7 The Term “Many Mongols” as an Early Nationalist Construct to Greater Mongolian Nationalism: The Case Study of Magsar Khurts

History, or rather historical origins, has played an increasingly important role in the formation of national identity among the Mongols and in the “imagination” of a nation based on the collectiveness of Mongol “kin.” This is evident from the large number of historical works written in Mongolian that have been widely disseminated in the Mongolian regions, especially in the last five centuries. Mongolian scholars of the socialist period borrowed their nationalist ideas largely from Mongolian scholars of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Gombojab (c. 1690–c. 1749) and Rasipungsug (1700s), who postulated a common ethnic identity among the various Mongol communities in the context of the Qing Empire.^[1] Navaanluvsantsedengyn Magsarjab, commonly known as Magsar Khurts (1869–1935), emerged as one of Mongolia’s historians in the early socialist period; his works have not yet been studied in detail. Though not as influential as the Buryat-Mongol intellectuals or other Russian-educated Mongolian scholars in the Mongolian academic community, Magsar Khurts indeed had his share in rewriting both Mongolian history and the “imagination” of Mongolian nationhood.

In his book New History of Mongolia,^[2] not only does Magsar Khurts imagine the Mongolian nation as a community of “Many Mongols” who share a common past, common ancestors, and common culture, but he affirms “the linear history of all the Mongols as a coherent community,”^[3] as well. Stressing that the Mongols remained “dormant” for centuries and lived “in the dark” under the “Manchu Chinese yoke,” Magsar’s book starts as follows:

Our Mongolian “ovogton” [race] has been a “ulus” [state/nation] with a glorious history, mentioned many times in the chronicles of many [foreign] countries. However, [these historical writings] have not been translated into Mongolian and almost no one is aware of Mongolia’s history.^[4]

The “history from below” has rarely been the subject of historical studies in postsocialist Mongolia. Mongolia’s past has mostly been interpreted through the lives of great individuals or groups of individuals. With this article, I attempt to break this tradition and focus on an individual whose life is unknown to the public and whose works are mostly dismissed by academic circles. Thus, I approach Magsar Khurts from a microhistorical point of view, as his case study represents “the whole in a single case.”^[5] With Magsar, we have a better chance to study the rise and development of early twentieth-century Mongolian nationalism at the level of the individual.

Magsar Khurts wrote a total of seven books, of which only three survived: The Account of the Political Situation of the Mongolian People’s State in 1926, New History written between 1925 and 1927, and Danshig Naadam Festival of Seven Banners (no date). Among these three books, Magsar expresses his opinion most openly in New History, in a way that allows us to elaborate his particular motivations, beliefs, ideologies, and worldviews. Therefore, New History is chosen as the subject of my analysis. Furthermore, my hypothesis sits on the basis that the series of nationalist movements in Mongolia in the 1910s and 20s gave rise to the notion of “Greater Mongolian Nationalism.” Thus, I aim to address such research questions as: What specifically is Greater Mongolian Nationalism? How has this nationalism been “imagined” by Mongolian nationalists in the early twentieth century? How did Magsar Khurts “imagine” the development of this nascent nationalism? And how did he adapt to the different political and ideological transformations in Mongolia?

Theoretically, my article is grounded in the concept of the nation as an “imagined community” as developed by Benedict Anderson,^[6]  with regard not to his Marxist background but rather to his concept of a nation as a discursively constructed notion. Methodologically, this article is committed to micro-historical approaches such as “evidential paradigm” and “nominative methodology” in order both to reveal hidden aspects of Magsar Khurts’s works by giving special emphasis to his agency and to discover the different political and academic networks in which he lived throughout Mongolia’s socio-political transformations in the early twentieth century.^[7]

Magsar Khurts throughout Mongolia’s Socio-Political Transformations in the Early Twentieth Century

Starting from the seventeenth century, the Mongolian princely states (aimags), ruled by Chinggisid princes, had been incorporated into larger Qing and Russian states, mostly through mutual agreements. By the end of the eighteenth century, the whole Mongol community was under either Manchu or Russian jurisdiction, including Outer Mongolia (present-day Mongolia), Inner Mongolia (current Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China [PRC]), the Mongols in both Höh Nuur (present-day Qinghai Province of PRC) and the Ili region (in northern present-day Xinjiang Autonomous Region of PRC), the Buryat-Mongols in the Transbaikal region (today’s Buryat Republic of Russia), and the Mongols of Tannu Uriankhai (current Tuva Republic of Russia). However, the ruling Mongol princes enjoyed immense privilege and autonomy, particularly those under the reign of Manchu Khan. Additionally, the Chinese were not allowed to marry Mongols or settle in Mongolia, further protecting the distinct Mongol identity during over two hundred years of Qing rule.^[8] In return, the Mongol princes elevated the Qing emperor as the wielder of two norms (qoyar yosu): spiritual and political. As a result, the king emerged as a Buddhist monarch of the “Doctrinal Universal Empire.”^[9] The same applies to the Mongol subjects of Russia (Buryat-Mongols). The traditional system of the local area in the Transbaikal region was not changed, and the Tsarist government adapted to “the old clan and tribal institutions of power.”^[10] This tradition existed for nearly two hundred years, untouched by the imperial administrations of both Qing and Russia until the early twentieth century.

The subject of this research, Magsar Khurts, was born in 1869 to a poor family. His father was a blacksmith named Navaanluvsantseden and they lived in Secen Khan Aimag, today’s Sukhbaatar province of the Mongolian Republic. Magsar’s father died when Magsar was five years old. Magsar was then adopted by a local lama called Sambuu and became a “servant” (zarca) to the banner governor Shuhert. While there, he learned Mongolian script and the Manchu and Tibetan languages, at a young age.^[11] He started his career as a Mongolian script writer (bicigeci) at the local Qing administration of the Erdeni Dalai Van Navaanceren banner of Secen Khan Aimag.^[12] From 1894 to 1906, he worked as a junior scribe (ehe zohiyagci) at the league administration of Secen Khan Aimag.^[13]

In 1906, Magsar was appointed as an assistant to the court of Bogdo Jebdzundamba Khutugtu (Bogdo Gegeen or Bogdo Khan, the spiritual and political leader of the Mongols), thanks to his high-level writing skills. In his own words, “Due to the lack of educated officials [at the king’s court], [I] was promoted to a ‘shabi’ [disciple] of Ochirdari Bogdo Gegeen.”^[14] In 1906, he started working as a “tüshmel” (official) at the newly formed Ministry of Script (Bichig-un Yam) while simultaneously teaching the Mongolian script to young Bogdo Jebdzundamba Khutugtu.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, largely due to internal disorder within the Qing Dynasty and their drastic policy change toward the Mongols (“New policy,” or Sin-e jasag in Mongolian),^[15] Mongolian political and religious leaders decided to establish a separate state for all Mongols. In 1911, Outer Mongolia declared its independence from the Qing Dynasty and enthroned the living Buddha Bogdo Jebdzundamba Khutugtu as the Khan of the new state. The new king now replaced the former Qing emperor as the wielder of power in both state and religion in Mongolia and legitimized his rulership of the Mongols by adopting the two norms.

Magsar Khurts’s attachment to Bogdo Khan is very much visible in New History. Giving special emphasis to Bogdo Khan and his supernatural power to unite Mongols under one nation-state, Magsar dedicates the first three chapters of his book solely to the 1911 independence movement and the actors, Bogdo Khan in particular, who played a prominent role in Mongolia’s struggle for self-determination. For instance, Magsar Khurts glorifies Bogdo Khan’s supernatural power by asserting that “our Bogdo Gegeen is surely a great seer who foretells the past, present, and future. His prophecy predicted the moment for Mongolia to be freed from Manchu yoke and to declare its independence.”^[16] Mongols uniting resolutely around Bogdo Khan is the central narrative of the first six chapters of Magsar’s book. As he puts it in another passage: “[I would like to] note that, thanks to the greatness and the immense forgiving mercy of our Bogdo Khan to unite all, the people from four directions came and pledged their loyalty to the king.”^[17]

Highlighting the role of Bogdo Khan has some obvious reasons. As mentioned earlier, collective ethnic identity based on the historical origin of the Mongols provided Mongols with the vision to separate from the Qing state. Yet another internal factor was “the spiritual unity conferred by the universal acceptance of the Buddhist faith.”^[18] The role of the universally accepted Bogdo Khan in this unity was vital, as he represented both the historical and religious origins.^[19]

Though originally from Tibet, Bogdo Khan claimed to be a member of Chinggis Khan’s lineage, as he was elevated as the eighth reincarnation of Ündür Gegeen Zanabazar (16351723), who was the son of Tüshiyetü Khan, the ruler of Tüshiyetü Khan Aimag (princely state) of Outer Mongolia and a direct descendant of the Chinggisid lineage.^[20] Bogdo Khan stated that “since I appeared as the reincarnation of the son of Tüshiyetü Khan of Khalkha (Outer Mongolia) and, later on, as son of Chin Wang (Prince), I ask the dear disciples to consider me as being includeed in the Golden Dynasty (Chinggisid lineage).”^[21] Bogdo Khan was also the leader of Mongolian Buddhism and third in rank after the Dalai Lama and Vanchin Bogdo in the whole Tibeto-Mongolian Buddhist power structure.

Following the announcement of Mongolia’s independence and the fall of the Qing Dynasty, another new state emerged in China proper—the Republic of China (ROC)—in 1912. With its new president, Yuan Shikai (18591916), ROC claimed to have inherited former Qing domains, including its Mongolian region. The hostility between these two new states escalated in letter exchanges between Yuan Shikai and Bogdo Khan. In his letter to Yuan Shikai, Bogdo Khan wrote that the purpose of the Mongolian government is “to protect the race and religion.”^[22] According to Uradyn Bulag, “[t]he road to Mongol nationalism to ‘protect the race and religion’ was via the establishment of a Mongol khanate independent of Chinese rule.”^[23] Therefore, the newly established Mongolian government based in Outer Mongolia had a core mission to unite with other Mongols in Inner Mongolia and the Ili and Höh Nuur regions.^[24]

Considering the presence of Chinese military garrisons in Inner Mongolia, Bogdo Khan issued a decree, on July 13, 1913, to deploy the Outer Mongolian army and to liberate Inner Mongolia from Chinese militarists. The Mongolian army entered Inner Mongolia from five different directions.^[25] Meanwhile, the Mongolian government delivered another decree to the peoples of Inner Mongolia and of the Ili and Höh Nuur regions, urging all Mongols to unite under the leadership of Bogdo Khan and his newly built Mongolian government. The decree writes:

We, from our birth, have been strong and became the owner of the Northern territory and never suffered under other nations. With Manchu (Qing), we considered them as brothers and built an alliance together. Although we accepted their superiority and followed them, they did not violate our border. . . . Last several years, the corrupt officials initiated the so-called “New policy” and violated the old law. . . . Hence, respecting the old law of Yuan state,^[26] we elevated Bogdo Khan to the throne. . . . Since the princes and dukes of Inner Mongolia are all the descendants of the kings of Yuan state, we have a right to be united.^[27]

Mongolian leaders officially stated that Mongolian national distinctiveness—based on a common past, common ancestors, and common culture—was the reason for a united Mongolia. Although this sense of national consciousness existed even before Mongolia’s independence in 1911, the “nationalism” that encouraged the independent, united Mongol nation-state was born with the decrees of the newly built government. Interestingly, the abovementioned decree maintained a sense of historical continuity with the Yuan Dynasty in China and claimed that Bogdo Khan’s government inherited the legacy (the two norms) of the old dynasty.

However, the military campaign to unite Inner Mongolia with Outer Mongolia did not succeed. Although the majority of Inner Mongolia had already been liberated by the end of 1913, the Mongolian government had to halt its expeditionary forces due to strong pressure from Russia. In November 1913, Russia and the Republic of China signed a treaty declaring the autonomy of Outer Mongolia solely for the purpose of regulating its internal affairs under the suzerainty of ROC and the complete authority of ROC over Inner Mongolia and other Mongol subjects of the former Qing state. In 1915, negotiations between Russia, China, and Mongolia were held in the city of Khiagta. The Treaty of Khiagta secured the decisions taken in the previous treaty of 1913.^[28] Although the treaty was strongly rejected by Mongolian leadership internally, it calmed the situation in North Asia for at least the next few years, until the Bolshevik revolution and the Russian Civil War.

As for Magsar Khurts, he was appointed as a junior scribe at the Ministry of Interior when the new state was established in 1911. Between 1912 and 1918, together with other scholars, Magsar translated 369 volumes of Manchu laws into Mongolian and contributed to drafting some of the major legal acts of the new government.^[29] For his scholarly contribution, Magsar was awarded the title “Khurts” (literally meaning “sharp”) by Bogdo Khan and recorded in official documents as “Magsar Khurts.”^[30]

On December 10, 1918, Magsar wrote an official request to the ecclesiastical office (Erdeni Shandzudba) of Bogdo Khan and the Ministry of Interior to be granted the hereditary title of ‘Tüshee’ Duke (Tüshee Gün) for his scholarly contribution to the newly self-declared theocratic monarchy of Mongolia. Explaining his hard work and dedication to the duties imposed upon him by equating his work to that of “a horse and dog,” rather unusual language according to today’s writing standards, Magsar Khurts expressed his view that he deserved the title and a reward: “The reason that [I] am respectfully begging [for the title of Tüshee Duke] is: Since [I] was promoted to the post of ‘Senior Officer’ (Erhelsen Tüshmel) [in the Ministry of Interior] in the ninth year [of ‘Elevated by many’ or 1919], [I] have made not a single mistake and have been working like a horse and dog.”^[31] With his request granted accordingly, Magsar officially became a member of the centuries-old Mongolian aristocracy.^[32]

Meanwhile, on the northern side of the Mongolian border, the Bolsheviks built “a peculiar alliance” with so-called bourgeois non-socialist nationalists during the first part of the revolution.^[33] They were supporting non-Russian nationalities in order to gain their support, while fighting against the separatism among these nationalities. The idea these Bolsheviks shared with Woodrow Wilson that each nation has the right to self-determination, “ . . . however, was designed to recruit ethnic support for the revolution, not to provide a model for the governing of a multiethnic state.”^[34] Ernest Gellner called this the “wrong-address theory” of nationalism and affirmed that “[t]he wakening message was intended for classes, but by some terrible postal error was delivered to nations.”^[35]

Indeed, the statements by Woodrow Wilson and the Bolsheviks encouraged the Buryat-Mongol intelligentsias to change their course and decide to form an independent nation-state uniting all Mongols, including Buryat-Mongols in Siberia. This “Pan-Mongolian movement” included Elbekdorj Rinchino, Tseveen Zhamtsarano, Mikhail Bogdoanov, and Dashi Sampilon, who initially strove for national autonomy for the Transbaikal and Irkutsk Buryat-Mongols (Burnackom) within the All-Russian Constituent Assembly after the February 1917 Revolution. The ambitious nationalist policy of the Outer Mongolian government was immediately replaced by an even more ambitious plan by the Pan-Mongolian Government in 1919.

However, the Pan-Mongolian movement did not have the full support of the Outer Mongolian government, and, after several unsuccessful negotiations, Outer Mongolian leaders, binding to the 1915 Khiagta agreement, refused to join the movement.^[36] Due to the lack of both external support and internal unity, the Pan-Mongolian movement began gradually disintegrating.^[37]

In 1919, when the Russian Civil war escalated in the Transbaikal region, Magsar Khurts was promoted to the post of Chief Scribe and then to Senior Officer (Erhelsen Tüshmel) at the Ministry of Interior of Bogdo Khan’s Government. Unfortunately, in November 1919, shortly after Magsar’s promotion, Outer Mongolia’s autonomous status was abolished by Chinese militarists, and it came under the complete authority of ROC until the liberation of its capital by Russian general Baron Ungern (1889–1921) in February 1921.^[38]

During a brief period of Chinese occupation of Outer Mongolia, Magsar Khurts was hunted down by the Chinese authorities. Although he and his son, Dugarjab, one of the early Mongolian revolutionaries and members of the People’s Party (forerunner of Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party), escaped from Nyslel Khuree or Urga (Capital of Outer Mongolia, present day Ulaanbaatar), Magsar Khurts came back to the capital for an unknown reason and was arrested from his hideout by the Chinese authorities.^[39] Magsar later admitted to being a member of a rebellious group of former government officials led by famous generals Khatan Baatar Magsarjab and Manlai Baatar Damdinsuren,^[40] who planned to rebel against the Chinese authority in Nyslel Khuree. However, the true reason for his arrest was, as he puts it, his attachment to the People’s Party.

Magsar Khurts was kept in prison until the restoration of Bogdo Khan’s government by Baron Ungern in February 1921.^[41] We have no evidence about Magsar’s activity during the brief period of the newly restored government under Baron Ungern’s watchful eye. It is very probable that he was collaborating closely with early Mongolian revolutionaries. After the forces of the People’s Party, together with the Soviet troops, defeated the multiethnic army of Baron Ungern and succeeded Bogdo Khan’s government in August 1921, Magsar Khurts was named as the first Minister of Justice of the People’s Government.^[42]

In his New History, Magsar Khurts is quite precise about the peaceful transition of power from Bogdo Khan’s government to the People’s Government, and the “Treaty of the Oath” (Tangargyn Gerege) between Bogdo Khan and the new government, which reinstated the king as a constitutional monarch with limited power.^[43] In addition to the detailed description of the ceremony of handing the state seals to the new ministers, he quotes the speech of Dogsomyn Bodoo (1895–1922), one of the seven revolutionaries of the People’s Party and the first Prime Minister of the People’s State, of which we find no trace in Mongolian archives. Interestingly, he describes the reaction of the former ministers of Bogdo Khan’s government as follows: “When Bodoo finished his speech, the faces of the previous ministers turned red and they handed the seals and the important documents to the new ministers.”^[44] Now that he had become a part of the new ruling elite, Magsar abandoned his attachment to Mongolia’s aristocratic community and began his criticism of the old social order from this “anecdotal” incident, as we will see below.

The consolidation of state power by early revolutionaries in 1921 and the establishment of the Constitutional Monarchy brought great change in the political, social, and economic spheres of Outer Mongolia. Although the power shift was peaceful in the beginning, the former Outer Mongolian rulers struggled to cope with the new policies and ideologies, which, in fact, threatened the very existence of their social order. As a result, some elites of the old regime refused to accept the change and chose, rather, a radical means to resist, while most of them tried to adapt.^[45] In order to prove their loyalty to the new state, these nobles gave up their hereditary titles and properties and became commoners (arad-d nyleh).^[46]

Magsar details the reforms he made as the first Minister of Justice to transform the old judicial systems into a new “humane” system, for instance, abolishing the century-old torture mechanisms (esun erüü) and distributing equal punishment for all people without distinction of social origin.^[47] However, he fails to mention (for obvious reasons) that his authority was relatively limited, especially in cases related to political rivalries within the People’s Government, such as “Bodoo versus Danzan” and “Danzan versus Elbekdorj,” where his authority extended only to granting annual or personal leave.^[48] For this reason, we don’t find his signature on the order of the execution of Dogsomyn Bodoo,^[49] even though he was the Minister of Justice, the only one who supposedly would have had the power to do so.

To cut a long story short, the rivalry between Dogsomyn Bodoo, the First Prime Minister, and Solyn Danzan (1885–1924), one of the seven founding fathers of the People’s Party and the first Minister of Finance of the People’s Government, was exacerbated further on the question of “which direction they wanted to take the country.”^[50] While Bodoo was in favor of limited monarchy, Danzan chose the capitalist model of development. The rivalry ended with the execution of Bodoo and fourteen other officials in August 1922.^[51] As for Magsar Khurts, he, too, had to leave his office at the Ministry of Justice as did the other ministers of Bodoo’s cabinet. He was officially expulsed in the week of December 14–21, 1922, roughly four months after Bodoo’s execution.^[52]

Not long after the execution, Danzan openly expressed his disagreement with Elbekdorj Rinchino (1888–1938)—a Buryat-Mongolian politician, representative of Communist International (Comintern) in Outer Mongolia, and former member of the Pan-Mongolian movement—which led to another violent political confrontation. Backed by Soviet agents, Rinchino managed to execute Danzan during the First National Parliament Meeting in August 1924.^[53] The incident marked as the beginning of the infamous “National Purge” in Mongolia. After all these dramatic events, which cost the lives of a considerable number of ministers and officials of the first People’s Government, Magsar Khurts was somehow one of the few who survived the very first wave of the “National Purge” in Mongolia.^[54]

There is a common implication that the early version of the Mongolian socialist government in 1921 was a coalition government between the aristocrats who represented the old social order and the revolutionaries who represented the new social order.^[55] As Magsar Khurts was a part of the former group, it is tempting to assume that he represented the interest of the nobility.^[56] However, based on microscopic analysis of Magsar’s account, this article challenges exactly this implication and argues that rather than being ascribed to a single political group, Magsar Khurts should be regarded as a “Chameleon-like” politician with different identities for his dual role in these political confrontations.^[57]

First and foremost, as an intellectual, Magsar was a valuable asset to both theocratic and socialist states. His high-level writing and communication skills allowed him to rise to the position of one of the top officials in the Ministry of Interior of the theocratic state and then to the first Minister of Justice of the secular state. Secondly, while his scholarly contribution to Bogdo Khan’s government paid him handsomely, as he was granted the Tüshee Duke title, he was able to secure the post of Minister of Justice within the socialist government in 1921, thanks to his connection to the revolutionary leaders, to a lesser extent, and to his low-born origin, to a larger extent.

Magsar Khurts later described his early career thus: “during the period of feudal state [ezerheg jasag] the high-ranking officials were chosen for the post of Banner Official [tüshmel] with certain authority based on their families’ wealth. Because [my] family was poor, [I] had never been appointed by the lords to a ‘real post’ [jinhini tushiyal] such as the Deputy Governor of the banner or as ‘meiren’ or as ‘zalangyn jasag.’”^[58]

Highlighting his low-born background, as he puts it in this inscription, must have been crucial for Magsar to identify himself with the new political leaders, who claimed to be the representatives of the arad-ud (commoners, or people). Furthermore, in his letter addressed to the Central Committee of the People’s Party, Magsar described himself as arad, not as Tüshee Duke.^[59]

Now that the cabinet of Bodoo was dissolved, Magsar was demoted to the post of Senior Official to the Department of Law and Code of the People’s Government. But, in his own words, these drastic power shifts were due to “the lack of the educated officials in the other sectors of the government;” for this reason, several people were transferred to different sectors of the government.^[60] Either way, Magsar was ordered to lead a team consisting of famous Buryat-Mongol scholar Tseveen Jamsrano (1880–1942) and Russian-educated Chuluuny Batochir (1873–?) to draft a new constitution for the Constitutional Monarchy.^[61]

Mongolian Marxist historian Magsarjabyn Sanjdorj wrote about this committee: “Although the committee worked hard, they did not complete the draft before the deadline required by the People’s Government. Hence, the government dissolved the committee and reassigned the job to the Department of Law of the People’s Government.”^[62] However, Magsar Khurts’s version of the story is bit different from Sanjdorj’s. Interestingly, toward the end of his book, Magsar mentions that he was expulsed from his post as head of the team due to “the case of Duke Tserenpil”—his failure, along with six other government officials who were also expulsed, to report the illegal border crossing of Duke Tserenpil to Manchuria.^[63] Magsar was required to pay a penalty of 270 lan or tael silver, which is equal to ten kilograms of silver.^[64]

Although quite frank about his expulsion and penalty, Magsar fails to mention that he was also arrested for eighty days and that his son, Dugarjab, had to submit a request to the Government to release his father on parole due to his declining physical condition. In that letter, Dugarjab wrote: “[his] body becomes so weak, eaten by dog louses and bugs and in addition, [his] throat illness becomes unbearable. . . . [I] beg you to have mercy and release him on parole so that [I] can care for my father and perform my duty as a son.”^[65] Magsar was released from prison on May 11, 1923, after which he fell seriously ill.^[66] He dedicated his remaining years to rewriting Mongolian history.

Magsar Khurts’s imprisonment coincided with the so-called “Buryat episode in Outer Mongolian history.”^[67] The influence of the “Buryat Intelligentsia” extended beyond its ethnic border to Outer and Inner Mongolia. Greatly affected by the 1917 revolution and the Russian Civil War in Siberia, Buryat-Mongols, including the intellectual network of this ethnic minority, migrated into Outer Mongolia. The Buryat intelligentsia played a crucial role in developing the new revolutionary ideology among fellow Mongols, as these Buryat intellectuals were more exposed to the Western culture spreading anti-colonial and anti-feudal ideology in Outer Mongolia.^[68] They contributed to the conceptualization of national identity based on historical origin, cultural belonging, and new revolutionary ideology rather than religious unity. Particularly starting in 1922, when Elbekdorj Rinchino became de facto ruler of Mongolia until around 1925, Buryat-Mongol intellectuals were heavily involved in Mongolian politics.^[69]

The intention of the Soviet-backed Mongolian leaders was clearly not to continue with the Constitutional Monarchy but to form a complete socialist state, a miniature version of the Soviet Union. After the death of Bogdo Khan in May 1924, the Mongolian People’s Republic was declared upon abolition of the Constitutional Monarchy, and prerogative power was shifted to the State Great Khural (Parliament) in November 1924. With the power change within the People’s Government, the power balance was tipped heavily in favor of Rinchino and Comintern-backed leaders.

With the arrival of new political leaders, a new ideology was introduced. Under heavy influence of both Marxist concepts and anticolonial and anti-feudal movements around the world, the understanding of Mongolian historical past fostered under Manchu domination was changed, and the Qing state was regarded as a colonial state rather than “a joint state between Manchus and Mongols.”^[70] It was at this moment that new terms such as “Manchu Chinese yoke” (Manju Hitad-uun Darulal) and “tyrannical state” were deployed.

Magsar Khurts interprets the history of Mongolia under the Qing state as the period of “Manchu Chinese yoke.” According to him, the “Manchu Chinese state” was clearly a “tyrannical/feudal state” (ezerheg jasag) that subdued Mongols for centuries, and the Russian Monarchy and Republic of China were also “aggressive” (ezerheg) feudal states who exploited Mongols in the same way as the previous Qing state. Starting from the sixth chapter of New History, Magsar places the Mongolian theocratic state (Bogdo Khan’s government) in the same category for its role in exploiting the people jointly with other foreign states. Although he does not specifically mention the term “class division” as in the Marxist interpretation of history, Magsar is quite clear about the division of social groups within the Mongolian society: nobility on one hand, and the arad (commoners) on the other.

However, behind his socialist interpretation of Mongolia’s near past, Magsar’s nationalist ideology was well hidden, so as to justify the unification of all Mongols under a single Mongolian nation-state and the newly constructed arad identity. 

“Many Mongols” as an Early Nationalist Construct to Greater Mongolian Nationalism

The last decade was a very important period in the modern history of Mongolia. Mongolians experienced an economic boom in 2011–12 due to a large wave of foreign direct investment in the mining sector. ^[71] A sudden influx of capital allowed the government to shift its focus to the sectors of society that had been neglected since the democratic revolution in 1990, one of which is Mongolian studies. The communist “master narrative” of Mongolian history dominated academic circles in Mongolia until the collapse of the socialist system. A peaceful democratic revolution in Mongolia and political changes in neighbouring Russia and China enabled the Mongols in these countries to search for a new identity in the post-communist era.^[72] The “master narrative” had created a gap in Mongol history, between present and past, that needed to be filled by a new interpretation of the history.

As Caroline Humphrey writes, “[t]he Mongols are now in the process of rethinking their ‘deep past,’ not only because this is for once their own, but because historical origin in Mongolian culture is the source of moral authority in the present.”^[73] For this rethinking, the Mongols looked at their “deep past” during which they were glorious and legendary, and not “the immediate past” (the socialist past) when they were not, constituting what Humphrey considers the period of “Sergen mandal” (renaissance).^[74]

In efforts to fill the gap between its present and its “deep” past, the Mongolian government now finances both governmental and non-governmental research institutes to promote Mongolian studies. This “renaissance” process backed by the state itself has encouraged historians to expand the search for new interpretations of Mongolia’s “distant past.” However, rethinking, rewriting, and reimagining Mongolian history is not entirely new to the Mongols. The revolutionary nationalists in the 1920s and 1930s were the first to initiate a “renaissance” project. Under the influence of nationalist ideology, the Mongolian revolutionaries of the early twentieth century were building on the concepts of the common origin of the Mongol people, the common glory and humiliation of their past, and the common desire of Mongols to live together in the future.

In this regard, the rise of nationalism in 1920s Mongolia resembles that of Russia’s Central Asian nationalities, whose nation-building process underwent the “korenizatsiia” (indigenization) policy of the Soviet Union.^[75] For instance: the Mongol version of the korenizatsiia policy was the nationalization (“Mongolization”) of Mongolia’s state apparatus in the late 1920s.^[76]

However, before diving into the details, it is vital to understand three fundamental differences between Russia’s Central Asian “titular” nationalities and Mongolia. First, Mongolia precedes the Central Asian countries in terms of the nation-building process. Though it had its ups and downs in its fight for self-determination from 1911 until its de jure independence in 1945,^[77] Mongolia still maintained its de facto independence during this period. Secondly, “Mongolization of the apparatus” was considered a great threat to Russia’s control over Mongolian politics, whereas “korenizatsiia” in Russia’s Central Asia was not.^[78] Thirdly, while the Soviet Union emphasized a worldwide working-class revolution, Mongolia was not industrialized, as it was entirely dependent on nomadic pastoralism at the moment, and therefore, there was no proletariat class. Instead of fabricating a new identity, the early revolutionaries decided to stick to the arad identity in parallel with the proletariat identity and focused on the idea that these “commoners,” like their fellow proletariats around the world, had suffered under the feudal class and foreign imperialists. The last chapter of Magsar Khurts’s New History deliberately dwells on this idea. For example, when the revolutionaries came to power in 1921, what they faced was a glimpse of, in Magsar’s words, a “tyrannical state.” He argues:

At the time when Many Mongol commoners [arad-ud] suffered and were enslaved under the yoke of the cruel aggressive [ezerheg] people, foreign and domestic, the dukes and lamas of “Tyrannical State” and the provincial and banner feudal lords, together with greedy foreign traders, exploited Many Mongols and profited for their own interests. For this reason, the People’s Government, in the first place, announced the abolition of all the loans of those who were exploited and strongly forbade the people from lending.^[79]

Now, keeping in mind that Central Asian and Mongolian ethnic groups developed similar yet different national identities, Mongolian nationalism and the arad identity can be examined in light of Graham Smith’s three “boundary marker” tendencies: essentialization, totalization, and historization.^[80] Although his concept focuses on nation-building in postsocialist Central Asian countries, it can be employed to examine the nation-building process in early socialist Mongolia.

First, the Mongols of the early twentieth century attempted to “essentialize” a distinctive identity by focusing on the shared components of different ethnic backgrounds. For example, the subject of this research, Magsar Khurts, maintained that Outer and Inner Mongolia should be united, because they share the “same root and same opinion.”^[81] Secondly, early Mongolian revolutionaries, including the Buryat-Mongols (the ex-Soviet citizens), attempted to “totalize” various Mongol ethnic groups under one unified national identity: arad. Lastly, the Mongols “historicized” the collectiveness of Mongol “kin” by drawing on Mongolia’s glorious past. In addition to rewriting the “golden era” of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, Magsar Khurts, for example, traced the origin of Mongolian state further back to the Xiongnu Empire in the third century BCE.^[82]

Anderson highlighted continuity with the past by contending that “[n]ations always loom out of an immemorial past, and, still more importantly, [they] glide onto a limitless future. It is the magic of nationalism to turn chance into destiny.”^[83] The same argument was again presented in another of Anderson’s books on anarchism and anti-colonialism: “As the newly imagined national community headed towards the magnetic future, nothing seemed more valuable than a useful and authentic past.”^[84]

Indeed, the historical continuity of a past legacy was the most important element of Mongolian nationalism throughout the early decades of socialist Mongolia, and the question of Greater Mongolian Nationalism was deeply felt during this period. Maintaining a sense of historical continuity with the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Mongolian nationalists imagined a new socialist arad identity to develop Outer Mongolia into a role model that would attract Mongol diasporas under foreign rule. The main purpose of constructing this identity was to unite all of the Mongol race, ideologically if not physically, under a single nation-state.

The Greater Mongolian Nationalism—or in the exact words of Magsar Khurts himself, “Many Mongols” (“Olan Mongol” in Mongolian)—represents the rise of Mongolian nationalism based on the historical origin of the Mongols and on “a thirteenth-century Mongolian state built by Chinggis Khan.”^[85] This nationalism was not forcibly an ultra-expansionist nationalism, but it was born in a struggle for survival of the Mongolian people.^[86] With two neighboring states, China and Russia, that are powerful and that exhibit expansionist and “aggressive” foreign policy, the Mongols had no choice but to attempt to resist with a nationalism based on the idea of an ultimate unification of all Mongolian peoples in Inner Asia. In his book, Magsar argues:

The purpose of “Aru Mongol” [Outer Mongolia] initiating the independence movement is to establish a strong state which unites all Mongol “ovogton” [race] and placing Bogdo Jebtsundamba Khutagtu on the throne is embedded in the belief and the heart of many Mongols.^[87]

We can trace the origin of this term to as late as the thirteenth century. It occurs for the first time in Igor de Rachewiltz’s Secret History of the Mongols and has drawn the attention of the scholars who suggest various interpretations.^[88]De Rachewiltz, for instance, takes the term “Olan Mongol” as the “exact equivalent” of “Qamug Mongqol,” that is “the entire Mongol nation.”^[89] On the other hand, F. W. Cleaves understands it as “[t]he people (or nation) consisting of the Many Mongols” and highlights that the location implies “the Mongols at large, rather than a specific group.”^[90]

The use of the term “Many Mongols” in Magsar’s writing is clearly a political act to imply the intention of both theocratic and secular governments to unite the Mongols. In the mind of Magsar Khurts, both Bogdo Khan’s state and its successor, the People’s State, were certainly not limited to Outer Mongolia, but extended to the Mongols in the Inner Asian region. For example, one of the interesting aspects of Magsar’s book is his counterargument to an Inner Mongolian nobleman named Sedbaljir, the special convoy of Yuan Shikai, who sent a letter to Bogdo Khan’s court shortly after the declaration of Mongolia’s independence in 1911, arguing that with lack of economic, political, and military power, Outer Mongolia could not establish an independent state on its own. He continued, as Magsar quotes: “[Your] wealth can last only for ten years and without wealth, [your] state will easily perish. [Your] army has no more than 10,000 soldiers and how can a few fight against many? [Your] weapon is old and used by someone before. How can a weak fight against a powerful?”^[91] In his counterargument against Sedbaljir, Magsar stresses:

Although Mongols had been dormant for centuries and left out [in the dark] without ‘political’ education, [we] woke up from sleep, fighting our way out of Manchu oppression. Remembering the great history of our ancestors, [we] realized that the perfect moment to rise has come. Although [we] are few and poor, there are stories of few becoming many and poor becoming strong.^[92]

Then, Magsar proved that the unification of “many” Mongolian princely states—which include, as far as his account is concerned, first and foremost, Outer and Inner Mongolia—is the key to turning “few Mongols” into “Many Mongols.” Furthermore, he also included the Mongols of Höh Nuur and Tannu Uriankhan, and the Buryat-Mongol immigrants in Outer Mongolia, in this “imagined state” of Mongols.

The population of Inner Mongolia, even today, surpasses that of other Mongol ethnic groups in Inner Asia, including present-day Mongolian Republic.^[93] Incorporating Inner Mongolia to Outer Mongolia had been the main purpose of both Bogdo Khan’s government, as well as the early socialist government. For Magsar Khurts, the “War of Five Routes” to liberate Inner Mongolia from China in 1913 was the major attempt to incorporate it into the new state. However, Magsar stresses that the failure of this campaign was largely due to the alliance between “greedy” Russian and Chinese states and the excessive pressure they imposed on Bogdo Khan’s government to accept the terms of the Khiagta agreement in 1915. He writes:

The purpose of the declaration of the Outer Mongolia’s independence was to unify all Mongols. As a result, many Mongol “ovogton” [race/people] submitted [to the new state] and it was likely that the Mongols are to be united under a single strong state. However, Russia and China divided Mongolia in order to share its natural resources and pressed Mongols to agree to the trilateral agreement. Consequently, only Khalkha and Durved [princely states] had gained an autonomous status while the rest of the Mongols stayed under Chinese rule. [Bogdo Khan’s government] failed to accomplish its mission and its strength was seriously diminished due to this agreement.^[94]

After the physical unification of “Many Mongols” failed as such, another possible option proposed by the leaders of the People’s Government was to welcome asylum seekers into Outer Mongolia. The last chapter of Magsar Khurts’s book offers a strong justification regarding the question of immigrants, which was openly shared by new Mongolian scholarship. These scholars regarded the Outer Mongolian state as a role model to attract other Mongolian ethnics, and its capital Ulaanbaatar as the cultural, economic, and political center of all Mongols. For instance, Tseveen Jamsrano argues that:

Khalkha as Revolutionary Mongolia must be a role model in terms of economic, cultural, and legislative development and must attract [other Mongols]. The core idea of the national revolutionary movement is to establish a confederation of Mongolian princely states. . . . Hence, [we] will have a good opportunity to increase the population of Khalkha, to improve the living standard of the people and to develop our culture. In the near future, with the help of the Soviet Union, [we] shall form a Central Asian Federal State of Höh Nuur, Tibet, Northern Turkestan, Tannu Tuva, and other Mongolian ethnic groups, centered in Ulaanbaatar.^[95]

We know that Jamsrano had strong ties with Magsar Khurts as they worked together on multiple occasions. While Magsar was a Chief Scribe at the Ministry of Interior of Bogdo Khan’s Government, Jamsrano held the post of Cultural Officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the same government. In addition to their early correspondence, Magsar Khurts and Jamsrano worked together with Russian-educated Sh. Batochir to draft a new constitution for the Constitutional Monarchy. Like Magsar, both Jamsrano and Batochir contributed to the rewriting of Mongolian ancient history.^[96]

Another influential Buryat-Mongol scholar was Bazaryn Ishidorji, who was one of the active members of the newly established Institute of Script and Literature (the forerunner of today’s Mongolian Academy of Sciences) and the head of the committee to the student exchanges in France and Germany. In his article published in Germany in 1929, Ishidorji wrote:

Independent Mongolia, with its highly developed national culture and its political-economic program, has great interest for the intellectuals and the young among the Mongols outside Outer Mongolia. All who have an opportunity come to Ulaanbaatar to work and study in this national-cultural center. The importance of Ulaanbaatar for the partly russified Buriats, the half-sinified (in China, practically assimilated) Chahars and Tumets (of Inner Mongolia) is in this respect extraordinarily great. In the eyes of the Barguts (Manchuria) and the Mongols of Inner Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar and the Khalkhas (Outer Mongolia) appear to have achieved an ideal state of freedom and independence. Therefore emigration for political reasons has come to be of considerable importance. In Urga one now meets representatives of all the Mongolian princely states, from the Kalmyks to the Ordos Mongols who live on the banks of the Yellow River. Such an influx of intellectual power, of people who have received part of their education in Russia, China, and Japan, powerfully supports the work of cultural improvement, and it furthermore arouses and intensifies the idea of co-operation and unification of the various Mongolian princely states around the now independent Outer Mongolia.^[97]

We know that Magsar Khurts and Ishidorji were at least in an academic relationship from the fact that Ishidorji examined Magsar’s first history book, The Account of The Political Situation of the Mongolian People’s State.^[98]

At the Third Party Congress, Elbekdorj Rinchino, who was politically more active than other Buryat intellectuals and during whose “reign” Magsar Khurts finished his most important historical works, stated: “We must also keep in mind the fact that millions of our race, the ‘Inner’ Mongols, are groaning under the oppression of China.”^[99] And in November 1924, he claimed at the First Great Khural: “We must be the cultural center for our races, we must attract to ourselves the Inner Mongols, Barga Mongols, etc. . . .”^[100]

In the same vein as the above-mentioned Buryat-Mongol intellectuals, Magsar Khurts stresses in his book as follows:

The Buryat-Mongols, who previously migrated to Mongolia and settled in several places within its territory, requested citizenship. To integrate these Buryats within Mongolia, the representatives of three parties—Russia, Mongolia, and Buryat—established a committee to consider the Buryat-Mongols’ affair under the authority of the Mongolian People’s State. On November 14, 1924, [the government] issued a directive as stated in the first clause of the decree of the forty-second government meeting to grant a territory to 15,800 Buryat-Mongols of four thousand households. . . . Since then, those [refugees] who seek to become citizens of Mongolia were treated with open hearts and brotherly love. It opened a door to attract the dispersed Mongol nation to be united once again.^[101]

In his account, Magsar mentions not only the Buryat-Mongol immigrants from the Trans-Siberian Region of the Soviet Union who acquired Mongolian citizenship, but also other Mongolian ethnic communities under Chinese rule, in particular, Inner Mongolians.^[102]

For Magsar, the fight for unification and “freedom” is certainly not over. Believing that the new Mongolian state was moving toward a brighter future, Magsar Khurts concluded his book with an epic slogan which reads: “Long live the state of the Mongolian People’s Republic which gained its complete freedom.”^[103] Although the effort to physically unite “Many Mongols” failed, by placing special emphasis on the freedom and independence of the Mongolian state, Magsar Khurts might have held a positive opinion of this newly emerging government to unite the “hearts and minds” of the Mongols.

Conclusion

Greater Mongolian nationalism disguised itself in different forms: as early as 1911, Outer and Inner Mongolian nobilities placed Bogdo Khan at the center of their independence movements, while the revolutionary movement in 1921 gradually shifted the narrative from Bogdo Khan to arad as the center of its new nationalism. Despite their different “centers,” the goal of these national movements remained the same: both aimed to incorporate various Mongolian princely states into a single nation-state. Given the region’s political situation, the form of unification also shifted from physical to ideological and cultural.

Although Magsar Khurts was entangled in the violent power changes within the newly established governments, he, as an active participant in both movements, interpreted this conceptual shift through the notion of “Many Mongols.” His life and works reveal a network of intellectuals and politicians who took over political power in Outer Mongolia in 1921. Although these prominent figures were under heavy influence of the Soviet Union, the guiding ideology of their revolutionary movement was, as in Stolpe’s words, “socialist in form, but national in content.”^[104] They indeed attempted to strengthen the sense of belonging to the People’s State and “imagined” the collectiveness of Mongol people based on a shared historical origin.

What makes the case study of Magsar Khurts interesting is that he was born as arad, later gained acceptance into the centuries-old Mongolian aristocracy, but then had to renounce his newly acquired hereditary title and become arad again in order to be identified with the new leaders. As he muddled through the various socio-political transitions and violent political confrontations, he had to change his identity solely for the purpose of his own survival. However, he was successful in hiding his nationalist ideas in the disguise of socialism. In this regard, Magsar’s account is also “socialist in form but national in content.” Its explosive mixture of nationalist and socialist ideas, which are equally visible in the accounts of other early nationalists of the socialist period, aimed at building a new national identity in order to attract other ethnic Mongols outside of Outer Mongolia.

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