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1. The White Crane of Alagśa: Legends of the Sixth Dalai Lama in Mongolia

Author:
Sangseraima Ujeed and Gray Tuttle
Publication Date:
03-2024
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
The Sixth Dalai Lama Tsangyang Gyatso (1683-1706/46) was recognized in secrecy, lived in controversy, and passed out of history in mystery. The popular tradition holds that he died whilst travelling to Beijing. Yet in some parts of Mongolia, it is believed that the exiled Sixth Dalai Lama escaped his captors and lived out his life in the dessert Gobi region of Alagśa, Inner Mongolia. To this day in Alagśa, the figure of the Sixth Dalai Lama still serves as a central pillar of the Alagśan identity, religion, and cultural pride among the local Mongolian population. Based on new materials in the form of oral histories, local legends, folk songs, poems, and textual sources which I collected about the Sixth Dalai Lama and the reincarnation of the Desi Sanggye Gyatso in Alagśa during a research trip in 2019, this paper will explore the formation of religio-cultural identity and the invention of tradition in the Alagśa during the early eighteenth century. This is not a paper that tries to solve the mystery of Tsangyang Gyatso’s death, but rather, one that explores the role Tsangyang Gyatso played for the Alagśa Mongols in creating narratives of identity and their realm Alagśa as an authentic Buddhist central place. This is a story of how Tsangyang Gyatso, his identities, and his interpersonal relationships were reborn in Alagśa and the role he played in consolidating Alagśa’s place within the wider geopolitical spheres of the cosmopolitan Buddhist world that spanned the Himalayas, Inner Asia, and the Qing.
Topic:
Religion, History, Geopolitics, Identity, Tradition, Dalai Lama, and Reincarnation
Political Geography:
China, Mongolia, and Asia

2. History and Development of the Library of Congress Tibetan Collection with Susan Meinheit

Author:
Susan Meinheit
Publication Date:
04-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
With a career spanning 47 years at the Library of Congress, Susan Meinheit has had a pioneering role in the development, management, and conservation of the Library of Congress' vast Tibetan collection, one of the largest in the world. From her first LC position as a library clerk, it was through her area and language expertise -- combined with sheer determination -- that she essentially carved out her role as steward and champion of LC's long-neglected early TIbetan holdings which were based on the collections of three major scholars of Tibet and southwest China and acquired by LC in the early 1900s. Meinheit will talk about the early history of the collection; the growth of the collection through the PL-480 Books program with India, and achievements in bringing wider visibility of the Tibetan holdings through major cataloging and digitization initiatives.
Topic:
History, Digitization, Library of Congress, and Archives
Political Geography:
Mongolia, Asia, and Tibet

3. Mongolia Between Two Giants: Cold War Lessons and Today’s Realities

Author:
Batbayar Tsedendamba, Segey Radchenko, Morris Rossabi, and Elizabeth Wishnick
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Ambassador Batbayar will discuss Mongolia’s effort to achieve a delicate balance between its two big neighbors, namely Russia and China, and between the Russian Federation and its so-called “third neighbor” [democratic partner] countries. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mongolia has endeavored to stay as neutral as possible both between Russia and China, and between Russia and the West. This contrasts with the Cold War period, when Mongolia was faced with intense confrontation between its two giant neighbors: Russia and China. At that time, Mongolia had no other choice but to enter into an alliance with Moscow. Today Mongolia is again facing the old dilemma about maintaining equidistance from its two giant neighbors: Russia and China. But unlike Cold War era, Mongolia has developed extensive relations with “third neighbor countries”; namely the USA, the EU, Japan and South Korea all have an enormous stake in Mongolia’s future as a democratic and prosperous country. Therefore, Ulaanbaatar has a great dilemma between short-term economic gains from ties with Moscow and Beijing or a long-term commitment to Western democracy and freedom.
Topic:
Cold War, Diplomacy, History, Regional Politics, and Russia-Ukraine War
Political Geography:
Russia, Ukraine, Mongolia, and Asia

4. Climate Variability and Steppe Empires: New Findings and Future Directions

Author:
Nicola Di Cosmo
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Abstract:
Nicola Di Cosmo, Henry Luce Foundation Professor of East Asian History, Institute for Advanced Study; Associate Member at the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University Moderated by: Gray Tuttle, Leila Hadley Luce Professor of Modern Tibetan Studies, Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University Three decades of climatological research in Mongolia and neighboring regions have transformed our knowledge about the environmental history of Inner Asian empires. The processes that gave rise to these political formations, many of which have played a distinct and crucial role in Chinese history, are still very poorly understood. High-resolution climatic reconstructions, when placed in historical contexts, provide clues about the nomads' responses to climatic variability, and thus illuminate critical nexuses between economic production, social structures, and political change. By illustrating a range of representative historical cases studies, this lecture will explore both the nature of the data and the methods that historians and climatologists have adopted to gauge the impact of climate upon pre-modern nomadic peoples.
Topic:
Climate Change, Environment, Politics, History, and Economy
Political Geography:
China, Mongolia, and Asia

5. Mongolia’s Emergence

Author:
Peter Bridges
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
I had long been curious about Mongolia, a lightly populated country twice the size of Texas, which under Genghis Khan and his successors produced, in the 13th century CE, the largest contiguous land empire the world has ever known—9 million square miles. For much of the 20th century people spoke of Outer and Inner Mongolia. The Inner was firmly under Chinese control. The Outer claimed independence but was in fact the first Soviet satellite state, the Red Army having expelled Chinese troops in the early 1920s. The country was almost totally isolated from the rest of the world. In 1939, Japanese forces advanced into Mongolia from China and were pushed back by Soviet forces, in battles that involved tens of thousands of troops but went almost totally unreported in the West. After World War II, Communist China sent twenty thousand or more “guest workers” into Mongolia. It was a prelude to colonization, as China had brought about in Inner Mongolia and would do later in Tibet and Xinjiang. The Soviets did not want a new Chinese state on their border. They and the Mongols managed to get the guest workers sent home. What I knew about the past of Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang came mainly from reading the work of three great explorers and travelers: Sven Hedin, Sir Aurel Stein, and the American diplomat William Woodville Rockhill, who once crossed Tibet on foot. (Henry Adams said that meeting with Rockhill was like having dinner with Genghis Khan.)
Topic:
Diplomacy, History, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Mongolia and Asia

6. U.S. Embassy Tokyo Role in the Establishment of U.S.-Mongolia Relations

Author:
Alicia Campi
Publication Date:
11-2018
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
The U.S. and Mongolia established diplomatic relations in 1987, after earlier failed attempts and many years of Cold War frostiness. In this account, Dr. Campi describes the negotiations leading up to relations with the Mongolian People’s Republic, at the time a communist country closely allied to the Soviet Union, and her own role in the process.
Topic:
Cold War, Diplomacy, History, Bilateral Relations, Negotiation, and Memoir
Political Geography:
Japan, Mongolia, Asia, and United States of America