Although the older generation in Mongolia continued to use the Uighur-Mongolian script privately, the Cyrillic script soon became completely dominant. In 1986, with the beginning of liberalization, the Uighur-Mongolian script was introduced as a compulsory subject in seventh and eighth grades (equivalent to American ninth and tenth grades). In 1991, with full-scale democratization, the Mongolian legislature ordered the Uighur-Mongolian script restored as Mongolia’s official script by 1994. For a few years primary school pupils were taught solely in the Uighur-Mongolian script. In a democratic environment the inadequate materials and poor teacher training in the Uighur-Mongolian script could not overcome passive resistance from the population, and in 1996 the Cyrillic script was reconfirmed as the official script, with the Uighur-Mongolian script to be taught as a required sec- ondary school subject. While Latinization has influential adherents, Cyrillic will remain Mongolia’s primary script for the foreseeable future.
See alsoBURIAT LANGUAGE AND SCRIPT; KALMYK-OIRAT LANGUAGE AND SCRIPT.
Further reading: Stephane Grivelet, “An Attempt to Change the Official Script of Mongolia,” Turkic Languages 2 (1998): 233–246; ———, “Latinization Attempt in Mongo- lia,” in Historical and Linguistic Interaction between Inner- Asia and Europe, ed. Árpád Berta and Edina Horváth (Szeged, Hungary: University of Szeged, 1997), 115–120.
N
D
123
Dadu SeeDAIDU.
Dagor SeeDAUR LANGUAGE AND PEOPLE. Dagur SeeDAUR LANGUAGE AND PEOPLE.
Da Hinggan Ling SeeGREATER KHINGGAN RANGE. Dahur SeeDAUR LANGUAGE AND PEOPLE.
Daidu (Dadu, Ta-tu, Khanbaligh) Moving his capital to Daidu (modern Beijing) marked the importance of North China in QUBILAI KHAN’s realm, yet he also preserved much of his Mongol background in his palace there.
The site of present-day Beijing, traditionally named Yanjing, was a secondary capital of the Liao dynasty (907–1125) founded by the Inner Mongolian KITANS. In
1153 the Jurchens’ JIN DYNASTY renamed the city
Zhongdu, or “Central Capital.” In 1215 the city was
besieged and sacked by the Mongols (see ZHONGDU,
SIEGES OF). Afterward, under the name Yanjing, it served as the seat of Mongol administration in North China.
When Qubilai Khan (1260–94) was first elected khan, he placed the secretariat, his main organ of admin- istration, at Yanjing. Cut off from his ancestors’ palace- tents (ORDOs) by war, he built an ancestral temple there with earth and grass from the steppe. Finally, in 1266 Qubilai ordered a new capital to be built northeast of old Yanjing centered on today’s Forbidden City. Feng-shui
expert and adviser LIU BINGZHONGbased the city’s overall
placement on the Chinese classic Zhou Li (Rites of the Zhou dynasty), and the Turkestani architect Igder
designed the buildings. Qubilai held his first formal audi- ence in the new palace in February 1274. Renamed Daidu (Great Capital, modern Chinese pronunciation Dadu) in 1272, the city was called by its many foreign residents Khan-Baligh, “City of the Khan.”
The new city’s 15 meter (50-foot-high) whitewashed walls extended five kilometers (three miles) east to west and somewhat less than seven kilometers (five miles) north to south. Respectable residents from the old city were housed in extended-family compounds in plots of around 3 hectares or more than an acre each. The six broad alleys and strict grid organization gave the city an impressively spacious look. Suburbs stretched for miles outside the new city’s 12 gates, while old Yanjing became almost desolate. Following Mongol custom, burials and any bloodshed were strictly forbidden inside the city. A curfew testified to the Mongols’ continuing fears of rebellion.
Following a model begun at QARA-QORUM, Qubilai’s palaces, including Daming Hall for formal audiences and Yanchun Pavilion for confidential meetings and Buddhist rituals, occupied elevated platforms inside the palace grounds. The outer-palace grounds, walled with watch- towers and arsenals, were a stocked game park, criss- crossed by elevated walkways and graced by the lake Taiye Chi (modern Bei- and Nanhai).
The Yuan-era population has been estimated at 600,000 persons, and they served as a magnet for all forms of commerce. Even so, feeding the court estab- lishment was a major task. In 1292 Guo Shoujing dredged the Tonghui Canal, bringing water into the very walls of the city. After the fall of the city to the MING
DYNASTYin 1368, the site was retained and renamed Bei-
the Mongol city is Baita or “White Pagoda” north of Bei- hai Lake.
See also “LAMENT OF TOGHAN-TEMÜR.”
Further reading: Nancy R. S. Steinhardt, “The Plan
of Khubilai Khan’s Imperial City,” Artibus Asiae 44 (1983): 137–158.
dairy products Historical and ethnographic accounts show that Mongolian dairy products have generally been processed in identical ways from the 13th century to today, although the terminology differs somewhat from region to region. Mongols milk all five of the animals but they tend to put the milk to different uses. Thus, mare’s milk is generally fermented into KOUMISS, sheep and
goat’s milk is mostly used in TEAor cheeses, while cow’s
milk is used for all three purposes.
Zöökhii, or cream, is one of the simplest dairy prod- ucts to make, being produced by letting the milk curdle in a warm place for six to eight hours and skimming the cream off the top. This cream is strained and churned to form “white oil” (tsagaan tos), which is then gently
melted to separate the “yellow oil” (shar tos), or clarified butter. The residue from the separation of “white oil” is tsötsgii, a delicious cream eaten in recent times mixed with cane sugar and fried millet.
Once the cream is skimmed off, the rest of the milk may be poured into a kettle over a gentle flame until it separates into curds and “yellow milk” (sharasü). The yellow milk is boiled and then mixed with culture and allowed to ferment, forming chagaa. The chagaa is then placed in sacks and the liquid squeezed out with a weight, forming a semisolid aarts. Dried in the sun, aarts becomes khuruud, a kind of rockhard cheese. This cultured cheese can be preserved indefinitely and was part of the regular rations of soldiers on campaigns. It is reconstituted for eating by placing it in hot water. In the Middle Ages this was done by putting it in a skin and beating it, while in modern times it is often placed in tea. Today the aarts is frequently mixed with sugar and squeezed through a meat grinder to form wormlike pieces of sweet aaruul, a popular holiday and gift prod- uct. Another form of khuruud is made today without culture by pressing unfermented curds into molds to make pieces of hard, round, dry curds used to decorate hospitality plates.
In the fall öröm rather than zöökhii is made. Öröm is a kind of coagulated foamy cream. By gently heating (to about 80°C, or 176°F) and ladling the milk, a foam is produced, which when the fire is weakened coagulates. By carefully adding new milk around the edges and reheating three to four times, a thick layer of öröm is formed, which after cooling overnight can be removed.
Cheeses (biyaslag) are made by adding fermented milk to foaming milk, heated over a gentle flame. The curdled milk is then strained through cloth, wrapped, and placed under a stone to remove the liquid. This pro- cedure can also be followed with the milk left over from öröm. Culture is also added directly to milk (fresh or left- over from making öröm) to make yogurt (tarag).
Fermented, slightly alcoholic liquors are made from mare’s, cow’s, and camel’s milk. That from mare’s milk is the famous koumiss (from Turkish qumiz, Mongolian, airag or chigee), the drink of choice for Inner Asian men. This is produced by vigorously churning cultured milk. Koumiss has a natural tendency to separate into turbid white dregs and a potent clear liquid. While today only plain koumiss is usually drunk, in the empire period the clear liquid, called “black koumiss” (qara qumiz) in Turkish (all clear liquids are “black” to the Mongols), was the rulers’ preferred drink. Today, instead, distilled milk liquors are made with home-distilling equipment set up over a kettle of boiling fermented milk. The resulting liquor, called shimiin arkhi in Mongolia or saali-yin arikhi in Inner Mongolia, is 10–12 percent alco- hol. Double-fermented milk liquor, or arz, reaches 30 percent alcohol.
See alsoFOOD AND DRINK.
124 dairy products
“Yellow milk” being fermented to make khuruud (a hard cheese). Shiliin Gol, Inner Mongolia, 1987 (Courtesy of
Dalai Lama, fourth (Yon-tan rGya-mtsho) (1589–1617)
The only Dalai Lama of non-Tibetan origin
In 1588 the Third Dalai Lama, bSod-nams rGya-mtsho (1543–88) died while in Inner Mongolia. In February 1589 a boy born to Sümer Taiji, grandson of ALTAN KHAN (1508–82) and a lady variously known at Bigchog Beiji or Baigha-Jula, showed remarkable religious attainments from birth. In 1592 the boy’s uncle Tümed khan Chürüke and his queen, Noyanchu Jünggen, visited his father’s camp at Chaghan Nuur (Qagan Nur), and the boy was enthroned as the Dalai Lama at Guihua (modern HÖHHOT). The Tibetans, believing the Mongols to have “little wisdom and much pride,” ignored the boy until 1601, when the chief monasteries of the Dalai Lama’s dGe-lugs-pa (Yellow Hat) order sent a delegation to test him. Once the boy passed the test, the Tibetans insisted that he be brought to Lhasa. On November 3, 1603, he was ordained at Lhasa with the name Yon-tan rGya- mtsho. Within a year tensions flared with the rival Karma-pa lamas, who saw the new Dalai Lama’s Mongo-
lian escorts as illiterate barbarians and dGe-lugs-pa big- ots. The Tibetan king, based in gZhis-ka-rtse (Xigazê), also saw the escorts as a threat and had them expelled in 1605. As the dGe-lugs-pa were strong in the dBus district around Lhasa, while the Karma-pa and the Tibetan king were based in the gTsang district, regional tensions flared. Only the affection between the young Dalai Lama and his tutor, Blo-bzang Chos-kyi rGyal-mtshan (1567–1662), the first Panchen Lama, who presided over bKra-shis Lhun-po Monastery in gZhis-ka-rtse, moderated the ten- sions. In 1617 the Dalai Lama died; his heart and other organs were brought back to Tümed as relics.
Damba SeeDAMBADORJI.
Damba, Dashiin (1908–1989) Mongolian party leader who was ousted for attempting to implement de-Staliniza- tion more aggressively than the maximum leader, Tsedendal, wished
Damba, Dashiin 125
Kalmyk women and children in a yurt, brewing distilled milk liquor (From Peter Simon Pallas, Sammlungen historischer Nachrichten über die mongolischen Völkerschaften [1976])
Born on March 29, 1908, in Daiching Zasag banner (Teshig Sum, Bulgan), Damba joined the MONGOLIAN REV-
OLUTIONARY YOUTH LEAGUE in 1924 and participated in
the expropriation of the nobility’s property in 1929–30. After studying in the party school in ULAANBAATAR, he
became a commissar in the armed forces (see ARMED
FORCES OF MONGOLIA) from 1932 to 1938.
After serving as provincial party secretary, he was elected to the party presidium in July 1939 while partici- pating in the arrest of the 1921 revolutionary and deputy interior minister Losal (D. Losol, 1890–1940). With the arrest and torture of the new party secretary Basanjab (B. Baasanjaw, 1906–41), Damba was implicated as well, but Mongolia’s leader, MARSHAL CHOIBALSANG, had the charges dropped. Damba remained in the Politburo but was not part of Choibalsang’s inner circle.
After Choibalsang’s death Damba took the position of the party’s first secretary, while YUMJAAGIIN TSEDENBAL became premier. The Soviet-educated Tsedenbal despised Damba as a “backward” man who shirked work to visit the countryside, was not a reader, and did not write his own speeches. In 1956, with de-Stalinization in the Soviet Union, a special commission headed by BAZARYN
SHIRENDEWwas formed to reevaluate purge victims in the
Stalin-Choibalsang years. Damba supported giving the commission access to top-secret Interior Ministry files, but Tsedenbal was opposed. In 1957, when Tsedenbal wished to arrest Shirendew and another rival as “imperi- alist spies,” Damba persuaded him to delay and then drop the charges. In November 1958 Tsedenbal dismissed Damba. After his dismissal he headed a machine tractor station and eventually became deputy director of the Institute of Agriculture.
See alsoMONGOLIAN PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC. Dambadorj, Tseren-Ochiryn SeeDAMBADORJI. Dambadorji (Tseren-Ochiryn Dambadorj, Damba Dorji, Damba) (1899–1934) Mongolia’s leader in 1925–1928 who
resisted complete dependence on the Soviet Union
Dambadorji’s father, Tsering Wachir, was head of the tele- graph bureau of Mongolia’s theocratic government. His son Dambadorji was born in Maimaching, the Chinatown of Khüriye (modern ULAANBAATAR). His father enrolled him in 1913 in the translator’s school attached to the Russian consulate and then in the gymnasium (high school) in Troitskosavsk (in modern KYAKHTA). After graduating he worked in the telegraph bureau. In winter 1920–21 he joined the Mongolian revolutionaries in Troitskosavsk, later participating in the October 1921 siege at Tolbo Nuur (Tolbo Sum, Bayan-Ölgii). From December 1921 to January 1923 he was chairman of the Mongolian People’s Party. After being replaced as chair- man by the more conservative “Japanese” Danzin (1875–1934), he traveled to Germany and other Euro-
pean countries, wrote articles, and translated several works of Friedrich Engels.
At the People’s Party’s Third Congress (August 1924) he allied with the Buriat revolutionary ELBEK-DORZHI
RINCHINO to overthrow GENERAL DANZIN and regain his
old position. After Rinchino’s recall to Russia in July 1925, Dambadorji as party chairman and his allies ran Mongolia. Under Dambadorji’s rule state control of the economy and Soviet presence slowly increased, yet he strictly disciplined radicals who demanded the replace- ment of experienced old officials. With Moscow’s encour- agement Dambadorji supported both the Chinese warlord Feng Yuxiang and Inner Mongolian revolutionaries. His short-lived first marriage in 1925 to a Chinese actress, Wang Shuqin, diminished his popularity. In 1927 he mar- ried a Mongolian woman, Batsükh.
His attempts to open diplomatic relations with Japan and his opposition to the Communist International’s radi- calization of the allied Inner Mongolian party incurred Moscow’s hostility. After more than a year of pressure, Dambadorji’s regime was overthrown at the People’s Rev- olutionary Party’s Seventh Congress (September–Decem- ber 1928). Dambadorji was exiled to Moscow for study with Batsükh and their son, Abmad. After 1932 he worked in Mongolia’s embassy in Moscow before dying of disease in 1934.
See alsoMONGOLIAN PEOPLE’S PARTY, THIRD CONGRESS
OF; MONGOLIAN PEOPLE’S REVOLUTIONARY PARTY, SEVENTH
CONGRESS OF; REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD; THEOCRATIC
PERIOD.
Dambijantsan (Ja Lama) (d. 1922) Mysterious adven-
turer said to have had magic powers who helped drive the Chinese out of Khowd and became the border warden in western Mongolia
Dambinjantsan is generally said to have been a Kalmyk. A Dambijantsan (known as Ja Lama, from “Jantsan”) traveled western Mongolia and Tibet in 1889–90, 1892, and from 1900 to perhaps 1904 as a lama from the west, prophesying the fall of the Qing and the rise of the Mon- gols and calling himself a reincarnation of AMURSANAA (1722?–57).
In 1910 a Dambijantsan reappeared in western Mon- golia, although those who knew both doubted if it was the same person. In 1912 he persuaded the Dörböd rulers
to support the 1911 RESTORATIONand joined GRAND DUKE
DAMDINSÜRÜNG, MAGSURJAB, and the JALKHANZA
KHUTUGTU in the siege of KHOWD CITY. Dambijantsan’s
annihilation of Chinese reinforcements coming from Chenghua (modern Altay) and his capture of their car- bines marked a turning point in the siege and also began the legend of his invulnerability to bullets.
After the Mongolian victory he took the title Dogshin Noyan Khutugtu Nom-un Khan (Fierce Lordly Incarna- tion, Dharma King) and was appointed commissioner of
the Western Marches by Mongolia’s theocratic govern- ment. He built a new monastery near LAKE UWS, forcing the lamas to dig an artificial pond, collecting 2,000 sub- jects, or shabi (lay disciples), and mooting various Russi- fying reforms. Despite stories of his gun magic, clairvoyance, and prophetic gifts, his requisitions and extreme cruelty soiled his and the theocratic govern- ment’s reputation, and sparked a DUGUILANG-style move- ment of Dörböd lamas against their prince and the Mongolian government, one that had to be suppressed by force. In 1914 the western Mongolian people appealed directly to the Russian government, and Dambijantsan, a Russian citizen, was arrested and deported.
After penal exile in Tomsk and Yakutsk, he returned to Astrakhan and in 1918 reappeared in Khalkha’s Zasagtu Khan AIMAG. Again winning over some of the princes, he set up a stockade at Gongpoquan, north of Mazong (Maajin) Shan in the northwest Gansu border- lands (modern SUBEI MONGOL AUTONOMOUS COUNTY). He remained neutral in the conflict between the White Rus- sians and the Soviet-supported revolutionaries in 1921–22 but was assassinated by agents sent from the revolutionary Office of Internal Security in early Decem- ber 1922. Until the moment of his death even his assas- sins worried about his reputation for invulnerability.
See alsoTHEOCRATIC PERIOD.
Further reading: John Gaunt, “Mongolia’s Renegade
Monk: The Career of Dambijantsan,” Journal of the Anglo- Mongolia Society 10 (1987): 27–41.
Damdinsüren, Jamsrangiin See DAMDINSÜRÜNG, GRAND DUKE.
Damdinsüren, Tsendiin (1908–1986) Mongolian author and scholar who became a leader in the preservation and study of Mongolia’s prerevolutionary literary heritage
Born in Üizeng Zasag banner (modern Matad Sum, East- ern), the second son of the banner clerk Tsengde, who served briefly as banner deputy adjutant (1921–22) before retiring due to illness, Damdinsüren was first tutored at home. In 1923 he became a banner clerk in his banner and in 1925 volunteered as a scribe for a company of soldiers stationed at Tamsag. While in the army, he began collecting books. From 1927 to 1929 he served as editor of Ünen newspaper and first became acquainted with Marxism in an evening study group with the Buriat “Wooden Leg” Gombozhab and the Russian adviser
Koniaev. In the succeeding LEFTIST PERIOD(1929–32) he
briefly served on Mongolia’s trade union council before being sent to organize herding collectives in GOBI-ALTAI PROVINCE.
From 1933 he studied at the Oriental Institute in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). In 1936 he married a Rus- sian-Jewish woman, L. V. Zevina, who was studying Mon- golian there. They had four children: Lev, Konstantin,
Mikhail, and Anna (Dulmaa). After his return in 1938 he
was arrested in the GREAT PURGEon November 4 and tor-
tured—a blow with a red-hot iron lost him several teeth—but was not executed. After his release on January
27, 1940, MARSHAL CHOIBALSANGemployed him to design
Mongolia’s Cyrillic script. From 1942 to 1946 he was again Ünen newspaper’s editor in chief. From 1946 to 1950 he studied for his master’s degree in Moscow, writ-
ing his thesis on the GESERepic. Subsequently, he worked
at the Mongolian State University and the ACADEMY OF
SCIENCES and published 56 scholarly papers and mono-
graphs.
Damdinsüren began his writing career as a poet and a short story writer. His first story, “The Rejected Girl” (“Gologdson khüükhen”), written for the leftist Writer’s Circle in January 1929, followed a poor family through its troubles into the revolutionary years. Altered by pres- sure from his colleagues, the original, less ideological ver- sion was to Damdinsüren’s later regret lost. In Leningrad Damdinsüren wrote his famous poem “My Silver-Haired Mother” (“Buural ijii mini,” 1934) in a strongly rhythmic folkloric style, speaking of his homesickness as well as his determination to study. In 1950 he composed the lyrics to the Mongolian national ANTHEM.
After 1940, however, Damdinsüren put his major effort into scholarship, paraphrasing the SECRET HISTORY
OF THE MONGOLS in modern Mongolian (1947) and pub-
lishing the extraordinary pioneering anthology Monggol uran zokhiyal-un degeji zagun bilig oroshibai (One hun- dred best works of Mongolian literature, 1955), which