Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Transliteration and Mongolian Names
- Introduction
- 1 Prefiguring 1921
- 2 Staging a Revolution
- 3 Landscape Re-Envisioned
- 4 Leftward Together
- 5 Society in Flux
- 6 Negotiating Faith
- 7 Life and its Value
- 8 The Great Opportunistic Repression
- 9 A Closer Union
- Appendix: Brief Biographies of Writers
- Index
5 - Society in Flux
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Transliteration and Mongolian Names
- Introduction
- 1 Prefiguring 1921
- 2 Staging a Revolution
- 3 Landscape Re-Envisioned
- 4 Leftward Together
- 5 Society in Flux
- 6 Negotiating Faith
- 7 Life and its Value
- 8 The Great Opportunistic Repression
- 9 A Closer Union
- Appendix: Brief Biographies of Writers
- Index
Summary
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’. 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 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.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Politics and Literature in Mongolia (1921–1948) , pp. 165 - 200Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2020