The ‘gong beat’ against the ‘uncultured’: contested notions of culture and civilization in Mongolia

Abstract

This article explores the Mongolian concept of ‘culture’ (soyol) and its transformation in the state socialist and post-socialist eras. The notion of culture and those without it – the soyolgui or ‘uncultured’ – played enormously important parts in the construction of the new society of the Mongolian People’s Republic. The history of the twentieth century shows a transformation of this highly normative concept from a category associated with teachings, doctrine, ethics and nurturing to one linked to modernist notions of hygiene, secular education, urbanism and cosmopolitanism. In addition, however, it became a category that included a set of historical styles and works thought of as national ‘cultural heritage’ (soyolyn öv). This was the result of a movement that in the late socialist period led to the critical re-evaluation of earlier Eurocentric uses of the ‘culture’ concept, and that sought new applications of the notion of ‘civilization’ – in particular by popularizing the metaphorical term ‘nomadic civilization’ (nüüdliin soyol irgenshil). I argue that these strands of thought have become central to the new nationalist politics of post-socialist Mongolia and form the basis of what remains by way of political orthodoxy, following the collapse of Soviet ideology.