Page date:1 Jan 02
Sabloff, Paula, ed. (2001) Modern Mongolia: Reclaiming
Genghis Khan. Philadelphia: U Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Mongolia,
a country that evokes romantic curiosity on the part of Western readers,
has
emerged from its former Soviet cocoon. It has achieved independence, democracy
and a market economy. This book provides factual information about Mongolia
and new ways of looking at a historical figure, Genghis Khan, whose ideals
of
nationhood and democratic principles are in practice now. Modern Mongolia is
unique in providing multiple perspectives— Mongolian and American, scholarly
and less formal— about the country's developments in a readable style,
richly illustrated with 120 full-color contemporary and archival photographs.
The first chapter provides an overview of Mongolian geography and history to
the twentieth century and the author's personal experience as a teenager during
the 1989-90 Democratic Revolution. Chapter 2, by a Mongolian historian, recounts
the exciting changes from Manchu Dynasty feudal society and autonomous theocracy
to Communist nationhood and finally full independence as a democratic nation.
The third chapter, by a cultural historian, describes the effects of historical
changes on the daily life of Mongolian nomads—their clothing, family dwellings
(gers), and furnishings. Chapter 4, by an anthropologist, shows the connection
between modern Mongolians' devotion to democracy and the political ideas of
Genghis Khan. Readers of all ages seeking an accessible and picturesque presentation
of Mongolian history and society will find Modern Mongolia a fascinating introduction.
Table of Contents
Foreword
Jeremy A. Sabloff, The Williams Director, University of Pennsylvania Museum
of Archaeology and Anthropology
Foreword
Borjigid Sanduin Idshinnorov, Director, National Museum of Mongolian History
Preface and Acknowledgments
Paula L.W. Sabloff, Senior Research Scientist/Adj. Assoc. Prof., University
of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
My Mongolia
Munhtuya Altangerel, London School of Economics
The Twentieth Century: From Domination to Democracy
Nasan Dashdendeviin Bumaa, Curator of Twentieth Century History, National Museum
of Mongolian History
Deel, Ger, and Altar: Continuity and Change in Mongolian Material Culture
Eliot Grady Bikales, Assistant Curator, National Museum of Mongolian History
Genghis Khan, Father of Mongolian Democracy
Paula L.W. Sabloff
Suggested Readings
Index
Preface and Acknowledgments
Mongolia is a country with a small population and large territory. Just about
halfway around the world from the United States, it is thirteen time zones from
Philadelphia, my home. About half the people of Mongolia are pastoral nomads,
following their sheep, goats, yaks, cows, camels, and horses from one pasture
to another in an annual migration cycle. The majority of the people are Buddhist
or shamanist or both. On the surface Mongolia could not look more different
from the United States.
Aside from curiosity about a people so different from us, why would Americans
care about Mongolians? True, there is the romance of Genghis Khan–the story
of how one man, a nonliterate nomad at that, conquered the largest territory
of anyone in the history of the world. And there is the mystery of pastoral
nomads who live so differently from most of us. But there is also a deep-seated
connection between the Mongolian and American people, and that is a similarity
in our cultural heritage. Both peoples share a love of independence and freedom
that are embedded in our democratic governments and capitalist economies. Both
nations have linked political culture (independence) and political structure
(government) through revolution, the fight against more powerful nations for
the right to self-determination and democracy. And both nations achieved this
right with help from our friends.
The story of nations achieving self-determination and democracy is thrilling
and needs to be told over and over. This retelling enforces our own celebration
of national freedom and helps us appreciate other nations that have gone through
the same struggle as the United States. The story also helps us see the nuances
among different nations’ adaptations of democratic government and market
economy. And it helps us understand the linkage between political culture–how
a people believe they should be governed–, government, and economy.
This book grew out of my initial exploration of Mongolians’ ideas of democracy
starting in 1996. While conducting anthropological research in Ulaanbaatar on
a related topic, Mongolians’ off-hand comments about democracy piqued my
curiosity. Did Mongolians use the same definition of democracy as Americans?
Political scientists tell us there are over 200 possible definitions, so the
Mongolians had many to choose from. But if their definition matches ours, how
did this concept catch on so rapidly in a former Soviet satellite? How much
of the Mongolian population has bought into this new definition of democracy?
And how did the new definition spread so rapidly through the population? I needed
to know the answers to these questions.
On that same visit, I met the anthropologists and historians at the National
Museum of Mongolian History and we started exploring the idea of presenting
a small photographic exhibition on modern Mongolia with a few artifacts at my
home museum, the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
This exhibition changed and grew over the next four years until it took its
present form as "Modern Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan," a combination
of yurts, dioramas, artifacts, videos, and photographs. This rich combination
relates Mongolia’s transformation from a feudal, nomadic society under
the control of the Manchu Dynasty in China to a literate Communist satellite
of the Soviet Union with an emerging industrial sector and finally to an independent
democratic nation grounded in capitalist principles and united with the world
community.
The exhibition and book share several goals. The first is to introduce Western
audiences to the sweep and excitement of twentieth-century Mongolian history
that resonates with American history in their similar struggles for independence
and democracy. Both countries had to fight twice to secure their present self-determination,
the United States in 1776 and 1812 and Mongolia in 1911-21 and 1990. Our project’s
second purpose is to demonstrate the close relationship between government and
daily life by showing how the extreme shifts in Mongolian government affected
people’s dress, ornamentation, homes, and furnishings. Sometimes we forget
how much government does affect our daily lives, and it is good to be reminded
of this fact. The third goal is to relate modern Mongolians’ national goals
to their heritage from Genghis Khan and their nomadic tradition. It is always
a shock for people in the West to realize that Genghis Khan, whose rule predates
the Magna Carta, affirmed basic democratic principles that continue to guide
the Mongolian people, but he did. These chapters, written by two Mongolians
and two Americans, together build toward achieving these goals.
Chapter 1, "My Mongolia," is written by Munhtuya (Tuya) Altangerel,
born and raised in Mongolia and educated in the United States. I met Tuya when
she attended my first lecture on Mongolian history and culture at the University
of Pennsylvania Museum. She was a university sophomore, and she was curious
to see what I would say about her country. Clearly I passed her test, because
we spent the next several years working together. She taught me Mongolian; I
supervised her senior thesis. She ate in my home in Philadelphia; I ate in her
parents’ home in Ulaanbaatar. After her graduation, Tuya worked on the
exhibition with me for a year before leaving for graduate school in England.
Over the course of these years she shared her love of her native land with me,
and in this chapter she shares it with the reader, offering not only a broad
picture of Mongolia today but also an understanding of her special situation,
for she completed most of her elementary and secondary schooling under the Communist
system, witnessed the Peaceful Revolution of 1990, and now sees her country
through the eyes of someone who is aware of Americans viewing her country when
she visits her family back home. In the last section of Chapter 1, Tuya briefly
reviews Mongolian prehistory and history up to the twentieth century, giving
the reader background for understanding Chapter 2, which she translated.
Nasan Dashdendeviin Bumaa (Bumaa), a twentieth-century historian at the National
Museum, wrote Chapter 2, "The Twentieth Century: From Domination to Democracy,"
providing the historical framework for the book and exhibition. Since the demise
of the Mongolian Empire, if not before, Mongolian history has been influenced
by its two neighbors, Russia and China, which have always been uneasy with each
other. Over the course of the twentieth century, changes in one or both of its
neighbors’ situations have triggered serious changes in Mongolia’s
political, economic, and social organization. This statement does not mean that
Mongolia was a passive recipient of outside stimuli. Quite the contrary! Chapter
2 clearly demonstrates the active part that Mongolia took in interpreting and
acting upon changes in the neighboring states, always trying to use these external
changes to gain independent status for itself along with democratic government
and a free-market economy. This trend is clearly seen in Chapter 2 as Dr. Bumaa
presents the social, political, and economic history of Mongolia in the twentieth
century, illustrating it with her own family’s story.
Chapter 3, "Deel, Ger, and Altar: Continuity and Change in Mongolian Material
Culture," shows the strong link between changes in political history and
concomitant changes in the material culture of the people of Mongolia, one of
the main foci of the exhibition. Using the predominant ethnic group, the Halh,
as illustration, Eliot Grady Bikales, Chinese art historian and Assistant Curator
at the National Museum of Mongolian History, describes the changes in dress,
ornamentation, housing, and ger furnishings that accompanied the three changes
in government: hierarchical government and feudal society under the Manchu (Chinese)
Dynasty, totalitarian government and socialist economy under the Soviet-controlled
Communist Party, and democratic government and open, capitalist economy under
the 1992 democratic constitution. Chapter 4, "Genghis Khan, Father of Mongolian
Democracy," presents some of my own research on Mongolians’ concept
of democracy. By comparing Genghis Khan’s democratic principles with the
four pillars of democracy that gird our own American democracy–participatory
government, rule by law, equality under the law, and personal freedoms–this
chapter shows that the man with the bad reputation in the West actually codified
the culture of democracy that is in the heads of Mongolians today. And this
concept of democracy looks much like the American definition of democracy. While
these ideas may be startling to Western readers, most Mongolians know this already.
We have all worked to make this book as ‘user friendly’ as possible,
integrating our own experience and impressions into the text to make it more
personal. The photographs, maps, and other images also bring the text to life.
These illustrations were contributed by the project’s professional photographer,
Joseph Wolek; the National Museum of Mongolian History’s photographic archives;
the Zanabazar (Fine Arts) Museum in Ulaanbaatar; Bumaa’s family photographs;
my own field photographs; and those of generous friends, Robert M. Baylis and
Stephanie G. Spaulding.
An exhibition project that stretches over five years owes its existence to
a great many people. As curator of the exhibition and editor of this volume,
it is my pleasure to thank at least some of them publicly. The project started
with my anthropological research; therefore first thanks are owed the National
Science Foundation and IREX for supporting my 1998 and 1999 research, respectively.
The Trust for Mutual Understanding gave us the original support to explore the
two museums’ collaboration on the exhibition, sponsoring an exchange of
personnel in 1999. Many University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and
Anthropology patrons backed the exhibition and work that made this volume possible.
They are Annette Merle-Smith, Bruce and Peggy Mainwaring, Charles K. Williams
II, Bob and Lois Baylis, Gordon Hattersley, Michael Monier, Terence and Kathleen
Golden, John and Jacqui Hover II, Al and Sally Shoemaker, Joan and Harry Kahn
II, Laura Fisher, and Cris Gonzalez. Generous support also came from the following
foundations: The Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, the Hoxie
Harrison Smith Foundation, Host Mariott Corporation, the J. Willard and Alice
S. Marriott Foundation, the T. Rowe Price Foundation, and the Schuyler Van Rensselaer
Camman Memorial Fund. The Samuel T. Freeman Charitable Trust provided special
funding for the preparation of the book. The support of these people and foundations
is a sign of their generosity and an example of the remarkable work of Leslie
Laird Kruhly, former Associate Director for Development and Special Events,
and the entire Development Office crew.
The people at both museums–the National Museum of Mongolian History and
the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology–have
been a joy to work with. They showed me the creative side of writing and building
exhibitions, something new for an academic. And their enthusiasm for my initial
idea always improved the project. Special thanks to my Mongolian colleagues
and friends: Borjigid Sanduin Idshinnorov, Director; Uriankhan Dugariin Nansalmaa,
Head Curator; and Borjigon Tseeliin Ayush, Curator of Ethnology. Bumaa, the
exhibition’s associate curator, deserves accolades for working side by
side with me on the entire project. Her focus on detail balanced my attention
to the big picture, thus making the volume and exhibition accurate as well as
exciting. Eliot Grady Bikales, assistant curator of the exhibition, is really
responsible for all of this, for she is the one who brought me to the National
Museum in the first place and translated the language and culture of our Mongolian
colleagues when I could not do so myself. I not only learned Mongolian history
and culture from all of them, I also learned the meaning of Mongolian friendship,
for we worked together, sometimes shouted together, but always laughed together.
Other members of the National Museum’s staff cheerfully performed all the
tasks that make the loan of exhibition materials possible, from the Registrar’s
Office that found and checked all the objects borrowed and archival photographs
copied to the men who removed all the huge plate glass windows to allow us to
photograph the National Museum’s treasures.
In the United States, I fondly thank Gillian Wakely, Interim Associate Director
for Program Education and Exhibits, who has made learning about exhibition preparation
enjoyable, and Walda Metcalf, Assistant Director of Publications, whose perspicacity
and humor guided this book. Many members of the University of Pennsylvania Museum
staff made preparation of the exhibition downright fun; they include but certainly
are not limited to Jack Murray, Kevin Lamp, Howard Clemenko, Philip Chase, Pam
Kosty, Xiuqin Zhou, and Jenny Wilson. No one thanks the Business Office, but
they have also put up with me an awful lot–and taught me so many things
that I did not want to know. So, thanks to Alan Waldt and his crew!
Communicating the excitement of a project takes the work of creative and helpful
people. In that vein, I would like to thank Joe Wolek, the photographer who
took most of the pictures for this volume and the exhibition and also coordinated
the 2000 photography/video trip, and Tom Gillern and Heather Marshall of Visual
Language, Inc., who filmed and prepared the videos that accompany the exhibition.
Munhtuya Altangerel was really the backbone of the project, for she helped shape
it during the critical year of its creation, doing the research to write the
initial teaching manual, website, and her own chapter; translating anything
we needed from and to Mongolian; and acting as interpreter of her culture as
well as her language. Many of her ideas and much of her perspective are embedded
in the exhibition. Genevra Murray, an anthropology graduate student at Penn,
took over from Tuya just as we were ready to gear the project to our audience
rather than our own interests. Knowing nothing about Mongolia, Genevra’s
intellect and interest enabled her to convert the drafts (of teachers’
manual, website, and book) written for ourselves into the form that is interesting
to the public. Thanks also to Enkhtsetseg Purev for helping to translate the
videos. Finally, William Honeychurch and Minjin Hashbat took time away from
their doctoral dissertations to check our spelling and our archaeological facts.
Their work has added to my confidence that the material presented here is accurate
and appropriate.
On a personal note, I would like to thank Seth Spaulding who gave me the opportunity
to visit Mongolia on a 1994 Citizen’s Exchange and thus opened up a whole
new world of research and friendships for me. Tsetseglen Aduuchin made the democracy
research possible by coordinating the project and befriending me in 1998 and
thereafter. Her husband, Bat-erdene Khiad Borjigin, State Secretary of the Ministry
of Science, Technology, Education, and Culture, smoothed the way for the project
and as friend provided needed support. Bob and Lois Baylis have been critical
to this project, for they believed in my research and the exhibition from our
first meeting in 1996 and demonstrated their support in so many ways–from
coordinating the project’s fundraising to critiquing our first drafts of
the volume’s chapters and visiting us in Ulaanbaatar in August-September
2000, when they provided sound advice and needed relief.
Extra special thanks really belong to two men. Brian Hackman of Peterborough,
England, stiffened my spine when the obstacles seemed insurmountable but really
were not. Our walks and dinners in Ulaanbaatar (where he was working for the
World Health Organization and I was doing the democracy research) enriched my
stay there immensely. His willingness to learn the anthropological perspective
and then incorporate it into his work on maternal mortality inspired me to learn
more, share more, and keep my perspective. The second–but really foremost–man
is Jeremy A. Sabloff. In his dual capacity as my husband (of over thirty years–an
achievement for our generation!) and Director of the University of Pennsylvania
Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, he supported me through this tremendous
learning process. He has always inspired me, for his ability to work calmly
with all sorts of people has always been amazing to me. Not only have I loved
him over the years, but I have also respected his abilities and learned from
him. And that is why I dedicate this volume to him.
It is traditional in prefaces for the author/editor to end by thanking her
children for their patience while she fulfills her career duties and ambitions.
When I started researching in Mongolia and then working on this project, our
children were already becoming young adults, Josh as a college graduate and
Lindi as a college freshman. If they learned in the process of this project
that they did not need me the way they did as children and that they were really
lovable and capable people in their own right, then this project has had an
extra bonus. But I think they knew this already. What I hope they also know
is that they have always been my top priority–if not in time, then in my
thoughts and heart.
Paula L.W. Sabloff
Philadelphia
Spring 2001