 for a discussion of this poem. 72 Galbayar, 2013, pp. 54, 57.

152 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

in this way they lead, over the page, to a scurrilous dialog by Damdinsüren between a monk and his lover. While we cannot assume that every reader consumed the book in the order presented, nor that this order had necessarily been the subject of much editorial deliberation, still there is an effect – even if only conceptually – in its pacing and rhythm. The book’s small number of more innovative pieces, for instance, come only after a fundament of politically solid and stylistically traditional works has been laid down. The book, as a revolutionary artifact, uses mostly traditional forms to advance what were, within the context of Mongolia’s nomadic society, socially and technologically unimaginable advances, couching these advances in recognizable and comfortingly familiar forms. Notwithstanding how innovative an anthology of revolutionary literature was within the Mongolian context, true innovation sneaks in only occasionally. Perhaps only Journal Entries by Chimid’s alter ego ‘Ts.’ and Buyannemeh’s A Dangerous Battle can be considered as genuinely experimental literature for their conceptual and linguistic experiments, respectively. A Dangerous Battle73 is a piece of extended language play unique to Mongolian literature at the time. It reproduces the sound of guns and canons, of war conveyed through familiar stylistic techniques (Mongolian uses frequent alliteration and onomatopoeia) but with a dramatic intensity. Although different in scope and feeling from the work of Dada poets such as Hugo Ball or of the Russian zaum poets such as Aleksei Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov,74 Buyannameh’s use of repetition and forceful rhythmic alliteration represents the sounds of battle to readers who, like Buyannemeh himself, had no first-hand experience of them. Perhaps because of its having been composed in a vacuum, with the massed noise of guns and shouting imagined rather than remembered, and perhaps because the structure of the piece – it begins with a poem and moves into a repetitive series of descriptive sentences, each armed with its own onomatopoeic bi-syllabic phrase, finally descending into an entire paragraph of noise – is so strange, A Dangerous Battle remains an especially powerful piece of experimentation. The final paragraph of noise is deafening, relentless: and suddenly only these sounds hüden pur püd tus nir nir nirrrr hüdges chir chir chirrr pird hürd hür tür gan shin tas nyas pis tus serd sürd gyalbas 73 Galbayar, 2013, pp. 77-78. 74 In a colophon to this piece, Buyannemeh mentions how he received help from unidentified Siberian writers in perfecting the onomatopoeic effects in this work, and how European writers are ‘very interested in transcribing sounds’, which would seem to reference these writers and hints maybe at a degree of familiarity with the European experimental tradition in general.

Lef t ward Toge ther

153

galbas gyalav tsalav tür tür türrr püs tus pir pir pirr pur pur hüden hüden gun gun tus tas dün dün dün ura ura gin hen han gan hang hang din din dan dan püs pis tün tün sun shun tar tar tarrr shiu shiu türden dürdüi yuu yuu ei ei seize – and seize – and kill – and kill – and aagh aagh ohhh ohhh and they fade, they pile up, break, smash, oh no oh no oh dear oh dear 75

Buyannemeh draws the reader close into the battle, and the emphasis of performance over silent reading expands the potential for an audience to enjoy modern literature (as the Futurists had) as a representation of lived experience. The experience of armed conflict might not have been common to nomadic herding communities but, as with Buyannemeh’s extensive presentation of different literary genres in his essay on literary composition, the Party was focused on an education policy that exposed Mongolians to events in the wider world, however distressing they might prove. In the Anthology’s contents list, Journal Entries is ascribed to ‘Ts.’, who is understood to have been Chimid Dungaryn.76 The nine ‘entries’ range from a poem about going to school to a brief practical joke, from a discussion between ‘reactionaries’ to a description of a stylish young woman. But its most radical departure is in the humor of a simple yet dangerous liaison: Hey there, son! My son!? Yeah, yeah, what is it? He turned back. Do you like me? Sure I like you. Then do you love me? Sure I love you. Really? Really.

75 The reader should note that I have taken some liberties in translating his paragraph. The original 1929 text (Galbayar, 2013, p. 217) contains an opening bracket before the word ‘hüdges’ but the closing bracket is omitted: I have chosen to omit the opening bracket. Also, I have removed the punctuation marks in the original Mongol bichig (reproduced as commas in the Cyrillic version). The opening phrase ‘and suddenly only these sounds’ is set apart in brackets in the original but incorporated into the Cyrillic text as the beginning of the paragraph. 76 The following explanatory note is attached to this text: ‘These [journal entries] are of fine literary quality and, although some of them are common types of writing, they express genuine qualities and move the emotions, and so they are not common but are rather genuine examples of literature. The author of these journal entries is unnamed. But it is comrade Chimid Dungaryn’ Galbayar (2013, p. 69). Presumably this note is not part of Chimid’s original text but was added (perhaps by him, in an editorial capacity) for clarification.

154 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

In that case give me three kisses! and she grabbed him by the neck and embraced him, laughing and unhurriedly their faces came closer and the glowing sensations of their two bodies collided, their mouths and their teeth clattered, and with all their might they embraced one another, and as they enjoyed together a single kiss, as their two muzzles exchanged secretions, the love of a frozen heart melted, the fire of desire was set ablaze, and lost in the fog of this moment, their minds were oblivious to the arrival of people from outside, and it was precisely as they separated that their elder and younger brothers, and both of their mothers and fathers were standing right there, amazed. And those two young people leapt up, embarrassed, and headed outside.

It is believed77 that this entry, called ‘Lovers Kissing’78 is the first time that erotic love was described explicitly in Mongolian literature. Despite the lack of privacy in nomadic society and the lack of a moralizing attitude towards sexuality, descriptions of such encounters do not appear in works of literature.79 Yet this piece was published, apparently without censorship, perhaps because of its gentle mockery of a universal experience, perhaps because of a revolutionary feeling for progressive liberalism, but perhaps also because of the power Chimid wielded in the Group of Revolutionary Writers. The remaining entries in the journal do not advance literature to the extent that ‘Lovers Kissing’ did, but the idea of a f ictionalized journal presented as a discovered document, some of whose entries might be construed as fictions composed by the diarist or as reported overheard conversations, represent an unusual and innovative format for a work in Mongolian at this time. Chimid had spent 1928 as a student in Moscow, during which time ideas of how literature was supposed to reflect the advances in Soviet society were beginning to reflect its increased radicalization: a literary experiment such as ‘Journal Entries’ and its anonymous author presented a mystery for readers and was a way by which Chimid could remain in his editorial position while stressing key revolutionary themes and injecting a little risqué humor into a volume that was otherwise rather earnest. 77 Personal communication with G-A. Ayurzana and L. Ölziitögs, December 2013. 78 Galbayar, 2013, p. 69. The full text of Journal Entries is found on pp. 61-69. 79 That said, the nineteenth-century monk-poet Danzanravjaa (1803-1856) wrote and illustrated what is in essence a Mongolian version of the Kāmasūtra, although this is more a manual than a work of fiction.

Lef t ward Toge ther

155

That Mongolia’s population was largely illiterate meant that songs, as an extension of oral tradition, played an important role in the education of revolutionary society during the 1920s, and this is reflected in the 11 songs that comprise the second section of the Anthology.80 The selection starts with Buyannemeh’s ‘New Red Flag’and ‘Mongolian Internationale’,81 neither of which show much relationship to their more famous antecedents. In 1923, Buyannemeh had written a shorter version of the Internationale (called ‘Song of the International’82), and this was used from the declaration of the MPRP in 1924 until 1950 as the Mongolian National Anthem.83 The original song ‘The Red Flag’, with its lyrics by the Irish political activist Jim Connell, had appeared as the first song in International Workers of the World Songs in 1909,84 and its significance for the international socialist movement presumably led to this version being placed first among the songs in the Anthology. An older version had been sung to a tune by M. Dugarjav during the 1921 revolution, and a note mentions that these new lyrics were to be sung to the old tune. Buyannemeh’s lyrics, written in 1924, are more aggressive and spirited than Connell’s, and his text, like the version sung by the original revolutionaries, seems more like a response to the Soviet discourse of the red flag than to the text included in the IWW songbook: We’ll raise the red flag, we’ll set the people’s glory blazing, We’ll raise a cheer and crush the wicked oppressors of the past, We’ll wave our glorious banner, we’ll march in striking ranks, We’ll bring down and we’ll destroy the capitalists of recent times! Hurrah hurrah hurrah! Let the people’s glory blaze! 80 Following the 1925 Teachers’ Conference, the Party’s initial Plan for Education (1926) featured the use of songs such as Shiree Hiagt (The Fortress at Kyakta), Ulaan Tug (The Red Flag) and Pyonerin Duu (Pioneers’ Song) to educate primary school children (Baterdene, 2007, p. 33). 81 Galbayar, 2013, pp. 83 and 82 respectively. 82 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, pp. 14-15. 83 The music was composed by M. Dugarjav (1896-1946). Note also that these words continued to be used for 13 years after Buyannemeh’s trial and execution in 1937. See also Chapter 2, footnote 90. 84 This book was also known as the Little Red Songbook and had as its motto, ‘to fan the flames of discontent’. A 1916 reproduction can be found at http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/iww. html (accessed 13 December 2016), although this lists ‘The Red Flag’ as ‘The Workers’ Flag is Deepest Red’, and as the second song after ‘Workers of the World, Awaken!’. The symbolism of the red flag as representing the bloody struggle of the left goes back to the French Revolution, but this in turn had evolved from a mediaeval practice of ships in combat flying a red streamer, called a baucans, to signify the willingness to fight to the end.

156 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

The second and third verses develop similar themes, including in the final verse the line ‘we’ll sharpen anew General Sühbaatar’s resolve’, referencing the revolutionary leader who had died only one year before this version was written, and the renewed focus, following the death of the Bogd Haan in May 1924, on creating the new socialist Mongolia. Buyannemeh wrote f ive of the Anthology’s 11 songs and co-wrote another (a call-and-response military song called ‘The Heroic Red Army’85) with a young man, otherwise unknown, named Ch. Dashnyam, who would die in 1938 at the age of 26. These songs, like the Red Flag and the Internationale, are focused on socialism as a group ideology for the benefit of the broad society. As songs, they have a particular meter and form for which the poetry is coopted. ‘The Heroic Red Army’, for instance, has ten verses, each of which follow the same form, which is explained in a note: ‘When many soldiers march in formation, one man sings the f irst two lines in a loud voice, and as soon as he starts to recite [the refrain] ei ei hö hö hö they all join in and sing the entire refrain.’ This explanation would seem, like the descriptions of genre in ‘On the Composition Of Literature’, to be directed at those who had never encountered this style of song and included in part to serve as a model for those who would write in this style. The ‘Song of Revolutionary Youth’,86 which the text claims Buyannemeh wrote in 1921, stands as an exemplary call by one of the founding members of the Union of Revolutionary Youth inciting young people to rise up against oppressors and to educate themselves in order to develop socialism in Mongolia and to carry out the tasks demanded of them by the Party: By educating ourselves in culture, we will work against aggressors, and by developing ourselves from now, we will make a happy end. We will clear away, and disempower the wild and foolish opposition, and we will choose and befriend wise and learnèd comrades, we will clear away all reactionaries, my comrades!

85 Galbayar, 2013, pp. 88-89. 86 Ibid., pp. 84-85.

Lef t ward Toge ther

157

This particular song, which many readers would already have known, was included in the Anthology to stress the contribution of the Revolutionary Youth Union following the Seventh Party Congress. Following the example of the Komsomol in the Soviet Union, Mongolia’s young people were encouraged to take part in the drive towards collectivization and to support the policies advanced by the Party in response to the rise of the left in late 1928. The language of this song remains aspirational, and yet there is a poignancy to the idea of ‘reactionaries’ here, for many of those who in 1921 had been fighting against the reactionaries of the old order had, by the time of the Anthology’s publication, become the new rightist reactionaries. Buyannemeh, who as we have seen was himself accused of rightist leanings, cannot have been blind to this irony, and it is an interesting commentary on the political changes underway at the time that this song was published in a volume directed towards the revolution’s explicitly Socialist – and increasingly Stalinist – future. One of the Party’s primary concerns during the period immediately after the revolution, and to which it gave especial emphasis following the 1928 Congress, was the question of equality and women’s education. The editors of the Anthology inserted the following note at the center of the section devoted to songs: Although there is much interest in the works of the women in this Group, that there are very few does not much clarify the matter of literature. Ichinhorloo, the only female among those observing the Party, has said that, because of the literary work such as journalism done by women, they can also become writers. For instance there is, among the women, an old lady who has been published. She formed the first music organization in Mongolia, and not only did she put on plays, but she organized a music group, taught music to young women and song and music to the members of clubs and to schoolchildren. From this we can see that she has put much effort into bringing music and song to the people. Moreover, the older she gets, the wiser she becomes, and she is very skilled at songs with linked verse. Some people know the f irst few words of these songs, but don’t know the rest, or they know the final words. We have included some of her songs below. Those who might be interested in reading them or in reacquainting themselves with them should take a look.87 87 Galbayar, 2013, p. 90.

158 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

This ‘old lady’ (nastai avgai) was D. Ishdulam, 58 at the time and a wellrespected musician both before and since the revolution.88 Following this introductory remark, which gives insight into the rarity of women in literature, three poems by women writers are included89. Two of these – ‘A Song Linking Lenin and Sühbaatar’ and ‘Song for the Party’s Great Hural’90 – are structurally very similar, with each line having the same end-line refrain hö hö. But between the editorial given above and the first of these songs is Shiree Hiagt, (The Fortress at Kyakta), a famous song about an incident during the revolution in which Sühbaatar’s forces had expelled Chinese troops from the strategically important town of Kyakta on the border between Mongolia and China.91 From the way the sequence is contextualized in the Anthology, it looks as though Ishdulam is being credited with the words of this song; however, Galbayar in his edition sees this as an error and places ‘The Fortress at Kyakta’ after the songs by Ishdulam and a second female writer, D. Tserenlham. An alternative reading would be that Ishdulam was the writer of this famous song,92 and if this is in fact the case, it is uncertain why she has never been credited with its composition. Even in the atmosphere of revolutionary equality, maybe the poem’s language seemed too masculine, too aggressive even, to have been written by a woman of Ishdulam’s age: When we take the fortress at Kyakta, we’ll need no lanterns. We will fell the Chinese revolutionaries with our iron bombs. We will line up four machine-guns through the square sights, and dispatch those lawless Chinese down a shortcut. On his light bay horse is the great General – a wise person who grasps the whole situation. A few ranks of soldiers at the top of the western mountain, and beyond them the heroic general watches. 88 D. Ishdulam (1871-1937) was a musician and music teacher who also wrote popular songs. She was a founding member in 1921 of the People’s Amateur Arts group (Ündesnii högjmiin sain durin uran saihanchdyn bülgem), which later became the Sühbaatar Club, and was employed by the National Theater when it opened in 1931 (see Chapter 2). 89 Interestingly, these three are numbered as a set, presumably because they are the book’s only texts by women (notwithstanding the possible provenance of ‘The Fortress at Kyakta’). 90 Galbayar, 2013, p. 90 and 91. 91 An account of this is given in Bawden, [1968] 1989, pp. 230-231. 92 The composer M. Dugarjav wrote the music, and his is invariably the only name attached to this song. In his note, Galbayar does not go so far as to suggest that the original placement of the song was an error. He simply says that he has moved the song to its new place in the sequence (Galbayar, 2013, p. 93).

Lef t ward Toge ther

159

They set up canons on the high mountain tops, lined up the Chinese and turned them to ashes. They fired lightning shots from the distant mountain tops, and the glory of the people’s army brought the fearsome Chinese to their knees. Through our comrades’ sacrifice, they first raised the people’s government in the town of Altanbulag. They established the people’s Party and proclaimed their great goal, they had crushed every enemy and brought the people rest.

There is no definitive evidence, save for the placement of the poem within what seems to be delineated as the women’s section of the Anthology, that ‘The Fortress at Kyakta’ was written by Ishdulam. Nonetheless, there is also no reason, given the nature of the book and the fact that its contents were clearly meant to make a literary as well as political impact on readers, to believe that such a glaring production error (or, at best, ambiguity) could so easily have been overlooked.93 The other woman included in the Anthology is D. Tserenlham, who at the time was head of the Women’s Section of the Party Central Committee. Her song, ‘Women’s Song’, is a more thoughtful approach to the overcoming of prejudice and cruelty than Ishdulam’s. According to D. Tsedev,94 Buyannemeh had originally seen this song when it had been published in the magazine Emegteichüüdiin Erh (Women’s Rights) in September 1929 and had asked that it be reprinted in the Anthology. In his article, Tsedev draws musical connections between this song and a Japanese revolutionary song from 1900 but conf irms Tserenlham’s authorship of the lyrics.95 The political force of Tserenlham’s writing lies in how she links the need for women’s education with the development of a revolutionary

93 Tarva (1951) gives an alternative account of how the song was composed. He says that it was composed spontaneously following the battle by the victorious partisans to commemorate the battle itself, the revolutionary victory, and Sühbaatar’s leadership. He mentions that one of the partisans, Gavar, was a skilled musician who adapted an old tune to which the lyrics were sung. Tarva offers no evidence for his claim, and there remains no definitive story as to how the song came to be written. 94 Tsedev, 2005, pp. 65-86. 95 See ‘Mongolyn “Emegteichüüdiin Duu”, Yapony “Tömör Zamyn Duu”-ny Holboo’ in Tsedev, 2005, pp. 65-86.

160 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

society that rejects oppression. These are the f irst three of the poem’s ten verses:96 We poor women, so much oppressed by civilization – let us follow the path of education! We revolutionary comrades, capitalism has oppressed us, made us suffer – let us make ready to destroy it! We will not be oppressed, as before, by those who are violent and cruel, who have tyrannized the people – this let us confirm!

Except for the fact that the original audience for the song was pre-defined by the readership of Women’s Rights, this poem repeats many of the political themes and social aspirations of the other songs in the Anthology. It is not enough to claim a ‘women’s viewpoint’ on Tserenlham’s part: even if Ishdulam didn’t write ‘The Fortress at Hiagt’, neither of the two songs ascribed to her show any kind of affinity, whether linguistic or emotional, with Tserenlham’s song. Although the kind of education that both women had received placed them, as literate and educated women, in an infinitesimally small group among the majority of Mongolian women,97 it allowed for their work to fully reflect their understanding of socialism and the attitude of emancipation and equality promoted by the Party.98 On the final pages of the Anthology is an anonymous song called ‘Pioneer Song’, which turns out to have been written by D. Natsagdorj. By the time the book was published in November 1929, Natsagdorj had returned from Germany and had been granted membership of the Group of Revolutionary 96 Galbayar, 2013, p. 92. 97 In 1935, six years later, the first officially collected statistics showed that literate women accounted for just 0.6% of the total population (Development of the National Economy and Culture, 1960, p. 12). 98 Mongolian women had been granted de jure equality with men in the 1921 constitution and voting rights from 1924.

Lef t ward Toge ther

161

Writers. He had composed the song in 1925 as the anthem for the new Mongolian Pioneers Organization99: it was one of his earliest pieces,100 written when he was serving as the chief of the Pioneers’ Bureau, and it became popular, being typed out and distributed by hand before also being published in a newspaper called ‘The Successor’ (Zalgamjlagch). The youthful zeal of this song – in striking contrast with the life Natsagdorj would lead in the eight years that in 1929 remained to him – shows how hopeful and visionary the revolutionary thinking of young Mongolians was following the establishment of the MPRP. The refrain of ‘Are you ready?’ and the song’s final line – ‘We know what we’ll do –/we’ll inherit the revolution’ – offer to the Mongolian people in their revolutionary struggle the direct and explicit support of the Pioneer movement.101 With this song, the Anthology extends its reach. Buyannemeh’s ‘Song of Revolutionary Youth’ might be seen more as a confirmation of what had already been understood – that Mongolia’s young men and women were a powerful source of support for the social vision and intellectual modernity promised by the Party. But Natsagdorj’s appeal to the members of the Pioneer movement sought to engage the younger brothers and sisters of the revolutionary youth, with their ‘new red ribbons/ fly[ing] in the wind’ and their ‘sharp little drums/beat[ing] par par par’, who would ultimately create Mongolia’s future. Natsagdorj’s song, coming right at the end of the book, points towards this future. It brings together the whole population – the women in Tserenlham’s song, the revolutionary youth in Buyannemeh’s, the elders who may have likely read and heard Ishdulam and Navannamjil’s pieces with an awareness of advancing age, those committed to the modern technology who would have found amusement in Buyannemeh’s stories of disquieted vehicles, herders who would have listened with recognition to Ayuush’s stark accounts of herding life, and those who, while they might have been devoted Buddhists, felt revulsion for the hypocrisy and immorality of the 99 Based upon the Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization in the Soviet Union, this organization for young people between 10 and 15 years of age was named after D. Sühbaatar and was closely overseen by the Union of Revolutionary Youth. 100 In his collected works (Natsagdorj, 1961, pp. 27-28) there is only one earlier poem, Appearance of Skyblue (Tsenherlen haragdana) written in 1923. ‘Pioneer Song’ appears in Galbayar, 2013, p. 94. 101 Natsagdorj’s close involvement with the Pioneer movement is further reflected in two short essays he wrote in 1930, Libkneht nar ba Mongolin Pionyer (‘Liebknecht’s Followers and the Mongolian Pioneers’) and Martyn Naiman ba Manai Pionyer (‘March 8th and Our Pioneers’), reproduced in Tsedev, 2016, vol. 2, pp. 247 and 248-250 respectively. March 8th references International Women’s Day, which remains a public holiday in Mongolia. Note that Natsagdorj uses in his title the Russian word for March.

162 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

monastic community – and it brings them together in a way that entertains and inspires, that educates and informs. Given the nature of the material in Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan, and despite the obvious intentions of its editors and authors, it is not always easy to discern what value the text might have had as a revolutionary tool. Certainly, it contains work that actively promoted a familiarity with – and a deeper appreciation of – the technological advances that were being made through foreign, primarily Soviet, assistance. And it is clear, too, that many of these writers were influenced in their thinking by the recent suppression of the rightists. But when we look at these texts, however superficially, through the prism of the debates in the Soviet Union at the time, while it would perhaps be unrealistic to expect the same volume of writing or the same level of sophistication from Mongolian as from Russian writers, it nonetheless appears that Mongolian writers remained, even after eight years, largely unencumbered by the theoretical and ideological concerns surrounding the psychology and expression of socialist ideals and the humanistic foundations of the ideal socialist society. Both in its contents and in the circumstances of its publication, Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan expresses the direction of Mongolia’s revolution. While the MPRP, through its closer relationship with the Soviet Union and through its implementation of Stalin’s first Five-Year Plan, was establishing a working model of Mongolian socialism, the Group of Revolutionary Writers was establishing a set of creative responses to, and a corresponding set of supporting discourses for, that model. Under the de facto leadership of Buyannemeh, Mongolia’s writers had collected into a single volume 36 texts to narrate the ongoing process of revolution. The social and political uncertainty of the next decade had been set in motion by the Seventh Party Congress, and the power of the word, whether written or spoken or sung, to negotiate this uncertainty and to connect the people with the people’s revolutionary government had been prismatically sealed in this small yet powerfully symbolic book.

Bibliography Ayuush, Sh. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1973. Baatar, Ya. Guchaad on, dörvön Chimed. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 2016. Bailes, Kendall E. Technology and Society under Lenin and Stalin Origins of the Soviet Technical Intelligentsia, 1917-1941. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.

Lef t ward Toge ther

163

Ball, Alan M. Russia’s Last Capitalists: The NEPmen, 1921-1929. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987. Baterdene, D. Mongolyn högjmiin bolovsrolin ulamjlal, shinjlel. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2007. Bat-Ireedüi, J. ‘Ih zohiolch D.Natsagdorjiin hiisen “German-Mongol Toli Bichig”-iin tuhai’. In Mongolia and Northeast Asian Studies, Vol. 2 (2016): 172-179. Bawden, Charles. The Modern History of Mongolia. London: Kegan Paul International, 1989. Borland, Harriet. Soviet Literary Theory and Practice during the First Five-Year Plan 1928-1932. New York: King’s Crown Press, 1950. Brown, Edward J. The Proletarian Episode in Russian Literature 1928-1932. New York: Octagon Books, 1971. Damdinsüren, Ts. Namtrin huudsaas. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1990. Development of the National Economy and Culture of the Mongolian People’s Republic from 1921 to 1958: A Statistical Compilation. Washington DC: US Joint Publications Research Service, 1960. Dobrenko, Evgeny. Political Economy of Socialist Realism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Enebish, J. Högjmiin ulamjlal shinechleliin asuudald. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin hevlelin gazar, 1991. Ermolaev, Herman. Soviet Literary Theories 1917-1934: The Genesis of Socialist Realism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963. Ettinhof, B. ‘Art in the Five-Year Plan of Cultural Construction’. VOKS Bulletin. All-Union Society for Foreign Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS). VOKS II, Nos. 10-12 (1931): 4. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, [1982] 1994. Galbayar, G., ed. Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan 1929. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian National University, 2013. Jamsranjav, G. ‘Huvisgalin Uran zohiolyn Narin Bülgem’, In Itgel Zütgeliin Jilüüd, edited by D. Tarva. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1969. Mally, Lynn. Culture of the Future: The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. Mendsaihan, H. Gyerman, Frantsyg zorison bagsh Bazar Ishdorj, Mongol Suragchdin Huvi Zaya. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2015. Namdag, D. Shine Mongolyn shine teatr. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1988. Natsagdorj, D. Zohioluud. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin hevleliin hereg erhleh horoo, 1961. Navaannamjil, G. Övgön Bicheechiin Ügüülel. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1956. Süglegmaa, H. Mongol uran zohiol dahi ‘üg’ zohiolyn töröl züil. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 2005.

164 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Tarvaa, D. ‘Shivee Hiagt’. Tuyaa, no. 2 (1951): 16. Tsedev, D. Shüleg ayalguuni shüteltsee. Ulaanbaatar: Interpress, 2005. —, and Wang Mandoha, eds. Sonombaljuur-un Buyannemekü, 4 Vols. Beijing: Ündesüten-ü Heblel-ün Qoriy-a, 2009. Tsedev, D. D. Natsagdorj: Büren zohiol. 2 Vols. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2016. Wolff, Serge ‘Mongolian Educational Venture in Western Europe (1926-1929)’. In Zentralasiatische Studien no. 5 (1971): 247-320.

5

Society in Flux Abstract Using S. Buyannemeh’s 1936 novella ‘Tovuudai the Herder’ (Malchin Tovuudai) as a basis, this chapter examines the social policies that the Party implemented so as to bring Mongolia into line with the Soviet Union. Through an analysis of the literary response to the unsuccessful policy of collectivization and to the more successful policies surrounding education and livestock husbandry, it shows how changes to the traditional nomadic herding culture – not only in the management of livestock, but in education and gender equality – affected society as a whole. In journeys such as Tovuudai’s, from the far west of Mongolia to the rapidly developing capital Ulaanbaatar, the kind of technological innovations that the Party wished to encourage – motorized transport and electrification – were seen as evidence of Mongolia’s modernization, and writers used the imagery and sensation of speed and technology to remind readers of their improving circumstances. Keywords: educational policy, collectivization, veterinary medicine, co-operative living, infrastructural development, transport, repression, Young Pioneers, Damdinsüren’s ‘The Rejected Girl’ (Gologdson hüühen)

The political and ideological transformation precipitated by Mongolia’s Seventh Party Congress led to a broad rethinking of what literature was expected to contribute to the revolution. In addition to ‘the exposure and rebuff of the right wing’, the congress encouraged ‘the development of schools and other cultural institutions, and the recruiting of the poor and moderately prosperous common people to take part in political, economic and cultural affairs’.1 Precisely what this meant is uncertain, yet in its intention to ‘bypass capitalism’, the MPRP was determined to accelerate the educational and social improvements that the revolution had brought 1

Short History of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, 1917-1940, pp. 78-79.

Wickhamsmith, Simon, Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948). Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984752_ch05

166 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

about. To this end, the members of the Revolutionary Writers’ Group were charged with focusing on the importance of education (particularly for women) and the collectivization of livestock, while continuing to work for the elimination at every level of society of the oppression and inequality perpetrated by the ‘black and yellow feudals’, i.e. the nobles and senior monastics. The dynamic replacement of the ‘right opportunists’ (baruuntan) with those who would come to be known as the ‘left deviationists’ (züünii nugalgaatan) following the civil uprising of 1932, which was instigated and led by monks, and the subsequent implementation of the New Turn Policy (shine ergeltiin bodlogo) provided a familiar and vibrant narrative background against which a work of fiction could be unrolled. In the hope of informing more people about the new policies, in 1936, the Ministry of Livestock and Agriculture supported the publication of 5,000 copies of a new novella by S. Buyannemeh, Malchin Tovuudai (Tovuudai the Herder).2 Buyannemeh wrote a short preface to the story,3 in which he describes his reasons for writing it: […] Mongolian livestock herders, as an expression of the workers’ polity, have come from a position of individual autonomy into the people’s government, and [so], by taking stock of many situations within the powerful government of the people, we finally now have the aspiration to develop the herding lifestyle through the implementation of the thinking of the New Turn Policy.

By focusing on the benefits of the New Turn Policy and its aftermath on Mongolia’s herding community, Buyannemeh ignores the errors of the leftists, choosing rather to focus upon the idea captured in the contemporary slogan ‘Herding is the basis of the Mongolian economy’.4 With this in mind, he creates Tovuudai as a medium to show the improvements following the suppression of the left and the introduction of the New Turn Policy. In doing this, he ensures that by the end of the story, Tovuudai’s identity as an experienced and successful herder has neither shifted nor been challenged. Instead, it is the Party that is seen to have educated itself and shifted in the light of advice offered by herders such as old Tovuudai. 2 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, pp. 3-97. 3 This preface, interestingly, was not included in publications of the text during the Soviet period. 4 Mal-un ajil bolbasu Monggol ulus-un ed-ün zasag-un ündüsü mön.

Socie t y in Flux

167

In his preface, Buyannemeh says that he constructed the story of Tovuudai from what he had gleaned from other sources. Tovuudai, at around 60 years of age, would have been of the same generation as Buyannemeh’s parents,5 and we can imagine his character having been fashioned from hearsay and from Buyannemeh’s observations of this generation. Furthermore, Buyannemeh places himself as an observer in the congress of herders, an account of which fills most of the second half of the narrative, and we can surmise that he would have used his discussions with these herders to flesh out and develop Tovuudai’s character and backstory. As literature had during the years following the revolution sought to remind readers how miserable their lives had been previously and how freer and more secure they were thanks to the Party and its leadership, so works such as ‘Tovuudai the Herder’ emphasized both the failures of the left deviation and the successes that had been achieved since 1932. Buyannemeh uses the narrative structure of Tovuudai’s story, moving back and forth between hope and hopelessness, to reveal how the government’s dialectic rectification of errors could lead to social and political improvement. There is a rhythm to the politics of Mongolian society between 1928 and 1932 that mirrors that of the Soviet Union at the same time, a rhythm that defines the cultural praxis which is the theme of this chapter. While the theories touched on in the previous chapter occupied those who found them intellectually stimulating, the real concern of literature remained to inform and connect with the people and to encourage them to engage with revolutionary practice. This potential for engagement is what drives Tovuudai to travel to Ulaanbaatar and attend the herders’ congress, and his experiences as a product of the revolution – a man keen to improve both his lot and his country’s situation yet thwarted by ideological forces – are the experiences of many characters in the literature at this time. The intention of the Party to educate and liberate the people was likewise thwarted by its own internal dynamics, but by the time ‘Tovuudai the Herder’ was published, the New Turn Policy had brought to the country a return to relative prosperity and a sort of calm, all of which would soon be dashed in the Great Repression. Buyannemeh places Tovuudai’s home in the far west of Mongolia, in an area about 100 kilometers northwest of modern-day Hovd. It is a place 5 Very little is known about Buyannemeh’s parents. His mother died when he was five, after which time he was adopted by one of his older brothers. Four years later, at the age of nine, he was given into the care of Togtoh taiji, who provided him with an education in Mongol, Manchu, Chinese and Tibetan.

168 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

‘where the great blue lakes of Baga Nuur and Döröö Nuur create a circle of water, and where the forests are surrounded by the great mountains of Jargalant Hairhan and Bumbat, and misty clouds lie amid the mountains, and endless livestock cover them’.6 Hovd had been an administrative district during the Qing dynasty rather than one of the four Halh aimags and was incorporated into Outer Mongolia, whose borders were established by the Khyatka Agreement signed by China, Russia and Mongolia on 7 June 1915.7 Tovuudai’s identity as a Mongolian had, by the time of the revolution, already been transformed by transnational politics, yet his is presented as a life well-lived: he is a father several times over and a successful and experienced herder who has looked after his own large herds and treated the livestock of others against disease. Right from the beginning, images of violence and subjugation at the hands of officials and nobles remind the reader of life before the revolution, with Tovuudai regaling the local children with stories of his youth. He would tell the children the story of how, at that time, he had been under the control of the brutal nobles, that they had beaten and thrashed him, and he said, ‘You should be very happy every day that you don’t know such suffering! You don’t know anything about such dreadful pain. […] So at that time, it was hard to raise children with the little property I had acquired. But I was seized for having competed against the officials, and apart from being beaten with wooden cudgels and apart from being imprisoned in wooden chests, I was forgotten inside for a few days without food and drink, it almost killed me.’8

Such punishments would not have been uncommon for herders such as Tovuudai only 15 years before,9 but Buyannemeh’s concern in the f irst half of his story seems not so much a gratuitous retelling of the horrors of pre-revolutionary Mongolia as an honest exposition of the complexities of 6 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 7. 7 See Paine (1996, pp. 287-313) for an extensive discussion of the history behind this agreement. 8 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, pp. 8-9. 9 In the Hungarian engineer Jósef Geleta’s account of Mongolia during the 1920s, The New Mongolia, he describes the ‘wooden chests’ mentioned by Tovuudai in the following way: ‘convicts were kept in wooden boxes only just sufficiently large to enable them to sit, with their chains resting on their knees. They were fed with thin, messy soup through a hole in the side of the box, while another hole at the bottom served for the convicts’ only other need for which provision was made.’ (Forbath, 1936, p. 243) A more extensive account, including details of the boxes’ construction, is found in Pozdneev, 1971, p. 11.

Socie t y in Flux

169

revolutionary society. Emotional and physical violence in many different guises had come to dominate Mongolia’s ongoing experiment in revolution, and Buyannemeh’s recurrent use of these narrative fragments shows the work remaining, even as it shows what has already been achieved. The infrastructure of Mongolia during the early 1920s, barely improved from the previous decade, meant that the dissemination of information remained slow and exacerbated by gossip and misinformation.10 When a minor local official named Jigmee visits Tovuudai in 1922, a year after the revolution, he tells him about the perils of the new system that has come from Russia. Jigmee’s description is full of fear. He repeats the ideas propagated by ‘our teachers the monks’ about how those Mongolians sympathetic to Soviet revolutionary ideology had been changed: Nowadays our state is in a very difficult situation. It is issuing some harsh directives even to the monks in our monasteries. Some people have come to Hüree spouting off about the people’s teaching. They have gone over to the Russians’ teaching. They are people who intend to make Mongolians the slaves of the Russians. When they go over to the people’s teaching, they wheedle themselves into Russian women’s pants, and they take a vow to follow the teachings faithfully and to kill the nobles, their parents and the monks. So they become soulless people, and they die with their heads twisted around. This is what I have heard from our teachers the monks, that these are the secret heretics of our time. So tell all your children to get far away from this wicked business.11

This presents a similar scenario to that which Sh. Sodnomdorj explored in his story Urianhai Balchinnyam (Balchinnyam the Urianhai),12 also written in 1936, in which Balchinnyam follows the advice of a group of senior monks and works to overthrow the revolution. The monks’ ringleader Geshé Damdin echoes Jigmee’s fears of sexual exploitation when he says that the revolutionaries will ‘take the ragged Kazakh women and make them their wives’.13 These fears of miscegenation and the adulteration of religion not only speak to the constant concern about the power of the monasteries but 10 In fact, the idea of ‘information’, of what can be known, in Mongolia is far more flexible than in many Western societies. I have frequently been unable to establish specific sources for material due to the lack of importance given to such documentation. Oral knowledge, notwithstanding its hazy provenance, is frequently the only source available to scholars. 11 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 10. 12 Ündesnii Soyolin Zam, 1936, pp. 15-18. 13 Ibid., p. 15.

170 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

also to a genuine fear that the traditional way of life – however hard that life might have been for people like Jigmee, Balchinnyam and Tovuudai – was under threat. The use during the mid-1930s of the religious term nom to equate the ‘people’s teaching’ (ardin nom) with the ‘Russian’s teaching’ (Orosni nom) suggests two diametrically opposed readings. On the one hand, it suggests the same kind of relationship between Buddhism and revolutionary thinking that had been proposed several years earlier as a form of ‘pure Buddhism’14 by intellectuals such as the scholar Jamtsarano and the politician P. Genden,15 while on the other it both mocks and fears the power that could be unleashed by this competing ideology. Jigmee’s fears are repeated almost verbatim by a group of locals whom Tovuudai meets while herding. But he points out to them that the revolutionaries are Mongols and that their leaders Sühbaatar and Choibalsan have invited the Red Army ‘under the orders of the Bogd Haan, to clear away our suffering’. Tovuudai’s protest of faith in both the revolutionaries and the Bogd Haan shows how, even in 1936, there existed little opposition to the expression of a political worldview informed by religion: at no stage does Tovuudai’s faith in Buddhism slip (as Balchinnyam’s eventually seems to), but nor does Buyannemeh suggest that Buddhism stands in opposition to revolutionary ideology. Even as Buyannemeh was writing ‘Tovuudai the Herder’, the purging of Genden – who had refused to follow Stalin’s orders to liquidate religion – may have indicated an approach to how the interface between religion and politics might be represented in fiction. Nonetheless, the ignorance about the revolutionaries shown by people in the countryside far from Ulaanbaatar can be seen as a more subtle iteration of the societal violence that affected Mongolia at this time. Tovuudai’s story begins with a difficult adjustment – a negotiation, mediated by the ever-present force of religion, between a desired yet unknown ‘freedom’ from oppression and the all-too-familiar yet undesirable ‘oppression’ of Mongolia’s traditional, feudal society. This negotiation follows him throughout the story, and his lived experiences of the revolution – a reflection of the lived experience of regular countryside herders – further steels his resolve. 14 See Chapter 6 for a discussion of these issues. 15 In 1922, P. Genden (1892/95-1937) had joined the Mongolian Revolutionary Youth Union, which had been established in 1921 by Buyannemeh and N. Jadamba. He had been one of the primary architects of the leftward swing following the seventh Party Congress in 1928 but managed to avoid being purged following the Civil War in 1932 by becoming Stalin’s preferred choice as Prime Minister, charged with steering the New Turn Policy.

Socie t y in Flux

171

The Party hoped that the kind of misinformation and perhaps willful distrust shown by Jigmee in response to increased foreign influence would be countered by increased exposure to the best that foreign culture and society could offer. The centrality of literature to Mongolia’s revolutionary project was reinforced by a brief correspondence between the Education Minister Erdenebathaan16 and Maxim Gorky in May 1925. The intention behind Erdenebathaan’s letter was to explore how Mongolia might learn from the situation in Western Europe how best to educate its population. He wrote from Berlin, where he was involved in the discussions that would lead in 1926 to a group of promising young Mongolian students studying in Germany and France. His letter describes at considerable length the social and economic situation in Mongolia, but it was only in a postscript that he specifically asked for advice: We are faced with the urgent task of starting to translate Russian belles lettres into the Mongolian language. But according to what principles should we start, and how should we proceed? Your suggestions would be most interesting and valuable to us. Our powers are limited, we cannot handle too much at once. Therefore, we have to choose from an abundance what best suits and what comes closest to the Mongolian understanding.17

While much Buddhist literature had been translated from Tibetan over previous centuries, the systematic dissemination of foreign secular literature, whether for entertainment or education, had barely been explored. This request to Gorky showed not only the willingness to explore foreign literatures and foreign culture but also the fact that at least some Mongolians harbored a genuine interest in reading literary f iction and essays. Gorky’s reply, while revealing his lack of direct knowledge about Mongolia, emphasizes the importance of presenting a broad intellectual, scientific and cultural landscape rather than simply works of poetry or fiction: I think that if you want to introduce the Mongolian people to the spirit of Europe and to the current wishes of its masses, then you should translate 16 See Chapter 2, footnote 36. 17 I have translated Erdenebathaan’s letter to Gorky (Berlin, 12 May 1925) and Gorky’s reply (Sorrento, 19 May 1925) from Renate Bauwe’s German translations, found respectively at http:// www.mongolian-art.de/03_mongolische_literatur/11_erdene-batchaan_an_gorki.htm and http:// www.mongolian-art.de/03_mongolische_literatur/12_maxim_groki-an_erdene-batchaan.htm (both accessed 9 July 2018). Gorky’s reply was published in the Russian-language Ulaanbaatar newspaper Izvestija Ulanbator Choto on 26 June 1925 (1925/186).

172 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

the European books that express most clearly the principle of activity and mental effort, where there is a single focus which encourages active freedom rather than the freedom of idleness. Biographies of scientists like Pasteur or Faraday would be useful, or of personalities such as Franklin or Garibaldi. Such biographies are of no lesser educational value than fine literature. As for the latter, you should choose works that most convincingly show the heroism of people who are guided by the ideas of justice and freedom.

Prior to this exchange, there had been works by Turgenev, Chekhov and Krylov translated into Mongolian on a rather haphazard basis, but Gorky’s response catalyzed a far more focused drive to bring in foreign literature. Over the next decade, notwithstanding the shifting ground of politics, translations were made from Russian writers such as Pushkin, Tolstoy, Gogol, Gorky, Ostrovski and Shevchenko as well as from Europeans such as Hans Christian Andersen, Lope de Vega, Boccaccio, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe and Jules Verne (from primarily Russian translations). There was also the occasional translation of American writers, among whom the most popular were Edgar Allen Poe, Harriet Beecher Stowe and Ernest Thompson Seton.18 In addition to translated literature, the Party worked hard to combat the extremely low rate of literacy,19 aware that even a basic education would prepare the population to support Mongolia’s economic and political development. Especially where women and girls were concerned, the Party focused on promoting educational opportunity. In fact, the repositioning of women within Mongolian society, as much to increase their social value as to confirm socialist egalitarianism, became a powerful literary theme following the Seventh Congress, since it brought together key issues of class and gender oppression, the benefits of education, and the overall drive to ‘modernize’ and thereby industrialize society. In the early months of the Revolutionary Writers’ Group’s existence, one of its main activities was to have members offer their ongoing works for literary and political criticism. Each month, everyone would be expected to bring something to the meeting, which would be read and commented upon and 18 A more complete account of translation at this time is found in Luvsan (1966) and what appears to be a fairly comprehensive listing (163 in total) of translations made prior to February 1948 in Kamyeshkov (1948). In passing, we should note the relatively high number of writers from the American Western tradition whose works became popular in translation, perhaps reflecting a wish to read about others living and working in a landscape similar to Mongolia’s. 19 Even in 1931, the Russian journalist I.I. Serebrennikov (1931, p. 511) reported that ‘[o]nly 5 percent of the country can read and write.’

Socie t y in Flux

173

which they would then spend the following month editing according to the critiques offered by other writers. In the light of the theoretical viewpoints discussed in the previous chapter, it would be naïve to suggest that these young Mongolian writers brought to their meetings the kind of literary and political sophistication of their Soviet counterparts in RAPP.20 However, we can see some parallels in Ts. Damdinsüren’s account, in a memoir written in July 1975, 21 of the genesis of his f irst piece of writing, a story called Gologdson hüühen (The Rejected Girl).22 At first, I was concerned that I didn’t know what to write. I was barely twenty years old. I was concerned because, other than having learnt to write at home, I had had no education. My work experience had amounted to one year in the army. I had worked for two years for the Central Committee of the Youth Union, my life experience had been herding livestock, and my experience of writing had been to work for a year as one of the two editors of Ünen. In the countryside I had read some old Mongolian literature, and in Ulaanbaatar I had had to read a few pages for the Union’s publications. Such was the person who sat down with the intention of producing a piece of literature in a month. I decided that I would write what I knew. As a young person, I knew about the previous twenty years in Mongolia. So I determined the period which I would cover, and then I had to find the subject matter. Choosing the subject matter was not too hard for me, it was easy. I decided that the main subject would be how the people had suffered without freedom during the period of the feudal government, and how they were now happy at finding their freedom under the government of the people.

Daminsüren’s candid acknowledgement of his limitations is striking, especially since, despite being only 21, he had been selected as one of the five leaders of the Revolutionary Writers’ Group. The dynamic of freedom is important; indeed, it is the central focus of ‘The Rejected Girl’. It appears that Damdinsüren simply wrote what occurred to him, the experience of his short life, without any explicit political guidance or propagandistic rhetoric. The story’s two linked narratives cover the period between 1905 and 1925 and recount the fortunes, respectively, of Dolingor, a young livestock herder, and his wife Myadag, whose daughter Tseren is the rejected girl of 20 See, for instance, Brown, 1971, pp. 132-149. 21 ‘Gologdson hüühen’-iig yaj bichsen tuhai emdeglel in Damdinsüren, 1990, pp. 113-115. 22 Damdinsüren, 1956, pp. 159-187, translated in Wickham-Smith, 2012, pp. 93-127.

174 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

the title. Damdinsüren’s achievement is in unrolling these stories against the background of Mongolia’s pre-revolutionary feudal society while ensuring that members of the feudal class elicit a little sympathy from the reader. While Dolingor’s wealthy master Bold is described as ‘honorable’, Bold’s proud and shrewish wife Dejid is ‘sharp and uses rough language, her mind is not good and she’s selfish with her possessions’. Their relationship, which defines their treatment of Dolingor and Myadag and so the context in which Tseren comes to be rejected, is summed up in one short sentence: ‘While Bold is a decent man, his wife tends to ruin things.’ The writing of Bold’s character produced criticism when Damdinsüren presented his story to the Revolutionary Writers’ Group. Although, as he says, he had written Bold as a ‘powerful and important elder in the countryside, he was under the control of his greedy and scheming wife’. Some of the group criticized this characterization, saying that Damdinsüren should make more of Bold’s ‘violence and greed’. This he did, but ‘thinking about it later, it seemed still too restrained’.23 Reading the text, Bold does indeed seem rather weak, yet the enduring popularity of this story suggests that the humanizing of the oppressors neither detracted from the impact of the story nor caused any political ramifications. It is, in fact, due in part to Bold’s weak character that Dolginor and Myadag’s daughter Tseren comes to be rejected. Myadag’s attempt to have Bold and Dejid adopt Tseren in order to give her a better life is thwarted by Dejid’s selfishness when she asks an astrologer to advise on the adoption. They reject Tseren on the basis that the astrologer divines that adopting her would be bad luck. On such arbitrary decisions are lives made or broken, Damdinsüren suggests, and it is in comparing this decision (in which neither Tseren nor her parents had any say) with Tseren’s later choice to become educated that Damdinsüren shows the genuine opportunities the revolution has brought. The movement of the two narratives – Dolginor is conscripted into the army and Myadag believes a rumor that he has been killed in action; Myadag marries another man, then leaves him and goes to work in a relay station – echoes the kind of lives seen in many of the stories from this period. The misery of socialized emotional and physical violence is that it becomes quotidian and is rendered as background noise. Nonetheless, while Damdinsüren realizes his intention to reveal ‘how the people had suffered without freedom during the period of the feudal government’, it is significant that even in these first months of the ascendancy of the 23 Damdinsüren, 1990, p. 114.

Socie t y in Flux

175

left, he continues to acknowledge that such conditions had persisted after the revolution. For when Tseren turns 18 in 1923, a powerful local minister manages to force her into marrying him against her will: Unexpectedly, a minister who has cunningly amassed wealth from the nation and from the local people, who can barely restrain his violence despite the fact that the power of the taiji and the rulers is fiercely controlled, and who, despite the nation’s political situation having being established, has the people by the scruff of the neck, has fallen for Myadag’s daughter Tseren; although she is the daughter of a poor man, he loves her because she is a sharp young girl with a clear and echoing voice, with a bright and cheerful manner, with a shining face, with a fresh intelligence, with deep red lips, with artful and skilled words, with conch-white teeth, with sharp black eyes, and what this all means is, first, that he’s an older man and, second, that he’s going to frighten his wife. He demands again that she become his wife for the benefit of his own children. And Myadag’s daughter Tseren listens, she screams and tells her mother what she thinks, and absolutely rejects him, and so Myadag refuses to let her go. Some of the older men and women nearby criticize and admonish Myadag, saying that she refuses to make a good marriage for her daughter. Wily and deceptive monks consult the astrological tables and tell her that it would be an extremely good idea to give her child to the son of a minister. It would seem that it would be very difficult for her, with the cruel minister lording it over her daughter. Myadag scatters rumors around, and she says, ‘They say that women older than twenty get taken to Russia. They say that some Russians have just taken ten young girls from Hüree – and there are six or seven at school now in Moscow. Recently some Russians have taken girls from Hüree, they’ve gone north now and soon they’ll be in Moscow. But the Russians haven’t been taking other men’s wives. Once these women are taken away, they’ll be the wife of some simple Russian, and in a country without the Buddha’s religion, they’ll certainly be killed and eaten.’24

Here, as in Buyannemeh’s ‘Tovudai the Herder’, there are accusations of sexual violence perpetrated by the Russian revolutionaries, an accusation that in Damdinsüren’s telling is placed alongside the coercion into marriage of young Tseren and again in the implication of sexual violence against her. That this level of exploitation – to which women such as Tseren were still 24 Wickham-Smith, 2012, p. 121.

176 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

subject after the revolution – is practiced even in the Soviet Union is an indictment against both revolutionary Parties. Moreover, the complicity of the local people in what happens to Tseren and in her life as the minister’s wife ‘at the very edge of exhaustion’ reveals the complex dynamics of how the majority of Mongolians in the countryside were made aware of what the revolution might offer and persuaded of its benefits. Tseren’s freedom comes through her meeting with a young woman working at a relay station. Myadag also had found freedom from her second husband by taking charge of a relay station, and in a culture defined by movement, the imagery of such work enhances the potential for liberation. The young woman tells Tseren about the changes happening in Mongolia, the opportunities of education and how the situation for women was gradually changing. She tells Tseren that the people’s government has now empowered women. Although in some places the feudal power is still in place, the majority of the lower classes, who do not safeguard and care for women, have not developed, women remain in darkness and there is no close connection between them, but there is no reason why women everywhere should not find their freedom in their own country and with their own minds. Only in Ulaanbaatar is the situation of women advancing, and because the advancement of women coming from the countryside should also be promoted, the road to freedom for oppressed women leads to Ulaanbaatar.25

The trajectory of Tseren’s story, which ends in 1925 with her, a successful and hardworking student in the capital, being reunited with the father whom she had understood to be long dead, is not simply Damdinsüren’s art. It was the story that the Party wanted to disseminate of how the oppressed could find freedom through making choices that were both independent of the old, feudal expectations and directed at the improvement of Mongolia’s people as a whole. As the first widely read story produced after the suppression of the right, ‘The Rejected Girl’ provided a powerful statement of the aims presented during the Seventh Party Congress. In his exploration of education and female emancipation, Damdinsüren shows Mongolia’s response to the Soviet Union’s first Five-Year Plan. Tseren’s story speaks to young women; her parents’ story is of more general appeal; and readers are encouraged to 25 Wickham-Smith, 2012, p. 124.

Socie t y in Flux

177

celebrate the potential of the people and the freedom granted by the Party through the mechanism of revolution. Mongolia’s movement leftwards did indeed have such potential, but what actually took place in the name of ‘bypassing capitalism’ and hastening the process of revolution was far from the positive experience that Damdinsüren proposes for Tseren at the close of ‘The Rejected Girl’. In ‘Tovuudai the Herder’, Tovuudai’s experiences with the forces of revolution are far less encouraging, and a comparison with Damdinsüren’s idealism in 1929 and his desire to show ‘how the people had suffered without freedom during the period of the feudal government, and how they were now happy at finding their freedom under the government of the people’ suggests that Buyannemeh’s description of Tovuudai’s experiences offers a more realistic expression of the calamity that unfolded in Mongolia during this period. Even before the suppression of the right at the end of the 1920s, a wave of revolutionary violence had immediately followed the revolution in December of 1921. In response to Prime Minister Bodoo’s campaign against ‘feudal’ culture, Choibalsan had encouraged members of the Revolutionary Youth Union,26 of which he was head, to undertake the forced cutting of women’s hair and of the long and oversized cuffs on deels as well as the removal of jewelry. The encouragement of youth to operate under a form of statesanctioned violence reflected the war-preparedness of the Komsomol in the Soviet Union during the Civil War, and as Ann Todd Baum writes, ‘the military looked to the Youth League to provide the additional manpower and enthusiasm necessary to win the war’.27 The establishment of party cells by young revolutionaries throughout Mongolia led to an increase both in Party membership and in the activity of the Revolutionary Youth Union. It also had an effect on Tovuudai’s fictional family. His youngest son, Has-Ochir, appears one day at the family’s ger with some disturbing news: ‘Father! It’s true that the people have taken power. Today, we captured that damned official Jigmee, we laid into him with a cudgel and sent him away. We all pitched in and gave that wretch a good beating. In the end, 26 In 1921, when it was founded, the organization had been called Boshgiig Halah Zaluuchuudyn Evlel. This also translates as Revolutionary Youth Union, but the words boshgig halah specifically mean ‘to change power’, a powerful reference to, and perhaps repudiation of, boshig, ‘the decree of Heaven’. The name then became Mongol Huvisgalt Zaluuchuudyn Evlel in 1928, echoing the Party’s name (Mongol Ardyn Huvisgalt Nam). 27 Todd Baum, 1987, p. 20.

178 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

he couldn’t get up and he kept kicking out at us.’ Has-Ochir laughed long and hard, he said, ‘And tomorrow, we’re talking about getting Chimid Meeren and beating him too’, and he alone was laughing.

In her analysis of the changing ideology and focus of the Soviet Komsomol movement during the Civil War and the NEP period, Anne Gorsuch details the transformation of revolution, with ‘the first promising spontaneity, cultural confrontation, and utopian experimentation, and the second, discipline, cultural pluralism, and moderation’.28 Mongolia’s youth, recognized as the energetic and committed force behind the revolution, carried their activity away from the capital, and this led to cells being established all across the country. By the time of the first congress of the Revolutionary Youth Union on 17 July 1922, the delegates had already planned some 30 cells, and it was within this political engagement that the zealotry of Has-Ochir and others like him found its voice. The backlash against local officials and nobles may have been a result of years of oppression, but Choibalsan’s backing of Bodoo’s campaign against the trappings of feudalism grew into a more unfocused attack on those, like Tovuudai’s nemesis Jigmee, who were considered the instruments and the enforcers of feudalism. In using Has-Ochir to tell the history of the early days of the revolution, Buyannemeh, as one of the founders of the Revolutionary Youth Union, stresses the power of the youth in this process. Tovuudai and his wife seem troubled by, and yet immune to, what has happened to their son. From a lovable rogue, he has suddenly become very committed to the new order and to the transformation of the new order under the influence of those who now used their age and their experience prior to the revolution to advise (and in some cases manipulate) the spread of the Party and its members. Just as members of the Komsomol had criticized the NEP period as a period of compromise and a softening of the revolutionary focus, so gradually the people’s revolution in Mongolia, under the influence of the more cautious older generation, gave ground to the ‘right opportunists’ and itself became perceived as a compromise. By now the faction of the nobles had completely collapsed and, while they were under the sway of the masses, they changed their characters and followed the revolutionary line, and some wormed their way into official and social positions, and in their appearance they looked increasingly like the masses. In the Party and the Union, this faction took over high-level 28 Gorsuch, 1997, p. 565.

Socie t y in Flux

179

positions and brought others over to their side, and they harshly criticized some of the sharp, capable revolutionaries, and chased them away, and so such deceitful revolutionaries grew in number, and so the poisonous danger in the west took shape.29

The assimilation of the nobles and officials into the Party that had initially sought to repress their influence became a central concern towards the end of the 1920s. They had been accepted initially because they had experience of official positions, either from the final years of Manchu rule or else from the autonomous period, but as dissatisfaction with the progress of the revolution grew, so dissatisfaction with such ‘feudal’ influences also grew. When the Seventh Party Congress initiated a dramatic purging of those on the right, there were also strenuous attempts to rid the Party of members who were sympathetic to them. In the official history of the Party, the importance of this purge is made clear in the placement of ‘questions concerning Party internal affairs and contradictions’ at the start of the account of the 1928 congress,30 even before mention is made of the purge of the rightists. The Party’s concern in involving the middle classes and the poor in the political process is reflected in works such as Sh. Ayuush’s 1929 play Amid Sonin (Living Newspapers).31 In the fifth act of this play, ‘The Old Factions and Those Denied Party Membership’, a former Party member, expelled for having violently assaulted another man, asks two friends, who are themselves Party members, to help him gain readmittance. In the local Party meeting, however, not only is his plea refused, but his friends are also expelled for having put forward an individual whom another Party member describes as a ‘truly insignificant person […] because he favors the old nepotism and is no friend of the people’.32 At the end of the act, the Chair of the local Party expresses what we should understand to have been the MPRP’s view: When I examine the behavior and criticism of these two comrades, they are disreputable elements, since they are both of the old guard, neither of them is a friend of our Party, and they have used their powers to get for another disreputable element, who had previously been expelled from the Party, the party membership which he wanted. Our so-called friends 29 30 31 32

Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 34. Short History of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, 1917-1940, p. 78. Ayuush, 1973, pp. 19-42. Ibid., p. 42.

180 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

have been brought to light, and our honest members have revealed the truth of the matter through their criticism.33

Ayuush’s play was written in the months immediately following the Seventh Party Congress, and its tone of honest clarity in dealing with ‘internal affairs and contradictions’ on the local party level reflects the popular enthusiasm for the purging of the rightists and for the political and social consequences of the increased adherence to the path being followed by Stalin in the Soviet Union. The situation that developed during the period between the sudden deaths of Sühbaatar (on 22 February 1923) and the Bogd Haan (in May of the following year) and the start of the Seventh Party Congress during the final months of 1928 seemed to challenge the Party’s revolutionary focus and so compromise it through the internationalist and economic policies of rightists such as Prime Minister Ts. Dambadorj and Minister of Education Erdenebathaan. The leftists perceived this as a rejection of the Comintern and the Soviet Union. This is the background against which Tovuudai’s life in the far west of Mongolia and his concern about Has-Ochir’s fate in Ulaanbaatar develops. Tovuudai’s life becomes better during this time, and his livestock increases under the greater freedoms afforded by the government’s economic policies. In her study of this period, Judith Nordby points out that ‘[t]he Mongolian government took very little action to increase the productivity of livestock herding’,34 and yet the Soviets invested extensively in the improvement of veterinary practices, primarily for the betterment of trade goods such as milk and wool and hides, and this resulted in a 25% increase in livestock between 1924 and 1928.35 Buyannemeh’s account of Tovuudai’s life during the second half of the 1920s indicates that the increase in his own herds was principally due to his experience as a herder. Although Soviet veterinarians were brought to Mongolia, herders such as Tovuudai had themselves acquired the knowledge and skills needed to treat certain illnesses: indeed, when first describing Tovuudai, Buyannemeh mentions that he ‘looked after the livestock of families nearby and treated them against disease’. In the light of the criticism leveled at the Herders’ Congress in Ulaanbaatar against those who had failed to respond appropriately to sickness among their own animals, such knowledge as Tovuudai held marked his expertise as extremely valuable to the development of Mongolia’s livestock and husbandry. 33 Ayuush, 1973, pp. 42-43. 34 Nordby, 1988, p. 154. 35 See ibid., pp. 142-145, for an account of the results of Soviet investment in livestock herding.

Socie t y in Flux

181

The kind of knowledge and expertise that experienced and successful herders like Tovuudai exemplified came suddenly into question following the 1928 Party Congress. In the Soviet Union during the spring of that year, 55 technicians and mining engineers had been implicated as ‘bourgeois intelligentsia’ who were in collusion with the rightists in the show trials of the so-called Shakhty Affair. Sheila Fitzpatrick writes about the implications of these trials, Hitherto the ‘bourgeois specialist’ had been under party control, but also under party protection because his skills were needed at all levels of industry and industrial administration. Now he was officially under suspicion as a potential saboteur and agent of international capitalism; due for replacement by the young proletarian communist specialist trained in Soviet schools. Class war had been declared on the cultural front.36

These events in the Soviet Union made it inevitable that the MPRP, having purged itself of rightists in an attempt to more vigorously re-engage the Comintern, would instigate a similar onslaught against Mongolia’s ‘experts’ and ‘intelligentsia’. The Revolutionary Youth Union again played an active and energetic role, and in its hands Marx’s idea of class struggle took on the image of a struggle against the privilege afforded by skill, experience and expertise. The military language Stalin employed in an open letter to the Komsomol, published in Komsomol’skaya Pravda in 1928, in which he employed words such as ‘detachments’, ‘light cavalry’, ‘partisan guerilla’ and ‘manoeuvres’37, also came to be used in Mongolia, where the threat and actuality of violence was brought down upon individuals at the highest level within the literary community. Ts. Damdinsüren wrote that, in the autumn of 1930, he distributed several hundred head of sheep among certain families whom he knew. But a representative of the Dotood Yam,38 a certain Choijinjav, had reported him for not collectivizing them in accordance with the official policy, and so in March 1931 Damdinsüren was dismissed from his post as secretary of the Writers’ Union.39 What Damdinsüren, even as late as 1974, was unable publically to admit was that, for failing to adhere to official policy, he had been denounced as a counterrevolutionary and beaten unconscious.40 36 Fitzpatrick, 1974, pp. 39-40. 37 Todd Baum, 1987, p. 45. 38 On 15 January 1931, the group had been renamed the Mongol Ardyn Revolutsionist Literaturist (MARL), with S. Buyannemeh as chair and D. Natsagdorj as secretary. 39 Damdinsüren, 1990, p. 10. 40 See https://mn.wikipedia.org/wiki//wiki/Mongolyn_huvisgalt_zaluuchuudyn_evlel (accessed 19 September 2016).

182 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Tovuudai’s experience of this class struggle and the assault against the authority of expertise manifests as a list of grievances against the young people who were forcefully promoting collectivization as the solution to issues of inequality and private ownership. The zeal with which they moved on behalf of the MPRP and carried out its orders came as much from their arrogance – ‘they conceitedly thought’, thinks Tovuudai, ‘that they were wonderful revolutionaries’ – as from their commitment to the revolution: they enrolled in school and figured that, with their ‘philosophy’, they would nourish the government, yet there came ridicule and laughter from people unknown, and they kept their gaze up. They would criticize in various ways those who had some kind of experience and who were loyal and just, who struggled without many words, and they expelled them from the Party and discredited their experience, and they hampered their lives in very extreme ways and they demanded harshly that these people be dealt with as counter-revolutionaries, and once they had seen the situation of struggle, suddenly these ‘revolutionaries’, without knowing the half of what had happened, put on the masks of revolutionaries, and it was they who were the enemies of the state and of society […]. 41

Reading the narrative of how miserable and, as a result of the MPRP’s collectivization program, increasingly impoverished Tovuudai’s existence had become prior to the ‘unexpected journey’ that takes him to Ulaanbaatar and to the congress of experienced herders, it is important to remember that Buyannemeh had himself been one of the architects of the Revolutionary Youth Union and one of the most determined and enthusiastic supporters of its activity, while N. Jadamba, with whom he had established the Union, had been one of the ‘right opportunists’ purged in 1928. 42 The trajectory of Tovuudai’s story is focused on his final recognition by the State as the expert herder to whom we, as readers, had been introduced in the first few paragraphs. But what Bawden calls the ‘socialist fiasco’43 of the late 1920s and 41 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 43. 42 N. Jadamba (1900-1939) was a member of the presidium of the MPRP Central Committee (1924-1928) and editor of the newspaper Ardyn Tsereg (People’s Army) but was dismissed from all his positions following the seventh Party Congress. He was exiled to Kyakta and later studied in Moscow, where he translated Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Boccaccio’s Decameron, and the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen from Russian into Mongolian. He was arrested in 1937 and sentenced the following year to ten years’ imprisonment for conspiring against the state. He died of illness in prison, although neither the place nor the date is documented. 43 See Bawden, [1968] 1989, pp. 290-327, for an account of the period of ‘left deviation’.

Socie t y in Flux

183

early 1930s against which Buyannemeh sets Tovuudai’s life was the complex and unforgiving history against which herders in the countryside lived their lives and in the midst of which intellectuals such as Buyannemeh wrote. The policy of collectivization failed dismally, primarily because the Eighth Party Congress of 1930 determined to follow the Soviet model, a model quite unsuited to Mongolia. According to Charles Bawden, ‘now it was decided to leap forward to the “most advanced” forms of co-operation, namely to the organization of artels and communes. For such collectives, there was […] little enthusiasm or understanding, and people had to be dragooned into them by imitation or by economic discrimination.’44 Tovuudai was drawn into this through two ‘new revolutionaries who had come from the sum government’ and who were clearly under orders to dragoon herders into collectivizing their livestock without the appearance of pressure: One of them said to Tovuudai, ‘You’re Tovuudai, right?’ He took out a notebook and pencil and said, ‘I’ve come to register your livestock. I want to tell you that our nation is now building socialism, and because we are completing the five-year plan and collectivizing all the people voluntarily and without coercion, you should certainly agree to come to the collective farm. Now, if you come to the collective farm, you’ll enjoy various rights, but if you don’t, you’ll not be entitled to these rights. What do you think?’45

This collectivization resulted not so much from a desire to proactively improve the situation of Mongolia’s herding community but rather from what the Party would later describe as ‘a decisive attack on the economic positions of the feudal nobles’. 46 It resulted also in herders slaughtering their animals in preference to collectivization and in a threat to practices that had sustained small mobile communities for centuries. Furthermore, the removal from politically powerful positions of those nobles who had redefined themselves within the new system allowed the left to push collectivization forward with greater force, extending the removal of power from the nobles to the explicit abolition of private ownership. This stretched beyond economics into social egalitarianism, according to which the act 44 Ibid., p. 310. 45 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 40. 46 History of the Mongolian People’s Republic, p. 328. It should be noted in passing, however, that in 1936, D. Dogsom, Chairman of the Little Hural, had referred to this as an ‘extremely dangerous, harmful, and incorrect deviation to the left’ (Dogsom, 1936, p. 86).

184 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

of labor was newly politicized. Not only were those who employed others to work for them stigmatized but also those who were employed in this way were encouraged to withdraw their labor and to join in ‘bypassing capitalism’. In the light of these developments, Damdinsüren’s experience of being advised to make ‘rich’ Bold more unpleasant looks more sinister, and writers were now expected to write such characters as irredeemably bad. On 7 February 1932, the first day of the Mongolian new year, D. Natsagdorj wrote Tsagaan Sar ba Har Nulims (New Year’s Joy With Tears of Sadness).47 The mutual dissatisfaction that was growing between him and the Party provides us with an alternative reading of this story, with its oddly foreshortened ending, about a young woman, Tsermaa, who escapes from servitude and cruel treatment at the hands of her master’s wife. Its narrative, which appears at first to develop leisurely through vignettes of her tormentor’s cruelty, the spoiled insouciance of her master’s daughter, and her affection for a young man, Chültem, is suddenly rushed to its conclusion by Chültem’s taking her to his ger – and a form of liberation – at the New Year. Maybe it was Natsagdorj’s frustration that catalyzed this liberation scene, but while the way in which Tsermaa’s feeling of endless miserable repetition – ‘After this had gone on for a couple of years, she didn’t know how New Year could be approaching again’ – is suddenly broken by Chültem’s appearance fails to convince as a narrative device, it expresses the freedom and renewal that supposedly lay at the heart of Party policy, even as it sought to suppress dissenters like Natsagdorj.48 ‘New Year’s Joy With Tears of Sadness’ offers a broader social commentary, a critique of the behavior of rich men’s wives which, unlike Damdinsüren’s humorous treatment of Bold’s wife, pulls no punches. Natsagdorj creates the wife of Tsermaa’s master as a violent, cruel woman intent on meting out physical abuse: But Dagdan’s wife comes out of her large six-canvas white ger, squints through the fearsome cold, and scolds her. ‘You damn wretch’, she says, 47 Natsagdorj Zohioluud, 1961, pp. 244-249, translated in Wickham-Smith, 2012, pp. 24-29. A note on the title: tsagaan sar, or ‘white moon’, is the Mongolian New Year; the title of the story literally means ‘white moon and black tears’, and offers its Mongolian readers a sharp play on words unavailable in English. 48 On 17 May 1932, Natsagdorj was arrested on a charge of having made ‘slanderous claims’ at a New Year’s Eve celebration on 31 December the previous year. At the same time, many of those with whom he had studied in Germany, including his now estranged wife D. Pagmadulam, were arrested on similar charges associated with left deviationism. On 29 October that year, a special commission of the Internal Affairs Directorate, while not acknowledging his innocence, released him from detention and gave him a year’s probation.

Socie t y in Flux

185

‘what the hell are you doing out here? Are you shaking the dust off the rugs and pillows? Are you clearing the trash from the yard? Are you aware that the day after tomorrow is New Year’s? You stupid bitch!’ She stood there angrily, and she struck Tsermaa on the back with her broom, and Tsermaa, because she could do nothing else, said ‘I had a headache, madam, so I came to stand in the wind’, and she took up a large rug that was lying nearby, she could barely lift it, and she shook it.

Dagdan’s wife never receives a name; she is simply left as a cipher for cruelty and for the situation which still – despite the Party’s best effort – allowed for the exploitation of labor. Dagdan takes no part in the story, yet he retains the dignity of a name, albeit one whose sole function is to associate him with his dreadful spouse. Their daughter, Myadagmaa, is a paradox, for she represents the next generation of the rich, which had already been condemned by the MPRP – just as the kulaks had contemporaneously been condemned, in far greater numbers and with far greater success, in the Soviet Union. But Myadagmaa is neither objectionable like her mother nor faceless like her father. She is presented with the purpose of showing how miserable Tsermaa’s life is by comparison, her stereotypical character that of the vacuous idle rich. Natsagdorj’s story, placed alongside ‘The Rejected Girl’, reflects the development of the rhetoric of class during the three years separating their composition. While the length and scope of these two stories are different, both are concerned with the liberation of women from the drudgery of feudal labor. Damdinsüren had shown his character Bold to be a wealthy yet ultimately honorable man, henpecked by an avaricious wife; in Natsagdorj’s hands, wealth and power is wielded against Tsermaa by the far more vicious and violent wife of a silent man. ‘New Year’s Joys with Tears of Sadness’ is more about the relative behavior and experience of women during the leftist period than was ‘The Rejected Girl’, even as both strive to show the importance of female liberation. Tsermaa’s liberation is to leave behind, in their modern, Russian-style house, Dagdan’s wife and daughter – the one brutish, the other spoilt – and to live in happy penury with her lover Chültem. There, on the first day of the new year, ‘she rose and, although she had neither silk, nor crêpe, nor beaverskin, she dressed in bright clothes’. 49 The relative ease of Tsermaa’s final emancipation, in contrast to the hardships Tseren suffers, had resulted from the general political and social changes and especially from the increased force of leftist policies against 49 Wickham-Smith, 2012, p. 28.

186 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

the rich and powerful. Since 1929, when Damdinsüren wrote ‘The Rejected Girl’, the government had made strenuous efforts, even beyond the forced collectivization of privately held livestock, towards a kind of absolute socialism, resulting in the kind of societal change in which a young woman like Tsermaa could simply leave a position of servitude, requiring neither release nor permission, because she had found a way out. Natsagdorj’s story, notwithstanding that it is short and awkward and perhaps an autobiographical cri de cœur, is stark in its portrayal of how impotent the rich had become: Dagdan’s wife can rail against Tsermaa and insult her, but she no longer has any practical solution to having lost the one person who, by taking care of all aspects of the running of Dagdan’s home, has made her own life, and that of her husband and daughter, comfortable. The account of Tsermaa’s life comes to a halt with her liberation, and the reader has to imagine for themselves how she and Chültem might have continued, like many other young couples in Ulaanbaatar at the time, trying somehow to make ends meet. Tseren, however, thrives in the city and receives an education, becoming ‘known as someone who can write well, she is considered as a medium-level student of politics’. By presenting her in this way, Damdinsüren shows how such a redemption could be possible for any young woman, however difficult their situation, in the period immediately following the purging of the gradualists on the right wing. Natsagdorj had been born just to the southwest of today’s Ulaanbaatar, and there is little evidence to show that he traveled much in Mongolia. There are no extensive descriptions of the city in his writing, and the denouement of ‘New Year’s Joy with Tears of Sadness’ could have been set anywhere. The only indication of Dagdan’s being an Ulaanbaatar family is the fact that they occupy a ‘Russian house’ and not a ger, and this information is offered as an aside, as an illustration of their pretensions, and nothing more is said of the matter. Ulaanbaatar in the late 1920s and early 1930s was growing and becoming a more ‘Westernized’ capital, far more than the religious and trade center it had been in the years before the revolution. The development of the city, like the country as a whole, was being pushed forward through injections of money from the Soviet Union, with whom Mongolia sought ever-closer ties following the ascendency of the left in 1929. The opportunities for education, especially for women, encouraged young people to travel to the city or at least to dream of it. However rudimentary the education might have been, it did allow for some growth in the literacy and political awareness encouraged by the Party.

Socie t y in Flux

187

The use of Ulaanbaatar as a literary theme, showing how Mongolia was becoming industrialized and thus more successful, would only emerge during the early 1940s,50 but the idea of Mongolia’s capital as being a place where dreams might be realized seems to have appeared with the advent of motorized transport and the corresponding promotion of the value of education. Buyannemeh has Tovuudai speak of having once visited ‘the Bogd Haan’s encampment in Hüree’ to show that he had traveled further afield than the majority of his generation in Hovd, but there is no indication that he had been changed at all by this. Tovuudai’s second journey to the capital takes place under very different circumstances. Having been forced to collectivize and to capitulate to the emotional and physical violence of the representatives of the Revolutionary Youth Union, elders such as Tovuudai may have imagined that the experience they had gained in their lives had come to nothing. Following the Soviet lead after the Shakhty trials at the beginning of the leftist period,51 education and experience in Mongolia were framed as undesirable and ‘bourgeois’ tendencies. This kind of ostensibly benign authority was used as a weapon of class war, with children excluded from school on account of their parents’ background. In the summer of 1931, however, Stalin made an ideological volte face and issued a statement explicitly acknowledging the importance of experts and denouncing the doctrine of egalitarianism, which had been used to upend culture and to privilege the chaotic enthusiasm of amateurs and the young. With the value of authority once more established, it again became possible in Mongolia, as in the Soviet Union, to see value in experience. Once the Party had crushed the uprising and the Civil War in the spring of 1932 and had dealt with those involved, it branded the previous three years as a ‘left deviation’ and implemented a new set of directives under the broad banner of the ‘New Turn Policy’ (Shine ergeltiin bodlogo). In the words of Charles Bawden, The New Turn Policy represented an ideological retreat from socialism in that it was publicly admitted that only by fostering private enterprise could prosperity and confidence be restored. The new motto was ‘Raise high private initiative and bring the private cattle-herding economy to a high level’.52 50 See Chapter 9 for a discussion of this. 51 See Fitzpatrick, 1974, pp. 33-52, for a full account of this period in the Soviet Union. 52 Bawden, [1968] 1989, p. 351.

188 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Tovuudai’s son Has-Ochir presents the new policy in a similar way, but he starts by saying how the Party has determined the previous policy to be ‘entirely wrong’. In his mind, the break with the past that the New Turn represents offers Mongolians an opportunity to address not only issues of livelihood but also of religion too. With this New Turn policy, not only will it mean the people themselves increasing the people’s livestock numbers and creating wealth, not only will it destroy the many previous oppressors, but it will establish the belief in religion and worship of the Buddhism as a matter of individual faith. This policy is being developed right now, and we haven’t yet achieved all this. Soon though, you’ll see it with your own eyes.53

This is the primary statement made explicitly about the New Turn Policy in ‘Tovuudai the Herder’. The story was published no more than two years after the ratification of the policy by the Ninth Party Congress, held between late September and the beginning of October 1934. The main focus of the directives issued by the Congress indicated that the Party ‘should take every possible step to help the improvement of the private livestock breeding enterprise […] in order to multiply their herds, to raise young animals safely, and to increase and improve the output of animal products’.54 The images that emerge from the period immediately following the Civil War revolve around strategies for rebuilding the herding economy – the basis of Mongolia’s cultural and fiscal identity – through the encouragement of limited privatized ownership and a closer relationship with the Soviets. This contradictory approach, with an apparent return to the NEP-influenced liberalism of the mid-1920s under an MPRP increasingly controlled by Choibalsan, himself answerable to Stalin, rendered what Bawden calls the ‘ultimate aim of destroying completely all that was left of the old “feudal” order of society’55 possibly by stealth and, by the end of the decade, by the explicit activity of the Party. The circumstances in which Tovuudai, having been introduced by his son to the New Turn Policy, becomes directly involved in the Party’s process of rethinking how livestock herding is to be developed take up just under half of Buyannemeh’s story. While we have no record as to Buyannemeh’s mandate from the Ministry for Livestock and Agriculture, the extensive and journalistic account of the Herders’ Conference suggests that the story itself 53 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, pp. 52-53 54 Short History of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, 1917-1940, p. 102. 55 Bawden, [1968] 1989, p. 347

Socie t y in Flux

189

was written in order to introduce the public to the Party’s new approach. More specifically, Tovuudai is portrayed as one of those who are expected to support the new policy and assist in its implementation, an older and more experienced herder whose rejection by the leftists the Party now wanted to overturn and whose knowledge it wanted to employ. Tovuudai is one day approached by two men, a local named Gombo and an unnamed official from Ulaanbaatar. The interchange is worth reading in full, since it shows not only the characteristic reticence of Mongolian elders but also how such elder herders were expected eventually to come around to accepting – and so influence others to accept – the MPRP’s policies. After all, by the time this story was published, the New Turn Policy and its consequences were faits accomplis, and although the Party might have deemed it necessary to create as much genuine unity as possible throughout the country (and it should not be forgotten that Tovuudai lived in Hovd, about as far away from Ulaanbaatar as it was possible in Mongolia to live), the policy, having now been ratified by the Ninth Party Congress, was no longer open to debate. Gombo tells Tovuudai: ‘This comrade has come from our capital city, Ulaanbaatar. The very first concern of our Party now is livestock herding, and he’s come to set up the Ministry of Agriculture and Crops. Now the experienced and established elders among the herders are being brought to the capital, where they’ll work to develop livestock herding. ‘There are a few old men like you, Tovuudai, who are the most experienced and successful herders in this sum, and I’ve been sent from the sum administration to let you know that you’re to be included. It would be best if you can come now.’ The old man listened to this and thought, ‘The government takes livestock herding very seriously, but I really don’t understand what they see in such people like myself, the least of the old herders’, and although he was happy, when he gave it some more thought he hesitated, embarrassed, because he had grown old without being able properly to hand down the nomadic work of old men like him, and because he had no special abilities, and he said as much. But the other man encouraged him, and spoke very gently to him. ‘Oh, elder brother, you can show good experiences to many young people like us, and children of the future, and show us everything about how to work with livestock. That’s all we need. We are not demanding anything more from you. So you should come with us’, and he kept pushing Tovuudai.56 56 Tsedev and Wang, pp. 59-60.

190 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Buyannemeh’s language reveals a determined yet good-natured manipulation of Tovuudai’s pride by these two officials and how his commitment to the revolution and to the Party had not wavered, despite the unhappiness of the previous few years. He is at pains to emphasize that Tovuudai and his fellow herders were being invited to share their many years of experience for the benefit of their country. While the policy of collectivization had been reversed in the early summer of 1932, and while undoubtedly the results of the Soviet investment in Mongolian livestock production were having an effect, it was necessary nonetheless to emphasize that the policies being pursued by the Party had been drawn up in part as a result of the kind of advice that herders like Tovuudai would have contributed. While it is not possible to ascertain exactly how far such advice was really taken into account at the level of policymaking, Buyannemeh’s story – possibly one of the only accounts of this process that many Mongolians would have read or heard – encourages readers to view the Ministry and the Party in a favorable light. Tovuudai travelled to Ulaanbaatar from Hovd by car, a journey that even today might take several days. Buyannemeh does not describe the experience; rather he describes Tovuudai’s impressions, and to Tovuudai it was like a dream. The city itself was ‘a beautiful city consisting of beautiful and tall Russian buildings, there were thousands of people rushing about, and a great deal of smoke’, and ‘he imagined how he had just been in the countryside among the livestock and that he was suddenly in so great a city’.57 Central to this kind of experience Tovuudai was having is the experience of the modern. Mongolia’s involvement with the modern world had been rather awkward, precipitated by Moscow’s financial and ideological force. The Russian understanding of modernity had long been predicated on its involvement with the European social and artistic avant-garde, but we must understand how extraordinary such things as cars and buses, electric lights and typewriters must have been to the very different demographic of Mongolian herders. A man such as Tovuudai, traveling in a car from Hovd to Ulaanbaatar, might have had a similar experience to that described by the French painter Fernand Léger in 1914: ‘When one crosses a landscape by automobile, or express train, it becomes fragmented; it loses in descriptive value but gains in synthetic value. The view through the door of the railway car or the automobile windshield, in combination with the speed, has altered the habitual look of things.’58 Léger’s contrast between the ‘descriptive’ and 57 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 61. 58 Léger, 1973, p. 160.

Socie t y in Flux

191

the ‘synthetic’ shows how movement, and specifically movement at speed in a vehicle, can transform perception and bring together objects that would not otherwise blend and meld in synthesis. Buyannemeh, who by the time he wrote ‘Tovuudai the Herder’ had already traveled in the Soviet Union and in Inner Mongolia, used a similar if less dramatic foreshortening of time and vision to describe what Tovuudai saw on his journey to the capital: Before his eyes, his indescribably beautiful homeland of Mongolia, its hills and waters, the desert steppe and the hangai, and the herds of livestock in encampments all flashed past, and as he traveled on it seemed like a dream or a mirage.59

The dream-like feeling continues: ‘It was nearing evening when Tovuudai arrived in the city, and he was amazed to see the electric lights come on. He didn’t know how, but somehow he came to a large building.’ Tovuudai’s journey covers only a few lines of text, and this language of wonder reflects the gradual effect of transport on popular experience. The story of Tovuudai’s arrival in Ulaanbaatar parallels a similar scene in M. Yadamsüren’s story Gurvan Hüühen (Three Girls), written the same year as ‘Tovuudai the Herder’. Has-Erdene, a young woman who ‘had not experienced much of the world’, travels to Ulaanbaatar with her friend Horolmaa with the intention of getting an education: in this, she is reinforcing the Party’s wish for young people to come from the countryside to improve their lives and the lives of their communities. Yadamsüren presents Has-Erdene’s experience through her apprehension of a lightbulb, an object that reveals in its science the novelty of the modern world and in its illumination the transformation of the nocturnal world. Has-Erdene’s is a youthful fascination, as Tovuudai’s is the curiosity of an aging man. To her, suddenly it looked like a city, and people were saying that they had almost arrived. Has-Erdene woke up as soon as she heard this, and as she looked about her, everything looked interesting and strange. Has-Erdene, even more amazed, didn’t know what a light bulb was, or even what language it was,60 so she asked someone sitting next to her, ‘What’s a light bulb?’ and this fellow pointed to the bright stars, he said, ‘One of 59 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 61. The term hangai describes a mountainous region of forests and rivers. 60 The word used for ‘light bulb’ in Mongolian, chiiden, derives from the Chinese word ch’i teng 氣燈.

192 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

those. It’s an electric light.’ And while Has-Erdene didn’t understand the term light bulb, she nonetheless took in the idea of an electric light, and although the precise meaning was lost on her, she possessed a mysterious unknowing wonder about such things. It was really interesting how people would pass by without noticing things. During her three days traveling in the bus, Has-Erdene had initially been interested by the bus, but she ended up casually paying it no attention.61

The world that Ulaanbaatar represents in these stories is more than that which Tovuudai and Has-Erdene found at the administrative and political center of the country. The smoke and speed and crowds express the forward-thinking modernity that the Party, in its reimagining of Soviet socio-politics, wanted to present to Mongolia. It would seem that Buyannemeh and Yadamsüren, in positioning their characters’ gaze upon the city as though for the first time, were talking to their urban readership, respectful of a newcomer’s naïveté but also talking to those who were arriving in Ulaanbaatar, preparing them for the surprise and wonder and for Léger’s ‘synthetic’ experience. The idea of the newcomer, moreover, extends throughout the Mongolian experience of the early 1930s and reflects as much the misery of the enforced collectivization and industrialization as it does the pleasure and promise of innovation and the modern. While Tovuudai travels by car, Has-Erdene’s bus journey allows her to observe her fellow travelers. She catches the bus in Arhangai, about 550 kilometers west of Ulaanbaatar, which at the time was one of the few places with a bus service to the capital. In 1929, following the banning of private cars, the Soviet Union had helped in the establishment of MongolTrans, the state transport system, hoping to improve the movement of Mongolia’s military as well as its civilians. While the initial service of about 100 buses and trucks had grown by the mid-1930s, MongolTrans’ focus had become directed more towards military usage. Nonetheless, the disinterest of the passengers with whom Has-Erdene travels reveals how commonplace this type of bus travel was by the mid-1930s, at least for people living relatively close to the capital, and how acclimatized some people had become to moving at speed through what until fairly recently had required travel on horseback or by foot. In his description of early Soviet film, Tim Harte says that ‘Soviet citizens, especially those coming from the countryside to the city, required

61 Wickham-Smith 2012, pp. 41-42.

Socie t y in Flux

193

instruction in how to observe and make sense of their era’s pace’,62 and this was true also for Mongolian readers. Harte is talking here about film and projected speed, yet we must consider also that, in their regular travel on horseback, the average Mongolian most probably had experienced a faster pace than many urban Russians of the time. The idea of movement at speed was now characterized, for Tovuudai and Has-Erdene, by relative comfort. Indeed, Has-Erdene feels ‘relaxed’ as she travels, and for Tovuudai it is the distance that is noteworthy, but for neither of them is there the same kind of dislocation, visual fragmentation or abstraction seen in the Russian avant-garde. In the light of Harte’s comment about Soviet filmgoers, then, Mongolian readers of the 1930s seem to have needed more help in making sense of the speed of urbanization and industrialization than in the speed of vehicular transport. The rapid urban development was propelled by the Party’s ideological and economic indebtedness to Moscow. And although by 1932, as Bawden says, ‘[t]he grandiose factory schemes of the leftists had wrecked what little industry there had been’,63 there was still enough of the new and the modern for those coming to the city for the first time to feel as though they, like Tovuudai, might have been dreaming. It is uncertain whether it was Buyannemeh’s idea or that of the Ministry for Livestock and Agriculture that he write ‘Tovuudai the Herder’ to introduce to the public the measures established for the care and increase of livestock under the New Turn Policy. It is a kind of fictionalized report: the readership would likely not have been the herders themselves (the majority of whom were illiterate) so much as the minor officials who could inform the herders at a local level both about the government’s thinking (to inculcate a feeling of loyalty and indebtedness to the Party) and about the practical action being taken from which the herders themselves could immediately benefit. Once Tovuudai arrives in Ulaanbaatar to attend the herders’ conference, the account of his story indeed takes on a journalistic quality. Buyannemeh would probably have had some awareness of the ‘mass journalism’ that had developed during the late NEP period in the Soviet Union and that sought to use journalism (and journalists) as a ‘collective organizer’ and so mobilize and provoke propagandistic activity.64 In the Soviet Union, the political populism of this form of journalism contributed to the development of 62 Harte, 2009, p. 213. 63 Bawden,1989, p. 378. 64 This is explored more fully in Lence, 2005, specifically in Chapter 4.

194 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Socialist Realism following the resolution issued on 23 April 1932 by the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party, which liquidated the existing literary organizations and established the Union of Soviet Writers. In Mongolia, however, writers remained untouched by this development, and events such as those represented in the second half of ‘Tovuudai the Herder’ seem to have become rare. The herders’ congress, as described by Buyannemeh, unfolds downwards through the political ranks. Choibalsan, who had recently left his position as head of the Ministry for Agriculture and Livestock for the same position in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, is the first to address the delegates. He is followed by A. Amar, the President of the Little Hural, and by D. Shirnen, the new Minister of Agriculture and Livestock.65 Following Shirnen, Tovuudai himself, as one of the invited delegates, makes a speech, encouraged by what he has heard, and finally Duvyansky, a Soviet academic from the Academy of Science in Ulaanbaatar addresses the congress. Tovuudai’s response to these speeches is unsurprisingly positive, but it is those passages to which he pays most attention – and which Buyannemeh reports, sometimes verbatim – that reveal what readers themselves were expected to notice. For instance, Choibalsan’s opening speech contains a statement that Tovuudai takes as his ‘personal program’: […] the New Turn policy promulgated by our government in the year 1932 increased the number of the nomadic herders’ livestock, and so the livestock grew, and there has been neither any type of restriction nor anyone poisoning them, and so the economy of the nation has been strengthened and the people’s lives improved. It is important to think how we the people have now established and stabilized our state.66

The stabilization of the state following the Civil War and the end of the ‘leftist deviation’ was a central measure of the Party’s platform, and Choibalsan is making a connection here between the Party’s own statecraft and the improvement in the veterinary care, which he had promoted as Minister for Agriculture and Livestock and which was now being made available to herders. With Amar’s speech, the specifics of the policy begin to be laid out. His remarks are based upon direct personal experience of the situation as it was being lived in the countryside. The details, while confined to 65 D. Shirnen was appointed as minister on 1 January 1935 and served until 12 March 1937. 66 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 71.

Socie t y in Flux

195

three administrative areas to the north of Mongolia, can be understood as applicable throughout the country, encouraging delegates like Tovuudai to view their own more distant regions from a similar viewpoint. This year, the sheep and cattle, and especially the young animals, are going to waste away and die because of the poor quality of pastureland, and with the spread of disease through the herds of Töv, Selenge and Hövsgöl, the sheep have developed the so-called ‘warm diseases’ of the lungs. There are more withered flowers, their stomachs have curled up, their noses have been running and they have died, and the cattle too have wasted away and died, truly it is unspeakable how they have died from lung disease, and the calves from diarrhea, and from diseases of the colon. I have seen this myself, where the herds in a sum in the east of Hövsgöl are dying off, and when I went in to some of the encampments, there were dead animals lying there, and corpses also filling the sites of abandoned camps, so we are constantly aware both that our Mongolian herds are in a truly parlous state and that our people are most weary.67

Throughout his speech, Amar returns to the individual and the personal. He talks about the problem of rinderpest,68 about the supply of fodder and grain, and he especially distinguishes between the careless ‘bad’ herders and the cautious ‘good’ ones, encouraging the latter and scolding the former ‘with the force of his official position’. The frustration and exhaustion among the people that he mentions here stemmed as much from human error and carelessness as from natural disasters, problems that had been exacerbated by the zealotry of the Union of Revolutionary Youth in trying to push forward the policy of collectivization. Amar’s comments, then, are not only an encouragement to the herders but also a further repudiation of the leftists. The new minister, Shirnen, is even more explicit in his criticism, and his speech deals with finances and with the resources that had been granted to herders since the middle of 1932 under the provisions of the New Turn Policy. The establishment of animal clinics, greatly aided by Soviet funds, is being jeopardized by the malfeasance of herders who, ‘instead of buying equipment and breeding animals, have used [government loans] for paying debts, trading, having exorcism rites and rites for repelling obstacles 67 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 74. 68 An infectious disease of ruminants, characterized by the inflammation of the mucous membranes, high fever and dysentery.

196 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

performed, and feeding their dogs’ bellies’.69 But his speech is more than just criticism of those who misuse funds: he explicitly praises those who are ‘making effort to do their own work for themselves, and […] making not a small contribution to our property’. In offering encouragement to the herders, Tovuudai feels that Shirnen is speaking directly to him. In the capital city, surrounded by his fellow herders, addressed by senior politicians and Party members, Tovuudai’s head was turned: he ‘heard things which he had never heard in all his almost seventy years, and he knew things now which had never before known, and he was delighted, and fascinated and proud too, and he didn’t notice how much time had passed’.70 The structure of the congress, in Buyannemeh’s account, in moving from the general to the specific, allowed for contributions to come from among the delegates, who more than the political speakers had themselves experienced the various effects of disease, rumors and financial mismanagement on the health and well-being of the herds and the corresponding effects upon those for whom the herds represented their livelihood and the survival of their families. Tovuudai’s speech is reported without the use of quotations, creating a distance between the ‘factual’ account of the real-life politicians and the imagined speech of the herder Everyman. In Tovuudai’s words, the herders become not simply herders who take care of the livestock but elders and mentors, protectors of youth and benign critics of those young people in particular who have mishandled the government’s funds. On behalf of the herders, he requests the government to make of these young people, under compulsion, well-behaved and righteous, with both livestock and work, to have them enter onto the path as people capable of helping the state and helping their elders, and to develop and advance their own property, and since there are young people who truly do not know aspects of the work, [he said that] the old herders were offering their complaints and criticisms for the benefit of future development.71

Tovuudai’s speech to his fellow herders and the Party representatives moves away from the political and encompasses his own lived experience. He speaks about the misbehavior of the young people, how they have rejected their 69 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 82. The loans, Shirnen claims, amount to some 900,000 tögrög. At this time, the tögrög was linked in parity to the Russian ruble, making this loan roughly equivalent to just over $1m at the time. (Data from the Archive of the Bank of Russia http://cbr. ru/currency_base/OldDataFiles/USD.xls [accessed 15 October 2016].) 70 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 83. 71 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 85.

Socie t y in Flux

197

parents’ advice and, while desiring fine clothes, are unwilling to undertake herding work. Tovuudai speaks as a mouthpiece for the Party’s policy against those who had been responsible for the extremes of the leftist period and for the improvements that had resulted from the New Turn Policy, but he is also speaking as someone who is keen to keep control of the situation, both in his own region and throughout the country. We can also assume that Buyannemeh is using Tovuudai as a mouthpiece for his own ideas about the way in which the government was organizing policy in the wake of the leftist period. By writing such things, Buyannemeh was signaling the importance – to the country as a whole and to individual herders and localized groups of herders – of supporting the government in its attempts to safeguard the herding economy. The final speech presented in the story is that of Duvyansky, a Soviet academic based at the Academy of Sciences. The account of his speech underlines the speeches of the politicians and herders, emphasizing the historical importance of livestock herding to Mongolians and how it is inextricably linked to their lifestyle. His speech functions both as an imprimatur from the Soviet government and as an acknowledgement by the ‘Western’ scholarship practiced in Russian academies of the Mongolians’ understanding of their own culture. At the end of the congress, Tovuudai returns home and immediately sets about promoting Party policy among the local herders. His story ends peacefully, with his accomplishments as a herder and an elder being recognized at the local, regional and national levels. Buyannemeh’s Tovuudai was the success story that the Ministry for Agriculture and Livestock needed him to be. It was important, moreover, that even in the furthest reaches of the country, people realized that the organization of the herding economy and the lifestyle it represented originated from Ulaanbaatar, guided on an ever-shorter leash from Moscow. Indeed, the herders’ congress – like the publication (and possibly also the commission) of ‘Tovuudai the Herder’ – had been financed by the Ministry under Choibalsan, and it is reasonable to see Buyannemeh’s text as a pawn in Choibalsan’s own manipulation of power. For by 1936, when the story was published, Choibalsan and Gendun had been appointed as Marshals of the Armed Forces, and Choibalsan had become head of the Ministry for Internal Affairs. In March that year, Choibalsan, with the support of Moscow, had the outspoken Buddhist sympathizer Gendun removed from office for rejecting Stalin’s order to eliminate Mongolia’s Buddhist clergy. The Soviet representatives in the Ministry of Internal Affairs now began to work with Choibalsan to set in motion the Great Repression, which would begin on 10 September 1937.

198 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

‘Tovuudai the Herder’ promoted the continuation of the measures that had been initiated under the New Turn Policy and that were still being implemented at the time of its publication. Read by – and to – those who were both interested and implicated in how the government was working with herders to improve their situation, it told how these measures were exerting, and would continue to exert, a beneficent impact throughout Mongolia. However, statistics from the time suggest that there was no appreciable change in the numbers of livestock,72 and by the end of the decade the focus of the Party had moved away from the economy towards more ideological concerns, and the New Turn Policy was but a memory. Within 18 months of his story’s publication, Buyannemeh had himself fallen victim to the Great Repression, and the Party’s intention to educate, liberate and improve the lives of its citizens – the policy that had guided Damdinsüren’s writing of ‘The Rejected Girl’ – had been obliterated by the rise of Choibalsan and by his plan to bring the influence of his mentor Stalin to bear upon Mongolian society.

Bibliography Ayuush, Sh. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1973. Bawden, Charles. The Modern History of Mongolia. London: Kegan Paul International, [1968] 1989. Brown, Edward J. The Proletarian Episode in Russian Literature 1928-1932. New York: Octagon Books, 1971. Damdinsüren, Ts. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1956. —, H. Sampildendev, and Ch. Ariyasüren. Mongolyn orchin üyeiin uran zohiolyn tüüh Vol. 1 (1921-1940). Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1985. —. Namtryn huudsaas. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1990. Dogsom, D. ‘Istoricheskie uroki 15 let revolyutsii’. In Tikhii Okean No. 3 [9], Moscow, July-September 1936, pp. 63-94. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. ‘Cultural Revolution in Russia 1928-1932’. In Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 9, No. 1 (January 1974): 33-52. Forbath, Ladislaus. The New Mongolia. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936. Friters, Gerard M. Outer Mongolia and Its International Position. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1949.

72 See for instance Friters, 1949, p. 18, where a table shows incremental fluctuations of overall livestock figures during the 1930s.

Socie t y in Flux

199

Gorsuch, Anne R. ‘NEP Be Damned! Young Militants in the 1920s and the Culture of Civil War’. In The Russian Review vol. 54, no. 4 (October 1997): 564-580. Harte, Tim. Fast Forward: The Aesthetics and Ideology of Speed in Russian AvantGarde Culture 1910-1930. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009. Kameshkov, B.N. ‘Utga zohioluudyn nomuudyg Mongol helen deer orchuulsan tuhai’. In Tsog no. 1, 13 (1948): 129-139. Léger, F. Functions of Painting. New York: Viking Press, 1973. Lence, Matthew E. Closer to the Masses: Stalinist Culture, Social Revolution and Soviet Newspapers. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. Luvsan, B. ‘Orchuulgin uran zohiol’. In Mongol Sudlal, 1966 Tomus V., Fasc. 13, pp. 53-62. Natsagdorj, D. Zohioluud. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin hevleliin hereg erhleh horoo, 1961. Nordby, Judith. The Mongolian People’s Republic 1924-1928 and the Rightist Deviation. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 1988. Paine, S.C.M. Imperial Rivals: China, Russia and their Disputed Frontier. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. Pozdneev, A.M. Mongolia and the Mongols. Bloomington: Indiana University Publications, 1971. Serebrennikov, I.I. ‘A Soviet Satellite: Outer Mongolia Today’. In Foreign Affairs, vol. 9, no. 3 (April 1931): 510-515. Short History of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, 1917-1940. Ulan Bator: Party Institute of History, 1963-1964. Todd Baum, Ann. Komsomol Participation in the Soviet First Five-Year Plan. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987. Tsedev, D., and Wang Mandoha, eds. Sonombaljuur-un Buyannemekü, vol. 2. Beijing: Ündesüten-ü Heblel-ün Qoriy-a, 2009. Wickham-Smith, Simon. Stories from the Steppe: Short Fiction from Mongolia. Ulaanbaatar: MACP, 2012.

6

Negotiating Faith Abstract Mongolia’s response to religion – specifically to Buddhism – was quite different to Moscow’s hardline push towards atheism and tended to emphasize personal choice of religion while seeking to remove financial and social power from monasteries and senior monks. Much of the literature focuses on the hypocrisy of monks, showing how they used their elevated social position to elicit sexual favors, among other things (as in D. Natsagdorj’s ‘The Venerable Monk’s Tears’ [Lambuguain nulims]). The anti-government uprising in the center-west of the country in the spring of 1932 and the resulting implementation of the moderate New Turn Policy (Shine ergeltiin bodlodo) became the theme of several short stories, including two (‘Balchinnyam the Urianhai’ [Urianhai Balchinnyam] and ‘A Heroic Struggle’ [Baatarlag Temtsel]) written in 1936 by Sh. Sodnomdorj, who himself had fought in the Red Army against the uprising. Keywords: Buddhism, atheism, society of the godless, monks and nuns, lamas, traditional faith, religious repression

In an essay published on 13 May 1909, Vladimir Lenin made the following statement about religion in the Russian Bolshevik magazine Proletary, of which he himself was the editor: Let us recall that in his essay on Ludwig Feuerbach, Engels reproaches Feuerbach for combating religion not in order to destroy it, but in order to renovate it, to invent a new, ‘exalted’ religion, and so forth. Religion is the opium of the people – this dictum by Marx is the cornerstone of the whole Marxist outlook on religion. Marxism has always regarded all modern religions and churches, and each and every religious organisation, as instruments of bourgeois reaction that serve to defend exploitation and to befuddle the working class.1 1 V.I. Lenin ‘The Attitude of the Workers’ Party Towards Religion’, translated by Andrew Rothstein and Bernard Isaacs. Marxist Internet Archive https://www.marxists.org/archive/ lenin/works/1909/may/13.htm (accessed 3 December 2015).

Wickhamsmith, Simon, Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948). Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984752_ch06

202 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Lenin’s appeal to Engels’s critique of Feuerbach – whose 1841 critique of Christianity in Das Wesen des Christentums had exercised considerable influence on Marx’s thinking on religion – is signif icant because of its explicit and fundamental rejection of religion. And the closer Lenin – who became increasingly incapacitated – moved towards death, which would f inally come in January 1924, the more vigorously the Bolsheviks moved to increase the propaganda offensive against religion, developing an atheistic publishing machine that sought to explain the historical and social justif ication against religion and for atheism. As William E. Husband points out, many of these publications concentrated on philosophical topics, but it was the journal Bezbozhnik (The Godless), launched on 21 December 1922, which catered to a more pragmatic, proletarian audience: This organ, above all others, was designed to compensate for the shortfalls in antireligious work by cadres. Intended to be passed from one reader to another, read aloud for groups of illiterates, or shared in village and factory reading rooms, each issue combined illustrations in color with simply written articles on topics ranging from the class essence of religion to popularized science to the need for improved agronomy. 2

Such a range of articles does not suggest that the editors of Bezbozhnik intended an especially forceful attack on religion per se; rather it seems to indicate a desire to catalyze the intelligence and natural curiosity of the proletariat and to have them ineluctably shift their focus from the concerns of religion to those of science and economics and labor, which formed the theoretical backbone of the New Economic Policy. There were, however, many revolutionaries for whom there remained some hope in the dynamic interaction of socialism and religion. Unlike Lenin, there were Marxists who saw Feuerbach’s ideas as workable. In creating the concept of ‘god-building’ (bogostroitel’stvo), they proposed to replace religion, which was based upon the worship of supernatural power, with an idea based upon the worship of humanity and including rituals designed to reflect humanity and ultimately to perfect it. The chief architect of god-building was Anatoly Lunacharsky, a poet, translator and journalist who was the Soviet Union’s first People’s Commissar

2

Husband, 2000, p. 61.

Negotiating Faith

203

for Education (Narkompros).3 In his Religion and Socialism (1908-11), he had written, ‘Scientif ic socialism is the most religious of all religions, and the true Social Democrat is the most deeply religious of all human beings.’4 Lunacharsky’s analysis laid out a series of statements discussing how socialism and the religious worldview might work together for the improvement of society. He proposed that socialism is based upon empirical scientific inquiry, that it opposes violence and prejudice, that it advocates an open and agnostic approach to religious faith, and most importantly that it necessitates freedom of religion and the individual’s search for truth. Lunacharsky also explicitly distances true revolutionary socialism from both militant atheism and religious fanaticism, seeing these as ideologies aimed directly at dividing the proletariat and at promoting the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Of all the people who subscribed to Lunacharsky’s vision, none came to exercise more influence over literature – whether in Mongolia or the Soviet Union – than Mikhail Gorky. In 1925, Mongolia’s Minister for Education Erdenebathaan had written to Gorky asking for suggestions as to which books should be translated into Mongolian and how to promote the education of the proletariat there. In response to Erdenebathaan’s extensive exposition of Buddhism’s cultural and spiritual legacy in Mongolia, Gorky gave an answer that allows for an acceptance of Buddhism while acknowledging where the new order needs to prevail: […] as far as I can judge the soul of a Mongolian from books that I have read about Mongolia, I think that, above all, the propagation of the principle of activity would be useful to your people. Europe owes all its beauty to an active attitude towards life, and such an attitude deserves the honor of all races. Buddha taught that desire is the source of suffering. But Europe has preceded many of the peoples of the world in science, art, and technology precisely because, if it always desired something better than what it already possessed, it never feared to suffer. Europe has managed to arouse in its masses the quest for justice, for freedom, and for that alone we must forgive it the multitude of its sins and crimes.5 3 Lunacharsky was relieved of his political appointments when Stalin consolidated his power base during the late 1920s. The remit of the People’s Commissariat for Education, Narkompros (Narodnii Komissariat Prosveshcheniia) tended to stretch beyond education into many other areas of culture, paralleling the work of Proletkult. It became the Ministry of Education in 1946. 4 Tumarkin, 1981. 5 See Chapter 5, footnote 17.

204 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

As Mongolia’s literary establishment grappled with the ideas of class and the value of labor that would later coalesce into a modified form of Soviet Socialist Realism, Gorky’s importance as the theory’s chief architect would become increasingly critical. His understanding of, and sympathy for, godbuilding – albeit with the caveats suggested in his letter to Erdenebathaan – fed directly into the development of socialist realism. As Boris Paramonov has written, ‘Marxism made possible the incarnation of the theogonic process: God becomes the people (the God-builders’ demotheism), that is, a social collective whose labor completely transfigures life itself.’6 We can see how Soviet cultural policy came to be developed under the influence of what Paramonov would call a theogonic worldview, rendering the ideal socialist person in terms of labor and the ideal socialist state in terms of the performance of that labor rather than, as would become increasingly and painfully self-evident, in terms of its specific financial or social benefit. Lenin’s reaction to Lunacharsky’s proposals was to view them, in the words of Pospielovsky, as ‘a dangerous and totally unnecessary compromise with the most reactionary forces in the Russian empire’.7 That said, the cult of personality that formed around Lenin and his writings following his death seems not to have precluded the appropriation of theogony by the back door as part of the theoretical underpinning of socialist realism, thanks in large part to Gorky himself. Thus it was that, even with the focus on ‘realism’ – with all that that entailed with regards to class, labor and scientific materialism – a correct grasp of socialism likewise necessitated an understanding of guiding principles such as human perfection and the value of quasi-religious rituals. These ideas of ‘god-building’, notwithstanding that Lenin had condemned them absolutely, influenced the promotion in Mongolia of what was described as ‘pure Buddhism’. Between 1921 and 1924, there was a slight increase in the number of vocations8 and, as Kaplonski points out, ‘[o]thers noted reformist tendencies among the monks themselves, the implication being that perhaps the socialists could build upon such reformism’.9 Furthermore, the Bogd Haan, whom the new revolutionary government allowed to remain on the throne and to exercise a limited kind of rule, was able to exercise considerable influence over the members of the revolutionary government until his death 6 Boris Paramonov, ‘Russian Literature in the Christian Context’, translated by Masha Barabtaro http://cdclv.unlv.edu//archives/nc2/paramonov_christianity.html#_edn7 (accessed 18 December 2015). 7 Pospielovsky, 1987, p. 20. 8 Morozova, 2002, p. 30. 9 Kaplonski, 2014, p. 88.

Negotiating Faith

205

in May 1924.10 While his death handed the socialist regime complete political control in Mongolia, it did not bring much change in the practice of religion. Indeed, religion remained so much a key factor in Mongolia’s day-to-day practice of revolution that Buddhist texts remained the primary means of teaching literacy and ethical behavior for several years after the revolution. In 1923, the MPRP issued a directive that made explicit the social advance that could come from applying the teachings of Buddhism: In this time when knowledge of the Mongolian language is flourishing, ways are being found to seek out and collect published translations of the Kanjur and Tanjur, as well as many works by philosophers and astrological texts, and if we can prepare the people to read them, it should be clear that the native Mongolian language and character will improve.11

Three years later, when the educator Ch. Bat-Ochir 12 published Mandah Narny Tuya (Rays of the Rising Sun), his book on how young socialists should behave, he was direct in his unabashed use of Buddhist terminology, stating the importance of cultivating a mind shaped and educated by Buddhism: ‘The sutras and mantras train one’s own mind, but it is in transforming this into bodhicitta that the central point of the practice lies.’13 That this was written for the youth, who were at the same time becoming radicalized by Choibalsan’s Revolutionary Youth Union, is a powerful indication that even the more leftist elements of Mongolian society still found benefit in the teaching and philosophy – if not the rituals and mysticism – of religion. That the ‘reformist tendencies’ mentioned by Kaplonski – which might be seen as early attempts at replicating, within a Buddhist framework, the socio-religious forms of ‘god-building’ – should have appeared at a time of an increase in monastic vocations suggests then that a genuine feeling for Buddhism remained throughout Mongolian society. But this feeling might also have echoed the prayers requesting that the Bogd Haan’s reincarnation (huvilgaan) be found and enthroned, a potential theocratic threat to the Party’s control and to any concern with promoting ‘pure Buddhism’. Such

10 It is generally believed that the Bogd Haan, also known as Bogd Jivzundamba Agvaanluvsanchoijinyamdanzanvanchüg (1869-1924), actually died a natural death. 11 Zagdsüren, 1967, pp. 10-11. 12 Ch. Bat-Ochir (1874-1937) was an influential teacher and intellectual who worked with Jamsrano and other reformers to develop the education system in the years following the revolution. 13 Bat-Ochir, 1992, pp. 14-15. The Sanskrit term ’bodhicitta‘ expresses the idea of ”enlightened mind”, a spontaneous compassion and empathy for all sentient beings.

206 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

hopes, however, would be dashed, finally and absolutely, by the ban in 1929 on all reincarnations. Until the MPRP’s Seventh Congress in the late autumn of 1928, which swept from government the ‘rightists’ who were seeking to implement a Mongolian version of Lenin’s New Economic Policy and which initiated Soviet-backed policies such as the seizure of land and forced collectivization, the concern of the Party had not been to interfere in any way with an individual’s personal beliefs but rather to break the socioeconomic power of the monasteries and of the high-ranking clergy and so solve ‘the lama question’ once and for all. This commitment safeguarding individual belief had been clearly conveyed in January 1925 by Ts. Dambadorj, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the MPRP,14 who stated that atheistic propaganda ‘was not on the agenda of the political activities of the MPRP, which had to strengthen the Lamaistic democratic elements, setting them against the “old ones”’.15 This pronouncement was made at the behest of the Comintern and articulated not only the understanding of the Mongolian government – now free from the influence of the Bogd Haan and presumably regarding itself free to implement whatever policies on religion it felt necessary – but also the wishes of Soviet Russia. The parallel ideas of personal devotion and the ‘democratic elements’ of Buddhism provide the background to Buyannemeh’s short story Gaihamshig Baidal (An Astonishing Event),16 published in the journal Mongol Ardyn Nam in 1925. As the story unrolls before us, it takes on a narrative form more akin to a religious vision than a political one and reveals the kind of organic relationship between the Party and Buddhism propounded by advocates of ‘god-building’. ‘An Astonishing Event’ tells the story of ‘an old man of around 60 years’ who sees a huge creature emerging from the clouds as he recites prayers amid a landscape reminiscent of a Buddhist scroll painting, ‘and while its physical form was like a bird’s, it had four great wings, and from its back end there came great rays of red light, and it moved along, clear as a daytime 14 Ts.-O. Dambadorj (1899-1934) was expelled from the Party as a ‘right deviationist’ after the Seventh Party Congress in 1928 and sent to Moscow as a trade representative at the Mongolian Embassy. He was assassinated on 25 June 1934 by an injection of poison. Dambadorj was a key figure in the literary scene at the time of the revolution and was known as Ulaan Otorch (the Red Herder: the word otorch has the specific sense of one who moves their animals to better grazing). He wrote a fictionalized account of the battle at Tolbo Nuur in 1921, in which he took part: written in 1924, Tolbo Nuur was first published in 1928. See Dambadorj, 1964. 15 Morozova, 2004, p. 35. 16 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, pp. 114-118.

Negotiating Faith

207

star, and the force of its sound was like an earthquake’. Before the eyes of the old man and a couple of young boys who are playing nearby, the creature begins to shower the landscape with droppings. These droppings turn out to be sheets of paper. Some of them fall into the old man’s lap where he sits, and when he looked closer, ‘because they were inscribed in gold, and in the Mongol script, he suddenly realized that they had been scattered upon the world from the land of the Buddha’. That these sheets were written in gold and in the Mongol script (which we later discover that the old man cannot read) would also have reminded Buyannemeh’s readers of religious texts, the most precious of which were often presented in this way. They would have been accorded respect and placed upon an altar. Buyannemeh seems to be testing his reader, wondering whether the old man correctly understands what he has received and also challenging the reader’s own understanding of what is happening. This framing of the papers as potential objects of worship is the pivotal point of the narrative, a moment of political and spiritual transformation for the minds of both the old man and the reader. The old man rushes home, accompanied by the two boys, and tells his wife to light candles and incense as an offering, and he asks his friend Dorj to read aloud what is written on the paper. Dorj reads: The eleventh day of July is the great and joyful day on which was established the Mongolian people’s government, and the significance of this day is that the true Mongolian people, who have been oppressed and exhausted in the pastures have found their freedom, the door has been opened for them to advance along the bright path of culture, they have found the path of escape from centuries of wandering among dark mists, and for this reason, not only have we the people marked this forever and unforgettably upon our hearts and our minds, but every year without fail we will commemorate this day like a happy memory, and fittingly take note of our advancement year after year.

‘An Astonishing Event’ is remarkable for many reasons. It is a story that speaks to a Buddhist audience, for it is both replete with Buddhist imagery and sympathetic to the old man’s faith, even as the world is transformed through the text from a Buddhist paradise – the man even ‘imagined that he was in the Buddha’s land of Sukhavātī’17 – into a socialist paradise. It 17 The ‘western pure land’ where the Buddha Amitābha is said to dwell. Its name – and Buyannemeh uses the Sanskrit name – translates as ‘Land of Bliss’.

208 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

employs key tropes of Buddhist religious discourse, such as the ‘gentle drizzle of flowers’ that fall from the sky at the beginning and the droppings that fall from the bird (which at no point, in fact, is identified as a plane),18 the five colors (blue, green, white, yellow and red) that invoke the five Buddha ‘families’, and the image of the garuda, a bird-like creature traditionally held to be the spirit of Bogd Haan mountain,19 which rises to the south of Ulaanbaatar. Not only is there Buddhist imagery, but from within that Buddhist imagery emerges the imagery of the new socialist state. To the man’s eyes ‘the world is full of red light’, the sun transforms into a red ball, and red light shoots from the bird’s tail. Red too is the light that the children imagine surrounding the bird. Thus it is that, in telling this seemingly simple, seemingly idyllic fable, Buyannemeh paints a vision of the new socialist – that is, red – Mongolia. The text presents neither monks nor lay people, neither workers nor nobles, neither poor nor rich, but only the dynamic transformation of the people – represented in youth by the two little boys and in old age by the old man and his wife, and by their friend, who has education enough to read – from those who are ‘oppressed and exhausted in the pastures’ to those ‘who have found their freedom’, as the announcements falling from the sky declare. For such people, Buyannemeh continues, ‘the door has been opened for them to advance along the bright path of culture, they have found the path of escape from centuries of wandering through dark mists’. The narrative uses this imagery to echo Buddhist religious discourse, with the traditional transformation of those afflicted with the darkness of spiritual ignorance into those who have gained enlightenment taking on a sociopolitical aspect; it has a quality of hyperreality not unlike the style of Tibetan and Mongolian religious art. At the same time, Buyannemeh, the de facto leader of Mongolia’s young intellectuals, copies the revolutionary language of the Soviet Union. At the end of the story, through the transformation of perception, the nature of time itself seems to shift, and even as Dorj is reading the text, the ‘summery day of the sixth month’ of the opening sentence becomes ‘the eleventh day of the seventh solar month’, marking the passing of the old lunar calendar and the adoption by the revolutionary government of the ‘Western’ solar calendar. 18 These both echo the standard Tibetan image of the ‘rain of blessings’ (Tib.: gsol ’debs byin rlabs char ’bebs), through which a practitioner receives spiritual power. 19 Bogd Haan mountain has a close association with the Bogd Haan lineage. The first Bogd Haan, Zanabazar (1635-1723), is supposed to have spent much time in meditation there, and in 1783 the Qing Empire, through the local Mongolian government, declared it a protected area.

Negotiating Faith

209

The day of this ‘astonishing event’ is 11 July 1921, on which the Bogd Haan was installed as temporary monarch as part of the newly established socialist government. In a letter sent to the Bogd Haan two days previously, the revolutionaries had said that ‘the existing laws and situation do not correspond any longer to the spirit of the times. Everything, therefore, except religion, will be subject to gradual change.’ (my italics)20 ‘An Astonishing Event’ was written four years later, a year after Buyannemeh had been imprisoned for 30 days for ‘publishing lies and suspicions about comrades in important official posts, and causing comrades to desert their positions’,21 and at a time when atheistic propaganda and attacks on personal devotion were being explicitly condemned, both by the MPRP government and by the Comintern. The idea of a peaceful and effective cohabitation between Buddhism and socialism proposed by intellectuals like Buyannemeh and Bat-Ochir was far from unrealistic. The primary focus of the socialist government was to lessen and finally remove the control exercised by the monasteries – and especially the more senior monks and incarnate lamas – over the lives both of the general populace and the junior (and therefore more vulnerable) monks. This policy reflected Lenin’s objection to the spiritual socialism of the god-builders. The stark difference between those who enjoyed the privilege of status and those whose existence was defined by their inferiority and servitude translates into the feudal society of the monastic estates: Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the labor of others are taught by religion to practice charity on earth, thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their existence as exploiters and selling them at a very modest price tickets to well-being in Heaven.22

In the spirit of statements such as these by Lenin and his followers, a group called Burhangüichüüd (The Atheists) was established in 1929, aimed explicitly at abolishing religion. It was set up in the wake of the Seventh Party Congress and reflected Mongolia’s growing dependency upon the Soviet Union. But the Burhangüichüüd, who were not formally allied with 20 Nasanbaljir, 1960, pp. 22-23. 21 For an account of Buyannemeh’s final trial (and subsequent execution), in September 1936, see Chapter 8. 22 Pospielovsky, 1987, p. 20.

210 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

the Party, did not find a foothold and hence disbanded in late 1931 or early 1932, having published a few editions of a journal. By contrast, as late as 1936, the Party had published at least three editions of the Journal of the Lamas (Lamin Sonin),23 which included articles covering topics as broad as health, livestock herding and the question of the separation of religion from the state. This journal appears not to have discussed Buddhism as a religion or as a spiritual practice but rather to have followed the lead of the god-builders, probing how religion might exist within the socialist framework and as a part of Mongolia’s revolutionary society. That Buddhism held its ground, albeit in a politically sanctioned form, even as atheism was failing, stood in explicit contrast to what was happening in the Soviet Union. We might imagine that the increased repression of religious belief and practice through both intellectual and physical force that was central to the Soviet experience during the same period would have impacted directly upon the lives of Buddhists in Mongolia. But when, during the mid-1920s, the MPRP embarked upon its own god-building program, advancing the idea of a ‘purer’ Buddhism, articles were published that sought to find ways of melding the teachings of Buddha with those of Marx and Lenin. The Buryat scholar Jamsrano,24 head of the MPR Academic Council and a member of the Party’s Central Committee, worked hard to develop a philosophical framework parallel to that of god-building. Mindful of the importance of young people in building socialism, he appealed to the radicals in the Revolutionary Union of Youth, of which Buyannemeh had been a founding member, to ‘learn the basis of […] divine religion, not criticizing it as blind men, but comprehending its right sacred essence.’25 Jamsrano also wrote his own book in Russian, The Foundations of Buddhism,26 in which he described the Buddha (and Lenin’s appreciation of Buddhist philosophy without, as far as I can ascertain, any evidence of it) thus: The great Gautama gave to the world the perfect teachings of Communism. All attempts to make a god out of a great revolutionary lead to absurdity […]. The present understanding of community makes a beautiful bridge from Buddha Gautama to Lenin […] we pronounce this formula not to exalt it nor to lower it but as an obvious and indisputable fact […] The 23 See Grivelet, 2001. Although the editor says that he has seen only one edition of this journal (this one was published in 1936), I understand that at least two others were published (personal communication with M. Saruul-Erdene, May 2016). 24 See Chapter 1, footnote 27. 25 Morazova, 2002, pp. 31-32. 26 Tseveen, 1926.

Negotiating Faith

211

principle of fearlessness, the principle of denial of ownership, the principle of the value of work, the principle of the dignity of a human being without class or other difference, the principle of reality, the principle of love on the basis of self-awareness are the legacy of the teachers (e.g. the Buddha and Lenin) of continual joy for humanity […]. We know how Lenin valued Buddhist truth.27

While the government might have wished to draw clear parallels between socialism and the teachings of the historical Buddha (as opposed to later teachers such as those who had developed the mystical and symbolic form of vajrayāna Buddhism practiced in Mongolia), this did not mean that Mongolian writers saw no opportunity to promote science and materialism and to disparage religion. Buyannemeh’s treatment of the old man, and indeed of his readers, in ‘An Astonishing Event’ hovers between gentle mockery and an implicit challenge, but as he does this, he is also clearly recognizing that faith in Buddhism does not negate, and can indeed go along with, faith in socialism. Nine years later, in 1934, M. Yadamsüren’s Anhaarch bishirsen chavgants, ataarhan horsson lam hoyoryn ünen baidal (The True Story of an Old Woman Who Has Faith in What She Observes, and a Monk, Poisoned By Jealousy)28 offers a similar situation from a rather different perspective, challenging the notion of faith while revealing the corruption of the more senior monastics. The intervening decade had been characterized at first by the harsh measures of Soviet communism and subsequently by the civil war. And now, with the condemnation in June 1932 of the ‘leftward deviation’ and promotion of economic gradualism under the provisions of the New Turn Policy, there had even been a rise in the number of monastic vocations (just as after the death of the Bogd Haan). Doljin, a woman29 of 62, is happy to receive a letter from her son Sereeter, who has enlisted in the People’s Army. As she sits outside her ger, a monk named Dandar, who is not only a scholar but an exorcist and a medical doctor, arrives and she prepares a seat for him. Seeing a plane flying in the 27 Nordby, 1988, p. 195. 28 Yadamsüren, 1970, pp. 79-80. 29 The title of the story describes Doljin as chavgants. This term, a loanword from Sogdian, indicates a nun or a laywoman who has taken vows. The dictionary compiled by B. Shagj between 1926 and 1929 defines this word as ‘a woman who has become a monastic’ (Shagj, 1994, p. 775). During the socialist period, the term became derogatory, suggesting a shrewish old woman, but the date and title of Yadamsüren’s story clearly indicates that Doljin is a laywoman with religious vows.

212 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

sky, she rushes into her ger and emerges with a bucket of milk, which she begins to sprinkle as an offering in the direction of the plane. ‘As well as being proud and impressed’, we are told, ‘at how wonderful and extensive was the people’s education, she was thinking also about her belovèd son Sereeter, and how he might be studying such things.’ The prayer that Doljin says as she makes this offering echoes some key doctrinal and cultural aspects of Buddhism’s position in Mongolia at this time: May my son, Sereeter of the Red Army, and his comrades, flying in their ranks with great power through the sky, protect the people and destroy the enemy. May this power shine in the ten directions like the sun in the sky.30

Buddhism teaches nonviolence, but it also talks of skillful means (San.: upaya) by which correct action is measured, not so much by its outward appearance but by the intention of the actor. The destruction of an enemy would fall into this category, an act that would have resulted in the killer’s accruing negative karma for killing and positive karma for preventing the enemy from committing a more terrible act. The Buddha himself had done something similar when, in a past life as a ship’s captain, he had killed one of his passengers, whom he intuited as intending to kill the others. It is not impossible that Yadamsüren wrote this prayer as a way to encourage religious people such as Doljin to enlist and to defend – or at least to support the defense of – Mongolia. Moreover, in making an offering of milk, the old woman is performing a pre-Buddhist rite of blessing and purification in which milk is sprinkled on the stirrups of those who are setting off on a journey on horseback. She uses Buddhist prayer and shamanic ritual to protect her son, and by extension the people’s army, in the battle against an unidentified enemy. Her final request is couched in the linguistic tradition of Mongolian Buddhism, ending with a standard blessing form, boltugai, ‘may it be’. As a senior monk, a figure like Dandar represented the power and corruption of the religious establishment against which the government was fighting. Even before he opens his mouth, his status condemns him. He is an exorcist, a group frequently singled out for close scrutiny by the authorities on account of their ability to cash in on the fears and needs of the faithful. He is also a doctor, and Yadamsüren’s term, emch zasal, implies that he is a doctor skilled in traditional Tibetan medical practices, practices that stood 30 Yadamsüren, 1970, p. 79.

Negotiating Faith

213

in opposition to the modern, Western scientific approach to health being imported from the Soviet Union.31 For all these reasons, Dandar stands beyond the pale of religious practice, whilst Doljin’s devotional attitude is an example of how a person who has faith in socialism as well as in Buddhism should understand and embody religion. Indeed, when Dandar takes her to task for not making offerings ‘to the gods of our country or to the community of educated monks, or to the wondrous Buddha’, Doljin’s reply simultaneously speaks to the socialist synthesis of science and religion while condemning the emotional control of the Buddhist hierarchy: ‘Away with you, you good-for-nothing! In some sixty years, I have not seen any of the reincarnations, holy men or Buddhas you all claim can fly, but with my two eyes I have seen a flying machine built by the children of the people, thanks to the education and culture of the people, and I am happy for this, and so, wise lama, I’m making offerings.’32

Whether she calls Dandar ‘wise lama’ out of sarcasm or respect – or even a little of both – is open to debate, but her intention is clear. As the title says, she does indeed have ‘faith in what she observes’, and what she observes is, as Yadamsüren tells us in the final sentence of his text, ‘the profundity of the people’s culture’, and this she finds ‘fascinating’. Doljin’s fascination with – perhaps it is more enchantment by – the advances of socialism, even as she sprinkles milk and says prayers for the aircraft and for Mongolia’s military, as well as her faith in the observable truths of religion and revolution and her distrust of the misleading misinformation of ‘educated’ monks like Dandar, reveal how Buddhism had successfully weathered the period of leftward deviation. Moreover, Yadamsüren’s characterization of Dandar is the natural result of a reconsideration of how Buddhism – and specifically its clergy – operated beyond the monastery. Yet the description of Dandar as ‘poisoned by jealousy’ (ataarhan horsson) raises some important questions. In alerting readers to the Buddhist idea of the ‘five poisons’ – desire, anger, ignorance, pride and jealousy – through which are classified the destructive emotions, Yadamsüren is elegantly reminding his audience that, while Dandar is an educated and senior member of the establishment, in his unenlightened state, he is no different from Doljin or 31 See below for further discussion of monastic medicine and Chapter 7 for a discussion of how literature addressed more general issues of health care. 32 Yadamsüren, 1970, p. 80.

214 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

from anyone else in being bound to the wheel of emotions. And while Doljin has true faith in something she can actually see, Dandar is jealous because his faith in things he has never seen has not been realized. He can but curse the object of her faith: ‘When the plane comes back’, he tells her, ‘it will get lost and perish in the red mist’. Dandar speaks of this ‘red’ mist as though it were a source of confusion, the calamity that follows abandonment of religion in favor of temporal social change, but in the end there is no red mist, and neither does the plane perish. Buyannemeh’s ‘An Astonishing Event’ and Yadamsüren’s ‘True Story’ expose the deep structure of Buddhism’s relationship with the state during a critical period when the interaction between society and religion was attracting fierce scrutiny and when the benefits of religion were being reinterpreted as the natural result of the development of socialism. The battle is never with Buddhism as a spiritual, ethical, moral or even religious system. Rather it is explicitly joined with the attitude of some corrupt and self-serving senior monks and, more importantly, since this is the battle that led in part to the Great Repression at the end of the 1930s, with the historical context in which their behavior was permitted to go unchecked. Yadamsüren’s Dandar, a man of learning but lacking in wisdom, whose jealousy and arrogance is evident, is weak before Doljin, but not because she is necessarily a better or a happier person. Doljin is an exemplar of ‘pure’ Buddhism, for she uses her faith as a prism through which to better understand the ‘real’ world as it exists before her eyes. In both stories, the language and practice of Buddhism is used to enhance the achievement of socialism, whether manifest in the delivery of the people from oppression and the establishment of the new revolutionary government or in the people’s scientific and military advancements. The situation that brought about the armed uprisings of 1930-1932 and the brief civil war between April and June of 1932 arose principally from the imposition of collectivization and from the resultant social and economic hardships among both the laypeople and the monastics. While influential nobles and senior monks felt that their power was being nullified, and while monasteries were being ever more heavily taxed and their activities ever more forcefully constrained, the general feeling was that the Party was simply moving ahead with unviable, ideologically driven projects and that the lives and lifestyles of herders and monks alike were under threat. The final and most dangerous uprising, in the spring of 1932, was specifically catalyzed by the forced laicization of monks at Bandid Gegeen Hiid in Rashaant province, located in the northern aimag of Hövsgöl and by the

Negotiating Faith

215

seizure and desecration of religious objects by the local authorities.33 In response, an alternative government was established at Bandid Gegeen Hiid known as Ochirbat’s Ministry (Ochirbatin Yaam)34 under the leadership of a Buryat named Choijin, and armed militias were established at other monasteries in preparation for a coup in July. Bawden describes in especially graphic terms the civil war that developed between the militias of Ochirbat’s Ministry and the Party’s forces, helped in the end by reinforcements from the Soviet army: The course of the civil war […] was marked by savagery and a reversion to barbaric practices of earlier times: we possess official accounts only, so that very little is said about the methods of repression adopted by the authorities, and a lot about the excesses practiced by some of the rebels. In North Khangai party members were hanged on trees, while others were flayed alive. Anyone suspected of sympathy with the People’s Government was tortured or put to death in the most cruel manner. Pregnant women were raped, others had their feet cut off. Terror forced many people to join the rebel ranks, refusal to do so being more than life was worth. The old shamanist practice of ritually tearing out the living heart from a prisoner’s chest […] was revived once more by an especially brutal rebel by the name of Tugj, who is said to have disposed of some ten prisoners in this way with his own hands.35

Once the rebellion had been quashed, the Party moved swiftly and extended no mercy to those counterrevolutionaries whom it had seized. Although there was an official policy to pardon all those who surrendered, there was a tendency to execute those who were older and could not work. and to sentence younger people to hard labor. Many of these sentences were passed with only a semblance of due legal process. The singular brutality of these events, combined with the Party’s decision within days of the suppression of the uprising to make an immediate move away from the divisive policies put into place as a result of the Seventh 33 Kuzimin (2015) gives an account of a smaller and briefer uprising in 1930, which he suggests in part triggered the events of 1932. 34 The Chinese term yam (or yamen, 衙門; borrowed from the Manchu in the seventeenth century) used here is sometimes, in the context of Ochirbat’s Ministry, rendered with the Russian word otryad (Ochirbatin otryad). Precisely what governed this choice is not clear, but the preferred use of Russian, even for counterrevolutionaries, suggests that this was becoming the standard term. 35 Bawden, 1989, p. 320.

216 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Party Congress, rendered this brief period in the Party’s history one of great literary potential. Apart from the revolution itself, the civil war was the one historical event of the period to have produced a small set of canonical works, written to show the moral and political rectitude of the Party and the sedition and brutality of the monks (as happened in more formal historical writing according to Bawden). The stories written about these events tell of individuals captured by the counterrevolutionaries and then liberated by the People’s Army. Natsagdorj clearly meant the title of Üzegdeegüi Yum (Things That Had Never Been Seen, 1933)36 to reflect events about which his readers might have heard. In recounting the experiences of Bold, who is captured by chance by a band of counterrevolutionaries and taken to their headquarters at Rashaant, he pulls few punches: After a few days they go out and lay waste to the people and animals nearby. Bold has never seen upstanding monks who attack like wild beasts, as though they know nothing except slaughter and plunder. There’s a young man of about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, the monks call him the General, they give him blessings with their cudgels and, because he’s not expecting to get called up to the military, they say they’ll slice through his sinews and kill him. Bold asks about the wounds which he has on his left cheek, but he cannot say much, except that he was beaten the previous day with a shoe. Seeing them and listening to what they tell him, Bold feels pity for them, he is distressed and can barely comprehend the monks’ brutality. And then from the ger to the west come the three men, along with three or four others, their eyes bulging, their teeth bared, and the men who took the horses are saying, “I’m going to kill this one. You kill that one”, and truly they are like the carnivorous ogre Mangas. But there’s a young woman floating among them too, wearing a green deel and a gauze offering scarf, and listening to what they say, she’s the one they call the goddess. She comes to Bold, who’s standing with his legs apart, and prods him with her Mauser, saying with a laugh, ‘I’ll kill this one tomorrow.’37

The image of this elegant young woman holding a rifle provides a novel commentary on issues of religion and control in the revolutionary period. We should not assume that all women necessarily wanted to be liberated 36 Natsagdorj, 1961, pp. 249-257. 37 Ibid., p. 253.

Negotiating Faith

217

from the social control of the monasteries, and presumably there were also those whose husbands or lovers might themselves have been monks or somehow affiliated with the monastic estates. The shock of green and her callous tone make this individual especially memorable, but through this striking vignette Natsagdorj seems to be asking for whom this uprising was taking place and what its rationale might have been to the individuals who had chosen to take part. Moreover, it ends up being a woman, Bold’s wife Balgarmaa, who, impatient to find him, leaves by night to alert the People’s Army and who leads the soldiers to where Bold is being held. Natsagdorj says of the situation in which those taken by the counterrevolutionaries find themselves that ‘they don’t describe this as the hell realms, yet this is the beginning’. This kind of language presents Bold’s experiences as so extraordinary that they were for many people ‘things that had never been seen’, but Natsagdorj nonetheless presents them as taking place within the much broader perspective of nature. As discussed in Chapter 3, Natsagdorj frames his story with the River Ider, whose flow is constant and unbroken by the events of the civil war. What happened to Bold and those like him during the spring of 1932 was indeed terrible, Natsagdorj admits, but it was a brief period, and nature is a stronger force than either the Party or those who oppose it. Several stories written over the following three or four years approach the violence and heroism that characterized the civil war from a variety of perspectives. In Navaan-Yunden’s Talyn deer gants ger (A Single Ger on the Steppe, 1935),38 a small cell of counterrevolutionaries is broken by the actions of a sharp-thinking relay rider who overhears the plotters discussing their plans. The treatments of both Natsagdorj and Navaan-Yunden address the part played by civilians – the Mongolian people themselves – in supporting the army’s efforts to crush the uprising. By making direct links between the people and the people’s army, they celebrate how Mongolia – assisted in the end by the Soviet Union, whether in fact this assistance had been formally requested by Ulaanbaatar or summarily provided by Stalin – managed to overcome what in fact was a powerful threat, in the wake of the social calamity of the leftward deviation, to the stability of Mongolia’s revolutionary government. The work of one writer in particular, Sh. Sodnomdorj, stands out because in June 1932, at the age of 20, he himself had been a member of the People’s Army who had broken up Ochirbat’s Ministry at Rashaant and so helped to destroy the power of the counterrevolutionaries. His two stories about 38 Navaan-Yunden, 1976, pp. 302-306.

218 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

the civil war, Urianhai Balchinnyam (Balchinnyam the Urianhai)39 and Baatarlag Temtsel (A Heroic Struggle),40 were both written in 1936 and bring together the nomadic theme of the journey with the crushing – one literal, the other figurative – of the uprising. The story about Balchinnyam is an example of what was already a common Soviet topos in which a character discovers the truth of socialism by recognizing their own ideological errors. He is persuaded by a senior monk named Geshé Damdin of the dangers to Buddhism and to Mongolian society as a whole41 as the government moves ever further to the left. But once Balchinnyam sets out to join the counterrevolutionaries, he is gradually shown the error of the uprising and the righteousness of the Party, and he returns home a supporter of the latter. This story provides not only the message that the Party is working for the people and that those who oppose it are acting against the people’s interests, it also stresses the importance of individuals becoming politically educated and recognizing their errors as they deepen their ideological understanding. For Balchinnyam, then, the journey away from his wife Demchid and their home and his eventual return mirrors his journey away from the Party and, following unsettling experiences catalyzed by his ideologically confused state, his final return. In Baatarlag Temtsel, a soldier named Sandag receives a letter from his father, who has fallen ill, asking Sandag to return. On his journey home, he is twice captured by counterrevolutionary monks and, finally, helps to defeat them. Sandag is the kind of revolutionary hero who fears nothing and speaks truth to, and about, those in power. When he is first captured and interrogated by a minor noble named General Dalhjav, he is asked about the Red Army: ‘How many are there in the Red Army?’ ‘Enough to beat you. It’s impossible to count the Mongolians who are willing to fight for their country.’ ‘Will you follow Ochirbat’s government?’ ‘People don’t eat the flesh of other people, so neither I nor anyone else will follow it.’ ‘You realize that Ulaanbaatar’s been destroyed?’ 39 Ündesnii Soyolin Zam, 1936, pp. 15-18. 40 Tüdev, 1997, pp. 278-300. 41 Geshé Damdin’s theme – that socialism will both destroy Buddhism and bring Russian men who will seize local women for their wives – was a common fear at the time, and is repeated elsewhere, such as in Buyannemeh’s Tovuudai the Herder (1936), discussed in Chapter 5.

Negotiating Faith

219

‘How dare you say that your people have destroyed the capital?’ […] The monk Tüdev approached Sandag and said, ‘You’re on the wrong side – follow the Buddha’s teaching! If you don’t follow Ochirbat’s government, you’ll go to the eighteen hells and you’ll die experiencing insufferable pain, having seen so many bad things in this life.’ And as Sandag uttered his reply, five soldiers came and pulled him away, and they laid into him and beat him with shoes. 42

This kind of emotional and physical violence, as we have seen elsewhere, is a common element of how monastics and nobles wielded power even into the late 1920s. In this case, though, they are using violence to emphasize their determination to overthrow the government, or perhaps in a final desperate attempt to keep their hopes alive. 43 Whatever Sodnomdorj’s narrative intention, Sandag’s dismissive attitude towards his captors, combined with his fearlessness, reveals his revolutionary zeal as well as his contempt for the pretense to power of those who would oppose the Party. 44 There is a sense, moreover, that the civil war and the stories (maybe especially those by Sodnomdorj) written about it led in part to what would become Mongolia’s answer to Soviet Social Realism. The brutal crushing of the counterrevolutionaries, the assistance of the Soviet military to the People’s Army, and the subsequent strengthening of the ‘friendship’ between 42 Tüdev, 1997, p. 284. 43 Following this interrogation, Sandag is sentenced to be roasted alive over fire (Tüdev, 1997, p. 285), and later in the story, Sodnomdorj gives an account of how Sandag manages to infiltrate another group of militia and of an initiation ceremony that includes his taking a vow to the monk in charge (in this case a reincarnate lama [huvilgaan]) and a strangely homoerotic ritual of licking the mouth of a rifle (Tüdev, 1997, p. 291). These details suggest that Sodnomdorj is here reporting what he had heard from those in whose release he had been involved at the end of the hostilities. Contrariwise, there is also an especially gruesome description of the ritualized disemboweling of a live victim (Tüdev, 1997, p. 292), which, while it echoes Bawden’s account, appears to have been written for an audience with more vivid imaginations. The paucity of the counterrevolutionaries’ armaments according to Sodnomdorj’s account also shows both how determined they were and the exaggerated nature of the Party’s devastating final response. 44 There is an interesting parallel between Sandag and Sodnomdorj. When Sandag is captured for the second time, he writes on the wall of his cell, using salt mixed with dirt from the floor, ‘Destroy the counterrevolutionaries! I’m not afraid to lose my life for the Mongolian people!’ (Tüdev, 1997, p. 299). When Sodnomdorj himself was arrested on counterrevolutionary charges in 1938, it is claimed that he wrote in his own blood on his cell wall, ‘Destroy Choibalsan and Luvsansharav!’ (Tüdev, 1997, p. 370) This alluring yet unproven parallel gives an insight into his mind while also showing the fate of even the most ardent revolutionaries in the face of Choibalsan’s rise to power. Given Sodnomdorj’s own death during the Great Repression, moreover, we could see Sandag’s courageous fearlessness as having elements of an autobiography.

220 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

the Soviet Union and Mongolia were by the mid-1930s all beginning to be directed towards a new form of socialism based upon what was happening in the Soviet Union, complete with the cult of personality that was developing around Choibalsan. 45 We should also be aware that, here and in the other stories about the civil war, nowhere is there any disfavor shown towards Buddhism as a religion. Even in 1936, Sodnomdorj’s two stories are utterly free from comment about religious practice. There can be no doubt that, while the Party’s aim had been to suppress those who had actively taken part in – or even passively supported – the armed uprising, it remained Party policy that religion remain an entirely personal matter, albeit that active support for and practice of Buddhism was increasingly regarded as unsuitable for a true revolutionary. Immediately following the Civil War, in June 1932, the Party responded to the previous four years of ‘leftward deviation’ with the swift introduction of the New Turn Policy. This brief yet dramatic period of forced social and economic centralization, however, resulted in a literature that had become less accommodating towards the monastic community and that focused on exposing how far monks would go in order to preserve their social and financial power. The Law on the Separation of Church and State was passed in September 1926. As Morozova explains, this action flowed directly from a congress planned by the monks from Gandan and Zuun Hüree monasteries in Ulaanbaatar. The idea was to establish a centralized administration for the monks, which was expected to lobby strongly for the rights of the monasteries to conduct their own affairs. Their plan had support at the highest level: Prime Minister B. Tserendorj and his deputy A. Amar (a self-proclaimed Buddhist who would succeed Tserendorj on his death in 1928) were amongst their supporters, with Amar declaring that ‘[t]he lamas must have their administration, because they are not mere livestock’. 46 The government continued to refine the law, amending it in 1934 and again in 1936. But when, in early 1929, the recognition of hutagts and huvilgaans had been officially banned, thus precluding most notably the recognition of the Ninth Bogd Gegeen, the government also followed the Comintern’s suggestion and determined a system of stratification for monks. This allowed for the laicization of junior monks (although there was never a legal framework making laicization compulsory) and identified the high-ranking monks 45 The early implementation of Socialist Realism is discussed in Chapter 9. 46 Morazova, 2002, p. 33.

Negotiating Faith

221

as counterrevolutionaries. 47 The clear understanding remained, however, that these measures were being taken for material and social reasons – the higher-ranking monks had personal wealth, and their monastic power stretched far beyond the monasteries – rather than out of any ideological concern. It is within this socioeconomic context that one of the best-known pieces of Mongolian narrative literature, D. Natsagdorj’s 1930 story ‘The Venerable Monk’s Tears’ (Lambugain Nulims), has particular resonance. As we will see in the next chapter, at least one scholar has read this – in the light of Natsagdorj’s interest in issues surrounding health and health education – as a reaction to an increase in sexual immorality in Ulaanbaatar and to Mongolians’ frequent liaisons with Chinese prostitutes. It is intriguing to read the text in this way, especially given the influence of foreign traders on Ulaanbaatar society during the 1920s. In 1929, increased Soviet influence and the expansion of the Mongolian Central Cooperative had led to Chinese traders being expelled en masse from the country, with one result being that Chinese prostitutes had been forced to expand their clientele. As a geshé, Natsagdorj’s ‘venerable monk’ Lodon has achieved the equivalent of a doctoral degree, having received his ordination and monastic education in Lhasa. Coming down from the terrace at Gandan monastery, he meets a Chinese prostitute, Yi Bai-hua, who is herself leaving the cosmopolitan traders’ section of Ulaanbaatar, well-known at the time for its many licit and illicit pleasures. Natsagdorj sets the scene with an elegant exercise in parallel construction: When Geshé Lodon, who meditated on the world as being empty, who kept the monastic vows and who had persevered with his robes of yellow and red, came down the eastern terrace at Gandan, it happened that a young woman called Yi Bai-hua, or Tserenlham, 48 whose determined study of song was an education in the sharp heat of passion, was coming in the opposite direction, in a shimmer of white and black, down a muddy street out of the Western Traders’ quarter of Urga. 49

47 Kaplonski, 2014, p. 134. 48 It happens that Tserenlham was also the name of one of the few female writers active at the time in Mongolia. Whether this is a humorous – or otherwise – reference to her by Natsagdorj we cannot know, but given the small size of the literary community, one can assume that it did not go entirely unnoticed. See Chapter 4 for further discussion of Tserenlham’s work. 49 Wickham-Smith, 2012, p. 20.

222 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Yi Bai-hua’s supply of opium (another evil associated with the Chinese merchants) has run out and she needs money.50 She knows that monks are ‘kindhearted and easily led’, and she asks Lodon back to say prayers for her mother, who she claims is sick and confined to bed. It seems inevitable that Lodon is going to break his vows, that Yi Bai-hua will betray him just as he will betray his teachers by betraying his vows, and that all his learning will come to naught. But ‘A Venerable Monk’s Tears’ goes beyond the idea of monks as either naive or vulnerable. Rather, it plays into the idea that especially senior monks like Lodon are, by dint of their power and position, incorrigibly and inevitably morally bankrupt. And so it proves, when Lodon is given a bed for the night. Returning to his room after going outside to urinate, he cannot resist wetting the tip of his finger and suggestively piercing the paper window of Yi Bai-hua’s room to watch her undress. A single night of passion leads Lodon, having thus given into his desires, to ‘pool his house at Gandan, and everything which he had set aside to fund a higher degree, and he set up a lovely and elegant home for himself and Yi Bai-hua’. Whereas financial corruption – demanding, gathering and hoarding material wealth – and the concomitant control of local people by monastic estates such as Ganden were key factors in the development of the MPRP’s responses to ‘the lama question’, questions of sexual propriety seem generally to have been disregarded. And while Mongolian Buddhist monks take vows of celibacy, marriage is not uncommon and offers a way of circumventing the problems of reputation associated with the position of the spiritual ‘consort’ (Tib yum). However, Ganden was the center of Mongolian monasticism as well as being the Mongolian center of the Gelug sect of Buddhism (the Tibetan name gde lugs, perhaps significantly in this context, means ‘order of virtue’). Thus for a highly educated monk such as Lodon, expected to be able to consummately protect his vows, to have responded in such a way would have meant social disgrace and spiritual failure. The personal loss to Lodon is instantaneous – ‘whatever thoughts he might have had concerning the quality of emptiness were consigned to another world, and his vinaya vows left for Lhasa’ – yet, as Lodon responds to his desires, Natsagdorj’s authorial voice calls us back to the immanence of the physical world and the ambiguity of human nature, for ‘the pleasurable effect of the world on his mind was indescribable’. Lodon is a weak intellectual, a man who has risen in monastic society while failing to transform his knowledge into wisdom. But he is a man, too, and Natsagdorj’s compassion for his plight 50 The personal name Bai-hua (白花) means ‘white flower’ in Standard Chinese but, used idiomatically, it means ‘to squander in vain’. I am grateful to Eden Lunde for this insight.

Negotiating Faith

223

signals the inevitability of human desire. Lodon’s true downfall – and for this the reader is expected to condemn him – is to have accumulated status and personal wealth through his position, and it is this that has enabled him to keep his Chinese lover whilst providing her also with a way to cast him aside. If we step back for a moment and look at the more general presentation of monastic sexuality at this time, we can see that Lodon’s sexual antics might have provoked readers more to mockery and amusement than to opprobrium.51 The opportunity is clear to see faults in those who, acting outside the norm – such as professing celibacy – for ‘higher’ reasons, eventually fall from their positions, and the literature reflects this. In the anthology Uran ügsiin chuulgan, published in 1929,52 so little is said about religion that we must assume that, given the importance of this text in defining both the subject matter and the treatment of revolutionary society following the Seventh Party Congress, religion was not perceived as having much ideological value. With Geshé Lodon’s story in mind, one piece in the anthology, Ts. Damdinsüren’s short repartee poem ‘The Gelong and the Married Woman’ (Gelen ba gergii),53 is worth quoting in full. The words of the gelong are here printed in italics. Oh gelong, gelong, how do you block up a hole at home? Never mind, never mind, I block it with a bit of skirt. Oh gelong, gelong, how do you make a bed? Never mind, never mind, I make it with my robe and ceremonial hat. Oh gelong, gelong, why do you have a needle and thimble? Never mind, never mind, just put them in my damaru case. Oh gelong, gelong, what do you take for food and drink? Never mind, never mind, I get it by begging and living in the monastery. Oh gelong, gelong, what if you have no shoes or clothes? Never mind, never mind, I’ll get offerings, and gifts for services rendered. It’ll go through the roof-ring. The pot will fall on the ladle. And so I’ll go home. 51 Humorous plays and skits about lascivious monks had been popular even before the revolution. At least two can be found in Ayuush’s list of popular themes during the immediate post-revolutionary period. See Ayuush, 1973, pp. 135-136 and Chapter 2. 52 See Chapter 5. 53 Galbayar, 2013, p. 58. The word gelen is a Mongolian reading of the Tibetan term dge slong, meaning a fully ordained monk, like Geshé Lodon.

224 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

If you must leave, then leave. I’ll mount the neck. If someone sees, I’ll make a joke of it. And so I’ll go home. If you must marry, then get married. I’ll ride the old grey. The Buddhas and protectors will get angry. So I’ll go home then. If you must ride away, then ride away.

We should probably not imagine this bawdy song as anything but an amusement, albeit one reminding the audience of awkward moments to which they themselves might have been privy. It is listed in the contents as a satire (shogt ügs), as is the only other piece in the collection that deals with religion. This second text, far darker and far less an amusement than Damdinsüren’s, is included in the sequence called ‘The Journal’, ascribed to the mysterious ‘Ts.’ but understood to be the work of Chimid Dungaryn,54 and is called ‘The Law of the Sangha’ (Huvragiin huuli): When they enter the gold-roofed meditation hall, those many haughty monks are shining, and those many little children on the shoulders of those wretches also shine. The proctor is leaning back, bringing those many novice monks to their knees, hammering them with a rod, wide as his fist The little boys scream and wail, those who are a little older grit their teeth with pride, add anger to their scorn. Adhering to the laws and régime of the sangha, the old men and the old women saunter slowly through their prayers, along the path of desire on their ancient knees. When old Dulam comes to the door of the meditation hall, the caretaker, by order of the proctor, comes in, leading the novices. The old woman sees them, deeply distressed for those sweet things, she takes out her rosary, and turns to pray to the protectors.55 54 See Chapter 5 for a more extensive consideration of Chimid’s contribution to the Anthology. 55 Galbayar, 2013, p. 66.

Negotiating Faith

225

The violence meted out here to the boy monks by the discipline master is an echo of the pre-revolutionary feudal violence of the nobles, which once had been officially tolerated and often encouraged and yet remained in the monasteries, despite the reforming attempts of the government,. The elimination of such behavior was key to the success of the new society, and it was necessary to see those monks who continued to impose such physical and emotional hardship as elements antithetical to the liberation of the people from the inequalities of class and labor. The intervention of the old woman at the end of the poem is, like the intervention of Yadamsüren’s Doljin, a way in which the faithful can be shown to extricate themselves simply through their opposition, whether explicit or implicit, to this ‘impure’, pre-revolutionary form of Buddhism. That it tends to be ‘old’ people – most likely this indicates those beyond the age of 60 – who are identified as Buddhist practitioners is a useful model for the interplay of ideology and experience, since it is they who would have been raised and brought to adulthood in the oppressive atmosphere of pre-revolutionary Mongolia. But what, then, does the relative silence of the Anthology with respect to questions of religious practice and ideology tell us about how the Party regarded these issues through its literary mouthpiece, the Group of Revolutionary Writers? The provenance and publication of the text, as I have shown, meant that it was imagined both as an overview of revolutionary literature and as the basis upon which the directives of the Seventh Party Congress would be implemented. It would appear that, in the months immediately following the Seventh Party Congress, the nexus of the problem was shifting towards the economic locus of class and labor. As Kaplonski reports, [t]owards the end of [1929], the sale of pictures of the ‘yellow reactionary Banchen Bogd and other hutagt and huvilgaan’ was prohibited, as it was held to encourage religious belief. The decree, reflecting the severity of the times, was directed also at the merchants who sold the images because they were profiting from people’s beliefs.56

It is interesting to see how the authorities were handling the popular support of, and devotion to, Buddhism whilst apparently being concerned lest the people’s enthusiasm for objects of worship be manipulated by unscrupulous traders. The conflation of religion and economics returns us again to the exploitation of the monastic microsociety, which is seen here as acquiring 56 Kaplonski, 2014, p. 90.

226 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

economic wealth through trade and social power through religious adherence. As far as the Anthology is concerned, it is clear that those writers whose work it included were not being required to denigrate Buddhism itself. The texts by Damdinsüren and ‘Ts.’ highlight issues of sexual impropriety and violence, and on neither of these issues have monastics ever exercised a monopoly. These are, then, not texts about religion, but they employ religion to talk about the behavior of Mongolian society. These two poems also turn upon issues of the function of class and rank within monastic society. The proctor in the poem by ‘Ts.’ has authority through his position, but that position is characterized and determined by physical stature and by a level of ruthlessness.57 Damdinsüren’s lascivious monk is, like the proctor, a fully ordained monk (and therefore relatively secure and senior within the monastic community), and Natsagdorj’s Geshé Lodon is an academic who has even put money aside to study for the more prestigious geshé degree58 at Tashilhunpo in Tibet. Each of these men would have had no difficulty in using their influence to impress, confuse and abuse the impressionable and vulnerable, whether within their own community or among the local population. Not only did these texts reinforce the reader’s presumption that monks were most likely to eschew the idea of ‘pure Buddhism’ and to behave according to the conventions of prerevolutionary society, but they also discredited by association the real-life monastic community, and by stealth ushered in – if not deliberately then without great thought for the consequences – the potential for state violence that came to be realized during the Great Repression. To use a monk – even a fictional monk like Geshé Lodon – in this way as a cipher for his community’s general malaise is to strip him of agency. Natsagdorj restores a little of Lodon’s agency in the final lines of his story. Notwithstanding that it had been Geshé Lodon who entered Yi Bai-hua’s bed rather than she who had thrown herself upon him, Natsagdorj does not simply condemn the monk but shows sympathy for his situation. Lodon returns one day to find his lover at home making love with another man. He bursts in.

57 The Tibetan proctors, or dob dob, are traditionally extremely tall and muscular monks and generally presumed to be skilled neither intellectually nor spiritually. Although they could in fact also be both gentle and sympathetic, their very appearance is said to inspire fear. 58 We might draw a parallel here between the difference – for instance in the German education system – between the Ph.D. and the Habilitation, although the Habilitation is not technically a degree. The dge shes degree from Tashilhunpo (Bkra shis lhun po) was considered a more intellectually rigorous version of the standard degree.

Negotiating Faith

227

But the young woman, not the least perturbed, told the monk why she didn’t love him. She cursed and threatened him, and the monk, driven outside, said that he would take her to court, but because he had broken his monastic vows, his case was groundless. He hung onto the door and said, I love you, my child, where should I now go? No matter if you love another man, just don’t abandon me! And, from his two eyes, there dropped dark worldly tears like the rain.

And so the story ends. The word translated here by ‘worldly’, har, is used in contrast to its alternative in Mongolian society, shar, or ‘monastic’.59 His tears are tears caused by Yi Bai-hua’s betrayal, but they are also brought on by his complicity and by the laicization that is the consequence of the breaking of his vows. He cannot make light of his behavior as the monk does in Damdinsüren’s poem, and we should imagine that for every cavalier and lecherous monk like Damdinsüren’s gelong, there was at least one vulnerable and arrogant fool like Lodon. Still, in both monks’ behavior is revealed the problems with which the state was grappling. Sex, after all, is a powerful weapon of attraction and control, and the questions about who was controlling whom that informed the Party’s thinking about religion and class eventually returned to a discussion framed to some degree by issues of propriety and lust. The stratification of the monks into categories that the government initiated in 1929 consolidated the feeling that it was only those who possessed the potential to wield power over the majority – it was not so important whether or not they actually did so – who were targets of the government. The power of the monasteries touched important social issues concerning women, children and health.60 As centers for medical practice – many 59 Har and shar are also color words, meaning respectively ‘black’ and ‘yellow’. The blackness of har refers to the bones of common people (the term ard is etymologically connected with the word har), and by extension har became a term for laypeople. Shar is used as a general word for Buddhism, referencing the yellow hats worn by monks of the Gelug order. Within Buddhism as a whole, the Gelug are referred to as shar while the other three orders of Buddhism (Kagyü [Bka rgyud], Sakya [Sa skya] and Nyingma [Rnying ma]) are referred to as ulaan or ‘red’, on account of their red hats. 60 These are covered in greater depth, inter alia, in Chapters 5 and 7.

228 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

monks were trained as doctors of traditional medicine, whether in Tibet or Mongolia, and used treatments modified to fit the herbs available in Mongolia – monasteries were regarded warily by the Party as it struggled to introduce Westernized health care to the country. For the most vulnerable in society, the ability to access effective medicine and to protect the community’s children was not only vital to those whose loved ones were sick, but it was also a vital source of income for monks and the monasteries they represented. In the cast list for Buyannemeh’s 1928 play ‘The Drama of Maral and Shar’ (Maral Sharin Jüjig),61 discussed at greater length in the following chapter, there appear two monks, one ‘a doctor’ (emch lam) and the other named Luvsan.62 Luvsan’s only appearance is in Scene 2, where he visits the worldly young woman Shar’s ger and joins her, her husband Buyant, and their friends Dandar and Bazar. One line of his stands out for its sinister yet understated overtones. Shar has invited young Maral to visit her (and we should note here the words of Maral’s father Biligt: ‘You really shouldn’t make friends with her, my child. They say she’s a bit of a slut [samuun]’). [Maral looks down to one side and sits. Shar pours her tea. The others watch her fixedly. Dandar says to the monk:] She’s a nice-looking girl, isn’t she? [The monk smiles.] So she is.

These words, placed by Buyannemeh in the mouth of this monk (rather than either of the other two men), tell a story that is only the latest in an endless stream of such stories – justified or not – in Mongolian letters. The highly popular nineteenth-century monk Danzanravjaa’s poem Ülemjin Chanar (Perfect Qualities) was supposedly written to his young lover (or tantric consort: the one is often the other63) Dadishura, while later in the century, the play Sumiya Noyon (Prince Sumiya) features a monk who attracts a young girl to him by buying her presents.64 Maral is a studious and impressionable girl of 15, and her father’s concern about her friendship with Shar might have echoed the concerns of many parents. But Buyannemeh’s treatment of the monk here is such as to make the audience think of him as at best devious 61 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, pp. 667-699. 62 Only in the cast list is he so named: he is unnamed in the play itself, an omission that may indicate that for Buyannemeh he was merely a cipher for a set of characteristics. 63 For a personal and theoretical treatment of this issue, see Campbell (2002). 64 See Chapter 2.

Negotiating Faith

229

and at worst a genuine threat. That his friend Dandar turns out to be one of the villains of the play would only have confirmed the audience’s fears. This very small vignette within a drama quite unconnected with religion could be easily glossed over were it not for the brazen simplicity of this exchange. The implicit threat operates upon the audience: Buyannemeh plants the monk’s response to Maral within the play to signal the sinister turn that the plot is to make, and by once again showing the monk’s lustfulness, lines him up to be linked by association with the crime that consumes the focus of the play. The promotion during the late 1920s of the idea of ‘pure’ Buddhism meant that the trappings of religion that were not in keeping with the ideas of socialism were to be sidelined. However, the nature of Mongolian Buddhism was such that, without the ritual and many of the ‘superstitious’ practices associated with the ritual, it would be a pale echo of the faith that had been practiced in Mongolia since the late sixteenth century. According to the American journalist Anna Louise Strong, MPRP President Dambadorj claimed that the government’s aim was ‘to weaken the influence of the lamas by going back to the original teachings of Buddha which did not recognize property, or monasteries, or all these embroideries of ceremony and power that the lamas have built’ (my italics).65 According to this approach, many of the practices performed by monks for laypeople were compromised by the fact that they constituted later accretions, defined not by the original teachings of the Buddha but by the interpretations applied to them by Tibetan, and subsequently Mongolian, religious teachers. The presumed disconnect between the monks and the teachings they were expected to practice led to the ‘pure Buddhism’ promoted by figures such as Dambadorj. In doing so, however, Dambadorj appears to forget the nature of the sensuous and mystical Buddhism with which Mongolians had been raised, and the humanistic, bare-bones religion he advocates mirrors more the pure and egalitarian socialism that the Party was seeking to establish in Mongolia than the day-to-day practice of Buddhism. For the provision of medical treatment, monks would generally receive remuneration from their patients in the form of food or money. In literature, just as they were caricatured as being lustful buffoons or scheming villains, so they were often portrayed as selling medicine and the recitation of prayers at highly inflated prices to vulnerable people. The two monks in Maral and Shar appear to represent aspects of such popular myths. Unlike Luvsan, the second monk, named Tübden, seems not to receive 65 Strong, 1936, p. 332.

230 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

any recompense for the prayers and medicine he gives Maral’s father, Maral having returned home in a confused state following her disturbing experience with Shar’s friends. Of Maral’s apparent paralysis, as he feels her pulse, he says, No, what people call paralysis is not in fact paralysis, nor has she been attacked by something, though they might say she’s been attacked […]. The fire in her heart has grown and her mind has become sluttish. It’s as though there’s a wicked demon stuck inside her. It’s definitely serious.

He uses the same word (‘sluttish’, samuun) to describe Maral as her father had used to describe Shar. Both women have become ‘sluttish’, ostensibly due to associating with disreputable characters. The monk gives Maral’s father a pill and performs prayers, ‘ringing his bell, striking his drum, turning his vajra, intoning “hum phat”’. This performative prayer brings together the wisdom (the feminine bell) and skill (the male drum) and ends with the sound ‘phat’, which is said to frighten and dispel demons, and so instantaneously clear the mind to realize enlightenment. Such is the abstruse nature of these rituals that they are presumed either to hold profound mysteries or to be a way of confusing the gullible, and for this reason, monks such as Tübden are often depicted as charlatans. Yet, while Tübden is not paid for saying these prayers (in the stage directions at least), perhaps the audience would simply have understood that he would receive money and the scene acted accordingly. We cannot know this for sure, but the fact that in D. Namdag’s 1937 play Life and the Cost of Living (Ami ba Amidralin Üne), the author does explicitly portray a monk-doctor demanding and receiving money in return for treatment (again to a disturbed young girl) suggests that, eight years after Shar and Maral, this kind of monastic control continued to be exercised. It also reminded the audience just how much more effective the new medicine being promoted by the government was, being both scientifically proven and provided without charge. When the Russian writer Alexander Blok wrote his long poem Dvenadsat (The Twelve) in January 1918, he concluded it with the following image, which continues to exercise the minds of readers even today: They keep marching on and on behind them comes that hungry dog and up ahead with a flag all blood unseen in the storm unafraid of the guns

Negotiating Faith

231

stepping softly on snow as though walking on waves in a crown of white roses ahead of the rest walks Jesus Christ66

The question of what exactly Blok intends by linking Jesus Christ with the Twelve remains. Is Jesus leading the twelve revolutionaries, or are they pushing him onward, or are they quite distinct from him? How is religion, Blok seems to be asking, implicated in the revolution? Only a few years later, Mongolia was asking the same question of the Buddha. The problem that Lenin had pointed out, notwithstanding that his aversion to all forms of religion was personal as much as it was ideological, was that the ‘god-building’ that Blok’s associates such as Lunacharsky and Gorky were advocating would play into the hands of those who would oppress the proletariat. While such fears might have been relevant in Mongolia insofar as there was considerable social power and financial wealth at stake, bound up in the governance and organization of the monasteries, there was clearly a desire among intellectuals such as Jamsrano and Buyannemeh to find a revolutionary and class-based solution to religion. On the publication of ‘The Twelve’, Blok was immediately condemned in a revolutionary newspaper called ‘Banner of Labor’ for the poem’s mystical language, and especially for the image of Jesus Christ at the poem’s close. Throughout this chapter I have returned again and again to the idea that it was not Buddhism as a religion that was targeted but Buddhism as an alternative and socially divisive power base. If Jesus Christ can be seen bringing in the revolution, whether implicitly or explicitly, in 1918, then clearly the Buddha was still working for the revolution two decades later, when the Journal of the Lamas, utterly free from spirituality but replete with political commentary about topics concerning religion, was published. But the fact that the key monastic players in the literature tend to be senior religious, keeping in mind the ‘religion without religion’ editorial policy of the Journal of the Lamas, suggests that there perhaps existed an intention to defocus from religion by referring to it only in spiritually anodyne terms, thus managing to socially engineer a humanistic Buddhism by default. The kind of financial, social and sexual malfeasance condemned by the government was an ongoing concern, but the kind of mocking opprobrium found in the literature and the gradual tightening of the judicial vise around those 66 Schmidt, 2007, p. 53.

232 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

religious perceived as guilty of such demeanors seems never to have had a realistic possibility of luring the faithful en masse from religion to socialism. The violent end to ‘the lama question’, with the closure of all but a handful of monasteries and the murder of many, many thousands of monks,67 rendered futile these attempts to assimilate the teachings of the Buddha with those of socialism. There were Buddhists remaining after the Great Repression, and also writers with a religious sensibility and elements of a meaningful spiritual life. But the censorship that was applied in Mongolia following the repression meant that no writing expressing a positive attitude towards Buddhism could be published. It is hard now to establish to what extent writers were able to use non-religious imagery to express religious ideas in their work, but we must acknowledge that such writing must have existed and was disseminated by some means or other. I want to end this chapter with an image: a photograph of G. Ser-Od, who died in 1940 at the age of 23. Ser-Od wrote a memoir called ‘Mother’s Mind’ (Ehiin Setgel) at the end of the 1930s68 in which he describes his brief time as a monk. He recounts his experiences as the student of a senior monk named Sandan. Having been left by members of his immediate family with this monk, Ser-Od’s hardships begin on the following morning. When dawn came, Gelong Sandan said, ‘Get up, my boy, make the fire and boil the tea’, and everything became horrible. How happy was my little heart to make a fire in the ger and to cook for this man? Trying to help me out, he enrolled me as a student of Sodov’s. Three days after I had arrived in the monastery, Sandan gave Sodov my teacher a beating, and Sodov started to slap Gelong Sandan. Sandan was drinking and, although he broke his arm, he didn’t learn his lesson and time after time he got drunk, he chased after me to give him food and beat me severely.69

Such abuse echoes the screaming and wailing of the young novices in the poem by ‘Ts.’ discussed above, and it is unlikely that Ser-Od’s unhappy situation was, for all its personal misery, particularly unusual.70 67 See Kaplonski, 2014, pp. 203-221 for a full account of this final part of the process. 68 Ser-Od, 1983, pp. 30-43. I have found no date for the composition of this text, but I would suggest, given Ser-Od’s age, that it was probably written no earlier than 1935. 69 Ibid., p. 40. 70 Indeed, it is echoed in two important stories by D. Tsevegmid (1915-1991), both written in 1935, Bold Sambuu Hoyor (Bold and Sambuu) and Honichin Naidan (Naidan the Shepherd), discussed in Chapter 9.

Negotiating Faith

233

Ser-Od eventually left the monastery, but not before he learned how to fight (the other monks, he says, called him ‘Fighting Sparrow’71). His brother, who had been the monastery cook and had initially introduced him to the religious life, landed a government job and so managed to bring Ser-Od home. Thus, Ser-Od ‘broke free from worshipping the Buddha, and from the dreadful fear of being beaten by the monks. From this time I chose the right path, and dedicated all my strength in setting my mind towards excellence.’ The deliberate link made between religious worship and monastic violence in this unusually graphic account suggests that it might have been written either as propaganda during the Great Repression or as a kind of historical justification after the fact. But for all his desire to reject Buddhism, for all his desire to follow the socialist path of education (‘Many people deeply trusted in the victory of the people’s revolution, we set our minds to preserving it’) and so become a poet,72 there remains to us only this one image of Ser-Od. With his head closely cropped and his plain jacket, he looks like a monk, and one wonders to what extent this young man might still somehow have associated himself with the monastic life, and why he chose to wear his hair in this way and present himself thus to the world. Perhaps there was a constancy to Buddhism that – for all the legal arguments, for all the judicial processes implemented by the government – was so ingrained in, and so essential to, the lives of the people that it could not be expunged, even by the most enlightened political system. Ser-Od’s decision on how to wear his hair may be trivial, but just as Alexander Blok’s Jesus walked ahead of the Twelve as though untouched by their violence, so the primary effect of the response of Mongolia’s writers to Buddhism during this period was to place the Buddha and his teaching to one side. In this way, then, while the literature addressed the corruption and violence and inequality carried out in the name of Buddhism, rather as Blok had addressed the world through which the Twelve were passing, it was in no way condemning its spirit.

71 To this day, we have no idea how Ser-Od met his death. The fact that he mentions here his transformation into what he calls ‘the monastery hooligan’ suggests that, at the time of writing ‘Mother’s Mind’, he still thought of himself as something of a fighter, and that perhaps he was killed in a fight, maybe as a result of drinking. 72 In the last year of his life, having been working as an editor in Ulaanbaatar since completing his education sometime during 1938/9, he was employed as a teacher in Dornod aimag in the east of the country. He was writing poetry right up to his death.

234 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Bibliography Bat-Ochir, Ch. Mandah Narny Tuya. Ulaanbaatar: Soyombo, 1992. Bawden, Charles. The Modern History of Mongolia. London: Kegan Paul International, 1989. Campbell, June. Traveller in Space: Gender, Identity, and Tibetan Buddhism. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2002. Dambadorj, Ts. Tolbo Nuur. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1964. David-Fox, Michael. ‘What Is Cultural Revolution?’ The Russian Review, vol. 58, no. 2 (April 1999): 181-201. Galbayar, G., ed. Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan 1929. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian National University, 2013. Grivelet, Stéphane, ed. The Journal of the Lamas: A Mongolian Publication in Tibetan Script. Bloomington: The Mongolia Society Special Papers, 2001. Husband, William E. ‘Godless Communists’: Atheism and Society in Soviet Russia 1917-1932. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000. Kaplonski, Christopher. The Lama Question: Violence, Sovereignty, and Exception in Early Socialist Mongolia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014. Kuzimin, S.L. ‘Zapadno-Mongoliskoe vosstanie 1930 g. v zashitu religii’. In Religio Vyedyeniye, no.1 (2015): 53-59. Morozova, Irina Y. The Comintern and Revolution in Mongolia. Knapwell: The White Horse Press, 2002. Nasanbaljir, Ts. Revoliutsionne meropriiatiia narodogo pravitel’stva Mongolii v. 1921-1924 gg. Moscow: Nauka, 1960. Natsov, S.N. ‘Natsiol’naia Revolutsiia Mongolov’. Kommunisticheskyi Internatsional, nos. 33-34 (August 1928): 71-72. Navaan-Yunden, N. Soyol Erdene. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1976. Nordby, Judith. The Mongolian People’s Republic 1924-1928 and the Rightist Deviation. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 1988. Pospielovsky, Dimitry V. A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Antireligious Policies. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987. Ser-Od, G. Shöniin Ongotsoor. Ulaanbaatar: BNMAU-yn Ardyn Bolovsrolyn Yaam, 1983. Schmidt, Paul, ed. The Stray Dog Cabaret: A Book of Russian Poems. New York: NYRB, 2007. Shagj, B. Mongol ügen-ü tailburi toli. Ulaanbaatar: Mongol Ulsyn Soyolyn San, 1994. Strong, Anna Louise. China’s Millions: The Revolutionary Struggles from 1927 to 1935. London: Victor Gollancz, 1936. Tsedev, D., and Wang Mandoha, eds. Sonombaljuur-un Buyannemekü, vol. 2. Beijing: Ündesüten-ü Heblel-ün Qoriy-a, 2009.

Negotiating Faith

235

Tseveen, J. Osnovi Buddizma. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 1926. Tüdev, L. Mongolyn uranzohiolyn deejis. Ulaanbaatar: Mongol Uran Zohiol HG, 1997. Tumarkin, Nina. ‘Religion, Bolshevism, and the Origins of the Lenin Cult’. Russian Review 40, 1 (1981): 35-46. Wickham-Smith, Simon. Stories from the Steppe: Short Fiction from Mongolia. Ulaanbaatar: MACP, 2012. Yadamsüren, M. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1970. Zagdsüren, U. MAHN-aas urlag utga zohiolyn talaar gargasan togtool shiidverüüd (1921-1966). Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 1967.

7

Life and its Value Abstract Alongside universal education, one of the main concerns of the Party was that Westernized health care be made available throughout the country. Along with further limiting the power of the monasteries, the implementation of this policy theoretically brought Mongolia’s herding population the benefits of modern scientific medical knowledge. D. Natsagdorj in particular was well-aware of the problems of syphilis following his time in Weimar Germany, and he sought to educate his readers through the brief journalistic and satirical accounts he composed during the early 1930s. Other writers, such as D. Namdag (‘Life and the Cost of Living’ [Ami ba amidralyn üne], 1936), sought to emphasize the efficacy of modern medicine against the traditional Tibetan medicine practiced by monks and, influenced by his reading of Zola, to give an account of the physical hardships experienced by those at the edge of Mongolian society. Keywords: health, medicine, Western medicine, traditional medicine, social development, syphilis, sexually transmitted diseases

The preceding chapters have examined how politics interacted with literature in an attempt to transform early revolutionary Mongolian society, and how overarching themes – political theory, religion, industry, agriculture – informed the treatment of this transformation in literary writing. This chapter – serving as a bridge of sorts between these thematic treatments and a discussion of how the Great Repression, the Great Patriotic War and the engineering of Socialist Realism helped foster the friendship between Mongolia and the Soviet Union – deals with the way in which literature reflected the individual in Mongolian society and their relationships with their extended family and with society as a whole.1 1 By ‘extended family’ here I mean both the ‘extended family’ in the general meaning of the term (covered largely by ger bül in Mongolian) but also the idea of ail, which signifies a larger group of such families living in temporary community.

Wickhamsmith, Simon, Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948). Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984752_ch07

238 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

In considering how Mongolia’s population was framed by socialist ideology, we should remember that at socialism’s ideological center lies the idea of ‘class’. Marx, and those who sought to put Marxian theories to the service of the societies in which they lived, saw history not in individual terms but in terms of class dynamics.2 Class, however, is not an especially helpful way to analyze the dynamics of nomadic society, and the idea of the ‘masses’ that this taxonomy necessitates denies Mongolian nomadic society the idea of fluid personal interactions and associations across time and space by which it is most usefully defined. The concept of class, vital to the idea of revolution and of the people in terms of unified and dialectically opposing groups,3 meant that the Party was concerned only with the improvement of Mongolia’s society as a whole rather than of the small nomadic groups from which the society was formed. Moreover, writers did not immediately lean towards writing strong characters, favoring archetypal ciphers that would convey the key ideological and social messages of their stories. Even during the 1930s, when the influence of the fables cast in the mold of the Pañcatantra had mainly been set aside, stories were populated by characters who, while exhibiting certain aspects of personality and emotion, tended nonetheless towards the two-dimensional. But written texts are read and heard by individuals, and it is for individuals too that a political system succeeds or fails. An analysis of writers’ attempts to reflect the popular experience of revolutionary socialism was essayed in Chapter 5, yet the intimate – and sometimes partly hidden – ways in which people’s lives and relationships were affected by the decisions made in Ulaanbaatar or Moscow are more subtle and so more difficult accurately to trace. In portraying the lives of ordinary Mongolians in narrative form, writers drew upon their own experiences. They had personal knowledge of the harsh conditions of herders’ lives, of livestock and disease and nomadic movement, and of the topography and characteristics of the Mongolian landscape. Even the more socially privileged writers, such as Natsagdorj, would have had such experiences, and so there exist many unspoken 2 Indeed, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels say as much in the opening lines of The Communist Manifesto: ‘Die Geschichte aller bisherigen Gesellschaft ist die Geschichte von Klassenkämpfen’ (‘The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.’) http://www. vulture-bookz.de/marx/archive/pdf/Marx-Engels_-_Manifest_der_Kommunistischen_Partei. pdf (accessed 3 January 2017), p. 1. 3 The Russian narodniye massi (‘the popular masses’) and the Mongolian ard tümen (‘the ten thousand people’) both create an image of an amorphous and malleable group, echoing the use by Marx and Engels (and Hitler, too, of course) of the idea of the group.

Life and its Value

239

elements that we as readers must take for granted. For instance, the labor of a herding community is only described if something happens that directly impacts the story, nor is the internal structure of, and movement around, a ger described unless some element has become displaced, and no mention is made of the sounds of nature or the physical sensation of riding a horse at a gallop, for these things are all known innately. Those elements that are mentioned, however, tend to draw the reader into the story by means that are ideological, calling upon their political sympathy for the poor and oppressed or their distaste for monks and nobles, as well as emotional, appealing to the nomadic sense of tradition and continuity, notwithstanding the push that was underway towards the new and industrialized socialist Mongolia. It is this tension that carries the narrative forward, allowing for social and political interactions to be played out on paper, resolving themselves in a politically cogent denouement. This tension was a part of everyday experience for writers and their audience. Unlike the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, Mongolia’s revolutionary trajectory had not developed over several decades (there had been no unsuccessful ‘trial run’, for instance, as there had been in Russia in 1905), nor had its people become gradually politicized as Russia’s had. Mongolia’s nomadic population had been introduced to the practice of communism through a sudden transformation and was guided (or perhaps nudged forward) by a few young radicals under the direction of the Comintern. While there were clear benefits to the new system – the promise of equality, of education and justice, of social and economic betterment – the day-to-day lives of livestock herders and their families most likely did not change much, especially if they were at some distance from the capital. Traditional life continued, harsh and inequitable, and with its reliance upon the weather and other natural and spiritual forces, even as the effects of the revolution spread from Ulaanbaatar and became more tangible. This slow-moving change among individual Mongolians, their families and nomadic communities took place as a result of decisions that, while directed from Ulaanbaatar, were intended to free them and to make their lives easier, more profitable and better. And the work of literature was to keep these benefits in the minds of the people and to encourage them to preserve what was good about the new system. It was also, at least at first, meant to inspire the people to challenge and explore and consequently change what was not working. When writers imagined everyday people living their everyday lives, the people they wrote into their works needed in part

240 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

to function like propaganda posters while expressing sufficient humanity to make them believable and sympathetic to the audience. Buyannemeh’s 1928 play Maral Sharin Jüjig (The Drama of Maral and Shar)4 brings to a discussion of the workings of Mongolia’s new legal system observations of how individuals and the relationships between them were being transformed through the activity of the Party. On the surface, the seven brief scenes tell an archetypal story of innocence and lust, of lies and truth. But, set in the context of Mongolia’s new revolutionary society, the play functions both as an early presentation of how justice can work for the weak against the powerful and as a commentary about how a young woman’s naiveté can lead to her downfall. The friendship between the studious 15-year-old Maral and the ‘dissolute’ (zavhai) older woman Shar is manipulated by the lecherous Bazar, who uses Shar (who, somewhat confusingly, is referred to at one point as his wife) to attempt to blackmail Maral into becoming his lover. This opportunity arises when Shar and Bazar are the only witnesses to Maral’s friend Lham falling unconscious among the trees in a park: they claim that Maral has poisoned and killed her friend. They seize Maral and take her to their home, where Shar tells her: Now, nobody apart from us know that you killed that girl. There is no way to ignore this situation. But Bazar really loves you, he wants to be with you. If you agree, then nothing happened.5

Maral resolutely resists both Shar’s and Bazar’s entreaties and is eventually led away by a policeman to her trial. But in writing this betrayal of friendship – at least Maral feels it to be a friendship – Buyannemeh is dealing with the complex workings of human relationships as much as he is about blackmail and manipulation. From the first scene, in which we see Maral poring over her books in what is described as a ‘beautiful ger, full of furniture and decorations’ (negen hogshil zasal büren tögs üzesgelentei ger), encouraged in her work by her wealthy and attentive father, there is a sense that Shar, ignorant and willful, while not explicitly intending to do her harm, is herself so morally blind as to be fated to lead young Maral into danger. This dynamic is not uncommon,

4 5

Tsedev and Wang, 2009, pp. 667-699. Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 690.

Life and its Value

241

and yet the uneasiness felt by an audience is shown by the intervention of Maral’s father: [Suddenly from outside a dissolute-looking young woman runs in, her sleeves flapping, wiggling her rear end. Maral sees her and jumps up with a smile.] Maral: Shar, how are you? Sit down! Shar: I’m good. How are you? Now then, [and she says to the old man who sits, unnoticed, further back in the ger:] Mr. Biligt, how are you doing? [Meanwhile Maral offers tea to her father and Shar]. Biligt: Good, good. My body’s been playing up a little recently, but I’m fine. What are you up to these days, Shar? Are you in school? Shar: There’s nothing in school. What will I study, even if I go to school? What will I do, even if I study? I’m staying at home. Biligt: My girl needs to study. It’s essential. Nowadays, it’s best for men and women alike to study, is it not a good time when everyone has the possibility to be somebody? Where can you find such a great opportunity? I’m old, but I still want to study. Shar: I’d study, but I’d get all confused, and then I’d get bored. Young Maral studies hard, though. Biligt: Maral’s fine. She looks at bits and pieces. She studies one thing at a time.6

Even a year before Ts. Damdinsüren wrote Gologdson Hüühen,7 this exchange shows that young women were being encouraged to educate themselves. It also reveals two important social dynamics: that some fathers were proactive in their encouragement and engaged with their daughter’s education, and that a tension existed between those women who chose to educate themselves and those who, for whatever reason, regarded it as unimportant.8 However, while Maral’s father might have been proactive, it is clear from his comments that his expectations were not especially high. Indeed, even in the three primary schools active in Ulaanbaatar at this time (although there is no location given for Buyannemeh’s play), we know that lessons were given in Mongolian language and arithmetic, with two periods for 6 Ibid., p. 669-670. 7 See the discussion of this story in Chapter 5. 8 There does not, however, appear to be any male versions of this dynamic in the literature, and we can maybe assume that education among men was seen unconditionally as beneficial, to Mongolia’s new society as much as to the man’s family.

242 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

drawing and singing each week.9 It was enough simply to commit to learning, for by doing so, a young woman like Maral would earn the chance to go to Ulaanbaatar and better herself while at the same time making herself available to the Party. Shar’s invitation to Maral to visit her the following day – with Biligt meanwhile warning his daughter not to associate with the ‘sluttish’ (samuun yavdaltai) young woman – presages the unfortunate circumstances at the play’s end. The second scene is on one level a small gathering of friends and acquaintances into which Maral enters, naïve and unaware of what might happen to her. On another level, it is a caricature of precisely the ‘wayward’ behavior that Maral’s father has identified. The directness of Buyannemeh’s writing does not preclude the subtlety of the young women’s relationship: in vain, Shar seeks to protect Maral, but the effect of the teasing and advances of several men (including a monk) is too much for Maral, and in the next scene her mind is so disturbed that her father calls a monk-doctor to treat her. By showing the behavior directed at Maral, Buyannemeh communicates to his audience both the revolutionary standards of equality that the Party hoped to advance and, more powerfully, the clear message that runs through the play, that such was how the ignorant and the unsophisticated lived their lives. This was not a denigration of that vast majority of Mongolians who lacked any formal education but a rejection of the old values that this lack of education perpetuated. Even as Maral tries to get away from the gathering at Shar’s home, keenly aware that she has made a misjudgment in coming, the representatives of these old values hold her back: [Maral stands up, and Bazar pulls her back down.] Bazar: Sit down! Maral: [she tries to get away in the other direction] I’m going! [As she goes out, Dandar jumps up and grabs her.] Dandar: Where are you going? Don’t go! [They struggle.] Shar: [as though angry] What are you doing? Leave the girl alone. [Dandar lets her go. As soon as she is free, Maral rushes away.]10

Again, Shar’s apparent support for Maral belies her ‘waywardness’ and complicity, and we are left – as she too appears to be – uncertain as to her true motivation. In writing this relationship, Buyannemeh is placing Maral and the ‘new’ revolutionary society she represents very much alone and threatened by the old values. These old values, of course, are also threatening 9 Ma, 1949, p. 90. 10 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 678.

Life and its Value

243

Shar, whose ambiguous attitude towards Maral reflects how she herself feels treated by the men who are supposed to be her friends, a feeling made more blatant by her collapse under questioning regarding these relationships during the final scene. Maral arrives home and falls onto her bed, whereupon her worried father has his manservant call a local monk-doctor. The presence here of the manservant Galsan and the sympathetic treatment of old Biligt and his impressionable daughter – indeed, it is the strength of her character that ultimately keeps her safe – casts significant light upon the workings of Mongolian society, even in the final months before the leftward turn and the suppression of the capitalist tendencies and internationalism of the ‘right deviationists’. There is no indication that, by having a well-appointed home and a manservant, Biligt might at this point have been regarded as suspect by either Buyannemeh or by his audience, and we can assume that, here at least, in Buyannemeh’s mind, the value of education – for women as well as for men, for the rich as well as for the poor – is what is important, with starker issues of class and privilege not yet of particular concern, at least in practice. The circumstances that lead to the collapse of Maral’s friend Lham and Maral’s subsequent detainment, f irst by Shar and Bazar and then by the police, function as an extension of the gathering at Shar’s home. The two scenes set in a park are defined by the louche behavior of Shar’s friends and then briefly by the gentleness of Maral’s friendship with Lham. These scenes work together to sustain the audience’s focus on the girls’ contrasting personalities, and so when Lham suddenly ‘let[s] out a scream and falls into a faint’ and Shar and Bazar are there watching among the trees, this contrast is illumined by Shar’s telling Maral, whether out of malfeasance or folly, or both, ‘You killed her. But nobody else saw – there’s nothing to fear’.11 But this is the same argument that she later uses, unsuccessfully, to blackmail Maral into becoming Bazar’s lover, and it is Maral’s resolute denial that she did anything wrong and her resolute resistance to this blackmail that lead to the trial. An elected judiciary had only been established in Mongolia in 1925, and Buyannemeh’s description of the trial shows how rudimentary the justice system was, even if effective in context. When the two advocates, or perhaps court officials (tüshmel), question Maral, Shar and Bazar, the latter two continue to stress their own version of what happened. It is only when Lham is brought in by a policeman, safe and 11 Ibid., p. 689.

244 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

sound and very much alive, that Bazar and Shar are exposed and so found guilty and sentenced: The ard Bazar had taken a girl who had not yet reached adulthood by force and was about to do violence towards her, which constitutes a severe infringement of the people’s criminal code. Moreover, while watching an individual who had been taken ill and fallen into a faint, he did nothing to help revive her but rather terrified her friend who was caring for her and slandered this friend. He abandoned the person who had fainted and immediately made out that her friend had poisoned her with the intention that she should die. For these reasons, it is fitting that the aforementioned Bazar be immediately taken and executed. However, since he did not in fact commit an act of violence, it is decided that he be imprisoned for ten years.12

Bazar’s sentence – and the six months given to Shar for ‘leading astray a pure young girl from a good family’ – is a notable development away from the violent punishments to which commoners like them would have been subject before the revolution. In 1926, when Ma Ho-t’ien observed prisoners in the Gurvan Saihan Uul banner, he noted that they were ‘collared with an iron ring joined to a single chain which dragged partly along the ground’,13 a punishment he considers mild compared with other types of torture he describes. This was the kind of punishment that had been used during the Manchu period, both in China and in Mongolia, and that the revolutionary government had sought to replace in their efforts to modernize justice and make it more equitable. The drama of Maral and Shar does not take place within the stupidity of Bazar’s plan of abuse but within the complexity of the young girls’ interactions. What friendship they have is mediated by the innocence and ignorance of both, but as actors in the developing interaction between old Mongolia and the modern revolutionary world, their relationship reveals the lack of a defined class struggle at the time of the Seventh Party Congress in 1928 and the power of the legal system to try and punish with fairness those, notwithstanding their age or rank, who have broken the laws.14 Buyannemeh’s achievement, despite the inelegance of his plot, is to have created two young women who move beyond the one-dimensionality of earlier drama and hint at the possibility of more psychologically sophisticated characterization. 12 Tsedev and Wang, 2009, p. 698. 13 Ma, 1949, p. 34. 14 See also the discussion in Chapter 1 of legal procedure in D. Bodoo’s story Üzemjit Ögüülel.

Life and its Value

245

A similar dynamic to that of Shar and Maral is found in the relationship between Has-Erdene and Horolmaa in M. Yadamsüren’s novella Gurvan Hüühen (Three Girls),15 written in 1936. In the eight years since Buyannemeh’s play, Mongolia had gone through the leftist deviation and the period of the New Turn policy, and yet Yadamsüren’s themes – an overarching narrative of the power of female education and the sometimes fraught relationships between young women – remain similar to those described by Buyannemeh. Horolmaa, recently back from Ulaanbaatar where she received an education, is now a primary school teacher. She chances upon her old friend Has-Erdene, who is tending her family’s sheep. Horolmaa seems taken with the city: she gives Has-Erdene a white crêpe scarf, some cigarettes and some pastries in a decorated box. They discuss the city and how Has-Erdene, who has no experience beyond nomadic life, should go back with Horolmaa in the fall and herself acquire an education. For Has-Erdene, this conflation of the excitement of the city with the potential of social and educational growth, and the sophistication that she sees in Horolmaa and that she imagines will be hers if she goes to Ulaanbaatar, is sufficient stimulus to encourage her to begin her journey: From then on, Horolmaa and Has-Erdene spent every day together, exchanging ideas about how they would go to school together in the city. Horolmaa was respected among the neighboring families, and they asked for postcards and suchlike from foreign countries, and because she read the newspaper for them, many of them were full of praise for her. And she also taught Has-Erdene to recite beautiful poetry. For the first time, Has-Erdene thought that she, like Horolmaa, might become an elegant city girl, but in the end the thought of hearing all these interesting things from Horolmaa, of broadening her mind through learning how to read and write, of being adult and sober-minded like Horolmaa was, it all seemed very difficult, and every morning she would privately mock how Horolmaa washed her face and arms. At first it seemed to smell bad, but later she too would end up washing. She wanted to cut off her pigtails like Horolmaa, but she was afraid of her father. So she spent time copying Horolmaa with fascination, the calendar shot forward swift as an arrow, and Horolmaa came to her and said that two months had passed and it would soon be time for her to go back, and Has-Erdene kept angrily asking Horolmaa to speak with her father, so that Has-Erdene might go back with her.16 15 Yadamsüren, 1970, pp. 47-76. 16 Yadamsüren, 1970, p. 51.

246 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Unlike Buyannemeh’s characterization of Maral, the image presented by Yadamsüren of Has-Erdene is of an impressionable and impetuous young woman: unlike Shar, who can draw Maral only so far before the latter’s intelligence trumps her own crude attitudes, Horolmaa’s enthusiasm, while genuine and in keeping with the Party’s education policy, is such that Has-Erdene is easily persuaded to leave home. Before she does leave for Ulaanbaatar, however, Yadamsüren explores the social commentary on female education presented in the story of Maral and Shar. Has-Erdene’s parents initially accept their daughters wish to go to the city with Horolmaa, but after a drunken conversation with his employer, the nobleman Sanj Meeren, and a monk named Damdin, her father Dugar has second thoughts. Damdin, in fact, voices the same fears as are raised in Buyannemeh’s Tovuudai the Herder, written in the same year, about the sexual predilection of Russians for young Mongolian women, suggesting, ‘She’ll only go off to Russia and live it up with a bunch of girls. She’ll not see the rivers for removing her shoes, she’ll not see the mountains for lifting her skirts.’ Has-Erdene overhears this conversation, how she will be ‘s’ent […] all alone, like a stray dog, into the world of men’, and she curses the ‘sly ideology’ of these old feudal attitudes and how they have changed her father’s mind. It is notable that it is the ideology (and the fact that they are drunk, which references the issue of alcoholism, a problem that exercised the Party at the time) that sparks her anger rather than the individuals who espouse the ideology, and in this she reveals the lack of clarity and the social tension that existed between the ideas being promoted by the new society and the traditions of the old society. The new society steps forward in the guise of a Party official, who eases Dugar’s concern about his daughter’s future. And, while she sat there, consumed with such troublesome things, a union man, the local government’s administrative secretary Tseren, a worker who was highly respected among the people, was paying great attention to their words. He sat there, drinking, and he said, ‘I’ve been listening to your discussion. Why be so hot-tempered, Mr. Dugar? Maybe you could send your daughter to school.’ And Tseren anticipated that Dugar would not be surprised, he said, ‘You absolutely must send her. When she comes back from studying, she’ll be of help to you personally, and she’ll be of use to the people on a social level. In fact, you should really send children to school from a young age and teach them many different things. You can’t watch out for her

Life and its Value

247

forever but, if she goes to school, after your death she’ll have an easy life. If you don’t see the very best in your daughter, after your death, she’ll be nothing but a family servant. ‘But Sanj and Damdin are old-fashioned, they’re putting obstacles in the way of the education of young people, and Mr. Dugar, they’re making you unhappy’. At this, old Dugar’s heart was changed and he thought to himself, ‘Yes, I can’t watch out for her once I’m dead.’17

When Has-Erdene sets off for the city with Horolmaa, it is as a young woman who, like her father, and maybe also like Sanj Meeren and Damdin too, has very little idea of what either city life or acquiring an education will entail. Probably Yadamsüren’s account of the social negotiation that allowed for her to depart with her parents’ blessing represents a process that played out frequently across the country, with the Party working to overcome the fear and mistrust felt by those for whom the security and traditions of the old order were preferable. Nor should we assume that Dugar’s reasoned reappraisal was a common one: while the Party’s view is presented in literary works as the view to which those for whom the audience feel sympathy eventually turn, certain policies that prefigured the Great Repression at the end of the 1930s had nonetheless to be imposed by force. Even apparently positive ideas related to the social benefits of education likely came under criticism from many elders and people of influence. Education is only a subplot of Three Girls, however, providing a pretext for HasErdene to move to the city. The strands of narrative that deal with prostitution and with Has-Erdene’s uneasy infatuation with, and eventual redemption from, the influence of the prostitute Zandanbal, show a remarkable tenderness and depth of characterization. The psychological depth with which Yadamsüren invests this relationship hints at what he might have produced had he survived longer than the year that remained to him when he wrote this story. By chance, out buying provisions, Has-Erdene meets Zandanbal, who is from the same area as Horolmaa and herself, and goes to see Zandanbal’s house in the Chinese traders’ district of Ulaanbaatar.18 It is a well-appointed place, although Has-Erdene, noticing ‘a picture hanging there of a young girl, locked in an embrace with some Chinese’, quickly realizes that this is a place of ‘real debauchery’ and is confused by her feeling of fascination. 17 Yadamsüren, 1970, pp. 53-54. 18 This is the same area of the city from which the prostitute Tseringlham makes her appearance in Natsagdorj’s The Lama’s Tears (see Chapter 6).

248 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

The arrival of a group of Chinese men and the brazen and mutual affection shown between them and Zandanbal disturbs Has-Erdene even more. But she is sucked in, and Zandanbal persuades her that she could earn good money by entertaining and sleeping with these men. Despite her reticence and desire to escape, which adds all the more to her allure, she is persuaded to have a drink; and so it goes that, by the end of the night, having been gang-raped by the Chinese, she finally begins to sober up. Immediately Has-Erdene figured out the fearsome and bitter situation of her exploitation and humiliation and, because her embarrassment and unhappiness and anger were intolerable to her, she wept alone. Most of all, because she admitted to herself that she had drunk to the point of intoxication whilst not noticing that she had been drinking and had suddenly been forced into various vile acts, her entire body felt sick and pained. She acknowledged how her body was experiencing the bitterness of many things; she pressed her face uncontrollably into the pillow and bitterly wept. Has-Erdene wore herself out with her suffering, but fortunately the old Chinese man got up and left. Has-Erdene pulled the thick blankets over her head and lay there, frightened and full of shame, she lay there, unable in her misery to get up. And her eyes were swollen from all the crying. So she lay there and when, around noon, Zandanbal got up to wash, she called to Has-Erdene. Has-Erdene lay there silently and Zandanbal came in gently and peeled the blankets away, Come and wash, she said, but when Has-Erdene got up shyly to dress, she felt a pain knife through her liver and head. Nonetheless, although she’d said she would get up and wash and have some tea, her body was in pain and her eyes were swollen and she felt awkward to go outside and fearful of going to school, but by the evening she was saying she’d go out that night.19

Come and wash. Zandanbal, who the previous evening had been making fun of Has-Erdene’s naïveté and encouraging her to prostitute herself, speaks now with a simple and delicate kindness that ignores the situation into which she has maneuvered her young protégée. Yadamsüren’s description of how Has-Erdene draws the blankets over herself to allow herself a little decency and comfort, and then how Zandanbal gently draws them back in a sisterly gesture of care, has a poignancy that deepens through the two 19 Yadamsüren, 1970, p. 64.

Life and its Value

249

critical decisions Has-Erdene then makes: that she would not go to school that day, and that she would instead go out into the night. These decisions shift Has-Erdene’s primary relationship away from Horolmaa, who remains at home studying, to Zandanbal. From this point, the story turns to an account of Zandanbal’s decline and death from syphilis and Has-Erdene’s ambiguous relationship with her as the disease progresses. The problem of sexually transmitted diseases within Mongolian society had been more Natsagdorj’s bailiwick, as we will see shortly, than Yadamsüren’s. Natsagdorj had been in Berlin during the Weimar period, and his experiences there had given him a more scientifically informed awareness than most Mongolians of the effect of such diseases. But the Party’s concern to promote sexual health among the population meant that stories such as Yadamsüren’s would have functioned as a direct warning, or as a kind of medical and social propaganda, to those young women who were most vulnerable. The precise extent of prostitution in Ulaanbaatar during this period is uncertain. Ma Ho-t’ien notes that, ‘[a]ccording to an investigation made last year [1925] by the Comintern, out of three hundred families only one person was really free from venereal disease’,20 and although health provisions had been improved during the ten years since, both Three Girls and Natsagdorj’s persistence during the first half of the 1930s in addressing these issues in his poetry and short fiction would suggest that such interventions had not sufficiently addressed the problem. Over time, then, Has-Erdene became used to the behavior of the ‘chaotic Chinese men’, whose number, and so whose abuse of her, grew steadily. She became ‘unable to choose between good and bad’, she ‘played at love with many men, dressing in silks, riding bicycles, drinking liquor and decking herself out in gold, she spent time with the neighbors and enjoyed her free time until dawn in various ways […]’.21 But even while her interest in education was slipping away, she remained aware of Horolmaa’s concern for her, and imagined her friend saying, ‘I’ll help you escape from these swirling dark mists’. By placing Has-Erdene’s behavior next to her own image of how Horolmaa would care for her, Yadamsüren keeps the reader’s hopes alive for Has-Erdene, even as we realize that Zandanbal is a lost cause. In HasErdene’s imagination, the three girls come together in a kind of emotional co-dependency, so that Has-Erdene feels guilty towards Horolmaa, whom she knows still cares for her, yet she is both grateful to Zandanbal for the 20 Ma, 1949, p. 128. 21 Yadamsüren, 1970, p. 65.

250 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

luxurious life into which she has fallen and deeply ambivalent about the ‘swirling dark mists’ that obscure her path. It is at this moment that Has-Erdene begins to turn away from Zandanbal and towards Horolmaa. In an impassioned plea to Has-Erdene, Horolmaa describes the misery that prostitution and the sickness it causes would do to her: […] your healthy body will be crippled, it will be sick, it won’t have the strength to laugh any more than to yawn and then, when you turn around, you’ll have nobody from before, no friends to rely upon, no children to take care of you at the end, and when you go home, your cold belly hungry, your lovely face which was cursed while guiltless and despised while faultless will be old, it will be wrinkled like an ox’s forehead, your body will have become pale and dry like the center of the sun, you’ll stagger around on your two feet, your fluttering black hair will be tangled up like strands of felt, your nose, fine as jade, will now be as though patched with embossed leather, your two elegant eyes will be streaming red and revolving in their sockets, it will be as though you have been thrown away like meat from between the teeth or sleep from the eyes […]22

Despite Has-Erdene’s initial refusal to listen, Horolmaa’s words eventually have an effect on her, and she does not suffer this miserable end. However, even as Has-Erdene returns to her studies and heals her friendship with Horolmaa, this decline in health is exactly what is happening to Zandanbal. Horolmaa’s warning is aimed directly at Yadamsüren’s readers, and Zandanbal’s decline is not a theoretical one but one that these readers could observe daily in the less salubrious areas of Ulaanbaatar. Despite Has-Erdene’s ministrations – including the offer of a doctor’s visit, which Zandanbal in terror refuses, not wanting to be exposed to ‘the obscure and primitive understanding of feudal monks’ – Zandanbal dies on the streets at 29, unloved, uncared for, and alone. Yadamsüren’s story is unabashedly moral and sentimental – activity in line with the Party’s policy according to which education and healthy living produces success and self-awareness, whereas a debauched and selfish life results in eventual misery and a painful and lonely death. But behind the clear social and political messages, there are two relationships strikingly delineated and artfully observed. Unlike the majority of writing at the time, Yadamsüren’s characters are not simply analogs for human strengths and weaknesses 22 Ibid., p. 68.

Life and its Value

251

through which universal truths and Party policy can be shown. They are subtle, relatively well-observed, and capable of eliciting emotional responses such that readers, being affected by them, could consider how they should most healthily and most honorably behave. Yadamsüren’s achievement in Three Girls is to have written an account of prostitution in which the audience, while feeling an emotional connection towards the character who is eventually saved, also feels compassion for the character who placed her in danger. It is interesting that Horolmaa – the girl who persuades Has-Erdene to study and who remains away from the action, continuing to teach school while striving to continue her own education – is the least sympathetic and least rounded character: we might surmise that Yadamsüren himself was inclined most favorably towards Has-Erdene, who saw the error of her ways, who regained what she had once had, and who now, through her self-awareness and struggle to rehabilitate herself, could be a role model for Mongolia’s young people. Natsagdorj’s short story Lambugain nulims (The Venerable Monk’s Tears, 1930),23 discussed in the previous chapter, is a classic tale of the lecherous monk gulled and ruined by a pretty young woman. However, in the view of the novelist S. Erdene, it is not, as many readers might believe, primarily about the pride and foolishness of the monk Geshé Lodon so much as it is about the prostitute Tserenlham, into whose clutches he falls. Erdene writes: In Ulaanbaatar at that time, the Chinese traders exploited Mongolians and addled the brains of young women with money and material possessions, they taught them various bad habits such as smoking tobacco and tried to spread the base and disgusting behavior common in large Chinese cities.24

Erdene’s analysis reflects Natsagdorj’s concern for standards of public health in Mongolia, in particular where sexual health and prostitution were concerned. As a student in Leipzig during the Weimar Republic, Natsagdorj had enjoyed access to Berlin, a city noted at this time for its art and culture and for its relaxed sexual mores. The sleazy underbelly of Berlin nightlife exercised a particular attraction for intellectuals and artists as well as members of the middle classes eager to step outside the familiar and respectable. Erdene’s commentary, like Yadamsüren’s Three Girls, reminds us that the inhabitants 23 Natsagdorj, 1961, pp. 223-226. Translated in Wickham-Smith, 2012 pp. 29-60. 24 Erdene, 1986, p. 58. For what is perhaps a more mainstream reading focusing on Geshé Lodon’s character, see Gaadamba (1964).

252 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

of Ulaanbaatar found themselves in a similar position and that senior monks like Geshé Lodon were not immune from seeking this demi-monde nor from being lured into it. Natsagdorj’s return to Mongolia in 1929 coincided with the Party’s new intention, in response to the Seventh Congress, to improve the country’s provision of health care, and Natsagdorj’s motivation for writing ‘The Venerable Monk’s Tears’ may have been a response to Party policy mediated by his experiences in Germany. It was the first of several works in which Natsagdorj discussed what became an increasingly important theme for him: the impact of prostitution and the consequences for society of sexually transmitted diseases. That Erdene sees this story as being about Tserenlham – and so, by implication, about prostitution and, again like Three Girls, about the (negative) impact of Chinese traders upon Mongolian society25 – alerts us to the ways in which Mongolia was being affected by foreign influences. Natsagdorj, in drawing our eyes away from Tserenlham’s apparently blithe rejection of Geshé Lodon in favor of another man, focuses on the way in which the mind – that of a prostitute as much as of her client – can be led astray. Lodon’s superior learning in Buddhist philosophy contrasts with the ignorant breaking of his vows, with his lack of wisdom and common sense: those laypeople who would laugh at him for being a hypocritical monk might at the same time be frequenting prostitutes and placing themselves in similar danger. The cruel satire of Natsagdorj’s story reflects the cruel truth of such commonplace dalliances between senior monks, as well as other powerful men, and prostitutes. Another piece written by Natsagdorj in1930, the brief vignette Aaligüigees hamargüi (You’ll Lose Your Nose Flirting)26 offers another satire about the dangers of promiscuity. The title refers to the disfigurement common in advanced cases of syphilis. A young girl rides ‘her newly-purchased Opel bicycle’ – a timely nod in the direction of one of Germany’s international business successes – out of the factory where she works. She ‘wiggled her buttocks and flashed her thighs in her soft silk stockings’ and, as she does so, aimless and pretty, the laborer Luvsan – he is named; she isn’t – on his own grimy bicycle, is unable to avoid colliding with her. Her elegant deel gets stuck on the cross-bar, he shouts angrily at her, ‘You’ll lose your nose flirting’, and then, ‘You’re such a nuisance! So what do you have to say for yourself? It’s hard without a nose, in fact why bother looking at a human face if it doesn’t have a nose?’ Luvsan – Natsagdorj also calls him ‘the worker’ as 25 A more positive perspective on these centers of trade can be found in Bao, 2006. 26 Natsagdorj, 1961, p. 217.

Life and its Value

253

though to emphasize his moral superiority – is clearly not only annoyed by her nonchalant attitude as she rides along but is also eager to point out the folly of her behavior, as though such flirtation will almost certainly lead to syphilis and thence to disfigurement. With this text, Natsagdorj had started to work with a new type of satire. Whereas Mongolian writers had previously employed scathing criticism of monastic corruption and of inept governance, this had tended either to be descriptive, third-person, narrative or else had used inanimate objects (such as the motor vehicles in Buyannemeh’s texts mentioned in Chapter 4) to offer critiques.Here, however, Natsagdorj speaks directly to the experience of the new society. He hints at the world beyond Mongolia (the world he had experienced in Weimar Germany) through the speed and physical hazards of riding bicycles27 and suggests that such modes of transport – especially the Opel bicycles, being a new and exciting fashion symbol – might lead someone astray. In Germany, moral and health issues surrounding sexual promiscuity and prostitution were important societal gauges during the years following the Great War. The war had, to a large extent, broken down class barriers, and in the cafés and bars, people came together from every social stratum, while the cabaret and the theater reflected this new society back onto itself through the use of the vernacular and dialectical forms of speech and through a free trade in social, racial, sexual and intellectual modes of expression. In examining the popularity of the representation of this seamier side of Berlin life in the cabaret performances in the early 1920s, Alan Lareau suggests that the dirty, even vulgar milieu of the underworld held a special romantic attraction for the bourgeois viewer. It offered a vision of an arcane paradise: a world where poverty was a difficult but nonetheless picturesque way of life, inhabited by people who stood ironically above their lamentable fates. Indeed, it was the lack of genuine danger for the viewers which made the spectacle so delicious[.]28

But the German public’s problematized relationship with the dissolute lives of the poor – and the involvement of the bourgeoisie in the development of 27 Note the link between a young woman riding a bicycle and implied sexual depravity, suggested also in the description of how Has-Erdene’s behavior changed under the influence of the bicycle-riding Zandanbal. 28 Lareau, 1995, p. 84.

254 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

this relationship – was matched by the increasing power of what was called the ‘new sobriety’ (neue Sachlichkeit). Alongside the idea of ‘functionality’ in art, the ‘new sobriety’ offered a political and moral approach to creative work, reducing the reliance on expressionist fantasy and privileging the ideas of realism and political usefulness. It was from within this approach that the focus on realist fiction as a kind of journalistic reportage extended into fine art (such as the portraits by Christian Schad documenting Berlin during the 1920s), into the plays of Erwin Piscator and Berthold Brecht, and into musical theater such as Ernst Křenek’s opera Jonny Spielt Auf (1927) and Kurt Weill’s Brecht song cycle Mahogany-Songspiel (1927). Lareau’s description of how cabaret allowed people who were otherwise disassociated from the dark side of Berlin life to somehow engage with it reflects the satire on upwardly mobile Germans in the work of writers like Kurt Tucholsky and Erich Kästner, founded on the more solid literary tradition of social mockery. The language of these writers, full of melancholy and misanthropic, even at times nihilistic, humor, is reflected in Natsagdorj’s approach – ‘why bother looking at a human face if it doesn’t have a nose?’ asks the obdurate Luvsan – and in the sense of empathy he feels with his characters and with their predicament. Indeed, the exchange between Luvsan and the flirtatious young cyclist appears tinged, on Luvsan’s part, with a sense of fraternal concern as much as of irritation. The woman’s embarrassed silence, too, is that of a naïve young girl, emphasizing that this is an admonitory piece, a warning to all of us who would be led by our fantasies. In ‘The Venerable Monk’s Tears’, the roles are reversed, with the worldly-wise prostitute playing with the fantasies of the naïve scholar-monk. Still, when we look at who gets punished, in each case the punishment falls upon the naïve, the one who has been led astray. Natsagdorj leaves Geshé Lodon tearful and ruined, and the girl cycles away, shamed and chastened. For all his scornful opprobrium, though, Natsagdorj offers his work as a kind of public health warning. In 1935, he wrote the following short piece entitled ‘Syphilis’29: On account of the precious complex of which a person is so finely wrought, if the elements of their clear feeling are spoiled, they experience the dangerous affliction of insanity. When a harsh infectious disease manifests in such things as pustules, a slew of tiny germs and bacteria all gathered together, it destroys the 29 Natsagdorj, 1961, p. 270.

Life and its Value

255

human body. Yet it doesn’t only destroy the flesh and blood, it damages and upsets the channels of emotion and experience, which branch off in a thousand directions, all the way to the brain, which is the center of wisdom and understanding. A good person, despite indeed being a fine person, nonetheless leaves the world and falls into a myriad of suffering, weeping and lamenting and yelling and singing and cursing and praying and twitching and groaning.

This description recalls Horolmaa’s description of the disease to Has-Erdene and Yadamsüren’s description of Zandanbal’s ignominious fall from a life of luxury to the streets of Ulaanbaatar. Notwithstanding Zandanbal’s influence, Has-Erdene does not succumb, and nor do Geshé Lodon or Ts. Damdinsüren’s ‘Rejected Girl’ Tseren. But Natsagdorj’s description is another warning to his readers lest they be tempted to stray too far into Ulaanbaatar’s twilight world. This is the kind of social reportage that had been written about Berlin as early as 1920, when Thomas Wehrling published an essay entitled Die Verhurung Berlins (The Whoring of Berlin).30 Throughout the decade, as the influence of the ‘new sobriety’ grew, writers stepped up their commentary on Berlin’s social problems. In 1926, the year that Natsagdorj arrived in Berlin, a police superintendent named Ernst Engelbrecht and a poet named Leo Heller together published Kinder der Nacht: Bilder aus dem Verbrecherleben (Children of the Night: Images of Thuggery),31 which provided a striking account of the less hospitable and less amusing dark side of Berlin. As Natsagdorj’s ability to read German increased, we can imagine him reading such accounts of Berlin and thinking about how they reflected life in Ulaanbaatar, and how he might use such a journalistic approach to inform his Mongolian readers. This kind of reportage showed him a way to speak about some of the problems in Mongolian society while making sure that the power of satire to illumine human folly remained the medium and the consequences of the folly remained primary. This new style of journalism, with its investigative reporting and its interest in aspects of sociology and anthropology, influenced much of what Natsagdorj wrote about the modern developments in health after his return to Mongolia. According to the journalist Baabar, in 1927 Mongolians had access to only 50 hospital beds, a figure that had risen to 326 by 1934, at which point the number of Soviet-trained doctors had risen from seven to 139,

30 Wehrling, 1920. 31 Engelbrecht and Heller, 1926.

256 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

with nurses numbering 138.32 Writers were encouraged to back the Party’s attempts to develop the country’s health care, and Natsagdorj’s narratives offer graphic and direct accounts of how Mongolians could now benefit, and what they could expect, from Western medical science. It was socially and politically expedient, moreover, that these scientific developments be placed in contrast to the traditional medicine practiced by Buddhist monks. The mythology surrounding these contrasting systems presented the monks either as rapacious charlatans or, at best, incompetent practitioners and the Western-trained doctors as expert healers and representatives of forward-thinking Soviet medical science. However, rather than contrasting the modern medical practices that were coming from the Soviet Union with the medicine practiced by monastic doctors, Natsagdorj focused on communicating the benefits of the new science. In 1935, the same year he had written his brief but powerful sketch of the syphilitic, he published two pieces on the benefits of surgery. Hün heden udaa ühej boloh ve? (How Many Times Does A Man Die?) and Mes zaslin tasag (The Surgical Ward)33 are both accounts of surgical procedures carried out on what we might assume, although this is not explicitly mentioned, are members of the poor working class, to whom previously such procedures would not have been available. Another short text from 1935, Högshin hünii ögüülel (Old Men Talking),34 deals particularly with issues of how class and money relate to the provision of health care. As with ‘The Surgical Ward’, the discourse of the text is intriguing, for it could be read as fiction or as journalism. I’m in Ulaanbaatar, I don’t know precisely where, but perhaps in the fifth district. There’s an enclosure, wide and somewhat unprepossessing, and constructed of sawn timber. It’s been painted too. Inside there’s a long white public building. In some of the windows someone has placed pretty flowers and greenery. ‘What’s this building?’ I ask a man at the door, and he tells me it’s a health center. 32 Baabar, 2013, p. 210. However, the official account provides different data, listing 27 physicians and 84 ‘intermediate medical personnel’ and but one hospital with 378 beds (Development of the National Economy and Culture of the Mongolian People’s Republic from 1921 to 1958, 1960, pp. 130, 132.) Suffice it to say that there had been an increase in facilities, albeit not sufficient to properly serve the population. 33 Natsagdorj, 1961, p. 275 and 264 respectively. 34 Ibid., p. 262.

Life and its Value

257

‘What happens here, then?’ ‘They cure people who are sick’. ‘How do they cure them here?’ ‘They use medical treatment’. ‘I’ve caught a cold, and I have only an old offering scarf, so what do I need to bring as an offering to the monks for medicine?’ ‘Don’t worry about an offering scarf, you don’t even need cheesecloth, they’ll treat you here anyway’. ‘So can I just come and get medicine?’ ‘Sure you can!’ ‘How rich the people who built this place must have been!’ ‘Not rich people – it was our kind government who built it’.

We cannot know whether, by this stage of his life, Natsagdorj’s primary intention was to inform his readers and so spread the word about free medicine or to praise the Party. Following the harsh suppression of the Civil War in the spring of 1932, his support for the government had weakened,35 and he was by 1935 under the surveillance of the Interior Ministry. And while these texts celebrate the Party, they also celebrate advances in medical science and in social welfare. When we read a poem like ‘A Place For Protecting Health’ (Erüüliig hamgaalah gazar, 1935),36 we should, I believe, read it as an acknowledgement that, even though Natsagdorj might have disliked some aspects of the revolutionary government’s rule, he still recognized the marked improvements in health care which it had wrought. In the great capital of Ulaanbaatar, the glorious flags of revolution light up the distance. Visitors and guests, the people of our nation, seek the benefit and peace of revolution from far away. In the center of this broad and great city is a place for protecting the people’s health 35 Note, however, that his story ‘Things That Had Never Been Seen’ was a favorable account of the successful suppression by the revolutionary army of Ochirbat’s Ministry, the monastic group that organized the rebellion leading to the Civil War (see Chapter 6). There is no evidence that he had lost faith in the revolution itself; rather he might simply have felt the kind of disquiet with Party policy that could have been misinterpreted by those charged with maintaining Party loyalty. 36 Natsagdorj, 1961, p. 148.

258 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

In the broad and wide squares brilliant white buildings stand side by side. The windows of the fine tall buildings play with the light of the pleasant sun. Mongolians from everywhere, from far and near, Mongolian people with every kind of illness, severe and mild, in hospitals of benevolent science, are cared for, they are happy to recover, and happily they discuss the land of revolution’s ten thousand forward steps.

Natsagdorj’s poems and vignettes on the subject of Mongolia’s developing system of public health focus on a presumed social contract between the Party and the individual. The appeals to individual vigilance and the recognition by the individual of the Party’s ideological leadership and its concern for the welfare of the people (which impacts at the same time the greater economic and social good) make these texts effective as journalism as much as they entertain. In fact, whereas Yadamsüren’s graphic and disturbing tale of prostitution encourages in its readers an emotional response to the fates of both Zandanbal and Has-Erdene, Natsagdorj’s texts are quite different and engender more of a pragmatic response. Natsagdorj wants his readers to benefit from the information he is providing: he asks that those who might not trust medicine from doctors other than monks consider the benefits of the new medicine, while he encourages those who are enthusiastic about what the Party can offer to spread the message. The individual and emotional response to the issue of health and how this intersected with political and ideological developments became a key theme in the literature during the early 1930s. The increased number of doctors sent to the countryside meant that Western medicine began to have an effect on the health of those livestock herders at the farthest remove from Ulaanbaatar. However, the traditional medicine practiced by monks, which ensured social and financial capital to monasteries, remained for many the primary source of health care. To the Party, herbal medicine was both an ideological irritant and an obstacle to development. D. Namdag’s 1936 play

Life and its Value

259

Ami ba Amidralin Üne (Life and the Cost of Living)37 examines issues of trust and tradition in both types of medicine and the role played by social pressure in deciding which path to follow. In an essay written many years later, Namdag described the genesis of his play: To begin with, the situation at that time was that, among the general population, the spread of infectious diseases was rife, and it was clear that the number of births was in rapid decline. By chance, the conclusion of the professional doctors in the Ministry of Health was that the majority of people were suffering from serious illness. All the experts who understood what this meant were shocked and alarmed and contributed their assistance in informing the public about the dangers of disease, and so it was that Natsagdorj’s texts on health, Yadamsüren’s Three Girls and Buyannemeh’s Three Poisonous Bonds38 were published. And I began to sketch out Life and the Cost of Living […]. I followed my childhood friend Namhaitseren for a while through the Chinese traders’ district. Namhaitseren lived in that area and knew well the lives of the people there. But it was another world. In the morning, when we went to visit the young girls who were considered beautiful, we would f irst smell the scent of watery vegetables, and as soon as the door closed behind us, because there was no glass in the windows, and only large pieces of paper covering them, it became gloomy as evening. The deel in which the one girl there was dressed was untied, and she sat on the broad heating platform, without having put the blankets away. Because of the poor light, everything was colorless, and the girl’s face seemed grey too. Our coming elicited the brewing of tea which was offered in many-sided glass cups. Its flavor was poor, but although the cups had not been washed, we had to taste it. Then the girl was silent, as though to say, ‘Now you can leave’, and so we left. We went to another home and it was much the same, almost as though we had gone back inside. The place was dirty and unkempt, the bed was unmade, and truth be told, it was impossible to feel any joy there. When I asked my friend how this could happen, he said, ‘Well, at night they have no sleep, what with between two and four men, and by day they are too exhausted to do anything but eat and rest.’ I heard more about this, they were in truly shameful and disgusting circumstances. It was strange, though, 37 Namdag, 1987, pp. 86-132. 38 Gurvan horin hülees (1935) is not included in Tsedev and Wang, 2009.

260 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

how few and far between were the serious diseases. But in my play I had to write on a broad and not a small scale. Secondly, I spoke to professional doctors at the Ministry to find out about how the clinics were being equipped. Thirdly, while the people’s clinics were unable to treat these sicknesses, when the vast majority of sick people came to request treatment, they were told that there was not sufficient time to see them, and they were sent away.39

Although Namdag’s particular focus in this account, in preparation for writing Life and the Cost of Living, was on prostitutes in the Chinese traders’ district, it is obvious from his concluding comments here that health care, while a priority for the Party, was not actually reaching the people. His concern in his work, he said, was for the same kind of naturalism employed by the French writer Zola (who he claimed as ‘an important influence’40), who ‘presented not an exaggeration of the situation, nor how bad the contamination might have been, but only the true situation, truthfully’. 41 This reference to Zola and naturalism asks that we accept the descriptions in Namdag’s work as a kind of journalistic fiction and that, even as we take pleasure in the play’s dialog and narrative, we can also see it as reportage. It also recalls aspects of the ‘factology’ practiced by the LEF group in the Soviet Union during the late 1920s, in which the use of factual material was privileged over the fictional. While Namdag’s work is not experimental in the way that LEF was, his explicit intention to express ‘the true situation, truthfully’ – echoing Zola’s threefold conception42 of naturalism’s nouvelle formule as faire vrai, faire grand and faire simple – allowed his audience to check what they were reading against their own experience and so to see for themselves the progress in health care provision made by the Party. Life and the Cost of Living is indeed bleak in the same way that much of Zola’s work is bleak. Its interweaving plot lines tell of disease, prostitution and social pretension and focus on the characters of Dumaa, ‘an elderly woman’ most likely in her 50s, and her daughter Gavarmaa. A placard is 39 See Namdag, ‘Ami ba amidralin üne’ in Namdag, 1988, pp. 101-103. 40 In B. Luvsan’s important account of literary translation during the period 1921-1940 (Luvsan, 1966, pp. 53-62), no mention is made of Zola’s work. Whether Namdag, who had studied in Germany during the late 1920s, read Zola in German or Russian, or whether he had simply heard about Zola’s naturalism, is impossible to ascertain for certain. 41 Namdag, 1988, p. 104. 42 In his 1895 book Le naturalism au théâtre: les théories et les examples. Available at http:// www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13866 (accessed 20 January 2017).

Life and its Value

261

hanging on the stage when the curtains open; it reads, ‘be afraid! be full of fear! live healthily and protect pure socialism!’43 The equation between healthy living and protecting socialism echoes the ideals of other utopian polities of this period, such as the Soviet Union (in which ‘clean’ living in all its forms was seen as an expression of socialism) and the National Socialists’ promotion of Körperkult. 44 The implication that either mistreating or not taking care of one’s body might be anti-revolutionary places a burden on the individual to avail themselves of whatever health care the Party is able to offer. In the context of Dulmaa and her daughter, the one described as ‘a dissolute person’ and the other as ‘a woman under the sway of her mother’s upbringing’, the contrast between the Chinese and monastic medical practitioners they visit and the scientific Western doctor by whom their neighbor Norjin is cured of her own unidentified sickness emphasizes the distinction between the way that forward-thinking and modern Party loyalists should think and behave and the way that older people, for whom the new science might have seemed an unknown and frightening quantity, responded. Namdag’s play presents many approaches to the cost (the word üne in the title can also be translated as ‘value’) of living. The prices exacted by the ‘deceitful’ Chinese doctor Buyandalai and the avaricious monkdoctor Dagdan to find a cure for Gavarmaa’s sickness (unidentified but characterized by sores suspiciously reminiscent of syphilis) are emotional and monetary, yet ineffective. It is only right at the end of the play that Gavarmaa is finally persuaded to visit the Western doctor, whose treatment is free of charge. Even as Dumaa frets about finding a cure, at the play’s center is a conversation between patients in the doctor’s clinic describing the benefits of the new scientific medicine. The number of such clinics in Mongolia had greatly expanded by 1936, but while Namdag’s account – that most of those who attended clinics seeking a cure were in fact sent away – might have been true, what was clearly misleading about the play’s message was the claim that such treatment, though desirable and free at the point of delivery, was always easily accessible to all who might need it. This clinic scene merely extends and reinforces what has already been explained to Gavarmaa by her friend Norjin, the daughter of Dejid and Danzandash, who are described as ‘just and honest’, in direct contrast to 43 Namdag, 1987, p. 86. 44 Both the Hitler Youth and the Soviet Komsomol emphasized fitness and a culture of physical training as an important aspect of political education for young revolutionaries.

262 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Gavarmaa and her mother Dumaa. After the monk-doctor Dagdan leaves, having given Gavarmaa medicine, she breaks down in tears: Norjin: Gavarmaa! What’s happened, what’s all this? [Gavarmaa bows her head, crying.] Gavarmaa: [indistinctly] It’s worse! Everything I take makes it worse. Norjin: Why don’t you give the doctor a chance? There’s no need to worry about going, your body’s nothing to feel ashamed of. Look at me! I was really sick, wasn’t I? The only nasty thing is being with so many people at the doctor’s door. Gavarmaa: That’s nothing. If he cured you, it doesn’t matter – you’re fine now, right? Norjin: Yes, I’m fine. Those nasty things which had appeared immediately disappeared. He gave me an injection. Afterwards he took some blood and tested it, he said that if it gets bad again, he’ll inject me again and get rid of the infection. There’ll be no infection then. That’s what the doctor said.45

Coming directly after the ineffectual visits of the doctors of traditional medicine and just before the scene in the clinic in which further evidence is given of the benefits of Western medicine, this conversation encourages Gavarmaa to consider attending the clinic herself, but it also offers the nudge that members of the audience, sympathetic to Gavarmaa’s predicament, might themselves have needed to take the same step or to talk to family and friends about what they might do. As part of the propaganda mechanism for the burgeoning Soviet-backed health system, Life and the Cost of Living provided a model in Norjin of how the new science could improve the overall health of Mongolians, while at the same time reminding them of the perils of placing their lives in the hands of monastic quacks and charlatans or deceitful and money-grabbing Chinese herbalists. But, as we see from the interaction of Norjin and Gavarmaa, it also reveals how the practical benefits of these messages could be realized through friendship. This kind of soft propaganda runs throughout Namdag’s play, and the dialog that defines and develops the relationships between many of the characters – the girls’ mothers, for instance, or Gavarmaa and the Chinese doctor’s beleaguered servant Büdüün – likewise define and develop, through Namdag’s dialog, ways of understanding what the Party might make possible for those who might not otherwise have encountered it.

45 Namdag, 1987, p. 103.

Life and its Value

263

Namdag’s comments about the works of other writers who during the same period addressed issues around sexual health and social relationships finds especial resonance in this play in the character of Zandanbal. It cannot be coincidental that Namdag gave this character, a woman whose nose has been removed because of the ravages of syphilis, 46 the same name as the prostitute in Yadamsüren’s Three Girls, who leads Has-Erdene on and eventually dies on the streets. But unlike Yadamsüren’s Zandanbal, Namdag’s character, though deeply flawed, brings to the final two scenes the insight that is otherwise missing from the play. It is she who recognizes that her friend Dumaa too is showing signs of syphilis, and her final speech, spoken to Gavarmaa, is the clearest that anyone comes in the drama to identifying the effects of the disease: Your mother was lying near me, her body was sick, she never got up. And then that morning, didn’t I say how she was acting crazy, and raving at me? It was all I could do to get her to the doctor and lie in the clinic. That’s what happens with this disease, of course. 47

Zandanbal’s own deformity, most likely from tertiary gummatous syphilis, represents the same final stage of the disease that Dumaa’s madness (galzuu) or dementia is manifesting. Gavarmaa’s decision, with which the play closes, to go to the doctor for treatment for her own sores that represent the disease’s initial stage and her growing awareness that she has no time to lose acts as another wake-up call for the audience, while she realizes all too late that there is no saving her mother. But although Namdag’s play encouraged his audience to think about their own health and that of the society as a whole, this does not mean that individuals who decided to pursue medical care truly had anywhere to go. As we have seen, even in the late 1930s, there were precious few opportunities to receive care from trained medical practitioners, and for many it might simply have been a choice between taking a chance with a herbalist and receiving no care at all. Indeed, with regard to venereal diseases, it was only during the early 1940s that dedicated clinics were established, and Namdag’s supposedly truthful account fails to mention how rudimentary the treatment available was at that time for the disease. Nonetheless, the gradual if ultimately uncertain fate of the main characters in Life and the Cost 46 This theme is also central to Natsagdorj’s short vignette You’ll Lose Your Nose Flirting, discussed above. 47 Namdag, 1987, p. 131.

264 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

of Living reflects the uncertain level of care afforded to those Mongolians suffering from any serious diseases and also their likelihood of recovery. The ideas of justice, health and the power of human interaction with which this chapter has been concerned speak directly and eloquently to the impact of socialism on Mongolian society during the 1930s. There is no doubt that what we observe through these stories and plays is as much the Party’s stated intentions as the actualization of Party policies. Writers were keen to represent their society so that audiences would recognize themselves and those with whom they lived, while recognizing also the potential for genuine improvement in their lives. The closer Mongolia’s government moved towards the Soviet Union, the greater was the Soviet financial contribution and the greater also Mongolia’s debt. The value of relationships – of friendship as deep as Horolmaa’s for HasErdene or as compromised as Shar’s for Maral, and of family ties such as Maral’s with her father and Gavarmaa’s with her mother – is also the basis upon which the advance of socialism took place. The work of literature during these vital years of the establishment and development of Mongolian socialism was clearly more than the building and consolidation of relationships. But the fact that upon such relationships had been built nomadic herding communities across hundreds if not thousands of years meant that the building of Mongolian socialism required a similar commitment and trust between individuals, families and communities as the mechanism that helped perpetuate the Party. The 1935 story Sambuu Bold hoyor (Sambuu and Bold), 48 by D. Tsevegmid, a 20-year-old writer who would become one of the principal voices in Mongolian literature of the 1940s as well as Mongolia’s Foreign Minister under Yu. Tsedenbal,49 is a work that, though neither especially profound nor elegantly written, speaks of how a relationship formed in childhood can withstand great hardships and separation. On the surface, Sambuu and Bold’s would seem like a story of unspoken love, but perhaps at its root is the deep emotional connection felt by Mongolians for their homeland, for their parents, and for the friendships and experiences of their childhood. Tsevegmid’s narrative supports this connection as an underpinning for Mongolians’ idealized unity as operatives of the Party and co-builders of socialism. Having survived the cruelty of the monastery to which he had been sent, and the death of his mother, Sambuu returns home to find his friend Bold, 48 Tsevegmid, 1956, pp. 78-100. 49 In this capacity, and after years of diplomacy, Tsevegmid guided Mongolia to its accession as a full member of the United Nations on 27 October 1961.

Life and its Value

265

accompanied by a child wearing a red neckerchief. Tsevegmid refers only to ‘the boy in the red neckerchief’, and this character, a member of the Young Pioneers, functions as a representative of the Party within the fictional narrative and a symbol of the Party’s policies to the reader. But the boy in the red neckerchief also acts as the go-between, bringing together Sambuu and Bold in a shared adventure to find education in Ulaanbaatar (reminiscent of Horolmaa and Has-Erdene’s) and bringing together the people and the Party in a mutually beneficial alliance. The boy says, ‘But Sambuu, wouldn’t you like to go to school in the city?’ Sambuu didn’t understand especially well the words city and school, but when he heard only that he would have toys, then toys he was eager to have, and he hurriedly asked question after question, and was told what he could expect. ‘Is this place far away? How do I get there?’ he asked. The boy in the red neckerchief said to him, ‘Oh, Sambuu, you got no benefit in the end from being a monk, but if you go to school, that will be better. Let’s you, Bold and me all go together this autumn’, and although Sambuu knew that such things would be quite impossible, still he deeply wanted to break away from the harsh aggression of Geshé Luvsandandar, the heavy labor and the miserable conditions in the monastery, and for that reason he agreed.50

On 7 October 1936, Tsevegmid was appointed Secretary to the Central Committee of MARL (Mongol Ardin Revolutionist Literaturist).51 Sambuu and Bold remained one of his most popular works, an early example of how literature was responding to Mongolia’s social and ideological dependence upon the Soviets. As the following years unrolled into the Great Repression, with Choibalsan’s grip on power growing in proportion to the closeness of his association with Stalin, so Tsevegmid’s star also rose. We might see the boy in the red neckerchief as Mongolia itself, a Young Pioneer replicating the Soviet Union’s Young Pioneers, a nameless representative leading Sambuu and Bold towards the modern education and social advances that would benefit all Mongolians. But the replacement of Buyannemeh and Yadamsüren in senior positions in the ominously Sovietsounding Central Committee of MARL with younger, more ideologically 50 Tsevgmid, 1956, p. 92. 51 From this date, MARL’s structure became more like that of the Party itself. A Central Committee (töv holboo) was now named, with the following nine members: R. Pürev (chair), D. Tsevegmid (secretary), and Buyannemeh, Dashnyam, Dorjsüren, Jargalsaihan, Sengedorj, Tsedenjav and Yadamsüren as delegates.

266 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

focused writers such as Tsevegmid, whose outlook was more in line with the vision of Choibalsan and Stalin, marked a clear break between the past and the future, not only within Mongolian literature but in Mongolia itself. Within a year, both Buyannemeh and Yadamsüren had been arrested, tried and executed; Mongolia had fallen into step with the Soviet Union; and in art, the shoots of Socialist Realism were beginning to show upon the steppe.

Bibliography Baabar (B-E. Batbayar). Mongol, Mongolchuud, Mongol Oron. Ulaanbaatar: Nepko, 2013. Bao, Muping. ‘Trade Centres (maimaicheng) in Mongolia, and Their Function in Sino-Russian Trade Networks’. In International Journal of Asian Studies, 2 (2006): 211-237. Development of the National Economy and Culture of the Mongolian People’s Republic from 1921 to 1958: A Statistical Compilation. Washington DC: US Joint Publications Research Service, 1960. Engelbrecht, Ernst, and Leo Heller. Kinder der Nacht: Bilder aus dem Verbrecherleben. Berlin: Hermann Paetel Verlag, 1926. Erdene, S. Zohiolchiin hödölmöriin tuhai eregtsüülel. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1986. Gaadamba, M. ‘Negen gaihaltai ögüülliin tuhai’. In Utga, Zohiol Urlag no. 51 (416) 18 December 1964, n.p. Lareau, Alan. The Wild Stage: Literary Cabarets of the Weimar Republic. Columbia SC: Camden House, 1995. Luvsan, B. ‘Orchuulgyn uran zohiol’. In Mongol Sudlal, 1966 Tomus V., Fasc. 13, pp. 53-62. Ma Ho-T’ien. Chinese Agent in Mongolia. Translated by John DeFrancis. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1949. Namdag, D. Tüüver zohiol. vol. 1. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1987. —. Shine Mongolyn shine teatr. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1988. Natsagdorj, D. Zohioluud. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn hevleliin hereg erhleh horoo, 1961. Tsedev, D., and Wang Mandoha, eds. Sonombaljuur-un Buyannemekü, vol.1. Beijing: Ündesüten-ü Heblel-ün Qoriy-a, 2009. Tsevegmid, D. zohiolyn tüüver. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsin Hevleliin Gazar, 1956. Wehrling, Thomas. ‘Die Verhurung Berlins’. In Das Tage-Buch I (6 November 1920): 1381-1318. Wickham-Smith, Simon. Stories from the Steppe: Short Fiction from Mongolia. Ulaanbaatar: MACP, 2012. Yadamsüren, M. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1970.

8

The Great Opportunistic Repression Abstract The chapter gives an account of the trials in October 1937 of the leading writers S. Buyannameh and M. Yadamsüren and shows the effect of the Soviet-style purges on literature at the time. Accusations of spying for the Japanese and of other counterrevolutionary activity meant that very few intellectuals and creative artists were untouched by the trials. Those who were – including writers such as D. Sengee, who was openly supportive of the Party’s trajectory – benefited by replacing those who were executed as well as those who had been removed from their positions. Among some younger writers, an interest in Socialist Realism resulted in an increase in texts about industrialization, the Young Pioneers, the ‘friendship’ between Mongolia and the Soviet Union, and the growing cult of personality surrounding Choibalsan. Keywords: Great Repression, Stalinist purge, Stalin, Young Pioneers, modernization policies

Everyone has a light side and a dark side. When a person dies, the nation’s population, those who are left behind, indeed everything fine which had formed this person, remains. This is why our Mongolian people protect those pure ways which will not disturb those who have died.1

Even before the MPRP initiated the Great Repression (Ih Helmegdel) on 10 September 1937, the political wind was turning against those writers whose political consciousness had been formed by the revolution and towards those younger writers who had known nothing but revolutionary Mongolia and whose work reflected the Party’s ever closer friendship with the Soviet Union. The replacement in 1936 of Buyannemeh and Yadamsüren at the head of MARL with the likes of D. Tsevegmid, who was made secretary at just 21 1

Baast, 2012, p. 277.

Wickhamsmith, Simon, Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948). Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984752_ch08

268 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

years of age, was evidence of the ideological cracks that were appearing in the reputation of more established writers. The movement of Mongolia towards the Soviet Union reflected the movement Choibalsan was making towards Stalin, and those who appeared to resist or even question Choibalsan’s ascendency – and, in time, the cult of personality that grew around him as it already had around Stalin – were gradually stripped of power and, in many cases, eliminated. As in the Soviet Union, intellectuals and creative artists were primary targets. As the foregoing chapters have shown, writers such as Buyannemeh, Ayuush and Yadamsüren, who were targeted during the Great Repression, had used their literary skills to promote and develop the trajectory of the revolution among the nomadic herders on the steppe as they had among the Ulaanbaatar elite, and yet their contribution – like the contribution of Natsagdorj, whose demise would prove almost more tragic and inglorious than theirs – was rendered meaningless and invisible by the Party’s condemnation of them and by the swift rise of those who would take their places. The executions of Marshal Demid and Prime Minister Genden 2 in August and November of 1937 respectively, the one by poisoning on the Trans-Siberian railway, the other by firing squad in Moscow, left Choibalsan’s seizure of power a fait accompli. Choibalsan served as Minister of the Interior from 1936 until 1940 and, following Stalin’s lead, used these executions and the Great Repression as a whole to consolidate his position. Part of this process was the development of a cult around the axis of Sühbaatar and Choibalsan, which mirrored the Soviet axis of Lenin and Stalin, and it was made clear to those writers who remained alive in 1938 that theirs was an obligation to write encomia not only for the Party but also for its current leader Choibalsan and for its mythicized ancestral leader Sühbaatar. The effect on literature of these acts of repression and censorship, as we will see in this and the final chapter, resulted in a highly restricted thematic palette, and yet there remained in the work of more creative writers a strength of vision that held both lyricism and power, even in the description of tractor combines and of the many and varied aspects of Soviet-Mongolian friendship. During the late 1930s, a time of fear and uncertainty for even those writers most loyal to the Party, experiments in Mongolian Socialist 2 G. Demid (1900-1937) died as a Marshal in the Mongolian army and was serving as the Minister of War. The exact circumstances of his death remain a mystery to this day. P. Genden (1892/5-1937) had been removed from his position as Prime Minister in March 1936. He was ‘invited’ to the USSR in April 1936 for ‘medical reasons’, and spent a year in the Black Sea resort of Foros before being arrested again in summer 1937.

The Great Opportunistic Repression

269

Realism were published alongside more traditional work, allowing for the continuance of a type of freedom that had already been banished from Soviet literature.3 Natsagdorj was not himself a victim of the purge, but the circumstances of his final years speak to the nature of the repression that the Party was soon to enact. Since returning to Mongolia from Germany in 1929, he had continued to write and to translate from Russian. He had also, perhaps as a result of his time in the politically and socially liberal milieu of Weimar Germany, become more critical of the MPRP’s policies. He had been imprisoned between June and October of 1932 and later, under constant scrutiny by the authorities, had begun to drink heavily. Natsagdorj’s output in 1936 was scant, but the fact that a poem, ‘A History Poem’ (Tüühiin shüleg), 4 was published in the cultural journal Shine toli indicates that his work remained acceptable to the Party. This poem might be seen as parallel to ‘My Homeland’,5 focusing this time on the history of Mongolia. The last of the poem’s eight verses hints that Natsagdorj might have had an alternative interpretation in mind, one that managed to escape the censors: While the world of the hangai remains the same, people’s ways are greatly changed. To look at our future path, the road ahead is progressive. With foreign aggression so extreme, the people’s revolution has appeared. It struggles to create peace among the population.

Had this been the work of a poet whose loyalty to the Party remained unchallenged, this would be a straightforward statement of commitment to the revolutionary project and to fighting the foreign aggression of Japan. Given Natsagdorj’s growing disaffection with the Party, however, formulae such as ‘progressive’ (davshiltai), and the struggle for peace in the face of ‘foreign aggression’ (hariin hönööl), suggests rather a covert call for resistance, a feeling on his part that the Soviet Union was beginning to lean too heavily on Mongolia. 3 For a full account of the Stalinist Purge in the Soviet Union, no more comprehensive a history exists than Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror: A Reassessment (Conquest, 1990). Chapter 10, ‘On the Cultural Front’ (pp. 291-307) details the effect of the purge on Soviet culture. 4 Natsagdorj, 1961, pp. 192-193. 5 See the discussion of this poem in Chapter 3.

270 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

In 1937, the Soviets celebrated the centenary of Alexander Pushkin’s death, and Natsagdorj’s final work of translation seems to have been Pushkin’s 1816 poem ‘Awakening’ (Probuzhdenie) for publication in a commemorative volume.6 The translation is faithful to the original in all but its final lines, where Pushkin’s poetic death (‘And in the morning,/intoxicated once more,/ let me die,/without awakening’) is transformed into Natsagdorj’s somehow far bleaker and far less poetic sentiment: ‘And in the morning,/drunk once more, let me die.’7 While the emotional power of Pushkin’s poem lies in the narrator waking to find his ‘joyful dream vanished’ yet in ‘the still night/ around my bed’, these dreams might signify for Natsagdorj the promise of the revolution, dissipated in the political darkness of the 1930s: the final lines have, then, by morning conjured a drunken death, an utter loss of consciousness to rid himself of the sadness of his life.8 Sadness had engulfed Natsagdorj’s personal life as well as his relations with the Party. His Russian wife, Nina Ivanovna Chistyakova, and their one-year-old daughter Ananda Shiri, had returned to Leningrad in 1935, according to some because he had taken to drink and clandestine affairs, and to others because Nina’s visa had expired.9 And then, on 8 February 1937, Natsagdorj was arrested on falsified charges and sentenced to five months of hard labor. Amid all the confusion of his final years, there is some uncertainty as to when the text often identified as his final work, ‘The Lamp’ (Zul),10 was written. Here, though, in a few lines, he presents a strange expressionistic love story mediated by an electric light. As soon as he opened the door of the large room, two vague fingers of candlelight appeared, and the interest of this guest who had come from 6 Natsagdorj, 1961, pp. 203-204. 7 I poutru/Vnovi upoennii/Puskai umru/Neprobuzhdenii in Pushkin’s Russian becomes, in Natsagdorj’s translation, Ingeed öglöögüür/Bas sogtuuran ühsügei gene. 8 See also Sandag and Kendall (2000, p. 146) for a brief discussion on Natsagdorj’s last translations. 9 Natsagdorj’s family led a troubled and itinerant life. His first wife, D. Pagmadulam (1907?1938), who like him had been selected to study in Berlin, had left him possibly because of his relationship with Nina (see also Mendsaihan, 2016). Nina herself, memorialized in his 1930 short story ‘Dark Cliffs’, was born in 1909, but the date of her death is uncertain; Ananda Shiri, who was born in 1934, taught engineering in Tallinn, Estonia and died in Ulaanbaatar in 1995, having been granted Mongolian citizenship in 1986. 10 Natsagdorj, 1961, p. 232. Whereas this 1961 volume claims 1937 as the composition date, Tsedev (2016, vol.1, pp. 308-309) includes Natsagdorj’s manuscript, dated 15 January 1931, suggesting either a simple editorial error or else a desire (for whatever reason) by the author or the State to rewrite history.

The Great Opportunistic Repression

271

a great distance was lost, he was most unhappy, but soon a young woman came in from the room beyond, and as soon as she switched on the electric light, a lamp also lit up within his heart, his mind grew happy and he took up a pen and began to compose a poem.

In this brief scene, Natsagdorj teases us with the shadowy language of the unconscious, the emotional force of passion, the inchoate qualities that attach themselves to unnamed visitors, the collapse of distance, the intertwining of the ancient world and the modern in the flickering candle and the stark electric light, and the power of love to kindle poetry. Through the emotional intensity of expressionism, he directs the reader’s gaze towards the unseen and unexpressed focus of the text, the poem itself, as yet unwritten, just as in Haranhui Had (Dark Cliffs)11 the unseen focus of the narrative had been the narrator’s beloved, Nina. We are left wondering what the narrator’s poem might be about and for whom it is to be written, and this in turn focuses our minds upon Natsagdorj’s own circumstances at this time. If ‘The Lamp’ was, indeed, Natsagdorj’s final work, it hints at questions both psychological and literary, but it also allows for a sense that, when he met his untimely end on 7 July 1937, 31 years old, drunk and slumped against the fence of the Mongolian State Theater, he felt himself ready to write more. In much the same way that writers and intellectuals in their late teens and early 20s, such as Chimid Dungaryn, Natsagdorj and Buyannemeh, had been at the cultural forefront of the revolution 15 years earlier, so now, as Choibalsan and Stalin brought Mongolia and the Soviet Union inexorably closer, a new generation was beginning to focus its creative forces upon the fruits of this closer partnership. This younger generation had been raised during the 1920s and had benef ited from the initial focus on education and social care, f inanced in part by the Soviet Union, which had provided the ideological impetus for works such as Damdinsüren’s ‘The Rejected Girl’ and Natsagdorj’s pieces on health and social welfare. Writers such as Ts. Tsedenjav (born in 1914), L. Tsend-Ochir (born in 1915), D. Tsevegmid (born in 1915), D. Sengee (born in 1916), M. Chimid (born in 1919) and B. Baast (born in 1921), who were beginning in the final years of the 1930s to explore ideas of literature and to develop their own literary styles, were also actively 11 Natsagdorj, 1961, pp. 218-222. For insights into the psychology of Dark Cliffs, which can also be applied to Natsagdorj’s other works, see Tsendjav (2017) and Batsuuri (2018).

272 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

beginning to situate themselves politically and to observe the changing fortunes of their elders. The idea that youth was best placed to renew the culture had emerged through the Revolutionary Youth Union. In 1936, Choibalsan appointed Sengee, who was himself just 20, to be an interrogator for the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Dotood Yaam),12 in which position he rose to become the de facto leader of the new generation of writers. Sengee’s reputation for brutality was such that he was known as ‘the dog’ (nohoi): on one occasion, he was found in a room nursing a blooded fist, with Buyannemeh lying on the ground with blood pouring from his face.13 But Sengee was also a sensitive poet, and his influential position within the literary scene was not without justification. In this same year of 1936, Sengee wrote Margaash Irne (I’ll Come Tomorrow)14: Pure-minded Hasag, for whom are you waiting, gazing at the distance? Your merry husband has gone now, battling against the winds of the Altai. As the eagle’s wings rise into the air, the woman’s cloak rise against the wind. Don’t hurry, dear lady, We’ll meet together, I’ll come tomorrow. In winter’s cold, the fox-fur hat gives protection, warms your face. The car’s rumbling chugging motor is music among bright voices. Eagerly I’ll call you, on the road amid the hail. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow’ – We’ll run across each other on the road. 12 The Dotood Yaam was the Mongolian equivalent of the Soviet NKVD, and its nogoon tsamts, or ‘green shirts’ were its secret police. Sengee’s close relationship with Choibalsan afforded him considerable power. With respect to the Great Repression, Bawden’s analysis of Mongolian internal affairs is striking: ‘in and after 1936, effective power in Mongolia was in the hands of the NKVD, and so ultimately of Stalin, for some years’. (Bawden, 1989, p. 331). 13 Personal communication, D. Tsedev, 2008. 14 Sengee, 1978, p. 145.

The Great Opportunistic Repression

273

Sengee would continue to write lyrical verses throughout his time at the Dotood Yaam (Interior Ministry), writing political poetry as a f iercely loyal supporter of Choibalsan’s regime as well as strikingly beautiful love poetry and poetry of the natural world of the kind described in Chapter Three. The complexity of his character was described by Baast, who f irst met him in 1942 and who said that, ‘while he was sharp and proud, we understood this as his way, and I ought to say that Sengee had a magic which left him with contentment in his heart and clarity in his mind’.15 But as a poet whose influence had been established partly through Choibalsan’s agency, he was able, as his style developed, to express his loyalty to the revolution by promoting Socialist Realism and to convey his loyalty to Mongolia by conjuring the ancestors and the spirits of the landscape and by engaging in a politically charged yet popular and romantic lyricism. The technologies of Socialist Realism, which had initiatlly been developed in the Soviet Union in 1934, were introduced more slowly in Mongolia, but elements in the process by which it became fixed within the cultural ideology were put in place early. The red neckerchief (ulaan büch) of the Pioneer movement had already been mentioned in D. Tsevegmid’s story Bold and Sambuu16 in 1935, and soon poems were appearing such as M. Chimid’s ‘The Pioneers’ (Pionyer, 1937):17 Ties of revolutionary red lend beauty to their small chests, these young people of the revolutionary age raise their arms in salute. Their dear precious bodies are like flowers, ready always to pledge themselves to the revolutionary future. The fierce call of the bright drum matches their marching steps, the sound of melodious bugles plays out the pacing of their music. 15 Baast, 2012, p. 294. 16 See the discussion of this text in Chapter 7. 17 Baatar, 2012, p. 112.

274 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Their fine ringing voices ring like flutes, these bright young people are many in our revolutionary land.

Chimid, at 18, was no longer a Pioneer, but in these direct and powerful verses, he copied the Soviet predilection for uplifting and exhortatory poetry, simultaneously describing and promoting the virtues and the excitement of being a Pioneer through a set of sensory images. He had been trained as a teacher, and as his contemporary D. Süriyee (born in 1918) later remembered, around the time he wrote ‘The Pioneers’ and following his qualification, he ‘became the leader of our literary group, and would speak to us about what literature was, and what the aim of Mongolian literature was, and would read beautifully from the works of D. Natsagdorj’.18 The sentiments of poems such as these echoed some of the texts composed during the ‘left deviationist’ period, but different now were the frequent references – whether direct or indirect – to the revolutionary culture of the Soviet Union. The word pionyer itself is Russian. At the same time as he wrote ‘The Pioneers’, Chimid also wrote ‘Pioneer Camp’ (Pionyeriin lageri),19 a celebration of Mongolian youth in the countryside which, while mentioning nothing about politics nor even about the development of young revolutionaries, is a poem aimed at deepening the relationship between Mongolia and the Soviet Union. This relationship resonated beyond the personal – the point at which the youth who expected to be Mongolia’s future were encouraged to increase their commitment through the Pioneer movement – and expanded into the economic and industrial spheres. Has-Erdene’s bus journey to Ulaanbaatar in Yadamsüren’s Three Girls and the conversations among cars and trains in Buyannemeh’s dialogs had engaged readers with the mechanized travel they increasingly saw around them, but no explicit remarks had been made about the Soviet provenance of these vehicles. Now, however, the acknowledgement of beneficent Soviet intervention in Mongolia and its promotion in speeches and in the media was becoming more widespread. In the poem Gaihamshigt Tyehnik (Wondrous Engineering, 1938) written 18 Süriyee, 1969, p. 37. Note that Natsagdorj, who had died from natural causes, remained an acceptable model. Those writers executed as counterrevolutionaries, such as Buyannameh and Yadamsüren, would not be accorded such a position of influence until their rehabilitation during the early 1960s. 19 Baatar, 2012, p. 113.

The Great Opportunistic Repression

275

by Ch. Lhamsüren (1917-1979),20 it is only when an enticing image of speedy and efficient vehicles has been created in the reader’s mind that the source of this engineering is mentioned: A wealth of nuts and bolts, turning quickly, with strong fine wheels it moves under benzine’s power. […] Along the broad fine streets it hurries swiftly, with a powerful agile motor, the nuts and bolts rattle and turn. […] This is fine and beneficial engineering, with help from the Soviets. It is used, specifically, for the protection of the nation.

Lhamsüren’s poem represented the initial movement towards cultural assimilation with the Soviet Union and pref igured decades of utopian and exaggerated claims made by writers with regard to the friendship (nairamdal) between the two countries. This is not to suggest, however, that texts like Lhamsüren’s were in every respect bombastic: rather, they oscillated between realism and representation (the ‘powerful agile motor’, the ‘nuts and bolts’) and a kind of deference, infantilized and emasculated by language that referenced the ‘motherland’ and her ‘unselfish assistance’. Such were the stirrings in Mongolia of Socialist Realism. It is a cruel irony that, at the same time that the likes of Lhamsüren and Chimid were exploring the potential of Mongolia’s youth and its movement towards the Soviet Union, it was Stalin and Choibalsan who were engineering the elimination of the most prominent literary figures in their respective countries, writers who 20 Lhamsüren, 1967, p. 4.

276 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

had worked assiduously to advance through literature both the revolution and the dynamic and innovative ideas the revolution sought to promote. The Great Repression began barely two months after Natsagdorj’s death. On 24 August 1937, a three-man delegation arrived from Moscow comprising the Deputy Minister of Defense V.V. Smirnov, the Deputy Commissar of the NKVD (People’s Commisariat for Internal Affairs) M.P. Frinovsky and the newly appointed ambassador to Mongolia, S.N. Mironov.21 A few days later, Frinovsky handed to Choibalsan a list of 115 individuals whom Genden had named under interrogation as Japanese spies. Among these names were Buyannemeh and Yadamsüren.22 On 9 September, Yadamsüren, together with the other representatives who had been sent to work with the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Government to effect the separation of Inner Mongolia from China, were recalled by a telegram from the deputy Foreign Minister M. Dugarjav. Buyannemeh was seized in the initial group of arrests made on 10 September. The following day, he was interrogated for the first time and gave a detailed account of what he had been doing that autumn. He said that there had been five people sharing a ger – his wife Haltarhüü, his younger brother, another woman who might have been Haltarhüü’s mother, Buyannemeh himself, and the unidentified owner of the ger. He then wrote down the names of ten people he knew well, and said of these ten, I met almost every day with these people, whether on official business or in a personal capacity, and the majority of them were people with whom I had worked previously on official business. I worked hard for the Mongolian revolutionary government, as much as I was able, and in carrying out this work I made some mistakes. Other than this, I don’t believe that I have committed a crime, whether in terms of the law or in revolutionary matters. However, I think that I would not have been arrested without a cause.

Buyannemeh had previously been arrested in 1932 on the pretext of drunkenness but had immediately been handed over to the Interior Ministry. During his imprisonment, which lasted from 10 March to 24 September, 21 Pyotr Aleksandrovitch Smirnov (1897-1939), Mikhail Petrovitch Frinovsky (1898-1940) and Sergei Naumovitch Mironov (1894-1940) would all be victims of Stalin’s purges. 22 The following accounts of Buyannemeh and Yadamsüren’s trials are based upon the information contained in Rinchin, 2010, vol.5 pp. 90-108 and vol.4, pp. 280-295, respectively.

The Great Opportunistic Repression

277

and which resulted in his being found guilty of, in his own words, ‘opposing the Comintern and the Mongolian revolution’ and ‘putting my hands and feet to work for the violent foreign [Chinese] forces’, he gave extensive accounts of his interactions with Merse,23 with whom he had worked on the establishment of the Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party. Buyannemeh’s interest in and support for pan-Mongolism complicated his relationship with the Party and led to accusations, which he denied, that he favored breaking with the Soviet Union and forging closer links with China. In a testimony of 11 February 1932 given to D. Namsrai,24 who was the Chief of the Interior Ministry, an associate of Buyannemeh’s named Gombojav had claimed, among other things, that Buyannemeh had said of Stalin that he was ‘a know-nothing idiot’ (yum ch medehgüi teneg mal) who didn’t know how to use ‘scholars like Trotsky’, and that he had implied that the Soviet Union, which he described as being ‘no better than any other foreign country’, was exerting an undue influence over Mongolia. While it had clearly been such damning evidence that had led to Buyannemeh’s arrest towards the end of the ‘leftist deviation’, the same charges were used against him in 1937, at a time when closer relations with the Soviet Union and the rise of Stalin made any suggestion of disaffectedness or disloyalty dangerous. On September 13, he was brought before the interrogators for a second time and was asked about his time in Inner Mongolia. When asked with whom he had met, he repeated what he had said in 1932. When I came back to my own country, I went with Merse and Bathishig and stayed fifteen days in Ulaanbaatar. Merse was a true revolutionary, and when we had first made one another’s acquaintance it seemed that he was making strenuous efforts for the independence of the Barga people. I understand that one of Rinchino’s25 close associates had heard that 23 Merse (or Mersentei) was a Daur Mongol from Hulunbur. Born in 1894, he became engaged in the pan-Mongol movement with both Mongolia and the Soviet Union and was responsible for designing a Latin script (although not the one used today, which is founded upon pīnyīn) for the Daur language. His eventual fate is unclear, but KGB files suggest that he was charged with spying for Inner Mongolia and taken to the Soviet Union, where he was sent to the gulag in 1934. For an account of Buyannemeh’s involvement with the Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, see Atwood, 2002, passim. 24 D. Namsrai (1895-1937) was Chief of the Interior Ministry from 1932 until 1936. He served briefly as ambassador to Tuva and was executed in 1937. 25 Rinchino (Rinchingiin Elbegdorj, 1888-1938) was a Buryat revolutionary who, having been educated in St. Petersburg, played a significant part in the establishment of the MPRP and in forging its connections with the revolutionary government in the Soviet Union. The pan-Mongolism he promoted at the MPRP’s Third Congress in 1924 led to his being recalled to Moscow in 1928,

278 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Merse and I, together with Rinchino, were talking about establishing a Daur government. In the end, Merse went over to Zhang Zuolin’s side,26 and I heard that he got a position as one of his ministers.27

On September 14, Buyannemeh was interrogated for the third time. He was asked again about his relations with Merse, who in 1928 had led a rebellion of the Barga people in his hometown of Hulunbur. ‘Thinking that our Mongolia would unite with the Barga and Inner Mongol people’, he replied, ‘I went abroad to make preparation for this and worked for revolution among the Barga and in Inner Mongolia.’ The organizers of this armed uprising had been promised assistance by a Comintern agent named Stepanov. However, the Comintern denied that such a deal had been made and arrested Merse’s associates in Ulaanbaatar. Merse’s peace with Zhang Zuolin came as a direct result of his weakened position. Unable to gain their independence, those Barga who supported the independence movement fled to Mongolia. Buyannemeh’s statement suggests that there was far more in his mind than simply helping the Barga. I thought that the cultural connection with the Buryat Mongols could be closer through the adoption there of the Mongol script, and I imagined also bringing Mongols from further away onto the path of revolution. I told the Comintern representative Ochirjav28 that, if he agreed, I would go to the Buryat Mongols and assist the cultural work in that area. Soon after, I was sent there by the Party’s Central Committee, and I worked teaching Mongolian language to the student-teachers on the academic committee, and in newspaper publication.

Buyannemeh’s commitment to pan-Mongolism during the 1920s reflects the traditional idea of the Mongol homeland (nutag), even as it fails to take account of the political manoeuvering that defined the Party’s relationships where he subsequently taught at the KUTV. He was executed in June 1938, during the Stalinist purges. 26 Zhang Zuolin (1875-1928) was the warlord of Manchuria (1916-1928). He supported the reestablishment of the Qing dynasty and in 1924 successfully invaded Beijing. He was subsequently defeated by the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek in May 1928 and killed by a bomb set by a Japanese army officer on 4 June. 27 In fact, Merse became Zhang’s personal secretary for a while, after the two had made peace in 1929. 28 This is likely to have been a mistake (by Buyannemeh or by the editor of the source text). The person is most probably Aleksander Ivanovich Oshirov, a Comintern representative with whom we know Buyannemeh worked closely. See Atwood, 1994.

The Great Opportunistic Repression

279

with China and the Soviet Union. This first session on 14 September appears to have brought to a close the interrogation concerning his relationship with pan-Mongolism. It was also on 14 September that Yadamsüren and those others who had been recalled by Dugarjav were straightaway arrested as they crossed the border into Mongolia at Altanbulag, a border so porous that it is described as ‘silken’ (torgon). When Buyannemeh was interrogated later that day, his questioners shifted to more pressing concerns about Mongolia’s relations with Japan and his association with the former Prime Minister Genden. The detail and consistency of his responses with the accusations that had already been made against Genden suggest that they were either extracted by torture or prepared for him to sign. In 1934, I was first recruited by the former Prime Minister Genden with the aim of destroying the revolutionary government and, with the support of Japan, of uniting all the Mongol people, and I was a member of the group set up to form an anti-revolutionary government. Genden said to me, ‘How do you view the country and the situation today? The majority of the Japanese army has been armed and is coming to Inner Mongolia. At some time, it will arrive here in Mongolia. So do you think that our Mongolia will overcome Japan?’ I answered that Mongolia had a powerful alliance with the Soviet Union, but Genden said that that was not the case. He said, ‘You are thinking foolishly. The Soviet Union will defeat Japan, but our goods will be destroyed. Do you not think so? The advice and warnings from the Soviets is given in order to disparage the monks inside the country and the religion. Because of this, all the monks and the people are upset, and so the situation here is extremely tense’, and he said that he was concerned about this. He said, ‘We should destroy our own government in advance of the Japanese entry and prepare to join with the Japanese. My work is to strengthen this, and so I am bringing together a group of powerful and like-minded individuals. I am trusting you with this. It is of the utmost importance. Since you’re someone who can write, I am giving you this important work. What do you think?’ I suggested that I was scared at being given this authority, but I was minded to join and work to this end. Genden continued, ‘We need to exploit the reputation which strengthens the state. After the new turn of events, the people will have faith in me and will refer to me as a Buddha.’ In publishing the newspaper, my fame grew, and I stopped writing about the Soviet Union,

280 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

and I had to be quite harsh in my comments about what was happening on the borders and about how Japan was over-running Inner Mongolia and China. The roots of this lay in the fact that in 1934 I had published a poem praising Genden in Ündesnii Erh newspaper.29 I assembled pieces about the victory of the Japanese army and wrote them up in the newspaper. In 1935, I went for a vacation at Hujirt, and in the mountains south of there, Genden organized a meeting of anti-revolutionaries, and there were about ten of us in all. Genden told me, ‘There was a struggle on the east and west, and some people were shocked because of provocation by the Soviets. The friendship between us is not bad, it is perfectly adequate. So these few have come to join our group.’ So he told me the names of the ten or so who were the members of our group, and the significance of our oath: ‘We are of one mind. Truth is truth. The gods will support us. We are carrying out the work of truth in Mongolia. It follows from the absolute truth’. I told him I would forget about all that we had discussed.

The following day, 15 September, Buyannemeh wrote an affirmation that his previous testimony had been true and that Genden had been working at the behest of foreign nationals through the Deputy Foreign Minister G. Sambuu. Sambuu, in fact, had also been arrested in the first wave of arrests on the night of 10 September and was subsequently convicted during the same show trial, held on October 18-20, at which Yadamsüren was convicted. Over the course of eight separate testimonies given on 16 September, Buyannemeh said that he had met with Genden sometime during 1934 in Genden’s office. The New Turn had been set in place, and we would work to make Mongolia independent of Soviet influence, and in this we would now chase away the Soviets who were occupying the country and clean up Mongolia. By saying we would ‘clean up’ Mongolia, I meant that we would expel all the White Russians from the country and train people to work with us, and the way of reducing the number of discussing voices to one was to put pressure on their work, to draw in and so destroy the countries which were involved with Russian power, which would lead to the block on goods from Russia being lifted. 29 No poem matching this description is included in Tsedev and Wang, 2009. Buyannemeh was editor of Ündsesnii Erh at the time, and it is not impossible that ‘evidence’ such as this might have been added to this testimony in order to discredit him further.

The Great Opportunistic Repression

281

Buyannemeh had gone abroad, he said, to meet and discuss this with Merse. This statement linked him with the Inner Mongols living in Mongolia, and because there was evidence that the Inner Mongolians were spying for the Japanese, Buyannemeh, in part through his association with Genden and Demid, was inevitably condemned as an anti-revolutionary and a Japanese agent. The brutally effective pressure of Buyannemeh’s interrogation reflects his status as one of Mongolia’s leading intellectuals and his influential place at the intersection of revolutionary politics and culture. The process against the equally influential Yadamsüren began in earnest on 20 September, with an extensive interrogation recorded by the head of the Interior Ministry’s political department J. Bayasgalan.30 In spring last year [1936], at the end of May, when I was a teacher at the Party’s school, I went to Marshal Demid’s home to ask him to confirm that he had said that Minister Battömör31 should make me Director of the Central Theater. The head of the Kombinat, Puntsag, was there too, and we exchanged greetings and sat down together. While we were talking, I asked my question of Demid, and he said, ‘Do you trust me implicitly? Do you feel respect for Marshal Choibalsan and the leaders of the Central Committee, or do you get the impression that they’re lying?’ I said that I trusted him as a close friend, but I asked my question once more. He said, ‘Are you Tseveen Jamtsarano’s student? What do you think of his pan-Mongol ideas?’ I replied that I wasn’t his student but that I knew him fairly well. I said I thought his ideas were wrong. Demid said, ‘You really are a cold fellow. You shouldn’t be so weak. I was thinking that I would support and help you however you need. Your mind must be one-pointed. You need to be without fear and free from distractions. But what do you think of the abstract and concrete in Marxist thought?’ I replied that I thought that Japan’s idea was correct, that Mongolians should be united, but I suddenly got worried and added reasons why this might not be correct. Demid laughed loudly, he said, ‘Yes, that shows that you don’t have conviction. I think that it is the correct view. How can Mongolia be a country when the strength of its people is so lackluster? They will never have the hands of others beneath their feet. Our fine military agrees with 30 J. Bayasgalan (1909-1941) had also been involved in the suppression of the leaders of the uprising at Rashaant in Hövsgöl in 1932 (see Chapter 6). 31 Ts. Battömör (1904-1937) was the Minister for Education.

282 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

my opinion. And in the Soviet Union too there are comrades who feel that I am right. […] You need to protect this idea with conviction. Don’t mention this to anyone. If it leaks out they’ll laugh and say you’re right. Don’t worry right now. Genden’s gone, he’ll not come after you now. You can work now at the Theater for my good friend Battömör. You’ll go with Sambuu32 to work on the Manchurian agreement. Please finish what Sambuu talked about.’ Thus I was brought into Demid’s counterrevolutionary group. Demid said to me, ‘You should read the newspapers from Manchuria and find out what the real situation is. The Soviet newspapers only report one side, but we must know what is really true.’

Yadamsüren’s literary reputation was clearly useful to the government, and in being accused of being part of Demid’s counterrevolutionary group, he was forced to acknowledge at least the appearance of complicity through his position as Director of the Central Theater. At the conclusion of that day’s interrogation, he said that Demid had given him three assignments: to prolong the work on the agreement by whatever means necessary, to acquaint himself with the newspapers published in Manchuria and so find out what was really happening, and to discover how the Japanese and the Manchurians were communicating, both politically and more generally. Yadamsüren claimed that Demid had on three occasions given him these instructions in written form, but no such documentary evidence has ever come to light. The following day, 21 September, he was asked what the final goal was for the counterrevolutionary group and how he himself had intended to realize these goals. It was nothing more than putting into practice, with the help of foreign countries, Tseveen Jamtsarano’s idea of uniting the Mongol people as one since, if they did not increase in number, they would not become a large and powerful nation. It was important that, by separating from the Soviet Union and receiving support from Japan, all Mongolians could come together and become one nation. If Mongolia remained as it was, the people would finally become weak, and the name of Mongolia would cease to exist. For this reason, we would secretly work together and receive Japanese assistance, and so realize this plan. Sambuu and I were entertained by the Japanese, and we revealed to the Japanese that we understood that Had, a Barga who had given us information, was a 32 G. Sambuu (1904-1937) was a commander in the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Army, an assistant to the Prime Minister, and deputy minister of Foreign Affairs.

The Great Opportunistic Repression

283

spy for the Permanent Consul and had pretended to be a diplomat, and so he was arrested by the Japanese.

In the late 1950s, after Stalin’s death and during the initial period of inquiry into the first 14 cases of the Great Repression, which included not only Yadamsüren’s but also both Sambuu’s and Battömör’s,33 an examination of the case concerning this Barga named Had showed that he had in fact been arrested because the Japanese feared that he would incite a rebellion among the Manchu. It seems most likely that, as with many such ‘statements’ made by individuals accused during this period, Yadamsüren’s had been fabricated by his interrogators in an attempt to make their charges stick. Yadamsüren was questioned and tortured for many days and nights without sleep, with interrogators taking shifts to ask him questions that had been prepared previously. On 1 October, he finally admitted that Demid had been ‘a counterrevolutionary and an enemy of the people’. It appears from what those who survived reported that he had finally decided to capitulate, to speak out against both Demid and Genden, in order to escape the relentless interrogation and torture. Yadamsüren’s was one of the public trials held between 18 and 20 October in the Central Theater, of which he was still officially the Director. The defendants were given good food so as to give the impression that they were being treated well. The charges and sentences were delivered by the Head of the Supreme Court, G. Danshiitsoodol,34 who presided over the trial. The charges were that the accused ‘had worked with the assistance of the Japanese to create a pan-Mongolian state which united all Mongolians’ and that they were part of ‘a counterrevolutionary spy network headed by Genden and Demid’. The following are Yadamsüren’s final words before he was taken to be executed: I, Yadamsüren, have turned away from the ard class and from the Mongolian motherland, I have sold myself to foreign aggressors, and have become their slave and an enemy of the people. Through the kindness of the 33 The remaining eleven were the ethnic Barga and Division Head at the Interior Ministry Ts. Ölzii (1881-1937), Demid’s deputy L. Darijav (1891-1937), member of the Baga Hural B.Lamjav (1895-1937), Head of Military Handcraft B. Ochirbat (1896-1937), Head of Co-operatives Yo. Jigjid (1898-1937), government secretary Ch. Ölzii-Ochir (1900-1937), member of the MPRP Central Committee D. Yandag (1902-1937), Director of the headquarters of the Army Ministry J. Malj (1904-1937), Head of Dornod aimag O. Shagdar (1904-1938), head of the military hospital L. Dendev (1904-1937), and chief of the Armored Brigade D. Jamiyanjav (1905-1937). See Sandag and Kendall, 2000, pp.103-115. 34 G. Danshiitsoodol (1905-1941) was himself arrested in 1939 and accused of being a Japanese spy and a member of the Gendun-Demid counterrevolutionary group. He was executed in late July 1941.

284 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

people I have become educated. Now, I have exploited my revolutionary education in Mongolia for this counterrevolutionary work. The power of Mongolia’s revolutionary law must quickly make such factions kneel. Because the sentence for what I have done is fitting, I accept gladly what has been said by the prosecutor, who represents the people. Indeed, I accept gladly whatever sentence may be handed down. Because of the activities I have carried out against the Mongolian government and people, and against the Mongolian army, everyone should feel hatred and loathing for me. But I have spoken up for my own protection, and because of my education, both at home and abroad, thanks to the kindness of the Mongolian revolution, should the red thread of my life be preserved, I affirm that, while my insignificant body still has flesh and blood, I will carry out the correct work of the revolution in purifying the poison not only of crimes such as these but of all counterrevolutionary activities.

Yadamsüren’s ‘confession’, like those of the other accused, had been prepared with little expectation that he might be spared. As it turned out, 13 of the 1435 were executed at midnight on 21 October. They were taken away in a covered truck, under armed guard, to the far side of Songino Hairhan mountain, west of Ulaanbaatar, and there, forced to their knees and with their heads covered, they were shot one by one. According to the historian Baabar, the Soviets forced the leadership ‘to attend the executions, and so instill horror in their hearts. Choibalsan, intoxicated, swaggered with his pistol, he cursed and shouted revolutionary slogans. He personally directed the executions. In contrast, Prime Minister Amar silently shed tears.’36 By whatever means Buyannemeh’s admission had in the end been procured, his interrogation was halted four days after these initial executions, on 25 October, on the assurance that he would compose a detailed confession. When his sentence was handed down, it offered a variation on what had been heard at the show trial earlier that week: The defendant Buyannemeh admits that he published texts from an antirevolutionary organization, against the Party and the government, in 35 Shagdar was spared death and given a ten-year prison sentence for what was considered to be a lesser role in the counterrevolutionary activities. It appears that he was tried again in 1938, which led to his execution. 36 Baabar, 2000, pp. 361-362.

The Great Opportunistic Repression

285

newspapers and other publications, with the express intention of putting into action the aims of his own oppositionist group. First in 1934, he was recruited by Genden and became a leading member of the opposition group, and then twice in the summer of 1935, he took part in secret meetings, in a place called Rashaan and in Ulaanbaatar, where he took part in discussion and activity connected with the realization of the group’s objectives.

It has been suggested that Buyannemeh’s death sentence was in fact commuted as he was being led to his execution. Apparently, some of his friends had petitioned Choibalsan to grant a stay, but the details of Choibalsan’s personal order, delivered by telephone, somehow failed to be communicated to the guards escorting Buyannemeh, and the sentence was carried out nonetheless. There are rumors that Sengee himself took the call and chose to ignore Choibalsan’s orders,37 but there exists no evidence for this, nor does it seem likely that someone with such deep regard for Choibalsan (unless his hatred for Buyannemeh was greater) would have dared to ignore his orders. Yadamsüren was rehabilitated on 13 February 1962 and Buyannemeh on 16 November 1962. Neither case, it was decided, had any validity, and both trials had been conducted in violation of the law at the time. In one of Yadamsüren’s final poems, Bulan Ders,38 written in 1937, he celebrates the bravery of Mongolian border patrols. The poem mentions both Marshal Choibalsan39 and the head of the border forces, G. Yanjiv, but we should understand the poem in the light of the accusation leveled against Yadamsüren that he was spying for the Japanese. […] Enacting the work of our belovèd government, following the orders of our belovèd Marshal, we protect the legendary name of our talented comrade Yanjiv, and refuse the greed of the violent Japanese.

37 D. Tsedev, personal communication, 2010. 38 Yadamsüren, 1970, pp. 133-134. Bulan Ders is an area in the far east of Mongolia on the Chinese border. 39 The use of the word marshal in the text is ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so, for there is no indication whether this is to be read as singular or plural. If plural, then it would refer to both Choibalsan and Demid, but, perhaps in anticipation of Demid’s demise, the singular here allows for the far safer possibility of either reading.

286 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

They come with changed appearance, thinking to seize from the corners and eat up our border-guards, who protect the nation from the well-fed dogs of the encroaching Japanese, but they are surprised, and bitterly they return. […] The soldiers at our border-posts have a keen intent. Under pressure from cudgels and shoes, Japan’s Manchurian army will be in a dark mist. Amid the revolutionary fire, Japan’s Manchurian generals will burn ineluctably.

This kind of rhetoric, especially the cannibalistic image of the Japanese, does not sound like the work of someone who would spy for the Japanese, although it should be said that Yadamsüren had been accused primarily of using the Japanese to organize a pan-Mongol state and not of being explicitly pro-Japanese. Yet in the atmosphere that melded the Japanese threats against Mongolia with Choibalsan’s wish for greater power and for closer union with the Soviets, it is unlikely that a single poem such as this would have redeemed Yadamsüren. The patriotism of Yadamsüren’s poem prefigures the response of Mongolia’s writers to the nation’s entry into the Great Patriotic War following Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The death of Demid and the removal from power of Prime Minister Amar in July 1939 finally left Choibalsan in an unassailable position, free to develop a cult of personality in the style of Stalin’s. The image of a socialist state as a utopian state led by a figure who acted with paternal kindness towards his loyal people and with a most effective brutality towards his enemies fitted with both men’s plans for their respective nations. Mongolian culture lost writers such as Buyannemeh, Yadamsüren, Ayuush and Sodnomdorj during the Great Repression, and it almost lost Rinchen and Damdinsüren. 40 But even before the end of the purges in April 1939, young writers were already looking enthusiastically to the Soviet Union and to the radical new ideology of Socialist Realism.

40 Rinchen had also been arrested on 10 September 1937 and two years later was sentenced to death. In December 1941, his sentence was commuted to ten years’ imprisonment, but only four months later he was released and took up the position as the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party’s literary secretary. Damdinsüren was arrested and imprisoned in 1938, following his return from the Soviet Union, where he had been studying. His execution was stayed when he accepted the brief to develop and promote the new Cyrillic script for Mongolian (for which see Damdinsüren, [1957] 2017, pp. 5-192). He also served as editor of Ünen during the 1940s.

The Great Opportunistic Repression

287

Even as their mentors were being arrested and executed, Mongolia’s young writers continued to explore how best they could combine their individual understanding of literature with the Party’s ideological and social expectations. The fact that MARL had now become fully embedded within the Party machinery, headed by literary apparatchiks such as Tsevegmid, meant that the integration of politics and culture was secure in a way it had not previously been and that any tension between politics and culture was noticeably absent from literary work. In a brief memoir written at 30 years’ remove, T. Dechingungaa recalls the effect of these developments. Early in 1938, Dechingungaa was informed that he was being moved from his position in a military school to one attached to the army’s political unit (armiin uls töriin gazar). The new post turned out to be in a new section of this unit, dedicated to the arts. The work of this new and important department increased, and the number of secretarial positions changed, based specifically on the type of literature and on projected future needs, and the number of sections grew, and that was where several of us were working. The writers’ group was also revived, and in about May of 1938, writers such as Ts. Damdinsüren, Ts. Tsevegmid, Ts. Tsedenjav, Ö. Chimid, B. Sodnom, M. Chimid and myself (I don’t remember who the others were) were selected as the primary personnel of the group, and so it was that we set about building it up. This writers’ group, then, edited and distributed the poetry and other short-form works by members of the literature section, we sent them for publication by the central publisher, we had them broadcast on the radio, we looked into both new and old oral literature, the long songs and the short songs, to determine which should be broadcast. We looked for any way possible by which we could personally help the work of young and aspiring writers. 41

Dechingungaa was writing in the late 1960s when full disclosure of the rationale behind this new position and its precise requirements – assuming that he himself had been informed of them – would have been neither possible nor desirable. However, the language he uses, in which the writers’ group was ‘revived’ (sergeen shinechilj) and personal assistance (biyechlen tuslah) offered by himself and his colleagues, hints on the one hand at the intellectual and technical holes that the deaths over the previous few years of so many talented writers had left, while on the other it indicates that the 41 Dechingungaa, 1969, pp. 72-73.

288 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

assistance provided by this department, explicitly focused on literary work and answerable to the military, would only have been forthcoming to those whose work suitably reflected the Party’s political goals. The increased ideological activity of this department is reflected also in the emphasis on radio broadcasts and publishing, which consumed both the time of individuals like Dechengungaa and government money. With more literary works reaching more people, and with education bringing a greater level of literacy throughout the country, the Party was able to use senior literary figures like Damdinsüren and Sodnom to help younger writers refashion literature into a form that reflected Mongolia’s friendship with the Soviet Union and a deeper commitment to Stalin’s ever more aggressive brand of socialism. On 29 April 1938, at about the same time that Dechengungaa was starting his new job, 11-year-old Ch. Chimid was taken out of school by his father to meet with Choibalsan. Writing in 1973, Chimid explains the circumstances for this meeting which changed his life: At that time, the importance of the name of Marshal Choibalsan, who headed the Interior Ministry, was on the rise, and the first poems and songs were being published praising the Interior Ministry and its Chief. This situation also influenced the poetry of teachers and students in literary groups. Thus it was that […] when my father suddenly appeared at my school and announced, ‘We’re going to see Marshal Choibalsan’, it was something of a surprise to me. Marshal Choibalsan was waiting for my father and me in an official room. He told me that he had read some of my poems, and said to me, ‘Write me a poem about your school.’ I managed to sit myself behind a huge desk, and when I handed him the few lines I had written, he looked at his watch. He read them over and said, ‘You wrote this in five minutes. You write well.’ Then he spoke for a while with my father. He said that, before the revolution, Mongolian children had entered monasteries, and had suffered from having neither emotional nor cultural education, and he said that I should develop my talent and learn about writers like Pushkin and Gorky. Then he gave me 100 tögrög as a keepsake. This unforgettable encounter determined the course of my life. From the day I met Marshal Choibalsan, I resolved to be a writer. 42

42 Chimid, 1983, p.349.

The Great Opportunistic Repression

289

Chimid would develop into one of the most respected and influential writers of his generation. The way in which he describes Choibalsan’s warmth and attention, the interest he clearly showed in the young boy’s first attempts at poetry (and Chimid fails to tell us how exactly these poems had come into Choibalsan’s possession), and how this one encounter propelled him into devoting his life to writing shows a little of how the cult of personality, of which he was already clearly aware at age 11, affected him. What happened to Chimid did not happen to every aspiring writer, of course, but we can see in this meeting the growing paternal force of Choibalsan’s presence and reputation as well as the perception that the literary models that would mold Mongolian letters were not Mongolian but Russian. Indeed, as Chimid also writes, a little wistfully perhaps, in his account of his childhood, ‘Since writers like Buyannemeh and Yadamsüren had been falsely repressed in political trials, our literature now lacked the power of experience and ability.’43 With no suitable and effective Mongolian models remaining, Pushkin and Gorky – the former’s centenary having been celebrated the previous year, the latter having now been dead for only two years – were at sufficient remove and their work of sufficient heft to be at once safe and influential models for the next generation.

Bibliography Atwood, Christopher P. ‘A.I. Oshirov (c. 1901-1931): A Buriat Agent in Inner Mongolia’. In Opuscula Altaica: Essays Presented in Honor of Henry Schwarz, edited by E.H. Kaplan and D.W. Whisenhunt, pp. 44-93. Bellingham, WA: East Asian Studies Press of Western Washington University, 1994. Atwood, Christopher Pratt. Young Mongols and Vigilantes in Inner Mongolia’s Interregnum Decades 1911-1931. Leiden: Brill, 2002. Baabar (B-E. Batbayar). Twentieth-Century Mongolia. Winwick: The White Horse Press, 2000. Baast, B. Durtgal-dursamj bodol-ergetsüülel vol. 16. Ulaanbaatar: Byembi san, 2012. Baatar, Ya. Guchaad on, dörvön Chimed. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 2016. Batsuuri, G. ‘“Haranhui had”-naas üüdsen shizoanalisyn tatalbar’. In Eröölchid ba shizofrenikuud, pp. 31-56. Ulaanbaatar: Jikom Press, 2018. Bawden, Charles. The Modern History of Mongolia. London: Kegan Paul International, 1989. 43 Ibid.

290 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Chimid, Ch. Zohiolyn Tüüver (vol. 2 Ürgelchilsen zohiol). Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1983. Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror: A Reassessment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Damdinsüren, Ts. Erdem shinjilgeenii büteeliin chuulgan VII: Mongol Hel Sudlal. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., [1957] 2017. Dechingungaa, T. ‘Ingej ajillaj baij bilee’. In Itgel Zütgeliin Jilüüd, edited by D. Tarva, pp. 71-75. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1969. Lhamsüren, Ch. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1967. Mendsaihan, H. Pagmadulam. Ulaanbaatar: Soyombo Printing, 2016. Natsagdorj, D. Zohioluud. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn hevleliin hereg erhleh horoo, 1961. Rinchin, M. Uls töriin helmegdesdiin namtrin tovchoon. Ulaanbaatar: Center for the Study of State Oppression, 2010. Sandag, Shagdariin, and Harry Kendall. Poisoned Arrows: The Stalin-Choibalsan Mongolian Massacres 1921-1941. Boulder: Westview Press, 2000. Sengee, D. Büteegiin tüüver. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1978. Tsedev, D. D. Natsagdorj: Büren zohiol. 2 Vols. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2016. —, and Wang Mandoha, eds. Sonombaljuur-un Buyannemekü, vol. 1. Beijing: Ündesüten-ü Heblel-ün Qoriy-a, 2009. Tsendjav, Do. ‘“Haranhui had” – Mongolyn anhny absurd zohiol’. In Utga zohiolyn sudlal shinjleliin ögüüllüüd, edited by Do. Tsendjav, pp. 65-81. Ulaanbaatar: Jikom Press, 2017. Yadamsüren, M. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1970.

9

A Closer Union Abstract The Great Repression left Mongolian letters without many of its leading voices, but this also enabled the Party to revive literature in a way more favorable to its ideological trajectory. The first Congress of Mongolian Writers, held in the spring of 1948, was the culmination of a decade’s political development in which writers were encouraged to write about the benefit of labor (D. Sengee’s ‘The Shock Workers’ [Udarnik, 1941] and Ts. Damdinsüren’s ‘How Soli Changed’ [Soli solison ni, 1945]) and so develop a Mongolian Socialist Realism. Through a closer connection with Soviet policy, helped by Mongolia’s moral and practical support of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War, the Writers’ Congress helped to define the ideological basis for Mongolian literature for the next three decades. Keywords: personality cult, Choibalsan, Stalin, Socialist Realism, Great Patriotic War, war literature, Writers’ Congress

The shock resolution of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party on 23 April 1932, which disbanded all pre-existing literary organizations and established in their place the Union of Soviet Writers, led also to the demand that the Union’s members adhere to Socialist Realism. The initial wave of debate as to what exactly Socialist Realism constituted soon hardened into a form of radical conservatism that rejected the various approaches to literature represented by the now disbanded literary groups. The formal and official definition of Socialist Realism was given in the Union’s bylaws issued on 6 May 1934 and confirmed on 25 June of the same year: Socialist realism, being the basic method of Soviet imaginative literature and literary criticism, demands from the artist a truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. At the

Wickhamsmith, Simon, Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948). Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984752_ch09

292 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

same time this truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic depiction of reality must be combined with the task of the ideological molding and education of the working people in the spirit of socialism.1

The lack of specifics in this statement allowed for the disciplining of individual writers, as and when the censors2 saw it necessary, for any perceived contravention. But the idea of ‘reality’, as Ermolaev points out, was founded almost entirely upon Stalin’s own understanding of the term. The primary tool for molding the people was a conservatism that urged writers to inculcate in their readers a new socialist ethics, new work attitudes, and a new respect for socialist discipline. The major aim of socialist realism, fidelity to life, required the writer’s eulogy of the heroic struggle of the Party which was leading to ‘the greatest achievements in socialist construction’ and to ‘the formation of a new socialist man’. Literature must, therefore, portray the Bolshevik, ‘the most typical, characteristic man of our epoch, a member of ‘the new party’, which is a Party remolding the world.3

The development of Soviet Socialist Realism advanced through the analyses proposed by theorists, critics and writers which reflected the Party’s current understanding of Stalin’s pronouncements. Stalin had absolute control, as he did in every other aspect of Soviet life and culture from the early 1930s onwards, over the direction of literature and how it might be coopted to serve the Party’s utopian goals. But Mongolia was a rather different situation. Choibalsan’s primacy was not clear until Demid’s execution in 1936, and even then, both he and the nation remained under the control – albeit in a power relationship masquerading as a ‘friendship’ – of Stalin’s Soviet Union. Moreover, Mongolian writers, as I have already shown, had nothing like the literary theoretical or political theoretical basis available to their Soviet counterparts upon which to effectively develop their response to Soviet literary practice. Even the cult of Choibalsan was constructed as a fawning simulacrum of Stalin’s. 1 Ermolaev, 1963, p. 197. 2 The censors were the readers in Glavlit (an abbreviation for Glavnoe Upravlenie po Delam Literatury i Izdatelstv, Central Administration of Literary and Publishing Affairs), established in 1920. On this subject, see Ermolaev (1997). The Mongolian incarnation of Glavlit (Hevlel, utga zohiolig hyanah gazar) was established on 4 January 1947 by order of the MPRP Central Committee, although censorship had been carried out by a department of the Interior Ministry since 1938. 3 Ermolaev, 1963, pp. 163-164.

A Closer Union

293

Just as the first practical discussions of Socialist Realism took place within the community of Soviet writers at the first Soviet Writers’ Congress in 1934,4 so the first definitive statements in Mongolia were made at the first Mongolian Writers’ Congress in April 1948. However, the key speech from this congress, given by L. Dügersüren and occupying most of the published proceedings of the Congress,5 while offering a formal definition of Mongolian Socialist Realism – or Revolutionary Realism (huvisgalt realizm), as it was initially called6 – offered also a reverse-engineering of literary texts written during the previous few years, showing how they reflected and prefigured the current approach. From what Dügersüren says, it is clear that certain writers and certain ways of understanding society and literature had already been determined as being role models for the future. This final chapter will examine how ideas of a socialist ‘fidelity to life’ percolated into Mongolian literature during the 1940s and specifically how writers sought to represent the heroic binaries of Lenin and Stalin and Sühbaatar and Choibalsan, and how these influenced the response to the Great Patriotic War and its immediate aftermath. Maxim Gorky’s importance as the chief implementor of Socialist Realism remained intact even after his death at 68 in June 1936.7 Two years earlier at the first Soviet Writers’ Congress, he had laid out the philosophical and practical bases upon which Socialist Realism was to be developed. He had described how life itself was being remolded by literature8 and – unchallenged as yet at this early point by the rapid tightening of socialism as a social and political force – he declared that ‘[l]ife, as asserted by socialist realism, is deeds, creativeness, the aim of which is the uninterrupted development of the priceless individual faculties of man’.9 His speech did not reflect his complex and troubled relationship with the Bolsheviks, nor did it provide much practical advice as to how writers might realize this ‘uninterrupted development’. By the time Gorky died, Stalin’s control over literature was beginning to create interruptions and to restrict and define what could and could not represent a true socialist life. Gorky remained a figurehead for Socialist Realism both in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, and in 1941, a literary anthology in two volumes was 4 See Gorky et al., 1977. 5 Dügersüren, 1948. 6 This term was used specifically because, according to Marxist-Leninist thinking, Mongolia could not be considered a socialist country until its rural sector was collectivized. 7 See, for instance, Galbaatar, 2002. 8 Gorky et al., 1977, p. 67. 9 Ibid., p. 65.

294 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

published in Ulaanbaatar, bearing on the first page the exhortation ‘Please Become Young Maxim Gorkys!’ (Jalagu Maksim Gorkicuud Bolcagagtun!).10 The book presents 23 poems and one short story, the majority dealing with explicitly political themes. Gorky, however, is now reduced simply to a cipher for revolutionary zeal, and neither the language nor the thematic treatment in these pieces suggest the humanistic ideas he had espoused at the congress back in 1934. This anthology was published to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the revolution in Mongolia and as a reaffirmation of Mongolian-Soviet friendship. That the book opens with a poem by Sengee is unsurprising, given how his close relationship with Choibalsan11 had made his a powerful voice in the new generation of writers. His poem, ‘The First Bolshevik Rays of Our Party’(Man-u nam-tu Bolšévik-un angkhan-u tuyaga),12 is stirring and partisan, highly influenced by similar Soviet anthems, reinforcing the conviction that Mongolia has been roused by the ‘powerful wind’ of Bolshevism. A powerful wind blows in from the north, bringing the thundering sound of change. A joyful life blazes forth, a rocky breath separates. Arise, slaves! Arise, ards! Straighten your calloused knees! Take out your swords and drive them through, sharpen your harsh resolve! […] Leading comrades with powerful resolve, heading an army of valiant struggle, the perfect maturing of the People’s Revolutionary Party, the people’s heroic men showed their hands.

10 Shülgiin Tsomorlig, 1941. 11 It had been Choibalsan who had instructed Sengee to study Russian, and we can surmise that he had a clear plan for the young writer from their first meeting. See Sengee’s account of this meeting in Sengee, 2010. 12 Shülgiin Tsomorlig, 1941, p. 3.

A Closer Union

295

[…] The great experience of these Bolsheviks, the sun which brightens this new world, as the rain loosens a severe drought, exchanging suffering for freedom.

Such is Sengee’s martial force here, such his dependence upon Soviet influence in both politics and literary style, that it is hard to reconcile works like this with the lyricism for which he later became famous. We can assume that Sengee was expected to write this as the book’s defining text and that he willingly complied, and it is clear from an inspection of the book’s contents that the majority of these pieces were composed, as this was, in order to move the reader’s heart towards heroism and the modern and away from lyrical and apolitical nomadic pastoralism. The poems that immediately follow Sengee’s deepen and emphasize the historical trajectory that his stylized image of the 1921 revolution had begun. ‘Twenty Years of the Revolutionary Party’ (Khubisgaltu nam-un 20 jil-ün oi) by N. Jambalsüren (1920-1981) and ‘New Ways’ (Sin-e jam)13 by L. Tsend-Ochir (1915-1996) give accounts of the previous 20 years in language both political and personal. Tsend-Ochir’s poem in particular, told from the f irst-person viewpoint of a herder, shows how his happy situation – ‘My life is my own, / it is richer than others, / and all my herds improve / year after year’ – has been brought about by the ‘new ways’ of mechanized labor. Moreover, all of this has come about thanks to the Party and thanks to ‘the wise counsel of Choibalsan’ who has advised and educated the people. This invocation of Choibalsan represents the teleological focus of Mongolian literature as a whole during the period leading up to Mongolia’s entrance into the war on 22 June 1941. The war would intensify the relationship between the people, the Party and Choibalsan in Mongolia’s struggle on behalf of the Soviet war effort, but at this moment Choibalsan remained a leader idealized by association with all that was socialist and good. The true situation in the countryside for herders such as Tsend-Ochir’s character had most likely not much improved since the New Turn Policy almost a decade earlier, but in his poem – indeed, in much of this book – we sense a movement towards the ‘molding of reality’ that Socialist Realism had promised.

13 Respectively Shülgiin Tsomorlig, 1941, pp. 4-6 and 7-8.

296 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

The visionary image of Choibalsan presides over the longest text in the anthology, D. Tsevegmid’s story of ‘Ganbat the Student’ (Surugci Gangbatu).14 At this time, Tsevegmid was himself a student at the Teacher’s College in Ulaanbaatar, from which he would graduate in 1942. Writing about this story later in his life, he reflected on how he had perceived the future of students such as Ganbat: Ganbat, heading far away, calls upon culture and education; his mount struggles against the bridle; its rider, full of ideas, says farewell along the paved road of success and prosperity taken by those of his own revolutionary generation, and he goes happily along this road.15

Tsevegmid’s description of Ganbat, mediated by political change, does not, however, mention that while Ganbat’s primary goal might indeed have been education, the primary goal of Tsevegmid’s narrative was to commemorate the twenty-third anniversary of the October Revolution and to glorify Choibalsan. Nonetheless, the title and the narrative does reflect the continuing importance of education. In a memoir about Tsevegmid, B. Baast, who had moved to Ulaanbaatar in 1940, recounts how he had been the model for the character of Ganbat and the dedicatee of the story. ‘He would sometimes ask me, “Are you going to be an engineer like my Ganbat?”’, Baast writes, adding that Tsevegmid would have Baast read sections of the story which he would write on lined paper, day after day over the winter of 1940-1941, and offer edits and suggestions.16 Baast had come from Hovd, which is where Tsevegmid places 15-year-old Ganbat’s home. The narrative of Ganbat’s journey from Hovd to Ulaanbaatar is given almost entirely through poems that the young man writes on the road, poetry not greatly different in tone and substance from much of the other works in the anthology: On the first page, without stopping, he wrote: In this shining and bejeweled land, this Mongolia of power and authority, 14 Shülgiin Tsomorlig, 1941, pp. 19-36. This text is also available in Cyrillic in Tsevegmid, 1956, pp. 101-113. 15 Tsevegmid, 1988, p. 19. 16 Baast, 2012, p. 460.

A Closer Union

297

born a belovèd child, I am proud of my simple riches. On the next page, he wrote: The red army of the eternal revolution has flourished. It has shown the brave determination of the Mongol people. It has tested the swift ability of the finest horses. It has brought down the expanse of heaven. The people’s joyous freedom has spread. Theirs has become a flourishing land of culture. In a homeland of warm and heartfelt love, they await the loving protection of the Halh Mongols. Covered in the snows of a thousand years, preserving the golden bodies of our ancestors, the happy mountains touched by the sun await the future which brings me on. In this way, as Ganbat journeyed on, he put into poetry his praise for the beauty of the natural world and the riches of the landscape. Finally, he wrote this: In a country such as this, the people’s talents bring to life the pure agreement of the ancestors. This body is ready, focused on spreading and developing our culture like an ocean. Around noon, six days after leaving Hovd, some comrades said to him, ‘We’re coming into the city’, and ‘We’ll see it soon’. As he gazed, unblinking, Ganbat suddenly saw white buildings glinting in the sun’s rays.17

The abbreviation of a journey of six days into five patriotic verses indicates a dramatic change from just five years earlier, when Yadamsüren’s Has-Erdene and Buyannemeh’s Tovuudai (also from Hovd) had made the journey. While the movement and the images of these journeys had been described in these earlier texts with wonder at a vehicle’s speed and its electric lightbulbs, here 17 Shülgiin Tsomorlig, 1941, pp. 23-24; Tsevegmid, 1956, p. 104.

298 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

the space is filled by one young person’s oneiric celebration of a Mongolia liberated by the Soviet Red Army. Ganbat, too, is eager to serve Mongolia’s revolution by moving to study in the modern environment of Ulaanbaatar rather than returning home as Tovuudai had done. Tsevegmid’s 1935 story of Bold and Sambuu,18 in which a Pioneer encourages the protagonists to travel to Ulaanbaatar for education, had encouraged the same ideas. The power of the connection between individual improvement through education and the national improvement of Mongolia through the education of its people had changed only slightly during the previous five years, but the narrative and denouement of Ganbat’s story are far more explicit – and, with the perspective of history, more sinister – in their description of how deeply he is affected by the celebration of the October Revolution on 9 November 1940. The Ulaanbaatar to which Ganbat travels is emotionally and politically very different, however, from that to which Bold and Sambuu and Tovuudai had all traveled. The industry and urbanization discussed in Chapter 6, which had transformed the pre-revolutionary capital of Ih Hüree into Ulaanbaatar,19 had intensified with Soviet assistance. By the early 1940s, writers were celebrating this new urban geography in their work. The vision of a modern city encouraged new approaches to literature, just as the automobile and the changes in industry and warcraft had transformed literature, music and fine art across Europe in the early twentieth century. Even after his suicide in 1930, the popularity of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s poetic experiments continued to be felt in the Soviet Union, and in 1941, his technical innovation of the lesenka, or ‘verse ladder’, in which a single line of text is fragmented into lines with increasingly deeper indentations, made its first appearance in Mongolian poetic literature. Ts. Tsedenjav’s (1913-1992) long poem ‘Ulaanbaatar’20 is regarded as the earliest example of Mongolian free verse and mixes the lesenka with more traditional passages21 to create 18 See Chapter 7. 19 The name Ih Hüree (‘great monastic estate’) reveals the religious origins of this settlement. The name of the city was changed to Ulaanbaatar (‘red hero’) to mark the declaration of the Mongolian People’s Republic in 1924. Although the majority of Mongolian political representatives wanted the city to be called Baatar (‘hero’), the Kazakh representative of the Comintern, Turar Ryskulov, insisted that the designation ‘red’ be added. See Dügersüren (1999) for a complete history of the city up to 1963. 20 Tsedev and Yavuuhulan, 1981, pp. 464-472. ‘Ulaanbaatar’ and Tsevegmid’s ‘Bulshin Deer’ (see below) were both submitted to a competition celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the 1921 revolution. 21 That is, passages that exhibit the traditional holboot (‘connected’) form in which couplets or quatrains begin with the same initial consonant (or syllable).

A Closer Union

299

an imagistic homage both to the new urban landscape and to Choibalsan as the natural heir to the apotheosized Sühbaatar. Look, my love, there it is, that fine building where the Marshal lives. There, today’s Sühbaatar lives like a regular man. This is where Choibalsan the red partisan lives, who scattered the white baron who had hanged his mother, who repaid the grudges of ten thousand generations, bowing away the Chinese militia who had harmed peace. In the eastern mountains, among a thousand waters, flowers bloom, and in a hundred thousand hollows ten thousand streams bring forth warmth for the crops in this new environment.

Tsedenjav’s poem idealizes Ulaanbaatar as the center of activity for Choibalsan and for the revolution, but it is lyrical also in its celebration of the new world that has become manifest, a lyricism that remains restrained throughout and that makes of the city an object of affection manifested through revolutionary labor: The great circumstance which quickly created this new environment warrants attention, distracted

300 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

for not five minutes, and everyone who thinks about their own joy receives advice from those who call for the highest standards in the great work, they’ll dedicate their strength to the renewed blossoming of their homeland, when dawn’s rays have barely touched them, they’ll quickly rise and hasten to their work in construction. If you and I strive for the growth of our advanced industry, then our dear city Ulaanbaatar will likewise bloom.

‘Ulaanbaatar’ speaks of developments in Mongolian culture through a distillation of industrial imagery with the language of nature, but in referencing Mayakovsky’s radical experimentation in form, it also embodies the processes through which these developments straddled Mongolia’s traditional past and visionary future. Moreover, the visual and literary reference in Tsedenjav’s use of the lesenka form accelerated and emphasized Mongolia’s cultural connection with the Soviet Union and brought an acceptable modernism to the literature.22 Ganbat’s arrival in Ulaanbaatar is noted only in passing, but Tsevegmid does note the new buildings and the dazzling brightness of their many windows. These features set apart the new construction from the traditional 22 Depending on one’s definition, “Ulaanbaatar” could be seen as the first real example of “modernism” in Mongolian literature. Unlike previous texts dealing with modern innovations (such as those described in Chapters Four and Five), “the modern” is the central character of this poem, and Tsedenjav’s structural and linguistic choices reflect the highly industrialized and forward-looking society that both the MPRP and Stalin wanted to promote.

A Closer Union

301

ger and the one-storey buildings which were already standing. The innovative style and political focus of Tsedenjav’s poem, a response to how the city was being transformed, reflected also how the community of intellectuals experienced these developments as a manifestation of Choibalsan’s political primacy and of the Soviet Union’s investment in the country. The narrative of ‘Ganbat the Student’ moves towards the celebration of the October Revolution. From another student, Ganbat learns how Choibalsan has worked to give the students a new school building, and he yearns for an opportunity to see Choibalsan on stage. The account of the event – held in the new school building, elegantly decorated and with two large columns at the front bearing quotations from Lenin (‘If you can enrich your own wisdom with all the rich experience that has been gathered by humanity, you will be a Communist’) and Choibalsan himself (‘Comrades! If we wish to race forward, we need to make a true revolution, which requires the development of our education’) – stresses the ennobling and redemptive power of the revolution (including a speech from a reformed criminal) and the kindness of the Party over any of the industrial or economic advances that had been achieved. There is nothing of practical value here, but the point – both of the event itself and of Tsevegmid’s description – is the manipulation of emotions and the feeling that, through Choibalsan and through the legacy of the October Revolution, the Party is achieving something meaningful. Yet the importance of this story lies not in what would have been predictable (even as early as 1940) political encomia but in the dream that Ganbat has the night following the celebration. It may be too simplistic to call it homoerotic, but the sweetness of Ganbat’s response as well as his association of Choibalsan with the father whom he misses, cannot be ignored. Ganbat went and lay down on his mattress, but he lay there for a long while without sleeping, wanting the morning to come so that he could go to class in the new building. As he lay there, he remembered what had happened that day, and his father who was far away. He remembered also how kind and generous a person Marshal Choibalsan was. He thought how he wished to meet with him face to face, he thought of so many things, until just after midnight he fell asleep. This is what he dreamed: I have become an engineer and have built an eight-storey building for the Pedagogical Institute. When the officials at the ceremony to mark the building’s completion have voted, Marshal Choibalsan stands up. ‘Comrades!’ he says, ‘Ganbat the engineer is now twenty-five, he is one of the best and most able young people we have. Because he has made such an effort in his work to

302 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

construct this building, the State awards him a medal for Superior Expertise in recognition of its appreciation.’ I step forward and he pins a medal on my lapel and kisses me, and Ganbat woke with a start and was still the 15-year-old student in the eighth grade at the ten-year high school, lying there in the dormitory on 9 November 1940, the day of the dedication of the new building. Soon the white light of dawn was shining through the windows, it was day, and the sun was rising. He lay there, thinking How wonderful my dream was, with Marshal Choibalsan kissing me. When I came from home, father kissed me. Marshal Choibalsan and my father are so similar, they both kissed me.23

The development of Choibalsan’s personality cult was a mirror image of Stalin’s. This image of Choibalsan as being ‘so similar’ to Ganbat’s father, a highly sensuous and emotional description, mediated by the physically simple yet psychologically complex act of kissing, is an example of how the personality cult, which was being explicitly developed and promoted by those around Choibalsan and by representatives from the Soviet Union, sought to bring him closer to the people. Tsevegmid’s story reinforces this paternalistic relationship by having Ganbat learn how Choibalsan had taken personal responsibility for meeting the students’ need for a new building. What Graeme Gill wrote about Stalin in the Soviet Union held too for Choibalsan in Mongolia: Stalin’s concern for all aspects of the construction of socialism in the Soviet Union was translated into popular terms by the attribution to him of responsibility for the good, prosperous and happy life enjoyed by the population as a whole. […] Stalin was ‘the golden sun’, the creator of life in the new socialist era, the staff of life; it was he who gave life to the Soviet people and was the source and inspiration of all their end.24

This view of a dictator as a benign universal provider allowed for Stalin’s mythographers to wrest away for him the title of ‘father’ from the Russian Orthodox clergy, thus sealing his hagiography. While Choibalsan’s position in Mongolia was not linked to the Buddha nor with the ancestral shamanic spirits, it was raised through the attribution of credit for Mongolia’s industrial and educational advances and, perhaps more importantly, by his revolutionary association with both Stalin and Sühbaatar. 23 Shülgiin Tsomorlig, 1941, pp. 35-36; Tsevegmid, 1956, pp. 112-113. 24 Gill, 1980, p. 170.

A Closer Union

303

The process by which the cults surrounding Lenin and Sühbaatar had already been created revealed two distinct aspects. On the one hand, both men had been dynamic forces in their respective revolutions. But while Lenin was the Bolshevik’s leader, Sühbaatar, despite the mythology that subsequently grew around his participation in the revolution, appears to have had no greater role than any of the other six revolutionaries, as Sandag and Kendall’s analysis indicates25. More importantly for the consolidation in Mongolia of Sühbaatar’s association with Lenin, it is unlikely that the 1921 meeting between the two men, an event made famous in Ts. Gaitav’s 1957 poem Damdini Sühbaatar,26 as well as in many paintings, ever happened. But what is especially notable about both Lenin and Sühbaatar is that, by dying sufficiently soon after their respective revolutions to have been untouched by the complex realpolitik that came after, they were able to take on the role of the eternal and pure leader to whom all subsequent revolutionaries were to look for guidance. In death, then, both rose to an unassailable position, but while Lenin’s death was the result of illness, Sühbaatar’s death has attracted rumor and suspicion.27 Whatever the truth might be, his death became mythologized in works such as the two poems by M. Demchigjav in the 1941 anthology, ‘Sühbaatar Led Us Forward’ (Sükebagatur biden dagagulugsan) and ‘Dampil the Messenger (20 February 1923)’ (3dugar on-u 2 sara-yin 20-u edür-ün medege kürgegci Dampil).28 Demchigjav died in 1941 at the age of 20. In a memoir written in November 2008, B. Baast wrote a brief and moving account of his friend’s death and legacy: Magvanjavin Demchigjav was from Uvs aimag. We were close in age. We knew each other. We were going to write poems. We were going to act in the theater. We were going to draw pictures in pen and ink. Later on we might do musicals. I don’t know how, but somehow Demchigjav became a member of the Little Hural. When he was young he came down with a bad 25 Sandag and Kendall, 2000, pp. 37-41. However, Sühbaatar was the only one of the seven revolutionaries to have served in the military, and he served as the MPR’s first Minister for the Army until his death in February 1923. 26 Gaitav, 1957. This poem won the Writers’ Union Poetry Prize in 1960, presumably in recognition of its subject matter as much as for its artistic merit. 27 Sanders (2017, p. 786) mentions a 1943 biography which suggested that Sühbaatar had been poisoned. 28 Respectively Shülgiin Tsomorlig, 1941, pp. 11-13 and 14-15. In connection with the description of Demchigjav’s response to the cult of personality around Sühbaatar, see also his poems Sühbaatarin Talbai (Sühbaatar Square) and Öglöö (Morning), both composed in around 1940-1941, in Yavuuhulan, 1961, pp. 213 and 216 respectively.

304 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

illness. His life was in the balance. He petitioned Choibalsan to help with his health. Choibalsan did nothing. In the end he petitioned Tsedenbal. He received nothing. Soon after, he died. Udval wrote in a memoir the sad account of how she, Sengee and a few friends bore him by horse-cart to Sambalhündev. When Sengee was briefly on the literary committee, he thought about putting Demchigjav’s work together, we pooled what little we could and, with some pieces of poetry we had found at the Interior Ministry we put together a book called ‘Dampil the Messenger’. He was one person whom the literary committee should neither have forgotten nor ignored.29

The striking if ultimately unsurprising light this account casts on the Party’s relationship with its young cultural workers contrasts with the vigor and commitment to the memory of Sühbaatar felt in Demchigjav’s contributions to the anthology. In these two poems, Demchigjav frames Sühbaatar as a historical figure transformed through death into a myth. The progression of the texts from Sühbaatar’s place as the leader of a revolutionary militia to his heroic death presents the reader with an idealized biography, mediated by the passage of nearly two decades and by the growth of the Choibalsan cult, with which Sühbaatar’s cult had developed an inevitable organic relationship. And although we cannot know Demchigjav’s intention in writing these poems, the book’s sequencing of them allows for the reader to follow the imaginative development of the myth of Sühbaatar: […] For us he also worked with his hands, he brought freedom and freed us from oppression. Now in the heart of Asia there is a sacred border fluttering with red flags. This is what Sühbaatar had made.30 29 Baast, 2012, pp. 31-32. 30 The f irst two verses are the f inal verses of Demchigjav’s f irst poem, the second two the opening verses of the second.

A Closer Union

305

On the paved road, Dampil, his stocky dark horse leaping, thinks not to waste a moment from the capital to Bayantümen. Soaring with the strong wind, throwing up the whirling soil, Dampil’s eyes are covered by tears, the brown horse and the soil at his command. […]

The movement of Sühbaatar’s character and historiographical presence between the two poems illustrate some of the ways in which his personality cult was being sustained in direct reference to Choibalsan’s. The physical hardship in both poems – expressed in the first as fighting, in the second by the messenger’s high-speed ride through the darkness and snow – forms a background against which the nature of leadership and the transformatory dynamic of death are illuminated. Moreover, Choibalsan, who is Sühbaatar’s revolutionary accomplice in the first poem, becomes in the second the one to whom Dampil brings the news of Sühbaatar’s death. This news, though ‘painfully intoned with tears’, enacts nonetheless the de facto transfer of power and confirms Choibalsan’s position. The Choibalsan cult was, as Shirendyb points out, in no way discouraged by Choibalsan; indeed, its encouragement by the Party leadership as a whole ‘spread the weakening of links between the Party and masses […] and it reached the point where people’s productive thought was blocked’.31 That much of the writing in the 1941 anthology emphasizes Choibalsan’s primary and exclusive place among the 1921 revolutionaries from the first, and even before they had been eliminated, only reinforces Shirendyb’s point. The reference to Gorky on the book’s first page has more to do with the spread of Soviet Socialist Realism, but the real focus of this anthology is Choibalsan through whom Stalin’s repressive version of Gorky’s visionary theory was in the process of being transformed into Mongolian Revolutionary Realism. Given Sengee’s personal admiration for his mentor, it is perhaps unsurprising that he was one of the key figures in the literary manifestation of the

31 Shirendyb,1976, p. 346.

306 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Choibalsan cult. His poem ‘Udarnik’ (The Shock Worker)32 celebrates the labor of Mongolia’s answer to the Stakhanovite movement,33 but it is clear in the opening lines from where the energy and zeal necessary to achieve their extraordinary feats derives: Fervor for Choibalsan blazes from your heart, the strength in your muscles pulses like electricity. Led by the teaching of Stalin, you master your role, and when you enact with consummate skill Stakhanov’s experience, the sweat drips from your joyful brow, and your majestic labor brings great accomplishment. Your unparalleled actions are famed among your comrades, like the tunes of harmonized voices, intoning their joy from morning until evening, ever more outstanding, piling up their production. But the Chahar voices of the trains rumble and the howling foxes of the cars grumble, and there are works of labor in the heads facing into the chill. Steam rises from the steelyards, comrades in industry urge the coal forth. ‘Hurry up, comrades’, they say, hastening you on. Shock-workers, leaders of many laborers, the pulsing in your muscles is the work of a thousand silver pieces. When those who become visible to the sharp eyes of Choibalsan’s Party, walk the uphill path of socialism, no greater strength to lead exists than that, if the working class, and you the workers, guided by the Party, bring glory to the laborers. You do not grow in numbers only from among the mines. Your banners do not come only from the trunk of a sawyer. Your comrades bloom from every industry and factory, and your banners play, glittering with letters of gold.

The images of banners with gold lettering and the glorification of the laborers’ sweat and physical exertion recall similar pieces of Soviet literature from 32 Shülgiin Tsomorlig, 1941, pp. 50-51. 33 The Stakhanovites, or shock-workers (Russian udarniki), were modeled after the ‘model worker’ Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov (1906-1977), who on 31 August 1935 was reported to have mined 102 tons of coal in two hours, or fourteen times the required quota. This kind of extreme labor was celebrated for its contribution to the Soviet economy and, through the utopian reimagining of Soviet culture, as an example of the moral superiority of labor.

A Closer Union

307

the late 1930s.34 Yet Sengee’s language (and not only his use of Russian in the poem’s title) is hyper-Soviet: one of the principal difficulties with translating the idea of labor as a social necessity into the Mongolian context was that Mongolian nomadic society had traditionally worked in a very different way, with individual families or small groups herding animals for their own benefit and trading when needed. It might be, in fact, that the poem was written, in part at least, as a response to the Labor Law, which passed at the 24th Little Hural in February 1941, and which addressed the idea that the basis for achieving the further great success of our country, which was developing a national economy, strengthening defenses, and improving the level of the people’s livelihood and culture, was to struggle for the loyal labor for the Mongolian people and for labor discipline, to organize labor correctly, and to improve by every means labor productivity in all branches of ard economic production.35

Although ‘Udarnik’ is the most explicit in its presentation of Stalin’s vision of labor, other texts in this collection also indicate the path along which the MPRP was moving. Poems about union members, herders and their abundant flocks, loyal drivers, and determined female laborers show a new type of Mongolian, one for whom life and labor were closely aligned if not aspects of the same experience, and for whom the triangulated micro-rhythms of the masses, the Party and Choibalsan – and of Choibalsan, the Soviet Union and Stalin – defined their lives. The deepening and strengthening of these complex interrelationships during the late 1930s and early 1940s underpinned Mongolia’s adoption of Stalin’s vision of ‘socialist’ realism, and the literary works published by the Party promoted this vision with a ferocity matching their Soviet models. The first formulation of Socialist Realism in Mongolia was as ‘revolutionary realism’ (huvisgalt realizm). In this period, according to the literary historian Ts. Hasbaatar, ‘realist literature with a revolutionary focus was called revolutionary realism. While this formula focused on signification and methodology, its content remained static.’36 When, at the first Writers’ Congress in 1948, L. Dügersüren laid out four key aspects of Revolutionary

34 See, for instance, Dobrenko, 2007. 35 Shirendyb, 1976, p. 413. 36 Hasbaatar, 1979, pp. 51-51.

308 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Realism in direct relation to Mongolia’s first Five-Year Plan,37 his speech did indeed reinforce the ideological force of much of what had been written since the Great Repression. According to Dügersüren’s analysis, First, Revolutionary Realism should powerfully draw the attention of writers towards contemporary life and towards its focused aims and show the new man who is creating the new life […]. Second, Revolutionary Realism should deeply and in all ways illustrate the real circumstances and reveal life through establishing the exact relationships between them and finding the main and central issues […]. Third, Revolutionary Realism should put all its strength into supporting the Party’s attitudes towards literature […]. Fourth, Revolutionary Realism must not fail to acknowledge the negative aspects of our real circumstances.38

In presenting these four factors, Dügersüren emphasizes the duty that writers owe to ‘engaging for the most part with the wise struggle of the Soviet laboring classes’. He stresses the importance of aligning Mongolian literary and cultural work with that of the Soviet Union, and in his discussion of ‘the Party’s attitude towards literature’, he says that writers should be guided by Lenin’s 1905 essay ‘Party Organization and Party Literature’, and cites the following passage, in which Lenin writes that literature must become party literature. In contradistinction to bourgeois customs, to the profit-making, commercialized bourgeois press, to bourgeois literary careerism and individualism, ‘aristocratic anarchism’ and drive for profit, the socialist proletariat must put forward the principle of party literature, must develop this principle and put it into practice as fully and completely as possible. What is this principle of party literature? It is not simply that, for the socialist proletariat, literature cannot be a means of enriching individuals or groups: it cannot, in fact, be an individual undertaking, independent of the common cause of the proletariat. Down with non-partisan 37 In fact, the Five-Year Plan, initiated in 1948, was actually Mongolia’s second. The first had been announced in 1927 but, having proved disastrous and having led to the popular rebellions led by monks in Hövsgöl and elsewhere, this had been abandoned, replaced in 1934 with the New Turn Policy and conveniently forgotten. 38 Dügersüren, 1948, pp. 21-23. A similar formulation is found in Horloo (1948), published two months after the Congress. This article, however, is interesting in that it locates revolutionary realism through a discussion of what “realism” means according to Marxist-Leninist thinking.

A Closer Union

309

writers! Down with literary supermen! Literature must become part of the common cause of the proletariat, ‘a cog and a screw’ of one single great Social-Democratic mechanism set in motion by the entire politicallyconscious vanguard of the entire working class. Literature must become a component of organized, planned and integrated Social-Democratic Party work.39

Dügersüren’s call for a commitment both to making literature part of the political work to be undertaken by Revolutionary Realism and to the future modernizing of Mongolia reflects the kind of developments that had already been set in motion by works such as Sengee’s poem ‘Udarnik and by the treatment of urban themes in works like Tsedenjav’s ‘Ulaanbaatar’. Moreover, the alignment between Mongolia and the Soviet Union led to the concerns of the latter becoming concerns of the former, and to Mongolia’s literature, especially of younger, more zealous writers, taking on a more aggressively political character. Mongolia’s support of the Soviet Union during the Second World War had presented writers with opportunities to celebrate the friendship between the two countries while at the same time bringing the treatment of traditional themes such as love and homeland into the modern world. Lovers were now separated by explicit acts of heroism, young men on the front line yearned for the hills and steppe of their native country, whilst those at home remained guarding the country’s ‘sacred borders’ (darhan hil). In May of 1941, a month before Hitler’s troops invaded the Soviet Union and Mongolia committed its full economic and political support to the war effort, D. Tsevegmid composed ‘Bulshin Deer’ (Beside the Grave), 40 a long poem that celebrates the heroism of soldiers fighting in the west of Mongolia in 1922. The genesis of this poem was a journey Tsevegmid, as a young teacher, had taken across Hovd and Uvs aimags in 1940, visiting schools with Ruskov, the Soviet advisor at the Education Ministry. One day, towards sunset, crossing the Tsagaan River in Bayan-Ölgii province, he had noticed that on one of the banks, among the willow trees, some stones had been placed in the form of a rectangle, and the thought occurred to him that this might be the grave of a young hero. When he returned to Ulaanbaatar, this idea had become the first draft of ‘Beside the Grave’ in 39 ‘Party Organization and Party Literature’ Novaya Zhizn no.12, 13 November 1905. https:// www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/nov/13.htm. (Accessed 28 March 2017.) 40 Tsevegmid, 1956, pp. 34-48.

310 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

which the ‘young’ narrator – Tsevegmid was in his mid-20s when he wrote this – is riding across the hills in a gathering storm when he encounters an old man. They ride together until they come to an ovoo, which the old man says marks the grave of a ‘dear comrade’ (enhrii nöhör). The poem is a series of nested monologues, with the fallen hero’s passionate final words remembered by the old man in his account of the battle, which in turn is told within the narrator’s story which constitutes the entire poem. While ‘Beside the Grave’ is not a poem about contemporary events but rather one man’s retelling of a memory from 20 years before, it brings the reader back, in the closing words of the old man’s reminiscence, not to either Stalin or Choibalsan nor to Sühbaatar but to Lenin and the Party and to pride in Mongolia’s brave young men. In memorializing these dead heroes of the revolution, whether famous or unknown, Tsevegmid managed to reinforce the power of the revolution whilst downplaying – or perhaps ignoring – the image of Choibalsan, which he had earlier that year emphasized in the denouement of ‘Ganbat the Student’, as its natural continuation. […] The echoing fame of our country’s many young men was never held back by the height of mountains, was never shut away in the depths of the oceans. Resounding at the edges of the earth, rumbling in the reaches of the sky, the love of our teacher Lenin is absorbed into the center of our heart. As the bright sun rises in the flowering of spring, the flower at the tip of the revolution is our belovèd Party. Grasping the reins of progress, it leads us forward. Walking across the threshold of joy, on the path of the sun,

A Closer Union

311

directly, and without retreating, quickly, and without stopping, proud and eagerly we move towards the blazing stars. […]41

‘Beside the Grave’ recognizes political force in a story of selfless heroism that crosses generations. While the constancy of Tsevegmid’s loyalty to the Party is unquestioned, the subtlety and lyricism of his writing, even during this period of war outside the country and repression within it, reveals ways in which the political capital of Revolutionary Realism could appeal to the older generation, who would have remembered the revolution, as well as to the younger generation, who wished for its continuance. Once the Soviets had entered the war, Mongolia’s primary support for the war effort became founded upon an increase in industrial and military expenditure. And while some Mongolian soldiers took part in the Soviet invasion of the Japanese puppet state of Manchuria in August 1945, the country’s war focus was on logistic and economic support of the Soviet military and on defending its own borders.42 The many pieces about the lives and experiences of border guards bear witness to this, and in works like Ts. Damdinsüren’s ‘The Tank Operator’ (Tankch),43 we hear a similar experience of Mongolia’s young military, recounted as though in a popular song: To protect the land of their birth, ten thousand soldiers are mighty. Employed by these ten thousand soldiers, the iron tanks are mighty. To protect the sacred borders, there’s a pair of steel walls. When the enemy sticks out its snout, we have iron fists waving! A hail of bullets is gifted to the greedy foe, 41 Tsevegmid, 1956, p. 46. 42 See Tsebinov (2011) for an account of the part played by the Mongolian military in the war. 43 Damdinsüren, 1956, p. 66.

312 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

the tanks eliminate the herds of our poisonous foe. To protect the sacred borders, there’s a pair of steel walls. When the enemy sticks out its snout, we’ll have iron fists waving!

Damdinsüren was not involved in the military, and poems of this kind were clearly written, albeit in the voices of soldiers, for the consumption of the general public. The encouragement given to the population to provide support for a foreign military clearly needed to be linked to the lived experience of Mongolians, and poems about protecting the nation from a poisonous though unidentified enemy44 were one of the primary ways in which writers responded to the conflict. Although the majority of Mongolia’s writers offered their services from the comfort of their writing desks, at least two – Sengee and Tsend-Ochir – actually took part in columns sending supplies to the Soviet troops, although according to Baast’s account, once Tsend-Ochir had returned from the front, he was wont to exaggerate his experiences with the Red Army a little. 45 Sengee appears to have been sent directly by Choibalsan to tell the Mongolian people about the experience of the soldiers of the Red Army. But whether it was exaggeration for effect of what someone had actually seen or else exaggeration for the sake of giving the people uplifting, patriotic reports, writings of this kind found readers who, while supportive of their country and government, were unlikely to have had direct experience of military engagement and ready for imaginative and personal insights into what might be happening in the minds of soldiers as well as on the battlefield. The families Mongolia’s military left behind also became literary subjects. Given that an honest appraisal would have required some level of criticism of the effect of the war effort, the real toll, whether economically and emotionally, that this situation left on nomadic herding families seems not to have been extensively explored. The feeling of a poem such as Sengee’s ‘A Letter Written to My Father’ (Aavdaa bichsen zahidal), 46 composed in 44 The enemy was also identified as ‘the fascists’ ( fashist) in other poems and also, metonymically, as ‘Hitler’ (Gitler). Damdinsüren’s 1941 poem ‘Pole Star’ (Altan gadas) (Damdinsüren, 1956, pp. 50-52) provides a good example of this. Mostly, however, the enemy was simply ‘the enemy’ (daisan). 45 Baast, 2012, p. 30. 46 Sengee, 1978, p. 73.

A Closer Union

313

1943, however, suggests the complex set of emotions experienced by a man in battle, worrying about his horse, about whether letters from home will get to him, and about his Soviet comrades. Is my brown horse fat? Father, please tie him up with the livestock. Is there a notice hanging from his uncut mane? Quickly, please write my name on it. If you don’t write ‘the student Baldan’, They’ll not find me when they ask after me. Father! Please write my address clearly. My Soviet brothers have gone on the attack. They’ll write me about their success. My division will read it, and we’ll be happy.

We can assume that this poem comes from Sengee’s time spent on the front line as a representative of the Writers’ Union. Unlike many poems that celebrate the heroism and the glory of war and use standard Soviet imagery to conjure up an unrealistically magnificent vision of a brutal conflict, poems such as Sengee’s tell of the individual lives from which the war is made. Here, by avoiding the partisan attitude of more common yet less effective poems, the soldier and his family, as well as the reader, become touched by the war. It is in Sengee’s short poems, then, often written in simple couplets, that the war comes to life. However, the quality of his writing lies in his surprising and sometimes cloying lyricism. For instance, whereas many of his contemporaries celebrated the end of the war on 9 May 1945, the day on which Germany formally surrendered to the Soviet Union and its allies, Sengee wrote two brief poems, ‘Oh Good!’ (Yee gyalai) and ‘Boys and Girls of Russia’ (Orosni maamuu ireerei). 47 The editor of Sengee’s complete works, Ch. Chimid, notes that the first of these – three simple couplets full of relief – was written ‘in his office on hearing the news of victory’. 48 It was thoughts of the children who would grow up in the coming era of peace that 47 Sengee, 1978, respectively pp. 76 and 74. 48 Ibid., p.76.

314 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

immediately struck him, and in placing such thoughts at the center of a poem celebrating the end of the Great Patriotic War, Sengee shows himself to be an artist of considerable sensitivity and depth, and not simply as the Stalinist apologist for which he is sometimes mistaken. The second of these two poems remains a popular children’s song, especially on days of heavy rain: Rain, oh rain, please fall. Boys and girls of Russia, please come. Our doors are open. We can all play together. Please bring your dolls. We can put them in a cradle. We can all wash in the rain, and become pure white.

Mongolia’s war effort on behalf of the Soviet Union brought the country together in a way that extended its modern outlook and spirit of socialist friendship rather than its traditional outlook as individual nomadic groups united by the ancient spirit of Chinggis Haan. The Party’s determination to produce and send armaments and supplies to the front line brought to the population a visible indication of the moral benefit of socialist labor. This moral benefit also had more utopian aims. The building of a socialist state was also the building of a utopia, and the movement of Socialist Realism was inevitably towards a morally perfected society. In his analysis of how Stalin’s cultural policies created a ‘total art’, Boris Groys describes how the ideological basis of socialism was conceived more through an almost mystical vision of labor than through its practice: Because people are incorporated by Marxism in a unified mythological narrative about the creation of the objective world through labor, they can transcend the bounds of their earthly determinacy and, by altering the conditions of their existence, change themselves, become the ‘new humans’.49

Mongolia’s trajectory during the 1940s – from the end of the Great Repression in April 1939 until the 11th Party Congress in 1947 – passed through rapid 49 Groys, 1992, pp. 117-118.

A Closer Union

315

physical transformation in terms of urbanization and industrialization and rapid social transformation in terms of attitude and vision. The worldview described by Groys was based upon the image of Stalin (and so, in Mongolia, of Choibalsan) as the medium by which transcendence was to be achieved and the life of the ’new humans’ realized. Labor was the energy that powered this transcendence, and the directed and superhuman labor of the shock workers in Sengee’s poem ‘Udarnik’ embodied this energy. The principle of labor as a transforming energy first appeared in Ts. Damdinsüren’s 1944 story Soliig solison ni (What Changed Soli).50 The story tells of Bat, a young man from the Gobi, who enlists in the military, leaving behind his lazy, uneducated and pregnant wife Soli. From the letters Soli sends him, Bat ascertains that she is living with another man, and so he gradually forgets her. After a few years in the army, Bat finds an article in a women’s journal about a herder from the Gobi named Hishig:51 Looking at the pictures, the herder was dressed in a brocade deel with wheel patterns, she wore a fur hat, and on her chest was an award for labor, and a medal for a State-Honored Herder was pinned to her lapel. Regret and lonesomeness were not clearly represented in this girls’ magazine. But this young woman’s chubby face, the bright spark in her eyes moved the heart of this soldier. One of the soldiers said, ‘She’s a fine young woman’, and some of the others agreed. And when Bat read the brief account of the young woman’s life, he found that she was from the area next to his own. Over the last few years, this young Gobi herder had risen quickly to become a fine model herder.52

This description of Hishig is reminiscent of many images from Soviet and Mongolian magazines of the period of hard-working, happy young women determined to fulfill quotas and advance socialism. That Hishig had been recognized as a State-Honored Herder, one of the many awards given to 50 Damdinsüren, 1956, pp. 206-215. The f irst longer prose piece dealing with this subject is generally held to be D. Tarvaa’s 1951 novella Damirangiinhan (Damiran’s Family) (Tarva, 1951). 51 By this time in the story, the Mongolian reader would be aware that Soli was so named because, after giving birth to five girls, her mother had named the sixth Soli, or ‘change!’ (she had then named the seventh Boli, ‘stop!’). Hishig, the name of the young woman in the journal, means something like ‘bounty’. 52 Damdinsüren, 1956, p. 209.

316 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

those showing excellence in various aspects of life, made her especially worthy of admiration. Bat, urged on by his friends, decides to write to Hishig, and so begins the correspondence that would bring him back to his wife. Bat began the letter: ‘To the excellent herder Hishig: a few of us soldiers, who are guarding the borders, have gotten together to write you this letter. We’re called blahblah and so-and-so and we’re from this-and-that place. We found the news and pictures about how you have successfully herded and increased your livestock very interesting. We’re all from the same region, and we’d like to tell you how happy we are for you. We’re heroically protecting our nation. You and your sisters are enriching our nation and increasing our livestock. So you’re making our nation all the stronger. If you have the opportunity, we would be very happy to receive a reply from you.’ And they all signed the letter. About a month later, our soldiers received a reply from Hishig. She extended her thanks to the soldiers and briefly mentioned how she had been working hard to herd her livestock. After they had received the letter, Bat thought, ‘I’d like to find out whether or not Hishig’s married. If she’s not, then after I’m discharged from service, I’ll definitely strike up a relationship with her’, and he wrote her a letter which he alone signed. In the letter, he wrote, ‘To the excellent herder Hishig: thank you very much for your reply. We’re from neighboring regions, and so we have a connection. I’ve been wondering whose daughter you were, but couldn’t f ind out’, and so he continued, and when Hishig replied, she said, ‘I’m one of the girls who you used to know’, but she didn’t mention whose family she was from. And so Bat and Hishig continued to exchange letters.53

When Bat eventually leaves the army and returns home to the Gobi, he meets with Hishig and discovers her to be Soli, changed (as her mother had named her to be) from the ignorant young wife whom he had forgotten into a dignified and, most importantly, successful herder honored by the Party. The transformation of her life through labor and education had brought her a changed identity and an elevated position in society. And, although Bat had himself won a military medal for combat, he is somehow far more in awe of her achievement than she is of his service.

53 Ibid., p. 211.

A Closer Union

317

The image of the couple and their child, reunited through socialist labor at the end of the story, is one that can also be said to begin the next phase of Mongolia’s social and political history. This is not only an image of the Stalinist utopia in which powerful individuals work hard together for the glory of the nation but also one of the socialist family, an image that would be portrayed variously in leftist magazines, documentaries, literature and movies over the next four decades. The melding of love, honor, labor and gleaming State medals, while an unashamedly romanticized image, is nonetheless designed to stir in the reader loyalty to the Party and commitment to building the revolutionary society. And Damdinsüren, who 15 years earlier, in ‘The Rejected Girl’, had been leading the literary vanguard to promote the decisions of the Seventh Party Congress, was now spearheading socialism as a utopian vision of labor and promoting the attitudinal and social transformation through which this utopia was being created. ‘I am Soli, whom you discarded. I am Hishig, the bounty, whom you loved’, she repeated. Bat immediately understood, and roughly grabbed his wife’s hand. ‘I was a thousand times wrong to abandon you. If you forgive my mistake, I will love you and live with you. I want to have a fine and educated wife like you.’ Hishig said, ‘You went to serve in the army and protect our country. I have to forgive your mistake because, hot in the heat and frozen in the cold, you have righteously protected our nation.’ Bat was beside himself with joy – ‘My wife and my son!’and he hugged and kissed them. The award for labor glistered on his wife’s lapel, and his combat medal glistered on his own lapel.54

When Dügersüren outlined the principles of Revolutionary Realism in his speech to the Writers’ Congress in April 1948, he ended by saying that writers should not shy away from addressing what was wrong with the ‘true situation’ (ünen baidal) in Mongolia. While the analysis of Stalin’s utopian vision offered by later writers such as Groys and Dobrenko as well as the analysis in this chapter is, I believe, a helpful approach to understanding Mongolian Revolutionary Realism (and the Soviet Socialist Realism upon which it was founded and with which it quickly melded after Choibalsan’s death in 1952), it should not be forgotten that an important aspect of dialectical materialism was the constant drive to perfect the system through improving 54 Damdinsüren, 1956, pp. 214-215.

318 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

that which needed improvement. Dügersüren is careful to emphasize that there remains much important work to be done: But we must not forget, when observing what is deficient and what is bad, that while there are yet many examples of feudalism in the understanding among our laboring people, the qualities of our people today, and what makes our life different, have not been made clear. By revealing and critiquing the dark aspects of our true situation, we must eliminate them from our future. We have to show the advances which are present in the new situation, a future in which we can be victorious over what is old-fashioned and backward.55

This, he continues, can only be achieved through a full understanding of Marxist-Leninist ideology and by putting into practice the directives of the previous May’s 11th Party Congress. Furthermore, the one specific deficiency that Dügersüren notes in his speech is that of education, still a key policy focus 27 years after the revolution and one that would soon be allotted a considerable increase in Soviet investment of time and resources. The first Writers’ Congress of 1948 looked resolutely ahead. In addition to Dügersüren’s speech, the delegates concentrated upon how writing and writers should best be organized: the critic Sh. Luvsanvanden spoke about the work of the Writers’ Union,56 and the playwright Ch. Oidov explained the Union’s rules and regulations.57 Leading writers such as Damdinsüren, Natsagdorj, Sengee, Chimid, Tarva, Baast and Darjaa58 were accused by Dügersüren59 of not writing sufficiently about revolutionary subjects – ‘labor, Sühbaatar and Choibalsan, Soviet-Mongolian friendship, the new man’ – or about ‘our young people, physical prowess, industry and livestock herding’. The delegates were sent away understanding that such were the subjects on which they should now focus their skill, that revolutionary history, the friendship forged between the people of Mongolia and the Soviet Union, and the formation of a socialist society through exemplary physical labor were to be considered the bedrock upon which Mongolia’s future was to be built, through the power of the written word.60 55 Dügersüren, 1948, pp. 22-23. 56 Mongolyn zohiolchdyn anhdugaar ih hural, 1948, pp. 31-37. 57 Ibid., pp. 50-55. 58 Note that this Natsagdorj is Sh. Natsagdorj (1918-2001), who served as head of the Writers’ Union from 1948 to 1952; Chimid is Ch. Chimid (1927-1980); Tarva is D. Tarva (1928-1993); and Darjaa is D. Darjaa (1917-2002). 59 Dügersüren, 1948, p. 24. 60 See also Sh. Natsagdorj’s account of the Congress, (Natsagdorj, 1988).

A Closer Union

319

Bibliography Baast, B. Durtgal-dursamj bodol-ergetsüülel vol. 16. Ulaanbaatar: Byembi san, 2012. Ermolaev, Herman. Soviet Literary Theories 1917-1934: The Genesis of Socialist Realism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963. Damdinsüren, Ts. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1956. Dobrenko, Evgeny. Political Economy of Socialist Realism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Dügersüren, L. ‘Namyn 11dügeer ih hurlyn shiidveriig biyelüülehed zohiolchdyn eeljit zorilgyn tuhai’. In Mongolyn zohiolchdyn anhdugaar ih hural, edited by B. Ulambayar, pp. 3-30. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1948. —. Ulaanbaatar hotyn tüühees. Ulaanbaatar: Temüüjin Nomch, 1999. Ermolaev, Herman. Censorship in Soviet Literature 1917-1991. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997. Gaitav, Ts. Damdiny Sühbaatar. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1957. Galbaatar, D. ‘Mongolyn orchin üyeiin uran zohiold sotsialist ryealizmin arga üüsch högjihöd M.Gorikiin zahidal chuhal ach holbogdoltoi ni ünen üü?’ In Acta Mongolica, 2002 Tomus 1 (182): 117-128. Gill, Graeme. ‘The Soviet Leader Cult: Reflections on the Structure of Leadership in the Soviet Union’. In British Journal of Political Science, vol. 10, No. 2 (April 1980): 167-186. Gorky, Maxim et al. Soviet Writers’ Congress 1934: The Debate on Socialist Realism and Modernism in the Soviet Union. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1977. Groys, Boris. Total Art: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond. Translated by Charles Rougle. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Hasbaatar, Ts. Realizm. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1979. Horloo, P. ‘Ryealizm gedeg yuu be?’. In Tsog, no. 2, 14 (1948): 39-45. Natsagdorj, Sh. ‘Anhdugaar Ih Hural’. In Ergen dursah jiluud, edited by T. Yumsüren, pp. 54-56. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1988. Sandag, Shagdariin, and Harry Kendall. Poisoned Arrows: The Stalin-Choibalsan Mongolian Massacres 1921-1941. Boulder: Westview Press, 2000. Sanders, Alan J.K. Historical Dictionary of Mongolia. 2 Vols. Langham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017. Sengee, D. Büteegiin tüüver. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1978. —. ‘Martagdashgüi uulzaltuud’. In Uls töriin helmegdesdiin namtryn tovchoon, edited by M. Rinchin, pp. 119-123. Ulaanbaatar: Center for the Study of State Oppression, 2010. vol. 5. Shirendyb, B. History of the Mongolian People’s Republic. Translated by William A. Brown and Urgunge Onon. Cambridge: East Asian Research Center, 1976. Shülgiin Tsomorlig. 2 Vols. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1941.

320 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Tarva, D. Damirangiinhan. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1951. Tsebinov, V.D. ‘Mongol ardin huvisgalt tsereg 1941-1945 ond’. In Mongol ba Oros Delchii Hoyordugaar Daini Jilüüded, pp. 121-162. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Science, 2011. Tsedev, D., and B. Yavuuhulan, eds. Mongolyn shildeg yaruu nairag. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1981. Tsevegmid, D. zohiolyn tüüver. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1956. —. ‘Uyangin jimeer hötlögsöd mini’. In Ergen dursah jiluud, edited by T. Yumsüren, p. 19. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1988. Ulambayar, B., ed. Mongolyn zohiolchdyn anhdugaar ih hural. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1948. Yavuuhulan, B., ed. Mongolyn Shildeg Yaruu Nairag (1921-1961). Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Hereg Erhleh Horoo, 1961. Yumsüren, T., ed. Ergen dursah jiluud. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1988.



Appendix: Brief Biographies of Writers

This appendix contains biographical material on the writers whose work is covered in this book as well as on others who are not mentioned. It is in no way an exhaustive list, but it is hoped that it will provide an overview of the voices that can be heard in Mongolian literature in the first quartercentury following the revolution. Most of the material presented here offers background to individuals’ literary lives rather than adding to the material covered in the chapters of the book. It is often hard to find specific works, whether anthologized, or in volumes devoted to individual authors. For those who know Mongolian or Russian, internet searches, for example using worldcat.com, may produce texts that can be borrowed or purchased as well as further information. Second-hand bookstores in Ulaanbaatar remain the most likely source of books by these writers. Finally, the three volumes of M. Bayanzul’s Mongolyn Uran Zohiolyn Nom Züin Toim 1921-1961 (Ulaanbaatar: BNMAU Shinjleh Uhaan Akademi, 1966) offer an almost, but not totally, complete listing of writers active during this period – many of whom are included in this book – and their works. Ahtaan, Babyn (1896-1973) Born in Bayan-Ölgii province, he grew up speaking Kazakh. His mother was a well-known singer and poet, and he developed an early interest in Kazakh oral literature, starting to write around the age of 12. He developed into a writer of lyrical poetry and plays, his best-known piece being the long lyric poem Bürged (The Eagle). He worked as a local cultural manager in Bayan-Ölgii, while his work was promoted in Mongolia through the translations of D. Sengee and B. Baast. Ayuush, Shirnengiin (1903-1938) Born in Töv province. Ayuush was an actor and playwright. In 1922, he had his first role in S. Buyannemeh’s play Sando Amban, and in 1924 was one of the founder members of the Sühbaatar Club, which brought together performing artists such as musicians, singers, dancers and actors to entertain audiences in post-revolutionary Mongolia. Ayuush studied in the Soviet Union during

Wickhamsmith, Simon, Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921-1948). Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2020 doi: 10.5117/9789462984752_appen

322 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

the mid-1920s and while there came into contact with the ideas of agitprop theater and the ‘living newspapers’ presented by the Blue Blouse theater group. Accused of being a Japanese spy, he was executed in 1938. Baast, Böhiin (1921-2019) Born in Bayan-Ölgii province. He began writing in 1936 and during the 1940s collaborated with Ts. Tsedenjav on plays such as Manduhai Tsetsen Hatan (Manduhai the Wise). He graduated from Moscow’s Gorky Institute in 1964. His writing includes children’s literature, poetry, short stories, novellas and novels, for which he received many awards. Over the last decade of his life, he published a series of his collected works, including extensive memoirs. Baast was the last surviving member of the generation that worked to revive Mongolian literature after the Great Repression. He died in January 2019, as the manuscript of this book was being completed. Buyannemeh, Sonombaljiryn (1902-1937) Born in Dundgovi province. He joined the Party at the beginning of 1921, having been a member of the Eastern Hüree revolutionary group. He cofounded the Revolutionary Youth Union in 1922 at the same time as he began to write songs and poems. In 1924, he went to Southern (Inner) Mongolia, where he stayed for two years, working for Southern Mongolian independence and working as a journalist. In 1929, Buyannemeh was one of the founders of the Revolutionary Writers’ Group and was the primary force behind the publication of Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan. Between 1930 and 1937, he worked as a journalist for the newspapers Ündesnii Erh and Mongolyn Ardyn Ündesnii Soyolyn Zam and was Head of the Writers’ Union from 1934 until 1935. Buyannemeh was arrested, tried and executed in September 1937 on false charges of counterrevolutionary activities. He was rehabilitated in 1962. Chimid, Choijilyn (1927-1980) Born in Amgalanbaatar, near Ulaanbaatar. As an 11-year-old he met Choibalsan, who encouraged him to write, an event he claimed set him on his path in literature. He taught at the Mongolian National University and worked as general editor of both Ünen and Mongol Uls newspapers. His 1945 poem, Bi Mongol Hün (I am a Mongolian), became a popular expression of Mongolian national feeling, and in later years, he composed the lyrics to many other popular songs. In addition to poetry, he wrote short fiction, novellas and novels, and a memoir, Magellan Haaguur Garsan Be? (Where Did Magellan Go?), which told of his childhood and his development as a writer.

Appendix: Brief Biogr aphies of Writers

323

Chimid Dungaryn (1904-1932) Born in Selenge province. He became head teacher of the first school in Altanbulag and served in the People’s Army at the time of the 1921 revolution. Educated at the KUTV in Moscow, he worked for the MPRP and was one of the editors of Uran ügsiin chuulgan, published in 1929. He wrote under the pen names Demchi and Hödöönii Hödsön Deelt (Countryman in a Sheepskin Jacket). Chimid was one of the founding members of the Revolutionary Writers’ Group and was Minister of Livestock and Agriculture for eighteen months between 1930 and 1931. Following the repudiation of ‘left deviation’ by the Ninth Party Congress in 1932, Chimid was called to Moscow, where he was most likely executed in 1934. Chimid, Ööldiin (1900-1961) Born in Dundgovi province. He learnt to write at an early age and was a local government scribe during the period of the Bogd Haan’s government. In 1937, he was arrested and imprisoned for ten years. He was subsequently rehabilitated. Chimid was both a poet and a literary scholar, publishing on nineteenth and early twentieth-century writers such as Sandag and Gelegbalsan. Damdinsüren, Tsendiin (1907-1986)1 Born in Dornod province. Damdinsüren was a scholar, journalist, translator and writer. He came to prominence in 1929 with his story Gologdson Hüühen (The Rejected Girl), arguably the first piece of socialist fiction to be written in Mongolia, and was one of the founders of the Revolutionary Writers’ Group. Damdinsüren was arrested in 1939 on false charges, accused of being a Japanese spy. After two years without trial, he was eventually sentenced to six years in prison but was released in 1943, conditional on his working to refine and implement the new Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet. Following the deaths of Stalin and Choibalsan, in the relative thaw of the late 1950s, Damdinsüren began to carry out scholarly work on pre-modern Mongolian literature, and in 1959 produced the groundbreaking collection Monggol uran jokiyal-un degeji jagun bilig orusibai (The Hundred Best Pieces of Mongolian Literature). He subsequently prepared critical editions of the nineteenth-century monk-poet Danzanravjaa’s collected works in Mongolian 1 The year of Damdinsüren’s birth is generally given as 1908, but an unpublished autobiographical note written in 1984 he says that he was born “in 1908 (1907)”. In fact, according to his daughter Dr.Anna Tsendina (personal communication, 23 July 2019), Damdinsüren was born in 1907, although it was not until the following year that his birth was registered.

324 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

(with D. Tsagaan) and Tibetan (with Ch. Altangerel). He was Head of the Writers’ Union for two brief spells, during 1943 and 1954. Darjaa, Dorjiin (1917-2002) Born in Töv province. He trained as a teacher and in 1969 graduated from the Gorky Institute in Moscow. He started writing in 1936. In 1971, his long poem Hüsleer Törsön Hün (A Man Born of Desire) won the Mongolian Writers’ Union prize. Dashgombo, Sodnomyn (1910-1993) Born in Hovd province. He was General Secretary of the MPRP in Hovd but in 1938 was arrested on false charges of counterrevolutionary activity. His sentence was reviewed in 1956, and he was rehabilitated and released. During his time in prison, he wrote a historical book based on Dambadorj’s Tolbo Nuur (Lake Tolbo), which he was unable to finish on account of it being confiscated by guards and destroyed. Dechingungaa, Tangadyn (1912-1981) Born in Dundgovi province. He was a teacher and served in the People’s Army. In 1938 he started working as a journalist, writing poetry and essays. He was Head of the Writers’ Union from 1938 until 1942. Demchigjav, Magvanjavyn (1921-1941) Born in Uvs province. He became a teacher in Ulaanbaatar and worked for the Youth Culture Palace and for the Interior Ministry. The circumstances of his early death are unclear. Dorjsüren, Bayaryn (1910-1972) Born in Selenge province but adopted at a young age and raised in Ulaanbaatar. At the age of 16, he went to study in Germany, and on his return, he joined the Revolutionary Writers’ Group. From 1937 until 1942, he was imprisoned, having been falsely convicted of counterrevolutionary activities. Dorjsüren was a diplomat and economist who taught economics at the National University and from 1957 served as a State Planning Commissioner. Gongorjav, Balchinnyamyn (1908-1968) Born in Altanbulagt in Selenge province. He graduated as a teacher and then studied medicine in the Soviet Union, working for the Ministry of Health in Ulaanbaatar during the late 1930s. Gongorjav was active as a writer and translator throughout his life, in addition to being a highly respected doctor.

Appendix: Brief Biogr aphies of Writers

325

Gonjoon, Navantserengiin (1904-1939) Born in Selenge province. Gonjoon studied in Ulaanbaatar and Leningrad and was a journalist and writer and a local government official. His poetry began to be published in magazines during the 1930s. At the age of 35 he was accused of being a counterrevolutionary and executed. He was later exonerated of all charges. Horloo, Pürevhüügiin (1917-2008) Born in Övörhangai province. In 1924, he became a novice monk and seven years later began to write. In 1934, he graduated as a teacher and spent a year teaching in Ulaanbaatar before being appointed the head of a school of fifty pupils in Hovd province. A trained economist, Horloo spent the remainder of his career working in government, in the Education and Finance ministries. Ishdulam, Dashzegviin (1871-1937) Ishdulam was a poet, musician and music teacher. In 1921, she was one of the first to be elected to the People’s Amateur Arts group, which would eventually become the Sühbaatar Club. From 1931, she worked at the National Theater in Ulaanbaatar, teaching musicians and singers from many of the schools run under the auspices of MPRP ministries. She most likely died of natural causes. Lhamsüren, Choijiljavyn (1917-1979) Born in Bayanhongor province. He studied at a business college in Ulaanbaatar from 1937 to 1940 and then entered military service. He was heavily wounded during the Second World War and, after being discharged from the army, worked as secretary to the Writers’ Union and as the editor of its journal Tsog. Lhamsüren studied between 1964 and 1966 at the Gorky Institute in Moscow and, on his return, returned to work in publishing and journalism. His popular poem Maamuu nash ir (Come, Little Children) is engraved in stone as part of a memorial near the Children’s Palace in Ulaanbaatar. Lodoidamba, Chadrabalyn (1916-1969) Born in Gobi-Altai province. As a young boy, he was a novice monk before leaving his monastery to pursue education. He graduated in 1958 with a degree in art history from the Mongolian National University. Lodoidamba wrote fiction and literary essays and served for a time as deputy Minister of Culture. In 1954, he was awarded a State Prize for his novel Altaid (In the Altai).

326 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Namdag, Donrovyn (1911-1984) Born in Övörhangai province. In 1925, he was selected by the Planning Committee of the Fourth Party Congress to be enrolled in the first Party school, which was being established in Ulaanbaatar. The following year he was one of 45 students sent to be educated in Germany. Namdag was involved in the establishment of the Mongolian State Theater in 1931 and developed into one of Mongolia’s leading playwrights. He also wrote fiction, for which he received numerous awards. Natsagdorj, Dashdorjiin (1906-1937) Born in Töv province. He was trained as a scribe, like his father, and following the revolution in 1921 was given work in the Army Ministry, becoming secretary to D. Sühbaatar. In 1924, he helped to organize the Fourth Party Congress and in 1926 was selected (with his f irst wife D. Pagmadulam [1907-1938]) to be sent to continue his education in Germany. On his return to Mongolia, he joined the Revolutionary Writers’ Group, and in 1929 his Pionyeriin Duu (Pioneer Song) was included, albeit anonymously, in Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan. He wrote his most famous works – such as Minii Nutag (My Homeland), Haranhui Had (Dark Cliffs), Tsagaan Sar ba Har Nulims (New Year’s Joy with Tears of Sadness) and Uchirtai Gurvan Tolgoi (Three Interesting Characters) – during the early 1930s and also focused his attention on writing on issues of public health. Increasing discomfort with the direction being taken by the Party meant that Natsagdorj came more and more under suspicion for counterrevolutionary sympathies, and on such charges he was in 1932 briefly imprisoned. The collapse that year of his second marriage to Nina Chistyakova and her return to Leningrad with their daughter, as well as increased pressure from the Party, led to bouts of heavy drinking. He died on 13 July 1937 of what appears to have been a heart attack. On the fiftieth anniversary of his birth, in 1956, Natsagdorj was proclaimed the ‘Father of Mongolian Literature’. A memorial statue was erected in 1966, in Ulaanbaatar’s Children’s Park, and in 2016 this was moved to its current site, just east of Sühbaatar Square, replacing a statue of Lenin. Natsagdorj, Tömöriin (1910-1968) Born in Amgalanbaatar, near Ulaanbaatar. He studied in Germany at the end of the 1920s and returned in 1930. He was a dramatist and scriptwriter and was one of the directors of the 1942 film ‘Sühbaatar’. He was known as ‘little Natsagdorj’ (baga Natsagdorj) to distinguish him from the older and more famous D. Natsagdorj.

Appendix: Brief Biogr aphies of Writers

327

Navannamjil, Galsan-Ishiin (1882-1956) Born in Töv province. He was the son of a herder but was adopted as an infant by a more prosperous family. He learnt to read when young and studied at the translators’ school in Hüree (Ulaanbaatar). Under the Manchu, he was secretary for the country’s monastic estates in the then administrative capital of Uliastai and then worked for the Interior and Foreign Ministries during the period of the Bogd Haan’s government. He was connected with the anti-Chinese revolutionary groups in Hüree and following the 1921 revolution served as a minister in the government. He edited the newspapers Ardin Erh and Ünen. He wrote both poetry and prose under his own name and under pen names (Ulaan Nüden [Red Eyes], Anvaan, and Övgön Bicheech [The Old Secretary]), including his memoir Övgön Bicheechiin Ögüülel (‘The Old Secretary’s Story’). Navan-Yünden, Nasan-Ochiriyn (1908-1985) Born in Töv province. He was chosen to study at the capital’s first secondary school following the revolution and was one of the students sent to Germany in 1926, returning in 1929. He initially worked as an actor at the State Theater and then as a translator and writer. From the late 1950s until his death, he held various positions in government, including three foreign postings as a cultural attaché. Oidov, Choijamtsyn (1917-1963) Born in Övörhangai province. He was a dramatist, fiction writer and journalist and sent back reports from the Battle of Halhin Gol (1939) and the Second World War for the Ulaan Od (Red Quill) newspaper. In 1947, he won the State Prize in Literature for his play Zam (The Road). Oyuun, Erdenebatyn (1918-2001) Born in Ulaanbaatar, the daughter of the first MPRP Education Minister, Erdenebathaan. In 1934 she studied at the Ulaan-Üde worker’s technical college (rabfakt) and then between 1957 and 1960 at the Lunacharsky College of Theatrical Arts in Moscow. From 1936, she worked for the State Theater as a translator, playwright and director and subsequently held leadership positions in various cultural organizations. Perlee, Damdiny (1911-1982) Born in Hentii province. Also known as Perenlei or Hödöögiin Perlee (Countryside Perlee). He was an academic historian and archeologist as well as being a writer and translator. Between 1929 and 1937, he worked

328 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

as a teacher (including head teacher) at schools in Hentii and Arhangai provinces. He was elected to the Academy of Sciences in 1962. Although his poetry was included in Uran ügsiin chuulgan (1929), the majority of his later work was more scholarly and dealt with Mongolian history and archeology. Pürev, Erentsengiin (1909-1937) Born in Övörhangai province. After graduating from secondary school, he worked for the Revolutionary Youth Union and in a factory, earning the nickname Ulaan Pürev (Red Pürev). His poetry and essays were frequently published in newspapers during the 1930s, and in 1936, his play Battai Höröngö (Steady Pay) won first prize in a competition to commemorate the 1921 revolution. He was accused in 1937 of starting a fire which destroyed the factory at which he worked and was executed. It was later revealed that he had been slandered by a co-worker because of his religious practice, and he was rehabilitated. Rinchen, Byambyn (Rinchen Bimbayev) (1905-1977) Born in Selenge province. He studied at the Institute for Oriental languages in Leningrad under the Russian Mongolist Boris Vadimirtsov. In 1927, he became director of a school in Ulaanbaatar and two years later was one of the founding members of the Revolutionary Writers’ Union. He was arrested as a Japanese spy at the beginning of the Great Repression and two years later was sentenced to death. In December 1941, his sentence was commuted to ten years’ imprisonment, but only four months later he was released and took up a position as the MPRP’s literary secretary. In 1944, Rinchen adapted the story of Tsogt Taij (1581-1637) for Mongolia’s f irst feature f ilm, Tsogt Taij, directed by T. Hürlee, a script that won him the Choibalsan Prize. In 1952, he published Mongolia’s f irst full-length novel, Üüriin Tuya (Rays of Dawn), which, though attacked for ‘bourgeois nationalism’ and for its apparently favorable attitude towards Buddhism, gained considerable popularity among readers. Rinchen became the f irst Mongolian to earn a PhD in 1956 when he graduated from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences with a dissertation on Mongolian language. In his later life, Rinchen was permitted to travel relatively freely and gained a reputation for his scholarship, his fearless attitude and his commitment to preserving Mongolian culture and traditions (he invariably eschewed formal Western suits in favor of a Mongolian deel).

Appendix: Brief Biogr aphies of Writers

329

Sanjid, Amirdyn (1905-1938) Details of his early life are unclear, but he joined the army at 20, on account of which he received the nickname Army Sanjid, and worked as a military interrogator as well as for the Military Museum in Ulaanbaatar. He was a poet and theater director and also wrote libretti for musical theater. Sanjid was closely involved in amateur theater and advocated for revolutionary freedom, even during the Great Repression, of which he was a victim. Sengee, Dashzevgiin (1916-1956) Born in Selenge province. He graduated from teacher training school in 1933 and began to write poetry soon thereafter. It is possible that he studied in Leningrad in the mid-1930s, although no record of this remains. It was around this time that he met Choibalsan and began to acquire influence in the literary sphere. He was the first Mongolian student sent to the Gorky Institute in Moscow, from which he graduated in 1951. He was Head of the Writers’ Union from 1936 until 1937. In 1954, he was awarded a State Prize for two poems, Tagtaa (The Dove) and Övgön partizany yaria (The Old Partisan’s Account). Ser-Od, Gombyn (1917-1940) Born in Selenge province. He grew up in the family of his elder sister and was ordained as a novice monk at Dari-Eh monastery. After leaving the monastery, he studied to be a teacher and taught until his death from illness at the age of 23. His poetry and prose were published in journals such as Ardin Soyolin Zam, Zalgamjlagch and Zaluuchuudin Ünen. Sodnom, Baldangiin (1908-1979) Born in Töv province. As a child he was a servant to a nobleman, but after receiving a rudimentary education in Ulaanbaatar, at the age of 14 decided to become a writer. He studied in Germany during the late 1920s and between 1931 and 1938 at the Academy of Science in Ulaanbaatar, where he would remain for the rest of his life. His first poems were published in Ündesnii Soyolyn Zam and Zalgamjlagch in 1935, while in later life he became widely known for his short stories. As a researcher, he wrote on Mongolian oral literature, and also on literary history, and wrote a biography of his friend D. Natsagdorj. Sodnomdorj, Shirbazaryn (1912-1938) Born in Arhangai province and adopted at an early age. He worked as a scribe in local government and as a teacher. At the age of 20, he was one of the soldiers who took part in the assault on the counterrevolutionary

330 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Olziibat’s Ministry, which brought to an end the Civil War, and for this he received Mongolia’s highest military award. He was general secretary of the Revolutionary Youth Union and wrote poetry under the mentorship of members of the Writers’ Union. He also wrote several short stories and novellas. He was arrested and executed in 1938. Süriye, Degeehüügiin (1918-1992) Born in Govi-Altai province. He trained as a teacher in Ulaanbaatar, and as a pilot in the Soviet Union. As a young man he worked to set up schools in Govi-Altai and Bayanhongor provinces. He published his first poems in 1937. Much of his work drew on epics and stories about historical characters and events. Toiv, Luvsandorjiin (1915-1968) Born in Bayanhongor province. He was a diplomat, journalist and translator as well as a poet. He trained as a teacher and in 1938 became the editor of the literary newspaper Ulaan Od. He studied at a military school in the Soviet Union, which led to his later work in politics and the media. Tsedenjav, Tserendorjiin (1913-1992) Born in Hentii province. In addition to his literary work, he was an accomplished chess player, winning the 1950 Mongolian Chess Championship. His 1942 poem Ulaanbaatar is considered the first example of Mongolian free verse. Tsend-Ochir, Luvsandendeviin (1915-1996) Born in Selenge province. He graduated from Ulaanbaatar’s teacher training college in 1946. He was a lyric poet, famous for his evocative long poem Emeeltei Moriny Ezen Irlee (The Horse’s Rider Has Come). Tserenlham, Dembereliin (1900?-1986) The details of Tserenlham’s early life are unclear, but her Emegteichüüdiin Duu (Women’s Song) was published in 1929, initially in Emegteichüüdiin Erh and then, at the request of Buyannemeh, in Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan. For the rest of her life, Tserenlham campaigned for women’s issues, both in Mongolia and abroad. Tseren-Ochir, Luvsangiin (1914-1937) Born in Selenge province. He was regarded as a talented and highly promising poet, but he succumbed to an incurable disease after only about two years’

Appendix: Brief Biogr aphies of Writers

331

writing, at the age of 23. His surviving poetry is a mixture of lyricism and early hints of socialist realism. Tsevegmid, Dondogiin (1915-1991) Born in Dornod province. He graduated from Ulaanbaatar’s Teacher Training College and in 1931 took up a position as a teacher in Uvs. It was on the journey from Ulaanbaatar to Uvs that he started to write, a passion that he developed through reading literature in both Mongolian and Russian. As a teacher, he organized readings and theatrical performances and established writing groups among his students. Tsevegmid later studied zoology, which he taught for some years at the National University. He was Foreign Minister between 1960 and 1962, overseeing Mongolia’s accession to the United Nations, and served also as ambassador to China. Tsevel, Yadamjavyn (1902-1974) Born in Bayanhongor province. In 1915, he entered the local monastic school. Upon graduating, he went to work in local government. He became deputy Minister for Education in 1926. His research, carried out at the Academy of Sciences, was focused on linguistics and lexicography, and he compiled the standard dictionary of the Mongolian language, published in 1966. His work was included in Uran ügsiin chuulgan (1929). Tseyenjav, Naidangiin (1912-1963) Born in Dornod province. He intended to be a writer from a young age and became a teacher as well as a poet and journalist. During the mid-1930s, he came under the influence of the writers’ group in Bayan-Tümen, led by D. Tsevegmid. Udval, Sonomyn (1921-1991) Born in Töv province. She studied at the KUTV in Moscow and subsequently at the Soviet Communist Party University. She wrote poetry, plays and fiction and is especially famous for her novella Odgerel (1957). From 1961 until 1974, she was Director of the Writers’ Union, in which capacity she oversaw the rehabilitation of many writers executed under false charges during the Great Repression. Ulambayar, Tserenjavyn (1912-1976) Born in Arhangai province. He was a fiction writer who started publishing in the late 1930s. He later became the editor of the Mongolian Writers’ Union journal Tsog.

332 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Yadamsüren, Mordendeviin (1904-1937) Born in Ulaanbaatar. He studied at the KUTV in Moscow between 1924 and 1928 and on his return became director of ideology for the Central Committee of the Union of Revolutionary Youth. He worked for the Ministry of Justice as a State Procurator and was Head of the Writers’ Union from 1930 until 1933. At the time of his execution, on charges of being a Japanese spy, in 1937, he was Head of the Central Theater. He was rehabilitated in 1962.

References Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities. New York: Verso, [1983] 2016. Atwood, Christopher Pratt ‘A.I. Oshirov (c.1901-1931): A Buriat Agent in Inner Mongolia’. In (Opuscula Altaica: Essays Presented in Honor of Henry Schwarz, edited by E.H. Kaplan and D.W. Whisenhunt, pp. 44-93. Bellingham, WA: East Asian Studies Press of Western Washington University, 1994. —. Young Mongols and Vigilantes in Inner Mongolia’s Interregnum Decades 1911-1931. Leiden: Brill, 2002. —. Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire. New York: Facts On File, 2004. Ayuurzana G., and L. Ölziitögs, eds. Mongolyn Songomol Tuuj. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2006. Ayuush, Sh. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1973. Baabar (B-E. Batbayar). Twentieth-Century Mongolia. Winwick: The White Horse Press, 2000. —. Mongol, Mongolchuud, Mongol Oron. Ulaanbaatar: Nepko, 2013. Baast, B. Silgaragsan bagatur daγan Kazak arad biden-ece. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1942. —. Durtgal-dursamj bodol-ergetsüülel Vol.16. Ulaanbaatar: Byembi san, 2012. Baatar, Ya. Guchaad on, dörvön Chimed. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 2016. Batsuuri, G. ‘“Haranhui had”-naas üüdsen shizoanalisyn tatalbar’. In G. Batsuuri, Eröölchid ba shizofrenikuud, pp. 31-56. Ulaanbaatar: Jikom Press, 2018. Bailes, Kendall E. Technology and Society under Lenin and Stalin Origins of the Soviet Technical Intelligentsia, 1917-1941. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. Ball, Alan M. Russia’s Last Capitalists: The NEPmen, 1921-1929. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987. Bao, Muping. ‘Trade Centres (maimaicheng) in Mongolia, and Their Function in Sino-Russian Trade Networks’. In International Journal of Asian Studies, 2 (2006): 211-237. Baterdene, D. Mongolyn högjmiin bolovsrolyn ulamjlal, shinjlel. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2007. Bat-Ochir, Ch. Mandah Narny Tuya. Ulaanbaatar: Soyombo, 1992. Bawden, Charles. The Modern History of Mongolia. London: Kegan Paul International, 1989. Bayanzul, M. Mongolyn Uran Zohiolyn Nom Züin Toim 1921-1961. Ulaanbaatar: BNMAU Shinjleh Uhaan Akademi, 1966 Bodoo, D. Üzemjit Ögüülel. Ulaanbaatar: n.p. 1991. Bold, B., and Ch. Bold. Soyol urlagiin altan üyeiinhen. Ulaanbaatar: Sodpress, 2011. Borland, Harriet. Soviet Literary Theory and Practice during the First Five-Year Plan 1928-1932. New York: King’s Crown Press, 1950.

334 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Bradshaw, Martha, ed. Soviet Theaters 1917-1941. New York: Research Program on the USSR, 1954. Brown, Edward J. The Proletarian Episode in Russian Literature 1928-1932. New York: Octagon Books, 1971. Campbell, June. Traveller in Space: Gender, Identity, and Tibetan Buddhism. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2002. Carruthers, Douglas. Unknown Mongolia: A Record of Travel and Exploration in North-West Mongolia and Dzungaria. London: Hutchinson, 1914. Chimid, Ch. Zohiolyn Tüüver 3 Vols. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1984-1989. Chuluunchimeg, L., ed. Mongol ardyn bogino duuny dagaltad tüüver. Ulaanbaatar: Monsudar, 2013. Clark, Katerina. ‘Boris Pilniak and Sergei Tretiakov as Soviet Envoys to China and Japan and Forgers of New, Post-Imperial Narratives (1924-1926)’. Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review, 28 (2018): 27-47. Conquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the TerrorFamine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. —. The Great Terror: A Reassessment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. Cruikshank, Julie. Do Glaciers Listen? Local Knowledge, Colonial Encounters, and Social Imagination. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2005. Dambadorj, Ts.-O. Tolbo Nuur. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1964. Damdinsürüng, Če., ed. Monggol uran jokiyal-un degeji jagun bilig orusibai. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 1959. Damdinsüren, Ts. ‘Huuchyn Mongolyn uran zohiolyn dotorhi Ardchilsan Chiglel’. In Ts. Damdinsüren Soyol Öviig Hamgaaliya, pp. 16-21. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Töv Muzein Tüühiin Tasag 1959. —. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1956. —. ‘Dandiny ‘“Zohist ayalguuny toli” ba tüünii tailbaruudyn tuhai tovch medee’. In Studia Mongolica Tomus IV Fasciculus 1, pp. 3-23. Ulaanbaatar: Shinjleh uhaany akademi, 1962. —. Namtryn huudsaas. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1990. —. Erdem shinjilgeenii büteeliin chuulgan VI: Mongolyn uran zohiolyn toim. UB: n.p., [1957] 2017. —, H. Sampildendev and Ch. Ariyasüren. Mongolyn orchyn üyeiin uran zohiolyn tüüh Vol. 1 (1921-1940). Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1985. Dashnyam, L., and D. Batbayar. Mongolyn ögüülel tuujiin deej Vol.1. Ulaanbaatar: Monsudar, n.d. Dashpurev, D. Reign of Political Terror and Repression in Mongolia 1920-1990. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2014. Dashrentsen, G. Dogsomin Bodoo. UB: Nepko, 2015.

References

335

Davies, R.W. The Soviet Collective Farm 1929-1930. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980. David-Fox, Michael. ‘What Is Cultural Revolution?’ The Russian Review, Vol. 58, No. 2 (April 1999):181-201. Demči [Chimid Dugarin]. ‘Anggir sibagun’. Qubisγaltu Zalaguchuud-un Eblel #9, (April 1927): 30-37. Dechingungaa, T. ‘Ingej ajillaj baij bilee’. In D. Tarva (ed.) Itgel Zütgeliin Jilüüd, pp.71-75. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1969. Development of the National Economy and Culture of the Mongolian People’s Republic from 1921 to 1958: A Statistical Compilation. Washington DC: US Joint Publications Research Service, 1960. Dobrenko, Evgeny. Political Economy of Socialist Realism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. —, and Eric Naiman. The Landscape of Stalinism: The Art and Ideology of Soviet Space. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003. Dügersüren, L. ‘Namin 11dügeer ih hurlyn shiidveriig biyelüülehed zohiolchdyn eeljit zorilgyn tuhai’. In Mongolyn zohiolchdyn anhdugaar ih hural, edited by B. Ulambayar, pp. 3-30. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1948. —. Ulaanbaatar hotyn tüühees. Ulaanbaatar: Temüüjin Nomch, 1999. Elsie, Robert. ‘Evolution and Revolution in Modern Albanian Literature’. In World Literature Today, Vol. 65, No. 2, Literature and Revolution in Eastern Europe (Spring 1991): 256-263. Enebish, J. Högjmiin ulamjlal shinechleliin asuudald. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn hevleliin gazar, 1991. Engelbrecht, Ernst, and Leo Heller. Kinder der Nacht: Bilder aus dem Verbrecherleben. Berlin: Hermann Paetel Verlag, 1926. Erdene, S. Zohiolchyn hödölmöriin tuhai eregtsüülel. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1986. Ermolaev, Herman. Soviet Literary Theories 1917-1934: The Genesis of Socialist Realism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963. —. Censorship in Soviet Literature 1917-1991. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997. Ettinhof, B. ‘Art in the Five-Year Plan of Cultural Construction’.VOKS Bulletin. All-Union Society for Foreign Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS). VOKS II, Nos. 10-12, 1931, p. 4. Feng, Liping. ‘Democracy and Elitism: The May Fourth Ideal of Literature’. In Modern China, Vol. 22, No. 2 (April 1996): 170-196. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Commissar of Enlightenment: Soviet Organization of the Arts Under Lunacharsky, October 1917-1921. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970. —. ‘Cultural Revolution in Russia 1928-1932’. In Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 9, No. 1 (January 1974): 33-52.

336 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

—. The Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. —. The Russian Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Forbath, Ladislaus. The New Mongolia. London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1936. Friters, Gerard M. Outer Mongolia and its International Position. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1949. Gaadamba, M. ‘Negen gaihaltai ögüülliin tuhai’. In Utga, Zohiol Urlag No. 51 (416), 18 December 1964, n.p. Gabroussenko, Tatiana. Soldiers on the Cultural Front: Developments in the Early History of North Korean Literature and Literary Policy. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2010. Gaitav, Ts. Damdiny Sühbaatar. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1957. Galbaatar, D. ‘Mongolyn orchin üyeiin uran zohiold sotsialist ryealizmyn arga üüsch högjihöd M.Gorikiin zahidal chuhal ach holbogdoltoi ni ünen üü?’ In Acta Mongolica, 2002 Tomus 1 (182):117-128. Galbayar, G., ed. Uran Ügsiin Chuulgan 1929. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian National University, 2013. Ganhuyag, N. Mongolyn tyeatryn nevterhii toli. Ulaanbaatar: Byembi San, 2007. Gerasimovich, Ludmila K. History of Modern Mongolian Literature 1921-1964. Bloomington: Mongolia Society, 1970. Gill, Graeme. ‘The Soviet Leader Cult: Reflections on the Structure of Leadership in the Soviet Union’. In British Journal of Political Science, Vol. 10, No. 2 (April 1980): 167-186. Gilmour, James. Among the Mongols. New York: Praeger, 1970. Gorchakov, Nikolai. The Theater in Soviet Russia. New York: Columbia University Press, 1957. Gorky, Maxim, Leopold Averbakh and Semen Georgievich Finn. The White Sea Canal: Being an account of the construction of the new canal between the White Sea and the Baltic Sea. Translated by Amabel Williams-Ellis. London: John Lane, 1935. Gorky, Maxim et al. Soviet Writers’ Congress 1934: The Debate on Socialist Realism and Modernism in the Soviet Union. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1977. Gorsuch, Anne R. ‘NEP Be Damned! Young Militants in the 1920s and the Culture of Civil War’. In The Russian Review Vol. 54, No .4 (October 1997): 564-580. Grivelet, Stéphane, ed. The Journal of the Lamas: A Mongolian Publication in Tibetan Script. Bloomington: The Mongolia Society Special Papers, 2001. Groys, Boris. Total Art: Avant-Garde, Aesthetic Dictatorship, and Beyond. Translated by Charles Rougle. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992. Hangin, John Gombojab. Köke Sudur (The Blue Chronicle). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1973. Harte, Tim. Fast Forward: The Aesthetics and Ideology of Speed in Russian AvantGarde Culture 1910-1930. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2009.

References

337

Hasbaatar, Ts. Realizm. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1979. Hatch, John. The Formation of Working Class Cultural Institutions during NEP: The Workers’ Club Movement in Moscow, 1921-1923. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Center for Russian and East European Studies, 1990. —. ‘Hangouts and Hangovers: State, Class and Culture in Moscow’s Workers’ Club Movement, 1925-1928’. In The Russian Review, Vol. 53, No. 1 (January 1994): 97-117. Heinroth, O. Contributions to the Biology, Especially the Ethology and Psychology of the Anatidae. Translated by Paul A. Johnsgard. N.p.: n.p., 1956. Heissig, Walther. Geschichte der Mongolische Literatur. 2 Vols. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1972. High, Mette M. Fear and Fortune: Spirit Worlds and Emerging Economies in the Mongolian Gold Rush. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2017. Hishigt, N. Mongol ba oros delhiin hoyordugaar dainy jilüüded. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Science, 2011. Horloo, P. ‘Ryealizm gedeg yuu be?’. In Tsog, No. 2 (14), 1948: 39-45. Houghton, Norris. ‘Russian Theater in the Twentieth Century’. In The Drama Review: TDR. Vol. 17, No. 1, Russian Issue (March 1973): 5-13. Huang, Sung-K’ang. Lu Hsün and the New Culture Movement of Modern China. Westport, CT: Hyperion Press, 1975. Humphrey, Caroline. ‘Remembering an “Enemy”: The Bogd Khaan in TwentiethCentury Mongolia’. In Memory, History, and Opposition under State Socialism, edited by Rubie S. Watson. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, 1994. Husband, William B. ‘Godless Communists’: Atheism and Society in Soviet Russia 1917-1932. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000. Injinnashi, V. Höh sudryn ülger. Ulaanbaatar: Monsudar, 2000. Ischi-Dorji. ‘Die heutige Mongolei’. In Osteuropa #4 (1928/29): 401-409. Jagchid, Sechen, and Paul Hyer. Mongolia’s Culture and Society. Boulder: Westview Press, 1978. Jamsranjav, G. ‘Huvisgalyn Uran zohiolyn Naryn Bülgem’, In Itgel Zütgeliin Jilüüd, edited by D. Tarva, pp. 126-143. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1969. Josephson, Paul R. et al. An Environmental History of Russia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Kameshkov, B.N. ‘Utga zohioluudyn nomuudyg Mongol helen deer orchuulsan tuhai’. In Tsog No. 1 (13), 1948: 129-139. Kaplonski, Christopher. The Lama Question: Violence, Sovereignty, and Exception in Early Socialist Mongolia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2014. Kapstein, Matthew T. ‘The Indian Literary Identity in Tibet’. In Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, edited by Sheldon Pollock, pp. 747-802. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.

338 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Kara, Győrgy. Books of the Mongolian Nomads: More than Eight Centuries of Writing Mongolian. Bloomington: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies, 2005. Kemp-Welch, A. Stalin and the Literary Intelligentsia, 1928-39. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991. King, Matthew. ‘Modernities, Sense Making, and the Inscription of Mongolian Buddhist Place’. In Buddhism in Mongolian History, Culture and Society, edited by Vesna Wallace, pp. 53-69. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Knutson, Jeanne Nickell. Outer Mongolia: A Study in Soviet Colonialism. Kowloon: Union Research Institute, 1959. Kolarz, Walter. The Peoples of the Soviet Far East. N.p.: Archon Press, 1969. Korostovetz, Iwan Jakowlewitsch. Von Cinggis Khan zur Sovjetsrepubli. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1926. Krueger, John R. ‘The Impact of Russian and Western Literature on Mongolia’. In The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring 1959): 25-34. van der Kuijp, Leonard W.J. ‘Tibetan Belles-Lettres: The Influence of Daņḍin and Kṣemendra’. In Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, edited by José Ignacio Cabezón and Roger R. Jackson, pp. 393-410. Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1996. Kudaibergenova, Diana T. Rewriting the Nation in Modern Kazakh Literature. Lenham: Lexington Books, 2017. Kungurov, G. ‘Sovremmenaya Mongol’skaya Literatura’. In Novaya Sibir’ no. 15 (1945): 103-119. Kuo, Ya-Pei. ‘The Making of the New Culture Movement: A Discursive History’. In Twentieth-Century China, 42, no. 1 (January 2017): 52-71. Kuzimin, S.L. ‘Zapadno-Mongoliskoe vosstanie 1930 g. v zashitu religii.’ In Religio Vyedyeniye, no. 1 (2015): 53-59. Kwak, Tae-Han. North Korea’s Foreign Policy Under Kim Jong Il: New Perspectives. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. Lareau, Alan. The Wild Stage: Literary Cabarets of the Weimar Republic. Columbia SC: Camden House, 1995. Lattimore, Owen. Nationalism and Revolution in Mongolia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1955. Léger, F. Functions of Painting. New York: Viking Press, 1973. Lence, Matthew E. Closer to the Masses: Stalinist Culture, Social Revolution and Soviet Newspapers. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. Lhamsüren, Ch. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1967. Lind, Douglas. ‘The Crane, the Swamp, and the Melancholy: Nature and Nihilism in Soviet Environmental Literature and Law’. In Notre Dame Journal of Ethics and Public Policy 381, 428 (2009): 381-427.

References

339

Liu, Xiaoyuan. Reins of Liberation: An Entangled History of Mongolian Independence, Chinese Territoriality, and Great Power Hegemony, 1910-1950. Washington DC: Wilson Center Press, 2006. Luvsan, B. ‘Orchuulgyn uran zohiol’. In Mongol Sudlal, 1966 Tomus V., Fasc. 13, pp.53-62. Luvsanvandan, S. Mongolyn Utga zohiolyn Gol Baatar. Ulaanbaatar: Academy of Science, 1965. —. Mongolyn Uran zohiolyn Devshil, Sotsialist Realizm. Ulaanbaatar: National Publishing House, 1987. Ma Ho-T’ien. Chinese Agent in Mongolia. Translated by John DeFrancis. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1949. Maguire, Robert A. Red Virgin Soil: Soviet Literature in the 1920s. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968. Mally, Lynn. Culture of the Future: The Proletkult Movement in Revolutionary Russia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. Marzluf, Phillip P. Language, Literacy, and Social Change in Mongolia: Traditionalist, Socialist, and Post-Socialist Identities. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2018. Matveeva, G.S. Mongoliskii revolutsionni soyuz molodezhi istoria sovremennosti. Moscow: Nauka, 1983. Mendsaihan, H. Gyerman, Frantsig Zorison Bagsh Bazar Ishdorj, Mongol Suragchdin Huvi Zaya. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2015. Mendsaihan, H. Pagmadulam. Ulaanbaatar: Soyombo Printing, 2016. Mikhailov, G., and K. Yatskovskaya. Mongol’skaya Literatura. Moscow: Nauka, 1969. Mongol Nüüdlchiin Tailbar Toli. 2 Vols. Ulaanbaatar: Monsudar, 2014. Morazova, Irina Y. The Comintern and Revolution in Mongolia. Cambridge: Inner Asia Studes Unit, 2002. Moses, Larry William. The Political Role of Mongol Buddhism. Bloomington: Indiana University, 1977. Myers, Brian. Han Sŏr-ya and North Korean Literature: The Failure of Socialist Realism in the DPRK. Ithaca: East Asia Program, Cornell University, 1994. Namdag, D. Tüüver zohiol. 3 Vols. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1987. —. Shine Mongolyn shine teatr. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1988. Nasanbaljir, Ts. Revoliutsionne meropriiatiia narodogo pravitel’stva Mongolii v. 1921-1924 gg. Moscow: Nauka, 1960. Natsagdorj, D. Zohioluud. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn hevleliin hereg erhleh horoo, 1961. Natsagdorj, Sh. ‘Anhdugaar Ih Hural’. In Ergen dursah jiluud, edited by T. Yumsüren, pp. 54-56. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1988. Natsov, S.N. ‘Natsiol’naia Revolutsiia Mongolov’. Kommunisticheskyi Internatsional, nos 33-34 (August 1928): 71-72.

340 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Navaannamjil, G. Övgön Bicheechiin Ügüülel. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1956. Navaansüren, D. ‘Mongolyn orchin üyeiin utga zohiolig üüsgen büteelch’. Uran zohiol, urlag, 19 November 1976. Navaan-Yunden, N. Soyol Erdene. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1976. Newyear, Tristra. An outline of recent history: A translation of the Mongolian author Buyannemekhü’s first play. MA Thesis. Indiana University. 2004. Nordby, Judith. The Mongolian People’s Republic 1924-1928 and the Rightist Deviation. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 1988. Oyuun, E. Mongolyn tyeatryn tüühen zamnal. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1989. Paine, S.C.M. Imperial Rivals: China, Russia and their Disputed Frontier. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1996. Pospielovsky, Dimitry V. A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Antireligious Policies. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987. Pozdneev, A.M. Mongolia and the Mongols. Bloomington: Indiana University Publications, 1971. Rinchin, M. Uls töriin helmegdesdiin namtrin tovchoon. Ulaanbaatar: Center for the Study of State Oppression, 2010. Rupen, Robert. Outer Mongolian Nationalism 1900-1919. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Washington, 1954. Rupen, Robert. How Mongolia Is Really Ruled. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1979. Sablin, Ivan. Governing Post-Imperial Siberia and Mongolia, 1911-1924: Buddhism, Socialism and Nationalism in State and Autonomy Building. London: Routledge, 2016. Sampildendev, H. Ardyn jüjig naadmyn aman zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1988. —. Mongolyn shine uran zohiolyn tuurvilzüin zarim asuudal. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2006. Sandag, Shagdariin, and Harry Kendall. Poisoned Arrows: The Stalin-Choibalsan Mongolian Massacres 1921-1941. Boulder: Westview Press, 2000. Sanders, Alan J.K. Historical Dictionary of Mongolia. 2 Vols. Langham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2017. Saruulbuyan, J. Gegeen Gerelt Hümüüsiin Jimeer. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2013. Schäfer, D. ‘Sowjetpropaganda in der Mongolei’. In Zeitschrift für Geopolitik XVI (1939): 162-72. Schmidt, Paul, ed. The Stray Dog Cabaret: A Book of Russian Poems. New York: NYRB, 2007. Sengee, D. Büteegiin tüüver. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1978.

References

341

—. ‘Martagdashgüi uulzaltuud’. In Rinchin, M. Uls töriin helmegdesdiin namtryn tovchoon, Vol. 5, pp. 119-123. Ulaanbaatar: Center for the Study of State Oppression, 2010. Serebrennikov, I.I. ‘A Soviet Satellite: Outer Mongolia Today’. In Foreign Affairs, Vol. 9, No. 3 (April 1931): 510-515. Ser-Od, G. Shöniin Ongotsoor. Ulaanbaatar: BNMAU-yn Ardyn Bolovsrolyn Yaam, 1983. Shagj, B. Mongol ügen-ü tailburi toli. Ulaanbaatar: Mongol Ulsyn Soyolin San, 1994. Shatro, Bavjola. Between(s) and Beyond(s) in Contemporary Albanian Literature. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016. Shirendyb, B. History of the Mongolian People’s Republic. Translated by William A. Brown and Urgunge Onon. Cambridge: East Asian Research Center, 1976. Short History of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, 1917-1940. Ulan Bator: Party Institute of History, 1963-64. Shülgiin Tsomorlig. 2 Volumes. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1941. Skórczewski, Dariusz. ‘Post-Colonial Poland – (Im)possible Project’. In Teksty Drugie: Post-colonial or Postdependency Studies? Warszaw: Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Science, 2014. Retrieved from http://rcin.org.pl/ Content/51835/WA248_71046_P-I-2524_skorczew-post-colon.pdf (accessed 12 December 2019). Sodnom, B. ‘“Hatan Dolgor, Harts Damdin” gedeg Duuri’. In Mongol Sudlal, 1966 Tomus V., Fasc.15, pp. 81-86. Strong, Anna Louise. China’s Millions: The Revolutionary Struggles from 1927 to 1935. London: Victor Gollancz, 1936. Struve, Gleb. Russian Literature Under Lenin and Stalin 1917-1953. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971. Süglegmaa, H. Mongol uran zohiol dahi ‘üg’ zohiolyn töröl züil. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 2005. Süld-Erdene, G. Mongol Nüüdelchiin Tailbar Toli. 2 Vols. Ulaanbaatar: Monsudar, 2014. Süriyee, D. Dursan sanahad yuutai saihan. In Itgel Zütgeliin Jilüüd, edited by D. Tarva. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1969. Tarva, D. ‘Shivee Hiagt’. Tuyaa, 1951, no. 2, p. 16. —. Damirangiinhan. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1951. Todd Baum, Ann. Komsomol Participation in the Soviet First Five-Year Plan. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1987. Tsebinov, V.D. ‘Mongol ardyn huvisgalt tsereg 1941-1945 ond’. In Mongol ba Oros Delchii Hoyordugaar Daini Jilüüded, pp. 121-162. Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Science, 2011.

342 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Tsedev, D., and B. Yavuuhulan, eds. Mongolyn shildeg yaruu nairag. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1981. Tsedev, D. Shüleg ayalguuny shüteltsee. Ulaanbaatar: Interpress, 2005. —. D. Natsagdorj: Büren zohiol. 2 Vols. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 2016. — and B. Yavuuhulan, eds. Mongolyn shildeg yaruu nairag. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1981. — and Wang Mandoha, eds. Sonombaljuur-un Buyannemekü, 4 Vols. Beijing: Ündesüten-ü Heblel-ün Qoriy-a, 2009. Tsendjav, Do. ‘“Haranhui had” – Mongolyn anhny absurd zohiol’. In Utga zohiolyn sudlal shinjleliin ögüüllüüd, edited by Do. Tsendjav, pp. 65-81. Ulaanbaatar: Jikom Press, 2017. Tseveen, J. Osnovi Buddizma. Ulaanbaatar: n.p., 1926. Tsevegmid, D. Zohiolyn tüüver. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1956. —. ‘Uyangin jimeer hötlögsöd mini’. In Ergen dursah jiluud, edited by T. Yumsüren, p. 19. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1988. Tüdev, L. Mongolyn uranzohiolyn deejis. Ulaanbaatar: Mongol Uran Zohiol HG, 1997. Tumarkin, Nina. ‘Religion, Bolshevism, and the Origins of the Lenin Cult’. Russian Review 40 (1), 1981, 35-46. Ulambayar, B., ed. Mongolyn zohiolchdyn anhdugaar ih hural. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1948. Viola, Lynne. The Best Sons of the Fatherland: Workers in the Vanguard of Soviet Collectivization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. Vladimirtsov, B. La Régime Social des Mongols. Translated by Michel Carsow. Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1948. Wehrling, Thomas. ‘Die Verhurung Berlins’. In Das Tage-Buch I (6 November 1920): 1381-1318 Weiske, Fritz. ‘Die wirtschaftlichen Verhältnisse in der Äußeren Mongolei’. In Osteuropa no. 4 (1928/29): 149-165. Wickham-Smith, Simon. Stories from the Steppe: Short Fiction from Mongolia. Ulaanbaatar: MACP, 2012. Wickham-Smith, Simon. ‘A Literary History of Buddhism in Mongolia’. In Buddhism in Mongolian History, Culture and Society, edited by Vesna Wallace, pp. 160-178. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Wolff, Serge. ‘Mongol Delegations in Western Europe 1925-1929’ In Journal of the Royal Central Asian Society. Vol. 32 (1945): 289-298 (Part I), and Vol. 33 (1946): 75-92, 200 (Part II). Wolff, Serge ‘Mongolian Educational Venture in Western Europe (1926-1929)’. In Zentralasiatische Studien no. 5 (1971): 247-320. Yadamsüren, M. Tüüver zohiol. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1970.

References

343

Yavuuhulan, B., ed. Mongolyn Shildeg Yaruu Nairag (1921-1961). Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Hereg Erhleh Horoo, 1961. Yumsüren, T., ed. Ergen dursah jiluud. Ulaanbaatar: Ulsyn Hevleliin Gazar, 1988. Zagdsüren, U. MAHN-aas urlag utga zohiolyn talaar gargasan togtool shiidverüüd (1921-1966). Ulaanbaatar: Mongolian Academy of Sciences, 1967.

Index Aesop’s fables 150 agitprop theater 71, 74-76, 78, 81 Agwangkayidub (writer) 39 Ahtaan, B. (writer) biographical note 321 alaṃkāra 43 Albania break with the Soviet Union 18 politically-driven literature 18 writers 17 All-Russia Association of Proletarian Writers (VAPP) 12, 131; see also Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) All-Union Congress of Proletarian Writers 128 All-Union Organization of Associations of Proletarian Writers (VOAPP) 128 Altan Suvd 49-50 Amar, A. 194, 220 Amarbayasgalant Monastery 38 anti-Russian fears 169-170 Ardyn Soyolyn Zam (The People’s Path of Culture) (newspaper) 14 Ardyn Tsereg (People’s Army) (newspaper) 182 Arhangai 37, 119, 192 Arvan Jil (Ten Years) (play) 73 astrology 174 atheism, lack of success in Mongolia 210; see also Burhangüichüüd Auerzov, Muktar (Kazakh writer) Abai Zholy (Abai’s Way) (novel) 19-20 Averbach, Leopold 128-129, 131 Ayuush, Sh. (writer, actor) 13, 54, 62-64, 66, 74-75, 78, 87, 90, 161, 268, 286 biographical note 321 Amid Sonin (Living Newspapers) (play) 75-76, 81, 142, 179-180 Baruun züünii nugalaa (The Right and Left Deviations) (play) 75 Goviin Hüühen Gündegmaa (Gündegmaa, the Girl from the Gobi) (play) 73, 75, 77-81 Guchin gurav jil bolson ni (Back in Thirtythree) (play) 75 Gurvan Davhar Talhilt (Three Levels of Oppression) (play) 73, 75 Hatan Dolgor, Harts Damdin (Lady Dolgor and Damdin the Commoner) (play) 73, 75-78, 81 Henii buruu ve? (Who’s at Fault?) (play) 75 Malchin ardyn daisin (The Herder’s For) (story) 151 Manai Tyeatr (Our Theater) (essay) 74 Mongol Hüü (A Mongolian Son) (play) 73, 88

Tyeatrin uran saihan (The Art of the Theater) (essay) 81 Üherch hövgüüni baidal (The Cowherd Boy) (story) 151 Ulsin töv tyeatrin 5 jiliin oin bayart zoriulan tüünii högjliig tovchlon zohioson ‘Ene Bügd’ gedeg amid sonini zohioloos tovchilson ni (A brief living newspaper called ‘All of These’, written to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the State Theater and outlining its development) (poem) 73 Yag Arvan Naim (Just Eighteen) (play) 75, 81-84, 86-87 Baast, B. (writer) 16, 271, 273, 296, 318 biographical note 322 Badam Dorj Shanzdav (Badamdorj Plays the Shanz) (play) 66 Badamjav (wife of Ts.Jamtsarano qv) 66 Badrah, Ö. (writer) 73, 107, 134, 136 Ball, Hugo 152 Balmad Huuli (Wild Law) (play) 73 Bandid Gegeen Hiid 214-215 bards 29 Barga ethnic group 278 Bat-Ochir, Ch. (educationalist) Mandah Narny Tuya (Rays of the Rising Sun) 205 Bat-Ochir, D. (actor) 71 Battömör, Ts. 282 Bayasgalan, J. 281 Bedny, Demian 131 Beejin Lam (The Monk from Beijing/The Foppish Monk) (play) 65 Beijing 60 Berlin 251, 253-254 Bezbozhnik (The Godless) (journal) 202 Bimbaev, Rinchen (writer) see Rinchen, B. (writer) Blok, Alexander Dvenadsat (The Twelve) (poem) 230-232 Blue Blouse Theater 75 Bodoo, D. (writer, politician) 47-54 and Marxism 50 as a monk 47, 50 as Prime Minister 48 campaign against feudal culture 49, 177-178 execution 48 Shüren Erihiin Büleg buyuu Üzemjit Ögüülel (The Coral Rosary, or A Pretty Tale) (also called Üiliin Chanarig Ülgerlesen Üzemjit Ögüülel [A Pretty Tale about The Quality of Deeds]) (story) 49-54 Uyangat Shüleglel (A Lyrical Poem) 48

346 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Bogd Haan 25, 38, 47, 54, 63, 145, 170 death 36, 66, 156, 180, 204-205 as temporary monarch 209 Bogd Haan Mountain 208 Bolshevik revolution see Soviet Union, 1917 Revolution book culture 27, 44 Boreisho, Viktor 85-87, 90-91 Buddhism 27-28, 33, 37-38, 43-46, 81-85, 95-96, 201-233 and the military 212 doctrine of cause and effect 61 influence on literature 43-45, 107, 208-209, 212 jataka tales 64 see also monasteries; monks; ‘pure Buddhism’; religion; shamanism; Tibet, Buddhism in Bukharin, Nikolai 128 Burhangüichüüd 209 Buryat Mongols 278 Buyannemeh, S. (writer) 13, 46, 54, 61, 63, 65-66, 69-70, 72, 74, 89, 104, 107, 109, 134-135, 137, 139, 145, 150-151, 159, 231, 267-268, 272, 286, 289, 297 biographical note 322 family 167 imprisonment 209 ‘manifest’ and ‘hidden’ aspects of poetry 141-142 trial and execution 137, 276-281, 284-285 Ayuult baildaan (A Dangerous Battle) (prose-poem) 152-153 Baatar Khövüün Temüjin (The Young Hero Temüjin) (play) 69-70 Baatar ulaan tsereg (The Heroic Red Army) (poem; co-authored with Ch.Dashnyam qv) 139, 156 Daisnaa darsan Sühbaatar (Sühbaatar, who Crushed the Enemy) (story) 144-145 Erdenet Soyombyn Ezen Erelheg Janjin Sühbaatar (The Lord of the Precious Soyombo, General Sühbaatar) (play) 73, 88 Gaihamshig Baidal (An Astonishing Event) (story) 98, 206-209, 211, 214 Gurvan dutuityn zovlon (The Tricycle’s Lament) (story) 147 Gurvan horin hülees (Three Poisonous Bonds) (story) 259 Hadny deerh gants honichin (A Lonely Shepherd on a Rock) (poem) 143 Haranhui Zasag (Dark Power) (play) 73 Huvisgalt zaluuchuudyn duu (Song of Revolutionary Youth) (song) 156-157, 161 Jinst Ogdoi (The Decorated Pikas) (story) 98-100 Malchin Tovuudai (Tovuudai the Herder) (story) 166-170, 177-179, 246 Maral Shar hoyor (Maral and Shar) (play) 51, 72-73, 228-230, 240-244

Modny dund bodi mod büjiglen naigan suuhad (As the Bodhi tree dances and sways amongst the other trees) (poem) 139 Mongol Internatsional (Mongolian Internationale) (poem) 89, 155 Mongolyn hureelsen ezerheg ulsuudin horondoo baidliig uzuulsen tüüh (A History of What Happened Between the Aggressive Powers Whom the Mongolians Had Surrounded) (play) 89 Motoryn teregnii herüül (An Argument among the Motor Cars) (story) 147-149 Oirhi Tsag-ün Tovchi Teüke (A Brief History of Recent Times) (play) 62-65 Övliin dotorh yaduu ger (A Poor Ger in Winter) (poem) 143 Sando Amban (Governor Sando) (play) 62-64 Shine Ulaan Tug (New Red Flag) (song) 155 Shöniin Bug (The Night Demon) (play) 73 Tsag üye ba amidralgaa (Time and Living) (poem) 110, 115-117 Ünen (play) 71-73 Uran Zohioluudig Herhen Zohih Sedev (On the Composition of Literary Works) (essay) 105, 108, 141-142, 151, 156 Uuryn teregnii ögüülel (What the Steam Train Said) (story) 147-148 cabaret in Berlin 253-254 censorship see literary censorship Chén Dúxiù 47 chess 121, 330 Chimid, Ch. (writer) 288-289, 318 biographical note 322 Chimid, D. (writer) see Dungaryn, Chimid Chimid, M. (writer) 271, 287-289 Pionyer (The Pioneers) (poem) 273-274 Pionyeriin lageri (Pioneer Camp) (poem) 274 Chimid, Ö. (writer) 70, 287, 323 Chimiddorj (writer) Juramt Ohin Altantsetseg (The Faithful Girl Altantsetseg) (play) 64 China 30, 37, 42, 47 Chinese actors in Mongolia 62 Chinese traders in Ulaanbaatar 221 Mongolian prejudice against Chinese 91, 221, 251 Republic of 16, 18 see also Manchu Dynasty, May Fourth Movement, New Culture Movement; opium addiction; Yüan Dynasty Chinggis Haan 15, 39, 53, 314 in literature 69-70 Chistyakova, Nina Ivanovna 270 Choibalsan, H. 15, 17, 55, 73, 91, 170, 178, 194, 197, 220, 266, 268, 281, 284-285, 288-289, 292, 295, 299 Buddhist faith 96 cult of personality 296, 301-302, 304, 306

Index

plans Great Repression 197 relationship with D. Sühbaatar (qv) 88 Civil War (1932) see Mongolia, 1932 Civil War class 65, 66, 181-182, 238-239 and monasticism 82 improvement of the poor (ard) 139, 141, 143, 184-186 Marx’s ideas on 181 see also Mongolia, ‘black and yellow feudals’ collectivization in Mongolia 105, 157, 166, 182-184 in Soviet Union 97 youth and 157 Comintern 49, 72, 206, 209, 220, 277-278 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) Congress see Congress, CPSU Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV) 50, 129, 135, 142 Congress, CPSU Fifteenth (1927) 127-128 Congress, Herders’ see Livestock, Herders’ Congress Congress, MPRP Eleventh (1947) 318 Fifth (1925) 68, 83 Ninth (1932) 75, 83, 188 Seventh (1928) 76, 83, 100, 107, 134, 139, 157, 165, 176, 206, 209, 225-226, 244, 317 Third (1924) 277 Connell, Jim 155 cooperatives 121 countryside of Mongolia 95-125 promoting the arts in 66 see also landscape in literature cult of personality see Choibalsan, H.; Sühbaatar, D. Dambadorj, Ts. (writer, politician) 69, 73, 136, 180, 206, 229 Tolbo Nuur (Lake Tolbo) (fictionalised memoir) 206 Damdinbazar, L. (actor) 71 Damdinsüren, B. (composer) 87 Damdinsüren, J. (writer) 134, 136 Damdinsüren, Ts. (writer) 16, 28, 46, 134, 136-137, 143, 150, 173, 181, 286-288 and the Revolutionary Writers’ Group 174 biographical note 323-324 Altan Gadas (Pole Star) (poem) 312 Gelen ba gergii (The Gelong and the Married Woman) (poem) 223-224 Gologdson Hüühen (The Rejected Girl) (story) 76, 79-80, 118-119, 173-177, 185, 271, 317 Lamin Rashaan (The Monk’s Spring Water) (story) 83 Soliig solison ni (What Changed Soli) (story) 315-317 Tankch (The Tank Operator) (poem) 311 Daņḍin (Sanskrit writer) 28

347 Kāvyādarśa 28, 43 Danzanravjaa (writer, monk) 37-38, 76, 154 Ülemjin Chanar (Perfect Qualities) (poem) 228 Daridulam, D. (actor) 71 Darjaa, D. (writer) 318 biographical note 324 Dashdeleg, O. (musician) 71 Dashdemberel (writer) 134, 136 Dashgombo, S. (writer) biographical note 324 Dashnyam, Ch. (writer) Baatar ulaan tsereg (The Heroic Red Army) (poem; co-authored with S.Buyannemeh qv) 139, 156 Deborin, Abram 130; see also Ermilov, Vladimir, ‘harmonious man’ theory Dechingungaa, T. (writer) 287-288 biographical note 324 Demchigjav, M. (writer) 303-305 biographical note 324 3dugar on-u 2 sara-yin 20-u edür-ün medege kürgegci Dampil (Dampil the Messenger [20 February 1923]) (poem) 304-305 Sühbaatarin Talbai (Sühbaatar Square) (poem) 303 Sükebagatur biden dagagulugsan (Sühbaatar Led Us Forward) (poem) 304-305 Öglöö (Morning) (poem) 303 Demid, G. 281-283 death 268, 292 Dendev-Ochir (writer) see Ochir (writer) dialog (narrative form) 146-147; see also repartee song Dogsom, D. 183 Dogsüren (writer) 134, 136 Dorj Meiren (writer) 39, 46, 54 Taulai, tölüge, činua gurbayin üliger (The Story of the Hare, the Hogget and the Wolf) (story) 39-42 Dorjhüü (actor) 62 Dorjsüren, B. (writer) 137 biographical note 324 Dörvöd ethnic group 59 Dotood Yam see Ministry of Internal Affairs Dugarjav, M. (writer, composer) 135-136, 155, 158 as Foreign Minister 276 Dügersüren, L. 293, 307-309, 317 Dungaryn, Chimid (writer) 107, 134-135, 137, 139, 146 advice on becoming a revolutionary writer 140 biographical note 323 ‘Ts.’ (pen-name) 150, 152-154 Anggir Shuvuu (The Shelducks) (story) 41, 100-103 Huvragiin huuli (The Law of the Sangha) (poem) 224-225

348 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Ödriin temdeglegt devter (Journal Entries) (story) 152-154 Orshil (Preface [to Uranügsiin chuulgan qv]) 138-139 Huvisgalyn Zohiolch naryn Beltgeh Zorilt (The Formation of Revolutionary Writers) (essay) 140 education 61, 166, 182, 266 and experience, official suspicion of 187 initial plan (1926) 155 Ministry 40, 69, 138 of Mongolians in Germany and France (1926-1929) 137-138 reforms 42 school curriculum 241 societal resistance to 204-242 Teachers’ Conference (1925) 155 women’s 176, 245-247, 315-317 Efremov, Andrei 70-73, 85-86, 89 egalitarianism, social policy of 148 Eisenstein, Sergei 50 Emegteichüüdiin Erh (Women’s Rights) (newspaper) 159 Engels, Friedrich 97 Erdene, S. (writer) 251-252 Erdenebathaan 69, 73, 138, 140, 180 correspondence with M.Gorky (qv) 171172, 203 Ermilov, Vladimir ‘harmonious man’ theory 130 European literary influences 87 factography 133, 260 factory labor 121, 124 Feuerbach, Ludwig 202 First Soviet Writers’ Congress (1934) 293 First Writers’ Congress (1948) 12, 15, 293, 307-309, 317-318 foxtrot 81 Futurism 153 Gaitav, Ts. (writer) Damdiny Sühbaatar (Damdiny Sühbaatar) (poem) 303 Gamala (Dugarsüren) (writer) 34-38, 54 Nayir-un Böke (The Festival Wrestlers) (poem) 34-36, 38 Ciicaa-yin magtagal (In Praise of the Car) (poem) 36-38 Ganbold (writer) Badam Hövgüün (Young Badam) (play) 66 Gandan Monastery 220-221 Gelegbalsan, B. (writer) 29-34, 40, 42, 46, 54 as yöröölch 30 Tenger-eče borogo qura guyuju talbigsan silüglel (A Poem Requesting Heaven for Rain) (poem) 30-34 Geleta, Jósef 69

Genden, G. (writer) 136 Genden, P. 170, 276, 279, 283 advocate for Buddhism 197 demotion from the rank of Marshal 197 execution 268 Genghis Khan see Chinggis Haan Germany, National Socialism 16 Gilmour, James 50 Gobi desert 30-34, 79 Gödan Haan 28 ‘god-building’ in Mongolia 210 in the Soviet Union 202 Gogol, Nikolai Revizor (The Government Inspector) 86 Gombojav, Ts. (actor) 59, 62, 66, 70-72, 85 Gongorjav, B. (writer) biographical note 324 Gonjoon, N. (writer) biographical note 325 Goolingoo (My Elegant One) (song) 77 Gorbov, Dmitiry Pygmalion and Galatea 132 see also Pereval Gorky Institute 15 Gorky, Maxim 16, 140, 203, 231, 289 correspondence with Erdenebathaan 171172, 203 influence on Socialist Realism (qv) 293-294 on religion 203 see also ‘god-building’ Great Patriotic War see World War II Great Repression (1937-1939) 16, 83, 93, 113, 167, 214, 267 Green Dome, the see Mongolian State Theater Haenisch, Erich 138 Haliutina, Sofijia Vasilievna 70 Halzanhüü (actor) 62 Harbin 47 Helberel Nugalgaa (Deviation) (play) 73 herders, livestock Herders’ Congress (?1936) 167, 180, 188-190, 193-197 misuse of funds among 195-196 see also livestock Hiagt see Kyakta Hitler, Adolf 238, 309, 312 holboot (poetic form) 145, 298 Honichin Hüühen (The Shepherd Girl) (play) 65 Horloo, P. (writer) biographical note 325 horses 106-107 in Buddhist literature 37 rarely mentioned in literature 239 Hovd 167 Hövsgöl 119, 214

349

Index

Hoxha, Enver 17-18 humor in literature 98-100 Hüree 48, 52 Hüree duu song style 77 Ichinhorloo, D. (actor, writer) 66, 71, 77 Odoo Medlee (Right Then!) (play) 88 Indo-Tibetan literature 28 industrialization in Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 17 motor vehicles 36-38 Injannashi, V. 31, 49 Höh Sudar (The Blue Annals) (novel) 49 Inner Mongolia 278, 281 Inner Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party 277 Iran, Islamic revolution (1979) 16 Ishdulam, D. (writer, musician) 54, 71, 158-159, 161 biographical note 325 Lyenin ba Sühbaataryg hosolson duu (A Song Linking Lenin and Sühbaatar) (song) 158 Namyn hurlyn duu (Song for the Party’s Great Hural) (song) 158 see also Shiree Hiagt (The Fortress at Kyakta) (poem) Ivanov, Vsevelod 97 Jadamba, N. 69, 73, 182 Jadambaa, B. (actor) 88 Jambalsüren, N. (writer) Khubisgaltu nam-un 20 jil-ün oi (Twenty Years of the Revolutionary Party) (poem) 295 Jamtsarano, Ts. 39-40, 42, 170, 210, 231, 281 Osnovi Buddizma (Foundations of Buddhism) 210-211 Japan 159 1905 Russo-Japanese war 31 accusations of espionage in Mongolia 93, 276, 281-282 occupation of Korea 17 P. Genden’s alleged ideas about Japan 279-280 Jetsundamba Hutagt see Bogd Haan Jigmiddorj, B. (actor) 71 Juche 18 Kabardino-Balkar 70 Kāmasūtra 154 Kamenev, Lev 128 Kazakh literature 19-20, 321 Khlebnikov, Velimir 152 Kim Il Sung 17-18 Kim Jong Il 18 Komsomol 157, 177, 181 Korea Japanese colonization 18

Korea, Democratic People’s Republic of influence of Soviet literature 16-17 literary themes, required 17 Socialist Realism in literature 18 Kruchenykh, Aleksei 152 kulaks 128, 185 Kunga Gyeltsen see Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyeltsen KUTV see Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV) Kyakta 52 Treaty of 25, 168 see also Shiree Hiagt (The Fortress at Kyakta) (song) labor, transforming power of 315-317 Lamin Sonin (Journal of the Lamas) (newspaper) 210, 231 land reform in Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 17-18 landscape in literature 95-125 LEF (group, journal) 86, 133-134, 150, 260; see also Novyi LEF ‘Left Deviation’ (1929-1932) 15, 74-75, 101, 107, 113, 135, 166, 211, 243, 277 legal system 50-52, 243-244 punishment 244 Léger, Fernand 190-191 Leipzig 251 Lenin, Vladimir 86, 89, 127, 130, 144-145, 201, 204, 231, 310 on literature 308-309 Lezhnev, Abram 132; see also Pereval Lhamsüren, Ch. (writer) biographical note 325 Gaihamshigt Tyehnik (Wondrous Engineering) (poem) 274-275 Libedinsky, Yuri 131 literacy 42, 55, 172 female 160 literary censorship 90 Glavlit 292 rejection of traditional forms 104 Literary Center of the Constructivists (LTsK) 133 literary competitions 87, 109-110 literary criticism in the Soviet Union 16-17 literary translation into Mongolian 171-172 livestock 27, 180 disease 195 improved situation 295 see also collectivization Lodoidamba, Ch. (writer) biographical note 325 London, Jack 40 Lunacharsky, Anatoly 61-62, 130, 202-204, 231 Luvsandamdin (actor) 71 Luvsanjamts, M. (actor) 71 Luvsansharav, D. 91, 220

350 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Luvsansodnom, Ch. (actor) 62, 71 Lu Xun (Zhōu Shùrén) 47 Maam, L. (musician) 71 magtaal 96 Majaa, D. (actor) 71 Manchu Dynasty 16-17, 29, 42, 77 Manchuria 283-284, 311 Marxism 50, 97, 181, 202, 238 May Fourth Movement 42 Mayakovsky, Vladimir 133, 150 lesenka style 298, 300 Kak delat’ stukhi (How To Write Verses) (essay) 142 Merse 277-278, 281 Meyerhold, Vsevelod 75-76 medicine hospital care 255-258 traditional (Tibetan) vs scientific (European) 212-213, 256, 258 western medical practice 256 see also prostitution military see Mongolian People’s Army Ministry of Internal Affairs 181, 197, 272-273, 281 as censor 292 Ministry of Livestock and Agriculture 166, 188 Minsk 70 modernism 36, 81, 104 bicycles 252-253 clothing and hairstyles 49, 245 description of love 153-154 electric light-bulbs 191-192 journalism 254-256 movement 190-193 radio 109 sound-poetry 152-153 Ulaanbaatar 298-301 westernization 36 monasteries 28 destruction 83 secular power, limitation imposed on 209 see also Bandid Gegeen Hiid; Gandan Monastery Möndgöö (?actor) 62 Mongolia 1921 Constitution 160 1921 Revolution 55, 63 1932 Civil War 78, 114, 166, 171, 214-220, 257, 308 alliance with Soviet Union 15 anti-revolutionary activity 90-93 ‘black and yellow feudals’ 39, 54, 60, 166 class relationships 58 education before the revolution 25-26 epic tradition 29 First Five Year Plan (1928-1933) 134 Five Year Plan (1948-1953) 308 Labor Law (1941) 307 Manchu colony 16, 18, 63, 77 Ministry of Education 40

Mongolian Academy of Sciences 40 Mongolian Internationale 80 Mongolian People’s Republic 36, 66 Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party Committee on Art 110 Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party Congress see Congress, MPRP Mongolia-Soviet relations 15, 17, 66, 87-88, 98, 105, 127-128, 134, 162, 180, 192-193, 221, 268, 275, 292, 299, 318 Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) 29, 66, 159, 179-180, 209 People’s Provisional Government 52 pre-revolutionary literature 25-56 repartee song 58 Republic of China occupation 16, 18, 46 revolutionary drama 57-94 separation of church and state, law on 220 Soviet war effort, contribution to 98, 309-314 themes in revolutionary drama 64-65 traditional drama 62 üge tradition 39, 41 see also anti-Russian fears; Congress, MPRP; First Writers’ Congress (1948); Great Repression (1937-1939); ‘Leftward Deviation’; literary censorship; ‘Right Opportunism’; socialist realism Mongolian People’s Army 98, 211, 217 soldiers in literature 313, 315-317 see also Ardyn Tsereg (People’s Army) (newspaper) Mongolian State Theater 69, 85, 88, 158 opening 71-73 Mongolian Writers’ Union 54, 73, 87, 266-267, 287, 313 local branches 141 see also First Writers’ Congress (1948); literary competitions; Mongolyn Ardyn Revolutsionist Literaturist (MARL); Mongolyn Ardyn Revolutsionist Zohiolchuud (MARZ); Revolutionary Writers’ Group Mongolyn Ardyn Revolutsionist Literaturist (MARL) (1931-1941) 109, 182, 265-266, 268, 287 Mongolyn Ardyn Revolutsionist Zohiolchuud (MARZ) (1930-1931) 109 Mongolyn Sonin Bichig (Mongol News) (newspaper) 47 monks and class 82 immorality among 64, 221-224, 228 in literature 59, 81-85, 100-103, 211-214 recognition of reincarnations banned 220 rehabilitation of 81-82, 101 rise in vocations 211 stratification imposed 220-221 see also monasteries; ruddy shelduck Moscow Art Theater 70 Moscow School of Journalism 76

Index

Na Literaturnom Postu (On Literary Guard) (journal) 129 Na Postu (On Guard) (journal) 129, 131 naadam 34 Namdag, D. (writer, actor) 16, 70, 72, 74, 85-87, 137 biographical note 326 Ami ba amidralin üne (Life and the Cost of Living) (play) 89, 230, 258-264 Shine Zam (The New Road) (play) 87-89 Süreg Chono (The Wolf Pack) (play) 90-93 Temtsel (The Struggle) (play) 87, 89 Namsrai, D. 277 Nardom in Mongolia 66 Nasanbat, N. (actor) 62-63, 66, 69 National Socialism 260 National Theater see Mongolian State Theater Natsagdorj, D. (writer) 28, 46, 58, 74, 109, 135, 137-138, 186, 257, 268, 274 arrest (1932) 184 biographical note 326 death 271 education in Germany 137 family 270 imprisonment (1932) 119 membership of the Revolutionary Writers’ Group (qv) 160 on syphilis (qv) and public health (qv) 58, 249, 251-258 translation of Pushkin 270 Aali ügüigees hamar ügüi (You’ll Lose Your Nose Flirting) (story) 58, 252-253 Bi Bish (Not I) (play) 73 Dörvön Uliral (The Four Seasons) (poem) 110-113, 117-118 Erüüliig hamgaalah gazar (A Place For Protecting Health) (poem) 257-258 Galzuu Övchin (Syphilis) (story) 254-255 Haranhui Had (Dark Cliffs) (story) 121, 271, 326 Högshin hünii ögüülel (Old Men Talking) (story) 256-257 Hün heden udaa ühej boloh ve? (How Many Times Does A Man Die?) (story) 256 Lambugain Nulims (The Venerable Monk’s Tears) (story) 221-223, 226-227, 251-252, 254 Libkneht nar ba Mongolin Pionyer (Liebknecht’s Followers and the Mongolian Pioneers) (essay) 161 Martyn Naiman ba Manai Pionyer (March 8th and Our Pioneers) (essay) 161 Mes zaslin tasag (The Surgical Ward) (story) 256 Minii Nutag (My Homeland) (poem) 111114, 269 Pyoneriin Duu (Pioneer Song) (song) 155, 160-162 Tsagaan Sar ba Har Nulims (New Year’s Joy With Tears of Sadness) (story) 184-186

351 Tsenherlen haragdana (Appearance of Skyblue) (poem) 161 Tüühiin Shüleg (A History Poem) (poem) 269 Uchirtai Gurvan Tolgoi (Three Interesting Characters) (play) 73 Üzegdeegüi Yum (Things Which Had Never Been Seen) (story) 119, 216-217, 257 Zul (The Lamp) (story) 270 Natsagdorj, Sh. (writer) 318 Natsagdorj, T. (writer) 110, 137 biographical note 326 Navaannamjil, G. (writer) 25, 54, 104, 134, 136, 161 biographical note 327 Hulgana zurmyn yaria (Meaningful Words between a Mouse and Ground Squirrel) (story) 147, 149-150 Lyenin bagshiin dursgal (Lenin’s Memorial) (poem) 145-146 Ovgon bicheechiin ögüülel (The Old Secretary’s Story) (novel) 25-26, 135 Navan-Yunden, N. (writer) 109, 137 biographical note 327 Dörvön tsag hünii amidral (Human Life in Four Seasons) (poem) 114-115 Talyn deer gants ger (A Single Ger on the Steppe) (story) 217 Nemirovich-Danchenko, Vladimir 70 New Culture Movement 42, 47 New Economic Policy (NEP) 127, 129, 178, 188, 202 ‘new sobriety’ (neue Sachlichkeit) 254-255 New Turn Policy 78, 83, 87-88, 166, 187-189, 194-197, 211, 280, 295, 308 as explicit response to ‘left deviation’ (qv) 220 ratification by Ninth Congress of MPRP (1932) 188 New Youth/La Jeunesse (newspaper) 47 Niislel Hüreenii Sonin Bichig (Capital News) (newspaper) 48 NKVD 272 nomadic culture and society 16, 20, 29 education in 68 gradual changes 238-239 in Kazakh literature 19-20 relation to the land 95-98 seasonal movement 37 view of Ulaanbaatar 80, 122-124 see also herders, livestock Novyi LEF (New LEF) (journal) 85, 133-134; see also LEF Ochir (writer) 136 Ochirbatin Yaam (Ochirbat’s Ministry) 215, 220, 257 treatment of the enemy 215-216 see also Mongolia, 1932 Civil War

352 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Oidov, Ch. (writer) 318 biographical note 327 Ölziihand (actor) 62 Onlitguard see Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) opium addiction 221 Orlovsky, Serge 75 Övgön Bürged (The Old Eagle) (play) 73 Oyuun, E. (writer) 63 biographical note 327 Pagmadulam, D. 66, 138, 184 ‘pan-Buddhism’ see ‘pure Buddhism’ pan-Mongolism 277-278, 281 Pañcatantra 39, 98, 147, 150, 238 People’s Amateur Musicians’ Group 66, 158 People’s Theater see Mongolian State Theater Perenlei, D. (writer) 141 biographical note 327-328 Pereval 131-133 Perlee, D. (writer) see Perenlei, D. (writer) Pioneer Movement in Mongolia 160-162, 265, 298 in Soviet Union 47, 161 poverty 65 Pozdenyev, A.M. 31, 38, 40 Proletkult 61, 203 Congress (1920) 130 prostitution 221-223, 247-250, 259-260 public health see medicine; prostitution; syphilis publishing MPRP Publishing division 13 opportunities for writers 13 State Publishing House 12 ‘pure Buddhism’ 100, 103, 170, 204-206, 229; see also ‘god-building’ Pürev, E. (writer) biographical note 328 Pürevsüren (actor) 72 Pushkin, Alexander 289 D. Natsagdorj’s translation of Probuzhdenie (Awakening) 270 Qing see Manchu Dynasty Radnaabazar, M. (musician) 71 RAPP see Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) Red Army 65, 78, 89, 170, 298, 312 Red Flag, The 155 religion 78-79, 201-233 as personal choice 83 discouragement of 225-226 law on separation of church and state 220 see also Buddhism; monasteres; monks; shamanism repartee song 59, 223; see also dialog (narrative form)

repression, state see Great Repression Revolutionary Writers’ Group (1929-1930) 134137, 139, 143-144, 146, 172-174 editorial process 174 see also Mongolian Writers’ Union; Uran ügsiin chuulgan (Anthology of Literature) Revolutionary Youth Union 62-63, 69, 135, 138, 161, 171, 205, 272 aggression 177-179, 195 and religion 210-211 First Congress (1922) 178 ‘Right Opportunism’ 166, 179, 243 purge 179-180 Rinchen, B. (writer) 16, 134, 137, 150, 286 biographical note 328 Minii Nutag (My Homeland) (poem) 110111, 151 Rinchino (Rinchingiin Elbegdorj) 277-278 ruddy shelduck 100-103 Russia 1905 revolution 31, 42 1905 Russo-Japanese War 31 Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP) 128-131, 173 Onlitguardist Five-Year Plan 130 see also Ermilov, Vladimir; Na Literaturnom Postu; Na Postu Russian exploitation of Mongolian women 169, 218, 246 Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyeltsen 28 Sambuu, G. 280, 282 Sando, last Manchu Governor of Mongolia 63 Sanjid, A. (writer) biographical note 329 Sanskrit literature 28, 39, 43, 46 kāvyā tradition 43-45 Sarasvati see Yanchenlham script Cyrillic 286 Mongol bichig 278 Selenge 38 Sengee, D. (writer) 13, 15, 271, 304-307, 312 and Buyannemeh’s execution 285 biographical note 329 relationship with Choibalsan 272, 294 Aavdaa bichsen zahidal (A Letter Written to My Father) (poem) 313 Man-u nam-tu Bolšévik-un angkhan-u tuyaga (The First Bolshevik Rays of Our Party) (poem) 294-295 Margaash Irne (I’ll Come Tomorrow) (poem) 272-273 Orosni maamuu ireerei (Boys and Girls of Russia) (poem) 313-314 Udarnik (The Shock Worker) (poem) 306307, 314 Yee gyalai (Oh Good!) (poem) 313

353

Index

Ser-Od, G. (writer) 232-233 biographical note 329 Ehiin Setgel (Mother’s Mind) (poem) 232-233 Shagdarjav (actor) 62 Shakhty affair 142, 181, 187 shamanism 27 Sharavdoo, Yo. (actor, writer) 70-72 Margaash (Tomorrow) (play) 73 Shavi Yamen 38, 40, 47 Shine Toli (New Mirror) (newspaper) 39, 42, 46-47 Shiree Hiagt (The Fortress at Kyakta) (song) 158-160 Shirnen, D. 194 Shülgiin tsomorlig (poetry anthology) 293-298 Shumyatsky, Boris 49-50 Sipailo, Leonid 64 social equality see education; women socialism as group ideology 156 as opposed to Buddhism 218 ‘Socialism in one Country’ theory 128 Socialist Realism 18, 90, 132, 314 and Stanislavski Method 70 as Revolutionary Realism 293, 311 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 17 Mongolia 268-269, 273-276, 293-318 Soviet Union 17, 291-292 Sodnom, B. (writer) 137, 287-288 biographical note 329 Sodnom, L. (actor) 62, 71 Sodnomdorj, Sh. (writer) 217, 286 arrest and execution 220 biographical note 329-330 Baatarlag Temtsel (A Heroic Struggle) (story) 218-219 Urianhai Balchinnyam (Balchinnyam the Urianhai) (story) 169, 218 Songino Hairhan 284 Sosorbaram (actor) 71 Soviet National Theater College 70 Soviet Union 15 1917 (October) revolution 12, 47, 54, 61, 296 Civil War period 178 film industry 50, 192-193 First Five-Year Plan (1928-1933) 128, 130, 144, 176 literary criticism 16-17 literature 36 ‘mass journalism’ 193 People’s Commissar for Education (Narkompros) 202-203 relationship with Democratic People’s Republic of Korea 17 religion 202-204 revolutionary literature 61, 128-134, 151 role of art 129

Sovnarkom (Council of People’s Commissars) 61 Workers’ Clubs 66, 68 see also All-Russia Association of Proletarian Writers (VAPP); All-Union Organization of Associations of Proletarian Writers (VOAPP); All-Union Congress of Proletarian Writers; anti-Russian fears; Comintern; Congress, CPSU; First Soviet Writers’ Congress (1934); Lenin, Vladimir; Mongolia, Mongolia-Soviet relations; New Economic Policy (NEP); Pioneer Movement, in Soviet Union; Russian Association of Proletarian Writers (RAPP); Union of Soviet Writers; Stalin, Josef Stakhanovites 306-307 Stalin, Josef 15, 17, 49-50, 127-128, 181, 187, 266, 268, 277, 292 order to destroy religion 171 transformation of nature under 97 K Voprosam Leninizma (On Issues of Leninism) (article) 128 Osnovy Leninizma (Foundations of Leninism) (book) 128 Stalinism 157 Stanislavski, Konstantin 70, 87 Method of Physical Acting 70-71, 89-90 State Publishing House 12 State Theater see Mongolian State Theater Sühbaatar Club 66, 74, 158 Sühbaatar, D. 28, 61-63, 87-89, 144-145, 161, 170, 299 cult of personality 303-305 death 64, 180 relationship with Choibalsan 88 Sumiya Noyon (Lord Sumiya) (play) 59-62, 228 Süriyee, D. (writer) 274 biographical note 330 syphilis 58, 249-250, 263; see also prostitution taiji 58 Tarvaa, D. (writer) 318 Damirangiinhan (Damiran’s Family) (novel) 315 Tashilhunpo 226 Tashkent 70 three manly games 34 Tibet Buddhism in 42 traditional medicine 212 see also Tibetan literature Tibetan literature 28 translations from Sanskrit 46 Toiv, L. (writer) biographical note 330 translation see literary translation into Mongolian Trotsky, Leon 128, 277

354 

Politics and Liter ature in Mongolia (1921-1948)

Tryetiyakov, Sergei Rychi Kitai! (Roar China!) (play) 85 Tsedenjav, Ts. (writer) 270, 287 biographical note 330 Ulaanbaatar (Ulaanbaatar) (poem) 298-301 Tsegmid, Ts. (actor) 88 Tsendeehüü, Z. (actor) 88 Tsend-Ochir, L. (writer) 270, 311 biographical note 330 Sin-e jam (New Ways) (poem) 295 Tsendsüren, L. (writer, actor) 71, 134 Als morin deer (Far Away On Horseback) (essay) 106-107 Tsentroteatr 61 Tserendorj, B. 134, 220 Tserendorj, L. (musician) 71 Tserendorj, Yu. (musician) 71 Tserenlham, D. (writer) 158-160, 221 biographical note 330 Emegteichüüdiin duu (Women’s Song) (song) 159-160 Tseveen, Ch. (actor) 71 Tsevegmid, D. (writer, politician) 264, 267, 271, 287 biographical note 331 Bold Sambuu Hoyor (Bold and Sambuu) (story) 232, 264-266, 298 Bulshin Deer (Beside the Grave) (poem) 309-311 Honichin Naidan (Naidan the Shepherd) (story) 232 Surugci Gangbatu (Ganbat the Student) (story) 296-298 Tsevel, Ya. (writer) 16, 135 biographical note 331 Byatshan Nairuulga (A Brief Sketch) (essay) 107 Tseyenjav, N. (writer) biographical note 331 Tüdev, D. (musician) 71 Turkmenistan 85 Tüvden, S. (musician) 71 Udval, S. (writer) 304 biographical note 331 üge genre 39, 41, 98, 147 Ulaan Tug (The Red Flag) (song) 155; see also Buyannemeh, S., Shine Ulaan Tug (New Red Flag) Ulaanbaatar 37, 68-69, 83, 85-86, 121, 180, 186-187, 190-192, 255, 265, 296 as a modern city 298-301 Chinese Traders district 147, 221, 260 Hüree duu song style 77 school curriculum in 241-242 second-hand bookstores 13 traders 79 urban-rural dynamic 122-124 see also Hüree; prostitution; Urga

Ulambayar, Ts. (writer) biographical note 331 Üliger-ün Dalai (The Sea of Stories) 98 Ündesnii Erh (Popular Power) (newspaper) 280 Ünen (Truth) (newspaper) 14, 98, 134, 136, 173 Ungern-Sternberg, Baron von 64, 89 Union of Soviet Writers 291-292 United States 148 Uran ügsíín chuulgan (Anthology of Literature) 54, 104-109, 138-162, 223-226 religion in 150 songs 155-162 Uran zohiol, urlag (Writing and Art) (newspaper) 113 urban development 192-193 Urga 38 Urginskaya Gazeta (Urga Gazette) (newspaper) 66 Utga Zohiol (Literature) (newspaper) 48 Verne, Jules 40 Vessantara ( jataka story) 64 veterinary medicine 149, 195 Soviet veterinarians 180 violence, mental and physical 168-169, 173-175 during the Civil War 215-216 monastic violence 224-225 punishment 168 see also Great Repression; Russian exploitation of Mongolian women VOAPP see All-Union Organization of Associations of Proletarian Writers (VOAPP) Voronsky, Aleksandr 132; see also Pereval Weimar Republic 251; see also Berlin; ‘new sobriety’ (neue Sachlichkeit) White Sea-Baltic Canal project 97 women in revolutionary Mongolia equality 160, 166, 315-317 International Women’s Day 161 literacy 160 MPRP women’s section 159 represented in Uran ügsiin chuulgan (qv) 157-162 see also education, women’s; Russian exploitation of Mongolian women World War II 15, 286, 309 Mongolia enters 295 see also Mongolia, Soviet war effort, contribution to wrestling 34-36 Xu Shizheng 16 Yadamsüren, M. (writer) 54, 71, 75, 90, 109-110, 135, 137, 267-268, 286, 289 biographical note 332 Director of the State Theater (qv) 282

355

Index

trial and execution 279, 281-284 Anhaarch bishirsen chavgants, ataarhan horsson lam hoyoryn ünen baidal (The True Story of an Old Woman Who Has Faith in What She Observes, and a Monk, Poisoned By Jealousy) (story) 124, 211-214 Bulan Ders (Bulan Ders) (poem) 285-286 Gurvan Hüühen (Three Girls) (story) 37, 80, 121, 191, 245-253, 263, 274, 297 Halhyn Baatar (The Hero of the Halh) (play) 73, 88 Zaluu Hos (The Young Couple) (story) 121-125 Yanchenlham 43 Yanjiv, G. 286 Yi Ki-yŏng (Korean writer) Ttang (Land) 17 yörööl 31-32, 96

Yüan Dynasty 49 Yuzhanin, Boriz 76 Zahchin ethnic group 59 Zalgamjlagch (The Successor) (newspaper) 161 Zaluuchuudin Evlel (Youth Union) (newspaper) 14 zaum 152 Zavhan 119 Zawa Damdin Luvsandamdin (writer) 43-45, 54 Dbyangs can dkar mo’i bstod pa snyan ngag brag cha’i glu dbyangs (The Melody of the Rock, in Praise of Yangchen Lhamo) (poem) 43-45 Zhang Zhuolin 277 Zinoviev, Grigory 128 Zola, Émile 260