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Editorial Introduction
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Where Did the Mongol Empire Come From Medieval? Mongol Ideas of People, State and Empire
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The Medieval Mongol ulus was a category of government that was turned into a 'community of the realm' and as such it was assumed to be 'a natural, inherited community of tradition, custom, law and descent', a 'people' or irgen. According to Mongolian language sources of the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries, 'Mongol' was the only contemporary ulus and irgen while all the other contemporary categories such as Kitat, Tang'ut and so on were described only as irgen. Analysing this usage convention, this paper reconstructs medieval Mongol concepts of ulus, irgen and yeke ulus. The idea of ulus congruent with the Chinggisid state of 1206 was well established in pre-Chinggisid Mongolia. Indeed, the Mongol ulus of 1206 was a realisation and an embodiment of that idea, and was built upon the Kereyid state and her sphere of hegemony. As such, the Mongol ulus of 1206 was different and distinct from the Yeke Mongqol Ulus, the Mongol Empire. This finding not only renders the idea of the tribal origin of the Chinggisid state untenable, but also suggests that we must look at the legacies of previous state formations for the origin of the Chinggisid state.
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A Miscarriage of History: Wencheng Gongzhu and Sino- Tibetan Historiography
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In this article, I examine how Wencheng Gonghzu, the Chinese consort to the first Tibetan emperor Songtsen Gampo, served as a contentious rhetorical site for Tibetan and Chinese historiographers for over 1,000 years. I argue present exile Tibetan and Chinese propaganda on such topics as Tibetan political, cultural, and hereditary independence from China is at least analogous and possibly influenced by historiographic traditions found in texts such as the Tang Annals and post-imperial Tibetan buddhist works like the Vase-shaped Pillar Testament. However, as Central Tibetan and Chinese historians used Wencheng to index the complex relationship between Tibet and China, eastern Tibetan historians preserved lesser-known, potentially subversive narratives of Wencheng's travels, especially regarding her possible love-affair with the Tibetan minister Gar Tongtsen and their illegitimate child. After briefly reviewing Central Tibetan and Chinese metanarratives, I focus on eastern Tibetan narratives, including the apparently lost Secret Autobiography of Wencheng Gongzhu, which I argue point to the former political autonomy and cultural hybridity of areas of eastern Tibet, especially Minyak and Powo. My investigation into Wencheng narratives from eastern Tibet demonstrates that her journey from China to Tibet should not be thought of as a mere liminal period of her life, but rather central to debates among Tibetans and Chinese regarding the politics of national unity (minzu tuanjie) and constructions of pan-Tibetan identity.
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Persecuted Practice: Neichi Toyin's Way of Conducting Missionary Work
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This article re-evaluates the missionary work of the Mongolian monk Neichi Toyin, amongst the eastern Mongols, to explore the significance of his methods of spreading buddhism and the ways in which he was able to win the strong and lasting faith of the adherent community. It argues that the most important factor for his success was his ability to emulate the buddha's method of teaching rather than focusing on the accounts of his miracles. Furthermore, this article will argue that it is this, and not Neichi Toyin's suppression of shamans or the promise of material rewards, which played the central role in gaining the respect of the people he encountered.
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The Kyrgyz of Naryn in the Early Soviet Period: A Study Examining Settlement, Collectivisation and Dekulakisation on the Basis of Oral Evidence
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This study focuses on the Kyrgyz mountainous region of Naryn from the 1920s to mid-1930s, using oral sources collected by the author in 2009 to examine the process of settlement, collectivisation and dekulakisation of the indigenous Naryn population. The first section looks at the years prior to the 1930 collectivisation, interviews hinting at social and economic reasons that seem to have already pushed many Kyrgyz to adopt a semi- settled lifestyle prior to collectivisation. The second part examines in more detail the response to, and outcome of, collectivization in Naryn, including dekulakisation and resistance.
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Chinese Labour Migration in the Context of a Buryat Village
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Following the collapse of collective farms in the 1990s, the Buryat population initially strove to pursue the same sort of activity on private farmsteads. With a few exceptions, however, these enterprises have not flourished, owing to a lack of state investment and difficult environmental conditions. In the village of Tory, the arrival of Chinese migrant workers in the early 2000s led to the emergence of a parallel economy centred on logging and the processing of wood from the nearby protected national park. This article examines how, despite the illegal character of these activities and the risk of heavy fines and confiscation of equipment, logging has grown to supersede farming as the main source of income for the local population. The author shows that, although the Chinese are frequently perceived as reliable and hard-working, relations between them and the host society have not always been positive. Indeed, despite a generally good working relationship, social exchanges have remained limited.
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Performing Identity Through Language: The Local Practices of Urban Youth Populations in Post-Socialist Mongolia
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Drawing on contemporary transgressive theoretical approaches, this paper examines how modern urban youth populations perform new identities by manipulating 'global?local' cultural and linguistic resources available to them such as popular culture flows. In its search for a post-Socialist identity, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990, urban settings in Mongolia have been largely caught between the emerging transcultural flows. Young urban Mongolians have been participating in these current dynamic global interactions in multiple ways, while locating and styling their new identities within fluid spaces such as popular music. The linguistic practice of popular music in this regard is the main site for the exploration of the new identities performed by the urban youth population both as producers and consumers. It is the most dynamic and expressive space for urban youth to play, perform and negotiate within their identities.
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Imaginary Nomads: Deconstructing the Representation of Mongolia as a Land of Nomads
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Mongolia is often depicted as a country of nomads roaming over unbounded land. This largely romantic projection essentialises Mongolia for both Western and domestic consumption. Serving the habit of outsiders to construct an imagined Other and the need of Mongolians for cultural demarcation, the Mongolian landscape and Mongolian herders have become a facade through which the portrayal of Mongolia as a 'nomadic nation' is widely constructed and perpetuated. This article problematises these essentialised projections of Mongolia and unbinds Mongolia from the reductive mould of a 'nomadic nation'. It further questions the very existence of 'unbounded land' and the notion of 'free-roaming nomads', both of which are intimately attached to the modern construction of Mongolian identity. It then seeks to explain the persistence of the nomadic myth despite its tenuous underpinnings.
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Divine Knowledge: Buddhist Mathematics According to the Anonymous Manual of Mongolian Astrology and Divination
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Index to Inner Asia Volume 13, 2011
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