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.