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Mongolia
By Alan Sanders Bravo Ltd
Copyright © 2016 Alan Sanders
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-85733-718-1
CHAPTER 1
LAND & PEOPLE
GEOGRAPHY
An independent landlocked country in the heart of Asia between N41° and 52° and E88° and 120°, Mongolia borders Russia (RF) for 2,202 miles (3,543 km) to the north and China (PRC) for 2,926 miles (4,709 km) to the east, south, and west. Mongolia's area of 603,909 square miles (1,564,116 sq. km) makes it the eighteenth-largest country in the world, but with a population of three million the average density is fewer than five persons per square mile (or 2 per sq. km). The capital, Ulan Bator (Ulaanbaatar), 4,400 feet (1,350 m) above sea level, has a population of 1.3 million.
The western and northern borders and central plateau are mountainous, the south and east flat, mostly steppe and govi (gobi), or gravel semi-desert. The highest peak, Khüiten ("cold"), rises to 14,355 feet (4,374 m) at the western junction of Mongolia's borders with China and Russia in the Tavan Bogd ("holy five") range of the Mongol Altai Mountains. The lowest point is Lake Khökhnuur (1,745 feet, or 532 m. above sea level) in the eastern plains, but the biggest lakes are in the west and north: Lake Uvs (1,446 sq. miles, or 3,376 sq. km), and Lake Khövsgöl (1,057 sq. miles, or 2,738 sq. km). The longest river, the Kherlen, 754 miles (1,213 km), rises in the northern Khentii Mountains, loops east and, via Chinese Inner Mongolia, joins the Argun tributary of the Amur (Heilongjiang, Black Dragon River) forming the Russian–Chinese border. The Orkhon, 698 miles (1,124 km), rises in the Khangai Mountains and flows north, near the Russian border joining the Selenge, which enters Lake Baikal.
Forest, mostly Siberian larch, covers about 8 percent of Mongolia, mainly on the northern mountain slopes. Some 36 percent is desert and govi, but dunes form only a small proportion. The Gobi mesas are the source of dinosaur fossils and eggs. Altan Els ("golden sands"), east of Lake Uvs, is the world's northernmost desert. The steppe, which accounts for 55 percent of the country, is where most nomads live, in ger, or circular, felt-covered, lattice-walled tents, grazing their herds of sheep, goats, cattle, horses, and camels (52 million head at the end of 2014).
Mongolia's continental climate has long, cold winters and short, hot summers. Ulan Bator's average January temperature is -40°F (-40°C) and its July average 63°F (17°C). Spring is windy and dusty; summer downpours can flood rivers. In winter frozen snow may cover pastures, so livestock cannot graze and would starve if not moved or fed emergency fodder.
THE PEOPLE
Mongols
Genghis Khan united Turkic and Tungusic "people of the felt tents" as the Mongol nation in 1206. Because of his belief in "eternal blue heaven" (see Tengerism, this page), Genghis called his people "Blue Mongols." They are born with a blue spot (khökh tolbo) on the buttocks, a common feature of Japanese and Koreans. After the Mongol Empire's collapse the heartland was incorporated in the Qing Empire of China's Manchu conquerors, the southern Mongols' territory as Inner Mongolia, and the northern Mongols' lands as Outer Mongolia. Russia expanded into Siberia, bringing the Buryats at Lake Baikal under the Tsar's rule. The Oirats, or western Mongols, were destroyed by the Qing as a political power, but remain a distinctive cultural group. The Kalmyks fled Qing China and migrated to Russia, occupying the Caspian steppes. Outer Mongolia came under Soviet control in 1921, while Inner Mongolia remained part of China. The world population of Mongols is estimated at nine million, and more live outside Mongolia than in it. The Mongol population of China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region alone is more numerous, although a minority among the Han Chinese. Most Mongols living in Mongolia today are Khalkh, constituting 82.4 percent of the population (2010). The largest Mongol minorities are Dörvöd (2.8 percent) in the northwest, and Buryat (1.7 percent) along the Russian border.
Kazakhs
Living as nomads in the Altai Mountain borderlands of China in the nineteenth century, Kazakh tribes moved into western Mongolia, where they constitute the majority in Bayan-Ölgii province and a significant minority in neighboring Khovd and Uvs provinces. They account for 3.9 percent of Mongolia's population (2010). Some Kazakhs claim descent from Genghis Khan's eldest son, Jochi. The word Kazakh (qazaq), meaning "marauder," comes from the fourteenth century and is also the source of the Russian word Cossack. In the twentieth century Mongolia's Kazakhs worked in the coalmines of Nalaikh and Darkhan. Many of Bayan-Ölgii's Kazakhs are herders; some are hunters with eagles.
After the birth of democracy in Mongolia in 1990, thousands of Kazakhs emigrated to Kazakhstan, but many later returned. Mongolia's Kazakhs speak a dialect of the same Altaic language as the Kazakhs of Kazakhstan, but their speech and customs were hardly understood there, and they found assimilation difficult.
The Turkic minorities of Mongolia include the Khoton, perhaps of Uighur origin, living in Uvs province, and the Tannu Uriankhai or Dukhan reindeer herders of the Lake Khövsgöl area, related to the Tuvans of the neighboring RF Republic of Tuva.
Language
The official language of the country is Mongol, and its Khalkh dialect is spoken by 80 percent of the population. Other dialects are spoken in neighboring countries. Mongol is a Ural-Altaic language and most closely resembles the Turkic languages of some Central Asian republics and Turkey. Tibetan, Chinese, and Russian terms have been absorbed over the centuries.
Mongol is unusual in having two scripts. The Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet was adopted for everyday use after the Second World War. The earlier "Uighur" syllabary, written in vertical columns, was introduced under Genghis Khan. It was banned during the Soviet period, and revived after the birth of democracy in 1990. While Mongolia was "building socialism" after the Second World War the second language of Mongols was Russian, which was taught in all schools. Today the foreign language of choice is English.
Because Kazakh is not an official language in Mongolia, Mongolia's Kazakhs have to use Mongol in contacts with the authorities. For a brief description of languages and scripts, see this page.
A BRIEF HISTORY
The Founding State
The 2,220th anniversary of Modun Shanyui's proclamation of the Hun state in 209 BCE was decreed by Mongolian President Elbegdorj in 2011 as the anniversary of the "founding state" of the Mongols, and the Huns (Khünnü, Xiongnu) are considered the Mongols' ancestors. Our knowledge about them comes mostly from the archaeology of northern Mongolia. The Hun state disintegrated in the fourth century CE, and in the sixth to seventh centuries Turkic people ruled what is now Mongolia, commemorating their kings and generals in runic inscriptions. They were succeeded by the Uighurs (744–840), who built their capital in the Orkhon Valley and became allies of Tang China. The Uighurs were displaced by the nomadic Yenisei Kirghiz, who in turn were dispersed in 920 by the Qidan, a sinicized Mongol tribe, which established the Liao dynasty (947–1125). This was ended by the Tungusic Jurchen people, related to the Manchu, whose Jin ("golden") dynasty ruled northern China (1115–1234). The Jin archives recorded an early Mongol state called Mengfuguo, perhaps the Khamag Mongol Uls (state of all the Mongols) of Qabul Khan, which collapsed in 1160.
The Mongol Empire (1207–1368)
Genghis Khan's conquests began in 1207 with invasion of the Xi Xia (Tangut) state in northern China. Neighboring Tibet agreed to pay tribute and was not invaded. Genghis captured the Jin capital Kaiping (1215), invaded Khorazm (1219), seized Bukhara and Samarkand (1220), invaded Georgia and Crimea (1221), and defeated the Russian knights on the River Kalka near Donetsk (1223). After returning to Mongolia, he reinvaded Xi Xia, where he died in 1227. His body was taken to Mongolia for secret burial.
Genghis Khan held assemblies (quriltai) to consult his senior commanders, and after his death they continued as councils of nobles, nominating the new ruler. Genghis was succeeded as the second Great Khan (1228) by his third son Ögödei, who built Karakorum. After Genghis's death Tibet ceased paying tribute, and was invaded in 1240 by Ögödei Khan's son Köten (Godan). He invited the Tibetan Sakya Pandita, Abbot of Sakya "red hat" monastery, to become religious adviser to the Mongols, establishing the "patron–priest" relationship. He set out in 1244 for Köten's camp at Kokonor (Qinghai), bordering on Tibet, but they met only in 1247, in Lanzhou. The Sakya Pandita died in 1251 and his remains are preserved in the White Pagoda monastery near Lake Qinghai. The PRC claims this as proof that Tibet was under China's jurisdiction.
During Ögödei's reign, Genghis's grandson Batu Khan destroyed Vladimir and other Russian cities, and in December 1240 besieged Kiev, breached the walls, and slaughtered the inhabitants. Batu ruled a vast territory from the Irtysh to the Volga Rivers and the Caucasus. His ulus (appanage) was called the Golden Horde after the Khan's golden-yellow tent-palace (ord). In 1243 he established his capital at Sarai-Batu on the Akhtuba River, near modern Astrakhan.
After Ögödei's death in 1241 there was a five-year regency by his widow. His eldest son, Güyüg, was proclaimed the third Great Khan in 1246. Batu refused to recognize him, and Güyüg, on his way from Mongolia to confront Batu, died in Samarkand. He was succeeded in 1251 by his cousin Möngke as the fourth Great Khan. Möngke's brother Khülegü conquered Iran, besieged the castles of the assassins, captured Baghdad in 1258, and destroyed the Abbasid caliphate. Another brother, Kublai, replaced Köten at Kokonor and invited the Sakya Pandita's nephew, Phagspa Lama, to join him in a new "patron–priest" relationship. In 1254 the Phagspa Lama was given supreme authority over Tibet.
Möngke died in China fighting troops of the Song dynasty (960–1279), which was overthrown by Kublai Khan. Kublai succeeded him as the fifth Great Khan in 1264, after defeating another brother, Arigbökh, based in Karakorum. Kublai's base at Kaiping was renamed Shangdu (upper capital, Coleridge's Xanadu), the summer capital near Dolonnor (Duolun). In 1267 Kublai moved to Zhongdu (middle capital) and renamed it Dadu (great capital), now Beijing. Marco Polo called it Cambaluc or the "Khan's City." In 1276 Mongol troops in south China captured the emperor of the so-called Southern Song dynasty (1127–1276), overthrowing it, and Mongol troops invaded Burma in 1277. Kublai's first attempt to invade Japan in 1274 failed, and the fleet assembled in Korea for another invasion in 1281 was dispersed by a typhoon. Kublai proclaimed himself Emperor Shi Zu of the Yuan dynasty, the first foreign dynasty to rule China, in 1280, and died in 1294.
The last Yuan Emperor, Togoon Tömör Khan, was driven from Beijing in 1368 by the Ming Emperor Taizu. Togoon Tömör died in Inner Mongolia and his son was enthroned at Karakorum, which Ming troops destroyed in 1380. Timur the Lame (Tamerlane) set out to restore the Mongol Empire in Samarkand in 1360, conquered Iran, Mesopotamia, and Khorazm, invaded India in 1398, seized Ankara from the Ottomans in 1402, and died in 1406 campaigning against the Ming. Their struggle to subdue the Mongols continued under Emperor Yongle (1403–24). The Russian Grand Duke Dmitri "Donskoi" defeated the Golden Horde at Kulikovo Pole in 1380. The Russian princes stopped paying tribute, and in 1480 Ivan III drove the Golden Horde out of Russia.
The Manchu Empire (1636–1911)
Altan Khan of the Tumet Mongols made peace with the Ming and in 1554 founded, in Inner Mongolia, his capital Khökhkhot, or "blue town," after the glazed tiles set in the walls. In 1559 he set off on a campaign against the Kokonor Mongols. In Tibet the Gelugpa or "yellow hat" order had become established, and Altan Khan invited the Abbot of Sera monastery to meet him at Kokonor in 1578. Altan Khan converted to the "yellow" faith and named the abbot "Dalai Lama." They agreed they must be incarnations of Kublai Khan and the Phagspa Lama. The abbot became the third Dalai Lama, as there had been two previous incarnations.
In Russia's conquest of Asia the Cossacks made their way eastward along Siberian rivers, demanding tribute in furs, founding Tobolsk (1587), Krasnoyarsk (1627), and Irkutsk (1661), and reaching Lake Baikal. Meanwhile, in northern China, the Manchu Great Khan Nurhachi established his capital at Mukden (Shenyang) in 1625, and his successor Abahai named his dynasty the Qing in 1636. The last Mongol Great Khan, Ligden Khan of the Chakhar, died in 1634 before he could form an alliance with the Ming against the Manchu. The Manchu challenged Russian penetration of eastern Siberia north of the Amur (Heilongjiang), and in 1685 destroyed Fort Albazin. Their eastern border was agreed upon in 1689 at Nerchinsk, in the first treaty ever signed by China's rulers. The Manchu took control of southern (Inner) Mongolia in 1636.
The monk, scholar, and artist Zanabazar, son of the Khalkh Mongol Tüsheet Khan, a descendant of Genghis Khan, was recognized in 1639 at the age of five as an incarnation of the Tibetan scholar Javzandamba. He adopted the title Öndör Gegeen (High Enlightened One), and visited Tibet to meet the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama. When, with the unifying presence of the Great Khan gone, the Oirats attacked the Khalkh in 1687, the Öndör Gegeen recommended seeking Manchu protection. In 1691 at Dolonnor the Qing Emperor Kangxi accepted the allegiance of the Khalkh whose territory became Outer Mongolia. The Mongols considered their relationship with the Qing an alliance, but once the Manchu had put a stop to Oirat attacks they absorbed Mongolia into their military–administrative structure, replacing Mongol law with Manchu law and stationing Manchu governors in Uliastai and Khovd. Mongol trade with Russia was banned. Russia's border treaty with the Qing, signed in 1727 at Kyakhta, confirmed Qing control over Mongolia and Uriankhai (Tuva).
Zanabazar's nomadic palace (örgöö) was replaced in 1706 by a nomadic great monastery (ikh khüree), which in 1778 settled in the Tuul Valley; both names were used to mean the "capital." The first permanent temple buildings were erected in 1837 where Ulan Bator now stands. The Mongol people were oppressed and impoverished by greedy princes and traders, and subjected to cruel punishments, imprisoned in wooden chests or locked into cangues (heavy wooden collars). Weakened by the Taiping (1851) and Boxer (1900) rebellions, foreign intervention, mutinies, and uprisings, Qing rule collapsed.
Autonomous Mongolia (1911–19)
In December 1911 the eighth Öndör Gegeen was proclaimed Bogd Khan (Holy King) of Mongolia and declared Mongolia's independence, but foreign states failed to respond. Ikh Khüree was renamed Niislel Khüree ("capital monastery"). General Yuan Shih-k'ai, proclaimed President of China, retained control over Inner Mongolia. Outer Mongolia signed a treaty with Russia in 1912 and Prime Minister Namnansüren visited Russia in 1913–14. Mongolia and Tibet concluded a treaty of mutual recognition. Outer Mongolia had been granted autonomy in internal affairs by a Russian–Chinese treaty in 1913, but was obliged to accept Chinese suzerainty under the 1915 tripartite Treaty of Kyakhta. The Soviet Russian government recognized the Bogd Khan in 1919, but Chinese troops invaded and reimposed rule from Beijing.
In April 1920 Mongol revolutionaries joined forces to found the Mongolian People's Party (MPP) in the Russian town of Troitskosavsk (Kyakhta). Contact was established with Russian Bolsheviks, but in October 1920 White Russian Cossack cavalry, commanded by the Baltic German Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg, entered eastern Mongolia from Chita, drove the Chinese out of Niislel Khüree, and restored the Bogd Khan.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Mongolia by Alan Sanders. Copyright © 2016 Alan Sanders. Excerpted by permission of Bravo Ltd.
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