The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia: Transformation in Buryatia 9789633860144

Table of contents :
Table of Contents
Notes on Transliteration and Translation
Acknowledgements
Introduction
CHAPTER 1 The Buryats of Siberia: From Imperial Russia to the Soviet State
CHAPTER 2 Stalinism in Buryatia
CHAPTER 3 The New Buryats
CHAPTER 4 Education for Change
CHAPTER 5 Buryat Literature for a New Society
CHAPTER 6 A Means to Modernity: Newspapers, Radio, and Television
CHAPTER 7 Reform, But What Kind?
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Pictures

Citation preview

The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia Transformation in Buryatia

Melissa Chakars

Central European University Press Budapest–New York

© 2014 Melissa Chakars Published in 2014 by Central European University Press An imprint of the Central European University Limited Liability Company Nádor utca 11, H-1051 Budapest, Hungary Tel: +36-1-327-3138 or 327-3000 Fax: +36-1-327-3183 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.ceupress.com 227 West 57th Street, New York NY 10019, USA Tel: +1-212-547-6932 Fax: +1-646-557-2416 E-mail: [email protected] All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the permission of the Publisher. We gratefully acknowledge The National Museum of the Republic of Buryatia for providing the photographs. ISBN 978-963-386-013-7 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chakars, Melissa. The socialist way of life in Siberia : transformation in Buryatia / Melissa Chakars. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-9633860137 (alkaline paper) 1. Buriats--Politics and government. 2. Buriats--Social conditions. 3. Buriats--Social life and customs. 4. Socialism--Social aspects--Russia (Federation)--Buriatiia. 5. Social change--Russia (Federation)--Buriatiia. 6. Social change--Russia (Federation)--Siberia. 7. Buriatiia (Russia)-Social conditions. 8. Siberia (Russia)--Social conditions. 9. Siberia (Russia)--Ethnic relations. I. Title. DK759.B8C45 2014 957'.5--dc23 2013046201

Printed in Hungary by Prime Rate Kft., Budapest

For Janis, Vilnis, and Laila

Table of Contents

Notes on Transliteration and Translation Acknowledgements

xi xiii

Introduction Modernization and Soviet Success Institutions and the Culture of Progress Buryat Exceptionalism and Advancement Outline of Chapters

1 3 13 17 21

CHAPTER 1 The Buryats of Siberia: From Imperial Russia to the Soviet State The Mongols of Siberia and Russian Expansion Buddhism in Buryatia The Buryats and the Imperial Government Buryat Intellectual and Political Activity The Civil War and the Competition over Siberia Autonomy and Korenizatsiia Conclusion

25 26 29 32 41 46 53 58

CHAPTER 2 Stalinism in Buryatia Collectivization and the End of Nomadism Terrorizing and Purging the Buryat Elite Territorial Changes to Divide the Buryats Laying the Foundations for a New Culture Industrial Immigrants Conclusion

61 63 71 76 78 85 87

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER 3 The New Buryats The Postwar Buryat Migration Buryat Professionals Buryat Women Political Leadership Conclusion CHAPTER 4 Education for Change Building Soviet Education in Eastern Siberia Buryat National Schools Teaching Progress, Patriotism, and the Friendship of Nations Teachers and Parents Education and High Culture for Young and Old Alike Conclusion CHAPTER 5 Buryat Literature for a New Society Producing High Culture Through Literature Geser: The Story of a National Epic Getting It Right: Censorship and Acceptable Narratives The Decline of Buryat Language Publishing and Literature Conclusion CHAPTER 6 A Means to Modernity: Newspapers, Radio, and Television The Local Press in Buryat and Russian The Development of Broadcast Media Radio and Television Programming Conclusion

89 91 95 103 109 114

117 120 124 140 147 151 156

159 160 165 176 188 191

193 196 211 218 225

Contents

ix

CHAPTER 7 Reform, But What Kind? Glasnost’ and the Buryat National Movement: 1986–89 The Competition Heats Up: 1990 The Buryats and the End of the USSR: 1991 Conclusion

227 231 241 252 258

Conclusion

261

Bibliography

273

Index

291

Notes on Transliteration and Translation

The transliteration of words in Russian and Buryat in Cyrillic follows the Library of Congress system in most instances. I have made exceptions for familiar English spellings of well-known names such as Catherine II instead of Ekaterina. This also includes what I have observed to be the more common way to write the word Buryat in English among both Buryats and non-Buryats—that is, using ya instead of ia. Thus, I have chosen to use Buryat instead of Buriat and Buryatia instead of Buriatiia. However, the titles of newspapers, books, and other sources with these words in them are cited using the Library of Congress transliteration system, and thus appear with the ia instead of ya. All translations into English from Russian and Buryat are my own.

Acknowledgements

I am very fortunate to have a long list of people to acknowledge for their generous help and support in producing this book. Many of these incredible people are from Buryatia. In particular, Margarita Boronova-Khalbaeva at Buryat State University and Nikolay Tsyrempilov at the Institute of Mongolian, Tibetan, and Buddhist Studies at the Buryat Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. I will never be able to thank them enough for their guidance, support, help, advice, as well as intellect and kindness. I am also greatly appreciative of the knowledge and gracious assistance that I received from Natasha Badargarova, Zhargal Badargarov, Viktoria Dambaeva, Zhargal Dambaev, Balma Dorzhieva, Vladimir Khamutaev, Larissa Khankhanova, Gunsema Mitypova, Inga Tsyrempilova, and Budakhanda Schmeer. In addition, I thank the staffs at the National Archives of the Republic of Buryatia, the Buryat National Library, Buryat State University, the National Museum of the Republic of Buryatia, and the Institute of Mongolian, Tibetan, and Buddhist Studies at the Buryat Scientific Center for their considerate support. Three and a half years ago, I entered a welcoming academic community at Saint Joseph’s University where many of my colleagues have provided an inspiring intellectual atmosphere that has helped to make this book possible. In particular, I thank Amber Abbas, Lisa A. Baglione, Divya Balasubramaniam, James Carter, Christopher Close, Nancy R. Fox, Kazuya Fukuoka, Emily Hage, Jane Hooper, Erik Huneke, Jeffrey Hyson, Thomas M. Keefe, Alison Williams Lewin, Susan P. Liebell, J. Michael Lyons, Randall M. Miller, Elizabeth Morgan, Katherine A. S. Sibley, Richard A.

xiv

Acknowledgements

Warren, and Brian Yates. I am also greatly appreciative of the assistance provided by the staff at the Saint Joseph’s University Drexel Library. This project began with my studies at Indiana University where I was fortunate to have the support of many people who generously shared their intelligence and expertise, provided sound advice, and positively influenced my thinking, researching, and writing. I am especially grateful to Christopher P. Atwood, Ben Eklof, Moureen Coulter, Michelle Dalmau, Denise Gardiner, György Kara, Jerzy Kolodziej, Hiroaki Kuromiya, Alexander Rabinowitch, David L. Ransel, Toivo Raun, Robert A. Schneider, and Lynn Struve. Central European University Press has provided unwavering faith, support, and guidance in publishing this book. I am especially indebted to Krisztina Kós, the director of CEU Press, and the editor, Nóra Vörös. In addition, I am grateful to the two scholars who kindly reviewed my manuscript: Ágnes Birtalan and an anonymous reviewer. Their questions, comments, and productive criticism of my work were exceptionally valuable. I hope that my attention to their advice has at least done some justice to their careful and thoughtful criticism. I also thank Derek Stukuls, who created the magnificent maps. I have been fortunate to find an engaging group of people who share my interest in Buryatia. They have contributed immensely to my understanding of Buryat studies through their research, suggestions, assistance, and shared participation in conferences and seminars. I thank Kathryn Elizabeth Graber, Robert W. Montgomery, Jesse D. Murray, Eleanor Peers, Justine Buck Quijada, Elizabeth L. Sweet, and Tristra Newyear Yeager. Numerous institutions have provided generous support for the research and writing of this book. Funding from Indiana University and a grant from the International Research and Exchanges Board supported the early stages of this project. A grant from American Councils for International Education supported the majority of my research in Buryatia. A write-up grant from the Social Science Research Council Eurasia Program allowed me to complete the dissertation and a Faculty Research and Development grant from Saint Joseph’s University helped me to considerably revise it into a book. Some pieces of Chapter 5 appeared in part of the article, “Buryat

Acknowledgements

xv

Literature as a Political and Cultural Institution from the 1950s to the 1970s,” Inner Asia 11, no. 1 (2009): 47–63. I thank Inner Asia for their permission to reprint these materials. I owe the most gratitude to my husband, Janis Chakars, whose encouragement, suggestions, feedback on countless drafts, patience, and kindness have assisted me every step of the way. I would not be typing the final words of this book if it had not been for him. My children, Vilnis and Laila, have not only brought me great happiness, but shown tolerance, humor, and understanding that boosted my spirits through the entire process. Many other wonderful members of my family, some who have now since passed, have traveled this long road with me offering love, support, and genuine interest in my studies. I am deeply indebted to all of them. I thank my parents, John and Sally Fleming, my brother, Damon Fleming, my grandmothers, Colleen Graham and Catherine Jackson, my aunt Carol Jackson, and the most wonderful set of in-laws: Susan Cakars, Andrea Cakars, Andrew Fearon, Riga Fearon, Olga Melbardis, George Badenoch, Donald and Virginia Kent, and Natalie and Stephen Ronai. In addition to the support of my family, others too have provided friendship and assistance in many ways. I especially thank Houma Ba, Brian Baumann, Gunta Birze, Maris Birze, Joanna Guralnick, Shanti Gillis, Julija Kulneva, Mara Lazda, Cecilia Lucero, Rita MacDonald, David Moscowitz, Leigh Moscowitz, Robert Quijada, Paola Santos, Erica Schrank and the families of Kalos Street. Naturally, none of the people or institutions acknowledged here are responsible for the opinions or failings of this book. Any mistakes are my own. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania January 2014

Introduction

Speaking in 1978 on the local Ulan-Ude radio program The Socialist Way of Life, a Buryat woman named Darizhap Zham’ianova described how her life was very different than that of her mother. Her mother was orphaned at age seven and had been forced to work for kulaks, a label applied to supposed wealthier herders. At one point her mother had given birth to a son, but her grandmother “gave him to the datsan,” the Buddhist monastery, and she “never got him back.”1 Her mother had lived in the Siberian countryside, was very poor, and had struggled just in order to survive. Zham’ianova, however, was able to escape that fate because she came of age after World War II. Therefore, she had the opportunity to gain a good education, become a successful scientist, live in a modern apartment building in Ulan-Ude, and work in a laboratory. She could follow intellectual pursuits rather than occupying herself with day-to-day issues of survival as her mother had done. It is possible to interpret this story as propaganda aired on government-controlled radio that typically and repeatedly depicted a positive picture of the Soviet Union. This is true in some regards; however, it is also too simplistic. Zham’ianova’s experience reflects real and profound changes in Buryat and Soviet society. It shows that most people in the Soviet Union lived as best as they could like 1

Sotsialisticheskii obraz zhizni in Russian. The transcript for this show can be found in the Natsional’nyi arkhiv Respubliki Buriatii (NARB), f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 1617, ll. 17–26.

2

The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

anywhere else and at any other time. The choices people made, the stories they told, and the activities they engaged in were subject to circumstance. Zham’ianova, like many Buryats of her generation and those that followed, sought out the advantages that Soviet modernizing policies and institutions could bring. There is no reason to believe that she was disingenuous in her professional pride or discontented with her urban lifestyle. The Socialist Way of Life may have been propagandistic, but that does not mean that Zham’ianova was simply brainwashed. During an interview on her local radio station, she plainly described the life that she lived. This book is about people like Zham’ianova, a Buryat woman living in eastern Siberia in the second half of the twentieth century. It examines how the Buryats, a Mongolian people who make up Siberia’s largest indigenous population, engaged life in the Soviet Union and the culture of progress it promoted.2 It argues that the Buryats’ pre-Soviet history, the availability and attractiveness of educational and professional opportunities in Soviet Buryatia, and institutions that encouraged Buryats to follow a prescribed model of Soviet success produced widespread participation and appreciation for what one local radio program called “The Socialist Way of Life.” This history of the Buryats in the late Soviet period demonstrates that the majority of Buryats were neither downtrodden nor oppositional. Instead, the Buryats rose up the social ladder, not as quislings, but as ordinary citizens who sought to manipulate their situation to their advantage. Zham’ianova’s story is therefore illustrative of a rapid transformation in which the Buryats made swift and striking advancements in education levels and social mobility from the 1950s to the breakup of the Soviet Union. By 1991, the Buryats were overrepresented in nearly every profession in their autonomous republic despite the fact that they made up only around 25 percent of its population.3 The Buryats dominated important political positions and the local 2

In 2010 there were approximately 500,000 Buryats living in Russia, Mongolia, and China. The majority (around 450,000) resides in the Russian Federation. 3 This is based on an analysis of statistical data from NARB from the 1940s to the 1980s. See Chapter 3. In the early 2000s, Buryats came to represent closer to 30 percent of the Republic of Buryatia.

Introduction

3

administration. They created, ran, and participated in cultural and educational institutions in very large numbers. They had a welldeveloped publishing house, literature, press, and broadcast media. In addition, the Buryats had very high levels of education—the third highest in the Soviet Union by 1979 and well above ethnic Russians.4 Scholars of Soviet nationalities policies such as Gerhard Simon called it “a surprise” when describing that the proportion of Buryat university students in the Soviet Union surpassed the Georgians (previously first in that category) in the 1980s.5 These “surprise” advancements make up the history of the women and men, who, like Zham’ianova, came to live the modern, socialist way of life as the radio show described. Modernization and Soviet Success Put simply, the dramatic transformation that took place in Buryatia can be attributed to a process of modernization: rapid social and economic changes under industrialization that included urbanization, widespread education, and social mobility. Although the term “modernization” has been used by some in the past as a way to measure the developmental progress of countries against the West, I am not using it in that way here.6 Instead, the term “modernization” is applied to describe how the Soviet government carried out an aggressive plan to change a largely rural and agricultural country into an educated, urban, industrialized nation in a very short period 4

For the data on the educational levels of various Soviet nationalities, see Robert J. Kaiser, The Geography of Nationalism in Russia and the USSR (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 228. 5 Gerhard Simon, Nationalism and Policy Toward the Nationalities in the Soviet Union: From Totalitarian Dictatorship to Post-Stalinist Society, trans. Karen Forster and Oswald Forster (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 269. 6 The usage of the term “modernization” as a way to measure the developmental progress of the Soviet Union, or any other country, against the West was common in the United States in the early postwar years and has since then been widely criticized. For a history of the theory of modernization, including criticism of it, see especially, Michael E. Latham, Modernization as Ideology: American Social Science and “Nation Building” in the Kennedy Era (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2000).

4

The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

of time. This effort greatly altered the culture and lives of ordinary people. At the beginning of the twentieth century, more than 80 percent of the Russian Empire was made up of peasants, just about a quarter of the population was literate, and the culture of the rich, upper-class minority only vaguely resembled that of the massive rural poor. Further, the everyday life of most Buryats was utterly foreign to many in Russia. By the last years of the Soviet Union, this situation had completely changed. The country’s residents were literate, no longer predominantly rural, and more culturally and economically homogenous. Russia’s traditional wealthy upper classes were long since destroyed and its lower classes turned into literate collective farmers, workers, and professionals.7 Leaders in the Soviet Union directed the development of modernization through a variety of policies and institutions that used centralized planning to create quick and thorough results. Soviet leaders themselves did not generally use the term “modernization” to describe their policies. Instead, they were “building socialism.” However, in order to do this, they embarked on a project that involved implementing a series of modernizing policies. Creating a modernized state was their ultimate aim. I have therefore chosen to generally use the term “Soviet modernization” or “Soviet modernizing policies” to describe the process of modernization as guided by Soviet leaders. What is different about “building socialism” and implementing “Soviet modernization” is that the latter emphasizes the more universal quality of the policies. When the Soviet Union fell apart, socialism may have largely disappeared, but the people and country had in fact modernized. The Soviet people had become educated, professional, and urbanized. The country itself was industrial, technologically advanced, and filled with urban spaces. Injustices accompanied Soviet modernization, but the process also constituted an advance in material, technological, and economic development that included widespread education and na7

See, for example, Alexander Chubarov, who argues that modernization is the crucial method for understanding Soviet history. “The true essence of the Soviet period of Russian history was modernization in the broad sense of the word, including industrialization, urbanization, and secularization of popular mentality.” Alexander Chubarov, Russia’s Bitter Path to Modernity: A History of the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras (New York: Continuum, 2001), 9.

Introduction

5

tional communication networks. Soviet authorities saw these as important goals for their country’s progress, but they were not alone in this thinking. Around the globe, there was almost universal consensus that this type of development was necessary, progressive, and positive. For instance, the United Nations saw the drive for economic, technological, educational, and communicational development in the post-World War II years as the key issue for the uplift of all of humanity—so too did many Buryats.8 How to modernize was contentious, but whether to modernize was virtually beyond question. It was a mantra of twentieth century history. If the drive for modernity came with pains it also came with rewards and should rightly be thought of as a grand transformation in which many people, including the Buryats, have had (and still have) different attitudes ranging from positive to ambivalent to disconcerted. Soviet authorities sought to implement modernization through a combination of imitating the West and responding to their own specific needs in unique ways. For the Bolsheviks and later Soviet policymakers, the process was also meant to change the culture of “backward,” “uncivilized,” and “Asiatic” Russia to one that was “modern” and ultimately “more European.”9 Routed in Enlightenment thought and Marxist-Leninist ideology, Soviet modernization was intended to improve society by bringing rationality, scientific methods, and a belief in progress, along with a rejection of religion and tradition.10 It was also expected to give the Soviet people “culture,” which as Katerina Clark explains, “has traditionally stood [in 8

For more on the United Nations and its policies to foster economic and social development in the second half of the twentieth century, see, for example, Ted Galen Carpenter (ed.), Delusions of Grandeur: The United Nations and Global Intervention (Washington, D.C.: Cato Institute, 1997), 204–10; Thomas G. Weiss, David P. Forsythe, and Roger A. Coate, The United Nations and Changing World Politics (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2004). 9 Markku Kangaspuro, “The Bolshevik Modernisation Project,” in Markku Kangaspuro and Jeremy Smith (eds.), Modernisation in Russia since 1900 (Helsinki: Finish Literature Society, 2006), 41, 49–50. Also see Erik P. Hoffmann and Robin F. Laird, The Politics of Economic Modernization in the Soviet Union (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982). 10 David L. Hoffmann, “European Modernity and Soviet Socialism,” in David L. Hoffmann and Yanni Kotsonis (eds.), Russian Modernity: Politics, Knowledge, Practices (London: Macmillan Press, 2000), 246.

6

The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

Russian] for what happens when a peasant moves from a wooden hut and abandons his traditional dress in favor of a more urban and/or Western way of life.”11 Modernization therefore was also about changing the daily lives of individuals. In the 1920s, Soviet leaders made special considerations when designing this modernization project for the non-European peoples of the Soviet empire who they perceived as lacking necessary Western traditions. Authorities created a campaign of korenizatsiia (indigenization) to promote national institutions and languages, as well as advance native elites in society. Korenizatsiia was coupled with the construction of new national territories. Officials implemented these policies in order to gain the support of the Soviet Union’s numerous ethnic groups, help administrators manage a large multi-ethnic space, and facilitate economic growth and social development. This project also fit well with the Bolsheviks’ belief that national consciousness was part of a historical stage that all peoples must pass through on the way to internationalism (universality and the opposite of nationalism), a characteristic of communism. Officials argued that under korenizatsiia, nationalism would evolve, exist for a while, and then disappear as advanced socialism superseded it. However, unsatisfied with the slow pace of development at the end of the 1920s, Joseph Stalin reined in korenizatsiia in favor of introducing and prioritizing rapid industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture—policies intended to quickly modernize the Soviet Union and give it the resources to compete with the capitalist West.12 The nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples of Siberia and Central Asia were not exempt from Stalin’s new plans for developing the 11

Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel: History as Ritual, 3rd edition (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2000), 197. 12 While several scholars have analyzed korenizatsiia and early Soviet nationalities’ policies, see especially, Helene Carrere d’Encausse, The Great Challenge: Nationalities and the Bolshevik State, 1917–1930, trans. Nancy Festinger (New York: Holmes and Meier, 1992); Francine Hirsch, Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005); Terry Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000).

Introduction

7

country. They too were forced to participate in the collectivization of agriculture and move onto collective farms in the 1930s. However, on the road to economic and cultural progress that the Soviet leaders paved for the country, many officials considered Siberians and Central Asians far behind the average European peasant at the start of their journey.13 Both tsarist and Soviet officials generally believed that nomadic and herding economies were less productive than that of settled agriculture and therefore the societies that accompanied them were more uncivilized and backward as well.14 In particular, some officials considered Siberians so “primitive” that they essentially provided a blank slate on which to more easily create a whole new identity that was Western, Soviet, and Russian in various ways.15 The process of collectivization was seen as especially helpful for such new opportunities of cultural construction. For example, the Soviet ethnographer Olga Sukhareva explained in the 1950s that the end of nomadism (brought about by collectivization) showed that many Central Asians were now more advanced because they had adopted the “general forms” of culture such as “city clothes, urban dwellings, polyphonic music, mural painting and sculpture.” She argued that these developments can “be considered part of their national culture in its new phase.”16 For her and numerous other Soviet authorities, such developments were part of the process of evolving to a higher stage of a more European and Soviet culture. In Buryatia, modernizing policies included the creation of cultural organizations, universal education, opportunities for social 13

For more on Bolshevik and Soviet policymakers’ attitudes about the level of “backwardness” among Central Asians and indigenous Siberians and their perceived need to eliminate it, see for example, Adrienne Lynn Edgar, Tribal Nation: The Making of Soviet Turkmenistan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004) and Yuri Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994). 14 Tsarist ideas and policies about nomadism in Siberia are discussed in Chapter 1. Arguments made by Soviet officials against nomadism and certain animal husbandry practices are offered in Chapter 2. 15 See Bruce Grant, In the Soviet House of Culture: A Century of Perestroikas (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995) and Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors. 16 Quoted in Stephen P. Dunn and Ethel Dunn, “Directed Culture Change in the Soviet Union: Some Soviet Studies,” American Anthropologist 64, no. 2 (1964), 329.

8

The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

mobility, and expansion of media. Authorities used the many institutions that came with this process to widely promote the ideal of a successful, cultured, and educated Soviet citizen for the residents of the republic to model themselves upon. This exemplary person was supposed to be someone who read newspapers and books, was a good parent, and worked hard. He or she also needed to participate in activities in clubs and houses of culture (community centers), as well as regularly attend high cultural events at places like theaters and opera houses. Through engagement in such activities, Soviet modernization was intended to not simply be a top-down policy, but to include the active participation of the country’s citizens.17 Authorities began to develop this model of the perfect Soviet citizen along with implementing korenizatsiia in Buryatia in the 1920s. However, lack of financial resources, the upheavals of collectivization, Stalin’s purges of the late 1930s that wiped out many of the Buryat educated elite, and World War II hindered widespread plans for creating cultural and educational institutions, advancing native elites, and bringing Soviet modernization to Buryatia. Indeed, before authorities implemented many of Stalin’s policies over the course of the 1930s, almost 85 percent of Buryats still practiced some form of nomadism, few Buryats lived in cities, and literacy rates remained low.18 For example, on the eve of World War II, only nine percent of Buryats were urban residents and over 40 percent of rural Buryat women reportedly could not read.19 It was therefore only in the postwar years that local authorities began to implement Soviet modernization policies on a wide scale. In Buryatia it was largely the post-WWII generations, people like 17

Anne White explains that officials believed that they could alter peoples’ behavior and attitudes specifically through their participation in cultural institutions. See Anne White, De-Stalinization and the House of Culture: Declining State Control over Leisure in the USSR, Poland, and Hungary, 1953–89 (London: Routledge, 1990), 1–7. 18 Many nomadic Buryats kept permanent homes in the winter and practiced pastoral nomadism only in the warmer months. Also, many of the western Buryats were settled and had been practicing sedentary agriculture for years. 19 V. I. Zateev, Natsional’nye otnosheniia pri sotsializme (sushchnost’, formirovanie, zakonomernosti razvitiia) (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo), 98.

Introduction

9

Zham’ianova, who could adopt the characteristics of the quintessential modern citizen. These generations went en masse to Soviet schools, participated in official cultural activities in large numbers, spoke Russian, consumed Soviet media, lived in cities, and occupied a wide variety of professional and political positions. By the late Soviet period, an institutional infrastructure existed in Buryatia that made life for most Buryats more comfortable, stable, and predictable. The regularity and availability of educational and professional opportunities allowed many Buryats to easily identify and follow pathways to social and political advancement. While it is impossible to know exactly how each individual in Buryatia interpreted the meaning of personal success, Soviet modernizing policies and institutions widely disseminated the government’s model of a successful modern Soviet citizen who was educated, hard-working, and dedicated to the goals of the state. Although some of the criteria for success may have been similar for some individuals previous to the Soviet period (gaining a higher education or a good profession, for example) the choices for officially acceptable paths to success were narrowed after the 1930s. In Buryatia for instance, becoming a Buddhist lama—a widely acceptable career choice before the 1930s—obviously did not meet the official standards of being an accomplished person as laid out by Soviet modernizing institutions. Although some Buryats may still have seen such a career as positive, it was not officially encouraged. Instead, becoming a lama generally meant a life of marginalization, harassment, and repression in Soviet society. The Soviet government laid paths to success that it deemed appropriate and it promoted these paths widely. Thanks to the more economically and politically reliable postwar years in Buryatia, it became increasingly possible to take advantage of the government’s opportunities for these. The postwar stability offered new chances for people to engage the system for both personal and collective benefit. Many Buryats vigorously took advantage. In large numbers, Buryats became successful in terms of their climb up the social and political ladder by attaining more prestigious, powerful, and materially rewarding positions. They became accomplished in terms of the model laid out by Soviet authorities whereby they achieved higher rates of education, held a large vari-

10

The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

ety of professions, were politically stable members of their communities, and acquired more of the uniform characteristics of Soviet society. Increasingly however, this route to Soviet success in the later decades of the twentieth century left little room for the Buryat language or preserving aspects of pre-revolutionary Buryat society. The Buryat’s Soviet success story is therefore not without cost. By the fall of the Soviet Union, only a minority of schools in Buryatia taught the Buryat language and many Buryats lamented the absence of traditional Buryat culture in their communities. Studying the effects of the Soviet modernization project among the Buryats in the late Soviet period demonstrates that although many of the Soviet peoples changed dramatically during the twentieth century, there were important differences. The Buryats, compared to other Soviet ethnic groups, including the Russians, made exceptionally striking rapid advancements in social mobility, urbanization, and education levels.20 In addition, since the turbulent 1930s, Buryatia has been a place characterized by little ethnic tension or conflict. For the most part, Buryat officials had a good relationship with Soviet central authorities. The way that the majority of Buryats engaged with the Soviet modernizing project in the last decades of Soviet power also helped to facilitate political stability. Many Buryats came to place a high value on this stability, as well as the ability to make the system work. Rather than becoming alienated by Soviet modernization, many Buryats widely participated and took advantage of the opportunities offered by the Soviet system. The Buryats might be labeled a “model minority,” however the Soviet government never singled the Buryats out or assigned them such a stereotype.21 Instead, authorities constantly promoted the 20

For a comparison of levels of education and urbanization between Buryats and other Soviet nationalities, see Kaiser, The Geography of Nationalism and Gertrude E. Schroeder, “Nationalities and the Soviet Economy,” in Lubomyr Hajda and Mark Beissinger (eds.), The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990). For comparisons between Buryats and Russians within Buryatia, see Chapter 2. 21 This term was coined in the United States in the 1960s and was applied to Asian Americans, describing them as “successful” in terms of high education levels and economic and social stability. From the 1960s to the 1980s, the media and

Introduction

11

idea that the Buryats were advancing with the help of other Soviet nationalities, especially the Russians, as well as side by side other ethnic groups across the country. For example, local statisticians gathered data on education levels, occupations, and urbanization based on ethnicity in the Republic of Buryatia, but these were never compiled, analyzed, or published in a way that emphasized any uniqueness in the Buryats’ achievements. Instead, publications stressed the overall development of the general Soviet population of Buryatia without specifically illustrating the differences between the Buryats and other ethnic groups.22 This is the opposite from the experiences of other supposedly “successful” minorities elsewhere. For example, in China, the government has actively promoted the Chinese ethnic Koreans as an ideal minority ethnic group since the 1950s. Like the Buryats, the ethnic Korean minority in China has achieved high education rates, rapid social mobility, and has been peaceful in contrast to other minorities such as the Tibetans and Uyghurs who have resorted to protest and even violence in their opposition to state policies. The Chinese government has encouraged ethnic minorities in China to study and model themselves upon the Koreans, whom they view as having achieved a high demany public authorities singled out Asian Americans and promoted them as a positive story of integration and achievement in the United States. Some suggested that other American minorities such as Hispanics and blacks could gain from their experience. However, the American government never assigned any formal designation to Asian Americans. In addition, the “model minority” label has been widely criticized. It is a stereotype. See Keith Osajima, “Asian Americans as the Model Minority: An Analysis of the Popular Press Image of the 1960s and 1980s,” in Kent A. Ono (ed.), A Companion to Asian American Studies (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005); David Palumbo-Liu, Asian/American: Historical Crossings of a Racial Frontier (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999), 174–81; Mia Tuan, Forever Foreigners or Honorary Whites?: The Asian Ethnic Experience Today (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998), 30–1; Frank H. Wu, Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 40–9. 22 A large amount of statistical data depicting differences between the ethnic groups of Buryatia can be found in NARB and other archives, however very little of it was published in Soviet times. Post-Soviet scholars have now begun to work more extensively with these statistics. See, for example, Tsydendamba Viktorovich Lamakhanov, “Naselenie Buriatii: etnodemograficheskie protsessy v 1960–1990 godakh” (PhD diss., Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2006).

12

The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

gree of success in the country.23 The “model minority” designation has served the need for the Chinese government to show evidence of progress in society. As in China, Soviet authorities devoted much attention to showcasing progress. However, instead of explicitly highlighting successful “model minorities” as examples for others to emulate, the Soviet government generally worked to downplay the differences among nations in terms of development and advancements. In the late Soviet era, for example, authorities under Nikita Khrushchev, Leonid Brezhnev, and Mikhail Gorbachev argued that Soviet modernization policies had achieved significant equality among the various Soviet nations.24 If authorities believed that widespread modernization was the great equalizing factor, then releasing information that showed the inequalities of its results was disadvantageous. Government officials most likely feared that revealing such inequalities would lead to ethnic tension rather than greater unity. Indeed, this seems to be the case in Buryatia where the differences between Buryats and Russians were generally not reported in the media or even studied and published in scholarly works. In reality, of course, many residents of Buryatia could simply look around them and see the differences. They could easily observe the results of urbanization and social mobility among the Buryats in the republic. These forces also brought about greater homogenization in general, which made it easier for the Buryats’ achievements in the process of Soviet modernization not to be celebrated as the success of one minority, but as the success of the whole. The Buryats were experiencing the effects of Soviet modernizing policies along with the other nations of the Soviet Union. Even if there were differences, they were living a similar experience to that of many other ethnic groups in the USSR.

23

Fang Gao, Becoming a Model Minority: Schooling Experiences of Ethnic Koreans in China (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2010); Yeon Jung Yu, China’s Korean Minority: A Study in the Dissolution of Ethnic Identity (Saarbrucken: VDM Verlag, 2008). 24 Kaiser, The Geography of Nationalism, 194–5; Schroeder, “Nationalities and the Soviet Economy,” 59–64; Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 312–4.

Introduction

13

Institutions and the Culture of Progress Authorities carried out Soviet modernization by building new institutions that eventually touched the lives of all Soviet citizens in one way or another. They believed that these institutions were key to bringing about the creation of their ideal, modern, successful citizen, as well as greater equality and homogenization among the various Soviet nations across the country. This book focuses largely on three types of institutions in order to understand Soviet modernization in Buryatia. It examines educational, cultural, and media institutions in Buryatia and the involvement of many Buryats in building and creating them, as well as implementing their policies and participating in the activities that they produced and promoted. Educational, cultural, and media institutions in Buryatia were similar to ones in the rest of the Soviet Union and they had the same pedagogical functions. The products of these institutions, such as houses of culture, history lectures, radio programming, newspaper articles, and works of fiction, were all intended to bring high culture, ideological instruction, shared values, and a sense of pride, loyalty, and belonging. Officials also saw them as an important tool for creating political socialization and cultural homogenization.25 These institutions had both nationwide goals, as well as regional ones. For example, libraries, literary festivals, and the printing of poetry in local newspapers in Buryatia all illustrate the value placed on reading in the Soviet Union. Other institutions, such as the Buryat Publising House that helped to create a new Soviet Buryat literature, reflected the special status that the Buryats held as a titular nationality within an autonomous republic in the Soviet Union. 25

The following list of works focuses on different Soviet educational, cultural, or media institutions, but all emphasize how Soviet officials sought to use these institutions (even if varying in effectiveness) for pedagogical, ideological, and socialization purposes in the decades after Stalin. Stephen Lovell, The Russian Reading Revolution: Print Culture in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999); White, De-Stalinization; Kristin Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time: How the Soviet Union Built the Media Empire That Lost the Cultural Cold War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011); Thomas C. Wolfe, Governing Soviet Journalism: The Press and the Socialist Person After Stalin (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005).

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The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

Both central and local authorities wanted Buryats to read along with all Soviet citizens, but they needed to also be able to read great contemporary works from their own national authors in the Buryat language. These were the goals even if not always the reality. Soviet officials believed that educational, cultural, and media institutions were crucial not only for domestic reasons, but for foreign policy as well. David Caute and Kristen Roth-Ey argue that authorities devoted great resources to these institutions in order to showcase the superior culture of the USSR during the Cold War, and in particular, that the country was more culturally and technologically advanced than the United States.26 Caute explains that, “Radio, film, newsreels, newspapers, subsidized printing presses, and later television were the guns, rockets, and smokescreens of this uniquely modern cultural warfare.”27 Although Buyatia was not exactly on the frontline of the cultural war, the resources dedicated to its development were certainly related to it. Soviet central authorities proudly boasted abroad, as well as at home, that the Soviet Union treated its minorities better than the United States’ government treated theirs.28 In addition, the Buryats, as representatives of the Soviet Union’s Asian minority, were also seen as useful for the country’s propagandistic goals in Asia. The chair of a committee on expanding cultural-educational institutions in Buryatia in the 1960s, Damdin Zhalsabon, explained that investing in such development was necessary because, “Buryatia is an example of the socialist system of economy and culture for the people of Asia. Buryatia, as many say, is an outpost of Soviet culture.”29 Central and local officials therefore had many reasons for modernizing Buryatia. The involvement of Buryats in cultural, educational, and media institutions helped to create a culture of progress that was character26

David Caute, The Dancer Defects: The Struggle for Cultural Supremacy During the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time. 27 Caute, The Dancer Defects, 7. 28 Mary L. Dudziak, Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002); Vladislav M. Zubok, A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2007), 176. 29 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7182, l. 5.

Introduction

15

ized by elites, as well as many ordinary Buryats, who grew to believe that the model of Soviet success could benefit them. Through these institutions, the Buryats consistently produced and received messages that the model of Soviet success was progressive, positive, and beneficial. Buryat society was saturated with these messages. They were regularly found in the press, literature, nonfiction, and on the radio and television. They were also widely promoted in cultural and educational institutions ranging from museums to elementary schools. The messages did not resemble earlier ideas among Buryat intellectuals of pan-Mongolism, Buryat nationalism, and the value of Buddhism as these were officially eliminated in the 1930s. The messages also did not romanticize the lives of Buryats in the prerevolutionary past. Instead, Buryat institutions overwhelmingly pushed the ideal of the successful, modern Soviet citizen. They also emphasized the Buryat role in Soviet history, the “logical” and “beneficial” position of Buryatia in Russia, and the idea that life was better for the Buryats in the Soviet Union than it had been in the past or would be under any other government. In addition, cultural, educational, and media institutions pushed the standard Soviet ideology of “internationalism,” “the friendship of nations,” and the beneficial influence of the “brotherly Russians.” Of course, most Buryats were not simply blind followers of all of these ideological messages. However, they cannot easily be dismissed either. For example, Alex Inkles and Raymond A. Bauer, who surveyed postwar Soviet refugees in the early 1950s, found that their subjects, despite their disaffection for the Soviet government, supported many Soviet institutions. In particular, they expressed great appreciation and respect for Soviet education and welfare institutions. Many also shared that they believed much of what they had learned from the Soviet media.30 Most likely, Buryats behaved like other Soviet citizens as depicted in the work of Alexei Yurchak. He argues that people in the Soviet Union—without necessarily challenging the state’s authority—interpreted, created, and lived “normal lives” that combined acceptance of Soviet ideological 30

Alex Inkeles and Raymond A. Bauer, The Soviet Citizen: Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1959), 132, 178.

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The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

discourse, reinterpretations of it, as well as rejection of it.31 Yurchak also explains that the ubiquitous replication of state ideological discourses helped to create a discourse that inculcated the widespread belief that the Soviet state was strong and would last forever.32 In Buryatia, local institutional discourses contributed to creating a culture of progress that convinced many people that following the path to Soviet success was a good personal choice. Although we cannot know precisely how all people in Buryatia thought during the late Soviet period, we can see how they acted. Through demographic evidence and the exploration of Buryat participation in a variety of institutions, it is clear that many elites and ordinary Buryats engaged in a system that brought new opportunities for both individual and collective success in the Soviet context. In large numbers, the Buryats gained strong Russian language skills, high education levels, and entered professional occupations and political positions. The widespread participation by Buryats in Soviet institutions also limited the amount of opposition. For example, the transformation of the Buryats in the post-World War II years influenced the types of demands made by the Buryat national movement that arose in the Gorbachev era, as well as the way that those demands resonated among the Buryat population. While some Buryats made cultural, political, and territorial demands, it was mainly the cultural goals (restoring religious institutions, reviving traditional holidays, offering the Buryat language in schools, etc.) that were widely accepted.33

31

Alexei Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), 28–9. 32 Yurchak also argues that these discourses were carried out in part because of “the importance of the performative dimension.” Performing standard discourses “enabled people to engage in new, unanticipated meanings, aspects of everyday lives, interests, and activities which sprang up everywhere in late socialism and were not necessarily determined by the ideological constative meanings of authoritative discourse.” The constant performative discourses and the normal reality that people created under late socialism contributed to the fact that many people found the fall of the Soviet Union both unexpected and unsurprising at the same time. Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, 25–9. 33 The Buryat national movement and the results of Gorbachev’s reforms in Buryatia are discussed at length in Chapter 7.

Introduction

17

Buryat Exceptionalism and Advancement There is no single answer that can easily explain why the Buryats engaged and advanced in the Soviet system as they did. Instead, it is a combination of factors that in conjunction with one another produced unique results. Both pre-Soviet and Soviet cultural, educational, and media institutions played a crucial role. In the twentieth century, these institutions along with economic growth in the republic, urbanization, and the widespread creation of new job opportunities, catalyzed the rapid changes that took place in Buryat society in the second half of the twentieth century. Importantly, the Buryats had an educated, intellectual class long before the Bolshevik Revolution. This class existed largely because of various educational systems that were available to the Buryats. Starting in the seventeenth century in eastern Buryatia, Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhists began to proselytize among the shamanist Buryats. By the eighteenth century, many Buryats had converted to Buddhism. Tibetan, Mongolian, and newly converted Buryat lamas began to build Buddhist datsans (monasteries) to provide religious education and promote literacy, particularly in Tibetan and Mongolian. These institutions also taught other subjects such as medicine, astronomy, and art. The Buddhist datsans became centers of education in Buryatia and the bigger ones had as many as 900 students (all male) at a time. The connection to a larger world religion with a great respect for learning had an important influence on Buryat society. It became common for Buryat families to encourage a son to join a datsan and learn to become a lama. By 1917 there were thousands of lamas, 36 datsans, and numerous small temples in the lands of the Buryats.34 34

James Forsyth, A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia’s North Asian Colony, 1581–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 170; G. R. Galdanova et al., Lamaizm v Buriatii xviii-nachala xx veka: Struktura i sotsial’naia rol’ kul’tovoi sistemy (Novosibirsk: Izdatel’stvo “Nauka,” 1983), 17– 26; Helen Sharon Hundley, “Speransky and the Buriats: Administrative Reform in Nineteenth Century Russia” (PhD diss., University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, 1984), 155–6; Robert W. Montgomery, Late Tsarist and Early Soviet Nationality and Cultural Policy: The Buryats and Their Language (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon Press, 2005), 68–73.

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The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

In addition to attending the Buryat datsans, beginning in the nineteenth century, Buryats could increasingly become students at other schools as well. The Orthodox Church and Buryat Cossack communities created a number of Russian-language schools. Also, Steppe Dumas, as well as some Buryat intellectuals worked to found secular schools that taught in Mongolian and Russian.35 By the twentieth century, this varied system of education—Buddhist, Orthodox, and secular—had created an educated intellectual class among the Buryats. For example, according to the 1897 census, 16.4 percent of all eastern Buryat males were literate.36 This was significantly higher than other Siberians and only around eight percent lower than the overall literacy rate for the Russian Empire at that time. This literate Buryat class was still only a very small minority, but its existence gave the Buryats new professional and political opportunities within the Russian Empire. It also gave them the roots from which engagement in a later tradition of Soviet education could grow. During the Soviet period, great economic growth in the Buryat Republic led to educational and professional opportunities in very specific ways. As mentioned previously, the korenizatsiia policy of the 1920s sought to modernize the non-Russian regions of the country. As fitting for the industrial era, in the 1920s local officials in Buryatia envisioned creating a Buryat industrial working class that would build, staff, and manage new Siberian factories. However, Stalin’s desire for rapid industrialization in the 1930s left insufficient resources available for actually implementing this plan. Instead, Stalin’s policies required an immediate large pool of skilled workers in Buryatia to build new factories at a time when the majority of Buryats were still rural residents. Soviet authorities therefore encouraged a massive migration of mainly ethnic Russian 35

B. B. Batuev and I. B. Batueva, Ocherk istorii selenginskikh buriat (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’stvo ONTs “Sibir’,” 1994), 63–9; Robert W. Montgomery, “Buddhist Monastic Education in Prerevolutionary Buriatia,” East/West Education 17, nos. 1–2 (1996), 1–23; Robert A. Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century, (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1964), 10–4, 42. 36 Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century, 42. Western Buryat males (those to the west of Lake Baikal) had a 9.2 percent literacy rate in 1897. The literacy rate for both eastern and western Buryat women was below one percent.

Introduction

19

workers from the western part of the Soviet Union to Buryatia. This migration started with the construction of factories in the 1930s and continued into the 1980s with the building of the Baikal–Amur Mainline railway (BAM) through northern Buryatia. This economic growth affected the Buryats and the new immigrants differently. The influx of outside industrial workers meant that by the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Buryat representation in the republic had been greatly diminished to around 25 percent.37 The Buryats were a definite minority in their traditional lands. In addition, the skilled industrial jobs in Buryatia came to be dominated by the migrants from the western parts of the Soviet Union and few Buryats moved into industry. As late as 1979, Buryats held only 11 percent of the total number of industrial jobs in Buryatia compared with the territory’s ethnic Russians who occupied 84 percent of them.38 Russians and other European Soviet citizens continually dominated industry in the republic as workers, managers, and technicians throughout the whole Soviet period. However, even if the new factories directly employed few Buryats, the growth that accompanied those industries, particularly in the capital city of Ulan-Ude, meant that there were numerous other occupational opportunities. Many of these new jobs were professional positions that required higher degrees of education. Thus, large numbers of rural Buryats moved to Ulan-Ude, gained an education, and found jobs in the growing number of professions that required higher degrees. Therefore, while the ethnic Russians in the republic continued to monopolize industry, the Buryats rapidly began to move into professional urban jobs that required more education. Many of these Buryats then found work in educational, cultural, and media institutions and came to dominate some of the professions associated with them. For example, already in 1959, more Buryats than Russians held jobs as writers, journalists, and editors in Buryatia.39 As late as 1990, the Russian working class (rural and urban) in the republic stood at 65 percent and the category of “intel37

Lamakhanov, “Naselenie Buriatii,” 67. NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10462, l. 21. 39 These statistics were compiled from NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 8. Also, see Chapter 2. 38

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The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

ligentsia and white collar workers” at 31 percent. It was 49 and 42 respectively for the Buryat population.40 The movement of Buryats into new professions occurred together with the growth of modernizing institutions in Buryatia that promoted the ideal successful Soviet citizen. As mentioned previously, educational, media, and cultural institutions, staffed by large numbers of Buryats, widely promoted a culture of progress whereby Buryats were encouraged to do well in school, enter into new professions, occupy their leisure time with more modern and culturally more European activities, and regularly participate in Soviet society. These institutions introduced and promoted new career paths and new activities for daily life. Demographic evidence shows that many Buryats actively chose these new paths. Increasingly, more generations of Buryats were born in cities to professional parents who, more than likely, expected their children to follow their example.41 Caroline Humphrey, the British anthropologist who uniquely conducted fieldwork among Buryat collective farm workers in the 1960s and 1970s, observed that, “I never met a family of the rural [Buryat] elite in which aspirations both for themselves and their children, were not evident. It is particularly these people, who already have some stake in the Soviet career structure, who will do everything possible in order to get their children a higher education.”42 For some Buryats, social mobility can also be related to the general attractiveness to modern conveniences. It is not hard to imagine that people, like Zham’ianova, for example, would have found urban, professional life more interesting and easier than living and working on a collective farm in rural Siberia without such modern comforts as indoor plumbing. Soviet sociological studies 40

Iu. B. Randalov, “O razvitii sotsial’no-professional’noi struktury narodov Buriatii,” in G. L. Sanzhiev (ed.), Respublike Buriatiia—70 let (Ulan-Ude: Gazetnozhurnal’noe izdatel’stvo, 1993), 52–3. 41 Studies in the United States show that the children of parents with higher degrees of education are more likely to enroll in higher educational institutes. See Wu, Yellow, 65. Although such studies were not conducted in Buryatia, it is not hard to imagine that this was the case there as well. 42 Caroline Humphrey, Marx Went Away—But Karl Stayed Behind, updated edition (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1998), 310.

Introduction

21

conducted among other indigenous peoples of Siberia in the 1970s and 1980s showed that many desired for themselves and for their children to abandon their traditional economic work such as herding and fishing and move to cities to find employment in physically less demanding urban jobs.43 The large educated, urban, professional class of Buryats that developed in the decades after World War II created a new culture for Buryat society that produced new experiences quite different from the ones of previous generations. This book explores how this new society was created and lived. It examines how through a variety of institutions Buryat elites were able to mold a process of Soviet modernization that created a new Buryat culture for the masses that became shared by all. The members of cultural, educational, and media institutions often debated just how this new culture was to be constructed and presented. They made decisions about the direction of education, media content, and new cultural artifacts such as the novel and television. This new culture did not emphasize a traditional Buryat past. However, it was produced and consumed regularly by Buryats in the process of creating a new society. Local institutions exhibited a model of individual and collective success and offered little official space for alternatives. In the process, some cultural, political, and economic doors closed, but others opened and many Buryats ran through them in large numbers. Outline of Chapters Chapters 1 and 2 provide a historical background to the book’s main focus, which is on key institutions from the early postwar years to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Chapter 1 is a broad overview of Buryat history from the seventeenth century to the 1920s and Chapter 2 describes Stalinism in Buryatia in the 1930s. Chapter 1 relies on some primary sources, but is largely a synthesis of many published works in Russian and English. Chapter 43

Slezkine discusses sociological surveys that ask about work and education among indigenous peoples in Siberia’s north as well as on the Island of Sakhalin. Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors, 348–51.

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The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

2 explores both primary and secondary sources, but is hindered by a lack of available information on collectivization and Stalin’s terror and purges in Buryatia. While a small number of scholars were permitted in the early 1990s to conduct research in Ulan-Ude on these topics, the Russian government has implemented more restrictive polices since then. Chapter 2 examines what is accessible, but there is still much that we do not know about this crucial period in Buryat history. These opening chapters help to explain why the Buryats experienced rapid social mobility in the second half of the twentieth century. These chapters, therefore, pay special attention to the relationship between the Buryats and the state (Russian imperial or Soviet), as well as to the creation of both state-sponsored and indigenous social, political, and economic institutions intended to bring about modernization. They analyze how the Russian imperial and early Soviet governments, as well as a wide variety of Buryat organizations and leaders, sought to create a beneficial position for the Buryats within the empire. Chapter 2 argues that Stalin’s decision for rapid industrialization and forced collectivization of agriculture narrowed the economic, social, and cultural choices for individuals thus laying the groundwork for an accelerated transformation of Buryat society. Chapter 3 utilizes unpublished statistical data from archives in Buryatia to produce an analysis with demographic tables and graphs that provide a rich and clear picture of social change among the Buryats. It offers a detailed look at how in the decades after the war, a new, urban, educated Buryat class emerged that increasingly came to be proportionally overrepresented in all professions in their republic except industry, which was run mainly by Russians throughout the entire Soviet period. The high number of Buryats in political and professional positions demonstrates how they were able to influence decisions in the region despite their minority status of between 20 and 25 percent for that period. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 examine in greater detail the institutions that brought about and illustrate the demographic trends outlined in Chapter 3. Chapter 4 explores educational institutions, arguing that local administrators, educators, and parents contributed to changes in education policy in Buryatia and prioritized a system that en-

Introduction

23

couraged social mobility. It analyzes school curricula, teachers’ educational conferences, school inspector reports, and political events to demonstrate the dynamic changes in Buryat education and the state’s expectations of teachers and parents in raising modern Soviet citizens, as well as evaluates the rise and fall of Buryat language schools. Chapter 5 investigates the institutionalization of Buryat literature production from the Stalin years to the 1980s. It argues that literature became a place to debate and define the meaning of what it meant to be a modern, Soviet Buryat. Chapter 6 examines the development, content, and purpose of locally produced newspapers and radio and television programming in the Buryat and Russian languages. This media regularly and overwhelmingly promoted messages that Soviet institutions provided social mobility, valuable stability, and greater advantages than any other possible system—past, present, or future. These themes were identical across the three different media formats. The chapter also argues that although the amount of media production in the Buryat language decreased over the years, it continued to be produced and promoted because authorities considered it an important marker of what it meant to be a nation in the Soviet Union. Its existence was crucial regardless of consumption. Chapter 7 examines the implementation of Mikhail Gorbachev’s reforms in Buryatia during the final years of the Soviet Union. It analyzes the Buryat national movement, the local government, and developments in cultural, educational, and media institutions. The Buryat national movement developed clear demands during this period and succeeded in gaining widespread support for many of them from both local officials and ordinary citizens—ethnic Buryat or Russian. However, the greatest support came for the movement’s cultural goals rather than its political and territorial solutions to national problems. By the break-up of the Soviet Union in the fall of 1991, the changing local government was able to integrate into its own platform much of the more widely supported cultural demands of the Buryat national movement while at the same time successfully marginalizing those who promoted ideas that authorities regarded as too radical. The Conclusion discusses the complicated and multi-faceted identity and history of the Buryats in the twentieth century and be-

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The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

yond. It argues that the experience of the Buryats does not offer a straightforward story of resistance versus control, nationalism versus socialism, or assimilation versus ethnic distinctiveness. Instead, the chapter explores various examples that illustrate how the Buryats engaged, negotiated, and experienced transformation in multiple ways over time. In addition, it also examines developments in Buryatia since 1991, concluding that the effects of Soviet modernization in society persist and that many former attitudes and beliefs from the Soviet period have not disappeared.

CHAPTER 1

The Buryats of Siberia: From Imperial Russia to the Soviet State

Before the turn of the twentieth century, the Buryats and the Russian government had settled into a relationship that was generally peaceful and worked fairly well for both parties. The Buryats had certain tax and administrative obligations to the government and as long as these were met, the state interfered little in their everyday lives. Although individual officials could be cruel and occasional disputes sometimes interrupted that stability, in many cases Buryats could easily overcome their grievances by employing traditional nomadic strategies such as moving away. However, European Russian immigration to Siberia, which began in great numbers toward the end of the nineteenth century, as well as war, revolution, and regime change, dramatically altered this situation. The Buryats were increasingly forced to engage regularly with new European peasants, government officials, and factory workers. This chapter provides a general historical background of the Buryats from the seventeenth century to the 1920s. It focuses on Buryat interaction and experiences with the Russian imperial government and the early Bolshevik state before Stalin’s ascension to power. Over the course of several centuries, numerous Buryat leaders and government officials offered a variety of different ways to manage the Buryats within the empire. Their competing ideas and plans for how best to do this were based on a wide range of ideological beliefs and economic goals. Some of their proposals were implemented and long lasting. Others were not. However, by the

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The Socialist Way of Life in Siberia

end of the 1920s and the rise to power of Stalin, the opportunities for carrying out different visions became seriously constricted. Stalin’s government prioritized rapid modernization over all else. Everyone in the entire country, including the Buryats, was required to focus their attention on industrializing, maximizing economic output, and creating a new culture devoted to a more narrow vision of progress. The Mongols of Siberia and Russian Expansion Mongolian people have lived around Lake Baikal in southern Siberia since as far back as the fifth century. Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan), the world’s most famous Mongol, was born in Siberia’s southeastern borderlands between today’s Russian Federation and the modern country of Mongolia. Over the centuries, the Mongols of this region of Inner Asia developed into distinct groups of which one became the Buryats. Although the borders between Russia, Mongolia, and China often remained fluid even into the early twentieth century, the establishment of an official border in the eighteenth century between the expanding Russian and Chinese empires helped to more precisely define the Buryats as a separate group among the Mongols. The Buryats became then one of the Mongolian peoples on the Russian side of the border.1 The Buryats’ subsequent history in the Russian Empire, their interactions with authorities, and their shared land and culture, contributed to the creation of a common Buryat identity by the nineteenth century. 2 Although the Buryats came to designate a single ethnic group within the Russian Empire, there were and are divisions among the 1

The other major Mongolian people in the Russian Federation today are the Kalmyks who live in the southwestern part of the country. 2 Larry Moses and Stephen A. Halkovic, Jr., Introduction to Mongolian History and Culture (Bloomington, IN: Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies at Indiana University, 1985), 121–5; Jesse D. Murray, “Building Empire among the Buryats: Conversion Encounters in Russia’s Baikal Region, 1860s–1917” (PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2012), 4–6; D. D. Nimaev, “Etnogenez i etnicheskaia istoriia,” in L. L. Abaeva and N. L. Zhukovskaya (eds.), Buriaty (Moscow: Nauka, 2004), 13–43.

The Buryats of Siberia

27

Buryats. There are different clans, various dialects of the Buryat language (part of the Mongolic language family), and economic and cultural differences. The greatest division within the Buryats exists between those living on the west side of Lake Baikal and those living on the east side. In part, this has to do with the landscape. The western side of Lake Baikal is better suited for agriculture and Buryats have practiced farming there along with pastoral nomadism for centuries. Western Buryats thus nomadized less than the eastern Buryats and tended to use wooden homes. Eastern Buryats, who practiced nomadism regularly and farmed little, more commonly resided in moveable felt yurts. Another important difference that arose between the eastern and western Buryats was that the empire’s European peasants settled on the west side of Lake Baikal at a faster and higher rate than on the eastern side.3 Living more closely to European neighbors affected the culture, religion, and economy of the western Buryats. The eastern Buryats, situated more closely to other Mongols and other Inner Asians, had greater exposure to Buddhism and Asian civilization. Regardless of the divisions among the Buryats, the fact that they were Mongols and were thus connected to a larger economic, cultural, and military tradition meant that the Buryats were greater in number and strength than other indigenous Siberians when the Russian Empire began to expand into eastern Siberia in the seventeenth century. Early Russian government officials estimated that there were approximately 30,000 Buryats in southeastern Siberia at that time. In addition, they discovered that the Buryats dominated other smaller Siberian tribes, from whom they collected tribute.4 As Cossacks and other tsarist officials moved eastward, they sought to incorporate the indigenous peoples they met into the Russian Empire’s tribute system called iasak. This was an arrangement whereby Siberians had to pay yearly tribute—usually in the form of 3

O. V. Buraeva, “Zemledelie,” in L. L. Abaeva and N. L. Zhukovskaya (eds.), Buriaty (Moscow: Nauka, 2004), 122–3; Moses and Halkovic, Introduction to Mongolian History, 122–4. 4 M. G. Levin and L. P. Potapov (eds.), The Peoples of Siberia (Chicago, IL: University Press of Chicago, 1964), 204; James Forsyth, A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia’s North Asian Colony, 1581-1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 86–7.

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furs—to the state. The Buryats put up fierce resistance to Russian expansion and the imposition of iasak. In addition, attempts at annexing Buryat lands also brought the tsarist government into conflict with other Mongols, who lived further to the south and collected tribute from indigenous inhabitants, including some Buryats. Therefore bringing the Buryats fully into the iasak system was a complicated and difficult process that took about 60 years, from 1625 when the Russians first entered the lands of the western Buryats to the 1680s when the last of the eastern Buryats were forced to become regular iasak payers.5 Although tension and disagreement between the Buryats and imperial officials continued after the incorporation of the Buryats into the iasak system, for the most part as long as the Buryats paid iasak, they were relatively free to continue to practice agriculture or nomadize with their herds as they had before. In addition, becoming subjects of the tsar generally did not alter the traditional social hierarchy of the Buryats. In most cases, tsarist authorities confirmed and supported the status of the Buryat leadership. Buryat society was divided into various groups led by tribal leaders called taisha. Under the taisha were clan leaders, zaisans, and their assistants, shulenge. Along with other important members of Buryat society, these people and their families made up the ruling class known as noyon. The noyon generally had larger herds and more wealth derived from tribute collected from other subordinate Siberian tribes. The noyon also traded with people in Mongolia and China. Russian authorities usually reinforced the noyon and its status as a means for gaining the allegiance of the Buryats. Agreements with the Russian government in the early eighteenth century gave the Buryat noyon official rights to administer the law, settle disputes, and ensure that iasak was regularly collected.6 5

Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 84–100; G. L. Sanzhiev and E. G. Sanzhieva, Buriatiia istoriia (xvii–xix vv.) (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’stvo Buriatskogo gosuniversiteta, 1999), 12–26; E. M. Zalkind, Prisoedinenie buriatii k Rossii (Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1958), 46–60. 6 Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 86, 168; Helen Sharon Hundley, “Speransky and the Buriats: Administrative Reform in Nineteenth Century Russia” (PhD diss., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1984), 7; Levin and Potapov, The Peoples of Siberia, 207; Sanzhiev and Sanzhieva, Buriatiia istoriia, 73–6.

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Buddhism in Buryatia The Buryats, like most Mongols, were traditionally practitioners of Tengrism, a Central Asian religion that incorporated ancestor worship, spirits of nature, and numerous gods of whom Tengri, the sky god, was particularly important. More often categorized under the label of “shamanism,” the religion had male and female healers and spiritual leaders who acted as guides and mediators to the worlds of spirits, ancestors, and gods. However, this religion was challenged among the Mongols in the sixteenth century when several leaders in Mongolia began to support the spread of the Gelugpa tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Within a few decades, it became widely practiced across the Mongolian steppe. In the second half of the seventeenth century, Tibetan and Mongolian Buddhist missionaries began to move north and proselytize among the eastern Buryats.7 The Buddhist missionaries and their early Buryat followers incorporated some elements of Mongolian shamanism, but also worked to supplant those traditions with new Buddhist ones. Although this initially antagonized some, especially shamanic leaders, the Buddhists’ incorporation of certain local deities, Buryat sacred places, as well as other local customs, helped to convert many Buryats.8 The new religion also brought an impressive addition to the landscape. Buddhists began to build elaborately decorated datsans and small temples across Buryatia. By the middle of the eighteenth century, there were 11 permanent Buddhist estab7

L. L. Abaeva, “Istoriia rasprostraneniia buddizma v Buriatii” in L. L. Abaeva and N. L. Zhukovskaya (eds.), Buriaty (Moscow: Nauka, 2004), 400–1; Forsyth, A History of the Peoples of Siberia, 170–2; Moses and Halkovic, Introduction to Mongolian History, 221–5; Levin and Potapov, The Peoples of Siberia, 226–7; Eva Jane Neumann Fridman, Sacred Geography: Shamanism among the Buddhist Peoples of Russia (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 2004), 105–11; Nataliia L. Zhukovskaya, “The Revival of Buddhism in Buryatia: Problems and Prospects,” in Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer (ed.), Religion and Politics in Russia: A Reader (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2010), 197–9. 8 Abaeva, “Istoriia rasprostraneniia buddizma,” 398–99; Fridman, Sacred Geography, 121, 135–9.

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lishments in the Buryat lands run by around 150 lamas.9 These institutions increasingly attracted followers. Initially, the tsarist government did not attempt to intervene in the spread of Buddhism. Nor did it encourage the Orthodox Church to increase missionary activities to compete with the Buddhist lamas. This was because iasak payers who converted to Orthodoxy often became exempt from paying tribute to the state. Since authorities in Moscow did not want to lose this source of revenue, they discouraged Orthodox missionary activity among the empire’s male iasak payers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.10 When the government later favored missionary work among the Buryats in the nineteenth century, many eastern Buryats, who had been practicing Buddhism for several generations, were then largely unresponsive to Orthodox missionaries. Although tsarist officials did little to stop the growth of Buddhism as it spread across eastern Buryatia and even to the west of Lake Baikal, they did come to believe that it was necessary for the imperial government to exert some control over the new religious institution. In 1741, Empress Elizabeth issued a decree granting official sanction to the practice of Buddhism in Russia. Her government then worked with local leaders to organize an administrative system to run the Buddhist Church in Buryatia. In particular, it supported the creation of an official executive position to administer Buryat Buddhism. This person was eventually given the title of Pandito-Khambo Lama. Buryat clan chiefs, monastery leaders, and the local tsarist official in charge of overseeing the territory of the Zabaikal’skaia oblast’ (or Zabaikal’e—the tsarist territorial district east of Lake Baikal that encompassed the eastern Buryats) all worked together to appoint him. In part, imperial authorities believed the position of the Pandito-Khambo Lama would help them to control their Buddhist subjects. More important, however, were 9

Robert W. Montgomery, Late Tsarist and Early Soviet Nationality and Cultural Policy: The Buryats and Their Language (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon Press, 2005), 67. 10 Helen Sharon Hundley, “Defending the Periphery: Tsarist Management of Buriat Buddhism.” The Russian Review 69 (April 2010), 237; Yuri Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 42–3.

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the foreign policy implications. The new position of PanditoKhambo Lama would give the Buddhists of Russia a spiritual leader within the borders of the Russian Empire. Now the Buryats could look to their own Buddhist dignitary rather than possibly turning outside the Russian Empire to the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu in Mongolia or the Dalai Lama in Tibet.11 The official recognition of Buddhism in Russia meant that Buddhist lamas received special status just as the clergy of other authorized religions in the empire did. Importantly, Buddhist lamas were exempt from paying iasak. While the government wanted to appease its Buddhist subjects with recognition and status, it still did not want to greatly diminish valuable iasak payments. Therefore, it only officially permitted the existence of 150 lamas in Buryatia. Despite such regulations, however, the number of lamas continually increased. By the end of the eighteenth century there were around 600 lamas, by the middle of the nineteenth century there were around 4,500 lamas, and in 1917 there were as many as 15,000 lamas as well as 36 datsans and numerous small temples.12 From the eighteenth century on Buryat families increasingly chose to send at least one son between the ages of five and ten to study at a datsan and become a lama. The level and type of instruction a student gained—depending on how long they studied and the subjects they were given—ranged from memorizing religious scriptures in Tibetan to studying Buddhist theology and philosophy to learning Tibetan medicine to researching astrology to becoming trained artists in painting, sculpting, and tapestry work. Although the Tibetan language was stressed because of its religious value, the Buryat datsans were also crucial institutions for expanding the usage of the Mongolian script. This vertical script was developed during the time of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century and allows speakers of various Mongolian dialects to communicate 11

Abaeva, “Istoriia rasprostraneniia buddizma,” 401–2; Galdanova et. al., Lamaizm v Buriatii, 17–21; Hundley, “Defending the Periphery,” 237–41; Montgomery, Late Tsarist and Early Soviet, 68–9; Sanzhiev and Sanzhieva, Buriatiia istoriia, 211. 12 Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 170; Galdanova, Lamaizm v Buriatii, 26; Hundley, “Speransky and the Buriats,” 155–6; Levin and Potapov, The Peoples of Siberia, 227–8; Montgomery, Late Tsarist and Early Soviet, 68–73.

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through one shared writing system. The datsans taught the Mongolian script to advanced lamas as well as offered tutoring to laypeople. They also published books in the Mongolian script and maintained large libraries.13 The datsans helped to make the Mongolian script a widely acceptable form of communication for the Buryats even if only a minority of them could use it. In the nineteenth century, it was increasingly used for record keeping, business transactions, and other forms of both secular and religious writing. The Buddhist datsans became important centers of culture and education and they contributed to the advancement of Buryat artistic development and literacy. This is especially clear when comparing the literacy rates of the eastern Buryats, who more commonly practiced Buddhism, with the western Buryats, who more often practiced shamanism or Russian Orthodoxy. According to the 1897 census, 16.4 percent of all eastern Buryat males were literate compared with only 9.2 percent of western Buryat males.14 The datsans also gave the Buryats a religion that brought them connections with Mongols and other Asians beyond the Russian Empire. The Buryats and the Imperial Government After incorporating the Buryats and other Siberians into the iasak system, the Russian Empire increasingly sent more administrators to Siberia to govern its new lands. Unfortunately, many of the early officials sent to Siberia were corrupt, cruel, violent and focused on their own personal gains. In 1696, for example, Khristovor Kav13

Yeshen-Khorlo Dugarova-Montgomery and Robert Montgomery, “The Buriat Alphabet of Agvan Dorzhiev,” in Stephan Kotkin and Bruce Elleman (eds.), Mongolia and the Twentieth Century: Landlocked Cosmopolitan (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), 81–2; Robert W. Montgomery, “Buddhist Monastic Education in Prerevolutionary Buriatia.” East/West Education 17, nos. 1-2 (1996), 6–15; Nicholas N. Poppe, “The Buddhists,” in Nikolai K. Deker and Andrei Lebed (eds.), Genocide in the USSR: Studies in Group Destruction (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1958), 184–6; Robert A. Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1964), 10, 35. 14 Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century, 10. Both eastern and western Buryat women had literacy rates of below one percent.

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tyrev, the head of the Bratsk Fortress in western Buryatia, was reportedly so exploitative and brutal that Buryats, Cossacks, and settlers rose in revolt against him.15 In 1703, the abuses of men like Kavtyrev inspired a group of Khori Buryats to send a delegation to Peter the Great. They met with the tsar who listened to their complaints about extortion and violence carried out by imperial officials as well as their dissatisfaction with settlers, who were seizing Buryat lands. The tsar made an agreement with the Khori Buryats that settlers and poor administrators should be removed. Still, this process had to be carried out by local officials and was therefore largely dependent upon their will.16 In some cases when abuses continued, Buryat communities gave up and moved to more desolate regions. In the eighteenth century when serfdom and other government restrictions largely hindered the movement of European peasants from west to east across the Russian empire there were still many remote places for Buyats to live far from overbearing government interference. Although local officials and settlers in eastern Siberia could be in competition or even conflict with the Buryats, they also needed them. Because the Russian population in Siberia was so small, the government was forced to recruit frontier guards from local peoples in order to protect its border with China. Initially, these were loose groups of men, but by the mid-eighteenth century, they were formed into more organized Buryat Cossack units to serve the state. For several decades, these troops were the principal guards on Russia’s southeastern border between the lands of the Buryats and the lands of other Mongols located in China. In the middle of the nineteenth century these units were organized into the larger Transbaikal Cossack Host that included regiments made up of Buryat units as well as ethnic Russian and other non-Buryat ones.17 15

Caroline Humphrey, “Magical Drawings in the Religion of the Buryat” (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 1971), 46–7; Levin and Potapov, The Peoples of Siberia, 205–6. 16 E. M. Egorov, “Istoricheskoe znachenie pokhoda Khori-Buriat 1702–1703 gg. k Petry I,” in E. M. Egorov et. al. (eds.), Narody Buriatii v sostave Rossii: ot protivostoianiia k soglasiiu (300 let Ukazy Petra I), vol. 1 (Ulan-Ude, 2001), 5–17. 17 Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century, 10–1; Sanzhiev and Sanzhieva, Buriatiia istoriia, 86–8.

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The Buryat Cossacks eventually became a large and distinct force in Siberia. They organized their own hierarchical structure, were essentially a hereditary group, and in 1897 they numbered over 26,000. As their communities became larger and more integrated into the wider imperial military configuration, it also meant that they had more regular contact with ethnic Russians and tsarist officials. Many Buryat Cossacks learned to speak Russian and converted to Russian Orthodoxy. In addition, some Buryat Cossack families began to send their children to schools that were either organized by their own communities or by the Russian Orthodox Church.18 The existence of the Buryat Cossacks provided some Buryats with an avenue for education and administration, as well as greater engagement and participation in the wider society and bureaucracy of the Russian Empire. In addition to the Cossacks, the government created other new institutions that allowed the Buryats to more officially administer their own affairs. In 1819, Tsar Alexander I appointed Mikhail Speranskii to be governor-general of Siberia. Speranskii had been a well-trusted advisor of the tsar in St. Petersburg, but when he fell out of favor, he was dismissed and later sent to serve his country in Siberia. Speranskii was a talented administrator and a serious reformer. Although he had been demoted, he nevertheless approached his new position in Siberia with vigor and a genuine desire to bring effective changes to the government there. In particular, he wanted to put an end to all tsarist policies that treated Siberia as a colony rather than as an integral part of the Russian empire. He immediately fought corruption by ousting exploitative and ineffective officials. He also divided Siberia into smaller units to be governed by a system that limited the power of individual administrators.19 Speranskii gave special attention to Siberia’s indigenous peoples by creating a method to more clearly organize their interactions with the government. Ultimately, he envisioned the integration of all of Siberians into settled Russian society, but he felt this should be done gradually. In 1822, he developed the Statute of Native Ad18 19

Sanzhiev and Sanzhieva, Buriatiia istoriia, 86–8. Hundley, “Speransky and the Buriats,” 24–7; Marc Raeff, Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772–1839 (Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1969), 270–5.

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ministration that constructed a governing system of three categories of Siberian peoples: settled, nomadic, and wandering forager. Each group was to be administered differently according to their economies. In addition, Speranskii’s legislation sought to make the iasak payments more similar to the empire’s general taxation system. Collection was to be carried out more regularly and people were to be taxed based upon what they were actually able to pay.20 Speranskii’s new laws for nomadic Siberians were heavily influenced by friendships he had formed with several Buryat leaders. For this reason, they were designed partly on the basis of the Buryats’ traditional social hierarchy. The statute stated that an encampment of 15 families (an ulus in Buryat) formed a clan administration. This was to be led by one elder, elected or hereditary, with one or two elected assistants. Several clan administrations made up a larger unit that dealt directly with Russian authorities and oversaw the various smaller clan administrations. These larger units had one head, two elected elders and, when possible, one clerk. This very much mimicked the Buryats’ traditional ruling class, the noyon, made up of taisha (tribal leaders), zaisans (clan leaders), and shulenge (their assistants). The Speranskii system for wandering foragers was a simplified version of the nomadic one.21 Speranskii also created an administrative body called the Steppe Duma for nomadic Siberians such as the Buryats. The Steppe Dumas provided the Buryats and other Siberians with a considerable amount of autonomy. They were also intended to help the government collect taxes, maintain regular paths of communication with indigenous peoples, and gain greater knowledge of their affairs. The Steppe Dumas consisted of elected deputies who kept a census, an account of money and property held in common, and supervised taxation and the distribution of supplies and foodstuffs. The Steppe Dumas handled their own justice matters except in cases of major 20 21

Hundley, “Speransky and the Buriats,” 24–8; Raeff, Speransky, 270–7. B. B. Batuev and I. B. Batueva, Ocherk istorii selenginskikh buriat (Ulan-Ude: Obshchestvenno-nauchnyi tsentr “Sibir’,”), 25–6; Hundley, “Speransky and the Buriats,” 24–7; Raeff, Speransky, 270–3; Sanzhiev and Sanzhieva, Buriatiia istoriia, 147–52; Andrei A. Znamenski, Shamanism and Christianity: Native Encounters with Orthodox Missions in Siberia and Alaska, 1820–1917 (London: Greenwood Press, 1999), 50–2.

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crimes such as murder, rebellion, and rape. Although Speranskii granted a great deal of autonomy to the indigenous Siberians who gained Steppe Dumas, he did support a policy of gradual and voluntary Russification through education, conversion, and intermarriage. Yet, he never outlined a specific plan for this process. Instead, his legislation allowed for administrative autonomy, the freedom of religion, and the right to establish and attend schools in one’s own language. It also guaranteed land possessions and introduced unregulated trade.22 Speranskii’s legislation was widely accepted among many Buryats who were quite satisfied to have new laws codifying greater autonomy. Although the Buryats’ relationship with the Russian imperial government was not without conflict in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Buryat strategies (moving away to escape exploitative administrators or appealing to officials for help), institutions (datsans or Buryat Cossack organizations), and legislation such as the 1822 Statute of Native Administration, helped the Buryats maintain and even expand their communities within the Russian Empire. By the end of the nineteenth century there were 288,663 Buryats in Siberia, almost nine times as many as when the Russians first encountered them two hundred years earlier.23 This immense growth was quite different than the experience of other indigenous peoples, especially in areas farthest from government control. For example, by the time Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867, the Aleut population had declined by 80 percent.24 The Buryats were more numerous, militarily stronger, and more able to organize than the Aleuts, who were essentially enslaved by the Russian American Company. Speranskii’s legislation proved beneficial for the Buryats. Yet, this all began to change at the end of the nineteenth century when the imperial 22

Hundley, “Speransky and the Buriats,” 38–41; Levin and Potapov, The Peoples of Siberia, 208; Raeff, Speransky, 274–7; Sanzhiev and Sanzhieva, Buriatiia istoriia, 148–52. 23 Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century, 27. 24 Douglas W. Veltre, “Perspectives on Aleut Culture Change During the Russian Period,” in Redmond J. Barnett and Barbara Sweetland Smith (eds.), Russian America: The Forgotten Frontier (Tacoma, WA: Washington State Historical Society, 1990), 178.

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government introduced new policies to help facilitate a mass movement of people from west to east. The emancipation of the serfs in 1861, the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway from 1891 to 1905, and the creation of government programs to encourage eastward migration in the late 1890s, all amounted to a large movement of European peasants to Siberia. Previously, migration had been slow and inconsistent. However, increases in population and the competition for land and scarce resources in the western part of the empire inspired changes in government policies and many peasant families then chose to move. Tsarist officials offered land, building materials, and other incentives to help settlers. The government hoped these policies would increase the population in Siberia, as well as improve the economic output of the region.25 What started as a trickle in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries grew into a flood by the turn of the twentieth. In 1700, there were around 200,000 settlers in Siberia (most in western Siberia) and that number increased, thanks to natural births and migration, to 500,000 by 1800.26 This type of slow, but steady rise in population continued until the end of the nineteenth century when then, suddenly, between 1898 and 1908, almost four million people moved from the western regions of the empire to Siberia— 759,000 arrived in Siberia in 1908 alone.27 This was unprecedented in Siberian history. Suddenly, cities, towns, villages, and peasant farms grew like mushrooms across Siberia, especially along the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway. For many Buryats, this rapid migration created a serious conflict over land usage and ownership. Imperial authorities sought to expand agricultural output in Siberia and they wanted to free up lands for peasant farmers. In 1896, the government formed a commission, headed by Anatolii Kulomzin, to investigate the peasant migration to 25

Robert W. Montgomery, “Buriat Political and Social Activism in the 1905 Revolution,” Sibirica 10, no. 3 (2011), 2–3; Donald W. Treadgold, The Great Siberian Migration: Government and Peasant in Resettlement from Emancipation to the First World War (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1957). 26 Treadgold, The Great Siberian Migration, 26. 27 Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 191; Treadgold, The Great Siberian Migration, 147.

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Siberia. The commission’s recommendations led to the enactment of new laws in 1896 and 1897 intended to make it easier for the empire’s European peasants to settle in Siberia. These laws, however, completely changed land ownership and land distribution. All commonly owned lands in Siberia were set to be confiscated by the government and redistributed in plots of 15 desiatin (40.5 acres) to each individual male—indigenous Siberian or European settler. While the main thrust of this legislation was to increase more immigration to Siberia from western Russia it was also intended to encourage nomads to settle in villages and become full-time farmers.28 With the creation of this new legislation, government officials began to seize commonly owned Buryat pasture lands and redistribute them to individual peasants and Buryats. The imperial government also reduced the lands held by Buddhist datsans. By introducing private, individual land ownership among the Buryats, the government threatened not only the Buryats’ economy, but their societal structure as well. Tsarist officials divided up lands once held by several clans and gave them to individuals. Fifteen desiatin was also not a sufficient amount of land for nomadic or semi-nomadic herders, who used several pastures, often great distances apart, throughout the year. In addition to land redistribution, the new legislation dissolved Speranskii’s Steppe Dumas. It then placed Siberia’s nomads into the same volost’ (district) administrative system as settled peasants. Under the new system, the government sought to replace Buryat leaders of clan administrations with tsarist officials. This legislation essentially meant the end of Buryat self-rule.29 Authorities were sent throughout Buryatia from the late 1890s to 1904 to implement the new system. Their task was not easy. On many occasions, they were faced with angry Buryat communities, demanding a return to the Speranskii legislation of 1822. For example, in 1901 the Priamurskii governor-general traveled to Verkhneudinsk (Ulan-Ude) where he was confronted with Buryat leaders 28

I. A. Asalkhanov, “Ob agrarnoi politike tsarizma v Sibiri v kontse XIX veka,” in I. A. Asalkhanov (ed.), Issledovaniia i materialy po istorii Buriatii (Ulan Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1968), 82–5, 97–8; Treadgold, The Great Siberian Migration, 125–7. 29 Montgomery, “Buriat Political and Social Activism,” 3–4; Sanzhiev and Sanzhieva, Buriatiia istoriia, 263–6.

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from all over eastern Buryatia.30 Around 300 Buryats met him at the volost’ administrative office to protest the new reforms. The crowd refused to allow authorities to swear in the new tsarist officials who were going to replace their own clan leaders. Eventually some protesters even broke into the volost’ offices. Those who caused the greatest disturbance were arrested and exiled from Buryatia for five years. Other clashes were even more violent. Also in 1901, 500 Buryats from the Aginsk region arrived at Russian government offices to protest the swearing in of new replacement officials. The protestors made the same demands as the herders in Verkhneudinsk. However, this time they became more violent when their appeals were ignored. Buryats threw stones and beat up several tsarist officials. Eventually authorities had to call in soldiers to break up the unrest. Several of the Buryat leaders from this incident were arrested and sent to prison or exiled.31 Despite these protests, by 1904 the imperial government was successful in establishing a new administrative system in much of the Buryat lands. This prompted some to seek help from higher authorities. In 1905, Buryat leaders sent a delegation to St. Petersburg to complain. The delegation gained an audience with Tsar Nicholas II, who had previously traveled to Buryatia before becoming tsar and had met with Buryat clan leaders. Nevertheless, in 1905 he dismissed their concerns.32 The message of tsarist authorities was clear: the new legislation was going to be implemented and complaints against it would be ignored. In addition, demonstrations and violent protests would be met with arrest, exile, and prison. The threat of punishment encouraged many frustrated Buryats to move away with their herds just as they had done in previous centuries. A number of Buryats migrated to the more remote corners of Buryatia while some chose to leave the Russian Empire all together and relocate in Mongolia or Manchuria in Qing China. However, not all Buryats were negatively affected by the new changes in Si30

Verkhneudinsk was renamed Ulan-Ude in 1934. Ulan means “red” in Buryat and Ude is for the Uda River located in southern Buryatia. 31 A. P. Okladnikov (ed.), Istoriia Buriat-Mongol’skoi ASSR, vol. 1 (Ulan-Ude: Buriat-Mongol’skoe gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo, 1951), 469–74. 32 Ibid., 471–4.

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beria. Some Buryats profited from the migration and railway construction by building stores, working on the railway tracks, and taking part in the growing markets of the new towns and cities. Many also participated in the international trade that was enhanced by the Trans-Siberian.33 The new administrative reforms of 1904 and 1905 were in line with the government’s increasing support for Orthodox missionary work among indigenous peoples. Missionaries and tsarist officials alike denounced Speranskii’s 1822 reforms that tolerated native religions. In particular, missionaries complained that the legislation was negatively impacting the Buryats because it institutionalized their political and social structure in a way that did not allow for modernization and societal change, which they argued, missionary work could provide.34 The missionaries thus increased their work by setting up schools, building churches, enacting baptisms, and conducting translations. While indeed many Buryats converted to Orthodoxy, especially those west of Lake Baikal, official conversion statistics can be misleading. Although, some official sources claimed that the Orthodox Church had converted over 40 percent of the Buryats west of Lake Baikal by 1897, in many cases indigenous Siberians accepted baptism only in order to receive specific state benefits including titles and material rewards.35 After conversion, many then continued to practice their own religions.36 In addition, when new laws were introduced allowing people to more easily leave the Orthodox Church in the early 1900s, around 10,000 Buryat Orthodox converts changed their religious status to Buddhist.37 33

Levin and Potapov, The Peoples of Siberia, 208; Tristra Newyear Yeager, “The Drama of Enlightenment, the Discourse of Darkness: Buryat Grassroots Theater, 1908–1930” (PhD diss., Indiana University, 2010), 15–17. 34 Murray, “Building Empire among the Buryats,” 99–109. 35 G. D. R. Philips, Dawn of Siberia: The Mongols of Lake Baikal (London: Frederick Muller, 1942), 105–6. 36 Hundley, “Speransky and the Buriats,” 158–71. Also see Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, The Tenacity of Ethnicity: A Siberian Saga in Global Perspective (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 56–7, who discusses the complications associated with Orthodox conversion among the Khanty. 37 Murray, “Building Empire among the Buryats,” 278.

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Despite the challenges that missionaries faced in their work from both government officials and ordinary Buryats, Orthodoxy did have a growing presence in the nineteenth century in Buryatia, especially among those who resided west of Lake Baikal. Missionary work was in part a force intended to assimilate the Buryats into the more dominant European economy and culture of the Russian Empire. At the same time, missionary activities along with the growth of cities, towns, and new business opportunities that came with the late nineteenth century economic development and demographic shifts in Siberia, meant that Buryats increasingly had more interaction with ethnic Russians and the Russian imperial government. Although this altered the previous social, political, and economic situation, the new circumstances contributed to the creation of an educated class of Buryats ready to facilitate intellectual and political activity in the twentieth century. Buryat Intellectual and Political Activity Starting in the middle of the nineteenth century, a few Buryats schooled in datsans, Cossack communities, Orthodox Church schools, or secular institutions began to gain higher educational degrees at institutions in the Russian Empire and abroad. One of the first was the eastern Buryat Dorzhi Banzarov. Banzarov had grown up in a Buryat Cossack community and had attended a Cossack school in Troitskosavsk in southeastern Siberia.38 In 1835 he moved to Kazan where he finished high school and then went on to Kazan University, graduating in 1846. He was the first Buryat to graduate from a Western-style university. Other Buryats throughout the second half of the nineteenth century followed in his footsteps, attending various universities and pedagogical institutions. A few became scholars who conducted research and taught at universities. Many more however, returned to Buryatia and became teachers where they helped to further spread education among the 38

The town of Troitskosavsk was originally named Kiakhta. It was called Troitskosavsk in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The name was changed back to Kiakhta in 1935.

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Buryats.39 These Buryats were almost exclusively men until the early twentieth century, when a few women also began to join the ranks of Buryats with higher educational degrees. By the turn of the twentieth century, a small Buryat intelligentsia had developed in the Russian Empire. This intelligentsia participated in both regional and empire-wide movements and debates that emerged in the turbulent political atmosphere of the first two decades of the twentieth century. These educated Buryats provided an articulate voice within the empire for the Buryat people. They proposed a wide spectrum of possibilities for the future of the Buryats ranging from demands for complete autonomy or independence to calls for assimilation within a Russian or later Soviet state. For most, the question of how to integrate the Buryats into an increasingly modernizing society in the new century was primary. During the 1905 Revolution, large meetings of politically active Buryats took place to express criticism over the land reforms and propose new ideas for improving Buryat society. Many of the intellectuals who were involved with these meetings and other political activities were influenced by liberalism and socialism. Political exiles, who opposed the Romanov autocracy, helped to spread these ideologies across Siberia. Buryat students, who studied in western Russia and Europe, also brought home various political philosophies. The two most significant Buryat meetings of 1905 were the Chita Buryat Congress in April and the Irkutsk Buryat Congress in August where Buryat representatives called for implementing ideas such as new forms of self-government, universal suffrage, changes to the tsarist laws on land holdings, and the creation of more schools with instruction in the Buryat language.40 Although some Buryats did want to return to the social and political order established under Speranskii—especially many noyon 39

Montgomery, Late Tsarist and Early Soviet, 98–104. Montgomery explains that the process for many Buryats to gain secondary and higher education and then work as teachers was complicated and often difficult for a variety of reasons. Still, despite the many problems, increasingly more Buryats became educated in the late nineteenth century. 40 Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 173; Montgomery, “Buriat Political and Social Activism,” 6–9; Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century, 20–1, 28–9; Levin and Potapov, The Peoples of Siberia, 209.

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who wanted their formerly guaranteed leadership positions back— others offered different visions for the future of Buryat society. The Buryat Tsyben Zhamtsarano, who had studied at the Irkutsk Teacher’s Seminary and the University of St. Petersburg and had attended the 1905 Buryat Congress in Chita, wrote about the need to modernize, but at the same time protect Buryat culture and traditions. A scholar of Buryat folklore, literature, and history, Zhamtsarano engaged in debates over the future of Buryat society in the journal Sibirskie voprosy.41 In an article published in 1906, he argued that the government was destroying the unity of the Buryats by depriving them of the right to their traditionally held communal pasturelands. Zhamtsarano explained that the government took advantage of the Buryats who lacked an understanding of the concept of private property. He described how Buryat leaders were working at that time to organize and unite all of the Buryats, both east and west of Lake Baikal, who shared the common experience of government oppression.42 Zhamtsarano was also a Buddhist. He supported strengthening the role of the Buddhist church in Buryat society, but also introducing Western ideas as well. He agreed with one of the proposals made at the Buryat Congress in Chita in 1905 that it was necessary to restore and invigorate the datsans by transferring plots of land allocated to individual lamas to the datsan community. He also believed that the datsans should expand their curriculum to include a combination of both Buddhist subjects and those taught in European schools.43 Zhamtsarano and other Buryat leaders saw Buddhism as a unifying force for the Buryats. They felt it should be utilized to solidify and boost Buryat national consciousness. However, not all Buryat intellectuals agreed with Zhamtsarano. Mikhail N. Bogdanov, a western Buryat who studied in St. Petersburg, Zurich, and Berlin, and had attended the Buryat Congress in Irkutsk, also wrote in the journal Sibirskie voprosy. He opposed 41

Siberian Issues in English. Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century, 33, 45–7; Tsyben Zhamtsarano, “O pravosoznanii buriat,” Sibirskie voprosy 2 (1906), 169–70. 43 Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century, 36; Zhamtsarano, “O pravosoznanii buriat,” 174. 42

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Zhamtsarano’s ideas about Buddhism. He believed that the promotion of Buddhist education was a step backwards for the Buryats. Bogdanov argued that Buddhism would only further isolate the Buryats from the changing modern world. Instead, he promoted furthering the development of institutions that provided secular education. He explained that it was necessary to strengthen Buryat identity through non-Buddhist means.44 Zhamtsarano responded to Bogdanov’s arguments in another article in Sibirskie voprosy in 1907, continuing to promote his pro-Buddhist ideas.45 Another important Buryat intellectual who supported the use of Buddhism as a uniting force, but also sought to create more liberal changes within Buryat society, was Bato-Dalai Ochirov. Ochirov had attended school in Chita and worked as a teacher and translator in the Aginsk region of southeastern Buryatia. He was engaged in politics, had attended the 1905 Buryat Congress in Irkutsk, and had been a leader in the Buryat delegation to Nicholas II that same year to protest the tsarist land legislation. When Tsar Nicholas II agreed to create a new parliamentary body, the Duma, to quell the unrest of the 1905 Revolution, Ochirov sought to participate. He was the only Buryat to be elected a member of the Second Duma in St. Petersburg in 1907. However, Tsar Nicholas II found this Duma to be too liberal and he dissolved it after less than three months. The tsar then made stricter requirements for the candidates of the Third and Fourth Dumas. Ochirov was forced to return to Buryatia. Ochirov, like many other Buryat intellectuals of the time, was influenced by liberal and socialist ideas. As such, he did not want to simply return to the Speranskii Native Administration system, but rather hoped to build greater equlity and democracy among the Buryats. After his time in the Duma, Ochirov worked as a translator and sought to help Buryats’ improve their economic situation. He raised money for scholarships for Buryat students, founded the first Buryat cooperative and credit society in Zabaikal’e, and created a 44

M. Bogdanov, “Buriatskoe ‘vozrozhdenie’,” Sibirskie voprosy 3 (1907), 38, 41; Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century, 18, 34–5. 45 Tsyben Zhamtsarano, “Buriatskoe narodnicheskoe dvizhenie i ego kritik,” Sibirskie voprosy 25 (1907), 15–21.

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liberal political organization called the Party of Progressive Buryats. He continued this work until his death in 1914.46 Along with shutting down the reform-seeking Dumas, Nicholas II enacted a pacification campaign throughout the Russian Empire to end the political activity and unrest of the 1905 Revolution. This crackdown lasted for several years and occurred in Buryatia as well. Buryat political meetings and protests, as well as publications critical of tsarist policies came largely to an end.47 It was not until the February Revolution of 1917 that ousted Nicholas II and ended the reign of the Romanov dynasty that a new window of opportunity opened for Buryats to organize for political goals. When the Provisional Government came to power, it lifted the previous restrictions on political activities and ended censorship. Buryat leaders, including members of the Buryat intelligentsia, such as Zhamtsarano and Bogdanov, immediately worked toward the convocation of another Buryat congress, as had been done in Chita and Irkutsk in 1905. Titled the All-Buryat Congress, it was meant to include all Buryats—both east and west. It met in Chita in April 1917 and was made up of a wide variety of Buryat representatives. Not surprisingly, one of the most important issues for the Congress was land reform. In 1917, the Buryats were still dissatisfied with the legislation that had replaced the Speranskii system founded in 1822. However, the Congress also raised the need to provide more Buryat language education to Buryats. Most notable however, was that the Congress called for the creation of an autonomous Buryat territory within Russia. This demand echoed those made by many other ethnic minorities at the same time across the empire. In the suddenly free political atmosphere, non-Russians, including the Buryats, began to argue that their interests would be best served by political and territorial autonomy.48 In order to coordinate Buryat affairs and hold elections when needed, the congress formed an executive body called the Buryat 46

Montgomery, “Buriat Political and Social Activism,” 14–5; Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century, 18, 36. 47 Levin and Potapov, The Peoples of Siberia, 209. 48 Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 271–2; Humphrey, “Magical Drawings,” 78– 9; L. Khabaev, “Pervye vseburiatskie s’ezdy 1917 goda,” VSGTU Sbornik nauchnykh trudov 4 (1998), 165–72.

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National Committee (Burnatskom). Burnatskom organized several more congresses promoting Buryat national interests in Chita, Verkhneudinsk, and Irkutsk before the Bolsheviks carried out the 1917 October Revolution. In addition to supporting Burnatskom and its goals, many Buryats also favored various all-Russian parties such as the Socialist Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, and Bolsheviks. The burst of activity in 1917 reflected the desire among many Buryats for social, economic, and political change. The sophisticated nature of the Buryat congresses also illustrates the well-coordinated efforts of an educated Buryat intellectual class. Unfortunately, however, their efforts were largely ineffective against the more powerful forces fighting for control of Siberia during the Russian Civil War that erupted shortly after the Bolsheviks came to power. The Civil War and the Competition over Siberia The Russian Civil War in Siberia was violent, extremely destructive, and lasted longer than in other parts of the Russian Empire. The demographic evidence is telling. Whereas the 1897 census reported that there were 288,883 Buryats residing in Siberia, the 1926 one reported only 237,000.49 Numerous groups vied for political power and cities and territories in Buryatia changed hands continually. On occasion, Buryat leaders drove these events. During the chaos of the war, some Buryats gained the opportunity to put their ideas for Buryat society into practice. More often, Buryat leaders were involved as participants in various movements in an attempt to negotiate a place for the Buryats in the competition for Siberia. In many cases, the fighting and chaos forced many Buryats to move as far away as possible, just as they had done in the past. Many Buryats also lost their lives in the power struggle for Siberia. However, as the Russian Civil War drew to an end, the Buryats’ consistent demands for autonomy helped to gain them a new form of selfgovernment within the Soviet state. 49

D. D. Nimaev, “Naselenie Buriatii i formirovanie ego natsional’nogo sostava,” in G. L. Sanzhiev (ed.), Respublike Buriatiia—70 let (Ulan-Ude: Gazetnozhurnal’noe izdatel’stvo, 1993), 44–5.

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The Civil War began almost immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Although opposition quickly mounted in Siberia, Bolshevik forces were able to initially gain control of the three major cities located in Buryat lands. By February 1918, they held Irkutsk (located west of Lake Baikal), Verkhneudinsk, and Chita (both located east of Lake Baikal). Although there were few Buryats among the Bolsheviks, an exceptional example was the 21-yearold western Buryat Maria Mikhailovna Sakh’ianova. Sakh’ianova would later become first secretary of the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1924. She had joined the Bolsheviks while a student in St. Petersburg, and after the February Revolution, she returned to her native land to spread the message of Bolshevism. Once the Bolsheviks came to power, they chose her to be the secretary of the Irkutsk Bolshevik organization where she participated in the defense of Bolshevik authority.50 Sakh’ianova was completely aware of the activities of Burnatskom and the 1917 Buryat congresses. However, she was a Marxist and as such she rejected the nationalist ideas of Burnatskom leaders who called for political and territorial autonomy for the Buryats. Instead, she argued, as the Bolsheviks did at the time, for national-cultural autonomy within locally formed Buryat soviets that would work side by side with peasants and workers to bring socialism to Siberia.51 She therefore sought to work with other Irkutsk socialists rather than western Buryat members of Burnatskom. Nevertheless, despite her efforts to maintain Bolshevik power in Irkutsk, the city was lost to more powerful anti-Bolshevik forces in the spring of 1918. Verkhneudinsk and Chita fell later that summer. In eastern Siberia, the half-Buryat Cossack, Ataman Grigorii Semenov, had his own dream for the Buryat lands. He hoped to be the leader of a pan-Mongolian state united under his auspices. Semenov had grown up in a small Cossack village on the Onon River 50

B. B. Batuev, Mariia Mikhailovna Sakh’ianova: Stranitsy politicheskoi biografii (Ulan-Ude: “Sibir’,” 1992), 6. 51 T. K. Varnavskii, “Etatizatsiia etnichnosti v diskurse ‘natsional’nogo samoopredeleniia’ Buriat,” Mir Tsentral’noi Azii: Istoriia, sotsiologiia 2, no. 2 (2002), 24–31.

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in southeastern Buryatia. At the age of 20, he joined the Transbaikal Cossack Army where he served in Mongolia, Chita, and Primor’ye. At the beginning of World War I, he was sent to fight against Austria on the southwestern front where he served with distinction. In August 1917, the Provisional Government gave him permission to return to Zabaikal’e to raise more recruits for the war effort. After the Bolshevik Revolution in October and Russia’s withdraw from the war in Europe, Semenov began to fight the Bolsheviks. He took his recruits, now a small force, and went to the Manchurian border town of Manzhouli where he gained control of the western part of the Chinese Eastern Railway. From there he began to conduct raids into Bolshevik controlled territory.52 In February 1918, Semenov sent one of his lieutenants to Japan in an attempt to gain support in his cause to fight the Bolsheviks. The Japanese government agreed, hoping that men like Semenov would destabilize eastern Siberia and thus make it easier for a Japanese takeover. Japanese military officials sent arms to Semenov and shipments began to arrive in March. In order to train Semenov’s forces with the equipment, Japanese authorities also sent six officers and 43 men. With this support, Semenov and his troops crossed the border back into Russia in April 1918. Although Semenov was still unable to oust the Bolsheviks at that time, he nevertheless declared himself to be the ruler of the Zabaikal’e region.53 Soon after, in the summer of 1918, some 45,000 Czech and Slovak ex-prisoners of war who had fought for the Allies on the eastern front were being sent across Siberia by rail to then be transported by sea to fight on the western front, seized control of much of the eastern half of the Trans-Siberian Railway. In August, the Entente powers decided to send troops to Siberia to collect the Czechs and Slovaks as well as to support anti-Bolsheviks there. While the British sent around 1,500 soldiers and the Americans sent 3,000, the Japanese sent a much larger force of 70,000. Leaders within the Japanese military did this in order to explore the idea of 52

Russell E. Snow, The Bolsheviks in Siberia, 1917–1918 (London: Associated University Press, 1977), 216–7. 53 James William Morley, The Japanese Thrust into Siberia, 1918 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1957), 42–3.

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annexing eastern Siberia or founding a puppet state loyal to Japan. In the chaos, Semenov took the opportunity to take control of Chita and the surrounding region for the new state he sought to create. He made Chita his capital and in September moved into the best hotel in the city.54 Now in a more secure position, Semenov began to work toward his ideal of uniting the Mongols of Russia, Mongolia, and China into a pan-Mongolian state under his control. In February 1919, he organized a conference in Chita with delegates from China and Russia. No representatives from Mongolia agreed to participate. Nevertheless, the conference claimed to speak for all Mongols of Inner Asia. It elected a provisional, self-proclaimed, pan-Mongolian government and appointed the lama, Neisse-Gegen, as its nominal head. The position of Neisse-Gegen was intended to mimic the governments in Mongolia and Tibet that were led by reincarnated high-ranking lamas. Semenov hoped this structure would gain the support from the many Buddhists among the Mongols. In actuality, Semenov remained supremely in charge and ran his new government in an authoritarian and violent manner. Initially, Semenov was able to gain some local support for his new government, but his rule by brute military force distanced many. Although he indicated support for Buddhism, he ultimately envisioned his state to be a Cossack one in which the entire Mongolian population would be organized in a military hierarchy where all men would be liable for service. This proved very unpopular, especially when Semenov actually began to draft young men by force.55 Semenov’s authoritarianism and emphasis on the military led to a steady decline in support for his regime. In particular, Burnatskom refused to support him. In retaliation, Semenov reacted by murdering one of its main leaders, the scholar Mikhail Bogdanov, 54

P. T. Khaptaev (ed.), Istoriia Buriatskoi ASSR, vol. 2 (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1959), 93; Morley, The Japanese Thrust into Siberia, 99; Snow, The Bolsheviks in Siberia, 217. 55 Uradyn E. Bulag and Caroline Humphrey, “Some Diverse Representations of the Pan-Mongolian Movement in Dauria,” Inner Asia 1, no. 1 (1996), 17; K. M. Gerasimova, Obnovlencheskoe dvizhenie buriatskogo lamaitskogo dukhovenstva (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1964), 48; Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 273–4; Khaptaev, Istoriia Buriatskoi ASSR, 95.

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who had written an exchange with Zhamtsarano in Sibirskie voprosy back in 1906 and 1907. After this, many Burnatskom leaders fled from Semenov-controlled territory. They joined numerous other Buryats who were rapidly migrating with their herds to remote parts of Buryatia, as well as to Manchuria and Mongolia in order to escape the chaos and violence caused by Semenov and others.56 Semenov’s harsh rule and violence, often arbitrary, repelled many of his Buddhist subjects rather than attract them as he had hoped. In particular, a local Buryat lama named Sandan Tsyden rejected the brutality of Semenov’s government. Tsyden was a pacifist and he sought to build an alternative to Semenov’s violent regime. He too argued that the Buryats should have their own state. However, he sought to create a theocratic entity similar to governments in Mongolia and Tibet, but also containing characteristics of European-style constitutionalism. He called for an end to violence and specifically an end to the strict military conscription of Semenov’s government. Semenov—and later the Bolsheviks—reacted harshly to Tsyden’s movement and largely destroyed it by imprisoning its leaders.57 In conjunction with Semenov’s declining support among the local population, several outside events occurred to ensure his downfall. First, the Bolsheviks decided to set up a Far Eastern Republic (FER) in April 1920 to include all the lands from the east of Lake Baikal to the Pacific Ocean, including the territory claimed by Semenov. Although designed and loosely controlled by the Bolsheviks, the FER was set up as a coalition socialist government that would serve as a buffer state between the Bolsheviks and those who opposed them in eastern Siberia. The Bolsheviks hoped that the FER would allow nominal control to the territory even if in reality they held little of it. Bolshevik leadership believed that the FER would give them time to concentrate on their conflict in the west 56 57

Gerasimova, Obnovlencheskoe dvizhenie, 50. Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 273–4; Khaptaev, Istoriia Buriatskoi ASSR, 95–6; Nikolay Tsyrempilov, “Samdan Tsydenov and His Buddhist Theocratic Project in Siberia.” In Johan Elverskog (ed.) Biographies of Eminent Mongol Buddhists (Halle: IITBS, International Institute for Tibetan Buddhist Studies, 2008), 123-137.

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before focusing their attention eastward. In addition, it was meant to encourage the Japanese and other Allies to leave Siberia.58 Second, the Japanese government, largely due to financial reasons and the increasing strength of the Bolsheviks, decided to withdraw troops from Zabaikal’e and pull back to Primor’e, the territory on the eastern coast of Russia not far from Japan. Japanese support for Semenov had been crucial to helping him stay in power. When Semenov asked the Japanese War Minister in Tokyo to reconsider, he explained that Semenov did not have enough power to warrant Japan’s support. The minister also stated that Japan, as well as the other Entente powers, felt negatively about the violence and authoritarianism exhibited by Semenov’s government. Japan did not want to support such a ruler.59 Japanese forces began to withdraw in September 1920, leaving Semenov largely defenseless. The new FER army was able to then quickly drive Semenov from Chita, which then became the FER capital in October. With the creation of the Far Eastern Republic, some Burnatskom leaders again saw an opportunity to implement their plans for Buryat autonomy. When the FER held elections for a constituent assembly, many Buryats voted and several ran for positions and were elected. During the meetings to create a constitution for the FER, the Buryat participants demanded autonomy.60 Their efforts helped to gain them a fixed Autonomous Buryat-Mongolian Territory that was officially stated as such in the constitution. The constitution also explained that the territory’s inhabitants were subject to general FER laws, but were allowed to “be independent in the matter of establishing courts, economic and administrative institutions and such institutions as pertain to their national culture.”61 It 58

John J. Stephan, The Russian Far East: A History (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994), 141–2. 59 The Far Eastern Republic, Siberia and Japan: Together with a Discussion of their Relations to the United States (New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1922); James Allen Meyer, “The Origins, Structure, and Nature of the Far Eastern Republic” (MA thesis, Kent State University, 1961), 44. 60 Henry Kittredge Norton, The Far Eastern Republic of Siberia (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1923), 157. 61 The Constitution of the Far Eastern Republic (Washington, D.C.: The Special Delegation of the Far Eastern Republic to the United States, 1921), 20–1.

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was at this time then that the first Buryat-Mongolian autonomous region was created. Shortly after, the Bolsheviks, now in control of the area around Irkutsk to the west of Lake Baikal, set up a similar Buryat-Mongolian autonomous region for the western Buryats. Although many Buryat intellectuals had been calling for autonomy for several years, the creation of the two autonomous BuryatMongolian territories was organized and approved by the new Bolshevik government in Moscow. It was done in compliance with Lenin’s nationality policy at that moment that called for the creation of national territories.62 In 1918 and 1919, the Bolshevik government had already begun to set up various autonomous regions in the territories under its control in Central Asia and Russia.63 This was an attempt by the Bolsheviks to gain the support of the nonRussians of the former Russian Empire. In addition, autonomous regions could be used for the purpose of international propaganda. The Bolsheviks sought to show the world that they were different than the imperial tsars, who, they claimed, had treated the nonRussians like colonial subjects. A telegram from authorities in Moscow to the leaders of the FER on April 27, 1921 explained that Buryat autonomy was also important because it was closely connected with Soviet foreign policy in China and Mongolia.64 The Soviet autonomous regions, and in particular the Buryat-Mongolian ones, were to be showcased to other Asians as an example of the democratic and beneficial nature of Soviet rule. When the Japanese withdrew from the Russian Far East in October 1922, the Russian Civil War came to its final conclusion. The Far Eastern Republic was then merged with Bolshevik Russia. In the summer of 1923, the two Buryat-Mongolian autonomous regions were united to form the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (BMASSR). Now the Buryats had an officially des62

A. I. Krushanov (ed.), V. I. Lenin i Dal’nevostochnaia Respublika (Vladivostok: Dal’nevostochnogo nauchnogo tsentra AN SSSR, 1985), 6. 63 B. V. Bazarov, L. V. Kuras, and Iu. P. Shagdurov (eds.), Istoriia Buriatii v voprosakh i otvetakh (Ulan-Ude: Ministerstvo narodnogo obrazovaniia Buriatskoi ASSR, 1990), 29–30. 64 D. M. Zol’nikov (ed.), Dal’nevostochnaia politika Sovetskoi Rossii (1920–1922 gg.): Sbornik dokumentov Sibirskogo biuro TsK RKP(b) i Sibirskogo revoliutsionnogo komiteta (Novosibirsk: Sibirskii khranograf, 1974), 230.

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ignated territory with set boundaries and codified autonomy that united most of the western and eastern Buryats. The BMASSR territory almost completely surrounded Lake Baikal. It also included two additional regions: Ust’-Ordinsk west of Lake Baikal and Aginsk to the southeast. The cities of Irkutsk and Chita were left just outside its borders and Verkhneudinsk was named the capital. Autonomy and Korenizatsiia The Bolsheviks created numerous autonomous regions throughout the Soviet Union in the 1920s, drawing borders around territories believed to contain one dominant group. On paper, Soviet autonomous republics appeared to have a great deal of independence. They had their own constitutions and legislative bodies. However, policies designed by leaders in Moscow influenced much of their internal affairs. In addition, central plans emphasizing industrialization brought many ethnic Russian workers and administrators to non-Russian regions and this completely altered their internal make-up. Thanks to tsarist policies at the turn of the twentieth century that brought European peasants to Siberia in large numbers, the Buryats were already a minority in their lands when the BMASSR was created in 1923. Although the republic’s borders encompassed 91 percent of the country’s Buryats, they only made up 43.8 percent of the total population of the republic in 1926. Buryat representation would continue to decrease, representing only 29 percent of the population just ten years later.65 Most of the new immigrants moved to Verkhneudinsk, the administrative and economic center of the republic. Within just six years, between 1923 and 1926, the city’s population rose by almost one third from 20,000 to 29,000.66 These new residents came to work in the expanding bureaucracy of local government administration, as 65

Nimaev, “Naselenie Buriatii,” 45; Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 275; V. I. Zateev and B. V. Kharaev, Dinamika izmenenii i vzaimodeistviia etnosotsial’noi i demograficheskoi struktur regiona (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1999), 68. 66 A. B. Imetkhenov and E. M. Egorov (eds.), Ulan-Ude: Istoriia i sovremennost’ (Ulan-Ude: BNTs, 2001), 92, 142; D. D. Mangatgaeva, Gorodskie poseleniia Buriatskoi ASSR (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1978), 50.

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well as in the larger state-owned enterprises in the city such as a glass factory, brewery, and sawmill. Also, in accordance with Vladimir Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP) that was implemented in the early 1920s in order to reinvigorate the economy after many devastating years of war, people were permitted to work in certain small private businesses. The large influx of outside workers and the designation of Verkhneudinsk as an ASSR capital quickly changed the look of the city. In order to house the immigrants and provide space for the expanding administration, many new buildings were constructed. In 1929, local officials built a larger city center around the newly created Square of the Soviets.67 Despite the building and job opportunities however, the city was not home to many Buryats in the 1920s. In 1926, only one percent of the Buryat population was urban.68 There were few Buryat workers and only a handful of Buryat administrators. This situation began to change, albeit slowly, with the implementation of the Soviet policy of korenizatsiia. Coupled with the creation of national territories, the Bolsheviks enacted a policy of korenizatsiia to promote national languages and cultures along with training and advancing native elites in society. This was part of a larger Soviet-wide program to create a modern, socialist society where all ethnic groups would fully participate. It also fit well with many of the demands made by Buryat leaders. In the mid-1920s, the Buryat Bolshevik Mikhei Nikolaevich Erbanov, who later headed the republic between 1929 and 1937, explained many of the goals of korenizatsiia in Buryatia at a meeting to discuss national cultural construction among the Buryats. Erbanov outlined how a new Buryat socialist culture could be created by liquidating illiteracy, establishing an all-Buryat language and writing system, creating Buryat national schools, installing Buryat cadres in all spheres, and developing Buryat literature and art based on the ideas of Marxism-Leninism.69 Throughout the 1920s, administrators in Buryatia drew up plans for fulfilling these goals. 67

Balzhan Zhimbiev, History of the Urbanization of a Siberian City: Ulan-Ude (Cambridge: The White Horse Press, 2000), 51–2. 68 Nimaev, “Naselenie Buriatii,” 47. 69 B. V. Bazarov, Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn’ 1920-1950-kh godov i razvitie literatury i iskusstva Buriatii (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN, 1995), 41–2.

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However, several of these ideas were difficult to implement. For example, authorities in 1926 introduced a plan requiring that 83 percent of government institutions be staffed by Buryat employees—a goal that was nearly impossible at the time given the high number of illiterate Buryats. Local korenizatsiia policies also required Russians to learn the Buryat language, but this too was problematic. In 1924, when directives came from Moscow for government administrators and employees to learn the Buryat language and use it in the workplace, measures were taken to create courses for non-Buryat speaking employees to study Buryat.70 However, few Russians actually learned Buryat. Work, particularly in the republic’s central institutions, continued in Russian.71 Creating a network of Buryat schools was also a slow process and most Buryat children did not go to school at all in the 1920s. In 1925 only one-fifth of school age Buryat children in the republic were enrolled in school.72 In some regions it was even less. For example, in the Aginsk region, there were only 973 out of 6,961 school-age children attending school in 1925.73 Ethnic Russian children in the republic fared a little better. Almost half of all Russian children were enrolled in school during that same year.74 However, in general, schoolchildren did not stay in school for very long. In 1928 the average pupil in the republic only completed two and a half years of school. It was not until the 1930s that central Soviet authorities made elementary education mandatory starting at age eight. The problem of low school enrollment was directly related to the fact that schools in Buryatia suffered from financial constraints. Classrooms were overcrowded, many schools were declared unsanitary by health inspectors, and textbooks and other materials were scarce.75 In particular, there were few qualified teachers. In 70

A. A. Elaev, Buriatiia: Put’ k avtonomii i gosudarstvennosti (Moscow: Antal, 1994), 103. 71 Montgomery, Late Tsarist and Early Soviet, 203–5. 72 Natsional’nyi arkhiv Respubliki Buriatii (NARB), f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1690, l. 74. 73 Zh. T. Tumunov, Aga i Agintsy (1917–1990) (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1993), 143, 147. 74 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1690, l. 74. 75 Montgomery, Late Tsarist and Early Soviet, 210–5.

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1923, only nine out of 476 teachers in the republic had a higher educational degree. Teachers seeking to raise their educational levels were forced to attend institutions outside of the republic before the opening of the Buryat Pedagogical Institute in Verkhneudinsk in 1932.76 Implementing the goals of korenizatsiia was difficult in part because seven years of war, foreign intervention, rule by various governments, and incredible instability had brought the economy— based largely on agriculture—of the new republic almost to ruin. For example, in 1923, the number of herds in the republic was 38 percent less than in 1916 (before the revolution) and sown land had dropped by 34.6 percent between 1916 and 1923.77 It took much of the 1920s for the rural economy to return to its pre-revolutionary levels. The devastated countryside, the lack of financial resources, and the deficit of educated, urban Buryats hindered the korenizatsiia goals laid out by Erbanov. For the most part, the majority of Buryats lived in the 1920s as they had lived before the revolution. Most did not live in urban areas and many continued to practice their pre-revolutionary economy, culture, and religions. Government intrusion into the lives of most ordinary Buryats was also minimal. For example, officials made no serious efforts during the 1920s to completely settle the Buryat population that practiced nomadism. Instead, Soviet administrators encouraged the voluntary creation of small Buryat communes, which rose from three in existence in 1923 to 46 by 1928.78 Such communes consisted of groups of herders who shared their individually owned pastures communally and divided up the animals among commune herders. In addition to communes, there were also some agricultural consumer cooperatives.79 However, for most, the 1920s were a time to regain the economic lossess made during the war years by using whatever method worked best. 76

V. P. Bituev, Istoriia shkoly Ust’-Ordynskogo Buriatskogo Avtonomnogo Okruga (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1986), 75. 77 Elaev, Buriatiia, 98; Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 275. 78 Bazarov, Kuras, and Shagdurov, Istoriia Buriatii, 50. 79 Caroline Humphrey, Marx Went Away—But Karl Stayed Behind. Updated edition (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press, 1998), 142.

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The role of religion was also a significant aspect of life for many ordinary Buryats in the 1920s. Although the Bolsheviks touted the value of atheism through various methods of propaganda, the local government actually did little to stop people from practicing religion, especially Buddhism, which continued to hold a strong presence. In 1928 there were 47 datsans in Buryatia and around 15,000 lamas, most of who were in eastern Buryatia.80 In the Aginsk region, an area with a high Buryat population, it was estimated that ten to eleven percent of the male population there were lamas in 1926.81 The practice of Tibetan medicine, intricately connected to the datsans, was also widespread. There are several reasons that can be offered for why officials did little more than promote anti-Buddhist propaganda to stop people from practicing at this time. Most importantly, resources for any project in the 1920s were thin due to the strained economy. Officials also likely believed that a serious attack on Buddhism, which would certainly have created protest among many Buryats, would have spoiled the benevolent image that the Soviet government wanted to portray to both Buryats and other Asians abroad at that time. Also important was the fact that a number of prominent Buryats still practiced and supported Buddhism. Many of them also approved of a Buddhist movement led by the well-known Buryat lama, Agvan Dorzhiev, who proposed the idea that communism and Buddhism were compatible. Several prominent Buryat intellectuals, such as Tsyben Zhamtsarano, backed this movement.82 Dorzhiev, who had once served as the Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s emissary to the tsar and had founded a Buddhist temple in St. Petersburg in 1913, sought to protect Buddhism under Soviet leadership by reforming Russian Buddhist institutions. With the input of numerous Buryat intellectuals, Dorzhiev argued that Buddhism was like Bolshevism in that it sought to help the toiling masses. Dorzhiev and his supporters explained that Buddhism was not a religion 80

Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 330. NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1690, l. 39. 82 N. V. Abaev (ed.), Buddhism in Buryatia (Ulan-Ude: Buryat State University’s Publishing House, 1998), 29–30; Poppe, “The Buddhists,” 186–9; John Snelling, Buddhism in Russia: the Story of Agvan Dorzhiev Lhasa’s Emissary to the Tsar (Rockport, MA: Element, 1993), 205–11. 81

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like Christianity and that it did not oppose modern science. At an All-Buryat Buddhist Congress in 1922, Dorzhiev, influenced by Buddhist teachings as well as socialist ideas, called for the abolition of lamas’ private property, the creation of communal forms of living, and elections for the monastic hierarchy. He also attacked greed, ignorance, and other abuses among Buddhists. At the Congress, and in general, these ideas met with great resistance. However, some of Dorzhiev’s supporters did attempt to implement them. Several monasteries set up agricultural communes that were encouraged by the government. However, most lamas were inexperienced farmers and the communes had little success. Many lamas also ignored Dorzhiev and the government-encouraged commune system and continued as usual until the application of Stalin’s antireligious policies in the 1930s.83 Conclusion The history of the Buryat people in Russia to the 1920s can be characterized by the increasing state involvement in their everyday lives. When Buryat lands were first incorporated into the Russian Empire, the central government was satisfied with a tributary, or iasak, relationship with the Buryats. As long as iasak was paid, the Buryats largely ran their own internal affairs. Although the state attempted to influence Buryat institutions, such as Russian Buddhism, it did not consistently enforce many of its own regulations and the government often limited interfernce such as Orthodox missionary activity. However, as the Russian state built a larger and more far-reaching bureaucracy, it designed legislation to better control Siberia and those who lived there. This meant that the government’s relationship with the Buryats changed. In the nineteenth century, government officials began to believe it was necessary to force the Buryats, and other supposed “back83

Christopher P. Atwood, Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire (New York: Facts on File, 2004), 151–2; Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 275– 6; Humphrey, “Magical Drawings,” 82–90; Montgomery, Late Tsarist and Early Soviet, 225–30; Snelling, Buddhism in Russia, 205–11, 221.

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ward peoples” in the empire, to meet imperial economic and cultural standards. Although Speranskii’s laws governing the Siberians granted the Buryats autonomy, he too envisioned that the Buryats would eventually stop nomadizing and become more like Russian peasants. Despite these ideas, however, at the turn of the twentieth century, the majority of Buryats showed no sign of completely giving up their nomadic or semi-nomadic way of life. However, there was pressure. With the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway, the migration of thousands of Russian European peasants east, and the desire to both control Siberia and make it more productive, the government enacted policies intended to force the Buryats to settle. In addition to government plans for Russia’s Buryats, a small, educated Buryat intelligentsia had begun at the turn of the twentieth century to propose their own plans for the future of the Buryat people. Many of them argued that the Buryats already had a unique civilization; it was only a matter of adapting it to the changing times. Numerous Buryats offered various ideas for a path of modernization that would work for the Buryat people. Delegates of the 1905 Buryat congresses, Atamon Semenov, Burnatskom leaders, Agvan Dorzhiev, Buryat Bolsheviks, and others proposed ways of structuring Buryat society. With the ascent of Soviet power in Siberia, these options decreased. Then, when Stalin consolidated his rule and began to implement his plans for modernization in the 1930s, many of those options, along with the people behind them, disappeared.

CHAPTER 2

Stalinism in Buryatia

During the 1920s, authorities in Buryatia espoused atheism, promoted communal farms, and encouraged Buryats to become workers and local government bureaucrats. Although some Buryats answered these calls, the majority did not. Instead, the everyday life of most continued much as it had before the October Revolution and the Russian Civil War. The majority of Buryats lived privately off the land and had minimal contact with the government. This changed, however, when in the 1930s, Joseph Stalin chose to forcibly collectivize the country’s agriculture, rapidly industrialize, and centralize economic decision-making. These policies ended the government’s more relaxed attitudes toward religion, nomadism, and Buryat culture. However, it was collectivization, more than any previous tsarist or Soviet government policy that profoundly affected the majority of Buryats. Settling the Buryats on collective farms changed their economy and it brought them under the strictest government control in their history. Settled communal life, as well as increasing urbanization, also exposed the Buryats more regularly to Soviet institutions that brought greater cultural homogenization and European influence. Many Buryats did not simply accept collectivization. They rebelled, slaughtered their animals rather than hand them over to collective farms, or moved to China or Mongolia. However, for authorities in Moscow, the policy of collectivization was final and there were to be no alternatives. Therefore by the end of the 1930s, the majority of rural Buryats had either joined the collective farms,

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died resisting, or had fled the country. Their plight was exacerbated by the elimination of native Buryat elites. Stalin’s economic policies were coupled with the use of purges and terror to destroy former, and even contemporary, elites, who were accused of threatening Soviet power or hindering the country’s modernizing goals. In Buryatia, local officials, as well as outsiders, worked to remove the Buryat noyon (the traditional ruling class), lamas, shamans, prerevolutionary Buryat intellectuals, and even members of the recently created young communist Buryat elite. Many were publicly denounced, arrested, sent to labor camps, or executed. Others joined collective farms, accepted demotions, or changed their professions. While collectivization, purges, and terror did not completely wipe out the Buryat leadership that had existed in the 1930s, they did narrow the options for what type of person from then on officially served as an elite. Elites were no longer to be noyon, high lamas, or pan-Mongolist intellectuals. Instead, the new Buryat elite needed to be useful to the country’s modernizing projects. For that, they needed to be Soviet-educated, Russian speaking, professional, and often urban. Authorities wanted educators, scholars, writers, bureaucrats, journalists, and many others to design and build a new Buryat society that was modern and Soviet, but that also retained certain acceptable elements that were distinctly Buryat meant to show the regime’s magnanimity. For that reason, officials sought to replace old elites with new, more supposedly loyal and reliable leaders. Building new institutions was crucial to this process. For example, the Buryat-Mongolian Writers’ Union and the Buryat-Mongolian Pedagogical Institute helped to educate and grow a new generation of Soviet Buryat leaders. This chapter focuses on the foundation of such institutions in Buryatia during the 1930s, as well as Stalin’s harsh policies of collectivization, terror, and purges. Stalinism dictated the parameters within which the Buryats could negotiate and navigate towards group and personal fulfillment. While opportunities to shape or influence the direction of this were vastly reduced, the foundation of new institutions did create, for some, favorable circumstances. Like chapter one, this chapter serves as a background to the more detailed study of the Buryat postwar transformation in the chapters that follow.

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Collectivization and the End of Nomadism At the end of the 1920s, Stalin concluded that the country must immediately modernize. He decided that the New Economic Policy (NEP), a program designed by Lenin that allowed for a mixed system of capitalism and socialism, was not working. Instead, the country needed to fully eliminate capitalism and build a truly socialist economy. The collectivization of agriculture became a key component of this plan. Authorities argued that if the government seized the land and settled rural residents on collective farms, it could control the economic output in the countryside, sell the surplus abroad, and use the money to finance rapid industrialization. It was especially crucial to industrialize because Stalin believed that the more modernized, capitalist countries would eventually launch an attack against the Soviet Union. The country needed to be prepared. Collectivization would not only facilitate industrialization and prepare the country for an outside invasion, but it would allow authorities to modernize the rural parts of the country by introducing new agricultural technology and farming methods. Soviet economists believed that the country’s nomads were especially useless to the modern, socialist society they envisioned because they argued that their form of livestock breeding produced little surplus. Through collectivization, they claimed that the government could modernize the nomads’ methods, intensify their labor, increase the number of livestock, and condense the amount of land used by animals in order to free up more space for cultivation.1 This would allow them to contribute positively to the Soviet economy. In addition, collectivization offered an opportunity for officials to change what they saw as more “backward” nomadic and settled rural peoples into modern, agricultural workers by bringing schools and cultural institutions to them on collective farms. For Stalin, the collectivization and rapid industrialization process required finding supporters as well as routing out “enemies of 1

N. R. Mangutov, “Agrarnye preobrazovaniia v sovetskoi Buriatii do pobedy kolkhoznogo stroia,” Istoriia SSSR, 6 (1959), 37; Levin and Potapov, The Peoples of Siberia, 230–3; N. Vasil’ev, “Kollektivizatsiia i zhivotnovodstvo Buriatii,” Revoliutsiia i natsional’nosti 9, no. 18 (1931), 58.

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the people.” It was also a way to eliminate the class-based society that Stalin and his supporters believed had been erroneously allowed to continue to exist under the NEP. In the countryside, collectivizers therefore sought to end the “class struggle” through a policy of dekulakization: the deportation of hundreds of thousands of kulaks, the supposedly wealthier peasants or nomads, into exile or forced labor. The remaining poor and middle classes were to be rounded up and settled onto collective farms. Therefore, in the Buryat republic local officials, following nationwide trends began to see “kulaks” and “enemies” everywhere within rural Buryat society. They claimed that the Buryat noyon (the traditional Buryat aristocratic class) was the wealthier class just like the kulaks among the peasantry and it was they who exploited the poorer Buryats. Like the wealthier peasants, members of the noyon were therefore specifically targeted during collectivization. The noyon was to be “liquidated as a class.”2 The collectivization campaign in Buryatia began in the winter of 1929–30. When it started, officials carried the work out very quickly and on a large scale. Rural authorities created commissions to expropriate kulaks and noyon and move farmers and nomads onto collective farms. These commissions included various regional officials, representatives from rural soviets and local party organizations, poor and middle class peasants and herders, and OGPU police (the organization that would later become the KGB).3 Urban workers, communists, Komsomol members, and students, collectively known as the 25,000ers, were also voluntarily mobilized to help local officials with collectivization.4 Although the BuryatMongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR) only 2

C. A. Maksanov, Ideino-politicheskaia rabota kommunisticheskoi partii v Buriatii (Oktiabr’ 1917 g. – iiun’ 1941 g.) (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1978), 125–6. 3 OGPU stands for Ob’edinennoe gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie in Russian (All-Union State Political Administration). It was the precursor to the NKVD, which later became the KGB. 4 Bazarov, Kuras, Shagdurov, Istoriia Buriatii, 50. For general information on the 25,000ers, see Sheila Fitzpatrick, Stalin’s Peasants: Resistance and Survival in the Russian Village After Collectivization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 50, 54.

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initially received 103 of the 25,000ers, mostly from Leningrad, they were very influential. This was because they were given powerful positions with enormous control even though they knew almost nothing about the region, livestock, or farming.5 The 25,000ers were also granted prominent positions in the few existing Buryat communes and local leaders were demoted or dismissed. For example, Buda Sangadiin, a Buryat who founded and led the Arbizhil commune that was created in 1927 in the Barguzin district, was demoted in 1930 and replaced by a 25,000er from a Leningrad shoe factory.6 Although most of the 25,000ers knew little about agriculture and animal husbandry, officials assigned them with important jobs because the new collective farms were to be run essentially like factories in the countryside. The Communist Party believed that experienced urban residents would therefore be better suited for the work. Also, the 25,000ers had no local ties in the communities in which they served. Therefore officials assumed that they would be more loyal and efficient in carrying out Party directives. There were many similarities between the implementation of the tsarist land legislation of 1900–04 described in Chapter 1, and the Soviet policies of forced collectivization. In both cases, Buryat leaders were dismissed and replaced with government appointed non-Buryats who were often outsiders. During both campaigns, non-Buryat administrators were sent throughout Buryatia to carry out the reforms. Authorities did this to avoid conflicts of interest as well as ensure loyalty. Officials punished those who did not comply. The major difference in the Soviet period, however, was the fact that the policies were executed on a massive scale. Settling the state’s nomads was a small part of a much larger countrywide project. Therefore, an enormous amount of resources were available to the men and women who carried out the collectivization campaign. Also, importantly, Soviet officials implemented a time frame. Authorities expected the Buryats to be settled by the end of the First Five-year Plan. Although it took longer than they desired, there was no question that it would not be completed quickly. Tsarist adminis5

N. Ia. Gushchin, Rabochii klass Sibiri v bor’be za sozdanie kolkhoznogo stroia (Novosibirsk: Izdatel’stvo “Nauka,” 1965), 66. 6 Humphrey, Marx Went Away, 143–4.

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trators never put into place a plan that would eradicate nomadism in such a short time. Buryat herders responded to collectivization with violence as they had during the implementation of the late tsarist land legislation. One of the greatest differences during the Soviet period was that non-Buryat peasants also violently protested the government reforms, creating a much larger movement. In the spring of 1930, a massive wave of protests and rebellions occurred all over the republic. While many of these uprisings were spontaneous, OGPU documents show that rebellions could also be large, coordinated efforts.7 For the more planned protests, leaders communicated and worked together to create simultaneous uprisings and to take over wide areas. In several cases, both Buryat nomads and Russian peasants worked together against the government’s new policies. For instance, in March 1930, in the Selenginsk region, an Old Believer named P. I. Tiuriukhanov organized a protest that gained both Buryat and peasant supporters.8 In another example from the Mukhorshibir’skii region, a Russian peasant named A. P. Izmailov attempted to organize both Buryats and Russians. He started by leading a large group of peasants who began seizing villages and collective farms. Unfortunately for those involved in both cases, OGPU forces violently put down these revolts.9 The most common form of specifically Buryat resistance was carried out by small groups of Buryats who refused to be collectivized and fled to the forest instead. These groups then sometimes raided collective farms and small villages for supplies. On such occasions, communist officials could be killed. These raids were risky because they could give the OGPU police more knowledge about the rebels’ existence and whereabouts. OGPU police regularly hunted for such escapees in order to arrest, execute, or exile them from Buryatia. Many of these groups that escaped collectivi7

A selection of OGPU and other important documents pertaining to collectivization can be found in D. L. Dorzhiev, Krest’ianskie vosstaniia i miatezhi v Buriatii v 20-30 gody (khronika iazykom dokumenta) (Ulan Ude: ONTs. “Sibir’,” 1993) and S. D. Namsaraev (ed.), Istoriia Buriatii, konets XIX v. –1941 g. (Ulan-Ude: ONTs. “Sibir’,” 1993). 8 Dorzhiev, Krest’ianskie vosstaniia, 59, 64. 9 Ibid., 62.

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zation also attempted to cross the border into Mongolia or Manchuria just as they had done during previous times of oppression. In 1929, 1,450 Buryat nomads sold or abandoned their herds and emigrated. OGPU forces attempted to stop the flow of Buryats out of the Soviet Union and frequent clashes occurred along the borders.10 The Buryats were not the only Soviet citizens who sought to leave the country. Others living in border regions did the same. For example in Kazakhstan, many thousands of nomads fled to the Xinjiang province of China to escape the collectivization campaign.11 The strong reaction against collectivization around the country most likely caused Stalin to pause. On March 2, 1930, he issued his famous “Dizzy with Success” article that called for an end to the “excessive measures” used by local officials in carrying out collectivization. He demanded acknowledgment and correction of the mistakes made during the collectivization drive and declared an end to the earlier coercive methods used to force peasants and nomads onto collective farms. Central authorities also specifically recognized the excesses in the regions of Central Asia, Buryatia, and Yakutia. Pravda announced a reversal of policy claiming that these “culturally and economically backward” areas were not ready for collectivization, although much economic damage had already been done.12 Indeed, nomads in these regions had slaughtered thousands of animals when faced with forced settlement and the economic impact was severe. After the 1929 to 1930 winter collectivization campaign in the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR, the number of cattle was reduced by 23.4 percent, sheep by 14.7 percent, and horses by 9.3 percent.13 10

Leonid Kuras, Ocherki istorii organov gosudarstvennoi bezopasnosti Respubliki Buriatiia (Ulan-Ude, 1998), 72; Robert Rupen, How Mongolia is Really Ruled: A Political History of the Mongolian People’s Republic, 1900–1978 (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 1979), 55. 11 Bhavna Dave, Kazakhstan: Ethnicity, Language, and Power (London: Routlege, 2007), 56; Martha Brill Olcott,“The Collectivization Drive in Kazakhstan,” The Russian Review 40, no. 2 (April 1981), 128. 12 Quoted in Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors, 195. 13 L. A. Zaitseva, “Sel’skoe khoziaistvo Buriatii i kollektivizatsiia derevni (20–30e gody)” in N. N. Shcherbakov (ed.), 20–30-e gody: Problemy regionalnoi istorii (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’stvo ONTs “Sibir’,” 1994), 67–8.

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When Stalin’s “Dizzy with Success” article came out in March 1930, officials had reportedly already collectivized 33 percent of the residents of the republic. The change in policy from Moscow however, inspired a mass exodus from the collective farms in Buryatia and this number dropped to 21 percent by May. Between March and April 1930, 67 percent of those leaving the collective farms in the republic were Buryat, while only 33 percent were Russian and others.14 This indicates that either the Buryats were more displeased with collectivization or still had the means to support themselves once they left the collective farms. The brutal repression that occurred during the first wave of collectivization was certainly a strong motivation to leave. The Buryat-Mongolian Communist Party itself acknowledged problems, blaming the Buryat exodus on “bad organization of labor” and weak Party work among the poor and women. Local officials stated there were many other “mistakes” as well.15 Inexperienced collectivizers settled Buryats in areas without sufficient access to water and pastures, provisions for the animals in winter, and adequate housing. In June 1930, officials issued a new decree on settling Central Asian and Siberian nomads more efficiently. It stated that in order to eradicate the influence of kulaks, noyons, and lamas on the masses, as well as the “backward cattle-breeding economy,” wellplanned measures, “more understandable to the poor and middle class nomads,” needed to be implemented.16 The directive originated in Moscow, where officials decided that a simpler form of collective farm was needed. They suggested that land, machinery, and dwellings should be held in common on such farms, but livestock could be handled privately.17 Once this was issued, the no14

Bazarov, Kuras, and Shagdurov, Istoriia Buriatii, 52. Namsaraev, Istoriia Buriatii, 54. 16 The decree is reprinted in A. P. Kosykh, Istoriia kollektivizatsii sel’skogo khoziaistva v vostochnoi Sibiri (1927–1937 gg.) (Irkutsk: Vostochno-Sibirskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1979), 149. 17 M. Lewin, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968), 533–4; Olcott, “The Collectivization Drive,” 131. The new form of collective farms for nomads was to be the TOZ, which stands for Tovarishchestvo po obshchestvennoi obrabotki zemlin in Russian (“Association for the Common Cultivation of Land”). 15

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madic herders of Buryatia were told again that they would have to collectivize, although this time with a supposedly more attractive deal. Despite the directive for a new form of collective farm meant to be more appealing, rebellions and uprisings continued in Buryatia throughout the summer of 1930. The OGPU recruited formerly retired Chekist guards and brought in military troops to help put down violence and destroy roaming groups of dissenters.18 By the fall of 1930, these measures were rather successful and much of the unrest was suppressed. Thousands of protesters were imprisoned or executed. However, authorities in Moscow then reversed the cessation in collectivization that had started in the spring of 1930, and renewed the campaign again with vigor in the beginning of 1931. This action set off another wave of unrest, as well as harsh reprisals in the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR. For officials, the goal of settling the Buryats onto collective farms became primary.19 The drive to collectivize the Buryats quickly meant that the same problems from earlier persisted. Collective farm locations continued to have poor land and water facilities. Barns and housing were minimal. As more and more Buryats were moved onto farms, they were instructed to grow hay for their animals on a larger scale than ever before. However, there were few tractors and other machinery necessary for hay harvesting and cultivation. These problems, coupled with the use of force and a general refusal to relocate, brought about more protests in the first months of 1931. Bands of Buryats once again roamed the forests. In one such incident, a Buryat teacher reportedly fled into the countryside, leading 27 people who had chosen to run away rather than have to face deportation for being labeled kulaks.20 The OGPU formed combat detachments to chase down these groups and they tried to prevent them from crossing the border into Mongolia or China. Many Buryats escaped, but those who were caught were generally executed or imprisoned.21 18

Kuras, Ocherki istorii, 68, 76–8. Namsaraev, Istoriia Buriatii, 54. 20 Dorzhiev, Krest’ianskie vosstaniia, 51. 21 Ibid., 51–6. 19

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The collectivization campaign and protests against it continued well into the mid-1930s. However, government policies promising the Buryats an exemption from state taxes for five years if they entered the farms, helped increase settlement and reduce unrest.22 In addition, many Buryats had slaughtered their animals in the spring of 1931, as they had the year before. For that reason they were probably more willing to accept the new government incentives and enter collective farms simply in order to survive. Some Buryats again slaughtered their own herds in 1932, causing an estimated 62 percent reduction in the total number of livestock in the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR since 1929.23 At that point it was clear that three years of slaughter diminished the chances for those refusing to join collective farms to survive on their own. Authorities pressured the Buryats to relocate in other ways as well. Meat processing plants refused to buy animals from private herders and farmers. Prices for necessary items were also highly inflated for them, making it almost impossible to buy any supplies. For these reasons, around 23,000 Buryat families agreed to settle onto collective farms by the end of 1932, bringing the total to about 65 percent of the population. By 1938, republic officials reported that 92 percent of all Buryat families were settled.24 Accounts of collectivization offered in the press gave a much more positive picture of the situation in Buryatia. For example, an article in Revoliutsiia i natsional’nosti from 1935 claimed that the Buryats were now living “prosperously” and that campaigns to “civilize” the “backward” herders through hygiene lessons, literacy campaigns, and policies to equalize the status of women had been successful. The Buryats’ formerly “backward” livestock breeding methods were explained to have been now corrected with modern22

N. Iushunev, “Osedanie kochevnikov Buriato-Mongolii,” Revoliutsiia i Natsional’nosti 12, no. 46 (1933), 26. 23 Zaitseva, “Sel’skoe khoziaistvo,” 67. She reports that in 1931 in the BuryatMongolian ASSR, horses were reduced by 15.6%, cattle by 26.4%, and sheep by 38.4% and that the reductions were even higher in the southeastern regions. 24 Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 333; A. D. Skuratov (ed.), Buriatskaia ASSR za 50 let: Statisticheskii sbornik (Ulan-Ude: TsSU RSFSR Statisticheskoe upravlenie Buriatskoi ASSR, 1967), 24.

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ized Soviet ones.25 However, these reports were certainly exaggerated especially given the fact that the number of livestock in the republic in 1937 was still 50 percent less than it had been before 1929.26 The supposedly “modern” Soviet agricultural methods also did not produce as rapid a rise in livestock as the previous “backward” methods had done during the last agricultural setback during the Russian Civil War. Soviet policies under Stalin were successful in settling the Buryats onto collective farms, but at a great cost to human life and an incredible reduction in herds. Terrorizing and Purging the Buryat Elite Those accused of being exploitative kulaks and noyon in the countryside were not the only supposed “enemies” that authorities found in Buryatia. Stalin’s policies in the 1930s required local officials to find enemies within all of the republic’s institutions ranging from the Communist Party to the university to the Buddhist monastery. Authorities were charged with uncovering traitors, saboteurs, and dangerous elements. These people then needed to be confronted, arrested, exiled, or executed. In Buryatia, officials invented the story that traitors were widespread in Buryatia and that many of them were working as spies for Japan in order to carry out that country’s empire-building goals. This story was largely connected to fears about Japan’s actions in China. In 1932, Japan set up the puppet state of Manchukuo in Manchuria and in 1936 it created the autonomous region of Mengjiang in Inner Mongolia. Once again, Soviet authorities feared Japanese intentions in Siberia just as they had feared them during the Russian Civil War era when Japan had supported men such as Ataman Grigorii Semenov, who had attempted to create a pan-Mongol state. While there is no evidence that any serious Buryat pan-Mongol efforts existed in eastern Siberia in the 1930s, officials nevertheless accused thousands in Buryatia of being “pan-Mongolists,” “Japanese spies,” and “bourgeois 25

G. S. Gordeev, “Buriat-kolkhoznik zhivet zazhitochno,” Revoliutsiia i natsional’nosti 11, no. 69 (1935), 60–5. 26 Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 333.

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nationalists.” These were serious charges and enough to get someone executed or sent to the Gulag. As elsewhere in the Soviet Union, many of the Buryats purged in the late 1930s were high Party officials, heads of various institutions, scholars, artists, and writers. Most of the early Buryat intellectuals and former members of Burnatskom, such as Tyben Zhamtsarano, were arrested, executed, or died in prisons or labor camps.27 However, many young, educated, prominent Buryats, such as the writer, Ts. Don (Tsydenzhap Dondupovich Dondubon), were targeted for elimination as well.28 Purges of high Party officials were particularly thorough. Almost all of the top administrators for each of the republic’s territorial units were removed. In some areas of the republic, such as the Khorinskii region, one-third of all Party members were arrested. In Ulan-Ude, the entire Council of People’s Commissars of the Republic (the ministers of the republic) was purged. The republic’s first secretary, the Buryat and longtime Bolshevik, Mikhei Nikolaevich Erbanov, was arrested in 1937 and died a year later.29 Central authorities then replaced him with an outside non-Buryat Party apparatchik named Semen Denisovich Ignatev.30 Other old Buryat Bolsheviks were purged as well. The republic’s first leader, the western Buryat Vasilii Il’ich Trubacheev, who had been working in Moscow since the mid-1920s, was killed in 1938.31 Others though were luckier. Maria Mikhailovna Sakh’ianova, who had served as first secretary before Erbanov, was spared.32 However, central authorities had earlier removed her to an administra27

For more on Tyben Zhamtsarano and Burnatskom, see Chapter 1. Bazarov, Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn’, 77. 29 Mikhei Nikolaevich Erbanov served as the third first secretary of the republic from 1928 to 1937. See G. D. Basaev and S. Ia. Erbanova, M. N. Erbanov (UlanUde: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1989), 210–1. 30 Ignatev was ethnically Ukrainian and served as first secretary in Buryatia until 1943. After six years in Buryatia, authorities sent him to the Bashkir ASSR to serve as first secretary there. In Buryatia, Ignatev was then replaced with another outside party apparatchik: the ethnic Russian Aleksandr Vasileevich Kudriavtsev who served as first secretary until 1951. 31 Vasilii Il’ich Trubacheev was the republic’s first first secretary. He served a little over a year from 1923 to 1924. 32 Maria Mikhailovna Sakh’ianova served as the second first secretary of the republic from 1924 to 1928. 28

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tive post outside of Buryatia where she could not threaten or intervene in the changes taking place in her homeland. When the purges were over, a large segment of the republic’s experienced leaders and intellectuals—many of whom had expressed loyalty to the Soviet Union—had disappeared forever. In addition to eliminating supposed nationalists and traitors, Stalin’s leap to socialist modernity also required the eradication of religious leaders and their institutions. While authorities had begun to persecute Buryat shamans in the 1920s, it was the destructive collectivization campaigns of the 1930s that was detrimental to their existence. Moving rural Buryats onto collective farms suppressed shamanic communities in the countryside. While some Buryats continued to practice shamanic traditions and ceremonies throughout the entire Soviet period, the disruption of social structures and village life during collectivization seriously diminished the place of shamanism in rural societies.33 The turn against Buddhism, with its large datsans and temples, was much more visibly destructive and direct. The first datsan closure came in 1929. Authorities decided to eliminate the rest during the second Five Year Plan from 1933 to 1937. In numerous cases, local officials and clubs formed of zealous young atheists burned the datsan buildings to the ground. Workers at the anti-religious museum in Ulan-Ude were able to save some of the datsans’ precious religious objects and texts, but in the end it was only a small amount. Many artistic and religious treasures were lost, melted down for armaments during the war, placed in museum displays and warehouses, or completely destroyed.34 Along with the datsans themselves, both high-ranking and common Buddhist lamas were also targeted. In 1931, Agvan Dorzhiev, the leader of the 1920s Buddhist reformist movement, was 33

Humphrey, Marx Went Away, 402–17; Fridman, Sacred Geography, 119–8, 148–50. 34 Fridman, Sacred Geography, 131; Nicholas N. Poppe, “The Buddhists.” In Genocide in the USSR: Studies in Group Destruction. Edited by Nikolai K. Deker and Andrei Lebed (New York: Scarecrow Press, 1958), 190–1; Nataliia Zhukovskaia, “The Revival of Buddhism in Buryatia: Problems and Prospects.” In Religion and Politics in Russia: A Reader. Edited by Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer. (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2010), 200.

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ordered to leave Buryatia for Leningrad. He remained in exile there until 1937 when he was permitted to return. Shortly thereafter though, he was arrested and died in a prison hospital in January 1938.35 Ordinary lamas were also harassed, terrorized, and purged. During the destruction of the datsans, lamas were often rounded up and sent to prison camps where many of them later died. The harshest single attack on lamas occurred on November 1, 1938, when 1,864 lamas were arrested. Out of this number, 968 were convicted and never heard from again. Sadly, their fate is still unknown today.36 The physical annihilation of Buddhism at this time was violent and far-reaching. However, authorities did allow for a limited revival of Buddhism during WWII under Stalin’s more relaxed religious polices. During the war, Soviet officials permitted religious leaders to bless troops, aid parishioners, and help people cope with the terrible devastation brought about by invading Nazi troops. Officials believed that all resources should be used for the war effort and if individuals needed religion to see them through it, then authorities were willing to grant moderate toleration.37 These more lenient wartime policies, as well as a desire by authorities to use religious institutions for propaganda purposes abroad after the war, set into motion the opening up of two datsans in 1946. One was Ivolga, an entirely new datsan that had been constructed not far from Ulan-Ude and housed the newly appointed Pandito-Khambo Lama, and the other was Aga, a resurrection of a former Buddhist monastery located in the Aginsk region.38 However, the state carefully restricted the activities of these datsans. It limited the number 35

Abaev, Buddhism in Buryatia, 61; Forsyth, History of the Peoples, 334; Caroline Humphrey, “Magical Drawings in the Religion of the Buryat”, 90; Poppe, “The Buddhists,” 190–1; Snelling, Buddhism in Russia, 238–52. 36 B. V. Bazarov, Iu. P. Shagdurov, and L. V. Kuras, “Politika repressii v Buriatii (20–30-e gody)” in Tezisy i doklady nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii “Prolemy istorii Buriatii” (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN, 1993), 97. 37 Philip Walters, “A Survey of Soviet Religious Policy,” in Sabrina Petra Ramet (ed.), Religious Policy in the Soviet Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 16–7. 38 Zhukovskaia, “The Revival of Buddhism,” 200.

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of lamas that could reside there, only permitted lamas to conduct ceremonies and consult with believers at the datsans, and had the KGB keep close watch over them.39 In addition, in 1946 authorities created a new state-controlled institution called the Central Spiritual Buddhist Authority to formally oversee all Buddhist activities in the Soviet Union.40 Thus, although Buddhism was permitted to continue in a narrow capacity after the massive destruction of the 1930s, authorities sought to marginalize its influence through official institutionalization and greater supervision. In addition to the lack of information on the purging of lamas, materials are scarce on the deaths of kulaks, noyon, Party officials, intellectuals, and ordinary individuals as well. The available data presented here was produced by a few local scholars in Buryatia, who were granted limited archival access there in the early 1990s. From their findings, official reports claim that 2,979 kulaks were arrested and 2,208 convicted during the collectivization campaign. For the 1937 and 1938 purges, 6,836 people were reportedly arrested. Of this number 4,907 were convicted. From those convicted, 2,483 were sentenced to be shot immediately and 2,424 were sent to labor camps.41 However, access to more material on this period has been restricted and many archival documents are unavailable. An attempt to analyze all of the actual losses due to collectivization, anti-religious campaigns, political purges, terror, and migration to Mongolia and China is difficult. What we do know from Sovietwide census taking is that in 1926 there were approximately 237,000 Buryats in the Soviet Union. In 1939 that number had dropped to 225,000.42 These numbers are even more striking in comparison to the 1897 census report that stated there were 288,883 Buryats in the Russian empire.43 In addition, if we add in another approximately 19,000 Buryat deaths from WWII, the overall loss of 39

For example, see reports about people practicing Buddhism in the later Soviet period in Natsional’nyi arkhiv Respubliki Buriatii (NARB), f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8984. 40 Anna Bernstein, “Buddhist Revival in Buryatia: Recent Perspectives,” Mongolian Studies 25 (2002), 5; Zhukovskaia, “The Revival of Buddhism,” 200. 41 Bazarov, Shagdurov, Kuras, “Politika repressii,” 96–7. 42 D. D. Nimaev, “Naselenie Buriatii,” 45–6. 43 Ibid., 44.

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Buryat people in Siberia in the first half of the twentieth century is therefore quite severe. The population did not regain its prerevolutionary numbers until the 1960s.44 Territorial Changes to Divide the Buryats Collectivization, purges, terror, and anti-religious campaigns were policies that were implemented across the USSR regardless of nationality. However, in the late 1930s and into the WWII years, Stalin came to specifically doubt the loyalty of the ethnic groups that resided along the Soviet borders. In order to better control these border nationalities or even punish them for their presumed traitorous intentions, Stalin decided to upset their connections to their homelands and/or links to their ethnic groups located outside of the Soviet Union. In many cases, Soviet authorities moved border ethnicities to the interior of the country. For example, the Korean and Chinese populations were removed from the Russian Far East and the Chechens from the Caucasus. All three were then resettled in Central Asia.45 Instead of deporting the Buryats from their traditional homeland around Lake Baikal, authorities decided to break up the territory of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR. This was intended to divide the Buryats and thus weaken any pan-Mongolist and anti-Soviet intentions. In 1937, authorities in Moscow decreased the territory of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR by 40 percent. The Alar, Bokhan, EkhiritBulagat, and Ol’khon regions were transferred to the Irkutsk Oblast’. The Aginsk and Ulan-Onon regions became part of the Chita Oblast’. Within the Irkutsk and Chita territories, two Buryat autonomous regions were created that incorporated some, but not 44

Around 10,000 Buryats from the BMASSR, 6,000 from the Ust’-Ordinskii Buryat Autonomous Okrug, and 3,000 from the Aginskii Buryat Autonomous Okrug lost their lives in WWII. See G. L. Sanzhiev, “Obrazovanie i razvitie respubliki, ee znachenie,” in G.L. Sanzhiev (ed.), Respublike Buriatiia—70 let (Ulan-Ude: Gazetno-zhurnal’noe izdatel’stvo, 1993), 14; E. E. Tarmakhanov, L. M. Dameshek, and T. E. Sanzhieva, Istoriia Ust’-Ordynskogo Buriatskogo avtonomnogo okruga (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2003), 142, 155. 45 Andreas Kappler, The Russian Empire: A Multiethnic History (London: Pearson Education Limited, 2001), 380.

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all, of the regions listed above. These were the Ust'-Ordinskii Buryat-Mongolian National Okrug and the Aginskii BuryatMongolian National Okrug. These changes were made without the consent of the government of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR despite the existence of article 15 in the republic’s constitution that specified that no territorial alterations could be made without local approval.46 However, even if the members of the republic’s government had tried to stop these changes, there was little opportunity as they were falling victim to Stalin’s purges at the very same time that the republic’s territory was being reduced. These territorial shifts had significant consequences for the Buryat people and would later become a rallying point in the 1980s for Buryat nationalists who sought to reverse them. By shrinking the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR, creating two new smaller autonomous regions, and leaving some Buryats outside of any specifically designated Buryat territory, Soviet authorities denied the Buryats a larger unified homeland. Whereas in 1923, Soviet officials had designed a territory that encompassed over 90 percent of the country’s Buryats, in 1937, Stalin’s government brought this unity to an end. After the territorial changes, the now smaller Buryat-Mongolian ASSR contained only a little over 50 percent of Siberia’s Buryats. This meant that the ethnic Buryat representation in the republic dropped to 21.3 percent.47 The rest of the Buryats were largely divided between the two neighboring regions: 28.5 percent in the Irkutsk Oblast’ and 14.8 percent in the Chita territory.48 Buryat representation continued to remain low especially 46

A. A. Elaev, Buriatskii narod: Stanovlenie, razvitie, samoopredelenie (Moscow: Rossiiskaia akademiia gosudarstvennoi sluzhby, 2000), 217–8, 221–3; Boris Chichlo, “Histoire de la formation des territoires autonomes chez les peoples turco-mongols de Siberie,” Cahiers du Monde russe et sovietique 28, nos. 3–4 (1987), 369–71; Elizaveta Nikolaivna Palkhaeva, “Stanovlenie i razvitie Aginskoie i Ust’-Ordynskogo Buriatskikh avtonomnykh okrugov, kak natsional’nogosudarstvennykh obrazovanii (1937–1995 gg.)” (PhD diss., Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2000), 28–34. 47 Zateev and Kharaev, Dinamika izmenenii, 68. 48 Elena Borisovna Bolkhosoeva, “Territorial’nye osobennosti formirovaniia i rasseleniia buriatskogo naseleniia Predbaikal’ia i Zabaikal’ia” (PhD diss., Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2002), 94.

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with the continued migration of European Soviet citizens from the western regions of the country. Laying the Foundations for a New Culture Authorities used the territorial reductions, purges, attacks on religion, and collectivization campaign to push aside older elites and pave the way for the creation of a new class of educated, skilled, and capable citizens who would carry out Stalin’s modernization plans. Throughout the 1930s, educators and policymakers in Buryatia received directions from Moscow, debated among themselves, and struggled through the terror and purges in order to create standardization in educational, media, and cultural institutions that would help in this process. This was no easy task and many lost their lives. However, by the end of the decade the foundations for many new institutions, such as educational and literary ones, as well as new standards for the Buryat language were in place. Much of this would remain as such throughout the entire Soviet period. One of the most consequential cultural processes that took place in Buryatia in the 1930s revolved around the standardization of a single literary Buryat language and the teaching of Buryat and Russian languages. In the early years of the Soviet Union, the policy of korenizatsiia had encouraged the development of the union’s various languages based on Lenin’s argument for promoting the equality of all languages in a multi-national state. Teachers were therefore required to teach in the Buryat language to Buryat republican children and Russian was then required as a second language. Since Buryat is a Mongolian language, the local government chose the vertical Mongolian script in the 1920s as the writing system for the Buryat language.49 This script had been brought to eastern Buryatia in the eighteenth century by Mongolian Buddhist missionaries and was already widely used among literate Buryats. 49

Robert W. Montgomery, Late Tsarist and Early Soviet Nationality and Cultural Policy: The Buryats and Their Langauge (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellon Press, 2005), 202–3.

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Throughout the 1920s, the Mongolian script was promoted as the standard writing system for the Buryat language. When the republic’s two main newspapers were founded in 1923—the Russianlanguage Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda and the Buryat-language Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen—the Buryat language one was published in the Mongolian script.50 By 1929 the circulation of BuriaadMongoloi Unen in the Mongolian script was 10,000. This was not much less than the Russian Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda, which had a circulation of around 14,000 at that time.51 In addition, about half of the books and pamphlets published in the republic were in Buryat in the Mongolian script. In 1926 for example, the local publishing house issued 52 titles in the Mongolian script on such topics as Leninism, hygiene, and animal husbandry. Periodicals in the Mongolian script were also regularly published.52 Although local officials were publishing in the Mongolian script, creating widespread usage of it was more challenging. Authorities had wanted teachers to be trained to teach and use the Mongolian script, but there were many problems. In 1926, school inspectors complained that many teachers, who taught in Buryat in the western regions of the republic, simply wrote Buryat in Cyrillic. They didn’t know the Mongolian script even though their textbooks were written in it.53 School inspectors also worried throughout the 1920s that there was too much mixing of the use of Buryat and Russian in classrooms by both teachers and students.54 This too hindered the development of the Mongolian script. Schools in western Buryatia continued to largely teach in Russian despite republican policies 50

The words pravda in Russian and unen in Buryat both mean “truth.” When the word “Mongolian” was dropped from the name of the Republic’s title in 1958, the papers’ names were changed to Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen. The two would remain the main newspapers in Buryatia throughout the entire Soviet period. 51 D. Ts. Namzhilova, Periodicheskaia pechat’ Buriatii: Istoriia stanovleniia i razvitiia (vtoraia polovina xix veka-1937 g.) (Ulan-Ude: Vostochno-Sibirskaia gosudarstvennaia akademiia kul’tury i isskustv, 2001), 65, 162. 52 E. A. Kuchmurukova, Istoriia knigoizdaniia Buriatii (vtoraia polovina 1930-x– 1991 gg.) (Ulan-Ude: Vostochno-Sibirskaia gosudarstvennaia akademiia kul’tury i isskustv, 2002), 30. 53 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1690, ll. 24–5. 54 Ibid., 24–5.

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that required teaching in Buryat. Even by 1927, only 27 Buryat schools in the western regions could claim that they could teach exclusively in Buryat.55 On the eastern side of the lake, school inspectors complained of another problem. Buryat children were exposed to poor quality Russian education. While more teachers could teach in the Buryat language and use the Mongolian script, inspectors expressed concerns that they only weakly knew Russian and students were graduating with a poor command of the language.56 The korenizatsiia policy promoted Buryat language education, but the Russian language was still a part of the curriculum. Local officials were concerned that there were not enough trained teachers to teach both effectively.57 Before anything was done to correct any of these various problems, the matter of teaching language in Buryatia became more complicated when a nationwide campaign got underway to change certain writing systems in the Soviet Union to the Latin alphabet. In 1926 the All-Union Turcological Congress passed a decision that all Turkic-speakers in the Soviet Union would begin to use the Latin alphabet instead of Arabic. Leaders explained that Latin was a more “internationalist” form of written communication. The language shift would also serve to diminish any pan-Islamic identity.58 The same logic was applied to Buryatia. Latin was slated for adoption for the Buryat language in 1929.59 As in Central Asia, the Soviet government saw this development in Buryatia as a progressive split with the past. It was a turn away from the Buryats’ supposed “feudal” history and their ties to other Mongols in Inner Asia. The use of Latin was touted as a shift toward internationalism and a rejection of pan-Mongolism. However, implementing the shift to Latin in Buryatia was a slow process. Although officials hoped it would be introduced in schools by 1933, it took almost eight years for local scholars to come up 55

Tarmakhanov, Dameshek, and Sanzhieva, Istoriia Ust’Ordynskogo, 151. NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1690, ll. 24–5. 57 V. P. Bituev, Istoriia shkoly Ust’-Ordynskogo Buriatskogo Avtonomnogo Okruga (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1986), 59. 58 William Fierman, Language Planning and National Development: The Uzbek Experience (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991), 53, 76. 59 Montgomery, Late Tsarist and Early Soviet, 264. 56

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with a standard Latinized system. In part, the shift was hindered by the chaos of Stalin’s purges and terror. In addition, the switch to Latin also required choosing one Buryat dialect and one standard orthography, something that was not necessary with the use of the Mongolian script. Local scholars were assigned the task and eventually suggested the Selenge dialect, identical to Khalkha, the standard dialect used in Mongolia. They also worked out an orthographic system. The new standard Latin Buryat writing system was officially adopted in 1937.60 Despite the great effort to Latinize the Buryat language, in 1939 Soviet authorities suddenly decided to switch all Latin alphabets in the country to Cyrillic. Instead of emphasizing the importance of internationalism, officials during the height of Stalinism decided to stress the importance of Russian instead. Authorities argued that Cyrillic would make it easier for non-Russians to learn Russian and that the use of Cyrillic would bring other languages of the Soviet Union closer together.61 The change to Cyrillic can also be seen as part of the policies aimed at border nationalities whose loyalties were suspect simply because they lived on the edges of the empire. The decision came shortly after the order was issued to break up the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR and reduce its territory by 40 percent. The new language policy was thus also intended to divide the Buryats and weaken pan-Mongol sentiments. Therefore, not only did Buryat authorities abandon Latin for Cyrillic, they decided to replace the Selenge dialect—the dialect most closely related to the standard Khalkha Mongolian on the other side of the border—with the less common Khori one. Certain words seen as too Mongolian or Tibetan were also removed entirely from the new standard literary Khori Buryat.62 The Buryat language shifts—from Buryat in the Mongolian script to Buryat in Latin to Buryat in Cyrillic—greatly inhibited the development of publishing in Buryat. For example, the circulation 60

Ibid, 266. Fierman, Language Planning, 136. 62 G. A. Dyrkheeva, Buriatskii iazyk v usloviiakh dvuiazychiia: Problemy funktsionirovaniia i perspektivy razvitiia (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN, 2002), 25; V. I. Andreev, Istoriia buriatskoi shkoly (1804–1962 gg.) (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1964), 418. 61

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of Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen, the main Buryat-language newspaper, dropped considerably. While it had a circulation of 10,000 in 1929 in the Mongolian script, it was printed in the Latin script in 1931 with a circulation of only 5,160 and fell to a measly 1,350 (still in Latin) in 1935.63 At the same time, the main Russian language paper, Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda increased its circulation substantially from 14,449 in 1928 to 39,642 in 1932 to 50,000 by the early postwar years.64 Although an influx of new Russian-speaking workers from the western part of the country helps to account for the increases in the Russian language press, it may also indicate that some Buryats chose to read the Russian paper rather than struggle through the language shifts in the Buryat one. The upheaval of collectivization in the countryside, the attacks on elites and religious leaders, and the territorial reduction certainly also affected the change in circulation numbers. It was not until after WWII and the completion of the switch to printing Buryat in Cyrillic that the Buryat-language press regained its pre-Latin circulation numbers. By 1952, Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen’s circulation was once again at 10,000 as it had been in 1929. Still, throughout the language shifts, Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda’s circulation had grown to 50,000.65 Thus, while the main Russian language press had expanded, the Buryat language one either had decreased or stayed the same. The language shifts were also connected to policies in education. Another reason that the Soviet government had pushed for Cyrillic in the late 1930s was because authorities, and Stalin in particular, argued that the country needed a common language for the military given the impending threat of another world war. Officials believed that the widespread use of Cyrillic would help students learn Russian. Therefore, not only were the country’s alphabets to be changed to Cyrillic, but more education in Russian was required as well. In 1938, central officials in Moscow issued a decree that made it mandatory for Russian language and literature to be taught in all 63

Dyrkheeva, Buriatskii iazyk, 17. D. Ts. Namzhilova, Periodicheskaia pechat’ Buriatii: Istoriia stanovleniia i razvitiia (Ulan-Ude: Vostochno-Sibirskaia gosudarstvennaia akademiia kul’tury isskusstv, 2001), 162; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6013, ll. 1–2. 65 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6013, ll. 1–2. 64

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Soviet schools. The decree set standards for introducing Russian language classes in all non-Russian schools. Students in primary schools were to start Russian as a subject in the second grade and students in seven-year schools in third.66 Still, the decree did not eradicate support for non-Russian languages. Stalin had personally helped in the drafting of the 1938 mandatory Russian education decree and had opposed proposals that would have severely curtailed non-Russian language education.67 Instead, the new policy was meant to stress the goal of bilingualism as a practical measure. The decree actually did not indicate a major shift in Buryatia because the Buryat Ministry of Education already had similar requirements regarding the teaching of Russian and these had been in place since the beginning of the decade. The Buryat-Mongolian Ministry of Education had declared in 1930 that Russian “is the language of the political life of the country and the language of higher culture and science. It should be introduced from the second year of study as a subject.”68 In practice, some regions of Buryatia received more Russian instruction than others. In eastern Buryatia, Russian was generally introduced as a subject in the second grade as local authorities had instructed. Buryat remained the primary language there until fifth grade. Once in fifth grade, all subjects were taught in Russian and Buryat was taught as a subject.69 However, in western Buryatia where Russian was more widespread, both Russian and Buryat were used in Buryat schools as teaching languages in the early grades.70 Evidence shows, therefore, that even before mandatory union-wide standardization in the Russian language, local authorities in Buryatia had already applied their own regular program that promoted the usage of both Buryat and Russian even if the results were different on each side of Lake Baikal. 66

Peter A. Blitstein, “Nation-Building or Russification? Obligatory Russian Instruction in the Soviet Non-Russian School, 1938–1953,” in Ronald Grigor Suny and Terry Martin (eds.), A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 253–9. 67 Ibid., 258, 267. 68 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1689, l. 16. 69 Ibid., 19–20. 70 Tarmakhanov, Dameshek, and Sanzhieva, Istoriia Ust’-Ordynskogo, 152.

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In addition to supporting bilingualism, the Buryat-Mongolian Ministry of Education also explained in 1930 that Buryat schools had a mission distinct from Russian schools. This was because Buryat schools, more than Russian ones, needed to emphasize internationalism—in other words the close and beneficial relationship between the various nations of the Soviet Union—in addition to the regular atheist and communist teachings. Following this principle, Buryat schools taught Buryat in Cyrillic, introduced Russian language in the second grade, and emphasized the friendship of Soviet peoples. These were to be the standard criteria for all Buryat schools and this, along with the general Soviet educational goal of encouraging students to reject the vestiges of the past, were to be a part of forging the path ahead for the new, modern, socialist way of life.71 In addition to standardization changes in education and the Buryat language, in the 1930s, the foundation was also laid for a new literary institution. In 1932, the Buryat-Mongolian Writers’ Union was formed to manage, organize, and direct the budding new Buryat literature. Under Stalin’s cultural policies, the new Union directed Buryat authors to adopt the new literary genre of socialist realism. This genre was a turn away from the more nuanced literature of the 1920s and provided readers with simpler plots filled with heroic characters battling for the betterment of society. Intended for the masses and quite formulaic, socialist realism offered examples for people to live by and guidelines for correct behavior in Soviet society.72 These Soviet mores were not simply handed down from above. The creation of them included the active participation of Soviet intellectuals. Evgeny Dobrenko has argued that a new sort of cultural revolution took place with socialist realism because it came from above and below.73 Both intellectuals and the Party worked to create and promote an exemplary Soviet society in literature as part of an ongoing process of defining the Soviet nation. 71

NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1689, ll. 15–6. Katerina Clark likens the formulas to American detective novels or the Orthodox tradition of painting icons. Clark, The Soviet Novel, x, 4. 73 Evgeny Dobrenko, The Making of the State Writer: Social and Aesthetic Origins of Soviet Literary Culture, trans. Jesse M. Savage (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), xviii. 72

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Individual Soviet nationalities had the additional task of defining their own national identity (national socialist identity), as well as a Soviet one. In Buryatia, local writers were encouraged to explore topics that showed the rejection of past traditions and the introduction of new industries, agricultural methods, and beliefs. For example, the Buryat author, Tuya Solbone (Petr Nikiforovich Damdinov), wrote about the construction of the first building of the new railway works in Ulan-Ude. And, both Khotsa Namsaraev and Ts. Don wrote about the benefits of collectivization.74 Local authorities also opened a professional drama theater in Ulan-Ude that showed Buryat plays and others from around the world. Buryat writers showcased their works, as well as learned the overall union-wide trends. For most Buryats, the 1930s were trying and difficult years of collectivization, purges, and terror. Still, in the midst of the chaos, pieces of the foundation for a new Buryat society were laid through educational and literary institutions and the creation of required standardizations. However, many local institutions were not simply to be the domain of ethnic Buryats. A massive movement of mainly ethnic Russians to the republic during Stalin’s rapid industrialization campaign of the 1930s ensured that Buryat cultural construction would not simply be a Buryat affair. Many institutions would be multi-ethnic organizations even if Buryats began to dominate some of them in the postwar years. Industrial Immigrants Designers of korenizatsiia policies in the 1920s had envisioned the creation of a large Buryat working class, yet it was still almost nonexistent when Stalin introduced crash industrialization in the 1930s.75 Stalin’s new industrial policies required an immediate pool 74

Solbone Tuya was killed in 1937 and Ts. Don in 1938. Both were victims of Stalin’s purges. Khotsa Namsaraev survived the purges and died in 1959. See Ts. A. Dugar-Nimaev, Istoriia buriatskoi sovetskoi litertury (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1967), 75–120. 75 Sergei Batomunkuev, “Buryat Urbanisation and Modernisation: A Theoretical Model Based on the Example of Ulan-Ude,” Inner Asia 5, no. 1 (2003), 7.

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of skilled workers in southern Siberia at a time when most Buryats were just moving onto collective farms. Therefore, Soviet planners wishing to rapidly build new factories in Ulan-Ude had to recruit workers from other parts of the country. Often attracted by higher wages, these workers came to find employment in the BuryatMongolian ASSR in a variety of industries ranging from an aviation plant to textile factories to food processing to shipbuilding. In 1932 alone, 420 technicians and engineers and 4,418 workers moved to Buryatia.76 The railway repair works in Ulan-Ude (an important source of employment even in the post-Soviet era) drew 5,000 workers from other regions over the course of the 1930s.77 A whole new section of the city, the Railroad neighborhood (Zheleznodorozhnyi raion) was built to accommodate the influx of new workers. The neighborhood was equipped with its own stores, theaters, schools, and a large house of culture (community center). UlanUde’s first trams, built in the 1950s, connected its residents with the downtown.78 During WWII industrial growth and migration to Buryatia only continued as Soviet leaders moved factories and refugees eastward after Germany’s attack in the summer of 1941. Several industries were moved to Buryatia while many existing ones were converted to produce materials for the war.79 Around 120,000 people from the republic served in WWII. The sudden loss of a large segment of working-age men, as well as the need for rapid military output, led to a quick rise in urbanization as rural residents in Buryatia and more migrants from the western part of the USSR moved to Buryat cities to provide the necessary additional labor. In addition, around 15,000 people were evacuated to the republic from the western part of the Soviet Union.80 Although about 40,000 people from the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR died in the war, the territory still experienced both industrial and urban 76

Namsaraev, Istoriia Buriatii, 49-50 and 60-61. Forsyth, A History of the Peoples, 333. 78 Imetkhenov and Egorov, Ulan-Ude, 210. 79 Imetkhenov and Egorov, Ulan-Ude, 97–100; P. T. Khaptaev (ed.), Istoriia Buriatskoi ASSR, vol. 2 (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1959), 453, 477; Bazarov, Shagdurov, Kuras, “Politika repressii,” 65–6. 80 Bazarov, Shagdurov, Kuras, “Politika repressii,” 66. 77

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population growth.81 Between 1941 and 1945, the urban population in the republic increased from 189,900 to 245,100—a 29 percent rise. These new urban residents came from both rural parts of Buryatia and from outside of the republic.82 After the war, some of those people returned home, but many opted to stay thanks to the increasing number of job opportunities. The flow of workers to Buryatia during the war and in the decade or so after decreased the overall percentage of the Buryat population in the republic. Their representation reached an all-time low at 20 percent in 1959.83 Conclusion Stalinism, more than any previous set of government policies, upset Buryat society and set into motion a great transformation. For many, Stalin’s agenda brought terrible tragedy. Buryat cultural, political, and economic autonomy was severely curtailed. The collectivization campaign, the reduction of the republic’s territory, and the purging of cultural, political, and religious leaders were devastating. Also, the settling of Buryats on collective farms, as well as the rapid construction of industries that brought both Russian immigrants and regional Buryats to live in the republic’s cities, created greater cultural and economic homogenization than ever before. 81

Around 10,000 Buryats from the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR died in WWII and around 9,000 from the two autonomous okrugs. 82 Zateev and Kharaev, Dinamika izmenenii, 51. 83 D. D. Mangataeva, Naselenie Buriatii: Tendentsii formirovaniia i razvitiia (Ulan-Ude: BNTs, 1995), 72. Out of all of the titular nationalities of the 16 autonomous Soviet republics (ASSRs) in the Russian republic that year, only the Karelians had lower representation in their region. In 1959, the Karelians represented 13.1 percent of their ASSR. The Bashkirs were only slightly higher than the Buryats at 22.1 percent. In the Georgian SSR, the Abkhazians also had low representation. They represented 15.1 percent of their ASSR. However, all other ASSR and union republic titular nationalities represented over 30 percent of the populations in their republics. Gerhard Simon, Nationalism and Policy Toward the Nationalities in the Soviet Union: From Totalitarian Dictatorship to PostStalinist Society. Trans. Karen Forster and Oswald Forster. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 376–87.

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At the same time, these changes also brought opportunities. The founding of standardized educational, cultural, and media institutions created a new infrastructure in society that allowed many to find new ways to thrive in the new circumstances. Buryats began to engage the system for personal and group advantage. Institutional development also opened up a space for a new class of Sovieteducated, Russian speaking, urban professional Buryats to take charge. These were the people who led Buryatia in the decades after World War II and oversaw a rapid rise among Buryats in educational and professional levels and in social mobility. Stalinism has left a complicated and controversial legacy in Buryatia. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, scholars, journalists, and other commentators published articles, mainly in the local newspapers, discussing its consequences. Some researchers also gained limited access to local archives at this time that revealed previously unknown stories such as the rebellions that occurred during the process of collectivization and the exact numbers of groups who were purged in the late 1930s.84 Others analyzed the far-reaching results of Stalin’s policies. For example, the Buryat scholar, Shirap Chimitdorzhiev, argued first in newspapers and later in books that the 1937 break-up of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR disturbed the consolidation of the Buryat nation and the development of a unified Buryat identity.85 While this discussion has continued well into the post-Soviet era, restrictions to archival materials on this period have left many holes in the history of Stalinism in Buryatia. This is problematic as its demographic, cultural, economic, political, and environmental impacts still remain and certainly deserve further study, analysis, and commemoration.

84

For example, see works by B. V. Bazarov, Iu. P. Shagdurov, L. V. Kuras, B. L. Dorzhiev, and S. D. Namsaraev, published in the early 1990s. 85 See Chimitdorzhiev’s arguments, as well as reprinted copies of his various works in Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev, Buriat-Mongoly: Istoriia i sovremennost’ (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN, 2001) and Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev, Kak ischezla edinaia Buriat-Mongoliia (1937 i 1958) (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 2004).

CHAPTER 3

The New Buryats

The growth of industry in eastern Siberia, starting in the 1930s and continuing into the 1980s, brought thousands of immigrants from the European regions of the Soviet Union to the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR).1 This diminished Buryat representation in the republic, but also created opportunities for social mobility through job creation, particularly in the postwar years. Both local and national leaders sought to bring economic development to Buryatia through the construction of such industries as an electric engine plant, a wool-manufacturing factory, an appliances plant, and many others.2 In the 1970s, authorities also started two new major industrial projects with far-reaching social, demographic, and economic consequences. Between 1971 and 1975 the large Gusinoozerskii power station was built south of Ulan-Ude and in 1974 the construction of the Baikal–Amur Mainline railway (BAM) began in northern Buryatia.3 Both projects received republi1

The name “Mongolian” was dropped from the republic’s title in 1958. This event is discussed at the end of this chapter. 2 A. B. Imetkhenov and E. M. Egorov (eds.), Ulan-Ude: Istoriia i sovremannost’ (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN), 160, 172–3, 180; M. M. Khalbaeva-Boronova, Buriatiia: Problemy kompleksnogo razvitiia regiona (UlanUde: Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2005), 88, 99. 3 V. V. Belikov, Povyshenie kul’turno-tekhnicheskogo urovnia rabochego klassa Buriatii v period razvitogo sotsializma (1959–1975 gg.) (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1980), 18; M. M. Khalbaeva, Buriatiia v 1960–1990 gg.: Tendentsii i protivorechiia sotsial’no-ekonomicheskogo razvitiia (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1999), 54–5, 58; Ts. Ts. Dorzhieva, “Is-

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can and national support and were coupled with recruiting campaigns that continued to bring workers to Buryatia from other parts of the country. In particular, BAM attracted many newcomers. Several towns grew up along the railroad, leading the urban population in northern Buryatia to double between 1979 and 1989.4 Significantly, this economic development also led to the creation of a wide range of educational and employment opportunities for the Buryats. Authorities built an entire new infrastructure to go along with the growth of factories and the spread of railroad tracks. In the second half of the twentieth century, there was an enormous expansion in education, media, government administration, cultural institutions, and everyday services. In the 1970s for example, administrators oversaw the construction of 14 settlements, 80 stores, 45 cafeterias, 30 clubhouses, and 29 libraries for BAM workers alone.5 Buryats helped to create, staff, and direct this economic and social advancement and their participation in it allowed many of them to exploit these developments for their own gain. Buryatia’s rapidly changing economic and demographic circumstances also led to a tremendous shift in the occupations of many Buryats. While it was the ethnic Russians who continually dominated industry in the republic as workers, managers, engineers, and technicians throughout the entire Soviet period, the Buryats increasingly came to occupy large numbers of cultural, educational, media, and political jobs. The Buryats became proportionally overrepresented in many professions in these areas and this allowed them to greatly influence decisions in the republic despite their minority status of between 20 and 25 percent. Postwar trends also show great leaps in the urbanization of the Buryats, their educational levels, tochniki formirovanie gorodskogo naselenie Buriatii (1970–1990-e gg.),” Vestnik Buriatskogo Universiteta 5 (2001), 172. 4 Between 1979 and 1989, the urban population in the republic almost doubled from 48,700 to 93,700 thanks to BAM. Irina Pavlovna Afanas’eva, “Osobennosti sotsial’no-demograficheskikh protsessov v gorodskom naselenii Buriatii v 60-80e gg. xx v.” (PhD diss., Buriatskii gosudarstvenyi universitet, 2004), 78. Also, see Christopher Ward, Brezhnev’s Folly: The Building of BAM and Late Soviet Socialism (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009). 5 Afans’eva, “Osobennosti sotsial’no-demograficheskikh,” 57, 65–8, 77; Belikov, Povyshenie kul’turno-tekhnicheskogo urovnia, 18.

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and the overall growth in the Buryat population in the 1960s and 1970s. This chapter provides a demographic analysis of Buryat social mobility from World War II to the fall of the Soviet Union based on statistical data largely from the National Archives of the Republic of Buryatia. It illustrates how in the decades after the war a transformation took place that allowed for a new, urban, educated Buryat class to gain leadership positions and direct the development of their region. The Postwar Buryat Migration The Buryats migrated from all over southern Siberia to the Buryat republic and in particular its capital, Ulan-Ude, because of the jobs and educational opportunities available there. Ulan-Ude also became the major center of Buryat cultural, educational, and political development. This Buryat migration had significant demographic consequences for Buryat regions both within and outside of the republic. In addition, many Buryats moved to cities. Thus, whereas before World War II less than ten percent of Buryats lived in cities, by the fall of the Soviet Union almost half of them did.6 Although many lived in smaller towns, the majority resided in bigger cities like Ulan-Ude. By 1989, one third of the Buryat population of the Buryat republic was living in Ulan-Ude.7 The majority of this new urban Buryat population was young adults. In 1970, for example, the largest numbers of Buryat urban residents were made up of 6

In 1959, 16 percent of republican Buryats were urban. In 1979, 36 percent were urban and in 1989 44.5 percent were urban. See Afanas’eva, “Osobennosti sotsial’no-demograficheskikh,” 114, 116. 7 Elena Borisovna Bolkhosoeva, “Territorial’nye osobennosti formirovaniia i rasseleniia buriatskogo naseleniia Predbaikal’ia i Zabaikal’ia.” (PhD diss., Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2002), 97. In 1979, one fourth or 51,116 Buryats lived in Ulan-Ude. See NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10462, l. 22. In 1959 only 12,963 Buryats lived in Ulan-Ude. The city’s population in 1959 was 175,200 and in 1979 it was 304,300. This increased the Buryats’ overall representation in Ulan-Ude during those years from seven percent to 17 percent. Also see P. B. Abzaev and P. Zh. Khanduev, Istoriia kul’tura, ekonomika Buriatii: Iubileinyi statisticheskii sbornik (Ulan-Ude: Goskomstat Respubliki Buriatiia, 1995), 42.

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people between the ages of 16 and 39. The opposite was true in the countryside where the largest segment of the population was young children followed by older adults.8 The Buryats, who flocked to Ulan-Ude, as well as to the republic’s smaller cities, came not just from rural areas within the republic, but also from Buryat regions outside its borders. Between World War II and the fall of the Soviet Union the proportion of all Soviet Buryats residing in the republic grew from 50 to 60 percent.9 Starting in WWII, rural Buryats increasingly sought urban employment and the war introduced new industries that arose in places like Ulan-Ude to support the front. In addition, many of the thousands of Buryats who had served in the military came home after the war with new skills that helped them find jobs in urban areas.10 In particular, contact with non-Buryats during the war also exposed them more to the Russian language. Many Buryat soldiers learned to speak it fluently. Russian language skills gave these Buryats better chances for finding new occupations, as well as attending higher educational institutions, which were taught entirely in Russian in the Russian Republic.11 Throughout the second half of the twentieth century, Buryats moved to the Buryat ASSR from regions on both sides of Lake Baikal and this led to a decrease in the percentage of Buryats living in those areas. Between 1959 and 1979 the Buryat population from the Chita Oblast’ and the Aginskii Autonomous Okrug (east of Lake Baikal) experienced growth in actual numbers, but their share of the total number of Buryats in the Soviet Union remained stagnant at 16 percent. Even more Buryats moved to the republic from the western side of the lake. Some villages in the Irkutsk Oblast’ and the Ust’-Ordynskii Autonomous Okrug lost as much as 60 percent of their residents.12 Between 1959 and 1979 these regions outside of the republic saw almost no growth and their share of the 8

NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 52, ll. 5–6. This was also true in 1959. See Lamakhanov, “Naselenie Buriatii,” 184. 9 Bolkhosoeva, “Territorial’nye osobennosti,” 94; Khalbaeva, Buriatiia v 1960– 1990 gg., 152. 10 Bazarov, Kuras, and Shagdurov, Istoriia Buriatii, 66. 11 Dyrkheeva, Buriatskii iazyk, 25–6. 12 Elaev, Buriatiia, 132. Also see Fridman, Sacred Geography, 119.

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overall Buryat population in the USSR dropped from 28 percent to 20 percent.13 Buryat migration contributed to an increase in Buryat representation in the republic despite the continual outside immigration of workers from the European regions of the USSR. Between 1959 and 1989 the Buryat share of the population grew from 20 to almost 25 percent.14 The high growth rate for the Buryat population can also be attributed to other factors. For instance, Buryats generally had larger families than Russians.15 The Buryats also had high marriage rates and low divorce rates, an aspect that often contributed to more children.16 In addition, the mixed marriage rate was lower among Buryats than the Soviet average and lower than in other Soviet autonomous regions.17 This is important because children of mixed marriages officially chose their own nationality in the USSR. In Buryatia, slightly more children of mixed marriages chose Russian for 13

In 1959 in the Chita Oblast’ and Aginskii Autonomous Okrug there were 39,956 Buryats and in 1979 there were 56,503. However, despite the growth in numbers, the proportion of USSR Buryats represented in these regions remained at 16 percent between 1959 and 1979. In 1959 the Irkutsk Oblast’ and the Ust’Ordinskii Autonomous Okrug had 70,529 Buryats or 27.8 percent of the USSR’s Buryats. In 1979 those regions had 71,124 Buryats and they made up only 20.1 percent of the USSR’s total number of Buryats. This was part of a trend that began as early as 1817 when 49 percent of Buryats were reportedly living on the western side of Lake Baikal. See Bolkhosoeva, “Territorial’nye osobennosti,” 91, 94. Also, concerning migration, see Khalbaeva, Buriatiia v 1960–1990 gg., 152. 14 In 1959 there were 135,798 Buryats in the republic, in 1979 there were 209,860, and in 1989 there were 249,500. Bolkhosoeva, “Territorial’nye osobennosti,” 94; Abzaev and Khanduev, Istoriia kul’tura, 53; Lamakhanov, “Naselenie Buriatii,” 71. 15 Zateev and Kharaev, Dinamika izmenenii, 53; Lamakhanov, “Naselenie Buriatii,” 72–3, 86. 16 Zateev and Kharaev, Dinamika izmenenii, 53. 17 The mixed marriage rate in the Soviet Union was 13.5 percent in 1970 and 14.9 percent in 1979. In Buryatia it was 8 percent and 8.9 percent respectively. See V. I. Zateev, Dialektika natsional’nykh protsessov v SSSR (Ulan Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1989), 150. By 1989 it had risen to 11.9 percent but this was still lower than the Soviet average and lower for other Soviet autonomous regions. See Lamakhanov, “Naselenie Buriatii,” 155, for a list of mixed marriage rates for Soviet autonomous regions in 1989 that shows the Buryat Republic ranking third lowest and just slightly above Chechen-Ingushetiia and Tuva.

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their official nationality than Buryat.18 Having fewer mixed marriages could therefore decrease the chance of a mixed child not choosing Buryat as their official nationality. The lower mixed marriage rate is also significant because mixed marriages produced fewer children than Buryat ones. In 1970, the average urban mixed marriage couple had two children when the average Buryat family was larger.19 Urbanization contributed to a growing mixed marriage rate in the republic in the later Soviet period, but it was still less than the Soviet average and therefore did not significantly lower the overall increase in the growth rate of the Buryat population.20 Many young Buryats moved to Ulan-Ude over the decades to attend higher educational institutions and often stayed. Educated Buryats gained employment in the growing number of media, educational, cultural, and governmental organizations. Many of these new migrant professionals obtained high positions. Most notable among them was Andrei Urupkheevich Modogoev, who was the leader of the republic from 1962 to 1984. He came from western Buryatia to Ulan-Ude in 1932 where he worked as a teacher before going into politics.21 During his years in power, Modogoev brought many Buryats from western Buryatia to staff administrative positions under him in the republican government. An important result of the Buryat migration was that it brought together Buryats from regions all over the Buryat lands. Buryats who spoke various dialects, came from different clans, and practiced diverse traditions became neighbors and colleagues in UlanUde. Many of them intermarried. Because some Buryat dialects are quite different from one another, many mixed Buryat couples chose 18

Lamakhanov, “Naselenie Buriatii,” 157. Also, see Humphrey, Marx Went Away, 37–8, 47. 19 Lamakhanov, “Naselenie Buriatii,” 151–2, 156. 20 In particular, the mixed marriage rate among Buryats was much higher in cities, especially in Ulan-Ude, than in rural areas. Mixed marriages also increased most during the last decades of the Soviet Union and thus during a sharp rise in urbanization. For example, in 1970 the number of registered mixed marriages for that year was 15,097 and in 1979 it was 19,804. See Dyrkheeva, Buriatskii iazyk, 43. 21 A. U. Modogoev, Gody i liudi (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’stvo Buriatskogo gosuniversiteta, 2004), 37.

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to speak Russian. Urbanization also put Buryats in greater contact with Russians. On the one hand, the Buryat migration contributed to a greater consolidation of the Buryat people despite the 1937 territorial shifts. On the other hand however, it aided the decline of the Buryat language and diminished regional and clan distinctiveness. Buryat Professionals As described in chapter two, the devastating purges, anti-religious campaigns, and collectivization drive of the 1930s wiped out much of the former Buryat elite. In its place arose a new class of educated, urban, and professional Buryats who more closely followed authorities’ ideal of the successful, modern citizen. Economic growth in the republic, the Buryat migration, rapid urbanization, and increased educational and professional opportunities allowed these Buryats to become proportionally overrpresented in all occupations except industry, which was dominated by ethnic Russians. Whereas before WWII, almost 90 percent of Buryats worked in agriculture, by 1989, 75 percent of the republic’s Buryat residents were engaged in other occupations besides agricultural work.22 Buryats who did continue to hold agricultural jobs also increasingly became overrepresented in the professional and administrative side of agricultural production. A comparison of occupational statistics in the republic taken in 1959, 1979, and 1989 demonstrates the expeditious change in work. An analysis of the specific occupations held by Buryats in these years, shows that they continued to increase their representation in almost every profession. Unfortunately, some of the occupational categories were changed between 1959, 1979, and 1989. For that reason it is not always possible to make exact comparisons in each category. However, valuable occupational comparisons between these years can be made nonetheless and they show that the Buryats made rapid professional advancement.

22

See Table 3.1 in this chapter. Also, see Humphrey, Marx Went Away, 33.

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Figure 3.1. Occupations by nationality (1959). Compiled from NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 8.

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Figure 3.2. Occupations by nationality (1979). Compiled from NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 8.

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Figures 3.1 and 3.2 show that in large numbers Buryat professionals went into jobs that fall under the categories of cultural, educational, propagandistic, artistic, and media work and that their numbers in these fields increased significantly between 1959 and 1979. Scholars have observed this phenomenon among other titular nationalities in the second half of the twentieth century as well. For example, it occurred among the Inner Mongols in China, the Latvians in Latvia, and many of the titular nations in Central Asia.23 Gerhard Simon argues that it occurred among the Central Asians because many of them could attend courses in subjects such as education in their native languages in Central Asian institutions of higher education. The natural sciences and technological subjects were only taught in Russian. Therefore, Central Asians gravitated to the majors where they could study in their native languages.24 This may have been a contributor in Latvia and Inner Mongolia as well. However, it was not the case in Buryatia where all higher educational institutes taught only in Russian. Considering that the Buryats represented only around 20 to 25 percent of the population during the years represented in Figures 3.1 and 3.2, they were clearly proportionally overrepresented in many fields. For example, the figures show that by 1979, Buryats served in large numbers as librarians, artists, composers, and museum, club, and theater directors. In addition, in 1959, Buryats made up about half of the “leading lecturers and propagandists” and 35 percent of the total number of “cultural-educational workers.”25 Most of all, Buryats were overrepresented in media jobs. In 1959 Buryats held half of the republic’s jobs as writers, editors, and journalists and by 1979 that number had risen to 60 percent. Even in 1951, 13 of the 19 editors at the Buryat Publishing 23

A. Hurelbaatar, “A Survey of the Mongols in Present-Day China: Perspectives on Demography and Culture Change” in Stephen Kotkin and Bruce A. Elleman (eds.), Mongolia in the Twentieth Century: Landlocked Cosmopolitan (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1999), 198–9; Mark A. Jubulis, Nationalism and Democratic Transition: The Politics of Citizenship and Language in Post-Soviet Latvia (New York: University Press of America, 2001), 48; Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 271. 24 Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 271–2. 25 NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 8.

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House were Buryat.26 By 1990, the Buryats made up almost 40 percent of the heads of all cultural institutions in the republic.27 The proportional overrepresentation of Buryats in the above jobs can be attributed to many factors. First, the dominance of industry by Russians starting in the early Soviet period helped to push Buryats into other professions. Second, the local government needed Buryats as representatives of the titular nationality to work in professions that required producing official presentations of Buryat culture. This might include anything from painting a picture about Buryat rural life to putting together a museum display on Buryat history to producing a Buryat-language newspaper. Because many of the cultural and media jobs required Buryats, a window into these professions was opened. The government needed them to fill these positions and many Buryats took the opportunity. Third, Buryats may have chosen these professions as they offered a chance to make a positive contribution to the development of Buryat culture. This could have been work for the perceived advancement of the Buryat nation—writing the first Buryat novel or developing Buryat-language radio. Or, it could have been work toward preserving respectable and Soviet-approved aspects of Buryat traditional culture such as publishing the Buryat national epic, Geser, or placing Buryat cultural artifacts in a museum display. These jobs contributed to the improvement of Buryat culture within the context of the wider project of Soviet modernization. A fourth reason some Buryats could have found employment in cultural and media professions is because they had the necessary Buryat language skills. Although the usage of the Buryat language began to decline in the late Soviet period, skills in Buryat helped some get jobs as writers, journalists, and propagandists. Especially in the early postwar years, Buryat language skills were still regularly needed because many Buryats, particularly in the countryside, only poorly knew Russian. Buryats who knew both Buryat 26 27

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5777, l. 12. Iu. B. Randalov and O. Iu. Randalova, “Vliianie urbanizatsionnykh i modernizatsionnykh protsessov na sovremennoe sostoianie buriatskogo etnosa,” Vestnik Buriatskogo universiteta 16, no. 2 (2005), 53.

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and Russian were needed. However, in the 1960s and 1970s, when Buryat language usage began to seriously decrease, Buryat language skills became less important in cultural and media professions. Lastly, a fifth reason that can be offered for why Buryat representation in these jobs was high is that most of these occupations were quite prestigious. Novelists, journalists, museum directors, and academics were well-respected professions in Soviet society. In a country where most salaries were roughly similar, respect and even local fame could be highly valued. Many ambitious Buryats may have therefore chosen professions that brought them officially recognized success and prestige. In addition to cultural and media work, jobs in education became one of the fastest growing professions for Buryats. Because of the existence of a Buryat prewar intellectual class of scholars and professors, the Buryats were already proportionally overrepresented in higher education in the 1950s. In 1959, for example, 43 percent of “instructors in higher educational institutes” were Buryat. That number rose precipitously so that by 1979, 60 percent were.28 Thirty seven percent of academic researchers in both 1959 and 1979 were Buryat, many of whom conducted academic research in Buryat folklore, linguistics, history, and ethnography. Again, they were a majority despite being a minority in the republic. However, there were fewer Buryat elementary, middle, and high school teachers, particularly in the early postwar years. In 1959, Buryats held only 26 percent of those jobs. With the expansion of education beginning in the 1960s, however, more Buryats became teachers. By 1979, Buryats made up 39 percent of the republic’s teachers and between 1979 and 1989, education surpassed industry to become the second biggest single provider of jobs for Buryats after agriculture (see Figures 3.3 and 3.4).

28

See Figures 3.1 and 3.2. This number continued to rise and by 1985, it was 64 percent. See Galina Dashievna Bazarova, Formirovanie i razvitie nauchnoi intelligentsii Buriatii 1922–1985 (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN, 1998), 117.

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Other 22%

Agriculture 39%

Forestry, logging 0% Housing Services 2% Transport 3% Culture and Art 2% Construction 6% Education 13%

Industry 13%

Figure 3.3. Occupations held by Buryats in 1979. Compiled from NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10462.

Other 17% Forestry, logging 1%

Agriculture 27%

Housing Services 3% Transport 3% Culture and Art 5% Construction 6%

Industry 17% Education 21%

Figure 3.4. Occupations held by Buryats in 1989. Compiled from NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10462.

Although many Buryats moved to cities in the postwar years, others remained rural residents. However, Soviet modernization also

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brought more professional jobs to the countryside. Libraries, houses of culture, schools, clubs, health clinics, and theaters were constructed on collective farms, in villages, and in regional centers that required educated and professional workers. Buryats held many of these positions. The Buryats also held large percentages of the managerial and professional agricultural positions in the countryside. Figures 3.1 and 3.2 show that in 1959, 47 percent of the directors of kolkhozes in the republic were Buryat and in 1979, 51 percent were. In 1979, they made up 70 percent of the veterinarians—a 40 percent increase from 1959—and 51 percent of the agronomists. In 1979 they made up only 23 percent of the directors of sovkhozes, but by 1989 that number had risen to 55 percent.29 In addition, in 1979, Buryats made up 55 percent of the “high positions in sovkhoz administration.” The Buryats also made a dramatic increase in their representation as doctors during this period. In 1979, they made up 41 percent of the republic’s doctors—a 24 percent increase from 1959. As the above statistics show, Buryats were highly represented in many professional positions in the republic. At the same time however, they also show that the largest total number of almost all jobs fell to ethnic Russians, who made up around 70 percent of the population in the republic. Still, in comparing Russians and Buryats, a larger percentage of people among the Buryat ethnicity in the republic occupied professional positions. For example, in 1970, 51 percent of Ulan-Ude’s Buryats worked in white-collar jobs compared to only 30 percent of the city’s Russian residents.30 As late as 1990, the Russian working class in the republic stood at 65 percent and the category of “intelligentsia and white collar workers” at 31 percent. It was 49 and 42 respectively for the Buryat population.31 Again, much of this had to do with the fact that ethnic Russians dominated jobs as industrial workers. However, by 1989 industry also provided 17 percent of the republic’s Buryats with jobs. In addition, those Buryats had a higher representation in the professional industrial jobs than as blue collar workers. In 1979, they held 29

For the 1989 statistics, see NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10462, l. 17. NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 55, ll. 28–34. 31 Randalov, “O razvitii sotsial’no-professional’noi struktury,” 52–3. 30

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between 15 and 19 percent of these and made up, for example, only 12 percent of the machine and metal workers and only five percent of the railroad workers. Buryat Women Perhaps the greatest occupational shift in the postwar years was among Buryat women. However it was not pronounced until the late 1960s and 1970s. Statistics from the 1950s reveal that at that time, Buryat women were extremely underrepresented in all professions. This was not only in comparison with Buryat men, but also in comparison with ethnic Russian women who were better represented in many fields. Buryat women’s lower professional representation in the 1950s was particularly evident in the countryside. In 1959 there were no female Buryat agricultural specialists and while Russian women made up over 50 percent of the total number of Russian agronomists and animal husbandry specialists, Buryat women made up only one fourth of these jobs held by Buryats. Among rural club workers and directors, Russian women held almost as many positions as Russian men, but Buryat women only held half as many jobs in this area as Buryat men. While half of the Russian legal workers in the countryside were women, only 12 percent of the total number of Buryats was. In comparison to Buryat men, only in the professions of rural and urban teachers and doctors—professions typically held by women in the Soviet Union—did Buryat women exceed them in 1959.32 However, Russian women dominated both of these professions and Buryat women lagged behind. The lack of Buryat women in professional work was in some ways not unusual. Despite laws providing equal rights for women in the Soviet Union, women across the country were generally under32

These statistics were compiled from data found in NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 8. For a discussion of women’s work in the Soviet Union see, Melanie Ilic, “Women in the Khrushchev Era: An Overview,” in Melanie Ilic, Susan E. Reid, and Lynne Attwood (eds.), Women in the Khrushchev Era (New York: Palgrave, 2004), 7–8.

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represented in comparison to men in many professions. Soviet women also made up the majority of unskilled agricultural labor— around two thirds in the 1960s—and were marginalized in much of the low-paying manual labor jobs in industry.33 Caroline Humphrey, who conducted anthropological fieldwork on two collective farms in Buryatia in the 1960s, observed that men dominated the much higher paying skilled agricultural jobs such as tractor drivers.34 In addition, Soviet women typically had to bear the double burden of working outside of the home and being responsible for almost all of the domestic tasks and childrearing as well. Barbara Alpern Engel has argued that, “the entire Soviet economy rested on the unpaid and underpaid labor of women.”35 Women were also seriously underrepresented in positions of leadership, holding few top positions in political, cultural, or economic institutions. For example, out of 340 directors of collective farms in Buryatia in 1959, only three were women—one Buryat and two Russians.36 Other contributing factors for why Buryat women were slow to obtain greater professional opportunities in work can include attitudes about gender roles that had traditionally favored education for males over females. Until the later postwar years, most Buryat women spent their lives in the countryside raising large families, which gave them little time or opportunity for studying and pursuing professional careers. However, many women in rural ethnic Russian families had similar experiences. They too often raised large families and followed traditional gender roles. It is possible that ideas about women’s equality had reached Russian populations—either in Buryatia or among recent immigrants from the western parts of the country—faster than among Buryats. However, 33

Barbara Alpern Engel, Women in Russia, 1700–2000 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 235–6; Donald Filtzer, “Women Workers in the Khrushchev Era,” in Melanie Ilic, Susan E. Reid, and Lynne Attwood (eds.), Women in the Khrushchev Era (New York: Palgrave, 2004), 32–3. 34 Humphrey, Marx Went Away, 229, 288. Humphrey also explains that women on colletive farms commonly occupied the indoor skilled jobs such as secretaries, clerks, and teachers. However, in terms of agricultural labor, men held the majority of the skilled, especially mechanical, positions. 35 Engel, Women in Russia, 235. 36 NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 8.

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by the 1950s such ideas were certainly not new. The Buryat congresses of 1905—over 40 years earlier—had discussed female suffrage even if they had been made up of only men.37 Perhaps many of the Russian women who moved to Buryatia from the 1920s to the 1950s had experienced more effective Soviet affirmative action policies in their place of origin than in Buryatia. This may have given them the opportunity to obtain higher degrees and more professional experience before having moved to Buryatia. Nevertheless, the most important reason for why Buryat women had a poor showing in professional occupations in the first decades after World War II was because of their low literacy rates and poor Russian language skills. Prior to the education boom that occurred in Buryatia in the 1960s, fewer Buryat women spoke Russian fluently than Buryat men. In addition, fewer Buryat women could read than Buryat men, Russian men, and Rusian women.38 As late as 1939, 42 percent of Buryat women were officially illiterate compared to only 24 percent of Buryat men. Ethnic Russian women in the republic had much higher literacy rates than Buryat women and this can help explain their better advances in social mobility.39 The expansion of education, developments in urbanization, and new professional opportunities all began to change this situation for Buryat women starting in the 1960s.40 In particular, Buryat women went to school in large numbers. In 1959, 93 Buryat women per 1,000 had a high school degree or above. Eleven years later that number had more than doubled.41 The number of Buryat women with university degrees tripled during the same period and by 1989 37

See Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century and Montgomery, “Buriat Political and Social Activism.” 38 Lamakhanov, “Naselenie Buriatii,” 148. 39 G. L. Sanzhiev et al., Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvo v Buriatskoi ASSR 1917–1981 (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1983), 198. 40 Khalbaeva-Boronova, Buriatiia, 112; Belikov, Povyshenie kul’turnotekhnicheskogo urovnia, 58–9; Afanas’eva, “Osobennosti sotsial’nodemograficheskikh protsessov,” 104. 41 In 1970, 206 Buryat women per 1,000 had a high school degree or above. See Ellen Jones and Fred W. Grupp, “Modernization and Traditionality in a Multiethnic Society: The Soviet Case,” in Gail W. Lapidus (ed.), The “Nationality” Question in the Soviet Union (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1992), 252.

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more Buryat women than Buryat men had degrees from higher educational institutes.42 Given that the Buryats ranked third highest in levels of education out of all nationalities in the USSR by the 1980s, it is evident that Buryat women had quickly adopted new educational and career plans in the later Soviet period. These changes in educational levels are also connected to urbanization and demographic trends. In order for ambitious women to achieve higher educational degrees, they had to leave the countryside for the city. Already in 1959 there were more urban Buryat women than men in the Buryat republic and that gap only increased in the 1960s and 1970s.43 Many of these women found jobs after obtaining their degrees and stayed. Urban Buryat women, likely deciding to dedicate time to studying and meeting professional demands, had fewer children than their rural counterparts.44 Family sizes also began to decrease as women waited longer to marry. The number of Buryat women who chose to marry early—between the ages of 16 and 19—fell by 50 percent between 1959 and 1970.45 Local institutions in Buryatia also promoted the advancement of women throught media and by planning campaigns, creating more women’s soviets, and holding women’s conferences to help women and promote their social mobility.46 For example, Ulan-Ude held a large Women’s Congress in 1960 where participants praised the role of women’s soviets, examined how women were contributing to the economic and cultural construction of the republic, and made practical suggestions for improving their role in society.47 All of

42

L. A. Munaev, Buriaty v zerkale statistiki (Ulan-Ude: Gosudarstvennyi komitet po statsitike Respubliki Buriatiia, 1996), 24. 43 NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 52, l. 3. 44 Lamakhanov shows that most urban ethnic groups in the republic had fewer children than their rural counterparts. Lamakhanov, “Naselenie Buriatii,” 101. Also see pages 96 and 156 on birthrates among urban and rural Buryats. 45 In 1959, 80 Buryat women per 1,000 had an early marriage. That number dropped to 40 by 1970. See Jones and Grupp, “Modernity and Traditionality,” 252. 46 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6925, ll. 11–65. 47 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6926, ll. 1–10; Pervyi s”ezd zhenshchin Buriatskoi ASSR, 8-9 iiula 1960 g., Materialy s’ezda (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1960).

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these factors contributed to helping more women become educated professionals. Table 3.1. Occupations in 1979 by gender and ethnicity. Compiled from the Republic of Buryatia State Statistical Department, Table 32B. 1979 occupations Administration Science Education Culture and art Health and social services

Total 21,222 (100%) 9,722 (100%) 37,476 (100%) 6,199 (100%) 20,639 (100%)

Russian men 8,710 (41%) 4,598 (47%) 3,548 (9%) 976 (16%) 2,313 (11%)

Russian women 6,180 (29%) 3,155 (32%) 20,734 (55%) 2,923 (47%) 12,305 (60%)

Buryat men 1,973 (9%) 756 (8%) 2,976 (8%) 484 (8%) 949 (5%)

Buryat women 2,167 (10%) 588 (6%) 8,856 (24%) 1,570 (25%) 4,155 (20%)

Table 3.2. Occupations in 1989 by gender and ethnicity. Compiled from the Republic of Buryatia State Statistical Department, Table 35B. 1989 occupations Administration Science Education Culture and art Health and social services

Total 29,323 (100%) 10,250 (100%) 50,726 (100%) 8,507 (100%) 26,906 (100%)

Russian men 11,825 (40%) 4,366 (43%) 4,540 (9%) 1,330 (16%) 2,988 (11%)

Russian women 7,311 (25%) 2,880 (28%) 26,684 (53%) 3,732 (44%) 14,244 (53%)

Buryat men 3,035 (10%) 1,227 (12%) 3,802 (7%) 827 (10%) 1,655 (6%)

Buryat women 2,969 (10%) 1,121 (11%) 13,100 (26%) 2,148 (25%) 6,508 (24%)

Tables 3.1 and 3.2 present five of the major professional areas where Buryat women were most represented in 1979 and 1989.48 48

Tables 3.1 and 3.2 are compiled from the Tekushchii arkhiv Territorial’nogo organa federal’noi sluzhby gosudarstvennoi statistiki po Respublike Buriatiia. Materialy otdela statistiki naseleniia. Itogi Vsesoiuznoi perepisi naseleniia 1979 g., 32B and 1989 g., 35B.

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They also reveal how Buryat women had joined Russian women by this time in obtaining these jobs in large numbers. During this decade the number of Buryats—both men and women—in almost each category rose significantly. In particular, the number of women in science almost doubled, meaning that there were almost as many Buryat women in science as Buryat men. While men also increasingly became professionals in the late Soviet period, a much larger percentage of them continued to work in agriculture. This was not the case for Buryat women. In 1989, half as many Buryat women (19 percent) worked in agriculture as Buryat men (40 percent). As mentioned previously, in the postwar years more Buryat women lived in cities than Buryat men and more Buryat women obtained higher educational degrees than their male counterparts. With more Buryat women in the cities, they also increasingly obtained factory jobs. By 1989, they held almost as many industrial jobs as men did.49 The statistical data presented here on Buryat women in the second half of the twentieth century reveal that many Buryat women were overwhelmingly receptive to the various central and local policies that encouraged and allowed them to move to cities, gain an education, and follow professional career paths. The life of Darizhap Zham’ianova, described in the introduction to this book, offers a model example of the change in opportunities for women in the postwar years. While her mother had labored in the countryside for most of her life, Zham’ianova attended a university and became a scientist in Ulan-Ude in the postwar years. Institutions from the pre-revolutionary and financially strained early Soviet era had not created such opportunities for Buryat women like Zham’ianova’s mother. However, economic growth along with the spread of cultural and educational institutions after WWII provided change. Local Buryat media also regularly glorified the modern, professional Buryat woman such as Zham’ianova. Indeed, many Buryat women followed this model by leaving the rural countryside and agricul49

These statistics come from Tekushchii arkhiv Territorial’nogo organa federal’noi sluzhby gosudarstvennoi statistiki po Respublike Buriatiia, Tables 32 and 35B. In 1989, 16 percent of all working Buryat men in the republic worked in industry and 13 percent of all working Buryat women did.

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tural work to gain educational degrees and new professional occupations in the cities. At the same time, of course, it was not simply a success story. Buryat women, like their female counterparts throughout the Soviet Union, were not encouraged to go into positions of leadership at work or in politics. In addition, as the demographic evidence shows, they were also supported in careers that were considered appropriate for women in the Soviet Union—education and health care professions. Few women could be found in high profile political positions in Buryatia. Between 1928 and 1991, no woman held the high profile positions of head of the Ulan-Ude city soviet or first secretary of the republic.50 Finally, the modern Buryat woman with a career was still expected to assume the majority of the responsibility of raising children and managing the household. These were tasks that limited their advancement within any given profession. Political Leadership When the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR was founded in 1923, there were few members of the Bolshevik Party who were ethnically Buryat. The first three leaders of the republic—Vasilii Il’ich Trubacheev, Maria Mikhailovna Sakh’ianova, and Mikhei Nikolaevich Erbanov— were rare examples. Througout the 1920s, only 9.5 percent of the republic’s Communist Party was Buryat. Leaders in Moscow also sent several of these Buryat communists to conduct advisory work in Mongolia for the new communist government there.51 For that reason, authorities were forced to bring in outsiders, as well as recruit some members of the pre-revolutionary Buryat intelligentsia for building the new ASSR. However, officials were reluctant to place too much reliance on members of the pre-Soviet Buryat intelligentsia, 50

Imetkhenov and Egorov, Ulan-Ude, 131. Maria Mikhailovna Sakh’ianova was the only woman to hold the position of first secretary of the republic. She did so from 1924 to 1928. 51 A number of notable members of the Buryat intelligentsia went to Mongolia in the 1920s and were given positions in government or were assigned advisory roles. Imetkhenov and Egorov, Ulan-Ude, 127; Rupen, Mongols of the Twentieth Century.

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especially former members of political institutions like Burnatskom, who had sought to create Buryat autonomy with less interference from central authorities. Therefore, throughout the 1920s, many nonBuryats dominated administrative and political positions within the local government. In addition, although some of the prerevolutionary Buryat elite proved to be useful to the government for a while, most were later pushed aside when younger and more supposedly reliable Party members became available.52 Table 3.3 lists the names, ethnicities, and tenures of the first secretaries (the top executive position) of the Buryat ASSR from 1923 to 1991. Figure 3.5 depicts the percentages of Buryats who were first secretaries of the republic, first secretaries of the various regions of the republic (the top position of each of the territorial units within Buryatia), and heads of the Ulan-Ude City Soviet (essentially a mayoral position) from 1923 to 1975.53 These were the most important political positions in the republic and people in those jobs wielded power and influence. For example, the postwar first secretaries, Aleksandr Uladaevich Khakhalov and Andrei Urupkheevich Modogoev, were crucial in bringing industry to the republic and directing cultural and educational policy. Although not reflected explicitly in the figure, but contained within it, is the changing structure of the republic. In 1923 there were only six regions—and thus six first regional secretaries. Several more were added in the 1920s and 1930s, and by 1944 there were 23 regions and 23 regional first secretaries. These numbers would change slightly several times again in the following decades.54 Perhaps not surprisingly, in many of the regions where a Buryat or a non-Buryat held 52

Khaptaev, Istoriia Buriatskoi ASSR, 193; Caroline Humphrey, “Buryats,” in Graham Smith (ed.), The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union (New York: Longman, 1990), 292–3. 53 Most of the non-Buryats in Figure 3.5 were ethnic Russians. However, Ukrainians, Tatars, Jews and others also staffed these positions. The information in Figure 3.8 regarding the first secretaries of the various regions of the republic was compiled from NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10897, ll. 3–23 and the information on the heads of the Ulan-Ude City Soviet came from Imetkhenov and Egorov, Ulan-Ude, 127–31. 54 N. L. Zhukovskaya (ed.), Istoriko-kul’turnyi atlas Buriatii (Moscow: Dizain. Informatsiia. Kartografiia, 2001), 546–71.

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the first secretary position continually from 1923 to 1975, that region was in fact largely populated by that ethnicity. In the Kizhinginskii and Kurumkanskii regions, founded in 1940 and 1944 respectively, there were large Buryat populations. The regional first secretaries of those regions were always Buryat. Regions with large Russian populations such as Zaigraevskii and Kabanskii continually had Russian regional first secretaries.55 Also, throughout the Soviet Union, central authorities in Moscow often placed ethnically Russian second secretaries in non-Russian regions in the Soviet Union, including in Buryatia. Nevertheless, the republican first secretaries, as well as other local political leaders were generally still the most highly influential political forces.56 Table 3.3. First Secretaries of the Buryat ASSR from 1923 to 1991. Period

55

Name

1923–24

Vasilii Il’ich Trubacheev (Buryat)

1924–28

Maria Mikhailovna Sakh’ianova (Buryat)

1928–37

Mikhei Nikolaevich Erbanov (Buryat)

1937–43

Semen Denisovich Ignatev (Ukrainian)

1943–51

Aleksandr Vasil’evich Kudriavtsev (Russian)

1951–60

Aleksandr Uladaevich Khakhalov (Buryat)

1960–62

Vasilii Rodionovich Filippov (Buryat)

1962–84

Andrei Urupkheevich Modogoev (Buryat)

1984–90

Anatolii Mikhailovich Beliakov (Russian)

1990–91

Leonid Vasil’evich Potapov (Russian)

For a map that reflects the general ethnic composition of Buryatia by region see Zhukovskaia, Istoriko-kul’turnyi atlas, 460. For more detailed statistics, see NARB, f. 1, op. 1, d. 10462, ll. 1, 22. Some of the more predominantly Buryat regions in the republic in the latter part of the twentieth century were: Kizhinginskii, Dzhidinskii, Selenginskii, Kurumkanskii, Khorinskii, Tunkinskii, Zakamenskii, Eravninskii, and Okinskii. 56 For a discussion of the position of second secretaries of the non-Russian republics of the Soviet Union, see John H. Miller, “Cadres Policy in Nationality Areas: Recruitment of CPSU First and Second Secretaries in Non-Russian Republics of the USSR,” in Rachel Denber (ed.), The Soviet Nationality Reader: The Disintegration in Context (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992), 184–209.

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90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10

Non-Buryat Buryat

0

Figure 3.5. Republican and regional First Secretaries, 1923–75.

Figure 3.5 demonstrates how ethnic Buryats gained the republic’s top political positions in the second half of the twentieth century—a complete reversal of the situation from the prewar years. Before World War II, Buryats made up on average only around 30 percent of the leading positions in the republic. Under Stalin’s leadership in the 1930s, almost all of the political leaders in top positions were killed. Therefore, during the late 1930s and the height of the purges, Buryats made up only around 20 percent of these jobs. Many purged Buryat leaders were replaced with non-Buryats from both within and outside of the republic. Once WWII started however, more relaxed policies allowed for Buryats to again fill the top political positions. From the postwar years into the late Soviet era, Buryats came to represent more than half of the leading political jobs despite representing only a little over 20 percent of the total

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population during that time. Between 1945 and 1959, Buryats made up an average of 44 percent of the positions listed in Figure 3.5. That proportion rose to an average of 54 percent between 1960 and 1975. However, in a number of individual years during that period, Buryat political leaders made up over 60 percent. The large number of ethnic Buryats in important political positions after WWII meant that Buryats had become key decision makers in the republic even though their overall representation was low. By the 1960s, Buryats made up only 28 percent of the republic’s members of the Communist Party, but a large proportion of them had gained the highest positions.57 In addition, the Buryats were overrepresented in high administrative positions in government and in Party organs. In 1979, they made up around 35 percent of the high positions in government administration, the Party, komsomol, and profsoiuz.58 That share rose to around 42 percent by 1989.59 Also in 1989, Buryats made up 41 percent of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the republic (the large and representative body for the republic) and 63 percent of the Soviet of Ministers of the republic.60 Regional administrations were also often filled with large percentages of Buryats.61 The Buryats’ strong showing in positions of political leadership was due to a variety of reasons. Korenizatsiia policies beginning in the 1920s enacted a program of affirmative action to install more Buryats in high positions. Although this policy was implemented slowly in the 1920s and partly reversed during the late 1930s, it still continued in later decades with the belief that certain important 57

Between 1945 and 1960 Buryats made up around 27 percent of the total number of Party members in the republic. That number rose to 28 percent between 1960 and 1975. See, NARB, f. P-1, op. 1 d. 7021, l. 1; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7886, l. 2; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6940, l. 1. 58 NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 8. 59 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10462, l. 20. 60 NARB, f. P-1, op., 1, d. 10462, ll. 12–3. 61 For example, in 1959, 40 percent of the Party administration in Ulan-Ude was Buryat. See, NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7086, ll. 68-79. In 1962, 73 percent of the local Party administration in the Selenginskii region was Buryat and 53 percent in both the Tunkinskii and Dzhidinskii regions. See, NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7086, ll. 117–9, 128.

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positions should be reserved for the titular nationality. Nepotism and favoritism also played a large role. A part of politics everywhere, this was particularly acute in the Soviet Union, where doling out high positions was one of the only means of rewarding individuals and gaining loyalty—monetary and other tangible rewards being less important given the Soviet economic system. Buryat migration, urbanization, increases in education, and professionalization in work, were also all major contributors. The increasing number of educated, urban, professional Buryats meant a higher number of qualified candidates for important political positions—positions that allowed ethnic Buryats to have great influence over the direction of the republic in the last decades of Soviet power. Conclusion In 1958, the term “Mongolian” was dropped from the names of the Buryat territories. The Buryat-Mongolian ASSR became simply the Buryat ASSR.62 The change occurred for the Buryat autonomous okrugs, as well as all titled institutions such as the local newspapers and publishing house. The official reason was that the old name was confusing and it did not correspond correctly to the national composition of the republic—Buryats lived there, not Mongols. However, the Buryats are Mongols and therefore many have speculated on the change. In particular, why did it occur in 1958 and what were the unofficial reasons for it? Some claim that it was changed after a conversation between the Buryat first secretary at the time, Modogoev, and Nikita Khrushchev, who supposedly asked, “Why do you call your republic Buryat-Mongolia, do Mongols live there?” When Modogoev answered “No,” Khrushchev proposed that he change the name.63 Connected to this is the argument that Khrushchev feared that by having the name “Mongolian” 62

In 1958, the okrug names were changed to Aginskii Buryat National Okrug and Ust’-Ordynskii Buryat National Okrug. In 1977, the names were changed to Aginskii Buryat Autonomous Okrug and Ust’-Ordynskii Buryat Autonomous Okrug. 63 Elaev, Buriatskii narod, 246.

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in the republic’s title, the Chinese could claim Buryatia just as the Taiwanese government claimed the territory of Outer Mongolia as part of China.64 Another suggestion is that the name change occurred in 1958 because that was when the Soviet Union was supporting Mongolia’s entrance as a member into the United Nations— a move that China at the time did not support.65 Other evidence attributes the change to attitudes expressed in contemporary Buryat scholarship about the distinctiveness of the Buryat nation among the Mongol peoples. Overall, it seems that it was, at least in part, a continuation of the Soviet campaign against pan-Mongolism begun in the 1930s.66 For whatever reason, it is telling that it occurred at this time. The 1958 name change was part of the result of many years of official rhetoric about the different path taken by the Buryats under the tsars and Soviets than that by the Mongols of Mongolia. The Buryats who came of age in the postwar years experienced a vastly different Buryatia than their supposed “backward” predecessors, whom authorities presumed had lived more like their Khalkha Mongol neighbors in Mongolia to the south. Thanks to Soviet institutions that had facilitated rapid urbanization, an expansion in education, and the increase in a wide variety of occupations in the republic, many residents had become part of a new Buryat elite that was decisively not “backward.” Instead, the Buryats had become modern Soviet citizens who were overrepresented in many professional and political positions. They dominated many media, educational, and cultural occupations despite their minority status within the republic. They were both the product of Soviet modernizing policies and at the same time influenced how these policies were carried out. In the second half of the twentieth century, Buryats increasingly occupied jobs with the power to make decisions or exert influence over the rapid changes taking place in their republic. And, in most cases, they favored decisions that had practical benefits that brought 64

Ibid., 247. Mongolia was admitted as a member of the United Nations in 1961. Margarita Maksimovna Boronova, “Education and Development in Buryatia, 1960–1990,” paper presented at the Central Eurasian Studies Conference at Indiana University on March 31, 2007. 66 Chimitdorzhiev, Buriat-Mongoly, 39–42. 65

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them advancement in Soviet society. This was happening so quickly and efficiently that officials could boast that Buryatia was an outpost of Soviet modernization. Its progress was “exemplary” and other Asian nations should and could, under the guidance of the Soviet authorities, follow it. In fact, Buryatia as a model of Soviet civilization was not simply rhetorical. By the end of the 1950s, the Buryats had become more modern, Western, and international by Soviet standards. They had become, in the eyes of authorities, less “backward” and therefore less Mongol.

CHAPTER 4

Education for Change

A good education was crucial for social mobility in the Soviet Union. In Buryatia, local government administrators, educators, and parents contributed to the development of an education system that encouraged professional advancement. Their efforts illustrate the manner in which Buryats engaged in a key part of the Soviet modernization process. However, educational development could also be contentious. The clearest example of this was the vacillating policy of teaching the Buryat language. In the 1930s, many Buryat national schools offered instruction in Buryat up through the fourth grade with Russian taught as a subject. In the early postwar years, Buryat language instruction was expanded beyond the fifth grade. However, when parents began increasingly to choose Russian language schools over Buryat ones, officials in the 1970s cancelled the teaching of Buryat completely, arguing that more Russian language was needed for educational and professional success. Then, in the 1980s reviving the Buryat language became a hot topic among politicians, intellectuals, and educators. Although the rhetoric of bilingualism was a constant throughout, the Buryat language had become largely marginalized and among many totally diminished. While serious efforts were made to reverse this situation in the late 1980s and after the break-up of the USSR, educators have encountered challenges in this process. During the Soviet period, educational institutions taught not only specific disciplines, but also ideology. Education was a tool for facilitating industrial, technological, and political progress in the

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country. E. Thomas Ewing, who conducted a study of teachers who worked in the 1930s, argued that Soviet education policy was meant “to promote the economic, social, and political development of the Soviet Union in part by transforming individuals into functional, compliant, and subordinate subjects.”1 Education thus served the state by creating the necessary citizens who would carry out its economic and political goals.2 Education was also a method for developing social unity and cultural homogenization. In 1981, the Soviet scholar, Leokadia M. Drobizheva, wrote that education in the Soviet Union was meant “to foster in people a feeling of internationalism” and that “the expansion of education overall tends to promote similar perceptions, identical responses to events and phenomena, and, finally, a common way of life—in effect, it forms the basis for mutual understanding in inter-nationality communication.”3 These unifying forces of education were also cited by policymakers as helping the merging together of the various nations into one Soviet people.4 Increases in education levels were even cited as leading to a rise in intermarriage, an official indicator of the drawing together of Soviet nations.5 Authorities also believed that education provided political socialization and support for the regime. In 1983, Ts. Shonoev, a local Buryat administrator from the Eravninskii region described how education served this role. He argued that, “School—it is the foundation of ideology. It gives young men and women the fundamentals of a Marxist-Leninist world view; it instills in them correct and realistic outlooks, a love of work, a refusal to tolerate bourgeois ideology and morals, and a preparedness to defend the socialist 1

E. Thomas Ewing, The Teachers of Stalinism: Policy, Practice, and Power in Soviet Schools of the 1930s (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), 152. 2 These goals are similar (to varying degrees) to the goals of state educators in other countries as well. See for example, Walter Feinberg and Jonas F. Soltis, School and Society (New York: Teachers College Press, 2004), 24–8. 3 L. M. Drobizheva, “The Role of Education and Cultural Perspective in Interpersonal Relations among Nationalities” in Martha B. Olcott (ed.), The Soviet Multinational State: Readings and Documents (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1990), 191. 4 Kaiser, The Geography of Nationalism, 225. 5 Drobizheva, “The Role of Education,” 192.

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fatherland.”6 In order to facilitate these educational goals, educators and administrators in Buryatia made careful decisions about textbooks, educational materials, curricula, and general school policy. Many of these decisions were made in Moscow, but local policymakers also played an important role. Standardized education in Buryatia brought a greater degree of social and cultural integration with the rest of the country. Both schools that provided instruction in Buryat and those that provided it in the Russian language had similar curricula. These resembled curricula throughout the country. Curricula became even more standardized when Buryat-language education was cancelled in the early 1970s. In addition, Soviet education in Buryatia produced highly educated Buryats trained in a variety of professions that were useful for the modern industrialized Soviet society. Soviet education in Buryatia was also intended to provide many Buryats with a sense of belonging and of allegiance to the Soviet Union. Educational content that stressed Soviet patriotism, the friendship of peoples, and the Buryat role in Soviet history contributed to this. Many Buryats who advanced personally because of their Soviet education may, therefore, have indeed felt greater loyalty and patriotism. Soviet education offered a means toward social advancement and many citizens both in and outside of Buryatia viewed it positively. Larry E. Holmes, who interviewed former 1930s students of school No. 25 in Moscow, argued that education left that generation with a “joy of life and fetching optimism” and “a deep sense of personal responsibility.”7 Alex Inkles and Raymond A. Bauer, who surveyed postwar Soviet refugees in the early 1950s, found that their subjects supported Soviet education more than any other aspect of Soviet society.8 For many of these people, Soviet education provided them with a new life, greater comforts, and a doorway into a new professional class. This was true for people in Buryatia as well. Many Buryats desired the advantages that education could 6

NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2410, l. 16. Larry E. Holmes, Stalin’s School: Moscow’s Model School No. 25, 1931–1937 (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999), 152. 8 Inkeles and Bauer, The Soviet Citizen, 132. 7

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bring them. As their enrollment rates in schools and higher educational institutes rose dramatically in the later postwar years, receiving an education became increasingly an ideal for many Buryat families who came to expect that their children needed an education for success. The value placed on education in Buryat society is evident in the demographic statistics presented in Chapter 3 that show a sharp rise in educational and professional levels in the decades after WWII. It is also revealed by its prominence in the public eye. Local people attentively followed developments in education and influenced decisions made about textbooks, curricula, school districts, lecture topics, and more. They contributed to directing, running, and changing education policy in Buryatia. Teachers and parents were considered role models and exemplary individuals among them were promoted in the local media. These factors contributed to an enthusiastic response among Buryats toward educational opportunities. As mentioned in previous chapters, by the 1980s, the Buryats were one of the most educated of the Soviet Union’s various ethnic groups. They became proportionately overrepresented in almost all professions and high political positions. Education was crucial to this process and it contributed to the transformation of the Buryat ASSR from a predominately rural, agricultural, area to a region with many industries, higher educational institutes, and urban spaces. Building Soviet Education in Eastern Siberia The process of collectivization, the alphabet shifts, and World War II seriously hindered educational development in Buryatia.9 Therefore, it was not until the postwar years that attention to education could be renewed with the sufficient resources necessary to make it more widespread. The Buryats were fortunate that they could devote more local resources to education in the postwar years than could many others. For example, Buryatia was not devastated during World War II in the way that the western part of the Soviet Un9

For more on this, see Chapter 2.

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ion had been. The Buryats were also not deported en masse under Joseph Stalin like the Chechens and Kalmyks were—nationalities, who had much lower education levels by the late Soviet period.10 While the Buryats were developing education in their region in the mid-1950s, those who had been deported like the Chechens and Kalmyks, were only beginning to return to theirs. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, authorities introduced massive literacy campaigns that covered the Buryat countryside. “Schools to liquidate illiteracy” were set up all over the republic—33 in the Bichurskii region alone.11 Republic officials kept detailed records of the numbers of illiterates in each region and these people were required to attend classes to learn how to read.12 By 1959, the Buryat government claimed that over 95 percent of the republic’s population was literate.13 The government also worked to build more schools and increase student enrollment. Between 1941 and 1960, the number of students enrolled in higher educational institutes rose six times and the number of students at the Buryat State Pedagogical Institute more than doubled.14 There was also much concern over the need to educate working adults. Efforts were made to provide them with schools, classes, and a higher level of education.15 In 1952 alone, 15 schools for young factory workers opened and 25 for young agricultural workers.16 However, the real education boom took place in the 1960s and 1970s. During those decades the number of republican residents enrolled in schools, technical institutes, and higher educational in10

See Kaiser, The Geography of Nationalism, for a wide range of statistics on educational levels among different nationalities based on Soviet censuses. 11 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 425, l. 25. 12 Ibid., 2–118. 13 Skuratov (ed.), Buriatskaia ASSR, 79. Among the five percent who were illiterate, over 80 percent of them (Buryat or Russian) were over the age of 50. For more literary statistics, see NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 10, ll. 1–4. 14 I. Kh. Bal’khaeva, Formirovanie kadrovogo potentsiala Respubliki VUZami Buriatii (1932–1996 gg.) (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’stvo Buriatskogo gosuniversiteta, 2001), 54; S. V. Kalmykov and T. E. Sanzhiev, “Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet: Istoriia i sovremennost’,” Vestnik Buriatskogo Universiteta, seriia 4, Istorii, vypusk 4 (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2002), 8. 15 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 414, ll. 1–11. 16 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 423, l. 3.

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stitutes rose by 40 percent.17 Widespread evening educational programs helped to reduce by 50 percent the number of young adults without a high school degree.18 New higher educational institutes were also established. In Ulan-Ude in 1960, the Eastern Siberian Institute of Culture was founded and in 1962 the Eastern Siberian Technological Institute opened.19 The student enrollment in higher educational institutes rose fourfold from the early 1960s to 1970.20 In addition, numerous new high schools opened during that time offering specialized programs in medicine, pedagogy, art, and various industrial and technical skills.21 The 1970s also saw the widespread development of high school education for rural students. Previous to this time, many rural students were only completing the eighth grade.22 The new schools gave them an opportunity to gain secondary education in their locales. In comparison to the ethnic Russians in the republic, more Buryats gained higher educational degrees in greater numbers. In 1959, 21 Buryats per 1,000 had a higher educational degree and in 1979, 54 did. The numbers were 15 and 27, respectively, for the republic’s Russian population.23 Education rates among urban Buryats were even higher. For example, in 1989, 149 urban Buryats per 1,000 had higher educational degrees compared to only 57 urban Russians.24 This strong standing in education among the Buryats 17

Khalbaeva, Buriatiia, 83. Belikov, Povyshenie kul’turno-tekhnicheskogo, 33–8. 19 Today these institutions are named the Vostochno-Sibirskaia gosudarstvennaia adademiia kul’tury i iskusstv (East Siberian State Academy of Culture and Art) and the Vostochno-Sibirskii gosudarstvennyi universitet tekhnologii i upravleniia (East Siberian State University of Technology and Management). 20 M. V. Egodurova, “Istoriia razvitiia vyshego obrazovaniia v Buriatii v 60–70-e gg.” in N. V. Bogoev (ed.), Budushchee Buriatii glazami molodezhi: Materialy vtoroi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’stvo Buriatskogo gosuniversiteta, 2002), 158. 21 M. M. Boronova, “Razvitie vyshego i srednogo obrazovaniia v Buriatii v 1960– 1980 gg.,” in VSGTU Sbornik nauchnykh trudov 4 (1998), 214. 22 Aleksandr Innokent’evich Bocheev, “Osobennosti protsessa stanovleniia i razvitie sel’skoi obshcheobrazovatel’noi shkoly v 1970–1980 gody (na primere shkol Respubliki Buriatiia)” (PhD diss., Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2002), 79–80. 23 NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 52, l. 17. 24 Zateev and Kharaev, Dinamika izmenenii, 78. 18

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meant that by 1980, census statistics reported that proportionally more Buryats were enrolled in higher educational institutes in the Soviet Union than any other ethnic group in the country.25 This led to fewer Buryats taking agricultural jobs after high school, a trend that was especially common among Buryat women as discussed in Chapter 3. In 1983, only 22 percent of graduating high school students in Buryatia went on to work in agriculture; almost twice as many did, for example, in neighboring Yakutia.26 The Buryats’ strong standing in education can in part be related to the dominance of ethnic Russians in the republic’s factories. The large representation of Russians in industry, starting in the 1930s and lasting through the entire Soviet period, made it more difficult for Buryats to move into those jobs. Instead, Buryats followed career paths that provided them with work in the expanding number of white-collar occupations, many of which required higher education. The large number of Russians in industrial jobs in the republic can also account for their lower education levels. Although there were quotas in most non-Russian regions in the Soviet Union at higher educational institutes that ensured a high percentage of the titular nationality received admission, the wide spectrum of education levels among Soviet nationalities show that quotas were not always effective. While the Buryats rapidly advanced in education, the titular nationalities in other regions did not.27 For this reason, quotas alone cannot explain the Russians’ lower education levels. Many of the Russians who moved to Buryatia to work in industry became part of an industrial culture. They lived in selfcontained, non-Buryat, urban areas close to the factories where they worked as in the example of the large Railroad neighborhood (Zheleznodorozhnyi raion) in Ulan-Ude that was built next to the railroad works. These ethnic Russians attended technical high schools in much higher numbers than Buryats and they also more commonly worked in professions that required mid-level technical 25

Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 269. NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2444, ll. 5–7. 27 For a list of higher educational rates among the various Soviet nationalities in 1959 and 1979, see Kaiser, The Georgraphy of Nationalism, 229–30. 26

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training. Many Russians in Buryatia chose career paths as industrial workers and managers rather than going on to higher educational institutes. This phenomenon also occurred in other parts of the USSR where there were large numbers of industrial immigrants. For example, in the 1960s, the majority of the engineers and technical specialists in Central Asia were not locals and in Latvia, as late as 1989, the majority of industrial workers were ethnic Russians.28 Despite the differences between Russians and Buryats, the late Soviet period witnessed an explosion of educational opportunities in Buryatia and many—both Russian and Buryat—took advantage. Buryat National Schools Schools designated as “national schools” in the Soviet Union were designed to provide education to non-Russians in their native languages. These schools also provided special courses on the given native languages and literatures. However, the degree of nonRussian language instruction varied widely from region to region and fluctuated throughout the Soviet period. The history, size, and rate of social mobility for each non-Russian people also affected native language schooling differently in each region. There were also variations in education among the titular nationalities of Union Republics (SSRs), those in the Autonomous Republics (ASSRs), and those in other territorial units.29 For example, native-language instruction was offered in school as well as in higher educational institutes in the SSRs. In the ASSRs, native language instruction was often limited to only the lower grades in school and higher education was conducted exclusively in Russian.30 Central authorities pushed for greater attention to the Russian language in the post28

Jubilis, Nationalism and Democratic Transition, 48; Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 271. 29 The majority of the ASSRs and lower territorial units were located in the Russian Republic. 30 Barbara A. Anderson and Brian D. Silver, “Equality, Efficiency, and Politics in Soviet Bilingual Education” in Rachel Denber (ed.), The Soviet Nationality Reader: The Disintegration in Context (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), 361, 369.

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Stalin years and many ASSR governments responded by drastically reducing native language education. However, the SSRs generally did not. Thus, the SSR languages became, as the political scientist Jonathan Pool argues, the “favored languages” of the Soviet Union.31 In Buryatia, the requirements for the Buryat language in schools changed considerably throughout the Soviet era. Buryat educators regularly debated how much Buryat language instruction should be provided for republican children. Also, the alphabet shifts of the 1930s complicated and stalled the republic’s ability to spread Buryat language education and literacy before World War II. Throughout the 1930s, Buryat language instruction in many schools was conducted through grade four. Beyond those grades, Buryat was taught only as a subject and Russian became the language of instruction.32 In 1948 however, local officials and educators decided to expand instruction in Buryat through grade seven.33 They argued that students could master subjects better in their own language and would therefore improve their academics overall. Although the reform took a few years to implement, schools where it was carried out in 1950 had higher graduation rates than in previous years. A 1952 report from the local Party committee for schools claimed that the graduation rate had increased in the fifth grade from 62.6 percent to 70.8 percent and from 63 percent to 73.9 percent for seventh graders.34 Some teachers argued that switching from Russian to Buryat had indeed 31

Jonathan Pool, “Soviet Language Planning: Goals, Results, Options” in Jeremy R. Azrael (ed.), Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices. (New York: Praeger, 1978), 240. 32 In eastern Buryatia, Buryat was the primary language of instruction in most national schools through grade four and Russian was introduced as a subject in second grade. Once in fifth grade, all subjects were taught in Russian and Buryat was taught as a subject. See NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1689, ll. 19–20. In western Buryatia, where Russian was more widespread, both Russian and Buryat were used as teaching languages in the earlier grades. See Tarmakhanov, Dameshek, and Sanzhieva, Istoriia Ust’-Ordynskogo, 152. 33 G. L. Sanzhiev (ed.), Respublika moia Buriatiia: Kratkaia khrestomatiia po istorii respubliki 1946–1997 (Ulan Ude: Komitet po delam arkhiv Respublika Buriatiia, 1998), 64–5. 34 Ibid.

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helped these students because it had allowed them to more deeply understand the subjects taught in school.35 To accompany the education reform, textbooks in all subjects were translated and published in Buryat, although unevenly by discipline. In particular, math and science textbooks were lacking and the translations were often poor. Because of this, many teachers continued to teach these subjects in Russian. However, textbooks in other subjects were more abundant.36 For example, in 1951, 1,700 copies of Soviet constitution textbooks, 2,000 geography textbooks, and 2,000 history textbooks were published in Buryat for middle school students.37 This is a large number of textbooks for the time, given that in 1950 budget constraints were a constant problem and there were only 4,076 Buryat schoolchildren enrolled in grades five through seven.38 Pedagogical materials were also published for teachers to help them prepare curricula and graduation exams for students in Buryat language middle schools.39 While improved graduation rates were reported, not all educators, parents, and government officials were convinced that the reform was a success. In particular, some worried that although it meant better graduation rates in middle school, it jeopardized Buryat students’ future successes in higher educational institutes. The first secretary of the republic at the time, the ethnic Buryat, Aleksandr Uladaevich Khakhalov, was very critical of the reform. In 1952 he argued that the Buryat language was still in a stage of formation, there were too many dialects in use, too many grammatical issues had not been decided, and not enough teachers knew literary Buryat. He complained that many middle school teachers found the Buryat textbooks difficult to understand. They did not have enough training in literary Buryat language and often resorted to the Russian textbook version first before teaching from the 35

Tsybigzhab Tsyrenvanzhilovna Dugarova, “Razvitie natsional’noi shkoly Respubliki Buriatiia vo vtoroi polovine xx veka” (PhD diss., FGNU “Institut Natsional’nykh Problem Obrazovaniia,” 2005), 51–3. 36 Andreev, Istoriia buriatskoi shkoly, 522–5; Dugarova, “Razvitie natsional’noi shkoly,” 55. 37 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5777, l. 44. 38 Sanzhiev, Respublika moia Buriatiia, 64–5. 39 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5777, l. 153.

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Buryat one. Khakhalov went on to complain that in some schools, teachers used the Russian textbooks in class, but then expected the students to discuss the materials in their particular Buryat dialect. In many schools, teachers reported that their students took notes in Russian. Khakhalov complained that all of this mixing of languages was confusing for students and hindered their educational development. In addition, he argued that the Buryat population was not receiving enough Russian language instruction and therefore Buryats were underrepresented in higher educational and worker training programs.40 Some teachers joined Khakhalov in complaining about the reform. In particular, teachers of math and science argued that it was difficult to teach those subjects in Buryat.41 Khakhalov wanted to see improvements in both the teaching of Buryat and the teaching of Russian. In order to overcome some of the problems regarding Buryat, Khakhalov recommended training more teachers in the language. However, it seems little came of this recommendation because throughout the 1950s Buryat schools did not have enough teachers who could teach various subjects in Buryat. The result was uneven quality of Buryat language education. In addition, while schools that had sufficient numbers of teachers proficient in Buryat could offer all subjects in Buryat, other schools could not. Therefore, although all Buryat national schools were supposed to provide Buryat language instruction through grade seven, some schools had the resources to do so only in some subjects and only through grades five or six.42 Also, despite Khakhalov’s demand for more teachers with Buryat language skills, fewer and fewer teachers of Buryat language and literature were actually graduating from teaching institutes. For example, in 1951, 14 teachers graduated from the Buryat Pedagogical Institute in Ulan-Ude with a specialization in Buryat language and literature. In 1952, only 11 did. During these same two years the Kiakhta Pedagogical Institute had no graduates with this specialization. This decline led to an overall drop in the republic in the number of teachers trained to teach Buryat. In 1950, 40

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5923, ll. 10–5. Dugarova, “Razvitie natsional’noi shkoly,” 52. 42 S. M. Babushkin, Buriatsko-russkoe dvuiazychie formirovanie i kharakter razvitiia (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’stvo Buriatskogo gosuniversiteta, 2007), 43. 41

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there were 956 teachers in Buryat schools, but by 1955 that number had dropped to 828.43 There were also problems with the quality of Buryat language teachers. For example, in a 1960 Pravda Buriatii article, a school inspector complained that in some Buryat national schools Buryat language had been taught poorly for years because many teachers did not know Buryat properly themselves. The article complained that students therefore made frequent mistakes in both written and spoken Buryat. The author blamed school leaders for not caring enough about Buryat language education and called, like Khakhalov, for better teacher training.44 In addition to pedagogical problems related to the reform, many parents, educators, and local administrators felt children were spending too much time learning Buryat and not enough learning other subjects, especially Russian.45 In order for children to study Buryat language and literature regularly, teachers had to subtract class hours from other subjects. Thus, Buryats in national schools spent half as much time on Russian language and literature as students in Russian schools did per week, an hour less on math in grades one to three, one to two hours less on foreign languages, and an hour or so less on art. However, the number of hours a week spent studying history, the USSR’s constitution, geography, and the hard sciences were largely the same.46 Complaints also circulated about teachers in Buryat national schools who did not know Russian well enough to teach it to their students. For example, one education inspector, reporting from a Buryat national school in the Dzhidinskii region, described how a third grade Russian language teacher “herself doesn’t know Russian” and makes many “simple and ridiculous mistakes.”47 In another example in an Ulan-Ude regional Buryat school, a teacher was cited as only weakly knowing Russian after having taught it for six years.48 Parents, educators, and local administrators worried 43

Bal’khaeva, Formirovanie kadrovogo potentsiala, 47. S. Tabdaev, “Znat’ rodnoi iazyk,” Pravda Buriatii, January 5, 1960, p. 3. 45 Andreev, Istoriia buriatskoi shkoly, 524–5. 46 See samples of standardized schedules from this period in NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 442, ll. 2–5. 47 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 4907, l. 36. 48 Ibid., 49. 44

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about the state of Russian language education because a good command of Russian was necessary to succeed in high school where Buryat was taught only as a subject. Russian was also needed for entry into higher educational institutions.49 In addition, the Russian language held great prestige among many at that time. Good Russian skills meant more opportunities not only for higher education, but also better career paths.50 Russian was considered the international language of the country and necessary for success. Since Buryats were a minority in Buryatia and Russians generally did not learn Buryat, Russian was also necessary to communicate with most of the republic’s population. For these reasons, many Buryats expressed concerns over the state of language education in Buryatia. Some parents also began to send their children to Russian language schools. Under Nikita Khrushchev’s leadership in the late 1950s, Soviet language policy began to change. The Russian language was more aggressively promoted through education, research, and propaganda. It was also endorsed as the key ingredient for helping to foster a Soviet civic community and maintaining Soviet internationalism.51 Khrushchev emphasized that Russian was now more important than it had been before and he criticized his predecessor, Joseph Stalin, for having neglected Russian in favor of promoting too many national languages. Government propaganda continued to promote bilingualism, but now asserted the absolute need for fluency in Russian.52 In 1958 and 1959, Khrushchev also enacted new laws that gave parents the official right to choose whether to send their children to Russian language or native language schools. Although for several years previously some parents had already been doing this in many regions, including Buryatia, the new law led to a significant decline in the 1960s of children enrolling in national 49

Zateev, Dialektika natsional’nykh, 64. Oleg Mikhailovich Khubrikov, “Sotsial’nye aspekty institutsionalizatsii buriatskogo iazyka kak gosudarstvennogo” (PhD diss., Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2001), 70. 51 Babushkin, Buriatsko-russkoe dvuiazychie formirovanie, 45. 52 Isabelle T. Kreindler, “Soviet Language Planning since 1953” in Michael Kirkwood (ed.), Language Planning in the Soviet Union (London: Macmillan Press, 1989), 47–9. 50

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schools, particularly in the Russian Republic.53 Within a few years of the reform, some ethnic groups, such as the Karelians, Kabardians, and Balkars, cancelled all native language schooling.54 This change in policy also marked the beginning of the end of widespread Buryat language education for the Buryats. With the expanded support for education in the Soviet Union in the 1960s, many of the problems in Buryat national schools might have been corrected. The additional financial and material support offered at that time could have led to the development of a more successful educational program that taught both Buryat and Russian effectively. Instead, the local Buryat government began a process to curtail Buryat language education and promote the study of Russian. It did so at a time when it was even giving much greater support to teachers through training, conferences, and workshops.55 First, the government phased out the teaching of all subjects in Buryat in middle schools by the mid-1960s. It therefore ended the 1948 reform that had expanded instruction of Buryat through seventh grade.56 Second, in 1967 the Buryat Ministry of Education issued a decree to begin entirely phasing out at all levels the teaching of all subjects other than language and literature in Buryat.57 Last, from 1970 to 1978 Buryat elementary schools all over the republic and in the two Buryat autonomous okrugs stopped teaching any discipline in Buryat from grade one. These schools instead adopted the general Russian language school program.58 A number of Buryat national schools continued to offer Buryat language as a subject through grade ten, but many schools dropped it completely. The argument that Buryats could better master subjects in their own 53

Andreev, Istoriia buriatskoi shkoly, 526; Babushkin, Buriatsko-russkoe dvuiazychie formirovanie, 53–5, 59; Dugarova, “Razvitie natsional’noi shkoly,” 57–9; Yaroslav Bilinsky, “The Soviet Education Laws of 1958-1959 and Soviet Nationality Policy,” Soviet Studies 14, no. 2 (October 1962), 138–57. 54 Brian D. Silver, “The Status of National Minority Languages in Soviet Education: An Assessment of Recent Changes,” Soviet Studies 26, no. 1 (January 1974), 28–32. 55 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7624, l. 2; NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d., 2293, l. 33. 56 Babushkin, Buriatsko-russkoe dvuiazychie formirovanie, 53. 57 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10087, l. 4. 58 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 1485, l. 25.

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language first was completely replaced at that time with the argument that Russian language immersion was most important to Buryat students’ success. Andrei Urupkheevich Modogoev, the man who replaced Khakhalov as first secretary of the republic in 1962 and remained in power until 1984, oversaw the cancellation of Buryat language in schools in the 1970s. He gave one main reason for the educational reform in his autobiography written during his retirement: the enormous amount of pressure from parents and educators who wanted a Russian language curriculum. Modogoev claimed that Buryat children were being denied educational advancement opportunities by not getting enough Russian language education. The new reform was meant to improve students’ overall development and opportunities in society.59 Indeed, the Buryat Republic conducted several studies surveying Buryat parents and found that around 80 percent of them wanted more Russian language instruction.60 Although it is evident that officials and parents wanted more Russian, it is not clear exactly why many schools stopped teaching Buryat entirely. In his memoir, Modogoev blamed the Buryat Ministry of Education. He claimed that the Buryat central government had recommended that the study of Buryat language and literature should be increased after Buryat national schools were transferred to a Russian language program because it was vital for Buryat children to have an equal understanding of Russian and Buryat. He added though that despite this, the Buryat Ministry of Education never carried out this plan. Instead, it allowed many Buryat schools completely to stop teaching Buryat on their own initiative.61 While Modogoev’s explanations may be true, he was a powerful local administrator who could have intervened with the republic’s education policy. More likely, Modogoev simply wanted to im59

Modogoev, Gody i Liudi, 184–5. Also see the document in NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2499, ll. 1–2 that offers the argument that the new reform would improve students’ performance and future success in society. 60 B. S. Shoinzhonov, “Ob aktual’nykh problemakh sovremennoi buriatskoi shkoly” in M. N. Mangadaev (ed.), Aktual’nye problemy sovremennoi buriatskoi shkoly. Sbornik materialov nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii (Ulan-Ude cent. 1979 g.) (Ulan Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1983), 20–1. 61 Modogoev, Gody i Liudi, 185–6.

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prove educational levels among Buryats and believed Russian language education was the way to do that. It is also possible that Modogoev feared that alterations to language policies might cause him problems with authorities in Moscow. When the Soviet language laws were discussed and implemented in 1958 and 1959, several SSR and ASSR leaders criticized the laws and sought to moderate the introductions of them in their own regions. Shortly afterward, in 1959 and 1960, critics of these laws such as the Latvian politician, Eduards Berklavs, the first secretary of the Azerbaijan SSR, Imam Mustafayev, and the first secretary of the Tatar ASSR, Semen Ignat’ev, were all removed from their posts. Although officially these men were dismissed for such reasons as their supposed shortcomings in how they administered their republics’ economies, their opposition to the language laws and their cultural policies in general, were certainly crucial contributing factors.62 Modogoev may have learned from these examples and therefore carried out policies, pushed by nationwide initiatives, that limited Buryat language instruction. Modogoev and other Buryat administrators were also influenced in their decision-making by the importance placed on the Russian language in the 1970s by Leonid Brezhnev, who put even greater emphasis on Russian than had Khrushchev. Under his leadership, Russian was no longer to be taught as a foreign language; it was now the first language of the country. Authorities devoted many resources to teaching Russian such as new textbooks, Russian language labs, and technical teaching aids for teachers. Extracurricular activities such as Russian language festivals, clubs, and competitions were also supported and encouraged.63 Russian officially became a component of the culture of all the various nationalities of the Soviet Union and it was intended to cement them together. Authorities also claimed now that Russian was crucial to understanding communism. It was no longer necessary to read 62

Ian Bateson, “Soviet Language Policy and Tatar-and-Russian-Language Schools in 1950s and 1960s Kazan and the Tatar ASSR” (MA thesis, Free Universtiy of Berlin, 2012), 37–8; Bilinsky, “The Soviet Education Laws,” 146–8. 63 Bilinsky, “Expanding the Use of Russian or Russification?” 317–32; Kreindler, “Soviet Language Planning,” 54–5.

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Lenin in one’s national language; instead, Russian was the language of Lenin and every Soviet citizen should be able to read him in the original.64 This was true for the Russian literary classics as well. At a 1979 conference of Buryat educators, a school director described the desire of his students to know Russian by quoting a Buryat third grader as having said, “I want to know the Russian language fully so that I can read Pushkin, Tolstoy, and other writers with complete understanding.”65 The need to read works in Russian was a total reversal from the previous language policy. That policy, which had been in effect since the foundation of the Soviet Union, required that translations of important works be put into native languages. The great emphasis on Russian language education in the 1970s affected not only Buryatia, but also schools all over the country. Between 1974 and 1979, 1,100 national language schools in the Soviet Union were transferred to a Russian language curriculum.66 The elimination of non-Russian language instruction was most acute in the ASSRs of the Russian Republic. In the early 1960s, 47 different languages had been used as the media of instruction in Russia. By 1982 that number had dropped to just 16.67 While the decline in the teaching of native languages occurred in all ASSRs due to the language laws and promotion of Russian, some did continue to teach them. For example, in the Tatar ASSR, particularly in the countryside, Tatar language education continued in the early grades and was studied in some high schools.68 Bashkir, Tuvan, and Yakut schoolchildren also had the opportunity to study in their na64

Isabelle Kreindler, The Changing Status of Russian in the Soviet Union (Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1979), 19–24. 65 D. G. Baiartuev, “Iz opyta osushchestvleniia perekhoda na russkii iazyk obucheniia v buriatskikh shkolakh raiona” in M. N. Mangadaev (ed.), Aktual’nye problemy sovremennoi buriatskoi shkoly. Sbornik materialov nauchnoprakticheskoi konferentsii (Ulan-Ude cent. 1979 g.) (Ulan Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1983), 39. 66 Dyrkheeva, Buriatskii iazyk, 28. 67 Kreindler, “Soviet Language Planning,” 54. 68 Bateson, “Soviet Language Policy,” 38–9; Helen M. Faller, Nation, Language, Islam: Tatarstan’s Sovereignty Movement (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2011), 45; Azade-Ayse Rorlich, The Volga Tatars: A Profile in National Resilience (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1986), 159–60.

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tive languages through middle school.69 Therefore, one can assume that if the Buryat republican government had truly wanted to continue teaching Buryat, or if parents and educators had protested strongly for its continuation, it would have been possible. Instead, Modogoev, government administrators, educators, and parents supported an emphasis on Russian at the expense of Buryat language education. They did this because they belived that good Russian language skills were necessary for offering the most advantages and possibilites for the Buryat people in Soviet society. Indeed, many educators in Buryatia gave a positive assessment of the Russian language curricular reform in the 1970s. Claims were made that students’ listening and writing skills were improving, that they were more active in their studies, and that they had made great improvements in their Russian language abilities. Authorities also argued that it was easier for Buryat students to learn subjects in Russian first instead of initially in Buryat and then a second time in Russian.70 Ironically, educators who had supported expanding instruction in Buryat in 1948 had argued the opposite. However, the Buryats’ improved Russian skills did help them to gain access to higher education and their educational levels rose precipitously in the 1970s and 1980s. Other ethnic groups such as the Tatars, Bashkirs, Tuvans, and Yakuts, who had continued to offer native language education, were terribly underrepresented in higher educational institutes. Certainly, the difficulty encountered in passing Russian language entry examinations was partly to blame.71 Although the Buryat government cancelled instruction in Buryat in its national schools, it did continue to allow on a limited scale the teaching of the Buryat language as a subject, particularly in rural areas. In addition, the government continued to support confer69

Kaiser, The Geography of Nationalism, 257; B. M. Mantykov and I. A. Malanov, Obusinskaia srednaia shkola kak model’ buriatskoi natsional’noi shkoly (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’stvo Buriatskogo gosuniversiteta, 2006), 39; Brian D. Silver, “Language Policy and the Linguistic Russification of Soviet Nationalities” in Jeremy R. Azrael (ed.), Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (New York: Praeger, 1978), 258. 70 Baiartuev, “Iz opyta osushchestvleniia perekhoda,” 39–47. 71 Kaiser, The Geography of Nationalism, 229; Rorlich, The Volga Tatars, 160.

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ences, seminars, and lectures for Buryat language and literature teachers. Some Buryat textbooks and pedagogical materials were also still published.72 However, the switch to a Russian language curriculum was a huge blow to the use of the Buryat language and helped to rapidly facilitate the use of Russian. The Buryat government also gave much more support to the teaching and promotion of the Russian language than to Buryat after the 1970s reforms. In 1978, the Buryat Ministry of Education issued a second decree on strengthening the teaching of the Russian language. With this decree even more emphasis was placed on promoting the new Russian language curriculum. Scholars devoted attention to improving pedagogical methods and training for Russian language teachers, as well as organized conferences and seminars. In addition, the Buryat Book Publishing House published many more textbooks and pedagogical materials in Russian than in Buryat.73 In general, there seems to have been very little public opposition to the reforms as they were carried out in the 1970s. Government propaganda consistently proclaimed that the Buryats were successfully bilingual—having attained fluency in both Buryat and Russian—and therefore indicated that Buryat language education was unnecessary. It was only in 1979 that some educators and government administrators began to officially recognize and publicly express concern over the declining usage of the Buryat language. In September 1979, at a conference titled “Actual Problems of the Contemporary Buryat Schools” to discuss the teaching of Russian, several participants used the opportunity, instead, to discuss problems surrounding the teaching of Buryat.74 At the conference, the educator N. N. Verbovaia argued that it was still important for Buryat children to study and know their native language and literature well.75 D. G. Baiartuev, the director of Kizhinginsk middle 72

NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2294, ll. 1–164; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8844, ll. 6–11. Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo in Russian. See, NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8989, ll. 1–30. 74 Z. E. Tsyrenova, Sokhranenie i razvitietraditsionnoi kul’tury korennykh narodov vostochnoi sibiri v gody sovetskoi vlasti (1920-konets 80 gg.) (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’stvo Buriatskogo gosuniversiteta, 2004), 111. 75 N. N. Verbovaia, “Nekotorye voprosy vzaimosviazi rodnoi i russkoi literatur v protsess ikh prepodavaniia” in M. N. Mangadaev (ed.), Aktual’nye problemy 73

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school, announced that most of the teachers in his district believed that Buryat should still be the language of instruction in kindergarten.76 In addition to a few openly critical educators, local education inspectors also began to produce reports for government authorities that showed that Buryat language was suffering under the new reform. A school inspector visiting the Khorinsk region reported that both the quality of Buryat language classes and the number of students taking Buryat were decreasing every year. In addition, more and more schools were disbanding their Buryat language classes all together. Inspectors from other regions around the republic reported similar situations. In the Kiakhta region, almost no schools offered Buryat language. Even many preschool programs for Buryat children were partly filled with Russian children. In such cases, classes were conducted completely in Russian.77 In 1979, a report written by the Buryat Republic Minister of Education, P. F. Bardakhanov, recognized that the new emphasis on Russian was indeed hurting students’ Buryat language skills. He suggested that more children’s books in Buryat should be published, libraries should have more Buryat children’s literature, and the teaching of Buryat language in general needed more support.78 In 1980 the Buryat Ministry of Education set out to investigate how to improve the poor situation of the Buryat language. As part of this process, it held a conference of Buryat language educators. Participants recommended goals over the next five years that included giving better material and technical support for Buryat language teachers, offering more conferences and teacher training courses, and producing more pedagogical books.79 Likely based on the conclusions of school inspector reports and conference papers, as well as the evident decrease in the decline in the usage of the sovremennoi buriatskoi shkoly. Sbornik materialov nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii (Ulan-Ude cent. 1979 g.) (Ulan Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1983), 97. 76 Baiartuev, “Iz opyta osushchestvleniia perekhoda,” 38. 77 Inspection reports from this time can be found in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 9147. The two reports mentioned here are on pp. 2–13. 78 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8844, ll. 10–21. 79 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2362, l. 8; NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2375, ll. 1–12.

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Buryat language, Modogoev and the Buryat republican government issued a decree on December 30, 1981 to strengthen the study of Buryat language and literature in general educational schools.80 Modogoev, in a speech in conjunction with this decree, called for a halt to the dissolving of Buryat language and literature classes in schools along with more general government support for teaching and studying Buryat.81 Based on this new government support, the Buryat Ministry of Education increased the number of teacher seminars and conferences to discuss improving Buryat language education. Training for Buryat language teachers was then introduced or increased at pedagogical institutes in the republic. These institutes also organized new courses for students wishing to become Buryat language teachers and for teachers already teaching Buryat.82 The change in attitude toward Buryat language education among educators and government administrators can be attributed to both local and all-union phenomena. On the local level it was certainly apparent that a shift from Buryat to Russian was taking place among many Buryats by the end of the 1970s, especially among the urban elite. Inspections conducted by the Buryat Ministry of Education showed that fewer Buryat students were studying Buryat every year due to a lack of available Buryat language classes and a decrease in popularity. In addition, Buryat educators and administrators were certainly aware of complaints from other Soviet nationalities over the loss of native languages. Georgians, Lithuanians, and Estonians had protested in the late 1970s and early 1980s over threats to their languages. Many other ethnic groups also had begun to write articles expressing concern over language loss and Moscow’s policy of placing priority on the Russian language.83 Complaints from around the country more than likey contributed to the change in the Buryat government’s attitude toward Buryat language education. However, realistic measures to increase it were 80

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 9526, l. 1. Sanzhiev et al., Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvo v Buriatskoi ASSR, 515–8. 82 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 9526, ll. 1–3. 83 Bilinsky, “Expanding the Use of Russian,” 328–30; Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 331–3. 81

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slow and not always effective. A 1984 report from the Buryat Ministry of Education complained that despite the 1981 decree to strengthen Buryat language education, Buryat was still not being taught in enough schools.84 The number of hours dedicated to Buryat language was also small. In 1984, Buryat language courses were added to 38 schools, but the courses were only for three hours a week. In 1985, another 19 schools in the republic added Buryat language courses. However, a document from the Buryat Ministry of Education from that same year showed that still in most regions of the republic, less than half of the schools with large contingents of Buryat students offered Buryat language courses.85 By 1991, 20 percent of the republic’s schools offered Buryat language courses, but the number of hours of Buryat language study was still small and a lack of Buryat language textbooks and materials was also a consistent problem.86 It also appears that despite the growing concern about the fate of the Buryat language in general, some Buryats did not support expanding Buryat language education. A 1984 survey asked 2,372 Buryat schoolchildren if they wanted to study Buryat. Only half answered yes.87 The lack of interest from students and parents in the 1980s was such a problem that the Buryat Ministry of Education recommended more propaganda aimed at Buryat parents to convince them of the importance of studying the Buryat language.88 Nevertheless, under the freedoms granted by Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost’, the importance of the Buryat language became a critical topic among many people in the republic in the late 1980s. Language loss was a concern around the country and non-Russians all over the Soviet Union began to voice their grievances. In Buryatia, it was very clear that the usage of the language was in serious decline. Language statistics are complicated for a 84

NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2412, l. 46. On the introduction of Buryat language classes in 1985, see NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10087, ll. 2–3. On the lack of them, see NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2437, ll. 8– 13. 86 Babushkin, Buriatsko-russkoe dvuiazychie formirovanie, 76–7, 88; Khubrikov, “Sotsial’nye aspekty,” 50, 77. 87 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d., 10087, l. 2. 88 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2499, l. 31. 85

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variety of reasons, but there was an overall trend in Buryatia that Buryats, especially in urban areas, increasingly spoke more Russian and less Buryat.89 Buryat media production and consumption had also greatly waned. Educators at numerous conferences offered a wide variety of ideas to improve the situation. Some felt Russian should be introduced in fourth grade, others in seventh. Many called for the introduction of more Buryat language and literature classes all over the republic. Others called for a new plan to rework Buryat orthography and punctuation. Scholars, writers, and the general public also engaged in a discussion—particularly in the local press—of how to improve Buryat language education. The Buryat writer Galina Randaeva, for example, argued that students should be required to take exams in Buryat language and literature in order to graduate from high school and enter higher educational institutes. “Only then,” she explained, “will Buryat be studied seriously.”90 In addition, a number of organizations sprouted up in the late 1980s to promote Buryat culture. Language was a key issue for such groups, which demanded that Buryat language be taught as a subject in all general educational schools in the republic as well as in the two Buryat autonomous okrugs.91 These groups held conferences and round table discussions to explore questions of Buryat 89

There are many reasons language surveys in the Soviet Union were difficult to assess. For example, Soviet surveys often did not ask how well a person knew a language. Instead, they commonly asked, “what is your mother tongue?” or “what is your native language?” which prompted people to answer the language of their nationality whether they spoke it or not. For urban and rural language statistics for 1959 and 1970 see NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 1; f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 4; f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 47. However, these surveys do indicate that urban Buryats were increasingly speaking only Russian. For example, on a survey conducted in 1970, 16 percent of Buryats in Ulan-Ude claimed to only know Russian. At the same time in the countryside it was less than five percent. See NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 47, ll. 1–2, 31–155. From a survey in 1989, almost 20 percent of urban Buryats claimed to not speak Buryat. See Afanas’eva, “Osobennosti sotsial’no-demograficheskikh,” 121. 90 Randaeva wrote this in an essay that can be found in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10622, l. 30. 91 Vladimir Andreevich Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie v Buriatii (19851998 gg.) (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’stvo Buriatskogo nauchnogo tsentra SO RAN, 2005), 79.

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national development, including Buryat language education. These kinds of activities continued after the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. Teaching Progress, Patriotism, and the Friendship of Nations In all schools in Buryatia, courses in both Russian and Buryat regurlary used locally produced educational materials that consistently emphasized progress, patriotism, and the good relations between the various Soviet nationalities. The importance of teaching these ideas was emphasized at conferences, training courses, and workshops for teachers. The Buryat Ministry of Education oversaw these ideological and educational goals and sometimes made decisions about how to achieve them based on the input of local teachers and regular reports from local education inspectors. Although authorities in Moscow provided many guidelines and standards for schools, local regions like Buryatia added to these and created their own. The Buryat republic also produced its own textbooks, pedagogical works, and other teaching aids and these were used in conjunction with works from Moscow. The Buryat Book Publishers published all of the locally produced educational materials in Buryatia in both the Russian and Buryat languages, although production in the latter declined in the 1970s with the cancellation of Buryat language education. Editors regularly scrutinized publications for appropriate content that emphasized internationalism, economic and technical progress, and loyalty to one’s country. Often editors enlisted the advice of local experts. A document from the publishing house from 1948, for instance, included a review by a Professor Timofeev in regards to a series of school textbooks. Timofeev’s report concluded that “there was not enough ideological-political” substance to the materials and that they should be reworked.92 One can imagine that the politics of the time may have influenced his conclusions, but this example shows how the editorial process involved not only publishing employees, but also many other individuals outside of publishing as well. 92

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5213, l. 8.

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Local administrators, educators, and other experts paid particular attention to both textbooks and classroom lectures on the subjects of history, geography, literature, and the USSR constitution. Holmes argues that Soviet policymakers generally emphasized courses in the humanities over others because they were “most prone to politicization.”93 In Buryatia, administrators and educators placed great importance on the humanities as shaping the lives of individuals. The local Buryat pedagogue D. G. Nomtoev argued that this was indeed happening in Buryatia. He explained that, “from childhood to youth” educators in Buryatia instill a belief in “socialist internationalism” in their students and that this helps children understand that “we are one big family of nations.” In addition, he maintained that children must “learn about the economic and cultural achievements of Buryatia” as well as work hard toward advancing them further.94 Many documents from the Buryat Ministry of Education also presented such arguments. A report from 1948 described how USSR constitution courses should pay careful attention to ideas of Soviet patriotism and economic successes. It suggested that this could be done with lessons that show the benefits of the Soviet constitution.95 Another report from 1955 explained that books by Buryat authors such as Khotsa Namsaraev, who incorporated the theme of the friendship of nations into his works, were useful and therefore commonly taught in literature classes.96 A document from 1971 explained that history, geography, and literature classes regularly use local materials and topics to teach internationalism and Soviet patriotism.97 One from 1983 explained that ideas about the friendship of nations were important for students and that teaching about the life of Lenin, a “high internationalist,” can help to convey these ideas.98 93

Larry E. Holmes, “School and Schooling under Stalin, 1931–1953” in Ben Eklof, Larry E. Holmes, and Vera Kaplan (eds.), Educational Reform in PostSoviet Russia: Legacies and Prospects (London: Frank Cass, 2005), 62. 94 D. G. Nomtoev, Internatsional’noe vospitanie uchashchikhsia (iz opyta raboty shkol Buriatii) (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1971), 2, 5, 8. 95 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5213, l. 15. 96 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 442, l. 18. 97 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2294, l. 168. 98 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2400, ll. 26–7.

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Authorities especially emphasized these themes in history courses because they saw this discipline as providing the ideal opportunity to show the march of Soviet progress. A 1969 report from the Buryat Ministry of Education explained that in order for history teachers to convey this idea, they “need to have a deep understanding of historical facts and the laws of societal development.” The report offered examples of good and bad history teachers in Buryatia. “Good teachers used many materials: films, historical literature, documents, pictures, tables, maps, etc.” Bad teachers used few of these items. One teacher was cited as poorly presenting a lecture on “the 1929–1933 capitalist crisis.” The report explained that because that teacher had no materials and no exact figures or facts, he was unable to illustrate his subject well and gain the attention of his students.99 History teachers were not just told to use better materials; they were also given lecture topics and plans. An official selection of lecture topics from 1948, for example, included, “the struggles of the people of Russia under the leadership of the Russian proletariat against tsarism,” “Russian culture and the development of other peoples of the USSR,” and a lecture on the Mongol invasions that emphasized “the role of the peoples of Russia in saving the people of Europe from slavery and having their culture and civilization destroyed.”100 Given that the Mongol Empire included the lands of the Buryats and was a part of their history, this latter topic is especially striking. Historian David Brandenberger explains that this particular interpretation of the Mongol invasions in Russian history was developed shortly after WWII by propagandist chief G. F. Alexandrov and that it was part of a postwar policy to promote in schools pre-Soviet Russian triumphs in the history curriculum.101 Teachers in Buryatia too were told to follow this trend. In addition to broader historical themes, local authorities provided regional historical topics with specific ideological messages 99

NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1429, ll. 3–6. NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 5213, l. 13. 101 David Brandenberger, National Bolshevism: Stalinist Mass Culture and the Formation of Modern Russian National Identity, 1931–1956 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 185, 204–5. 100

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as well. For example teachers were encouraged in the 1960s to teach about the Bolsheviks’ success in the Civil War in Siberia, industrial and economic development in Buryatia, local Buryat WWII and revolutionary heroes, and “how the Red Army had helped Mongolia” in its communist revolution.102 History also appeared commonly in literature courses through the study of historical poems, short stories, and novels. One book commonly read in schools in the 1960s was about a teenage boy named Misha Zhigzhitov who lived in a small village. Throughout the story the youth learned about the history of Buryatia, including its “industry and economy,” its longstanding “tradition of the friendship of nations,” and how “thanks to the Great October, Buryats have received high culture.”103 While officials offered teachers plenty of guidelines and pedagogical materials, often alone in the classroom, it is certainly possible that they may have chosen to deviate in various ways from these prescribed lectures, literary subjects, historical topics, suggested readings, and themes on progress and internationalism. However, officials did regularly check up on teachers, principals, and educational administers. Education inspectors, administers from the Buryat Ministry of Education, and local educational officials consistently observed and criticized them. They also required teachers and other educators to attend training courses, conferences, and seminars in an attempt to ensure that required subjects and themes were adequately presented in the classroom. Students also had to periodically pass certain standardized tests, especially entrance exams to higher educational institutions, that required substantial knowledge of required topics. Even if teachers may have altered the required material from time to time, it would have been difficult to have not incorporated much of it regularly in the classroom. The Buryat Book Publishers also produced many pedagogical works to help teachers in using the correct material. In one such 102

Nomtoev, Internatsional’noe vospitanie, 4, 11, 17. Brandenberger explains that teachers in the USSR in the postwar years commonly stressed the importance of the Russian nation and the victory of WWII in the classroom. Brandenberger, National Bolshevism, 198–203. 103 Nomtoev, Internatsional’noe vospitanie, 14–5.

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book by D. G. Nomtoev about teaching internationalism in schools, a 1960s fifth grade teacher named Khandama Damdinova was described as commonly using locally written poems in her classroom to demonstrate the role of the Russian people in Buryatia. She reportedly began her lessons “by explaining the importance of the friendship of nations, the help of the Russian people, and the role of the Russian language.”104 One poem she used is called “Russia” and was written by the Buryat poet, Tsokto Nomtoev.105 Part of it reads: Bogata Rodina, bogata, No druzhba—samyi svetlyi klad.

Wealthy, the motherland is wealthy But, friendship—it is the brightest treasure.

Est’ mnogo brat’ev u buriata, No russkii—samyi pervyi brat.

There are many brothers of the Buryats, But the Russian—he is the very first brother.

On samyi blizkii, Samyi starshii. Druz’iam vo vsem pomoch’ gotov.

He is the closest, He is the oldest, He is prepared to help his friends in everything they do.

My s nim shagaem chetkim marshem, Po gulkoi ploshchadi vekov.

Together we go step in step in our march,

Ego iazyk mne tak privychen, Kak v mae zvonkie ruch’i.

His language is so familiar to me, Like ringing streams in May.

Iazyk pevuch, razdolen, zychen,

The language is melodious, free, and resounding, But most importantly—it brings engagement with Russia.

No glavnoe—s Rossiei obruchil.

Across the resonating square of centuries.

Clearly, this poem is excessively fawning toward Russians in presenting the relationship between them and the Buryats. However, it was likely used in the classroom as described in Nomtoev’s pedagogical work. The poem also markedly reflects government policy 104 105

Nomtoev, Internatsional’noe vospitanie, 8. The poet Tsokto Nomtoev is not the same person as the pedagogue D. G. Nomtoev.

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at the time that was increasingly supporting Russian language usage in Soviet society, as well as promoting the idea that the work of Russians in Buryatia was positive and beneficial. In addition to regular coursework as a place to provide instruction, students were encouraged to participate in a wide variety of extracurricular groups. Authorities sought for these extracurricular organizations to teach young people lessons such as valuing work, behaving morally, being good citizens, appreciating WWII veterans, and understanding the importance of internationalism and the friendship of nations. Komsomol and pioneer organizations also sought to use these teachings to “reach a higher level of discipline and success” in the academics of schoolchildren and students.106 In addition, throughout the 1970s more effort was made by these organizations to teach children about their native region, as well as other regions throughout the Soviet Union. Although some of this was taught in the regular school curricula, much of this was done outside of class through clubs, exhibitions, and excursions. Educators in Buryatia argued that these kinds of studies would help instill patriotism and a love for one’s region and country.107 In particular, clubs for young people became very widespread in the last decades of Soviet power. By 1970, there were reportedly over 2,000 clubs for youth in Buryatia. A 1973 report from the Pribaikal’skii region claimed that 77 percent of its youth were active in clubs and sports.108 Although officials may have inflated these numbers somewhat, inspection reports from the early postwar years to the 1970s show a great increase in the number of such cultural and educational institutions, the participation of residents in them, and their overall quality.109 Some of these clubs held meetings in schools, but many were held in houses of culture, pioneer houses, and local village and collective farm clubhouses. Such organizations had clubs for young automobilists, political propagandists, 106

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6701, l. 75. Bocheev, “Osobennosti protsessa stanovleniia,” 106; Nomtoev, Internatsional’noe vospitanie, 4–5, 11–3. 108 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2293, l. 76; NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1713, l. 127. 109 For inspection reports on cultural institutions in Buryatia and how they improved from the 1950s to the 1980s, see NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6701; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8540; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7325. 107

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chemists, and movie projectionists. There were also groups who met to play chess, build model airplanes, and practice photography.110 However, many extracurricular clubs were focused toward more ideological and educational goals. For example, members of various organizations often created exhibitions, displays, and “museums” in their schools and clubhouses on topics such as the nature and history of Buryatia, local revolutionaries, World War II, military themes, and internationalism.111 Students also held art competitions and festivals on such themes. For example, in 1968 the NovoBrianskaia middle school in the Zaigraevskii region held a festival called “Friendship” to mark “50 years of Soviet power.” Students displayed pictures of local heroes, information about the history of their village, and held ceremonies at local monuments.112 Extracurricular organizations also provided travel opportunities. Students visited regional Lenin and WWII monuments, went to Kiakhta to see the city’s two museums dedicated to the 1921 Mongolian Revolution, as well as traveled across the country to visit similar places in other Soviet cities.113 Officials reported that in 1972, in conjunction with the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the USSR, 42,000 children and teenagers in Buryatia participated in trips around the republic and the Soviet Union. These students were commonly required to study their destinations before they left and then create displays for their schools or local clubhouses about them once they returned home.114 Educational officials argued that these kinds of activities were useful in fostering patriotic feelings among schoolchildren.115 Indeed, visiting other regions likely 110

NARB, f. 1, op. 1, d. 8991, ll. 5–6; Ts. Dondukov, Ulan-Ude: Istorikokraevedcheskii ocherk (Ulan-Ude, 1965), 108–9. 111 NARB, f. 1, R-60, op. 1, d. 1485, l. 69; Bocheev, “Osobennosti protsessa stanovleniia,” 105–6; Nomtoev, Internatsional’noe vospitanie, 37. 112 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1358, ll. 40–1. 113 The 1921 Mongolian Revolution received crucial support from the Red Army and officials regularly celebrated and commemorated it in Buryatia. For more on these museums and student travel to them, see NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1358, l. 14; Bocheev, “Osobennosti protsessa stanovleniia,” 101; Nomtoev, Internatsional’noe vospitanie, 28. 114 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1690a, l. 60. 115 Bocheev, “Osobennosti protsessa stanovleniia,” 106.

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helped Buryat students connect to the rest of the country and feel like they were a part of the wider union. Authorities designed these kinds of extracurricular activities, as well as structured time in the classroom to emphasis this. Teachers and Parents Educators, administrators, and the local media in Buryatia placed a lot of pressure on both teachers and parents to be good role models because they were held responsible for bringing children up to be proper Soviet citizens. At the same time, teachers and parents often had their own ideas about children and education and they communicated these to the Buryat Ministry of Education. They did this by attending conferences, meeting with education inspectors, forming committees, and writing petitions. Therefore, although authorities in Moscow and Ulan-Ude made many of the decisions about education policy, as well as what it meant officially to be successful teachers and parents, the opinions of average people were also sometimes incorporated. As explained in the section above, education inspectors commonly criticized teachers and reported on their strengths and weaknesses. Their reports helped to define what it meant to be a good teacher in Buryatia. Through such reports, education inspectors regularly offered specific examples of teachers who served as models. For example, an education report from 1964 praised the Buryat language and literature teacher Nadezhda Tulsova for creating good visual aids and other materials. The report also praised the earlier mentioned Buryat language and literature teacher, Khandama Damdinova, for effectively taking part in textbook and curricula planning for Buryat language and literature classes. Both teachers were also commended for their active participation in conferences.116 Officials also praised teachers for being active members of their communities. In a 1983 inspection report, Ts. S. Sambotsyrenova, a Buryat language and literature teacher, was cited as being a strong participant in her regional women’s soviet, as well as singing in a local amateur choir. M. B. Botoev, a high school teacher in the Ka116

NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1691, ll. 9–10.

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banskii region, was also applauded for community work. He was cited as regularly giving evening lectures at various institutions and leading a folklore ensemble in his spare time.117 Educators, teachers, and administrators from the Buryat Ministry of Education also devoted much attention to parents. One educator at a 1968 Bichurskii regional teacher’s conference argued that parents were crucial in the process of educating children and for that reason officials “need to educate parents [because] they are not raising children simply for their own enjoyment. These children are the new generation which will take the lead from our hands.”118 In order to help parents, authorities encouraged the active involvement of school officials in the lives of the families who attended their schools. For instance, in 1969, the principal of School No. 2 in Ulan-Ude described how beneficial it was for children when “teachers and school faculty get to know the parents and families better.”119 Sometimes this was done with specific ideological intentions. For example, in 1980 authorities asked teachers in the Mukhorshibirskii region to report on parents who practiced religion so that they could then work individually with them to teach them about atheism.120 In addition to educators reaching out to parents, authorities also encouraged parents to actively get involved in their children’s educations by taking part in parent committees and conferences, attending lectures on how to raise their children right, and volunteering at their children’s schools. Educators and parents often worked together to organize evening lectures at local educational and cultural institutions and at parent conferences. While lists of lecture topics from such activities show that many of them were ideological, such as those titled, “the communist upbringing of children,” “instilling communist attitudes toward work,” and “raising patriotic children,” others, such as, “the role of parental authority in raising children,” “the role of fathers in the raising of children,” and “bringing up children with morals” may have been genuinely helpful.121 Many 117

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 9523, l. 6. NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1358, l. 14. 119 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1443, l. 2. 120 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8984, l. 38. 121 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6018, l. 23; NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1443, ll. 5, 37; NARB, f. P-1, op, 1, d. 6701, l. 70. 118

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parents likely did seek to be better parents and such lectures may have been quite instructive. Parents could also improve education in Buryatia through volunteer work. In addition to asking parents to devote time to organizing and attending lectures, authorities also encouraged parents to regularly take part in such activities as constructing and maintaining school buildings and grounds, helping in the cafeteria, and visiting classrooms to discuss relevant occupational and personal experiences.122 Authorities hoped that this involvement would create better school communities and improve children’s studies. While certainly not all parents complied with these suggestions for active involvement, local educators did seek to change the behavior of those who did not.123 One educator in 1968 explained that, “we check up on children whose parents don’t raise them well—[parents who] drink and neglect them.”124 Local newspapers, radio, and television also provided a space for officials in Buryatia to offer advice for teachers and parents, as well as profile the exemplary ones among them. Regional and republican newspapers supplied regular sections of their editions titled, “school page,” to discuss educational issues and praise excellent teachers and parents.125 For example, an article from the “school page” in the Eravninskii regional paper, Ulan-Tuia, in August 1981, interviewed the Buryat language and literature teacher, Marta Fedorovna Andrianova. She explained in the article that it was very important to provide a “deep understanding” of literature in order to help young people acquire good communist morals. The article boasted that many of her students went on to universities to study literature after high school because she had “helped them to gain a love for this subject.” Marta Fedorovna was not only held up as a good teacher, but as a good mother as well as because she had reportedly been successful in raising five children of her own.126 122

NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 533, l. 3; NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1443, l. 24. NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1443, l. 25. 124 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 1358, l. 21. 125 Shkolnaia stranitsa in Russian. 126 The Ulan-Tuia article from August 25, 1981, can be found in NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2410, l. 49. 123

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Radio and television shows also highlighted exemplary teachers and parents on programs such as Stories about Communists, A Conversation for Parents, Communist, and The Socialist Way of Life.127 These shows provided viewers and listeners with samples of model individuals who were described as being good at their jobs and responsibly raising their children. For example, the September 30, 1974 evening radio program of Stories about Communists profiled the exemplary factory worker and teacher Timofei Izotovich Fedorov. He told of how he went back to school to improve his trade, but struggled at first with his studies. He only advanced thanks to his instructor, Ivan Vasil’evich Ivanov, who was a “very good teacher.” Upon finishing his courses, Timofei Izotovich began to teach his own classes. The host of the show explained that he too now helps his students and does so in part by getting to “know about their families and lives.” Timofei was also touted as being a dedicated father who regularly spent time with his children after work and took them to clubs on the weekends.128 Similarly, the television program, Communist also highlighted great teachers. For instance, on the October 30, 1974 show the host interviewed nine exemplary communists. Five of them were teachers. The host lauded their model pedagogical skills and genuine care for their students.129 While officials, educational institutions, and mass media tirelessly promoted their ideal teacher and parent for the residents of Buryatia, they did not all robotically act the way these messages insisted. This is readily apparent from how authorities were constantly concerned about teachers and parents and how they regularly explored better methods for raising hard-working, moral Soviet citizens. In addition, parents and teachers did not always comply with decisions made by authorities. Active participation by parents in the educational system gave parents a space to sometimes shape and influence school policy. Many joined parent committees 127

Rasskazy o kommunistakh, Beseda dlia roditelei, Kommunist, and Sotsialisticheskii obraz zhizni in Russian. 128 Rasskazy o kommunistakh in Russian. The transcript for this show can be found in NARB, R-1051, op. 1, d. 1102, ll. 52–61. 129 Kommunist in Russian. The transcript for this show can be found in NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 1144, ll. 1–37.

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and made decisions about their local schools and their children’s educations. Their choices, attitudes, and demands often created results. As described above, the fact that many Buryat parents wanted their children to have a strong command of Russian contributed to the decline of Buryat language education in the 1960s and 1970s. However, parents also wrote letters to newspapers, created and signed petitions, and wrote local administrators in order to have their demands met. For instance, in 1957 regional administrators in the Tarbagataiskii region decided to tear down a rural middle school and send students to another one. Parents, teachers, and students then protested. When a school inspector arrived to examine the case, “he was surrounded by parents and children” who demanded the school remain open. Parents and teachers sent 150 telegrams to the editor of Buryat-Mongol’skaia Pravda and petitions to the government in Ulan-Ude asking for help. Eventually, their efforts impressed officials in the Buryat central government who then reconsidered keeping the school open.130 Parents and teachers could lobby authorities for desired change through committees, conferences, letters, petitions, and even limited demonstrations. At the same time, authorities constantly provided teachers and parents with advice and examples to live by. Some of this information was even provided by teachers and parents themselves and much of it may have been honestly helpful. It is quite reasonable to imagine that many teachers and parents wanted to be good role models and provide children with the best education possible. However, it is also easy to see how the constant scrutiny and advice of authorities could have been perceived as intrusive and oppressive as well. Education and High Culture for Young and Old Alike In addition to the standard education system, the local republican government built a widespread network of cultural institutions with the purpose of educating all citizens of Buraytia and facilitating the development of a new, high culture. While officials started to build 130

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6701, ll. 137–48.

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such organizations in the 1920s and 1930s, they were few and far between until the late Soviet period when authorities in the republic had the resources to construct hundreds of new musuems, libraries, theaters, and community centers such as houses of culture and clubhouses.131 These institutions were built to provide spaces for educational entertainment, ideological instruction, personal enhancement, and opportunities to showcase modern Soviet culture and society at its best. Such cultural institutions were also places for everyday socializing and celebrating and were intended to replace former religious and traditional organizations with secular ones that officals believed could help to alter peoples’ behavior.132 Indeed, these new cultural institutions offered many opportunities for educational enlightenment. People could, for example, join a book club to discuss the latest literature, participate in an amateur choir, or learn to play the piano at their local libraries and clubhouses. They could also engage in educational and cultured activities such as attending a modern art exhibit or learning about the past at a regional history museum. Such cultural institutions also pushed many of the same messages that residents received while in school, thus reinforcing correct ideology. This trend is especially clear in the types of museums that officials built. In 1973, local authorities founded the open air Ethnographic Museum of the Peoples of Transbaikalia and in 1975 they significantly expanded the Tsyrenzhap Sampilov Fine Art Museum in Ulan-Ude.133 While the ethnographic museum displayed the traditional homes, religious 131

For information on the growth of these institutions, see I. A. Asalkhanov (ed.), Ocherki istorii Buriatskoi ASSR perioda razvitogo sotsializma (Novosibirsk: Izdatel’stvo “Nauk,” 1983), 180; Gershtein and Naidakov, Kul’tura Buriatii, 159–61. 132 For more on the Communist Party’s goals for these cultural institutions, see White, De-Stalinization, 1–5. 133 The ethnographic museum is called Etnograficheskii muzei narodov zabaikal’ia in Russian. The art museum was named for Tsyrenzhap Sampilovich Sampilov (1893–1953), a celebrated Buryat painter, a member of the Communist Party, and a recipient of the prestigious national award, the Order of Lenin. The art museum is now part of The National Museum of the Republic of Buryatia (Natsional’nyi muzei Respubliki Buriatiia in Russian). For more on these museums, see Sanzhiev, Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvo, 381, 452; Gershtein and Naidakov, Kul’tura Buriatii, 162.

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structures, and cultures of a past life, meant now for museums rather than living, the Sampilov Fine Art Museum illustrated that Buryats had modern art worth exhibiting in Western fashion. These, and other newly created museums dedicated to such topics as the lives of former Decembrists and Bolshevik revolutionaries in Siberia and the construction of BAM, strongly emphasized the value of social and economic progress.134 In order to make sure that all of these growing cultural institutions were running properly and carrying out authorities’ intended goals for them, state inspectors were regularly sent out to make investigative reports. A survey of such documents created by inspectors from the 1950s to the 1980s, demonstrates that the number and availability of cultural institutions increased dramatically during this period and that they reportedly were better run with more equipped facilities.135 In the 1950s, for example, inspectors commonly complained that there were not enough cultural institutions throughout the republic and those that did exist were located in old buildings without heat, furniture, or visual propaganda. One inspector, who visited the kolkhoz club, “The Dawn of Communism,” in 1957, found that it was located in a former church that was in disrepair. He complained that there were no tables inside and that it was “cold and dirty.”136 As financial resources improved in the republic in the 1960s and 1970s, inspectors described fewer such problems.137 A document from the Bichurskii region from the 1970s, for example, explained that there were more visual aids, newspapers, and journals available for educational use and that collective farm clubs regularly provided interviews, discussions, lectures, and concerts for workers.138 A report from the Mukhorshibirskii region explained that the organization Znanie was very active in providing residents with lec134

For more on these specific museums, see Gershtein and Naidakov, Kul’tura Buriatii, 162. 135 Inspector reports from various regions for the 1950s can be found in NARB, f. P-1, op. d. 6701. 136 Ibid., 91–8. 137 Inspector reports from various regions for the 1960s and 1970s can be found in NARB, f. P-1, op. d. 7252; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8540; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8984. 138 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8540, ll. 20–2.

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tures—“at least one every week”—on a wide variety of themes. Also, at one house of culture there, officials had recently held a successful conference titled, “USSR—A Family of Brotherly Nations,” where there were lectures, many visual aids, and musical concerts.139 However, the reports did admit that there were still some problems. In the Bauntovskii region there were not enough qualified cultural workers and a club director in the village of Chikoia complained that equipment was bad and there were “problems with drunkenness.”140 Still, overall, these reports were more positive than earlier ones. Participation numbers also indicate that this was true. By 1980, republican residents supposedly attended a club activity at least seven times a year, which was higher than the average for the Russian Republic, which was only five.141 Many Buryats not only participated in the expanded activities of the growing number of cultural institutions in the late Soviet period, but also staffed and created them. As noted in Chapter 3, Buryats were overrepresented in the cultural profession. They commonly worked as librarians, club workers, and museum and theater directors. Buryats also made up 48 percent of the holders of propaganda jobs, work that required giving many of the lectures provided by cultural institutions.142 The many Buryat cultural workers and propagandists were part of the larger project to bring culture and education in Buryatia to a higher stage of development as authorities intended. They did this by encouraging increasingly educated Buryats to participate in higher cultural activities such as playing chess, singing in choirs, listening to classical music on the radio, visiting a museum, and watching plays. Expressions of traditional Buryat culture, such as music, dance, and crafts also came under the jurisdiction of many of these institutions. Museums held Buryat artifacts and houses of culture, clubs, and theaters became places to perform Buryat songs and dances. Cultural workers helped to decide the content of these performances and how to present them. 139

Ibid., 58–64. NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7252, ll. 1–3, 4–5, 26–7. 141 Gershtein and Naidakov, Kul’tura Buriatii, 176. 142 Between 1971 and 1984 the number of cultural workers in the republic doubled. See Bal’khaeva, Formirovanie kadrovogo potentsiala, 80. 140

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In addition, authorities also used mass media to constantly promote the benefits of attending and participating in cultural activities. For example, the January 31, 1974 TV program of A Conversation for Parents was devoted to explaining how children should attend music classes at their local clubs and houses of culture. A musical education—based on Western classical music—was explained as important in helping kids grow up to be cultured adults.143 On the September 30, 1974 radio show, Stories about Communists, the host lauded an exemplary communist factory worker who in his spare time enjoyed music and taking his children to clubs and museums.144 In the summer of 1960, Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen widely covered the first Women’s Congress and the Youth Festival, where participants discussed their activities in various cultural organizations.145 Engagement with cultural activities was regularly promoted as a beneficial part of modern Soviet life. Of course, not all residents of Buryatia chose to participate in these cultural institutions and people spent their leisure time as they pleased. Some also engaged in religious activities whether or not they also attended secular cultural institutions. A few Orthodox churches were available for believers and, as explained in Chapter 2, the Aginsk and Ivolginsk monasteries remained open in the decades after WWII. Especially in the countryside, some continued to practice various Buddhist and shamanic traditions on a regular basis.146 However, the local KGB closely monitored religion and those who practiced it. Authorities regularly and carefully recorded the number of people who attended religious ceremonies, worked individually with believers, and constantly promoted atheism.147 In addition, the consequences for visiting religious institutuions and participating in ceremonies could be a deterrant for many. People could face 143

Beseda dlia roditelei in Russian. For a transcript of this show see NARB, f. R1051, op. 1, d. 1149, ll. 1–13. 144 Rasskazy o kommunistakh in Russian. For a transcript of this show see NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 1102, ll. 54–60. 145 See issues of Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen for the first ten days in July 1960. 146 Humphrey, Marx Went Away, 402–17, 422–32. 147 See examples of this in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 4617, ll. 33–40; Sanzhiev, Respublika moia Buriatiia, 96.

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arrest, loss of work, and public condemnation. For those reasons, many chose to follow the lead of the secular cultural institutions and publicly adopt new Soviet traditions rather than face persecution for openly practicing old ones. Additionally, the new cultural institutions provided public spaces for performing rituals that were once more religiously centered. Some of these, such as the rural clubhouse, became the same spaces for people to get married, register births, and celebrate the Soviet rites of passage such as receiving one’s first passport and signing up for the army. All cultural institutions also regularly celebrated new Soviet holidays such as International Women’s Day, Red Army Day, and anniversaries marking the birthdays of important local and national figures. Cultural institutions, therefore, provided not only educational benefits, but also new social traditions as well. They also offered Buryats new places to express themselves as modern Soviet citizens who appreciated and participated in officially accepted high culture. The wider availability of them in the later Soviet decades also meant that the Buryats had more avenues to display this locally produced high culture, as well as demonstrate their role in Soviet history and society. Conclusion Soviet education, either through schools, extracurricular organizations, or cultural institutions for young and old alike, provided practical benefits for the Buryats and helped to shape a pathway for many toward a successful modern life. Education, more than any other development in Buryatia, was a critical part of the process of social mobility in the decades after WWII. Authorities worked hard to create an education system that facilitated their desired improvements for society. They used the institutional framework of education in its various forms to direct economic, social, and political advancement in their region. Numerous republican residents were also parents and/or teachers and therefore this meant that many ordinary people were directly involved in the education process as well. While the combined efforts of all of these individuals led to a sharp rise in educational levels, they also facilitated the

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widespread usage of the Russian language and a decline in Buryat. Efforts to reverse this trend have been complicated and varied. Along with language shifts, the spread of educational and cultural institutions across Buryatia brought the people there culturally closer to their other Soviet compatriots. Almost everyone in the Soviet Union studied the same subjects and had similar opportunities to join standard extracurricular clubs and participate in activities at their local houses of culture. In addition, education regularly explosed people to the ideological messages that authorities wanted to convey. In Buryatia, most dominant among these were ideas about internationalism and Buryatia’s place in the Soviet Union, as well as the argument that the positive results of Soviet-guided progress were irrefutable.

CHAPTER 5

Buryat Literature for a New Society

Local authorities in Buryatia relied on cultural and educational institutions for creating skilled workers and professionals, as well as altering the behavior and attitudes of society. Literature was a key part of this and authorities assigned great prestige to the written word. They considered printed matter a central symbol of Soviet culture, crucial for nation building, necessary for raising the cultural level of ordinary citizens, and a critical method for communication.1 For these reasons, officials across the country devoted many resources to developing literature both in Russian and non-Russian languages. For all Soviet peoples, literature became a marker of cultural distinction, a defining feature of a Soviet nationality, and at the same time a means of homogenization. National language, perhaps the most important cultural trait in the Soviet definition of a nation, was promoted through native language publishing. For nations that lacked Western traditions of literature and print culture, developing such materials were important parts of the Soviet modernization project. Although the Buryats had a literary past, the creation of new forms of literature in Buryat, such as novels and literary journals like Baikal, were proof that officially mandated elements of Soviet high culture were emerging in a new Buryat society in the postwar decades. 1

For a discussion on the value authorities placed upon reading and literature in the Soviet Union, see Lovell, The Russian Reading Revolution.

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Literature in the Soviet Union was shaped by ideological, political, cultural, economic, and professional circumstance. Writers, as well as censors, editors, Party officials, and other intellectuals worked together to produce acceptable genres and themes. They carefully scrutinized literary works and debated their meaning and value for society. In particular, they expressed certain messages such as the value of modernization, the friendship of the peoples of the Soviet Union, and the idea that Buryatia naturally belongs in Russia. These messages were intended to convince the Buryats that their lives in the USSR were improved and that any alternative would be much worse. Writers in Buryatia were limited to a prescribed framework and researchers have found no alternative literature or local samizdat (self-published underground works). Instead, officially produced local and national literature was widely available. It was regularly taught in schools, found in bookstores and libraries, and aggressively promoted throughout the republic. Producing High Culture Through Literature Central authorities viewed the development of national literatures as part of the successful transition of many of the Soviet Union’s peoples to socialist modernity. The development of national literatures showed how under Soviet modernization the more supposedly “primitive” peoples had learned to embrace civilization. In praise for the creation of the genre of the novel among national literatures, a Soviet literary critic in 1974 wrote that, “the most backwards people of old Russia … are emerging with their novel on the high road of the world artistic advance, merging with the mainstream of world literature” and “striving with the help of the novel to examine and understand artistically their place in the advance of peoples to communism.”2 It did not matter whether these “backward” people had an oral tradition or even a literary one before the revolution. The point was that they now had a modern, Western, literary tradi2

M. Parkhomenko, “The Birth of the New Epos,” in L. Terakopian (ed.), Unity: Collected Articles on Multi-National Soviet Literature (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), 84.

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tion—in a Soviet style—based on the genres of poetry, plays, short stories, and novels.3 Such praiseworthy Soviet literature was a status symbol for nations within the Soviet Union. For the Buryats, it showed that they were a modern people and not “backward Siberians.” In particular, works of Buryat literature published in Russian in Moscow for an all-union audience, such as the 1974 almanac of Buryat literature and the Buryat contribution to the 1977 four-volume Poetry of the People of the USSR, received much praise and promotion.4 These works showed how, as N. M. Damdinov, the chairman of the Buryat Writer’s Union explained, the Buryats had progressed from producing one book of poems by the highly celebrated Buryat writer, Khotsa Namsaraev, in 1924 to contributing to all-union works such as the ones mentioned above.5 Literature was also important in the Soviet Union because authorities believed it had the power to influence and shape individuals. A teacher from the Severo-Baikalsk region of the Buryat Republic stated at a teacher’s conference in 1960 that, “Literature is one of the most important subjects in school because it forms human consciousness, world view, personality, and identity. It gives spiritual growth to those who study it.”6 In 1978, the chairman of the Buryat Writers’ Union stated that the importance of literature “is its active part in communist education and the formation of the new person.”7 This new person was to be a cultured Soviet citizen and literature could help to shape her or him. Although it is difficult to assess exactly how literature influenced the average Soviet person, a 1960s survey of Soviet youth provides some insight. When asked “What has most of all influenced the formation of your char3

For more on the importance of non-Russians having novels, see Paul A. Goble, “Readers, Writers, and Republics: The Structural Basis of Non-Russian Literary Politics,” in Lubomyr Hajda and Mark Beissinger (eds.), The Nationalities Factor in Soviet Politics and Society (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990). 4 Poeziia narodov SSSR in Russian. For its promotion on radio, see NARB, f. R1051, op. 1, d. 1177, l. 78–98. In speeches, see NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8688, l. 30. 5 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8688, l. 30. 6 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 534, l. 54. 7 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8688, l. 29–30.

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acter?” artistic and political literature was listed second only to family and above such choices as teachers, movies, and friends.8 For these reasons, officials designated literature as an important part of scholarship, used it as a tool of propaganda, and made it a major component of education at all levels. In Buryatia, local authorities devoted resources to creating a Buryat literary institution. Shortly after the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR was founded in 1923, officials founded the Buryat Book Publishing House, which lasted the entire Soviet period.9 Throughout its existence, the publishing house printed more literature than anything else besides textbooks.10 In addition to publishing, local authorities gave much support to writers. A Buryat branch of the Siberian Writers’ Union was created in 1927. It supported writers, gave them guidelines, and held regular meetings and conferences. Authorities also expected Buryat writers to be active, public citizens who helped to promote the chosen higher cultural form of literature among the masses. As Deming Brown explains, in addition to giving interviews, Soviet writers were “expected to attend meetings, sit on committees, give lectures, and participate in public ceremonies and celebrations.”11 In Buryatia, writers did this by hosting literary evenings for students, kolkhozniki, and workers, promoting important state anniversaries such as marking the found8

David Wedgewood Benn, Persuasion and Soviet Politics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 200. The survey was carried out under the auspices of the Komsomol in the 1960s and given to 1,059 people. It asked specifically, “Which of the things listed below has most of all influenced the formation of your character?” Twelve items were offered as choices. From most chosen to least chosen: family, artistic and political literature, teachers, friends at school, Komsomol organization, domestic films, the work collective, foreign films, the army, work in a study circle, friends outside of school, neighbors. 9 Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo in Russian. 10 See publishing plans from the postwar years to the 1980s in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5777 and NARB, f. 869, op. 1. A 1950 report from the Buryat Department of Propaganda and Agitation stated that literary works should make up 40 percent of all publishing done in the republic. See, NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5778, l. 143. The other categories and percentages were: political literature at 25 percent, agriculture at 25 percent, and “other” at 15 percent. 11 Deming Brown, Soviet Russian Literature since Stalin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 11.

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ing of the republic or celebrating Lenin’s birthday, and regularly taking part in literary festivals. For example, in 1981, officials in the Zaigraevskii region held a festival called “Days of Literature and Art” where over 400 people attended. Festival organizers held workshops for writers and artists as well as put on concerts and showed films.12 In return, authorities showered praise on individual writers and their profession. In 1986, cultural workers in Ulan-Ude planned extensive activities to celebrate the 100 years since the birth of the Buryat writer Khotsa Namsaraev, including a plan to turn his former house into a museum of local literature.13 The best Buryat writers were also sent on trips around the USSR to attend national conferences and meet other Soviet writers. These trips coincided with the translation of their works into Russian.14 All of this was an effort to create both a new Buryat literature and at the same time to unify the literature of the Soviet Union. Writers’ unions and conferences spread the officially promoted literary trends. In addition to the attention given to writers, local officials paid great attention to readers as they sought to spread literacy to all the republic’s residents. Although progress in the 1920s and 1930s was slow, in the early postwar years local authorities began to require that illiterate adults attend classes to learn how to read. Local authorities tracked and monitored their progress.15 In schools and youth pioneer programs, educators told children to report on parents and neighbors who could not read so that they could then be enrolled in a literacy program.16 In particular, literacy campaigns in the 1940s and 1950s worked to teach the Buryat population to read Buryat in Cyrillic. In the Selenginsk region in 1952 for example, 134 Buryats reportedly either could not read, or could only weakly read Buryat in Cyrillic. Only two years later, however, local administrators claimed this number was down to 54 due to literacy 12

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 9154, ll. 1–3. NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10682, l. 5, 53. The museum opened a few years later in 1989. 14 Dugar-Nimaev (ed.), Istoriia Buriatskoi, 13, 92; NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 2605, l. 2. 15 NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 2605, ll. 2–118. 16 NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 2614, l. 5. 13

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courses.17 Although many regions complained of a lack of textbooks and poorly run classes, the literacy campaigns did pay off. By 1959, over 95 percent of the republic’s population could reportedly read Russian and/or Buryat in Cyrillic.18 The availability of reading material increased in the early postwar years along with the rising literacy rates. Although this was certainly part of the goal of officials to educate the masses in the correct ideology, there also was a real demand for books in both the cities and in the countryside.19 Therefore, the government increased the number of bookstores and libraries to coincide with the growing number of readers and educated residents. In particular, the government cited the growth of the intelligentsia in the countryside as a reason for the increase in the demand for books. Between 1948 and 1950, the number of bookstores in rural Buryatia almost tripled.20 In addition, local authorities monitored and encouraged book sales. For instance, a 1951 report from the Buryat Republic Department of Propaganda and Agitation complained that Book Store No. 26 in the Meat Factory in Ulan-Ude was cold and dirty and not conducive to book buying.21 The department made suggestions for increasing sales that included better placement of book kiosks, more advertising, and holding competitions among booksellers.22 The local government also sought to increase the number of libraries in the republic. In 1947, it opened seven libraries in Ulan-Ude alone.23 In 17

NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 425, l. 37. Skuratov (ed.), Buriatskaia ASSR, 79. Among the five percent who were illiterate, over 80 percent of them (Buryat or Russian) were over the age of 50. See NARB, f. R-196, op. 1/8, d. 10, ll. 1–4. 19 Kuchmurukova, Istoriia knigoizdaniia Buriatii, 30; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5778, l. 77; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5777, ll. 8, 92–3. This is similar to nationwide trends as well. See, Lovell, The Russian Reading Revolution, 45–51. 20 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5778, l. 76. 21 Larger numbers of Buryats worked in the meat industry in Buryatia than in other industries. On Buryats workers in the meat industry, see V. I. Zateev, “Etnosotsial’naia struktura i dinamika ee izmenenii v Buriatii v xx veke,” Vestnik Buriatskogo Universiteta 5, no. 8 (2003), 108. For criticism of Book Store No. 26, see NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5777, ll. 116–7. 22 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5777, ll. 133–42. 23 R. A. Modogoeva and M. Ia. Serebrianaia, “Knizhnoe delo v Buriatii,” in V. N. Volkova (ed.), Kniga v avtonomnykh i okrugakh Sibiri i Dal’nogo Vostoka (No18

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the countryside, rural authorities also opened many libraries in houses of culture and kolkhoz clubhouses.24 Soviet officials wanted citizens to read and gain access to high culture. They therefore made great efforts to make that possible through increases in publishing, campaigns to tackle illiteracy, and resources to supply institutions with means to promote and facilitate reading. Geser: The Story of a National Epic Getting Buyats to read was important for officials, but monitoring what they read was believed to be critical. This was because authorities relied so much on the perceived power of the written word to transform individuals and society to match their ideals. Folklore, and in particular national epics, became an important area in the 1920s and 1930s for defining such ideals, as well as the identities of Soviet nations more generally. Soviet officials were certainly not the first to do this. The value of folklore had been acknowledged previously in a pan-European intellectual movement from the nineteenth century that sought to define nations through an exploration of epics, folklore, and medieval chronicles.25 Soviet authorities continued this tradition by promoting such national markers in the project of building acceptable national literatures. Authorities also used national folklore to showcase how well the Soviet government was preserving the important elements of traditional cultures. In academic institutions around the USSR folklore became a valued area of research. Folklore was professionally collected, researched, preserved, presented, and promoted for consumption by an educated, literate audience. Folklore was presented on its own, but at the same time, Soviet writers of modern socialist realism, drew upon folklore for themes, characters, and stories in their works. For vosibirsk: Gosudarstvennaia publichnaia nauchno-tekhnicheskaia biblioteka, 1990), 103. 24 NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 411, l. 63; G. L. Sanzhiev et al., Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvo v Buriatskoi ASSR 1917-1981 (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1983), 310, 314. 25 Guntis Smidchens, “National Heroic Narratives in the Baltics as a Source for Nonviolent Political Action,” Slavic Review 66, no. 3 (2007), 486.

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this reason, folklore was also analyzed by both the Party and intellectuals for its value to society as well as its meaning for the nation. An important example of this process in Buryatia was the promotion, denunciation, and then rehabilitation of the Buryat epic poem, Geser. Originally of Tibetan origin and shared by Tibetans and Mongols alike, Geser became known throughout the Soviet Union as the epic of the Buryats. There are numerous versions of the Geser epic, even among the Buryats, but the basic story line is similar. There was a hero, Geser, who was once a god. In order to fight evil on earth, he was reincarnated as a courageous human with magical powers. On earth he endured many adventures and numerous battles with monsters, evil spirits, and other rivals. Eventually he was triumphant and this brought peace and prosperity among his people and in his lands. Traditionally, storytellers conveyed tales of Geser by singing and performing them. Buryats found Geser to be particularly meaningful to them because the story takes place in the lands around Lake Baikal. Buryats experiencing extreme hardship reportedly would also recite passages of the epic as a way to scare away bad spirits.26 In 1906, Tsyben Zhamtsarano, the Buryat scholar who had participated in the intellectual debates and Buryat congresses of the 1905 Revolution era and in Burnatskom in 1917, was the first to professionally record an entire version of Geser sung to him by the storyteller Manshud Emegeev. It was published in Leningrad in 1930.27 As with other epic poems, Geser worked well in an era of socialist real26

Bayar S. Dugarov, “The Skylark Myth in Buryat Epic and the Siberian Tradition of the Bird-Shaman,” in Michael Gervers and Wayne Schlepp (eds.), Continuity and Change in Central and Inner Asia: Papers Presented at the Central and Inner Asian Seminar, University of Toronto, 24–25 March 2000 and 4–5 May 2001 (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2002), 281–3; G. M. H. Schoolbraid, The Oral Epic of Siberia and Central Asia (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University, 1975), 20. 27 N. O. Sharakshinova (ed.), Geroicheskii epos o Gesere: Uchebnoe posoie dlia studentov filologicheskogo fakul’teta (Irkutsk: Irkutskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1969), 3; Ts. Zh. Zhamtsarano, Proizvedeniia narodnoi slovesnosti buriat, vol. 2 (Leningrad: USSR Academy of Science, 1930). Volume 2 contained the Geser text. Volume 1 contained other works of Buryat folklore and was published in 1918, Ts. Zh. Zhamtsarano, Proizvedeniia narodnoi slovesnosti buriat, vol. 1 (Petrograd: Russian Academy of Sciences, 1918). For more on Tyben Zhamtsarano, see Chapter 1.

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ism with clear plots and grandiose heroes. In addition, whereas authorities in the 1920s had argued that historical events were led by the masses, they reinterpreted this idea in the 1930s. During the height of the cult of personality that surrounded Joseph Stalin, cultural officials argued instead that it was great leaders who drove history. Many important individuals from Russian history were reexamined and promoted at this time. In the 1930s, individuals such as Peter the Great and Alexander Nevskii were celebrated in literature, press, theater, and film. These historical heroes became patriotic figures in Soviet propaganda alongside contemporary revolutionary ones.28 The promotion of national epics can also be seen as part of this trend. Research on Geser was supported throughout the 1930s and continued even through the terrible purges of that decade that robbed the Buryats of many of their best folklorists. In particular, scholars were given the task to prepare works on Geser in preparation for the 1940 Buryat-Mongolian Festival of Art and Literature in Moscow, an important event for showcasing Buryat culture. Geser was singled out to be the most important example of traditional Buryat folklore. Scholars and politicians published articles praising the epic as meaningful for Buryats in the past and present.29 The promotion of Geser was in line with the attention that national epics were receiving in other parts of the Soviet Union at that time as well. In the late 1930s, many Soviet national epics were promoted. In particular, between 1938 and 1940, Soviet nationalities, such as the Kalmyks, Yakuts, Armenians, and Kyrgyz, held celebrations for the anniversaries of their epics.30 For this reason, officials at the Buryat-Mongolian Festival in Moscow decided that the Buryats too should have an epic anniversary. Nicholas Poppe, the well-known Mongolist who would later emigrate from the Soviet Union during World War II, was given the 28

Kevin M. F. Platt and David Brandenberger, “Introduction: Tsarist-Era Heroes in Stalinist Mass Culture and Propaganda,” in Kevin M. F. Platt and David Brandenberger (eds.), Epic Revisionism: Russian History and Literature as Stalinist Propaganda (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006), 3–11; Brandenberger, National Bolshevism, 82–3. 29 Bazarov, Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn’, 122; Kuchmurukova, Istoriia knigoizdaniia, 88. 30 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5158, l. 67.

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task of exploring the anniversary and suggesting a date.31 By 1941 he and others had decided that Geser was approximately 600 years old.32 This estimate was partly based on the idea that the Buryat nation had begun to form around that time. In May 1941, Stalin himself signed a decree supporting this decision. The decree stated that the 600th anniversary of the Buryat epic would be celebrated in November 1942 and that research on Geser should be conducted and published in both Russian and Buryat.33 A May 31, 1941 Pravda article, explained that various Soviet scholars were being brought together to work on Geser and compile “one united text as a monument to the ancient culture and life of the Buryat-Mongolian people.”34 Authorities in Buryatia then assigned numerous scholars such as Sergei Petrovich Baldaev, D. Khiltukhin, I. Magason, A. Bal’durov, Alexei Il’ich Ulanov, and Mikhail Nikolaevich Stepanov to conduct research on the epic in preparation for the planned anniversary festivities.35 The outbreak of World War II interrupted plans for the Geser festival, but the epic was hardly forgotten. Although research slowed and the 1942 celebrations were postponed, Geser gained new meaning and importance. In an effort to encourage bravery and patriotism among the Buryats, local officials encouraged Buryat writers to use the Geser image in their works. Geser was depicted as a courageous and brave fighter and Buryat men were encouraged to be strong and manly like Geser.36 Geser was also declared a hero of the Soviet Union. Buryat writers, including Khotsa Namsaraev, promoted the use of Geser in literary works. Namsaraev used Geser in his own works and encouraged other writers to do the same. A book of poetry with two chapters about Geser was quickly published. The composer, D. Aiushiev, also put some of those poems to music.37 31

Bazarov, Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn’, 122. The 600-year estimate is considered by many scholars to be incorrect. Many argue that the epic is not that old. 33 Sanzhiev, Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvo, 213. 34 The article can be found in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5158, ll. 1a–b. 35 Kuchmurukova, Istoriia knigoizdaniia, 88. 36 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5158. 37 Bazarov, Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn’, 124. 32

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During the war years, the use of national and religious symbols to promote patriotism and loyalty was common throughout the Soviet Union. At the war’s end, however, Stalin curtailed these more relaxed cultural policies. In their place, he implemented a reinvigorated campaign against cosmopolitanism and nationalism. Often called Zhdanovism after Andrei Zhdanov, the Central Committee chair who developed the policy in Moscow in 1946, the campaign targeted artists, writers, musicians, and scholars whose works expressed “anti-Soviet,” “foreign,” or “bourgeois nationalist” elements.38 Aleksandr Vasil’evich Kudriavtsev spearheaded the campaign in Buryatia. Central authorities in Moscow had appointed Kudriavtsev to be the first secretary of Buryatia in 1943 after having served in high positions in Central Asia. He was the second consecutive non-Buryat first secretary of the Buryat-Mongolian Republic in a row after the Buryat, Erbanov, was purged in 1937— a fact not lost on the Buryat elite. Kudriavtsev brought the Zhdanovist movement to Buryatia in 1946 when he started to criticize Buryat writers for having nationalist leanings. When officials all over the Soviet Union began to condemn national epics, including the Kyrgyz, Kazakh, and Tatar epics, Kudriavtsev followed suit. At the beginning of 1948 at the 15th party congress of the Buryat-Mongolian Republic, he began to criticize Geser, complaining that it was wrong to idealize the past through such an epic. Then, in May 1948 Kudriavtsev organized a meeting of 61 politicians, scholars, writers, and journalists to discuss Geser. Participants were given a series of questions to address at the meeting that included ongoing debates on the origin, ideology, relation to historical events of Geser, and most importantly, whether it should be published, promoted, and celebrated.39 The episode turned out to be a very degrading chapter in Buryat history. Those who came out against Geser included numerous people who had previously praised it and many who had written and researched the epic. In particular, Geser was criticized for not 38

Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 204–9; Brandenberger, National Bolshevism, 184–90. 39 The meeting transcript can be found in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5158; Also, see Bazarov, Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn’, 103, 106, 125–7.

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being a proper Soviet hero for the masses. Khotsa Namsaraev, who during the war years had promoted the usage of Geser among Buryat writers, denounced the epic as being against the “common people.” He claimed that the epic was bad because it was a product of the religious thought of lamas and shamans.40 Ts. O. Ochirov, the head of propaganda and agitation in the republic, also denounced Geser for its links to religion. He reported that rural Buryat kolkhoz workers from the Ivolginsk region believed that Geser was a representative of the Buddha on earth and not a “people’s hero.”41 Not only was Geser related to religion, but as the politician, Ts. Ts. Tsybudeev explained, “He took the title khan,” was “rich,” and “instituted state terror.”42 Many argued that Geser did not represent the Buryat people at all and that he was simply a mythical character. Others linked Geser to Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan), a figure who was also denounced at that time in the Soviet Union. Some declared that Geser was antiRussian. Several participants also accused those who had researched and written on Geser as being nationalists. Ochirov claimed that some of these people “strongly understood that Geser had a religiousreactionary character and that they wanted to use this in their nationalist goals.”43 The director of the history department at the pedagogical institute, V. P. Piushev, explained that nationalists and the “fascist” Nicholas Poppe attempted in the past to use Geser as a “weapon directed at the Russian people and against the friendship of the nations of our motherland.”44 40

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5158, l. 15. Ibid., 54. 42 Ibid., 28. 43 Ibid., 55. 44 Ibid., 42. The accusation that Nicholas Poppe was a “fascist” stems from Poppe’s decision to emigrate from the Soviet Union during WWII. At the time of the Nazi invasion, Poppe was living in the North Caucasus, an area that had become occupied by German forces. When the German Army began to retreat in 1943, Poppe and his family chose to leave with it. They eventually settled in the United States. In his memoirs, Poppe explains that his reason for leaving was that he feared persecution by the Soviet NKVD for having lived in German occupied territory. Indeed, once those regions were reclaimed by the Red Army, the Soviet government oppressed many, including POWs, who had been in occupied territories. Nicholas Poppe, Reminiscences (Bellingham, WA: Center for East Asian Studies, 1983), 169–70. 41

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It is easy to understand why so many intellectuals came out against Geser. They feared for their careers and even their lives. The stigma of being declared a promoter of bourgeois nationalism was a serious charge. Although the worst of the purges were over, people still had reason to be concerned. When Kudriavtsev called for denouncing Geser, most of the people invited to participate in the meeting prepared speeches and did just that. As difficult as this project was, however, their condemnations of Geser were also part of the larger project of defining the Soviet Buryat nation. The Buryat officials, scholars, writers, journalists, and others who attended the meeting were intricately involved in this project in their everyday work. Their denunciation of Geser was therefore a way to show central authorities how the Buryats were becoming loyal, model Soviet citizens. By condemning Geser, participants were also stating publicly that modern Soviet Buryats were not like him or the society he had lived in. Soviet Buryats were not religious, classbased, ruthless, violent, and anti-Russian. Instead, they were atheist, class-free, peaceful, and a friendly nation among many others in the Soviet Union. Censoring Geser and all that he represented was a way to purify the Soviet Buryat nation of important aspects of its unacceptable traditional past. Although a very demeaning experience for many intellectuals, Geser’s denunciation worked to advance the Soviet modernization project for the Buryat nation at the same time. It preserved livlihoods and kept avenues for social advancement open. Not everyone who attended the meeting, however, simply condemned Geser. Some scholars limited their criticism of the epic by focusing attention on the academic questions raised at the meeting. Namzhil G. Baldano, who by 1946 had compiled 25,000 stanzas of Geser into one text, explored the issue of the 600-year anniversary date. He concluded that since not everyone agreed on this origin date, there was no reason to hurry to publish Geser at that time. He also explained that since mistakes had been made about Geser, it needed to be studied more fully.45 G. Ts. Bel’gaev focused on the distinctiveness of Geser as a Buryat epic. He argued that because 45

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5158, ll., 8, 65; Bazarov, Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn’, 124.

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the epic took place in Buryat lands it was indeed unique to the Buryats. Although he cautioned against immediate publication, he argued that the poem was not so dangerous. Instead, he explained that its ideology was democratic, humanitarian, and contained elements of satire aimed at khans and aristocrats.46 Despite the pressure to denounce Geser in some way or another, three scholars stubbornly defended it. Alexei Il’ich Ulanov, N. D. Zurgeev, and G. N. Rumiantsev argued that as a historical document, Geser held value for the Buryat nation. Ulanov emphasized that Geser was created for all classes of people because it was originally transmitted orally. It was therefore not simply for the elite. He also argued against linking Geser to Chinggis Khan. For the most part, Geser supporters claimed that it deserved further research and should eventually be published.47 Ultimately, these three scholars declared that Geser held academic value for the Buryats regardless of its use as propaganda. This argument did not fit the predetermined conclusion of the meeting, which was the censoring of Geser. Therefore, Kudriavtsev attacked the Geser supporters in his concluding remarks. He said that their “positions and defense of themselves is strange.” He accused them of propagandizing Geser for nationalist goals. He claimed that to conduct any further research or publish anything on the epic would be “undertaking the work of bourgeois nationalists.”48 In addition, he concluded that Geser was not a distinctly Buryat epic and that there was no need to celebrate its 600th anniversary because that date was questionable.49 A few days later, a decree was issued to remove various published works on Geser from “libraries and public use.” The list included works by previously mentioned scholars such as Baldano, Galsanov, and Shulukshin.50 Once Geser was officially censored, scholars and officials published only articles that attacked the epic poem. In 1949, Galsanov, 46

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5158, ll. 2–7. NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5158, ll. 29, 31–4, 76; Bazarov, Obshchestvennopoliticheskaia zhizn’, 129. 48 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5158, ll. 65–6. 49 Ibid., 63. 50 NARB, f. 803, op. 1, d. 25, l. 4. 47

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whose previous work on Geser had now been censored, wrote a critical article about the epic poem. This article attempted to prove Geser’s “anti-Russian” nature. Galsanov claimed that Geser’s struggle against the mangadkhai, which means monster, was actually a struggle against the Russians because some Buryats called the Russians mangut. This assertion had been made previously, but most scholars had earlier dismissed it as unfounded.51 Now, under the new political climate, such arguments were taken seriously.52 In another article, several Buryat scholars emphasized Geser’s “feudal-khan” origins and his connections to “the vicious Chinggis Khan and his horde.” The authors wrote of how subjects such as Geser produced a “struggle against the infiltration into Soviet ideology of alien influence.”53 Positive assessments of Geser were condemned as promoting nationalism and idealizing the past. At that point, Geser was simply no longer a hero for the Soviet Buryat nation. Then suddenly in 1951, authorities made another whiplash turn and reconsidered the status of the Geser epic. However, this time its fate was discussed at a meeting among scholars in Moscow at the Oriental Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Members of the Buryat-Mongolian Scientific Research Institute also attended. The participants concluded that the epic poem did hold historical value for the Buryat people. They dismissed claims about the poem’s anti-Russian nature and Geser’s likeness to Chinggis Khan.54 Ultimately, meeting participants declared that Geser could once again be an important area of scientific research. After the meeting in Moscow, the Buryat-Mongolian Republic’s Writers’ Union announced that Geser was once again an acceptable topic. 51

Bazarov, Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn’, 132, 136. Brandenberger explains that officials across the Soviet Union during the period of zhdanovism especially criticized and denounced historical interpretations in works that placed ethnic Russians in tension with others. Brandenberger, Nationalism and Policy, 189–90. 53 The article was written by Khotsa Namsaraev, Galsanov, D. Tsyrempion, and G. Tsydynzhapov. A copy of it can be found in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5775, ll. 47–9. 54 Ekaterina Efremovna Semenova, “Politicheskoe i sotsial’no-ekonomicheskoe razvitie Buriatii v 1950-kh godakh” (PhD diss., Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1998), 26; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5775, l. 46. 52

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Scholars, who had prepared manuscripts on Geser back in the late 1930s and early 1940s, could finally publish their works. Ulanov published a version of Geser in 1954, as well as a study on the characteristics of the epic.55 In 1955 Ulanov published another work on Geser titled The Buryat Heroic Epic along with a version of Geser recorded from a village in the Irkutsk Oblast’ in 1940.56 In 1955 the Institute of Culture issued a plan to publish more academic work on Geser.57 Namzhil Baldano published his translation of Geser in 1959 and M. P. Khomonov published a work on the epic in 1961.58 These were all works by local academics. It is remarkable that Geser was rehabilitated in 1951. Stalin was still alive at that time, pushing a serious campaign against bourgeois nationalism. In addition, many other epic poems in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Siberia were still being vigorously denounced. In 1951—the same year that Geser was rehabilitated—officials had only begun to denounce the Azerbaijani epic Dede-Korkut. These denunciations were largely matters of condemnation and censorship. Only in the Kirghiz Republic was there an open discussion in local newspapers over the value of their epic poem.59 Geser may have been rehabilitated in 1951 because scholars at the Oriental Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow pushed for it. Geser was a well-known text for many of these scholars and the rehabilitation discussions took place at that institute.60 However, local Buryat scholars, many of whom also attended the rehabilitation meeting, may have also continued to exert pressure on authorities to reconsider the case. This pressure would have been 55

Galina Dashievna Bazarova, Formirovanie i razvitie nauchnoi intelligentsii Buriatii 1922-1985 (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN, 1998), 80– 1; Dugar-Nimaev, Istoriia Buriatskoi sovetskoi literatury, 210. 56 Buriatskii geroicheskii epos in Russian. NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6528, l. 204. 57 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6528, l. 272. 58 Namzhil Baldano, Abai Geser khubuun: buriaad aradai ul’ger (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1959); M. P. Khomonov, Abai Geser-khubun: epopeia: ekhirit-bulgatskii variant (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii kompleksnyi nauchnoissl., 1961–64). 59 Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 206–7. 60 For example, Damdinsuren, then a graduate student from Mongolia, was writing his dissertation on Geser for the Oriental Institute around that time. He, too, attended the 1951 rehabilitation meeting.

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particularly effective on a local level given a changing of the guard. First Secretary Kudriavtsev was replaced in 1951 with the ethnic Buryat, Aleksandr Uladaevich Khakhalov, who had formerly been the Minister of Culture in the republic. While serving in that position, he had written positively about Geser for the 1940 BuryatMongolian Festival of Art and Literature.61 Of course, having once praised Geser did not mean one was a supporter of it in darker times, but Khakhalov may have been more receptive to the concerns of local scholars. Kudriavtsev, an outsider, had been particularly unpopular among the Buryat elite. The Buryat writer Khotsa Namsaraev was recorded as saying once that “It is impossible for Kudriavtsev, having arrived from God knows where, to understand Buryat life.”62 The rehabilitation of Geser at this moment, as well as the other examples above, show that policies dictated by central authorities—such as the attack on bourgeois nationalism in the early postwar years—often had different results in the various regions of the union. From the occasion of Geser’s rehabilitation in 1951 until the late 1980s, the local government in Buryatia accepted Geser as culturally relevant for the Buryats. The epic was also an acceptable topic of academic inquiry. Several scholars, such as Ulanov, Khomonov, Nadezhda Osipovna Sharakshinova, and others continued to research and publish on Geser.63 University students in philology departments studied Geser for its literary importance. Some high school students, particularly in Buryat national schools, studied Geser to “help instill patriotism [in them] along with studying revolutionaries.”64 However, after the condemnation episode, local officials did not widely promote Geser or use it as an important propaganda tool as they had during World War II. Also, authorities no longer found the heroes of epic poems to be useful tools for constructing a socialist reality. Most nations, including the Buryats, had begun to develop their own socialist literature by that time. Priority was placed on the new literature, not epic poems. When the second 61

Bazarov, Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn’, 122. Quoted in Bazarov, Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn’, 105. 63 Sharakshinova, Geroicheskii epos, 3. 64 Andreev, Istoriia buriatskoi shkoly, 531. 62

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Buryat Festival of Art and Literature occurred in Moscow in November 1959, the Buryats did not highlight Geser and folklore in general. Instead, contemporary literature was the centerpiece. This new literature borrowed heavily from Russian and Soviet literature. One literary critic commenting on the display claimed, “Folklore could not help today’s Buryat writers.” He explained that instead, they draw from contemporary life and gain much more from Russian and Soviet writers than traditional folklore.65 Buryat literature had progressed to a new stage. Getting It Right: Censorship and Acceptable Narratives Authorities in Buryatia found the Geser epic to be problematic because it came from a Buryat past that they did not want highlighted. They considered Geser and other works of Buryat folklore to be culturally interesting, but not highly relevant, parts of the modern Buryats’ past. Instead, local officials wanted to promote the role of the Buryats in important events in Soviet history or show how Buryats were living successful modern lives under Soviet leadership. The new Buryat literature was a perfect place to do this. Buryat scholars, writers, literary critics, censors, and Party officials all contributed to creating Buryat literature. Although there were no more large discussions like those that had brought together numerous elites from various professions to examine the Buryat epic Geser during the later Soviet period, literature production still involved many people who carefully considered literary works and continued to analyze their meaning for the new Buryat society. Officials’ belief in the need for an acceptable local history that emphasized Buryatia as an integral part of the Soviet Union and the former Russian Empire led to historical fiction becoming one of the most important literary genres in the last decades of the Soviet Union. Historical fiction presented Buryats participating in important pre-revolutionary events, but even more so, in revolutionary activities leading up to 1917 and those after, such as the Russian Civil War, the building of socialism, and World War II. These later events showed 65

Bazarov, Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn’, 168.

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especially how local and central efforts produced acts of patriotism, brought social mobility, and created economic and technological development. Therefore, the first Buryat novels were in the genre of historical fiction. In 1949, Zhamso Tumunov published the very first Buryat novel, The Steppe Awoke.66 The novel follows the story of several Buryats during the revolutionary and civil war years, highlighting their part in the contest for Soviet power in Buryatia. In 1950, Khotsa Namsaraev published At Dawn, which covers the period from 1903 to 1918. His novel examines poor Buryats and their struggle against “exploitive” lamas and rich Buryats in the quest to bring communism to Buryatia.67 Throughout the 1950s, Chimit Tsydendambaev published two novels from his trilogy about Dorzhi Banzarov, the man hailed as Buryatia’s first scholar because he graduated from, and taught at, the renowned Kazan University in the nineteenth century. Although Banzarov lived before the October Revolution, the author highlights how his life was part of the revolutionary tradition of the Buryat people. Buryat–Russian friendship also appeared prominently in these early historical novels.68 Buryat writers who wrote historical fiction could rely on the contemporary and approved versions of Buryat history produced by local scholars. One of the most important such works was completed in the 1950s when numerous historians were brought together to create the large two-volume The History of the BuryatMongolian ASSR.69 This work was monumental and nothing like it has been created since. For that reason it especially provided an acceptable historical narrative for Buryat writers to use. It also 66

Zhamso Tumunov, Step’ prosnulas’ (Moscow: Sovetskii pisatel’, 1956). Khotsa Namsaraev, Na utrennei zare (Moscow: Sovietskii pisatel’, 1959). 68 Information and summaries of various works by Tumunov, Namsaraev, and Tsydendambaev can be found in Dugar-Nimaev, Istoriia Buriatskoi literatury, 229–37; Bazarov, Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn’, 168; M. I. Tulokhonov (ed.), Istoriia buriatskoi literatury: Sovremennaia buriatskaia literatura (1956– 1995) vol. 3, (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN, 1997), 10, 19, 23– 36; A. A. Sodnomov (ed.), Pisateli Buriatii: Biograficheskii spravochnik (UlanUde: Izdatel’stvo pisatelei “Narai,” 1994), 120. 69 Many Soviet nations published large multi-authored histories at this time. Most, however, published them only in Russian and not in the native languages. See, Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 281. The Buryat history is Khaptaev et al. (eds.), Istoriia Buriat-Mongol’skoi ASSR, vols. 1–2. 67

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gives special attention to important themes such as the friendship of nations, the unity of the lower classes, and the progressive development of the Buryats under Soviet leadership. It offers list after list of local achievements and often compares Soviet advancements with a condemned pre-revolutionary situation. For example, volume two provides a history of education that explains that “before the October Revolution there were no higher and middle specialist educational institutes” and “after the October Revolution” there were many (and then these are listed and elaborated upon).70 This type of comparison is deliberately presented in a way that implies that the previous Buddhist, Orthodox, and tsarist secular education systems were not legitimate, fair, or useful since they did not fit into the Soviet definition of a modern education system. Individual historians also produced a number of relevant scholarly works that Buryat writers could draw upon. Notably, works on national unity provided answers to why Buryatia was an intrinsic part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union such as Bazhei Khomkholov’s Soviet Buryat-Mongolia in the United Family of Nations of the USSR and Bimba Tsibikov’s Indissoluble Friendship of the Buryat-Mongolian and Russian Peoples.71 While Khomkholov’s book works to present Buryatia as an organic part of the Soviet Union, Tsibikov’s research describes how Buryatia became a part of the Russian Empire. His version of this period of Buryat history ignores the more violent episodes, as well as the resistance of Buryats to Russian encroachment by claiming that “working-class” Buryats voluntarily joined Russia. His historical interpretation of this period is quite different from earlier twentieth century, as well as postSoviet histories of Russian expansion into Buryatia.72 70

Khaptaev et al. (eds.), Istoriia Buriatskoi ASSR, 572. Bazhei Khankharaevich Khonkholov, Sovetskaia Buriat-Mongoliia v edinoi sem’e narodov SSSR (Ulan-Ude: Buriat-Mongol’skoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1958); Bimba Dorzhievich Tsibikov, Nerushimaia druzhba buriat-mongol’skogo i russkogo naroda (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’svo, 1957). Also see publishing records and plans from this time that show locally produced pamphlets and other works on the theme of the friendship of nations in NARB, f. 869, op. 1, d. 6, l. 18; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5778, l. 89. 72 For an earlier interpretation of the Russian conquest of Buryatia, see M. N. Bogdanov, Ocherki istorii Buryat-mongol’skogo naroda (Verkhneudindsk, 71

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In addition to following correct historical interpretations, writers were subject to censorship. Censorship had existed in Buryatia since tsarist times, but in the last decades of the Soviet Union it became more stringent as there was greater institutional support to carry it out.73 Party officials, editors, scholarly experts, writers, and workers at the Buryat Book Publishing House could all weigh in on what was permissible for publication. Authorities carefully analyzed content and debated its meaning and usefulness for society. Tsydendambaev, the author of the Dorzhi Banzarov trilogy, initially had trouble publishing the first part, Dorzhi, Son of Banzar. The editor of the republican cultural and literary journal Baikal claimed that it should not be published because of its religious content.74 Tsydendambaev removed parts of his book that concerned shamans and lamas, but this was not enough. At a 1952 Party meeting, his work was criticized, labeled “bourgeois nationalist,” and was refused publication. This refusal occurred even though the Geser epic—also a work deemed “bourgeois nationalist”—had been rehabilitated a year earlier. Refusing to accept the situation, Tsydendambaev found a publisher in Irkutsk and his book came out there in 1953. After this, local Buryat leaders changed their minds and the book was published soon after in Ulan-Ude in 1954.75 This example illustrates, like the Geser story, how local elites and officials deliberated—and often flip-flopped on their conclusions—over publishing literary works for Buryat society. 1926). For examples of revisionist post-Soviet versions of this history see the four-part series Narody Buriatii v sostave Rossii: Ot protivostoianiia k soglasiiu (300 let Ukazy Petra I) (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’stvo OAO, 2001–03), D. D. Nimaev, Buriaty: Etnogenes i etnicheskaia istoriia (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN, 2000), and V. A. Khamutaev, Prisoedinenie Buriatii k Rossii: Istoriia i sovremennaia politika (Ulan-Ude: Kongress Buriatskogo naroda, 2012). Also, see Montgomery, Late Tsarist, for a general historiographical discussion of the Soviet treatment of indigenous Siberians. 73 On the strengthening of censorship in Buryatia, see Kuchmurukova, Istoriia knigoizdaniia, 160–77. 74 Dorzhi, syn Banzara in Russian. Baikal was originally created in 1947 and became an important place for Buryat writers to publish their work. It was originally called Svet na Baikalom in Russian and Baigalai tolon in Buryat, but eventually became simply Baikal in Russian and Baigal in Buryat. 75 Bazarov, Obshchestvenno-politicheskaia zhizn’, 118–20.

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More than anything, unacceptable versions of historical events were condemned and censored. For example in 1963, a collection of poetry by Tsyren-Bazar Badmaev was refused publication for offering critical snapshots of life under Stalin.76 Konstantin G. Karnyshev, who wrote a book in the 1970s that found fault with the 1930s collectivization campaign, was not able to publish until 1991.77 Although these works were restricted for their sensitive topics, censorship was also often due to complicated factors that involved leaders at all levels in the Writers’ Union and in local publishing institutions.78 In the late 1980s the Buryat writer, Galina Zhigmytovna Radnaeva, wrote about her experience of being censored in the 1970s. She explained how upon her return to Buryatia in 1975 after graduating from the A. M. Gorkii Literary Institute in Leningrad and receiving a high grade on her thesis, a novel called The Rustling of Leaves, she was denied her request to publish it.79 Other works by her were refused as well. She blamed the Buryat Book Publishing House and one editor in particular. She complained that this editor was not objective and fair and censored her for his own personal reasons.80 Eventually, in 1979, The Rustling of Leaves was published and she became a member of the Buryat Writers’ Union shortly thereafter.81 Authorities scrutinized literary works before publication, but they also devoted attention to criticizing them even after they had already passed through censors and been published. For example, a survey of documents by local officials examining Buryat literature, reveal both positive and negative judgements.82 These too served as guidelines for authors on what was acceptable for publication. Such reports criticized authors who wrote too idealistically, did not follow “closely enough to real life,” did not “deal with serious issues,” and did not produce “great literature” that included lessons on cor76

Kuchmurukova, Istoriia knigoizdaniia, 102–3, 160. Tulokhonov, Istoriia buriatskoi literatury, 113–4. 78 Brown, Soviet Russian Literature, 8–9. 79 Nabshahadai harshaganaan in Buryat and Shelest listvy in Russian. 80 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10622, ll. 36–9. 81 Sodnomov, Pisateli Buriatii, 95. 82 See such examples in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7252; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7325; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8003; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8389. 77

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rect behavior drawn from contemporary life or important historical events.83 These reports argued that Buryat writers needed to help people understand “today’s life” and the “complicated struggle between new and old.”84 In particular, local Party officials also closely analyzed the content of the local journal, Baikal. In a 1965 report, the journal’s “very influential” editors were criticized for including stories without important lessons for readers. They were told to “work with young authors who write in Buryat” and “help them write better stories on important themes concerning modern times.”85 A similar critique from 1972 also scolded the journal for “not paying enough attention to the themes of friendship of the peoples and internationalism.”86 The complaints found in these Party reports illustrate what officials expected of Soviet Buryat literature. Reports criticized young writers for producing stories that were not “clear” and did not describe the positive development of modern society, “the growth of the economy and science,” and “international friendship.”87 One Party report from 1964 cited several stories about single mothers by different young Buryat writers. The stories told of how the women became pregnant and the difficulties they faced afterwards. The report complained, however, that the stories did not show how these women overcame their difficulties. They were not drawing on their modern Soviet upbringing to help them problem solve. Instead, the women in these stories “act without thinking and fall for Don Juan characters.” For that reason, “these subjects are bad ones and are bad for our young writers.”88 These official documents on local literature also outlined suggestions for Buryat writers. One report from 1976 explained that the Party was ready to “help writers, especially young ones,” to choose correct topics “on everyday life and the character of people” and “on the international collectives of the factory, the kolkhoz, the 83

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7252, ll. 6-12; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7325, ll. 12–21; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8003, ll. 3–30; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8389, ll. 1–24. 84 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8389, ll. 13–5. 85 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7325, ll. 12–21. 86 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8003, l. 21. 87 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8389, l. 19. 88 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7252, ll. 7–9.

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sovkhoz, BAM, etc.” The author of the report also suggested that the Party should “pay serious attention to organizing political studies for writers.”89 Many such documents also presented model behavior through the contrasting of “bad” writers versus “good” ones. Good writers included Tsyren-Dulma Dondodova who described the “glorious women of Buryatia” in her work, Baradii Mungonov who wrote positively about contemporary kolkhoz life, Badluev who wrote about marriage between a Buryat and Russian, and historical novels by Tsydenzhap Zhimbuev on World War II and Mikhail Zhigzhitov’s work on the revolution. Although many of these stories describe difficulties in life, authorities supported them because they showed how people overcame their problems and became better for it.90 Local authorities weighed both central and local Party directives when making decisions on what literary works received publication and praise. On the national level, changes in leadership and policy were important. For example, after Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalin in 1956, rehabilitations of previously repressed authors occurred around the country. Officials in Buryatia followed suit and writers such as Solbone Tuya, who was purged in the late 1930s under Stalin, was rehabilitated in 1958.91 Also, after the death of Stalin in 1953, Buryat literature was not as strictly guided by the constraints of socialist realism thanks to the cultural relaxation of the Thaw Years under Khrushchev. During this time, authors were permitted to stray away from the more previously prescribed themes. Many did so by emphasizing the feelings of individuals and the relationships between them. Authors began to more commonly explore the psychology of their characters, express peoples’ inner thoughts, and examine everyday lives and the ways in which humans related to work, gender, nationality, and the past. For example, a story titled “First Snow,” by Ts. Galsanov, describes the life of an ordinary Buryat woman who is a doctor and travels to the 89

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8389, ll. 20–1. NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7325, ll. 16–9; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8003, ll. 9-10; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8389, ll. 13–6. 91 Solbone Tuya, whose real name was P. N. Dambinov, was rehabilitated on March 7, 1958. See, NARB, f. 803, op. 1, d. 38, l. 5. 90

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countryside to visit her husband’s parents for the first time. Although nothing exceptional or heroic happens in the story, the visit allows her to express her thoughts about life, morality, and the environment.92 Although Leonid Brezhnev later clamped down on many of the literary freedoms that had developed under Khrushchev, his administration did not return to the more strictly enforced socialist realism of the 1930s.93 Instead, the new literary trends were regularly employed—even if limited—to show how the “new Soviet person” had been formed and how that person lived. On the local level, authorities in Buryatia made many decisions on how much to publish, what to publish, and what language to publish in. Gerhard Simon has argued that “claims and demands from below” were important in this process and for that reason there was great variety among the various Soviet territories in, for example, the amount of native language publishing.94 In Buryatia, it is clear that local officials had much control over publishing in the republic and made their own choices about amounts and types of publications. For example, officials carefully considered demand. They closely watched bookstores and kiosks and recorded what was bought and sold. These stores were often given quotas, but officials analyzed why these quotas were met or not. Data was collected from different regions and this too was evaluated.95 When sales of certain books slumped, officials criticized booksellers for not selling enough copies. They made suggestions on how to improve propaganda and make bookstores and kiosks more conducive to book buying.96 Although guided by national trends, the Buryat 92

G. Ts. Badueva, “Novoe v izobrazhenii cheloveka v buriatskom rasskaze 19551960” in ed. L. E. Iangutov, Gumanitarnye issledovaniia molodykh uchenykh Buriatii (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN, 1996), 155–61; Tulokhonov, Istoriia buriatskoi literatury, 14–9 and 92. 93 Tulokhnonov, Istoriia buriatskoi literatury, 13. 94 Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 330. 95 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5777, ll. 86-117. 96 For example, a 1966 Party report criticized booksellers for not selling enough copies of Istoriia Buriatskoi ASSR, Sovremennyi Buriatskii teatr, Narodnoe khoziaistvo Buriatskoi ASSR, and Antologiia Buriatskoi poezii. NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7415, l. 23. For complaints about conditions of bookstores and kiosks and suggestions for improving them, see NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5777, ll. 116117, 133–42.

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Book Publishing House, censors, literary experts, and Party officials worked together to structure the local publishing process. Most writers in Buryatia generally understood this process and knew how to write within the literary limitations of their times. Researchers have also found no examples of samizdat in the republic. The Buryat scholar, Ekaterina Aleksandrovna Kuchmurukova, explains that after extensively searching the National Archives of the Republic of Buryatia, she did not succeed in “discovering any documents or facts about the publication and spread of samizdat.”97 My search was unsuccessful as well. Evidence of samizdat or reports on it either does not exist or is not available. Either way, unapproved literature did not circulate and achieve influence. Instead, the government was largely successful in pushing its literary agenda. Writers’ work was censored before publication and critiqued afterward. Knowing this, many writers censored themselves. As Evgeny Dobrenko has argued, “the transformation of the author into his own censor—herein is the true history of Soviet literature.”98 Indeed, many writers in Buryatia followed official guidelines and chose to write about the acceptable topics of historical and contemporary value. For policymakers and many elites, highlighting the advantages of modern times and Soviet values was the most important aspect for literature in Buryatia in the 1960s and 1970s. However, this was quite different from a notable trend in ethnic Russian literature at that time. The Russian Village Prose movement, which began during the Thaw under Khrushchev and gained momentum in the Brezhnev years, sought to call attention to the traditions and way of life of the Russian countryside rather than modern, urban Soviet life. Writers romanticized the Russian peasant and saw their work as getting to the root of the Russian character and soul. These writers were inherently critical of the Soviet project of modernization and argued that it had had negative social and environmental consequences. They sought to reinvent Russian national identity based on their perception of more traditional Russian values.99 Yitzhak 97

Kuchmurukova, Istoriia knigoizdaniia, 159. Dobrenko, The Making of the State Writer, xviii. 99 Brown, Soviet Russian Literature, 218–21. 98

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Brudny has argued that these Russian writers were very influential politically as well. He claims that the Brezhnev administration allowed these writers a certain amount of freedom of expression because many Soviet leaders believed that a form of controlled Russian nationalism would help maintain support for the regime.100 On the whole there is no parallel in Buryatia to the Village Prose writers. However, their movement likely influenced Buryat writers who also chose to express concern about their natural environment. Various Buryat authors wrote stories and poems about the relationship between humans and nature and sometimes criticized Soviet economic development and its consequences to the land, and in particular, to Lake Baikal. Writers, such as Mikhail I. Zhigzhitov, examined the results of fishing in Lake Baikal as well as overhunting animals such as the sable in his work. Others, such as DashaDemberel Dugarov, explored both environmentally responsible and irresponsible hunting practices in Siberia in his collection of stories and poems titled Black Sable that was published in 1969.101 However, these stories were also part of a larger all-union environmental movement and much of the literature promoting protection, including that of Lake Baikal, was produced by non-Buryats.102 Buryat authors did write many stories about rural life, as did the Village Prose writers, however, their works were generally centered on the advantages of Buryat society during Soviet times rather than a critique of modernity.103 Buryat writers also did not regularly publish works idealizing traditional Buryat nomadism or the prerevolutionary Buryat countryside. If central authorities chose to gain ethnic Russian support through controlled Russian nationalism expressed in literature, this was not the case with the Buryats in 100

Yitzhak M. Brudny, Reinventing Russia: Russian Nationalism and the Soviet State, 1953–1991 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 2–5. 101 Dasha-Demberel Dugarov, Chernyi sobol’ (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1977). The book was originally published in Buryat. The Russian translations were published in both Ulan-Ude and Moscow. See also, Tulokhonov, Istoriia buriatskoi literatury, 121–5; Sodnomov, Pisateli Buriatii, 48. 102 See, for example, Thomas B. Rainey, “Siberian Writers and the Struggle to Save Lake Baikal,” Environmental History Review 15, no. 1 (Spring 1991), 46– 60. 103 See examples discussed in Tulokhonov, Istoriia buriatskoi literatury, 114–8.

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Buryatia. Local authors also did not positively assess their preSoviet or pre-Russian past in literature the way that some Central Asian and Tatar authors did in the postwar years. In those regions there are examples of writers who highlighted particular periods in their nations’ pre-Russian past and sought to show how they were once part of politically strong entities with thriving intellectual cultures.104 For the most part, Buryat authors did not promote such a past, or, for example, address the days of Chinggis Khan and the powerful Mongol empire. The main novel about that period produced in Buryatia in the late Soviet era was by Isai Kalashnikov, an Old Believer from the Mukhorshibirskii region. The book is called The Cruel Century and does not glorify the Mongol empire. Instead, Kalashnikov chose to focus more on the psychology of Chinggis Khan by creating the complicated tale of the twisted and tortured mind of a tyrant.105 While more controversial literary themes did develop in the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin, most literature continued to adhere to the ideological standards of the time. In Buryatia, literature generally pushed ideas of internationalism, the friendship of nations, and the benefits Buryats received from their Russian brothers. Elites and local Party officials praised and promoted these works while successfully discouraging other themes by censorship, ban, or condemnation. For example, a Party document on contemporary works in Buryat literature from 1964, commended several stories by authors such as Mikhail N. Stepanov and Afrikan A. Bal’burov for demonstrating the friendship of the Buryat and Russian people.106 Another report written in 1966 praised a story by Shirap-Senge B. Badluev about a Buryat woman named Dulma who married an ethnic Russian named Ivan. The author of the report explained that the “interactions between Russians and Buryats in modern times is an important theme. Badluev made a strong contribution to this theme by showing the happiness and difficulties in the lives of Dulma and Ivan.”107 In 1978 at the Days of Russian 104

Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 289–90; Rorlich, The Volga Tatars, 166–71. Isai Kalashnikov, Zhestokii vek (Moscow: Lexica, 1991). 106 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7252, l. 6. 107 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7325, ll. 18–9. 105

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Literature festival in Ulan-Ude, First Secretary Modogoev and members of the Buryat Writers’ Union emphasized the theme of internationalism in Buryat literature. Modogoev announced that this theme was a tribute to the “great friendship” and “help of the Great Russian people” in the development of Soviet Buryatia.108 Other authorities at the event claimed that the “main theme” of Buryat literature in the 1970s was in fact internationalism.109 Many literary works in Buryatia also consistently praised modernity, even though some Buryat writers chose to write critically about the environmental situation in Siberia. Authors regularly produced stories that described how Soviet modernization in Siberia changed peoples’ lives for the better, focusing on such contemporary campaigns as the construction of BAM. This literature continued to follow previous post-Stalin trends of exploring human feelings and psychology, but the search into the human character was generally intended to show the development of a new type of person who regularly benefitted from technical innovations and exhibited admirable, and politically correct, qualities.110 Vladimir Shlapentokh has argued that Soviet authorities employed different strategies toward Russians and non-Russians in the creation of propaganda in order to gain legitimacy and support. Messages aimed at Russians emphasized patriotism and national traditions. For non-Russians the emphasis was placed on how progressive the Soviet system was and how it offered more advantages than alternative ones.111 In the approved Buryat literature from the postwar years to the 1980s, this strategy was indeed evident and Buryat literature commonly touted the progress that Buryats had made since the Bolshevik Revolution. Writing the correct way about the right themes was a means to professional praise, advancement, occupational security, and material im108

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8688, ll. 8–17. Ibid., 39–40, 213. 110 Tulokhonov, Istoriia buriatskoi literatury, 76–7; Sanzhiev, Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvo, 94–103; Erzhen Gendenovna Sangadneva, “Kontseptsiia mir i cheloveka v buriatskom romane, 1960–1970-kh godov” (PhD diss., Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN, 2004), 3–5. 111 Vladimir Shlapentokh, Soviet Public Opinion and Ideology: Mythology and Pragmatism in Interaction (New York: Praeger, 1986), 14. 109

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provements.112 Many Buryats could better their careers and reputations by acting accordingly. Central and local authorities pressured Buryat writers to describe life in modern Soviet Buryatia or the historical background that created it. Alternative stories were excessively criticized or not published at all. The Decline of Buryat Language Publishing and Literature The Buryat writer Galina Zhigmytovna Randaeva lamented in an essay in 1989, “I am 40 years old and one of the younger members of the Writers’ Union to write in Buryat. After me, who will continue to write in Buryat?”113 Her statement reflects the deep concern among many intellectuals over the precipitous decline of the use of the Buryat language in the later Soviet period. This decline is easily illustrated with the decrease in Buryat language publishing. By the 1980s, the Buryat Book Publishing House was producing only around 24 percent of its books in Buryat. This was about half as much as it had in the early postwar years when closer to 50 percent of what it published was in Buryat.114 Kuchmurukova cites a lack of demand as the main reason.115 This is a logical arguement, which can be linked to the decline and then eventual cancellation of Buryat language education in the 1960s and 1970s—a development that ensured that more and more Buryats were reading Russian. The role of translation is also important in understanding this decline. Widely available translations meant that Buryats usually had the opportunity to read most literature published in the republic in Russian. In the later Soviet period, most Buryat-language writings were translated into Russian and the Russian versions often received larger print runs. For example, a 1976 plan from the 112

Goble explains that many non-Russian Soviet writers accepted “both proclaimed Soviet values and actual guarantees—such as no unemployment and lifetime security…” Goble, “Readers, Writers, and Republics,” 134. 113 The essay can be found in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10622, l. 32. 114 This percentage is compiled from table ten in the appendix of Kuchmurukova, Istoriia knigoizdaniia, 205–6. The print runs for books in Buryat were also very small in the 1980s. See, Kuchmurukova, Istoriia knigoizdaniia, 150. 115 Ibid., 150.

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Buryat Book Publishing House listed seven works of Buryat literature in Buryat with print runs of 1,000 to 2,000 copies each. That same plan included a collection of new works by Buryat authors in Russian with a print run of 15,000. The plan also called for publishing 30,000 to 50,000 copies of five different children’s books in Russian by Russian and Buryat authors and only 1,000 copies of four children’s books in Buryat.116 In 1969, 30,000 copies of Chimit Tsydendambaev’s Dorzhi, Son of Banzar were printed in Russian and none in Buryat.117 In addition, beginning in the 1960s, fewer and fewer works on the topics of politics, agriculture, industry, and technology appeared in Buryat.118 Most scholarly works on Buryat history and culture were also generally written in Russian and were only sometimes translated into Buryat. Despite the decline in literature in Buryat and the lack of demand for it, republic officials did continue to maintain a goal of creating works in the Buryat language. One of the goals of having a separate republican publishing house was to publish in Buryat. Officials therefore made efforts to continue to research and develop literary Buryat and works were produced in it. Buryat literature also continued to sometimes be published first in Buryat and then later translated into Russian.119 These Buryat-language works received small print runs, but they were produced and published nevertheless because it was part of the process of creating evidence that the Buryats were not only a separate Soviet nation, but a cultured one as well. A 1967 article in Pravda Buriatii illustrates this point in stating, “the Buryat Book Publishing House played a big role in the formation and development of a new Buryat culture, socialist in content, national in form.”120 Politicians and intellectuals continually promoted this idea and praised Buryat language publishing.121 116

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8252, ll. 124–31. NARB, f. 869, op. 1, d. 103, l. 24. 118 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8252, ll. 124–31; NARB, f. 869, op. 1, d. 103, ll. 4–26; NARB, f. 869, op. 1, d. 118, l. 4. 119 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8252, ll. 127–28; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 103, ll. 23–6; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 118, l. 4. 120 The article is reprinted in Sanzhiev et al., Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvo, 371. 121 For example see reprinted documents in Sanzhiev (ed.), Respublika moia Buriatiia, 121. 117

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Nevertheless, by the 1980s many young urban Buryats knew only Russian and most of the books sold by bookstores in the Buryat language were in rural areas.122 Local government officials believed that the decline in publishing in Buryat was part of the problem. As discussed in Chapter 4, the Buryat republican central government had issued a decree in 1981 to increase the study of Buryat language and literature. The decree also included directives to increase publishing in Buryat, especially for children.123 However, publishing plans from 1986 and 1990 show that there was only a slight increase in the number of books published for children compared to earlier plans.124 Publishing in Buryat in general saw very little increase in the 1980s despite the government’s decree and rhetoric. In the late 1980s, when the decline in the Buryat language gained greater attention boosted by Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost’ that permitted freedom of speech, the members of the Buryat Writers’ Union increasingly complained publicly about the lack of Buryat language publishing.125 Local officials answered these complaints along with many others about the declining state of the Buryat language by issuing another decree on February 7, 1990, to improve usage. The decree called for an increase in Buryat language publishing, as well as making more widespread the teaching of Buryat.126 In 1990, the Buryat Publishing House did make plans to publish more in Buryat in the future. In particular, it created plans with more Buryat literature for children and adults.127 Unfortunately, these plans quickly fell apart after the fall of the Soviet Union. The financial crisis in the early 1990s created a serious decline in all forms of local book publishing, but especially of that in Buryat.

122

Modogoeva and Serebrianaia, “Knizhnoe delo,” 110. NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 9526, l. 1. 124 NARB, f. 869, op. 1, d. 170; NARB, f. 869, op. 1, d. 207; NARB, f. 869, op. 1, d. 231. 125 Modogoeva and Serebrianaia, “Knizhnoe delo,” 108. 126 Kuchmurukova, Istoriia knigoizdaniia, 146. 127 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10622, ll. 15–7. 123

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Conclusion Many people in Buryatia debated, molded, and defined a mutually acceptable image of the modern, Soviet Buryat nation through literature. The attention paid to Geser and the new Buryat literature show how important the project was to scholars, writers, editors, educators, Party officials, and many others. Changes in literature were connected to the larger Soviet goal of replacing older ethnic traditions with new Soviet ones. For example, authorities believed that as a representative of traditional Buryat culture, Geser needed to be banned because it was a part of Buryat history that was seen as alien to the modern Soviet state. As a new Soviet Buryat literature developed, especially novels, Geser became less threatening because now there was something significant to supersede and marginalize it. Buryat literature and scholarship became a well-established institution in the late Soviet period that involved the input of many people to create important works of Buryat culture. The creation of new Buryat literature meant that officials could claim that the Buryats had achieved a higher stage of culture because of their hard work. For them, the new Buryat literature could proudly stand alongside the literature of other modern Soviet nations. The fact that it was increasingly published more often in Russian than in Buryat also allowed it to be more accessable and acceptable to a pan-Soviet audience.

CHAPTER 6

A Means to Modernity: Newspapers, Radio, and Television

In 1961 officials launched Buryatia’s first TV station, bringing moving and speaking pictures to people in a way that had never existed before. Television was twentieth century modernity in a tangible form available in one’s own home. In Buryatia, the content of local television also told the story of the contemporary era and helped to define society in new ways. The new medium spread quickly across the republic and by 1976, officials announced that 80 percent of the population had the opportunity to watch TV—either at home or at a local clubhouse. That same year authorities also declared that all residents now had access to the radio.1 These developments in broadcast media provided new methods for disseminating and consuming information, as well as new leisure activities for most of the republic’s residents. Now, instead of attending the theater, hearing a lecture, or participating in a reading group at one’s local library for entertainment, people could choose to stay home and listen to the radio or watch TV. The development of broadcast media however, did not mean the abandonment of one form of media for another. In fact, officials were initially slow at developing radio and television programming because of the greater prestige assigned to the written word. In particular, authorities saw newspapers as the most important method 1

E. A. Golubev, Aktivizatsiia sotsial’noi roli radio (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoie knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1989), 34; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10823, l. 11; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8391, l. 11.

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for regularly communicating with republican residents. They also persisted in their belief that higher forms of print media such as literature were most valuable for society. Therefore, authorities continued to devote many resources to newspapers and the book publishing industry despite advances in broadcast media in the 1960s and 1970s. Chapter 6 provides a history of the development of mass media in Buryatia, as well as surveys newspapers and radio and television programming from the postwar years to the 1980s. It shows how television and radio programs during this period were similar to newspaper articles or even to stories found in Buryat literature. The themes were close to identical even if the form was different. Such media highlighted model Soviet citizens, explained correct ideology, illustrated new industrial and agricultural methods, pushed high culture, and emphasized that Soviet institutions were beneficial. They overwhelmingly promoted the idea that life for the Buryats was better in the Soviet Union than it had been in the past, and that Buryatia was a valued part of the union. As mass media developed widely in the late Soviet period, these messages became more widespread, accessible, as well as simply a fixture of everyday life. Local newspapers and broadcast media, like Buryat literature, was a distinguishing feature of Buryatia’s status as a national region within the USSR. They provided material in both Russian and Buryat. As a marker of nationality, Buryat language media were especially intended to help create a sense of national identity—both a Buryat identity and a Soviet one. Mass media in the republic was meant to work, as Benedict Anderson has famously argued, to create a sense of shared community.2 One could open up the newspaper, listen to the radio, or turn on the television and find ordinary and extraordinary residents of Buryatia. On occasion, those people were even in fact actual neighbors, colleagues, relatives, and friends. Officials in Buryatia also sought to use media to present the representation of a model community within a Soviet context. Individual consumers of mass media could also be its participants 2

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (New York: Verso, 1983).

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through letters to editors, writing articles, and being featured on shows and in the press. From the 1920s to the early postwar years, local media focused on the building of a new Buryat Soviet nation. Media presented society as an increasingly modern space where vestiges of the past were being cast off. For instance, journalists, scholars, and Party leaders alike during this period touted the advantages of collectivized farms over pastoral nomadism in the pages of the press. They also debated the necessity of traditional markers of Buryat culture such as the Buryat national epic Geser and the vertical Mongolian script. By the late 1950s and early 1960s local media began to shift its focus. The Soviet Buryat nation was no longer so new and many aspects of the past had disappeared. There were no more Buryat nomads, illiterates, and active pan-Mongolists. Few openly practiced Buddhism and Shamanism. Instead there was now a large urban, Buryat Soviet educated class that was well represented in politics and in all professions except industry. There were large numbers of Buryat writers, journalists, artists, and cultural workers employed in Buryatia.3 The Buryats were literate and they had broadcast media as well as a highly developed Buryat literature modeled on Russian, Soviet, and Western literature. The Soviet Buryat nation was fully in existence by the late Soviet period and the media worked to promote all its supposed positive attributes. Another important change in Buryat media that occurred from the 1920s to the late Soviet period was the language of expression. All forms of media saw a decrease in the use of the Buryat language and an increase in Russian. This was directly related to the decline and eventual cancellation of Buryat-language education during this period. With fewer and fewer children learning literary Buryat, the demand for Buryat language newspapers and radio and television programming decreased. Instead, Buryats began to read and listen more in Russian. The reasons that Buryat-language media continued at all were both political and cultural. Since one of the most important distinguishing features of national regions in the Soviet Union was language, these regions were given resources and support to develop and promote their languages through institutions 3

See Chapter 3.

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such as the press, regional book publishers, and radio and television stations. These institutions created materials in the language of the titular nationality and were symbols that legitimized the nation within the Soviet Union. To produce works in Buryat was to create evidence that the Buryats were not only a distinct Soviet nation, but also a successful one by official standards. Therefore, the creation of Buryat language media, including in its newest televised form, continued—albeit in smaller numbers—even as consumption decreased. The Local Press in Buryat and Russian Authorities described the role of the main Russian and Buryat language newspapers as crucial in the effort to modernize Buryatia. In a 1968 radio program to mark the 50th anniversary of these papers, the editor of Pravda Buriatii, Tsyren Ochirov, outlined their historical purpose. He explained how they had “helped fulfill the decisions of the Party and government” and that they had “actively agitated for a socialist transformation in the economy, culture, way of life, and in national relations.”4 He explained how these newspapers provided help in increasing literacy, collectivizing agriculture in the 1930s, and facilitating socialist competitions to raise production levels.5 Officials such as Ochirov oversaw the fulfillment of these roles by having articles that described, promoted, and often reported word-for-word decisions made by the Party, as well as highlighted successes in agriculture and industry, called for participation in various activities, profiled exceptional workers, offered international news from TASS, and published and answered letters. Bolshevik officials had originally founded both the Russian language Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda and the Buryat language Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen shortly after the republic itself was created in 1923.6 When the word “Mongolian” was dropped from the name of the Republic in 1958, the papers’ names were changed to Pravda 4

NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 612, l. 5. Ibid., 5–7. 6 The words pravda in Russian and unen in Buryat both mean “truth.” 5

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Buriatii and Buriaad Unen.7 The two were the main newspapers in Buryatia throughout the entire Soviet period.8 During the 1930s, the alphabet and dialectic shifts along with the general chaos in society due to collectivization, terror, purges, and republican territorial changes, had caused the circulation of Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen to decrease by 50 percent from its late 1920s circulation of 10,000. Although the paper regained this number by 1952, the Russian language Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda grew from 14,000 to 50,000 during the same period.9 In addition to these regional versions of the all-union Pravda, Buryatia also boasted a local Komsomol newspaper for its youth, the Buriat-Mongol’skii Komsomolets (Molodezh’ Buriatii after 1958). Beginning in the 1950s, it was published three times a week in Buryat in addition to Russian.10 In 1952 the Komsomol paper had a circulation of 9,000 in Russian and 3,000 in Buryat. There were also 23 papers throughout the various regions of Buryatia at that time that came out twice a week. The circulation of these papers was small with numbers ranging from 500 to 1,200. Only five of them offered a Buryat-language edition.11 Four factories in UlanUde also had their own weekly papers and these were published only in Russian, a fact that is not surprising given the dominance of ethnic Russians in industrial jobs. In 1952, the factory papers had circulations ranging from 500 to 2,000.12 Republican residents could, of course, also read the all-union papers. However, a survey of circulation numbers among republican residents from 1951 shows that only a small percentage did. The circulation of Pravda was 4,620, Izvestiia 1,540, and Komsomol’skaia Pravda 2,560.13 Despite the existence of other newspapers, the two main republican ones, Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen and Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda 7

For explanations about the name change, see Chapter 3. E. D. Dagbaev, Pressa i natsional’no-politicheskii protsess regiona (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN, 1995), 46–7. 9 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6013, ll. 1–2. 10 NARB, f. 803, op. 1, d. 25, l. 7; Semenova, “Politicheskoe i sotsial’noekonomicheskoe,” 26. 11 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6013, ll. 1–2. 12 Ibid. 13 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5775, l. 2. 8

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had the largest readership. This section therefore largely focuses on these two. The difference between the two main republican newspapers was small. Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen was targeted specifically at a Buryat audience and Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda was aimed at all Russianspeakers, including Buryats. The papers were four pages long and the layout, design, and typeface of the two papers was almost exactly the same.14 Many of the articles in Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen were translations of those that appeared in Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda. There were locally produced articles, as well as ones from TASS. However, the Party completely regulated these papers by planning articles in advance, approving topics, and using censorship. Officials also criticized them after publication. For instance, in 1951, a Party report condemned Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda for not providing enough coverage of agricultural issues.15 Then, perhaps because the paper overcompensated, Party officials then reprimanded it again that same year for having too many topics on agriculture and animal husbandry.16 Likewise, a Party report on the content of BuriaadMongoloi Unen criticized it in 1951 for too much emphasis on agriculture. Then, in 1952 another report praised for its coverage of agriculture, but denounced it for its lack of coverage on scientific themes.17 While this example was certainly part of the common ritual in the Soviet Union whereby officials regularly criticized administrators and employees, it also shows the intricate involvement of Party authorities in the production of the content of newspapers. The steadfast Party regulation of these papers provided little room for variation. Feature articles were planned in advance (as elsewhere in the press of the USSR) and not news-driven. Therefore, both papers, influenced by the same local Party, looked quite similar. For example, a comparison of some of the lead articles planned for April 1951 shows the same emphasis on preparation and advancements of Party work and agriculture: 14

Thomas C. Wolfe explains that Soviet papers in general did not contain many pages in part due to their lack of advertising and large graphics. Wolfe, Governing Soviet Journalism, 6. 15 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5775, ll. 14–5; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6013, ll. 71–3. 16 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5775, ll. 10–1. 17 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5775, ll. 12–3; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6013, ll. 112–6.

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Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen:18 1. “Struggle for the Creation of Fodder Bases for Animals—An Important Question for Party Organizations” 2. “Listen Closely to the Voice of the Masses” 3. “To Successfully Complete the School Year in the Networks of Party Education” 4. “More Attention to the Communist Education of Workers” 5. “Lectures and Reports on the Buryat Language” 6. “All Strength to Successfully Completing the Wintering of Herds” 7. “Organizing a Welcoming of Offspring” 8. “Improving Meadows—The Base for an Increase in the Productivity of Grasses” 9. “Organizing Preparations for Spring Sowing” 10. “Wide Range of Competitions” Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda:19 1. “About Combining Party and Economic Work” 2. “About the Role of the Party in the Struggle for the Creation of Enduring Fodder Bases” 3. “About Mass-Political Work Among Those Who Practice Animal Husbandry” 4. “About the Competition of Public Winter Housing for Herds” 5. “About the Construction of Scientific Work and Research” 6. “About the Development of Socialist Competitions in Kolkhozi” 7. “About the Mechanization of Work in Animal Husbandry and Maintaining Meadows” 8. “About the Role of the Profsoiuz Organizations in the Development of Socialist Competitions” 9. “About the Work of Agricultural Clubs and Reading Halls During the Period of Spring Planting” 10. “About the Cultural Work of Animal Husbandry Workers— Work of Red Corners and Red Vans”

18 19

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5775, l. 20. Ibid., ll. 21–2.

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The only real difference between the two papers from this selection of headlines was the article in Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen titled, “Lectures and Reports on the Buryat language.” However, the listings of planned articles for each month between January and June 1951 show that articles on Buryat language, culture, or history appear with about the same amount of frequency in both papers.20 Ultimately, the two papers were the same. The Buryat language press provided the same information as the Russian language one to Buryats who did not read Russian. However, as previously stated, the importance of having a Buryat language press was not just to provide information to non-Russian readers. Like Buryat literature and publishing, its existence helped to define the Buryats as a nation in the Soviet Union. Buryat language newspapers as cultural artifacts also had educational, linguistic, and emotional significance. Kathryn Elizabeth Graber, who conducted an extensive study of post-Soviet Buryat language media, argues that Buryat newpapers present standard literary Buryat in a physical form that allows readers to use the texts repeatedly for learning. Individuals, libraries, and institutions can also archive them for permanent reference and use. In addition, she explains that newspapers provided a method for “materializing the language” in a way that has permitted all Buryats, including those who do not comprehend the written language, to easily identify it manifested in newspapers as an important and positive aspect of Buryat cultural distinctiveness.21 For these various reasons, newspapers in Buryatia held great relevance beyond their value as conveyors of information. Although Buryat language newspapers held much symbolic value, it is impossible not to note that the content, as well as that in their Russian language counterparts, was often dull and tedious as seen in the survey of headlines above. Several Western scholars who have studied the Soviet press have also reported this phenomenon. They have also tried to understand how Soviet readers digested 20

See lists of articles planned for these months in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6014, ll. 28–32, 48–51, 102–3. 21 Kathryn Elizabeth Graber, “Knowledge and Authority in Shift: A Linguistic Ethnography of Multilingual News Media in the Buryat Territories of Russia” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 2012), 206–10.

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this information. Did they “read between the lines”? Did they simply ignore the first sections of the papers and flip only to the sports and culture sections? Or, did they internalize the ideological information?22 While it is difficult to know exactly how the majority of Buryats read these papers, there is some evidence. In 1968 a survey of 1,054 readers of Pravda Buriatii was conducted about the reading habits of republican residents.23 Out of those surveyed, around two thirds lived in Ulan-Ude and one third in the countryside. The majority had at least a high school education, 37 percent were in the Communist Party, and the average age was 37. Sixty percent were Russian and 25 percent were Buryat. Proportionally more Buryats subscribed to the paper than Russians and they had longer reading records—they had been reading the paper on average more than ten years. This may indicate that some of the Russians surveyed were new immigrants to Buryatia and therefore had not had a chance to read the paper for very long. Or, it might reflect that by 1968 there was a high proportion of educated, professional Buryats in the republic who, as such, regularly read local newspapers. When asked in the survey why people read the paper, the most common answer (presumably from a selection of answers) was “in order to better understand the life of the republic, its history, and the culture of its people.”24 When asked if Pravda Buriatii helped to do this, 69 percent of Buryats and 65 percent of Russians answered “yes.”25 This was a much more positive response than that received in similar surveys of national Soviet papers. For example, late 1960s national studies of Izvestiia and Literaturnaia Gazeta re22

For a variety of opinions on this see for example: Mark W. Hopkins, Mass Media in the Soviet Union (New York: Pegasus, 1970); Inkeles and Bauer, The Soviet Citizen; Rosemarie Rogers, How Russians Read their Press: Patterns of Selection in Pravda and Izvestia (Cambridge, MA: Center for International Studies, MIT, 1968); Shlapentokh, Soviet Public Opinion; Jennifer Turpin, Reinventing the Soviet Self: Media and Social Change in the Former Soviet Union (London: Praeger, 1995); Wolfe, Governing Soviet Journalism. 23 D. D. Lubsanov (ed.), Gazeta “Pravda Buriatii” i ee chitateli (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1971). 24 Ibid., 25–7. 25 14.1 percent of Buryats said “no,” 9.8 percent answered “don’t know,” and seven percent answered “yes, but not enough.” Lubsanov, Gazeta, 83.

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ported less than 50 percent satisfaction.26 The Buryat study also asked readers how they read the paper. Thirty one percent said they checked the events section first, 18 percent started with the lead articles, ten percent with sports, five percent with Party information, and five percent with economic issues.27 Whereas 88 percent claimed to read the events section in its entirety, only 45 percent answered that they usually read completely through the sections on politics and ideology.28 The Buryat study does not explain exactly how the people surveyed were chosen and it cannot know for sure if those people answered honestly, but based on the evidence we have, a picture emerges that shows that those who read the paper were generally satisfied with it and that Pravda Buriatii was their major source of news. Although the majority of readers also listened to radio, only 12.4 percent listed television as a source of news in 1968. In addition, 60 percent of those surveyed did not subscribe to any other paper.29 Alex Inkeles and Raymond A. Bauer, who interviewed postwar Soviet refugees in 1950 and 1951, found that although most people understood the bias of Soviet newspapers, they cited them first in importance for gaining information.30 Inkeles and Bauer also argued that even if people were skeptical of the content of Soviet media, it still influenced their thinking.31 Mark W. Hopkins explains that the Soviet press was “instrumental in altering public attitudes toward farming and manufacturing methods, industrial management, distribution, work, and economic planning.” He likened it to American advertising that created the popular understanding that “new” is synonymous with “good.”32 In their own way Pravda Buriatii and 26

Shlapentokh, Soviet Public Opinion, 66–7. Lubsanov, Gazeta, 40. 28 Ibid., 44. 29 Ibid., 31–4. 30 Inkeles and Bauer, The Soviet Citizen, 162. The citation of newspapers as most important was the average answer for those surveyed. When broken down by occupation, collective farm peasants and unskilled workers listed “word of mouth” first and newspapers second. Intelligentsia, professionals, and skilled workers listed newspapers first. See p. 168. 31 Ibid., 186. 32 Hopkins, Mass Media, 38–40. 27

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Buriaad Unen consistently promoted the idea that new and modern was progressive and positive. For example, from just the July 6, 1960 issues of Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen, one can find articles featuring Soviet technological advances, the founding of an important new department at the Buryat Agricultural Institute, and innovative agricultural successes on various kolkhozes and in various campaigns.33 Most especially touted were large industrial projects such as the construction of the Baikal–Amur Mainline railway (BAM). In 1975 alone, Pravda Buriatii published 40 articles on the railroad’s progress.34 Through such coverage, authorities could use the Buryat press to teach the benefits of contemporary life in the USSR. Another important role that republican newspapers served was by offering a chance for ordinary Buryats to participate in the common practice of letter writing. Like the all-union Pravda, the Buryat republican papers were required to accept letters and, when possible, take action on the authors’ behalf. Newspaper journalists and editors took letters very seriously. The Party intended for the letters, as well as the newspaper employees, to be a link between the government and the people. For that reason, press workers read most letters, published many of them, and often responded to their authors or took action on their behalf.35 Between January and August 1951, Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda received 4,438 letters and published 1,741 of them.36 During the same period in 1952, Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen received 3,010 letters and published 70 percent of them under a variety of headings such as “Letters from Workers” and “From the editorial mail.” Half of the letters published in Unen were written to the editor in Russian and then translated into Buryat for publication.37 While some of these were likely 33

Pravda Buriatii, Wednesday, July 6, 1960; Buriaad Unen, Wednesday, July 6, 1960. 34 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8540, l. 83. 35 Hopkins, Mass Media, 19; Mark Steven Rhodes, “Letters to the Editor in the USSR: A Study of Letters, Authors, and Potential Uses” (PhD diss., Michigan State University, 1977), 5–6, 40–9. Rhodes also shows that the demography of letter writers differed depending on the paper. Generally, however, letter writers tended to be older and with higher levels of education. Rhodes, 60–76. 36 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5775, l. 74. 37 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6014, l. 91.

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translations of letters from Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda, others may have come from Russians wanting to reach a Buryat audience or from Buryats who felt uncomfortable writing in Buryat. Buryat professionals, for example, may have been more articulate in Russian, having received a higher education in that language. People wrote letters for a variety of reasons. Sometimes, they wrote letters to express thanks to a person or organization. On other occasions, they wrote letters to describe something exceptional such as the high grain output of a particular kolkhoz.38 Other letter writers sought a place to issue complaints such as a letter from an official of the Kabanskii region who complained of errors in an article about the first day of school there.39 However, many people wrote letters that were calls for action. Some of these were in the form of requests such as one from a writer who asked that officials bring the movies to his collective farm.40 Or, they could be more serious. For example, in 1951, an orphanage worker sent a letter to BuriatMongol’skaia Pravda asking that the orphanage’s director, who had been previously criticized, not be removed.41 Newspapers often worked to help these letter-writers and meet their demands. For instance, in 1980, Pravda Buriatii received numerous letters from workers at the aviation factory in Ulan-Ude complaining about the cafeteria. The newspaper then contacted the head of the cafeteria, obtaining promises that changes would be made.42 Newspaper reporters also conducted investigative research based on information gained in letters.43 Party reports from 1985 described in detail how republican newspapers tried to help as best they could with the problems and issues raised in letters.44 Obviously there were limits to the kind of criticism one could write in a letter and expect a result. Still, Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda and Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen provided republican residents with a local and native-language press where they could express their griev38

See letters from Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen, January 1, 1950, p. 4. The letter can be found in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6014, l. 113. 40 See letters from Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda, January 1, 1950, p.3. 41 The letter can be found in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5775, ll. 154–8. 42 The story can be found in Pravda Buriatii, June 5, 1980. 43 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5775, ll. 160–70. 44 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 9838, ll. 11–2; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 9871, ll. 6–7. 39

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ances. It allowed them to participate in one of the few Soviet practices where the average person and the Party regularly engaged in dialogue. At the same time, authorities had very specific messages that they wanted to express to the citizens of the republic through newspapers and they relied on this medium to influence people’s opinions and ideas. A survey of the content of Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen in the years 1950, 1960, 1970, and 1980, shows that readers were regularly offered subject matter that emphasized progress, the development and modernization of Buryatia, and examples of how residents were living the good life under Soviet leadership. For example, the July 8, 1960 issue of Pravda Buriatii included an article about how the lives of Buryat women had improved immeasurably since the advent of Soviet power. Accompanying the article was an illustration of a Buryat man beating a Buryat woman in prerevolutionary times. The caption read, “No one to defend her.”45 The article stressed that the Soviet Union had now provided once defenseless women with protection from abuse through the construction of empowering institutions that supplied stability and social mobility. These kinds of articles reinforced the specific ideological messages that the Party wanted to convey to the Buryats by touting the benefits of Soviet modernizing policies, boasting of achievements, highlighting model Buryat citizens, and showing off markers of high culture. Officials also wanted to emphasize through the press the value of internationalism, and in particular, the Russian-Buryat friendship. This was evident in the content of articles, as well as in pictures, that consistently showed Buryats and Russians interacting together. The newspapers analyzed here from 1950 to 1980 provide countless examples of both women and men, Buryat and Russian, who were living Soviet success stories. For example, on the front page of Buriaad Unen for January 15, 1970, the milkmaid Liubov’ Nikolaevna was praised for her heroic milking in conjunction with the celebration of 100 years since the birth of Lenin.46 On Wednesday, July 6, 1960, both Buriaad Unen and Pravda Buriatii featured 45 46

Pravda Buriatii, Friday, July 8, 1960, p. 2. Buriaad Unen, Thursday, January 15, 1970, p. 1.

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front-page stories about active local young Russian and Buryat members of the Communist Party.47 The February 6, 1980 issue of Buriaad Unen also featured a front-page story that listed the names and occupations of over 30 award-winning workers.48 Another article from 1970 in Pravda Buriatii discussed scientific progress in the republic and featured several pictures of Buryat and Russian lab workers.49 And the June 10, 1970 issue of Pravda Buriatii featured articles with accompanying pictures of young Russians and Buryats working for the upcoming elections, as well as a hard-working female Buryat textile factory worker.50 These examples, which are only a small selection, reveal how officials used newspapers as an opportunity to present models of exemplary Soviet citizens to republican residents. These models were examples to live by and they showed how people were participating in the general development and modernization of their region. Stories along with pictures also exhibited what was accepted as normal. Buryat men and women were almost always featured in Western, not Buryat, clothing (exceptions included some festivals and performances). They were often engaged in a modern activity such as looking through a microscope, driving a tractor, or using factory machinery. And, they were often doing these activities alongside Russians. Even Russian and Buryat children were generally shown together as in the example of a 1950 BuriaadMongoloi Unen article about a pioneer summer camp.51 Authorities aimed for these profiles to help create a sense of inclusion and participation in Soviet society. They hoped they would instill loyalty to the Soviet nation and its project of modernization. In addition, the representation of internationalism was intended to explain that the Buryats were advancing alongside of, and with the help of, other Soviet nations. This idea was reinforced through pic47

Buriaad Unen, Wednesday, July 6, 1960, p. 1; Pravda Buriatii, Wednesday, July 6, 1960, p. 1. 48 Buriaad Unen, Wednesday, February 6, 1980, p. 1. 49 Pravda Buriatii, Saturday, January 17, 1970, p. 2. 50 Pravda Buriatii, Wednesday, June 10, 1970, pp. 1–2. 51 Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen, Tuesday, July 3, 1950, p. 3. The whole third page is dedicated to an article with pictures of Buryat and Russian children engaged in various activities at a summer pioneer camp.

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tures featuring Russians and Buryats involved together in a variety of activities—agricultural, scientific, educational, ceremonial, etc. Accompanying stories describing how Russians and Buryats, as well as other nationalities, worked well together followed the guidelines of promoting the friendship of nations. Officials instructed newspapers to include these messages and they monitered their work. For example, a 1978 Party report on Pravda Buriatii gave a positive assessment of the paper for providing quality articles on questions of internationalism.52 Both Buriaad Unen and Molodezh’ Buriatii began sections in the 1970s in their papers to promote good relations titled respectively “In the Friendship of Nations” and “We Are Internationalists.”53 These sections, and newspapers in general, regularly covered numerous festivals and commemorations for various anniversaries by celebrating and presenting what had been accomplished together. Anniversaries ranged from marking the founding of the Soviet logging industry in Buryatia to celebrating Lenin’s 100th birthday to an article commemorating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Karelian Republic titled, “Karelia in the Brotherly Family of the Soviet People.”54 All of these anniversaries offered opportunities to present an evolutionary history of how society had changed for the better in part thanks to productive interethnic relations. Newspapers in Buryatia also provided a chance to showcase the republic’s advancements made in high culture and encourage residents to participate. A local Party report in 1981 explained that Buriaad Unen had worked positively towards covering “questions of the culture of the Soviet person” as well as Buryat literature in its section titled “Mirror.”55 Articles from 1980 deomonstrate this with subject matter on topics such as a Buryat fine arts exhibit in Mos52

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8826, l. 1. Dmitrii Vladimirovich Kolmakov, “Obshestvenno-politicheskaia zhin’ BASSR vo vtoroi polovine 1960-kh – 1970-kh gg.” (PhD diss., Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN, 2004), 87. 54 Buriaad Unen, Tuesday, January 13, 1970, p. 1; Buriaad Unen, Thursday, January 15, 1970, p. 1; Buriaad Unen, Saturday, January 17, 1970, p. 2; Buriaad Unen, Tuesday, June 9, 1970, p. 1; Pravda Buriatii, Thursday, June 5, 1980, p. 2. 55 Toli in Buryat. NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 9129, ll. 1–3, 11, 14. 53

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cow and the activities of two female Buryat musicians—one an opera singer and the other a violinist.56 When the Leningrad ballet came to Ulan-Ude that same year, both Buriaad Unen and Pravda Buriatii praised their performance. One also featured a photograph taken of the republic’s leader, Andrei Urupkheevich Modogoev, standing with several of the ballet dancers.57 These newspapers also consistently published samples of Buryat literature such as poetry and excerpts of short stories and novels along with book reviews. While such examples pushed high culture, they could also convey official guidelines. For example, a poem in Buriaad Unen on January 13, 1960 addressed the problem of alcoholism. A picture accompanied the poem that featured a healthy-looking ethnic Buryat man stopping a sickly-looking one from drinking.58 Although local officials assigned Buriaad Unen and Pravda Buriatii to play a critical role in promoting high culture and modernizing projects in Buryatia, the two papers continued to be unequal in regards to circulation. Between 1952 and 1978, Pravda Buriatii’s circulation rose from 50,000 to 114,000, but Buriaad Unen’s remained the same at 10,000.59 The Buryat-language version of the republic’s youth paper, Molodezh’ Buriatii, faired even worse. In 1952 it had a circulation of 9,000 in Russian and 3,000 in Buryat.60 By 1978 the Russian-language edition had a circulation of 17,365 and the Buryat-language one was down to only 253.61 A government report from 1981 blamed the decline in circulation numbers for the Buryat language version of Molodezh’ Buriatii on the republic’s komsomol. It claimed it had not “well analyzed” its subscriptions or created articles concerning Buryat language and literature.62 Although this may have been true, there were other larger contributing factors. 56

Buriaad Unen, Tuesday, February 5, 1980, p. 3; Buriaad Unen, Saturday, February 9, 1980, p. 4. 57 Buriaad Unen, Wednesday, June 4, 1980, p. 1; Pravda Buriatii, Wednesday, June 4, 1980, p. 1. 58 Buriaad Unen, Wednesday, January 13, 1960, p. 4. 59 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8664, l. 3. 60 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6013, ll. 1–2. 61 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 9147, l. 14. 62 NARB., f. P-1, op. 1, d. 9147, l. 15.

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In 1975, a decision was issued from Moscow through Soiuzpechat’, the Central Subscription Agency, to increase subscriptions to the Russian language press and halt increases for non-Russian newspapers and journals.63 In the several years following this decision, Soiuzpechat’ complained that there were many violators—in particular the Tatar Autonomous Republic, the Baltic republics, and Georgia. However, in many regions, circulation numbers of non-Russian periodicals either stayed the same or declined, while Russianlanguage subscriptions increased. This was particularly true of the Soviet Union’s non-Russian newspapers and periodicals for youth.64 Although the Buryat language press had not been keeping up with the increase in the Russian language press for years, this evidence does illustrate that in many other non-Russian regions, local officials permitted increases in the non-Russian press despite pressure from central authorities to do otherwise. This was not the case in Buryatia.65 In addition to the Soiuzpechat’ directive, other reasons can be cited for the decline in the Buryat language press. In the 1960s and 1970s, media institutions had difficulties finding professionals trained in the Buryat language. The decline in Buryat language education contributed to this problem. In the 1970s, for example, Molodezh’ Buriatii had only two Buryat-language translators both of whom had been there for many years.66 Even earlier, in 1962, out of a survey of 59 journalists in the republic with university degrees (half of whom were Buryat) only three had majored in Buryat language and literature. Fourteen had majored in Russian language and literature, 12 in journalism, and eight in history.67 A lack of trained 63

Roman Szporluk, “The Press and Soviet Nationalities: The Party Resolution of 1975 and its Implementation,” Nationalities Papers 14, nos. 1–2 (Spring–Fall 1986), 47–9. 64 Ibid., 52–4. 65 In the Tatar ASSR where the Tatar-language press defied authorities and increased its subscription rates in the late 1970s, local officials also did not cancel Tatar-language education. Although Tatar language schooling did experience decline, especially in urban areas, many Tatar children could obtain a Tatarlanguage education through high school. See Bateman, “Soviet Language Policy”; Szporluk, “The Press and Soviet Nationalities”; Rorlich, The Volga Tatars. 66 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 9147, l. 14. 67 The others majored in a variety of other subjects. NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7086, ll. 14–5.

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translators and reporters who knew literary Buryat certainly added to the stagnation and decline of the Buryat-language press. As with Buryat language publishing, lack of demand was also a probable cause. Most Buryats read Russian quite well by the 1970s and without Buryat language education, many were likely increasingly poor readers of Buryat. Therefore, Buryats could have found it easier to read Pravda Buriatii instead of Buriaad Unen. The content of Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen was quite similar, as previously mentioned, and the content of Molodezh’ Buriatii was often exactly the same in both languages. In addition, the project of developing and spreading a common Buryat dialect continued to face difficulties in the late Soviet period—especially with the decline in Buryat language education—and this was reflected in the press. For example, on the pages of Buriaad Unen in the 1970s a dictionary of recently developed socio-political terminology in Buryat was published to help its readers.68 Instead of working to learn new vocabulary many Buryats may have opted for the easier Russian language press. And, by reading papers like Pravda Buriatii, Buryats were not missing anything since it was aimed at Buryat readers just as much as Russians. Buryats could learn in its pages about Buryat wrestling, archery, jewelry, literature, art, and music, as well as find the schedule for Buryat language radio and TV programming. What is clear from this analysis of the Buryat republican press of the 1950s through the 1980s is that Buriaad Unen and Pravda Buriatii were very similar papers, intensely regulated and censored by the Party, more available than other papers, and provided the main source of everyday information for republican residents. Like literature, the Party highly valued the local press as a major tool of propaganda despite the development of regional radio and television. For example, educators in Buryatia encouraged teachers to use the local press in schools to teach subjects like history and the USSR constitution.69 Although the goals of all media (literature, the press, and broadcast media) were similar—to promote the successes and advantages of the progressive Soviet system and socialist way 68 69

Kuchmurukova, Istoriia knigoizdaniia Buriatii, 141. NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 5213, l. 15.

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of life—each media had specific purposes. For example, the press could and did deliver more information than broadcast media. It printed the full text of Party decrees and speeches, the new USSR constitution, lists of those receiving awards, and election information. For example, in 1971 alone Pravda Buriatii published 178 articles on elections.70 The press in Buryatia also continued to be more available than broadcast media, particularly television, into the 1960s and 1970s. Everyone could read the wall press, access newspapers at work or clubs, and many people received them at home.71 In addition, the press offered a wider spectrum of information than broadcast media. There were numerous regional, kolkhoz, and factory papers that dealt with specialized issues that did not necessarily make it to radio and television. The Development of Broadcast Media While officials strongly and consistently devoted great attention to newspapers throughout the entire Soviet period in Buryatia, the support for broadcast media was more complicated. In particular, the spread of radio in the republic was slow.72 Regular and institutionalized broadcasts in Russian and Buryat did not begin until 1931. Although campaigns throughout the 1930s sought to bring radio to the countryside, government reports from the late 1950s showed that many rural residents still did not have the opportunity to hear the radio either at home, a club, or over a loudspeaker.73 For example, the Department of Propaganda and Agitation complained in 1957 that it was unable to reach certain rural populations in the 70

P. I. Evrasimov, Mestnye sovety Buriatii v usloviiakh razvitogo sotsializma (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1984), 16. 71 Sociological research conducted in the western part of the Russian Republic in the 1970s showed that three fourths of people who did not subscribe to newspapers still regularly read them. Ellen Propper Mickiewicz, Media and the Russian Public (New York: Praeger, 1981), 43. 72 The spread of radio was not simply slow in Buryatia. It was slow all over the Soviet Union. See Hopkins, Mass Media, 244–8. 73 E. A. Golubev, Radio i ego auditoriia (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1974), 12–6.

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Bichurskii and Mukhorshibirskii regions via radio.74 It was only in the 1970s that officials could claim that all residents had access.75 Unlike radio, the development of television in Buryatia was much more rapid. The local government devoted greater support to the technology and television spread quickly throughout the republic. However, television was introduced at a time—much later than radio—when the republic had the resources to devote to its development. When the first television station was built in Ulan-Ude in 1961, many people also had the money to buy new TV sets.76 Throughout the 1960s and 1970s scholars, statisticians, journalists, and Party leaders counted and bragged about the number of televisions—either in existence or purchased—in the republic. For example, a local government document from 1963 claimed that there were 10,000 TVs in the republic. An article from Pravda Buriatii, in 1966 declared that there were 40,000 TV sets.77 Another article from Pravda Buriatii in 1976 explained that at that time, “Television broadcasting reaches close to 80 percent of the republic and more than 100,000 families can watch it everyday.”78 Television was certainly in demand. One 1964 report from officials in the city of Gusinoozersk complained that people wanted to watch television so much that they were willing to pay. “Many people in our city now have individual TVs, but some of them charge money to have people come over and watch them.” For that reason, the report explained, the city needed television sets for public use.79 For many local authorities, bringing television to republican residents was concrete proof that Buryatia was indeed a modern place. 74

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 6701, ll. 96, 126–8. Golubev, Aktivizatsiia sotsial’noi roli radio, 34; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10823, l. 11; NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8391, l. 11. 76 On the rise of salaries in the Soviet Union in the 1960s, see William Moskoff, Labour and Leisure in the Soviet Union: The Conflict between Public and Private Decision-Making in a Planned Economy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 19–21. 77 The Party document and June 15, 1966 Pravda Buriatii article are reprinted in Sanzhiev et al., Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvo, 343, 365. 78 The September 30, 1977 Pravda Buriatii article is reprinted in Sanzhiev et al., Kul’turnoe stroitel’stvo, 472. 79 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7252, ll. 27–8. 75

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Leaders in Moscow felt the same. Kristin Roth-Ey argues that the central government supported television, even if there was little consensus at first on how to use it, because it was a symbol of modernity, it represented “the socialist ‘good life’,” it showed that the Soviet Union could compete with American technology during the Cold War, and, unlike radio, with television, Soviet citizens could only get Soviet produced programming (the major exception was in northern Estonia where people could watch Finnish TV).80 She explains that in many regions throughout the Soviet Union, local “enthusiasts”—from officials to engineers—worked to bring television to their locales even if there were few people who could actually run the television stations.81 This was true in Buryatia as well. Many Buryat leaders wanted the new status symbol for their residents and brought the technology to Ulan-Ude even though there were few television specialists. At the beginning, the station could not even provide daily programming. However, only a few years later in 1966, the Ulan-Ude television station had numerous employees and offered five hours of programming each day.82 Broadcast media eventually became widespread throughout the lands of the Buryats, yet the local government’s goals for the new medium remained quite similar to that of newspapers. As the Party administrator, A. A. Baduev, explained in a speech to Buryat journalists in the 1960s, radio and television were important for promoting “scientific and technical progress,” “higher effectiveness of industry and agriculture,” and were necessary for “mobilizing workers,” praising the “successes of workers,” “explaining agricultural innovations,” and “popularizing important work methods.”83 Baduev’s assessment of the role of broadcast media was quite similar to that assigned to newspapers by Tsyren Ochirov, the editor of Pravda Buriatii, dis80

Kristin Roth-Ey, “Finding a Home for Television in the USSR, 1950-1970,” Slavic Review 66, no. 2 (Summer 2007), 279, 304–5. Also see her book on the subject, Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time. For a discussion on watching Finnish television in Estonia see Gayle Durham Hollander, Soviet Political Indoctrination: Developments in Mass Media and Propaganda since Stalin (New York: Praeger, 1972), 121–2. 81 Roth-Ey., “Finding a Home for Television,” 285–6. 82 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7415, ll. 10–2. 83 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10823, ll. 1–28.

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cussed earlier in this chapter. Both declared that such mass media had the power to motivate workers, develop new economic and technical innovations, and influence people’s behavior. Although Baduev praised the work of broadcast media, many other officials, journalists, and even entertainers, placed much less prestige and importance on broadcast media at first than on print. For example, it was not until 1960 that central authorities in Moscow would allow radio stations throughout the country to broadcast the news before the press. It was only in that year that officials instructed the news agency TASS to promptly report events to central and local radio stations. Even after that, radio did not report the most important Party decisions—these were still reserved for newspapers.84 However, the Soviet government also generally did not place priority on timely news, and radio and television were no exception.85 In addition to limitations placed on what broadcast media could present, workers were often paid poorly and their jobs were deemed less important than print journalists. Unlike newspaper reporters who were writers—and thus perceived as more respectable—radio and television employees performed jobs that did not fit into the standard Soviet rhetoric on intellectual work.86 In Buryatia, Party speeches that praised the development of Buryat culture in modern times generally listed “creative advancements”—press, literature, theater—and not, for example, the content of Buryat TV. A Party report from 1965 complained that the Ulan-Ude television station had difficulty retaining workers and that alcoholism, including drinking at work, was a problem.87 It is possible that the low prestige of their work contributed to this situation. Roth-Ey claims that television work received less respect because TV eventually came to be regarded as part of domestic life.88 It was seen as a rewarding 84

Hopkins, Mass Media, 242, 244–5. Hollander, Soviet Political Indoctrination, 106. 86 Hopkins, Mass Media, 236–7; Roth-Ey, “Finding a Home for Television,” 292– 3. Hollander also notes criticism of broadcasting from Pravda and Izvestiia. In particular, the low artistic, ideological, and technical level of broadcasting was cited. Hollander, Soviet Political Indoctrination, 108. 87 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7325, ll. 31–2. 88 Roth-Ey, “Finding a Home for Television,” 293–6. 85

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way for Soviet workers to relax after a hard day’s work more than a medium for creative activity. This attitude was evident in Buryatia as well where officials found it necessary in the mid-1970s to build a television station in Severo-Baikalsk along with cafeterias and housing for the 30,000 BAM workers there.89 Despite the slow development of radio and the lack of prestige for broadcast media, by the late 1960s thousands in Buryatia had become regular radio listeners and TV viewers. Although there are no regional studies of television watching in Buryatia, the local scholar, Evgenii A. Golubev, conducted two surveys—one in 1968 and one in 1984—of radio listeners. In his 1968 survey, he found that 90 percent of radio listeners surveyed (21.7 percent were Buryat and 60.4 percent were Russian) listened at least two hours a week and most listened three or more.90 When asked where they received their news, the majority answered radio and newspapers. After these, people listed in order “television,” “friends,” “colleagues,” “family,” and “foreign radio broadcasts.”91 The survey also asked people to rate programming as “good,” “satisfactory,” or “bad.” Youth, sports, and music programs received the highest ratings, but no shows—even those on political and economic topics—received more than a 15 percent “bad” rating.92 Although people may have felt pressured to answer more positively or may have refused to admit at all that they listened to foreign radio broadcasts, in many ways the results are not surprising. They show that people were regularly listening to the radio, many received their news from it and newspapers, and that radio entertainment shows were most popular. The 1984 survey that queried 2,600 radio listeners (60 percent Russian and 25 percent Buryat) showed some similar results. In 89

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8160, ll. 166. Golubev, Radio i ego auditoriia, 31. 91 Ibid., 35. The breakdown of answers from the survey for these categories are: 67% radio; 64.2% newspapers; 31.7% television; 26.7% friends; 24.4% colleagues; 19.7% family; 9.3% foreign radio reports; 8% other. The results of this survey question regarding radio and newspapers are similar to the answers obtained from the 1968 Pravda Buriatii survey (see above). However, Golubev’s survey produced a higher percentage of people who claimed to gain their news from television. 92 Ibid., 32–4. 90

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both 1968 and 1984, people listened to radio at least two hours a week and most more.93 They also claimed to get their news largely from radio and newspapers although television received a much higher percentage in 1984 than it had before.94 However, the two surveys differed greatly in satisfaction rates. While the 1968 survey showed that most people were satisfied with all radio programming, the 1984 survey revealed much dissatisfaction. It showed that people were more unsatisfied than satisfied with programming on the topics of health, everyday services, watchdog shows that investigated corruption, education, and ethics. Only half of those surveyed were satisfied with programming on art and culture, industry, science and technology, and “problems of youth.” News programming, agricultural shows, and sports received the highest “satisfied” ratings. Older people tended to be more satisfied than younger people with programming in general except on the topics of health and services.95 People were also more satisfied with coverage of local and national issues than foreign ones. Around 40 percent claimed they were unsatisfied with radio programming that covered events and issues in other countries. However, 85 percent said they were satisfied with the coverage of the Soviet Union and the Buryat republic.96 When asked, “Are you satisfied with the amount of radio broadcasting on national traditions and customs and does this help familiarize you with the history, culture, and way of life of the Buryats?” Almost 60 percent answered “yes,” 17.5 percent answered, “no,” and 14.1 percent reported, “I don’t know.”97 Although Golubev’s publications do not offer an ethnic breakdown for these answers in his surveys, they are still very revealing. They show that either dissatisfaction with radio programming had increased among listeners between 1968 and 1984 or that people felt freer to express dissatisfaction in 1984 than they had in 1968. The results may also represent a generational shift. The 1984 survey showed that older listeners were more satisfied than younger ones. 93

Golubev, Radio i ego auditoriia, 31. Golubev, Aktivizatsiia sotsial’noi roli radio, 74. 95 Ibid., 84. 96 Ibid., 97. 97 Ibid., 87. 94

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Overall however, the survey points to many radio listeners who were unhappy with at least some of what they heard in 1984. The results of this survey may have affected changes in radio programming in the late 1980s. However, the main catalyst for change certainly came from the policies of Mikhail Gorbachev that diminished censorship in Soviet media. While there are no studies of television viewers in Buryatia, sociological research conducted in other parts of Russia in the 1960s and 1970s points to a great deal of TV watching at the expense of other leisure activities. This research shows that television viewing varied depending on whether the person lived in a city or rural area, as well as their age, sex, and education level. All in all, however, viewers watched more and read less. TV viewers read fewer books, and—the exception being urban men—they read fewer newspapers and magazines as well. In addition, survey averages concluded that men watched around ten to 12 hours a week while women watched about half as much as men.98 Since most women in Soviet Russia worked outside of the home and did the domestic chores as well (including time-consuming shopping), it is probable that they simply had less time for watching TV. Although television came to Buryatia later than other parts of the Soviet Union, one can assume that many of the patterns of viewers in the republic were similar. The development of broadcast media in Buryatia reveals a shift in the way that average people in the republic regularly gained information and spent their free time. Increasingly, they consumed more broadcast media than print despite the fact that authorities placed less prestige on the former. While authorities sought to use all forms of media to uplift society to match their ideals, they had to acknowledge this shift. Officials therefore created both radio and television programming that they believed would achieve this goal.

98

Surveys conducted in a number of cities generally showed that rural residents watched more TV than urban residents and viewers with more education watched less and read more than those with less education. Hollander, Soviet Political Indoctrination, 110-113.

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Radio and Television Programming Programming content on local Buryat radio and television stations reflected both Party ideals and the reality of changing daily life in the late Soviet period. Radio and television shows, like newspaper articles or literary works, presented life in Buryatia as a transformation that was positive for society and advantageous for individuals. Programming showed that by the 1960s and 1970s, Buryats were doctors, librarians, regional Party leaders, and journalists. Radio and television programming featured the successes of local model Buryat citizens and regularly pushed the reoccuring themes of the importance of high culture, the value of Soviet leadership, and the friendship of nations. As with other media in the republic, more broadcasting was available in Russian than in Buryat. Buriaad Unen and Pravda Buriatii listed only an average of about 45 minutes of Buryat language radio programming a day in the 1960s. Buryat language television shows were introduced when the new medium came to Buryatia, but broadcasting on both radio and TV in Buryat began to decline in the 1970s.99 Some of the Buryat language radio and television programs were direct translations of Russian language ones. Others provided original programming. However, creating such shows was not always easy. Some broadcast administrators complained that finding subjects to interview who spoke literary Buryat and could converse without interjecting Russian words was difficult. From officials to ordinary people, many Buryats were nervous about displaying proper Buryat language skills on radio or TV.100 Regardless of language however, programming themes were similar in both Russian and Buryat. They were also similar between television and radio, which aired many shows with the same names. For example, both carried the programs Communist, Stories about Communists, Literary Buryatia, and Flower—a show in both 99

Barima Zham’ianovna Tsybdenova, “Osobennosti iazykovoi situatsii natsional’nogo regiona Rossiiskoi Federatsii (Na primere Respubliki Buriatiia)” (PhD diss., Vostochno-Sibirskaia gosudarstvennaia akademiia kul’tury i isskusstv, 2003), 95. 100 Graber, “Knowledge and Authority,” 218–21.

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Buryat and Russian aimed at women.101 Many TV and radio programs, like newspapers, could also provide consumers with rather dry topics that fell under the genre of “propaganda.” Around 25 percent of radio and television shows in the 1970s were in this category and featured subject matter such as the decisions of Party congresses, election information, lectures on Marxism-Leninism, news about socialist competitions and the successful fulfillment of plans, and the use of state property.102 Sometimes such programs simply featured the workings of administrators as with a TV show in 1979 that aired a Party meeting at the Rodina kolkhoz in the Mukhorshibirskii region.103 Many special programs on historical themes and internationalism also served ideological purposes. Authorities designed shows with titles such as The First Buryat Communist Group or The First Kolkhozes in Buryatia to teach residents about the building of socialism in Buryatia and programs like Lenin and the Formation of Buryat Socialist Soviet Autonomy, The Great October and the Spiritual Progress of the Buryat People, and Friendship to promote internationalism.104 Officials claimed that such programming would “raise people in the spirit of socialist internationalism and Soviet patriotism.”105 In an example from July 5, 1969 the host of the radio show titled, Buryatia in the Friendly Family of the Peoples of Our Country, explained how “with the help of the Russian working class and the leadership of the Communist Party, a socialist transformation was started in Buryatia.” The host praised the advancement of the Buryats in this process. “The path of the Buryat people in Soviet 101

Kommunist, Rasskazy o kommunistakh, and Buriatiia literaturnaia in Russian and Seseg in Buryat. 102 See the list of television programs in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8826. On genres of programming see, Golubev, Radio i ego auditoriia, 21. 103 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8826, l. 4. 104 The historical shows are Pervaia Buriatskaia kommunisticheskaia gruppa and Pervye kolkhozy v Buriatii in Russian. The shows on internationalism are Lenin i obrazovanie buriatskoi sotsialisticheskoi sovetskoi avtonomii, Velikii Oktiabr’ i dikhovnyi progress buriatskogo naroda, and Druzhba in Russian. See index for NARB, f. R-1051 for a list of radio and television programming for 1960s– 1990. 105 The quote comes from Druzhba. See NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 8252, l. 65.

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times is the path from darkness, ignorance, and oppression to the peak of culture and knowledge.”106 While certainly intended to build loyalty to the state, authorities also hoped these programs would instill regional pride for Buryatia as well. Youth and children’s programming also provided similar topics and had analogous educational goals. For example, the youth radio program, Address of Friendship, aired a show on June 5, 1982, on which a history professor gave a lesson about the Russian conquest of Siberia. Like the example above in which the Russian working class was cited as beneficial in developing Buryatia, the professor explained that the incorporation of Siberia into Russia was for the betterment of the Buryats because it ultimately put them on the path toward modernity. His positive assessment of this imperial project also argued that, “the first Cossacks who came to Siberia were kind” and had a “good and neighborly relationship” with the “aborigines.”107 As mentioned in Chapter 5, this interpretation of Siberian history is quite different from earlier twentieth century accounts as well as those in the post-Soviet era. Like newspapers, numerous radio and TV programs in both Russian and Buryat also singled out individuals and highlighted their successes. These shows featured both extraordinary and ordinary individuals. For example, the radio show Stories about Communists presented in Buryat on March 26, 1978, featured an interview with the experienced communist Ivan Vasil’evich Chenkirov. Chenkirov described how he had joined the communists before the revolution, lived through the exciting days of the Far Eastern Republic, and had the opportunity to go to Mongolia to work for the Comintern in the 1920s.108 Chenkirov’s life was filled with adventure, but he was also an exemplary man who had worked to bring communism to Buryatia. More often television and radio programs highlighted individuals whose lives were rather ordinary, but they were people who 106

Buriatiia v druzhnoi sem’e narodov nashei strany in Russian. For a transcript of the show see NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 66.6. The quote can be found on p. 4. 107 Adres druzhby in Russian. The transcript for this show can be found in NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 2052, ll. 9–17. 108 Kommunist tukhai khooroon in Buryat. For a transcript of this show, see NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 1613, pp. 11–9.

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lived in an exemplary manner. For instance, on the evening of October 30, 1974 the television program Communist profiled communist workers from the October neighborhood of Ulan-Ude. One was a woman named Monika Vasil’evna Shargaeva, who was “a good propagandist” and high school principal.109 Viewers watched the interview with accompanying pictures of her school and office. Examples from radio shows were similar. On the evening Buryat language showing of Stories about Communists on January 19, 1978, the host interviewed several communist kolkhoz workers. One was Vera Antonovna Pesleva, a hard-working kolkhoz employee who also organized Party work in her spare time and had raised two children, one who was in the Red Army.110 On another evening in December 1974, the same program interviewed Dembrel Damzhaevich Budaev, who spoke about his model DT-74 tractor and the mechanization of agriculture.111 Another 1970s program titled Flower was just for women. It aired short biographies of successful women who worked in important places like laboratories, factories, and hospitals. These women had careers, raised children, and were model, modern women.112 The hosts of these various shows often commented on the character of these hardworking people, making statements about how they were good parents, loved their work, and were strong members of their communities. In addition to illuminating the lives of successful and exemplary citizens to help viewers and listeners understand what individual traits were valuable in contemporary Buryatia, there were also shows that explicitly gave advice to specific audiences such as parents and university students. The television program, A Conversation for Parents, discussed how to raise children and teenagers. Shows from 1974, for example, emphasized that a good upbringing should include the study of classical music, proper manners, after school activities, reading, and an “understanding of the immoral 109

For a transcript of the show, see NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 1144, pp. 1-37. The Shargaeva interview is on pp. 8–9. 110 For a transcript of this show, see NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 1613, ll. 1–10. 111 For a transcript of this show, see NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 1102, ll. 62–9. 112 The show is called Seseg, which means flower in Buryat. However, the 1974 program transcriptions in NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 1147, ll. 1–69 were in Russian.

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capitalist past compared to today’s morality of socialism.”113 The show interviewed parents, answered letters, sought the advice of educators, and offered stories of excellent parental behavior. The program also condemned “bad” parents who came home late, watched too much TV, didn’t spend time with their kids, and drank too much. Another program that regularly offered advice was the 1970s TV show, What Are You Up To, Student? that was aimed at the region’s higher educational students. On the March 26, 1974 show, the host sought to help answer a student’s question about life after graduation—“the transfer from student life to work life.”114 The host brought on an engineer who talked about how he missed student life at first, but later found that that feeling had faded because he enjoyed his work so much. The program also featured international students. The November 26, 1974 program interviewed Mongolian students studying in Buryatia. The host explained how they were gaining important skills at universities in Ulan-Ude so that they could become “the future specialists in the institutes of a new Mongolia.”115 Broadcast media also became an important place to promote high culture such as literature. The host of a radio show that aired on July 5, 1969, announced that since the Revolution, “Buryats are now literate and the children of nomads read Marx, Engels, and the classics of world literature. They have obtained a higher development of professional art and literature.”116 Radio and television helped in this process by giving prominence to locally produced Buryat literature that followed Western conventions. On the radio show New Works by Buryat Writers, which aired in both Russian and Buryat, hosts discussed literature, read from books and the local literary journal Baikal, and interviewed writers who also often read from their own works.117 For 113

Beseda dlia roditelei in Russian. For transcripts of this show, see NARB, f. R1051, op. 1, d. 1149, ll. 1–105. The quote can be found on p. 79. 114 Chem, zhivesh’ student? in Russian. For a transcript of the January show, see NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 1168, ll. 10–25. 115 For the November show, see above, pp. 39–48. 116 Buriatiia v druzhnoi sem’e narodov nashei strany in Russian. Transcripts for this show are in NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 66.6, l. 7. 117 Novye proizvedeniia buriatskikh pisatelei in Russian. The transcripts for this show can be found in NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 1125, ll. 1–296.

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instance, on the February 14, 1974 radio evening show in Buryat, the writer Solbon Angabaev read his own poetry followed by the host of the show, who read a short story by the author Georgii Dashibylov.118 The particular works chosen for reading on radio and television often reflected Party propaganda goals. On the August 14, 1974 radio show of New Works by Buryat Writers, the host read a story by Dorzhi Erdyneev with an anti-religious theme. The story was about an old Buryat man named Zhargal who initially believed that spirits were to blame for several misfortunes such as the loss of a sheep. However, by the end of the story he came to realize that these problems were not caused by spirits, but were logically explained. For example, it was a wolf that had carried off the lost sheep.119 On another show from the same program that aired in October, the host read works by the Buryat poet Tseden Galsanov that had been translated into Russian. Although some of the poems were about love and the beauty of Lake Baikal, others highlighted revolutionary traditions and glorified the construction of BAM.120 The 1970s television show Literary Buryatia was similar. Writers were brought on the show to discuss their work and literature in general. They elaborated on their activities in the Buryat Writers’ Union and often read passages from their books.121 On the August 27, 1974 evening television show, the host interviewed the Buryat writer Bair Dugarov. He spoke about nature and read one of his poems about Lake Baikal.122 Other similar shows promoted upcoming books by the Buryat Book Publishing House, as well as literary activities in libraries, regional clubs, and houses of culture. Viewers were encouraged to read and attend literary events. These shows contributed to the ongoing government policy of promoting literature—both its content and its value as high culture—and raising the prestige of writers. While television and radio programming presented similar content, TV did offer something new. Unlike other forms of media, 118

Ibid., 17–33. Ibid., 157–70. 120 Ibid., 252–70. 121 Buriatiia literaturnaia in Russian. Transcripts for this show are located in NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 1177, ll. 1–159. 122 NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 1177, ll. 119–26. 119

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with television consumers could see Buryat writers themselves reading their works. They could examine the inside of factories, kolkhoz clubs, laboratories and modern new dormitories built for university students. TV viewers could see the building of BAM, the creation of new cities that rose up along its tracks, and meet the exemplary Soviet citizens who worked there. People in Buryatia could watch how individuals were advancing on the Soviet road to success. At the same time however, Buryats could also see what they were missing. Villagers could see all the amenities provided for BAM workers and perhaps wonder about their own institutions. Audiences presented with exemplary factory directors, school principals, and effective officials might compare these to their own local ones and if dissatisfied ask why they did not measure up. In the case of both radio and television, republican residents also received broadcasting from Moscow. By 1974 radio listeners could choose from three stations—two from Buryatia and one from Moscow.123 Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Buryat television viewers could watch one Buryat channel and one all-union one from Moscow. A second channel from Moscow became available after 1981.124 Since most radio and television programming on Buryat radio and TV, and all on the Moscow stations, were in Russian, consuming these shows was certainly a contributing factor to the widespread use and understanding of the Russian language that occurred among the Buryats in the later Soviet period. All-union radio and television also allowed residents of Buryatia to perform an act shared by other Soviet citizens from the Baltic to the Pacific. National programming could help foster a sense that the Buryats were part of the larger country sharing similar concerns and experiences with other like-minded citizens. Movies too contributed to these ideas and with the spread of television, Buryats could frequently watch them in their own homes. In the 1970s, central TV from Moscow aired as many as seven feature films a week.125 Since republican residents generally did not subscribe in large numbers to 123

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 7415, l. 13; Golubev, Aktivizatsiia sotsial’noi roli radio, 34. 124 Golubev, Aktivizatsiia sotsial’noi roli radio, 45. 125 Roth-Ey, Moscow Prime Time, 275.

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all-union papers (see above), television and radio provided another opportunity to consume national media. In particular, Moscow TV offered republican viewers a glimpse at the best of what the Soviet Union had to offer. Viewers could see the latest fashions, the newest furniture, the most modern apartment buildings, and student life at the USSR’s premier university, Moscow State University. Republican residents might have been impressed with such advancements, but they may have also felt frustration if they believed that Buryatia lagged behind. Conclusion What is overwhelmingly clear from this survey of newspapers, radio, and television in Buryatia from the 1950s to the 1980s is that many people were constantly exposed to messages that promoted the benefits of Soviet modernization to readers, listeners, and viewers. Media consumers of all ages were regularly presented with the idea that the Buryat pre-Russian and pre-Soviet past was negative and that improvement had only come through the help of the Russian people and the construction of Soviet institutions. This message was constant even as the language and format changed. While a smaller percentage of literate Buryats in the 1920s and 1930s could pick up a Buryatlanguage newspaper for information, almost anyone—literate or not—in the 1970s and 1980s could access Russian-language radio or television. Evidence also shows that many indeed did. Buryats in their republic were not simply the receivers of these messages and the processes of changes to media format. They were also well represented on the production and distribution side of local mass media. As described in Chapter 2, many of the republic’s journalists, editors, writers, and policymakers were Buryat. These Buryat authorities helped to create local media and provide resources for its maintenance and advancement. They also worked to meet increasing demands for access to mass media, especially television. This media carried propaganda, but it also reflected the changing realities. The very presence of such mass media signaled change as did Buryat consumption, production, and representation in them.

CHAPTER 7

Reform, But What Kind?

The majority of this book is dedicated to the building, spreading, and running of media, cultural, and educational institutions in Buryatia from the early postwar years to the 1980s. By the final decade of Soviet power, such institutions had become well established. They employed many Buryats and were a part of everyday life. They also consistently promoted a culture of progress and a path for Soviet success. When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, his reform policies of perestroika and glasnost’ brought about great changes in these media, cultural, and educational institutions in Buryatia, as well as those across the country. In particular, Gorbachev believed media should “play a tremendous role” in implementing his reforms by making a space for the expression of new ideas that would help to foster economic, social, and political improvements. He sought to facilitate this by ousting corrupt and inefficient bureaucrats and replacing them with more competent ones.1 In Buryatia, local officials carried out many of Gorbachev’s reforms. Party authorities changed the very conservative media by allowing space for a wider range of ideas. Incompetent leaders and bureaucrats were replaced. Officials responded to some of Gorbachev’s ideas as he had hoped, bringing them closer to their constituents. Part of this process also meant addressing the demands of 1

Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World, updated edition (Glasgow: William Collins & Co., 1988), 76–7.

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the Buryat national movement that evolved in the late 1980s. Specifically, the local government began to work closely with members of the movement on goals acceptable to both: the revival of the Buryat language, culture, and religions. However, the government did not support the movement’s more radical goals—its political and territorial solutions to national problems. The movement also failed to gain widespread popular support for these plans. By the break-up of the Soviet Union in the fall of 1991, the changing local government was able to integrate into its own platform much of the cultural demands of the Buryat national movement. It did this while ignoring the movement’s more political goals and marginalizing those who promoted them. Buryatia was not extremely radical during the last years of the Soviet Union. There was no violence and few made any demands for independence from the union as could be found elsewhere.2 However, many Buryats did participate in the wave of nationalism that spread across the country in the wake of Gorbachev’s reforms. The Buryats had national concerns and they created a national movement to voice them. This movement succeeded in achieving many of its demands regarding the revival of Buryat culture, which was an achievement. Buryat society was not exceptionally revolutionary, but it did change in many ways in the late Soviet period. Scholars, journalists, and others in Buryatia worked to expose local economic, social, and political problems. They uncovered corruption and revealed the “tragic episodes” of Buryat history in the Soviet Union. 2

Many other scholars have also noted this among the Buryats especially in relation to the experiences of other nationalities in the Soviet Union. See, for example, Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, “From Ethnicity to Nationalism: Turmoil in the Russian Mini-Empire,” in James R. Millar and Sharon L. Wolchik (eds.), The Social Legacy of Communism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 56–88; Mark R. Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization and the Collapse of the Soviet State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 215–7; Gail Fondahl, “Siberia: Assimilation and Its Discontents,” in Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (eds.), New States, New Politics: Building Post-Soviet Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 209–10; Elise Giuliano, Constructing Grievance: Ethnic Nationalism in Russia’s Republics (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2011), 36, 196–9; Caroline Humphrey, “Buryatiya and the Buryats,” in Graham Smith (ed.), The Nationalities Question in the Post-Soviet States (London: Longman, 1996), 120–4.

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Many people in Buryatia also more loudly than ever before expressed regrets over the loss of national traditions, culture, religions, and language. Buryat media gave republican residents a place to air their grievances. By 1991, local media, cultural, and educational institutions had become integral to the process of describing, promoting, and facilitating a revival in Buryat culture. Such institutions also introduced new social activities ranging from break dancing classes to televised dating shows—activities that were once taboo under Soviet norms. In addition, new and old religious organizations blossomed and these too added much to a rapidly changing society. Much of this was new, but it was not entirely unique as peoples throughout the Soviet Union were sharing similar experiences. Scholars, who have studied nationalism in the late Soviet and post-Soviet periods, have drawn varying conclusions about the way different Soviet nations expressed nationalist demands. Some have argued that social mobilization in the Soviet Union tended to increase ethnic tensions and a sense of national self-consciousness rather than assimilation.3 Robert Kaiser, for example, links social mobility to separatism and argues that in places where the titular nationality was more successful at gaining political and professional positions there were greater efforts at national separatism.4 While this was true in some parts of the Soviet Union, it was not the case in Buryatia. Elise Giuliano’s study of nationalism in the ethnic republics of Russia found that in regions such as Buryatia, where the titular nationality was proportionally overrepresented in white-collar jobs, expressions of nationalism have been more limited.5 She argues that for nationalist movements to be widespread, a large percentage of the ethnic group must have a shared grievance. They must also be convinced that their individual and group status can improve through addressing grievances and tying their fate to that of their 3

Steven L. Burg, “Nationality Elites and Political Change in the Soviet Union” in Gail W. Lapidus (ed.), The “Nationality” Question in the Soviet Union (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1992), 338–9; Simon, Nationalism and Policy, 275–9; Ronald Grigor Suny, “Nationalist and Ethnic Unrest in the Soviet Union” in Gail W. Lapidus (ed.), The “Nationality” Question in the Soviet Union (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1992), 307. 4 Kaiser, The Geography of Nationalism, 248–9. 5 Giuliano, Constructing Grievance, 89.

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nation.6 While Buryats certainly had grievances such as the policies implemented under Joseph Stalin that brought about purges of Buryat elites, religious repression, territorial changes, and collectivization, these issues did not spark an extensive separatist movement. Instead, many Buryats behaved in a more practical manner seeking to maintain political stability and maximize the economic benefits of inclusion in Russia. Mark R. Beissinger argues that in places such as Buryatia where the titular nationality is the minority and central state hegemony is strong, people have been more likely to see attaining nationalist goals and addressing past grievances as an “impossibility” and even “outlandish.”7 Indeed, for many Buryats the idea of a Buryat state existing independently from Russia has largely been viewed as impractical and urealistic. The lack of radicalism among numerous Buryats in the late Soviet period can be attributed to Soviet modernizing policies that benefited them. Buryat society was transformed, particularly after World War II, through the broad participation of Buryats in political, educational, media, and cultural institutions. Therefore, many Buryats did not feel alienated by the Soviet regime. Bhavna Dave makes a similar argument about the Kazakhs, explaining that the Soviet state’s disbursement of modernization and development helped to contain the potential for nationalism, as well as anti-Russian activism.8 Like the Kazakhs, the Buryats had a national movement in the late 1980s and they had grievances. However, their rapid social mobility and high rates of education in the postwar years influenced the way nationalist ideas were received by the wider population. In Buryatia, activists made cultural, political, and territorial demands, but it was mainly the cultural ones that were widely accepted. More radical ideas were marginalized and considered by many to be unattainable. Gorbachev’s policies and their local manifestation in the late 1980s produced rapid, drastic, and confusing changes in Buryatia. This chapter is presented in three sections that begin in 1986 and end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Each section follows the actions of the Buryat national movement and the local government. In addi6

Ibid., xi. Beissinger, Nationalist Mobilization, 217. 8 Dave, Kazakhstan, 161. 7

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tion, each pays particular attention to media, cultural, and educational institutions. These institutions are important as they provided the main space for the expression of a wide range of opinions, as well as a continued method of communication between government officials and the people. Intellectuals, state authorities, journalists, religious leaders, and ordinary people also created new institutions that promoted many of the shared goals of both the Buryat national movement and the government in regards to revitalizing Buryat traditions, religions, and language. At the same time, the local government, even as its membership changed, continued to push its own agenda—which did not always match that of the Buryat national movement—through the same mass media and established institutions. Scholars from the Buryat branch of the Soviet Academy of Sciences in Ulan-Ude were the first to seriously organize and create an agenda for a national movement in 1986. In following years, numerous others added to this by creating many different organizations with various demands. These organizations wrote petitions, held conferences, and published articles in the local press. Their activities and desire for the protection of national rights for Buryats within the Soviet Union came to be known as the Buryat national movement. While the movement was mostly comprised of intellectuals, it often had a close and interconnected relationship with the local government, which makes it difficult to entirely separate the two. Glasnost’ and the Buryat National Movement: 1986–89 In 1986 and 1987 Buryat scholars began to both organize and publicly express concern over the state of Buryat national affairs. One of the very first steps was the formation of a small organization in December 1986 called The Group of Buryat Intellectuals. Shortly after its creation, the group then sent a letter to Kazakhstan in support of the protest there against the ousting of the ethnic Kazakh head of the repubulic, Dinmukhamed Kunaev, and the appointment of an ethnic Russian to take his place.9 This was especially signifi9

Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 71–2, 80. For more on the events in Kazakhstan, see Dave, Kazakhstan, 84–9.

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cant to The Group of Buryat Intellectuals because an ethnic Russian, Anatolii M. Beliakov, had been appointed head of the Buryat republic in 1984. He was the first non-Buryat leader there since one had been hand picked by central authorities during Stalin’s reign. Many Buryat intellectuals had quietly criticized his appointment.10 Therefore, the letter of 1986, although aimed at events in Kazakhstan, can be linked to dissatisfaction with local politics. Throughout 1987, The Group of Buryat Intellectuals held conferences, seminars, and roundtables to discuss Buryat grievances. These events contributed to the creation in March 1988 of an organization called Geser, named after the hero of the Buryat epic poem. Once again, Geser was being reinterpreted for its meaning in Buryat society. The Geser organization included a wider range of intellectuals than just scholars, and was comprised of students, teachers, cultural workers, and other professionals. Buryat intellectuals from outside of the republic were also involved. In May 1988, Geser held its first conference in the central public library in UlanUde. Leaders at this conference outlined the main demands that would characterize the Buryat national movement during the last years of the Soviet Union. These were initiated by Geser, but reiterated and elaborated on by later organizations.11 The movement’s demands can be organized into five major concerns that were generally about either a reinstating of markers of Buryat territory and identity previously granted by the Soviet government but destroyed by subsequent state policies, or a revival of traditions believed to have been diminished under the state’s longterm socialist modernization project.12 The most controversial of 10

The non-Buryats, Semen Denisovich Ignatev (served 1937–43) and Aleksandr Vasil’evich Kudriavtsev (served 1943–51), were chosen to be the first secretaries of the Buryat-Mongolian Republic after the Buryat Mikhei Nikolaevich Erbanov was purged in 1937. After 1951, ethnic Buryats served as first secretaries until 1984. See Chapter 3. 11 Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 79–81; Balzer, “From Ethnicity to Nationalism,” 76–7. 12 Although many Buryats expressed concerns during the Gorbachev reform era about the environment, especially Lake Baikal, I have not included it in my list of the five major demands of the Buryat national movement. This is because an ecological movement for change in Siberia was spearheaded first by ethnic Rus-

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the five demands was a call to republican leaders to re-examine the constitutionality and the social consequences of the 1937 break-up of Buryat territory. That year, orders had come from Moscow for a 40 percent decrease in the size of the Buryat-Mongolian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR).13 Two small new Buryat autonomous regions were created from republican territory: the Ust’-Ordynskii Buryat-Mongolian National Okrug and the Aginskii Buryat-Mongolian National Okrug. These territorial changes were made without consultation with the Buryat-Mongolian republican government. They were also made at a time when most of its leaders were being repressed. In addition, the break-up violated article 15 in the republic’s constitution that specified no territorial changes could be made without the consent of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR government. The decision came entirely from Moscow and was part of a larger policy against the Soviet Union’s border nationalities whose loyalties were considered suspect at a time of impending war.14 In addition to territory, this act meant a loss of 40 percent of the republic’s Buryat inhabitants. When the ASSR had been formed in1923, 90 percent of the Soviet Union’s Buryats resided in the republic. After 1937, only a little over 50 percent did.15 A second and also contentious demand regarded the name of the republic. In 1958, “Mongolian” was dropped from the original sians in Siberia starting in the 1960s and it was in part connected to the Russian Village Prose movement. Many have interpreted the development of the environmental movement in the Gorbachev era to be a multinational problem and not an exclusively national one. For more on this, see, for example, Balzer, “From Ethnicity to Nationalism,” 77; Humphrey, “Buryatiya and the Buryats,” 123; Rainey, “Siberian Writers,” 46–60. Also, see N. L. Zhukovskaya, who presents a similar, but more specific categorization of the demands of the Buryat national movement for the years 1990–91, in her article, Zhukovskaya, “Buddhism and Problems of National Cultural Resurrection,” 27–41. Zhukovskaya also does not include ecological issues in her analysis. Also, see Chapter 5 in this book for more on the Russian Village Prose movement and Buryat writers who wrote about the environment in the 1960s and 1970s. 13 For more on the 1937 territorial break-up, see Chapter 2. 14 Palkhaeva, “Stanovlenie i razvitie,” 28–34; Elaev, Buriatskii narod, 217–8, 221–3. 15 Bolkhosoeva, “Territorial’nye osobennosti,” 94. However, beginning in the postwar years and continuing today, there has been a large migration of Buryats from outside of the republic to it. See Chapter 3.

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name of the republic founded in 1923. The Buryat-Mongolian ASSR became simply the Buryat ASSR. This was true for the names of the two okrugs as well.16 The official reason was that the old name did not correspond correctly to the national composition of the republic—Buryats supposedly lived there, not Mongols. However, the Buryats are Mongols and many intellectuals of the late 1980s wanted to promote their connections to the wider culture and history of the Mongolian peoples. For that reason, like the issue of the 1937 break-up, the Buryat national movement called for a reexamination by republican leaders of the name change. Aside from the territorial and name changes, the other three demands were less antagonistic and received broader support. One of these was a demand for the revival of the Buryat language. As discussed in previous chapters, the use of the language was in serious decline in Buryatia by the 1980s. For many years educational and cultural institutions, as well as the media, had heavily emphasized the Russian language over Buryat. Buryat language education had been completely cancelled by the early 1970s. The amount of Buryat language newspapers, books, and radio and television programming had also steadily declined. By 1981 only around 50 percent of Buryats surveyed regularly read newspapers, listened to the radio, or watched television in Buryat.17 At the Geser conference in May 1988, participants called for increasing Buryat language media, echoing concerns and government decrees that had started in the early 1980s.18 Members also suggested introducing Buryat language as a subject in all general education schools and reintroducing it as the language of instruction in Buryat national schools.19 16

The name change meant that all institutions (such as the press, publishing house, etc.) had to change their names as well. In addition, the name change was carried out in the two Buryat autonomous okrugs. For more on the name change, see Chapter 3. 17 Golubev, Aktivizatsiia sotsialnoi, 61. Survey results from the early 2000s show that this number had dropped to less than five percent. See Irina Dorzhievna Tsydypzhapova, “Izmeneniia traditsionnykh sotsio-kul’turnykh tsennostei Buriat v usloviiakh urbanizatsii rossiiskogo obshchestva (na materialakh Respubliki Buriatiia)” (PhD diss., Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2004), 79. 18 See Chapter 5. 19 Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 79.

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A fourth demand of the Buryat national movement was a call for more connections to be made between Buryats in Russia, China, and Mongolia as well as among all Mongolian peoples in general. This was partly an attempt to reconnect with the thousands of Buryats who, during collectivization in the 1930s, had fled with their herds to Mongolia or China rather than face forced settlement. It was also a call for making new connections with Mongolian peoples and overcoming the negative associations connected to “pan-Mongolism” that were started in the 1930s. During that time, the term became a charge used to purge important political and cultural leaders.20 Authorities had declared that a “pan-Mongolist” was a “nationalist,” a “bourgeois,” and not an “internationalist” or someone who supported friendly relations between Soviet nations. Therefore, being labeled a “pan-Mongolist” could destroy someone’s career or worse. Now, in the late 1980s, many in the Buryat national movement viewed a revival of pan-Mongolism, even if limited to simply more freedom in exchanges across borders, as a positive development. The last of the general demands made by the movement in the Gorbachev era was a call for a resurgence of Buryat religions, holidays, and traditions. Originally practitioners of shamanism, many Buryats had converted to Buddhism in the sixteenth century when missionaries came to Buryatia from Tibet and Mongolia. Buddhism had been granted the status of an official religion of the Russian state in 1741. However, like all religions in the Soviet Union, Buddhism and shamanism had suffered greatly under Soviet policies that promoted atheism. In addition, many Buryat holidays and customs had been banned, replaced with Soviet ones, or simply forgotten by the 1980s. For this reason, the Buryat national movement called for a rebirth of religions and traditions. The organization, Geser, presented these demands at its conference in May 1988. Also at this time, several intellectuals involved in these organizations began to raise these issues in republican newspapers. Intellectuals, rather than journalists, wrote many of these articles. Buryat intellectuals were used to writing for the mainstream republican newspapers because this was a standard 20

For more on collectivization, out-migration, Stalin’s purges, and the consequences of being labeled a “pan-Mongolist” in the 1930s, see Chapter 2.

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practice in the Soviet Union where intellectuals were expected to regularly comment on a wide variety of subjects in both local and national mass media.21 When Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost’ and perestroika were unleashed in Buryatia at this time, the local republican press looked largely as it had in previous years. As before, there were many articles on the friendship of the Russian and Buryat people, the role of the Buryats in Soviet history, and modern advancements in the republic. There was little in the mass media to indicate that a Buryat national movement was slowly beginning to take shape. In 1986, a Party report on the main Buryat language paper, Buriaad Unen, praised it for promoting Russian-Buryat friendship. It commended it for having highlighted “great Russian language teachers” who helped to instill in children “an international feeling and love for the Russian language.” It also explained that the paper “often publishes materials about the leading role of the Russian people in the preparation of national cadres [who worked in] the economy, industry, agriculture, technology, science, and culture in the republic.” The report also stated that Buriaad Unen regularly promotes “the joint efforts of the Russian and Buryat people in the Revolution and World War II,” it often “features couples of mixed marriages,” and it commonly displays pictures of both Russians and Buryats.22 Another Party report from 1986 similarly praised the main Russian language paper, Pravda Buriatii, for working “to strengthen the friendship of peoples,” for having many “pictures of people of different nationalities,” and many articles on “internationalism,” “brotherly friendship,” and Buryats and Russians working together and “sharing the same goals.”23 A content analysis study of the republic’s main papers from 1986 by the Buryat scholar Erdem D. Dagbaev confirms these documents. Dagbaev showed that Pravda Buriatii published only five and Buriaad Unen published only nine articles on “the theme of [Buryat] national policies.”24 This lack of attention to Buryat themes was typical and perhaps for many it was 21

Hopkins, Mass Media, 305. NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 1088, pp. 43–6. 23 Ibid., pp. 53–7. 24 Dagbaev, Pressa, 66. 22

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impossible to imagine otherwise. Another local scholar, Evgenii A. Golubev, who conducted a survey on media and its consumers in 1985, found that newspaper readers in Buryatia were generally satisfied with the coverage of local issues. Only around ten percent of those surveyed stated they were dissatisfied.25 However, in 1987, local officials began to ask the press to change and they put pressure on Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen to respond to the new policies of perestroika and glasnost’. Evidence shows though that this was not easy. In 1987, a report from the local Department of Propaganda and Agitation complained that despite the fact that it had “worked closely with the Union of Journalists” on the new policies, it was still not “leading the way” on issues of perestroika such as “radical economic reform, developing the social sphere, and the spread of self-administration.”26 Although the republican press began in 1988 to allow for some residents to write new articles critical of Soviet policies in Buryatia, local Party reports complained that Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen were still too conservative and that they were not adapting to glasnost’ reforms. One Party report expressed dismay that “Even with perestroika, it [Pravda Buriatii] has not eliminated its drabness.” Pravda Buriatii was declared to be also much worse than “even neighboring papers in Irkutsk and Chita.”27 Another Party report complained that Buriaad Unen, although doing a fine job on reporting on issues of internationalism, had not published enough articles that more deeply analyzed questions such as the problems of the Buryat language.28 Local Buryat Party officials made suggestions for improving the Buryat press such as starting new and regular headings on the history and culture of Buryatia and having more articles on health and medicine.29 25

Golubev, who surveyed radio listeners, also found that most people were satisfied with the coverage of local issues in the republic’s newspapers. More of those surveyed (26.3%) claimed to be unsatisfied with the coverage in republican newspapers of events and issues that took place in foreign countries. See, Golubev, Pressa, 97. For more on this subject, see Chapter 6. 26 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10226, ll. 42–5. 27 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10479, ll. 10–2. 28 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10622, ll. 40–3. 29 Ibid., 1.

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It is remarkable that local Party officials had to pressure the Buryat language newspaper, even after the advent of glasnost’, to publish more on Buryat cultural issues. However, Soviet journalists were long used to rigid censorship and strict guidance by the Party— Buryat-language journalists were no exception. Gladys D. Ganley explains that journalists in the Soviet Union were in some ways poorly prepared for the profession of journalism because their education included too much emphasis on ideological and political teachings rather than practical skills.30 Thomas C. Wolfe argues that one of the most important assignments of the Soviet journalist was to project “representations of the socialist person.”31 It is possible that Buryat journalists were so well trained to present Buryats as good socialist internationalists, that it was difficult to imagine how (or how without getting into trouble) to publish a newspaper that did something else. In addition, Beliakov, the head of the republic, resisted glasnost’ and perestroika reforms and in particular changes to the local party press.32 This contributed greatly to the tension over the pace and implementation of reform within the local Party and its media. Despite these issues, newspapers did begin to publish articles by some of the members of the Buryat national movement in 1988 and 1989. In particular, the scholar Shirap B. Chimitdorzhiev, who became a leading figure in the movement, began to write articles at that time in Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen on the five previously mentioned demands.33 There were also letters to the editors published on these topics. For example, a letter was published in Pravda Buriatii in September 1989 from the “Party veteran,” D. Bumbeev and the “engineer” L. Radnaeva, who called for changing the name of the republic back to the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR. They also criticized the Moscow-led orthographic reforms of the Buryat written language that had occurred in the 1920s and 1930s, changing from the vertical Mongolian script to Latin and then to Cyrillic.34 30

Gladys D. Ganley, Unglued Empire: The Soviet Experience With Communications Technologies (Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1996), 7. 31 Wolfe, Governing Soviet Journalism, 2. 32 Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 76. 33 Ibid., 90. 34 The letter is reprinted in Chimitdorzhiev (ed.), Kak ischezla, 55–7. For more on the language reforms in the 1920s and 1930s, see Chapter 2.

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Unlike newspapers, local radio and television programming did not provide a regular format for political expression the way that the press did in Buryatia in the late 1980s. Scholars who have researched the Buryat national movement consistently point to the press as having been the main outlet for publicly promoting Buryat national interests.35 The different formats of the press and broadcast media can partly explain this. It was a common occurrence for all types of people in Buryatia to submit articles to the republican press. Many intellectuals, the main leaders of the Buryat national movement, were comfortable doing this. Getting onto broadcast media was more complicated. There was a regular set of programming and one had to obtain an invitation to be on a particular show. A survey of radio and television shows in 1987 reveals that although one could still find plenty of examples of the usual themes like the friendship of nations and the benefits of Soviet leadership in Buryatia, others were offering alternative ideas and reinterpretations of Buryat history and culture.36 Literary programming provides a good example of this. While many shows continued to promote literary works on previously common themes such as World War II, atheism, BAM, and modern agricultural methods, some shows presented works on more taboo subjects. For instance, the host of Radio Library featured poetry about Buryat traditional culture such as one that described celebrating the banned holiday, Sagaalgan (the Mongolian Lunar New Year).37 Television programs about literature from February and October 1987 discussed re35

Research by scholars on the Buryat national movement in Buryatia such as that conducted by Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev, E. D. Dagbaev, A. A. Elaev, and E. A. Stroganova, Buriatskoe natsional’no-kul’turnoe vozrozhdenie (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Natalis,” 2001) all consistently point to the republican press as the main place where the Buryat national movement publicly expressed its concerns. However, Khamutaev explains that television and radio began to play a very important role in the months leading up to Beliakov’s ouster in March 1990. He describes how during that time several leaders of the Buryat national movement appeared in interviews on television and radio. Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 84–5. 36 For transcripts of radio and television shows from this period, see NARB, f. R1051. 37 Radiobiblioteka in Russian. The transcripts for these shows can be found in NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 2571 and NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 2850.

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pressed writers, many of whom were purged in 1937. The programs highlighted their lives and praised their works. They also explained to viewers that new collections of their literary works were being published.38 The presence of these kinds of radio and television programs, as well as the push to make the Party press less conservative, reflected the changing position of the government at that time. Glasnost’ and perestroika policies called for greater openness and encouraged the Buryat republican government to explore—or at least allow for the expression of—a range of opinions. For that reason, people like Chimitdorzhiev were permitted to publish articles about the various demands of the Buryat national movement and republican broadcasters were able to air shows that discussed purged Buryat writers. Changes in the Party and its media opened doors for people to more regularly examine condemned subjects. This development was extremely important for the Buryat national movement that lacked independent media outlets as well as a popular front or political party at this time to organize such publicity. Although an attempt to create a political party was made in October 1989 by some of the members from Geser and The Group of Buryat Intellectuals, nothing came of the effort until over a year later.39 Out of the five demands made between 1986 and 1989 by the Buryat national movement mentioned at the beginning of this section, the government responded most positively during this time to the one concerned with the decline of the Buryat language. Authorities across the country were fully aware that language loss had increasingly become a concern for many peoples around the Soviet Union, including the Buryats, since the 1970s. Officials in Buryatia had begun to acknowledge in the early 1980s—before glasnost’— that the disappearance of the Buryat language was indeed a serious issue. In 1981 the government had issued a decree to strengthen the study of Buryat language and literature in general education schools. However, the implementation of Buryat language educa38

The transcripts for these shows can be found in NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 2622. The show from Februrary is on pages 1-13 and the one from October is on pages 32–41. 39 Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 92.

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tion was slow.40 As its usage declined further in the late 1980s, it became an important issue for a wide spectrum of Buryat society. Increasingly throughout the decade, the government allowed intellectuals to promote the language issue in articles, at conferences, and at roundtables. In addition, it encouraged its propagandists and lecturers to raise the topic in discussions at cultural and educational institutions and at workplaces.41 Government officials examined the issue in meetings and made public statements. For example, the head of the Kizhinginskii region in Buryatia publicly called for raising the status of the Buryat language in the republic and for a constitutional change to ensure that Buryat would be taught in school.42 For government authorities to respond to the call from the Buryat national movement to improve the status of the Buryat language required little effort or change in ideology on their part because they had already been doing this for several years. However, in order for the government to respond to the other four demands made by the Buryat national movement in the late 1980s it required more significant change, especially at the very top. The Competition Heats Up: 1990 One of the most significant events of 1990 in Buryatia was the widespread campaign that successfully ousted the leader of the republic, First Secretary Antatolii M. Beliakov. As mentioned earlier, Beliakov was not popular among many Buryat intellectuals. However, his undoing came from the complaints of not just Buryat intellectuals, but Russian and Buryat Party cadres and ordinary citizens as well. Many in the republic complained that Beliakov was not carrying out Gorbachev’s reforms, that he had sacked many talented people and replaced them with conservative loyalists, and that 40

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 9526, l. 1. A document from the Ministry of Education from 1985 showed that still in most regions of the republic, less than half of the schools with large contingencies of Buryat students offered Buryat language courses. NARB, f. R-60, op. 1, d. 2437, ll. 8–13. For more on education and language, see Chapter 4. 41 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10486, ll. 19–21. 42 Khamutaev, National’noe dvizhenie, 91.

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he tolerated corruption. People such as the scholar, Marks V. Mokhosoev began to publicly attack Beliakov’s government and journalists started to publish articles that documented cases of corruption where high-ranking Party officials under Beliakov had received food and other services straight from special distributors rather than through regular channels.43 Articles in Pravda Buriatii also criticized local politicians for being too conservative and not taking initiative in implementing reforms.44 In February 1990 several thousand people—Buryats, Russians, communists, intellectuals, the elderly, young people, etc.—came out to protest against Beliakov’s government in the Square of the Soviets in Ulan-Ude. Protesters demanded Beliakov’s resignation. In addition, many of the protestors called for the return of two formerly prominent Party officials, Leonid Vasil’evich Potapov, an ethnic Russian, and Vladimir Biz’iaevich Saganov, an ethnic Buryat. Beliakov had believed both were politically threatening to him and had therefore transferred them to conduct Party work outside of the republic. Some suspected that Saganov’s 1987 move out of the republic had occurred because of his support for reexamining Buryat history and reviving Buryat traditions. In the winter of 1990, many wanted these men to return in order to create a new local government for the Buryat ASSR.45 Beliakov’s response to protestors only worsened his position. Shortly after the demonstrations, Pravda Buriatii published an article that quoted Beliakov as blaming the protestors for the republic’s problems. In it, Beliakov claimed that the demonstrators were “nationalists” and “chauvinists,” who were trying to “destroy centuries of peace” in Buryatia by creating “internecine strife.”46 Criticism of Beliakov continued in March when 103 people, again both Buryats and Russians, intellectuals and Party officials, signed an open letter to the Buryat government that complained about social, economic, cultural, and educational developments in the republic. It also at43

S. Bolotov and V. Mitypov, Respublika Buriatiia: Ocherki kontsa stoletiia (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’skii dom “Inform Polis,” 2003), 92–4; Elaev, Buriatskii narod, 265. 44 Humphrey, “Buryatiya and the Buryats,” 121. 45 Elaev, Buriatskii narod, 265–6; Khamutaev Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 72–3. 46 The article is quoted in Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 100.

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tacked the government for its lack of effectiveness in carrying out perestroika reforms.47 In addition to the Pravda Buriatii article, a number of the Buryat national movement’s leaders were interviewed on television in the early months of 1990. They were able to express their dissatisfaction for Beliakov, as well as espouse their views for reforming Buryatia and reviving the Buryat nation. The anti-Beliakov movement forced the Buryat republican government to hold a plenary session in March. Officials eventually agreed to remove Beliakov as first secretary and replace him with the experienced and more popular politician, Leonid Potapov. Potapov was then asked to return from Turkmenistan where he was then working to become the leader of the Buryat republic in May. Saganov also returned and was appointed to be the chair of the republic’s executive body called the Council of Ministers.48 Saganov, although ethnically Buryat and supported by many Buryat intellectuals, had less experience and political savvy than the ethnic Russian Potapov, who was popular among a wide spectrum of both Russian and Buryat people. Potapov had grown up in a Buryat village, could speak some Buryat, and was knowledgeable about Buryat customs and traditions. In addition, he was a well-known and seasoned politician having served in high positions under the very powerful and influential Buryat First Secretary Andrei U. Modogoev, who had led the republic between 1962 and 1984. Most likely, for these various reasons Potapov was selected to take Beliakov’s place. The new government under Potapov immediately responded to the demands of perestroika and glasnost’ and initiated reform in Buryatia. From May 1990 on, Potapov was also much more supportive of the political and cultural demands made by the Buryat national movement than Beliakov had been. Only a few months after Potapov came to power, he oversaw the Buryat ASSR’s declaration of sovereignty on October 8, 1990. The declaration called for economic selfmanagement, ecological protection, the promotion of the cultural development of the people of Buryatia, and the elevation of Buryatia to the status of a union republic (from ASSR to SSR). However, authorities in Moscow refused to recognize the declaration, a typical reaction 47 48

Elaev, Buriatskii narod, 265; Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 99–101. Bolotov and Mitypov, Respublika Buriatiia, 95–7.

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at the time due to Gorbachev’s fears about the intentions of nationalist movements that were growing around the country.49 In addition to seeking greater autonomy for Buryatia within the USSR, Potapov’s government also gave wider support than Beliakov’s had for developing new Buryat cultural activities. At the same time, Potapov carefully chose the activities and plans for reform that he was willing to support. In particular, these included promoting Buryat traditional religions and culture. Government aid for such activities was a very serious shift from previous policies, but it was not uncommon in the Soviet Union in 1990. Around the country regional authorities were giving support to such activities and they were a part of the wider reform movement initiated by Gorbachev. Potapov’s involvement in this policy shift allowed his government to work closely with participants in the Buryat national movement on a number of high profile cultural events that were widely publicized in the media and gave recognition and credit to the government, as well as organizations related to the Buryat national movement for the new cultural freedoms. For example, in August 1990, the Buryat government approved plans for holding an international conference to take place in the summer of 1991 on the 250th anniversary of Buddhism’s official recognition by the Russian Empire as decreed by Empress Elizabeth in 1741. Scholars from the Buryat Academy of Sciences were to be some of the main organizers in the conference.50 Although celebrating Buddhism went against decades of Soviet atheistic policies, marking the anniversary of the official Russian recognition of it did show continuity with the Soviet tradition of emphasizing the Buryats as an integral part of the Russian state and it served the local government’s interests. Celebrating the anniversary was a way to legitimize a Buryat tradition on government terms while at the same time supporting the development of an increasingly popular Buddhist revival in society among its constituents.51 49

Balzer, “From Ethnicity to Nationalism,” 78; Elaev, Buriatskii narod, 268; Stroganova, Buriatskoe natsional’no-kul’turnoe vozrozhdenie, 61. 50 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10743, l. 24. 51 For more on the celebration of the 250th anniversary and various interpretations of it, see Zhukovskaya, “Buddhism and Problems” and ibid., “The Revival of Buddhism,” 197, 209.

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Another such example where the government and supporters of the Buryat national movement worked together was in the planning of a festival to celebrate the Buryat epic poem, Geser, to be held in 1995. The government issued an official decision on November 15, 1990 to begin organizing the event to be called “Geser—The Treasure of the Peoples of Central Asia.”52 Although the idea for this festival had come about at a scholarly conference on Geser in 1989, the government supported it more seriously after Potapov came to power. This renewed recognition of the epic poem meant that in a matter of 50 years Geser had gone through a full cycle of ideological interpretation from promotion in the early Soviet period to denunciation under late Stalinism to limited acceptance after Stalin’s death to a renewed promotion under the Gorbachev reform era. The government’s choice to celebrate Geser and Buddhism was in line with the demands of the Buryat national movement that called for a revival in Buryat culture, traditions, and religions, as well as encouraged connections between Buryats and other Mongols of Inner Asia. The government’s support for cultural demands made by the Buryat national movement was also reflected in the local media, which had finally begun to more actively carry out the demands of glasnost’. In addition to articles criticizing Beliakov, a survey of subject matter in Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen in 1990 includes numerous stories, many written by local scholars, on historical and cultural topics. The two newspapers published articles on Tibetan medicine, long practiced by Buryats but criticized for most of the Soviet period, and a series on Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan), a figure of great interest and pride for Mongolian peoples but officially scorned in the Soviet Union. The papers also published a translated interview with the Dalai Lama and several articles praising the vertical Mongolian script.53 The republican papers also began to publish more on Buryat holidays. Molodezh Buriatii 52

A copy of the decree is reprinted in S. Sh. Chagdurov (ed.), Geseriada: Proshloe i nastoiashchee sbornik (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskoe otdelenie vserossiiskogo fonda kul’tury, 1991), 122. 53 See Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen for January, February, May, and June 1990.

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printed materials and stories about the Buryat Lunar New Year, Sagaalgan.54 This reflected the government’s new backing of the holiday as it issued a formal decree in 1990 to raise Sagaalgan “to the status of a national holiday.”55 The local press also began to more regularly feature articles about the Buryat language. In January 1990, Buriaad Unen had a series of articles written by scholars about “the contemporary Buryat language and its dialects.”56 In addition, Buryat language lessons began to be published starting in 1989 in Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen. Short lessons were given regularly on Wednesdays or Fridays in both papers. Pravda Buriatii gave lessons on the Buryat language in Cyrillic and Buriaad Unen in the vertical Mongolian script. The lessons were very short and while some offered useful vocabulary lists, others taught readers the Party rhetoric of the time in Buryat. For example, in a lesson from Wednesday, January 31, 1990, Pravda Buriatii sought to teach its readers in Buryat the sentence: “We should help the work of perestroika which is being carried out in the interest of the working people.”57 Letters to the editor from Buryats and Russians alike responded positively to the lessons, although some concerns were raised as to the usefulness of the project.58 The republic’s youth newspaper, Molodezh Buriatii, also began to pay more attention to issues surrounding the Buryat language. Authorities expressed concern that its Buryat language version, Buriaadai zaluushuul, was not offering enough original work in Buryat and that most of the paper was simply a translation. Suggestions were made for improvement, including publishing more samples of Buryat literature.59 54

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10479, l. 13. Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev, Sagaalgan (Ulan-Ude, 1991), 3. Sagaalgan was celebrated officially for the first time with a day off from work in January 1991. See also Sanzhiev (ed.), Respublika moia Buriatiia, 217. 56 See, for example, the article in the series by the philology scholar, Tsyrendasha Budaev, in Buriaad Unen, Tuesday, January 30, p. 3. 57 These observations are based on a survey of issues of Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen for the months of January, February, May, and June 1990. The quote is taken from a lesson in Pravda Buriatii, Wednesday, January 31, p. 3. 58 Humphrey, “Buryatiya and the Buryats,” 120. 59 NARB, P-1, op. 1, d. 10479, ll. 13–5. 55

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In 1990, broadcast media also began to provide a wider arrangement of new programming and topics. In the spirit of perestroika and glasnost’, various local radio and television programs interviewed protestors in the movement to oust Beliakov, including members of the Buryat national movement. The Buryat scholar and movement participant, Vladimir A. Khamutaev, argues that these interviews were especially helpful in spreading the movement’s ideas.60 In addition, programming was dedicated to new topics such as the 1930s purges in Buryatia, the religious revival in the republic, and the environmental damage done to Lake Baikal.61 For example, on December 19, 1990 the host of the radio program, They Defended our Motherland, profiled a World War II veteran with a more complicated life story than had normally been presented on such shows. The veteran had been arrested in 1938 during Stalin’s terror and was sent into exile in Kazakhstan. He was then drafted into the army during the war where he served in a tank division. Despite his heroic war record however, he was not allowed to return to Buryatia from Kazakhstan until 1966.62 In another example from the May 16, 1990 program of Radio Library, the host presented Buryat poetry with Buddhist themes. One poem spoke positively about Sagaalgan, claiming that the holiday connected Buryats to all “Asian peoples” because of their shared use of a lunar calendar.63 For most of the Soviet period newspapers and broadcast media had served to promote socialist progress. For example, authorities generally did not allow sensational stories about sex and crime and they limited stories on current events because these did not necessarily serve the project to promote the Soviet system and build modern institutions.64 Instead, the media had produced information about internationalism, successes in industry, model heroes of work and war, and moral youth. The above 1990 survey of broadcast 60

Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 84–5. For a survey of shows in 1990, see NARB, f. R-1051. 62 Oni zashchishchali nashu rodinu in Russian. The transcript for this show can be found in NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 2822, ll. 25–31. 63 Radiobiblioteka in Russian. The transcript for this show can be found in NARB, f. R-1051, op. 1, d. 2850, ll. 19–39. 64 Turpin, Reinventing the Soviet Self, 6. 61

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media and the press, shows how media topics began to change in Buryatia under Potapov just before the fall of the Soviet Union. The various articles and programming were more critical, interesting, entertaining, and often gave new interpretations of history, local institutions, or Buryat identity. Buryat mass media, like its counterparts throughout much of the country, too began to offer more exciting information and less ideological rhetoric. In addition, the new freedom in mass media was also highly significant for the Buryat national movement, which sought to use it—especially newspapers—to spread its message. The government’s willingness to more actively support Buryat culture, traditions, and religions, evident in local media in 1990, was also true in its backing of new cultural and educational institutions. Throughout Soviet history, cultural and educational institutions, along with forms of media, were used as a way for the government to disseminate information, facilitate social mobility, and encourage participation in higher forms of culture. In line with these continued goals, in 1990 Potapov’s administration and members of the Buryat national movement agreed to create a new institution to coordinate Buryat cultural development. The government issued a decree on October 15, 1990 that allowed for the creation of the Center of Buryat National Culture in Ulan-Ude. The center’s mission was to promote and conduct further research on Buryat traditions, language, culture, and history. The decree explained that because the Buryats are “a geographically divided people and the formation of one nation and one uniting language has been hindered” there is a need for such an organization. The center was to be chaired by Dashinima Dugarov, a professor of ethnography and folklore, and members included other scholars such as Chimitdorzhiev, government officials, and journalists.65 The goal of the center included coordinating cooperation among Buryats of different regions, facilitating activities between Buryats in Russia, Mongolia, and China, providing help to religious organizations, and “educating Buryats on Buryat culture and national self-consciousness.” The center’s organizers made plans that included holding congresses 65

The decree can be found in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10743. The quotes come from pages 68–9.

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twice every five years, organizing regular seminars and conferences, and publishing books, brochures, a Buryat-language newspaper, and a journal to be called Kul’tura Buriatii. They also sought to promote Buryat holidays, festivals, the epic Geser, Buryat crafts, art, and traditional works.66 Some of these kinds of activities were in opposition to certain original goals of Soviet cultural and educational institutions such as replacing religious and traditional holidays with Soviet ones. However, the fact that in 1990 the government continued to create institutions to coordinate cultural activities is illustrative of their enduring importance and reach in society even if some of the cultural events had changed. Government involvement also assured that some of its usual goals such as the promotion of Soviet patriotism and internationalism would be included in the mission of the Center of Buryat National Culture. Perhaps to ensure that this would indeed happen, officials assigned a “consultant” from the ideological department of the Party to work with the center’s members.67 The creation and plans for the new Center of Buryat National Culture, the changes in the local media, and the support for celebrating the anniversary of Buryat Buddhism and Geser, demonstrate that by the fall of 1990, the Buryat government had come to back three of the five goals of the Buryat national movement mentioned at the beginning of this chapter: increasing the use of the Buryat language, creating ties between Buryats of different regions in the USSR, Mongolia, and China, and promoting a resurgence of Buryat traditions and religions. These kinds of ideas and activities were popular among many Buryats during the perestroika era. They were also acceptable to most of the republic’s Russian population, much of which was participating in its own cultural and religious revivals. What were missing from both the government and the Center of Buryat National Culture were support for, let alone a plan of action, for reuniting the Buryats within the pre-1937 borders and changing the republic’s name back to Buryat-Mongolia. Territorial and name changes were still quite controversial at the time given Moscow’s unwillingness to recognize declarations of sovereignty, 66 67

Ibid., 11–6, 63–7. Ibid., 63, 68–9.

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territorial claims, and calls for independence from around the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, despite the lack of government support, many Buryat intellectuals continued to address the 1937 border and 1958 name issues. In particular, a letter was printed on August 24, 1990 in Pravda Buriatii that was a copy of a letter signed by 58 supporters and sent to both the Buryat government and officials in Moscow. The letter complained that the 1937 break-up was illegal, went against the republic’s constitution, and that when it had taken place “no one had asked” the Buryat government. Instead “the regime had gone behind the peoples’ back” to break up the republic. In addition, the letter argued that, “The division into three territories has had difficult economic, social, demographic, and ecological consequences. It interrupted the process of consolidating the Buryat people into one Soviet, socialist nation under one culture, set of traditions, and language.” The letter concluded, “We ask the Supreme Soviet to reconsider the split of the BMASSR and to reunite the Buryats again under one roof.”68 The central government in Moscow and the local one in Ulan-Ude did not act upon this request. A division between the government and the Buryat national movement was now clear. Both supported renewing Buryat culture, but only the movement demanded reunification and the name change. This demarcation likely helped the members of the Group of Buryat Intellectuals, Geser, and others to form a political party in November 1990 with a platform that called for adopting the demands that had been ignored by the Buryat government.69 Although an earlier attempt to create such an organization had failed, this time it was successful. Organizers named the party the Buryat-Mongolian People’s Party (BMNP) and chose Mikhail N. Ochirov, a professor and scholar, as the party’s leader. In addition to the issues of the 1937 border and 1958 name changes, the BMNP also suggested other reforms. One was a call for a return to 68

The letter is reprinted in Chimitdorzhiev, Kak ischezla edinaia BuriatMongoliia, 6–11. 69 Vladimir. A. Khamutaev, the author of Natsional’noe dvizhenie cited here, was a leading member.

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the pre-1939 Selenge Buryat dialect (closer to Khalkha spoken in Mongolia as opposed to the post-1939 Khori dialect) as the standard literary Buryat and abandoning Cyrillic in favor of the vertical Mongolian script—a script very few Buryats knew then (or know today). Another was a call for the demilitarization of Buryatia.70 Since Buryatia borders Mongolia and hosts part of the Trans-Siberian Railway, it was considered a strategic point for the Soviet Union. For that reason there were thousands of troops stationed in the republic. A call for demilitarization was therefore quite provocative and was a challenge to a pillar of Soviet authority in the region. However, for BMNP, demilitarization would bring greater autonomy to Buryatia by lessoning the presence of central authorities and allowing for the creation of freer connections between the peoples of Inner Asia. By the end of 1990, Buryatia had a new government, as well as a new political party focused on Buryat national interests. Both were now more seriously responding to the goals of the Gorbachev-era reforms of perestroika and glasnost’ and the growing trend of democratization across the country. This was evident in local mass media and by the creation of new institutions such as the Center of Buryat National Culture. In particular, Potapov was more responsive to the Buryat national movement than his predecessor, Beliakov, had been. He was also willing to challenge authorities in Moscow by declaring sovereignty for the Buryat republic. At the same time however, members of the Buryat national movement became increasingly frustrated with the government’s lack of support for the republican territorial and name changes, as well as other possible reforms. They therefore organized a political party, the BMNP, in 1990 and made more daring and controversial demands. A competition over the direction of reform in Buryatia was clearly underway.

70

Elaev, Buriatskii narod, 271; Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 120–1; Natalya L. Zhukovskaya, “Religion and Ethnicity in Eastern Russia, Republic of Buryatia: A Panorama of the 1990s,” Central Asian Survey 14, no. 1 (1995), 31– 2.

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The Buryats and the End of the USSR: 1991 While members of the Buryat national movement had founded their own political party at the end of 1990, many of its participants also continued to work with government officials on a variety of projects rather than simply challenge its authority. Significantly, BMNP members, as well as others involved in the Buryat national movement, collaborated with the government to found the first All-Buryat Congress for the Spiritual Rebirth and Consolidation of the Nation. This Congress was held in Ulan-Ude between February 22 and 24, 1991. Before the Congress, elections for delegates were conducted in the republic and in the two Buryat autonomous regions. Although the Buryat scholar, Aleksandr A. Elaev, has noted that these elections were not exactly democratic because they involved the Party bureaucracy at all levels, the Congress was an enormous and important affair that brought many Buryats together to discuss the future of their nation.71 It involved 592 delegates (51 non-Buryat ones) from all over the Soviet Union as well as from Mongolia and China.72 However, working with the government was frustrating for some intellectuals because it officially supported only three of the cultural demands of the Buryat national movement. The pamphlet published in advance for Congress delegates titled, “The Main Directions for the Revival and Development of Buryat Culture,” did not mention the 1937 breakup or the 1958 name change. Instead it outlined the demands that both the government and the Buryat national movement could agree on. It called for strengthening the Buryat language through education and media, and for promoting and studying Buryat history, traditional medicine, and culture (mentioning specifically art, clothing, folklore, architecture, literature, music, and theater). It also declared the need for supporting the rebirth of Buddhism and shamanism. However, there was no mention of the territorial or name changes, demilitarization, script and dialectic reforms, or other such BMNP goals.73 The government also had a very active presence at the Congress. First Secretary Potapov and Party leaders from the Irkutsk and 71

Elaev, Buriatskii narod, 275. Ibid., 274. 73 A copy of the pamphlet can be found in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10743, ll. 46–58. 72

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Chita oblasts made the Congress’s opening remarks. Both government officials and intellectuals gave talks throughout the three-day Congress that addressed issues surrounding the history, culture, and present condition of the Buryat people. Many of these speakers concluded that contemporary Buryat culture was in a crisis and declared that measures needed to be taken for its rebirth.74 Participants in the Congress also founded several organizations such as a Buddhist Union of the Laity, which sought to publish works on Buddhism.75 Another was the All-Buryat Association for the Development of Culture.76 This replaced the Center of Buryat National Culture that had been founded back in October 1990 with Dugarov continuing on as its leader. Like its predecessor, the All-Buryat Association was intended to coordinate Buryat cultural activities among all Buryats of the USSR.77 Much attention was also given at the Congress to activities that promoted the Buryat language such as seminars for Buryat language translators, roundtable discussions to organize the intensive study of Buryat, meetings to facilitate the participation in creating language laws, Buryat language courses, publishing in Buryat, and meetings of Buryat writers.78 Although many in the government had been ignoring the question of the 1937 break-up and the pre-conference materials did not acknowledge it, several members of the Congress did raise the issue for discussion.79 Most of the support for this came from various Buryat intellectuals and BMNP members, but some government officials backed it as well. For example, Vladimir Saganov, the chair of the republic’s Council of Ministers since Beliakov’s ouster, supported attaining an official republican declaration to state that the 1937 act was illegal.80 However, the backing for this move came largely from residents of the Buryat ASSR and not from the 74

Elaev, Buriatskii narod, 274–5. Roberte N. Hamayon, “Shamanism, Buddhism, and Epic Hero-ism: Which Supports the Identity of the Post-Soviet Buryats?” Central Asian Survey 17, no. 1 (1998), 58. 76 Vseburiatskaia assotsiatsiia razvitiia kul’tury in Russian. 77 Stroganova, Buriatskoe natsional’no-kul’turnoe vozrozhdenie, 65–6. 78 NARB, f. 1, op. P-1, d. 10743, ll. 1–10. 79 Ibid., 78. 80 Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 130. 75

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two Buryat autonomous okrugs. Criticism of territorial changes from these regions had become clear even before the Congress took place when an article had appeared in Pravda Buriatii that described a negative reaction among okrug residents to the August 24, 1990 letter from 58 intellectuals printed in Pravda Buriatii that had called for the reunification of the pre-1937 borders. The article explained that many of them felt a merger with the Buryat republic was problematic.81 At the Congress, one of the representatives from the Ust’-Ordynskii Buryat Autonomous Okrug, L. A. Khutanov, explained that there were strong economic ties between the okrug and the Irkutsk oblast’ and that a merger with the Buryat ASSR would put that in jeopardy. He also argued that the merger did not have wide support among his constituents in Ust’-Ordynsk.82 In addition to economic concerns, there were also cultural ones about a possible merger. At a western Buryat conference in Irkutsk held the previous year, participants expressed fear that unification might bring about the process of a general Buryat assimilation and thus the loss of western Buryat identity. Some of the delegates from the Aginskii Buryat Autonomous Okrug also expressed similar views.83 Thus, while many of the delegates at the Congress agreed that the Buryat republican government needed to seriously consider reunification, it was, nevertheless, a complicated and contentious issue. After the February Congress, the matters of the 1937 territorial break-up and the 1958 name change continued to be raised in local republican media throughout 1991. Both Pravda Buriatii and Buriaad Unen increasingly covered these and other issues related to Buryat national interests. By the end of 1991, Pravda Buriatii had published 78 and Buriaad Unen had published 159 articles on such themes.84 Pravda Buriatii also organized a series of articles on the topic of reunification and many scholar-activists such as Chimitdorzhiev continued to contribute.85 In particular, in Pravda Buriatii 81

The article is reprinted in Chimitdorzhiev, Kak ischezla edinaia Buriatmongoliia, 23–6. 82 Tarmakhanov et al., Istoriia Ust’-Ordynskogo, 169. 83 Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 124–9. 84 Ibid., 66. 85 Dagbaev, Pressa, 101–2; Chimitdorzhiev, Kak ischezla edinaia Buriatmongolia, 26–9.

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on April 1, 1991, Chimitdorzhiev reprinted a copy of the 1937 central order from Moscow to divide up the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR. Along with the reprint, Chimitdorzhiev added his criticism of the territorial changes, as well as of the 1937 purges. He also called for the current Buryat government to form a commission to study these problems.86 Despite these efforts however, throughout 1991 the Buryat government generally continued to dismiss the 1937 and 1958 issues. Instead, it generally worked with supporters of the Buryat national movement through a policy of providing aid for Buryat cultural demands rather than the territorial ones. In 1991—before the August coup in Moscow—the Buryat republican government did this by supporting several high profile cultural events that were widely publicized in the press. The government sent a Buryat delegation to Inner Mongolia in May to form connections with Buryats living there.87 It helped fundraisers for the Buddhist Church in June.88 It facilitated a visit from the 14th Dalai Lama in July. And, it organized and promoted activities to kick off the Geser anniversary celebrations.89 Promoting Buryat culture, religion, and travels to make connections with other Buryats were acceptable activities for most officials in the republican government in 1991. Making name and territorial changes continued to be controversial. Authorities were wary of any territorial changes, including the break-up of the Soviet Union. Local Party officials worked hard to promote a pro-union vote when a Moscow-led referendum on preserving the Soviet Union was held in March 1991. They carefully planned articles to be published in Pravda Buriatii, Buriaad Unen, and other republican papers in addition to using other forms of propaganda to encourage a vote for the union. Party documents show how officials explained to producers of local media and propaganda that republican residents needed to be told that, “there will be negative effects with a break-up of the USSR,” that, “a union provides a 86

A copy of the article can be found in Chimitdorzhiev, Kak ischezla edinaia Buriat-Mongoliia, 16–9. 87 Elaev, Buriatskii narod, 278–9. 88 NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10743, ll. 85. 89 Hamayon, “Shamanism, Buddhism, and Epic Heroism,” 58–60; Zhukovskaya, “Buddhism and Problems,” 32–6.

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stable economy,” and that the union “improves the social level of life.” In addition, the Party argued for promoting the idea that the union was still viable because there was now a “new democracy” in the Soviet Union.90 This example shows how the local Party still influenced the content of media even in the last months of the Soviet Union. In addition to using mass media, local government officials also held a conference at this time titled, “Russia Consolidates the Strength of the USSR,” where participants stressed that “Buryatia’s future” lies in such a union.91 The arguments made by authorities in the media and at the conference were in line with those that had been made regularly throughout the entire Soviet period. They emphasized that Buryatia is an intrinsic part of Russia and the Soviet Union and that its position in these state entities have brought many benefits to the Buryat people. When the results of the March referendum were tallied, around 85 percent—almost ten percentage points higher than the USSR average—of the residents of Buryatia voted to preserve the union.92 Although there is no data on the ethnic composition of these voters and we cannot know exactly why people voted the way they did, it is nevertheless clear that many Buryats did support the preservation of the union in the spring of 1991. It is likely that many of them believed that even if problems existed in the Soviet Union, the social and economic advantages that the country provided were beneficial and thus a prounion vote outweighed other options. Obviously, the success of the referendum in Buryatia did not prevent the break-up of the Soviet Union. The August 1991 coup ultimately led to the country’s demise five months later. During the early post-Soviet years many of the goals of the participants of the Buryat national movement remained the same. In particular, they continued to call for a reconsideration of the matters of 1937 and 1958, now, of 90

NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10741, ll. 2–5. NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10742, l. 29. 92 Results from the referendum in Buryatia can be found in NARB, f. P-1, op. 1, d. 10742, l. 28. In the March 17 referendum, only nine Soviet republics participated (Armenia, Georgia, Moldavia, and the Baltics abstained). From the nine participating republics, 76.4% voted “yes.” See Ronald Grigor Suny, The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 479. 91

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course, within the framework of the new Russian Federation. In 1993 they were able to get the Buryat government to officially declare the 1937 act unlawful. However, the government never took steps to change the situation, nor did it rename the republic BuryatMongolia.93 In addition to lacking government action on these issues, the Buryat national movement was also never able to gain mass support for either the reunification of the 1937 borders or for the 1958 name change. This was particularly evident in post-Soviet elections where the movement’s party, the BMNP, did not receive enough support from voters to influence policy. Instead, Leonid Potapov was elected three times to be president of the new Republic of Buryatia.94 Vladimir Saganov, ushered into government along with Potapov during Beliakov’s ouster in 1990, passed away in 1999. Local scholars who have written on this topic in Buryatia have argued that the BMNP failed because voters found its platform impractical and lacking of serious plans for action. They argue that voters were more interested in political and economic stability than ideas of cultural revival and territorial reunification.95 This is not hard to understand given that Buryatia’s economy was so poor in the mid-1990s that the central government in Moscow provided it with special financial assistance.96 In addition, the intellectuals who made up the bulk of the Buryat national movement were small in number. In the late Soviet period, they had difficulty organizing and publicizing effectively. They were unable to hold large demonstrations and they lacked independent outlets for expression. BMNP members had to rely on the government’s support for many of their 93

Stroganova, Buriatskoe natsional’no-kul’turnoe vozrozhdenie, 63. Leonid Potapov was elected in 1994, 1998, and 2002. In 2004, Vladimir Putin abolished the right of Russia’s regions to elect their own leaders. Therefore, when Potapov finished his last term, Putin appointed his successor, an outsider named Vyacheslav Nagovitsyn, in 2007. See, Elizabeth L. Sweet and Melissa Chakars, “Identity, Culture, Land, and Language: Insurgent Planning in the Republic of Buryatia, Russia,” Journal of Planning, Education, and Research, 30, no. 2 (2010), 202–6. 95 Elaev, Buriatskii narod, 271; Stroganova, Buriatskoe natsional’no-kul’turnoe vozrozhdenie, 64–5; Dagbaev, Pressa, 102; Khamutaev, Natsional’noe dvizhenie, 122, 135. 96 Graeme J. Gill (ed.), Politics in the Russian Regions (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007); Humphrey, “Buryatiya and the Buryats,” 123. 94

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projects and on the government-controlled media for publicity resources. Leaders in this government, such as Potapov, also increasingly co-opted their cultural platform, participated in and helped facilitate many of their activities, and in the end, gained more support from republican voters than they did. Conclusion The experience of the Buryats during the Gorbachev era and beyond illustrates a pattern of engagement with central authorities, as well as an absence of separatism. The Buryats have generally acted as a minority of Russia rather than a colony seeking independence. At the same time, the Buryats shared in the experience of nationalism that spread across the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. Buryats created a national movement and this, along with the development of glasnost’ and perestroika, facilitated a revival in Buryat culture, traditions, language, and religions. However, the political and territorial demands made by the more radical members of the Buryat national movement, publicized largely in the press, received less support. These ideas were also complicated as many Buryats from the two autonomous okrugs denounced the concept of territorial reunification. Buryat participation in Soviet modernization allowed many to become leaders in government, as well as in cultural, educational, and media institutions. This meant that they were able to contribute to certain decisions made about the direction of Buryat society within the Soviet Union. Many Buryats felt they were a part of Soviet government and society rather than divorced from it. Therefore, when reviving Buryat culture became widely accepted in the late 1980s, Buryat government officials and members of the Buryat national movement turned to standard methods for its promotion. They used typical tools of propaganda such as newspapers, lectures, congresses, and cultural and educational institutions rather than attempting to create unofficial alternatives such as mass demonstrations, building popular fronts, or unofficial and independent publications as was done elsewhere in the Soviet Union. While the Buryat national movement’s lack of a separate outlet independent of the government—media, large demonstrations,

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etc.—to express its views may have weakened its ability to gain support for some of its more controversial goals that were not approved by Potapov’s government, it was still able to use the statecontrolled press to air, examine, and publicize grievances, as well as bring attention to the negative parts of the Soviet past. As much of this had been forgotten, covered up by officials, or ignored for many years, the movement’s efforts to publish articles, appear on broadcast media, and hold conferences, was instrumental in spreading ideas about a revival in Buryat culture. The Buryat national movement helped to faciliate the rapid changes that took place in society in the Gorbachev era through consistently pushing its demands and helping to develop new organizations, cultural and educational institutions, and political parties.

Conclusion

While conducting research in Buryatia, I spent many days in the Dissertation Room at Buryat State University when the National Archives of the Republic of Buryatia, the National Library, and the library at the Buryat Scientific Center were closed. My time in the Dissertation Room (where a poster on the wall menacingly asked “Are YOU writing your dissertation?”) revealed much about scholarship in the post-Soviet period that sought to understand both the contemporary and historical identity of the Buryat people. The research projects housed there showed how local graduate students at Buryat State University and other regional institutions were conducting studies that examined this question in a variety of ways. The collection illustrated the emerging trajectory of research on Buryatia. Some dissertations carried out elaborate surveys that sought to gauge the actual usage of the Buryat language or to uncover Buryat attitudes toward citizenship in the Russian Federation.1 Others had undertaken projects to evaluate and analyze demographic statistics, as well as examine such topics as the history of rural education in Soviet Buryatia.2 Many of these studies were begging the question in different ways, who are the Buryat people? The Buryats have certainly not been the only ones to ask questions about identity nor did this kind of questioning occur only in 1

See, for example, Tsydypzhapovna, “Izmeneniia traditsionnykh”; R. V. Bukhaeva, “Etnokul’turnaia marginal’nost’ v usloviiakh modernizatsii” (PhD diss., Irkutskskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2003). 2 See, for example, Afans’eva, “Osobennosti sotioal’no-demograficheskikh”; Bocheev, “Osobennosti protsessa.”

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the post-Soviet period. Soviet modernization produced identity confusion and transformation for people across the Soviet Union throughout its history. However, this process was particularly acute among the indigenous Siberians whose small numbers have meant greater threats to their cultural preservation. In addition, Soviet authorities viewed Siberians as especially backward and primitive and therefore took great lengths at attempting to alter their societies and discredit their pasts. Officials believed that Siberians needed to rapidly modernize, a process that they argued would bring people like the Buryats, out of their “dark and smoky yurts” to catch up with and integrate into a rapidly industrializing, modern Soviet world.3 Soviet scholars, as the politics of the time demarked, presented this leap to modernity among indigenous Siberians as a great evolutionary process from a negative past to a positive present and future. While their conclusions may have been tainted by ideology, they were not incorrect in their observations that society was quickly changing. The Soviet scholar, Vladimir I. Zateev, whose research examines urbanization, industrialization, and social mobility among the Buryats, argued that the Buryats had become a developed socialist nation by the 1970s because Soviet policies and institutions had “intensely internationalized” (i.e., made more panSoviet and thus more modern) their everyday lives.4 His conclusions were not off base. At the same time, however, Soviet researchers and officials were restricted in how they analyzed modernization, as well as deciphered unofficial behavior. For example, scholars and officials alike were encouraged to interpret religious practices, which were conducted by some in Buryatia throughout the entire Soviet period, as unfitting of a modern, socialist state. Western and/or post-Soviet scholars, exempt from Soviet ideological constraints, have made their own attempts to analyze the existence of both Soviet and non-Soviet influences in society. After conducting fieldwork on Buryat collective farms in the 1960s and 1970s, Caroline Humphrey concluded that Soviet ideology had not 3

See, for example, Grant, In the Soviet House of Culture and Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors. The quote comes from Zateev, Natsional’nye otnosheniia, 98. 4 Zateev, Dialektika natsional’nykh, 152.

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simply replaced Buddhist and shamanist beliefs or general folk customs. Instead, she argued that there existed in society a “complex cross-cutting of ideas” that allowed people to merge different belief sets.5 She also explained that while the collective farm worked as a tool of integration into Soviet society, older traditions continued to exist and a clear Buryatness remained. Other scholars have also noted complex identities among indigenous Siberians in the Soviet Union. David and Alice Bartels claimed that economic and social development created a process that combined sovietization and ethnic and national consolidation among northern Siberians.6 Bruce M. Grant, who examined the Nivkhi through the course of the collapse of the USSR, contended that various Soviet policies were essentially state campaigns to invent and erase certain aspects of Nivkhi culture and that this produced hybrid identities that were both Soviet and Nivkhi.7 In Buryatia, it has, of course, not just been the dissertations housed at Buryat State University that reflect research on Buryat identity and ethnic distinctiveness since the break-up of the Soviet Union. Much research by graduate students and more seasoned scholars alike has focused on once taboo questions about the Buryats’ pre-revolutionary past, the significance of the Buryats as Mongolian peoples, the assimilating forces of modernization, and the challenges that face minorities.8 Their research, as well as that conducted by Western scholars, including what is presented here, does not produce a strict definition of who the Buryat people are. Instead, these many different studies reveal that Buryat identity is multi-faceted, complex, and continually changing. Because of this, 5

Humphrey, Marx Went Away, 431–5. David A. Bartels and Alice L. Bartels, When the North Was Red: Aboriginal Education in Soviet Siberia (Montreal: McGill Queen’s University Press, 1995). 7 Grant, In the Soviet House of Culture, xii–xiii, 14. 8 See especially, Chimitdorzhiev, Buriat-Mongoly; Elaev, Buriatskii narod; V. A. Khamutaev, Prisoedinenie Buriatii k Rossii: Istoriia i sovremennaia politika (Ulan-Ude: Kongress Buriatskogo naroda, 2012); T. D. Skrynnikova, S. D. Batomynkyev, and P. K. Varnavskii, Buriatskaia etnichnost’ v kontekste sotsiokul’turnoi modernizatsii (sovetskii period) (Ulan-Ude: Buriatskii nauchnyi tsentr SO RAN, 2004); E. A. Stroganova, Buriatskoe natsional’no-kul’turnoe vozrozhdenie (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Natalis,” 2001). 6

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the history of the Buryat people does not offer a simple story of resistence versus control or nationalism versus socialism. The Buryat engagement with the Soviet modernization project illustrates this well. A particularly revealing example of the Buryats’ complicated history is the story of the Buryat language analyzed in the chapters of this book. This history reveals how the meaning and importance of language for Buryat identity has shifted over the decades and has involved both local Buryat input, as well as central direction. In the 1920s and 1930s, both central and regional officials and scholars considered language as a crucial ingredient of nationhood. This was evident in the attention given to language policy during that period that brought about alphabet and dialectic shifts before settling on a standard literary Buryat on the eve of World War II. Authorities then introduced the new standardized language and it was taught widely in Buryat national schools in the early postwar decades. This occurred because officials at the time believed that learning a standardized Buryat language was necessary for the creation and consolidation of a Soviet Buryat nation that they saw in construction. However, beginning in the late 1960s, Buryat parents, educators, and officials began to question the value of this standard literary Buryat for a society that was rapidly urbanizing and becoming more professional. Many argued that Russian should be prioritized instead because it was needed for social advancement in a now more developed, modern society. Their concerns led to the cancellation of the teaching of Buryat in schools in the 1970s, which contributed to a sharp decline in the usage of the Buryat language. This shift in language policy meant that the value of the Buryat language became increasingly more symbolic than as an actual means of everday communication. Beginning in the early 1980s however, many Buryats started to call for a revival of the Buryat langauge. The alarm over language loss became an important component of the Buryat national movement that developed in the last few years of the Soviet Union. For some, language loss also represented what was wrong with Soviet policies. Concern over the Buryat language continued into the postSoviet period, however, restoring its widespread use in society has been challenging. Many schools teach little Buryat and its use in the

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media has precipitously dropped. Research in the Dissertation Room conducted by graduate students in the early 2000s reveals that Buryat is not widely spoken among young people, the highly educated, government employees, and urban residents.9 One dissertation from 2004 showed that fewer than 3 percent of Buryats surveyed regularly consume any media (literature, newspapers, radio, or television) in Buryat.10 This situation led the Buryat scholars Erjen Khilkhanova and Dorjo Khilkhanov in 2003 to conclude that Buryat language fluency is being abandoned as a marker of Buryat ethnic identity. Yet, they also argue that this factor does not mean that the Buryats are not an individual ethnic group. Instead, they question the need for language to be a component of ethnic identity.11 While Soviet modernization changed some of the specific markers of Buryat identity over the years such as language use, it did not represent total assimilation. In addition, although language loss accompanied Soviet modernization, many Buryats also came to celebrate the results of their dramatic upward social mobility that was brought about with the help of Russian language acquisition. By the late Soviet period, high educational and professional levels came to characterize the lives of many Buryats. In addition, Soviet media, cultural, and educational institutions that brought modernization also created many new indicators of Buryat identity such as novels, radio shows, and museums to present Buryat history and culture. These institutions, staffed and run by large numbers of Buryats, provided literacy, education, and cultural knowledge— 9

Bukhaeva, “Etnokul’turnaia marginal’nost’”; I. Ts. Dorzhieva, “Izmeneniia traditsionnykh sotsiokul’turnykh tsenostei Buriat v usloviiakh urbanizatsii rossiskogo obshchestva na materialakh Respubliki Buriatiia” (PhD diss., Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 2004); Khubrikov, “Sotsial’nye aspekty institutsionalizatsii”; B. Ts. Zham’ianova, “Osobennosti iazykovoi situatsii natsional’nogo regiona Rossiskoi Federatsii (na primere Respubliki Buriatiia)” (PhD diss., VostochnoSibirskaia gosudarstvennaia akademiia kul’tury i isskusstv, 2003). 10 Dorzhieva, “Izmeneniia traditsionnykh sotsiokul’turnykh tsenostei.” 11 Erjen Khilkhanova and Dorji Khilkhanov, “The Changing Dynamics of Language and Ethnic Identity Link by Russian Minorities: The Buryat Case Study,” Journal of Eurasian Research 1 (2003), 29. Also, see Graber, “Knowledge and Authority in Shift,” who discusses the symbolic importance of the Buryat language in the post-Soviet period, especially in regards to Buryat-language media such as newspapers.

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increasingly in Russian only—that changed Buryat society and allowed the Buryats to advance in the Soviet Union. However, even though these institutions created greater homogeneity and panSoviet identification among the Buryats, they did allow a space for Buryat distinctiveness at the same time. Also complicating any process of assimilation and integration in Buryatia have been the more rarely discussed issues of race and ethnic tension. Rhetoric about internationalism and the friendship of peoples during the Soviet period consistently avoided public consideration of these topics. In the years after the break-up of the Soviet Union, the focus of many Buryats on economic and political stability has helped to deter ethnic conflict. However, it is impossible to ignore that the Buryats are an Asian people and a minority in Russia who witnessed massive ethnic Russian migration to their region during the late tsarist and Soviet periods. While ethnic tension has seldom been documented and therefore difficult for the historian to decipher, there are examples from this book that do reveal that relations between Buryats and Russians were not as perfect as Soviet propaganda claimed. For example, the controversy over the Buryat epic, Geser, discussed in Chapter 5, indicates this. In 1948, the first secretary of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR, the ethnic Russian and outsider Aleksandr Vasil’evich Kudriavtsev, led a campaign to condemn and denounce the poem. This especially frustrated Buryat scholars who had been studying Geser for many years and considered it an important artefact of Buryat culture. Then, Geser’s rehabilitation in 1951 coincided with Kudriavtsev’s removal and replacement with the ethnic Buryat, Aleksandr Uladaevich Khakhalov, thus signifying a likely ethnic component to the sudden change in the poem’s status. Similarly, one of the first expressions of the Buryat national movement of the 1980s, as examined in Chapter 7, was over the issue of indigenous political control. An organization of Buryat intellectuals calling itself Geser sent a letter in 1986 to Kazakhstan in support of protests over the replacing of a Kazakh leader with an ethnic Russian. A more explicit example indicating ethnic tension during the Soviet period comes from another work that I read while spending time in the Dissertation Room. Written by Andrei Z. Badmaev, this dissertation explains that Russian immigration, as well as urbaniza-

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tion and increases in education levels among the Buryats led to the creation of ethnic based student youth gangs in Ulan-Ude in the 1960s that lasted into the 1980s.12 While some of these gangs were involved in organized criminal activity, most of them were more fraternal groups that regularly fought one another. These student gangs were organized around territorial spaces in Ulan-Ude and were often divided by ethnicity—Buryat and Russian. In differentiating themselves, Buryat gangs adopted meaningful names such as “Barguts,” a Mongol tribe that provided military service to Chinggis Khan (Genghis Khan), or “Asians.” Such names emphasized that the Buryats’ had a distinct history, culture, and racial and ethnic identity that differed from the Russians and the standard pan-Soviet ideal.13 The existence of these student gangs, frustration over the interpretation of national epics, and the desire for titular control, shows that Soviet modernization in Buryatia could create tension over race, ethnicity, and identity. While Buryatia has generally been a peaceful region—in both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods— Buryats and Russians did not always get along despite the continual rhetoric that presented otherwise. These examples also show that race and ethnic identity mattered in Soviet Buryatia and acculturation is not a simple process. While Buryats may have adopted panSoviet attributes, like Ernest Gellner’s theoretical blue people who cannot easily assimilate, they could not become Russian.14 At the same time urban gangs, discussions over the importance of national epics, and complaints about non-Russian leaders were never mass movements. In regards to the gangs, few student members continued to participate in them after graduation. It would therefore be a mistake to overestimate their indication of hostility between Buryats and Russians. While they demonstrate that ethnic tension ex12

Andrei Zakharovich Badmaev, “Molodezhnye organizatsii Respubliki Buriatii na sovremennom etape” (PhD diss., Buriatskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1997). 13 Barguty and Aziaty in Russian. Ibid., 97–101. 14 Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983). The Buryats feel this most acutely when they leave their republic. This has especially been the case since the collapse of the Soviet Union when violence against Asians in the Russian Federation increasingly occurred. Such violence in the 1990s, for example, prompted the US Department of State to issue a travel warning to Asian Americans vising the Russian Federation.

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isted, it was offset by Soviet modernization that created rapid social mobility, allowed for greater political control among ethnic Buryats, brought about general economic stability, and led to a strong sense of connection with the Soviet Union and Russia. Many Buryats were patriotic citizens and felt positively toward the benefits that Soviet modernization had brought. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, what was once the socialist way of life has become more varied. Buryatia now has a capitalist economy and numerous public and private cultural, educational, and media institutions, along with a striking growth of new religious organizations. There are indeed many alternatives to the official messages once pushed by the Soviet modernization project. Most impressive has been a great resurgence of Buddhism and shamanism. Buddhist temples and shrines dot the landscape, Buddhist and shamanist ceremonies are commonplace, and both lamas and shamans are readily available for consultation on just about anything. Scholars who have studied this phenomenon have argued that it represents a new, post-Soviet Buryat identity. In particular, Darima Amogolonova, Anya Berstein, and Natalia L. Zhukovskaia have argued that, thanks to the widespread growth of both old and new Buddhist institutions, Buryats have increasingly begun to equate Buryat identity with religion.15 They contend that despite various complications, Buddhism has become a new marker of the Buryat nation in the post-Soviet period. While shamanism too has been cited as being related to a sense of Buryatness, its attribution to Buryat identity has been more complicated due to its historical lack of institutions and its structuring around specific territories, spaces, and clans rather than a wider Buryat ethnicity (although this has been changing).16 15

Darima Amogolonova, “Religious Revival in Modern Buryatia,” Asiatische Studien Etudes Asiatiques 63, no. 2 (2009): 253–72; Bernstein, “Buddhist Revival in Buriatia,” 1–11; Zhukovskaya, “Buddhism and Problems,” 27–41. Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer draws a similar conclusion in her work on the Khanty. She argues that a religious revival among the Khanty in the early post-Soviet years has helped to create a new identity. Balzer, The Tenacity of Ethnicity. 16 Amogolonova, “Religious Revival”; Justine Buck Quijada, “What if We Don’t Know Our Clan? The City Tailgan as New Ritual Form in Buriatiia,” Sibirica 7, no. 1 (Spring 2008): 1–22; Tatyana Skrynnikova and Darima Amogolonova,

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While religion, especially Buddhism, helps to define the Buryats in the post-Soviet period, its importance does not represent the disappearance of attitudes and beliefs developed during the Soviet era or erase the effects of Soviet modernization on Buryat society. As Humphrey explained in the late socialist period that the Buryats did not simply trade Buddhist and shamanist ideas for Soviet ideology, the reverse did not happen in the post-Soviet period either. Justine Buck Quijada, for example, emphasizes in her research on Dashi-Dorzho Etigelov, the former Pandito Khambo Lama whose exumed body has miraculously shown little sign of decay and as such has become a sacred Buddhist object, that the Soviet value on science persists and is used to better help people interpret this unusual phenomenon.17 Like science, Buryats, especially women, have also continued to value education as they did in Soviet times. Education is still seen by many as a method for social mobility, professional advancement, and economic stability. Buryats have also persisted in pursuing higher educational degrees in uniquely large numbers in comparison to other nationalities in the Russian Federation.18 Another connection to the Soviet past since the break-up of the USSR has been the issue of the territiorial boundaries of the Buryat “Symbols and Stories of Post-Soviet Buryat National Revival,” in Michele Rivkin-Fish and Elena Trubina (eds.), Dilemmas of Diversity After the Cold War: Analyses of “Cultural Difference” by U.S. and Russia-Based Scholars (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2010), 80–112. Amogolonova and Quijada explain that in the post-Soviet period new shamanist organizations have formed, creating an institutionalized structure that did not previously exist. Quijada also argues that clan identity has become less important with new shamanist ceremonies being organized around cities and the occurance of many Buryats not knowing their clan history. In Skrynnikova and Amogolonova’s article, they explain that shamanism as a marker of ethnic identity among the Buryats has been contentious. 17 Justine Buck Quijada, “Soviet Science and Post-Soviet Faith: Etigelov’s Imperishable Body,” American Ethnologist 39, no. 1 (February 2012): 138–54. 18 A. D. Dashieva, Zhenshchiny Buriatii v usloviiakh sistemnogo krizisa 1990-kh gg. (Ulan-Ude: Izdatel’stvo buriatskogo gosuniversiteta, 2007) and Melissa Chakars and Elizabeth L. Sweet, “Professional Women and the Economic Practices of Success and Survival Before and After Regime Change: Diverse Economies and Restructuring in the Russian Republic of Buryatia,” Geojournal, 2014, DOI 10.1007/s1078-014-9522-5.

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lands as originally laid out by Soviet authorities in 1923 and then broken up in 1937. Border discussions became especially acute in the early 2000s when Vladimir Putin began a centralization campaign to merge the Russian Federation’s 89 federal units into larger territorial districts and plans were developed to dissolve the Ust’Ordynskii Buryat Autonomous Okrug and the Aginskii Buryat Autonomous Okrug. While some Buryats organized in protest against this move, others supported the change, revealing that Buryats had competing ideas about how to structure their lands and conduct relations with central authorities. In 2004, a group calling itself The Young Scholars began to protest the dissolution of the two Buryat okrugs. In 2005, they sent an open letter to Putin, signed by over 2,000 young Buryats, many of who were researchers, professors, teachers, and students. The letter argued against dissolving the okrugs and suggested reuniting them with the Republic of Buryatia instead, thus returning the republic to its pre-1937 borders. The letter also called for greater protection of the Buryat language and culture. In addition, the Young Scholars and other nationalist organizations arranged demonstrations and other activities in protest of Putin’s policies that they believed were working to diminish Buryat autonomy.19 Despite this political activism, however, authorities were able to push through their territorial plans. In 2008, the Ust’-Ordynskii Buryat Autonomous Okrug was dissolved and merged into the larger Irkutsk Oblast’ and the Aginskii Buryat Autonomous Okrug was eliminated and became a part of a larger Zabaikal’skii Krai. In many ways, this episode shows continuity with the Soviet past. Like Soviet authorities that sought to control nationalism through manipulating borders, Putin too has chosen to alter territorial boundaries in order to create further cohesion within the realm of the state. In addition, while the Young Scholars represent something new (and indeed the organization chose the name “Young” to emphasize that they are a younger post-Soviet genera19

Janis Cakars, “Putting Buryatia on the Map,” Transitions Online, September 7, 2005, accessed July 2013, http://www.tol.org/client/article/14433-puttingburyatia-on-the-map.html?print; Sweet and Chakars, “Identity, Culture, Land, and Language,” 198–209.

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tion who cares about Buryat national issues), they also made demands based on borders that were developed because of Soviet nationalities policies. Many of their concerns are also similar to those made by the Buryat national movement of the late 1980s. In addition, while some, such as the Young Scholars, protested the mergers, other Buryats supported it, citing the need to have good relations with central authorities, as well as arguing that the mergers would bring better opportunities and socioeconomic benefits (some of which were specifically promised by central officials).20 This emphasis on practicality and working within the system to receive the greatest possible advantages that it has to offer is similar to the way in which many Buryats engaged the Soviet modernization project. At the same time, this episode shows how Buryats have competing ideas about their path now as they did in the past. Before the October Revolution and into the 1920s, many Buryat intellectuals and leaders debated and worked toward differing visions for the future of the Buryat people. Buryat intellectuals, Atamon Grigorii Semenov, Burnatskom authorities, religious leaders, Buryat Bolsheviks, and others all offered various ideas for developing Buryatia. However, Stalin’s decision to implement crash industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture swept away many of these possibilities. Officials repressed various Buryat visionaries and intellectuals, settled the nomads, and forced the Buryats to at least officially, give up their religions. While these policies meant that the Buryats could not escape engagement with the Soviet forces of modernization, leaders, institutions, and average people in Buryatia participated in making choices about its implementation. Sometimes these were contentious as in the examples of Geser, the teaching of the Buryat language, or delineating the Buryat lands, which is an issue that has continued into the post-Soviet era. Nevertheless, most Buryats chose paths—even if there were different ideas about how to take them—that took advantage of the practical benefits that the government had to offer. Buryats lived their lives as others in the So20

Kathryn Graber and Joseph Long, “The Dissolution of the Buryat Autonomous Okrugs in Siberia: Notes from the Field,” Inner Asia 11, no. 1 (2009): 147–55.

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viet Union by making choices influenced by emotion, opportunity, and circumstance—all three of which could change over the course of a lifetime. These processes led to a great transformation over the course of the twentieth century of social, cultural, and economic life in Buryatia.

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Index

Certain place names have changed over time. I have listed them below in their most current name with previous names in parentheses. Some keywords have common abbreviations or there are other ways to state them—I have placed the abbreviations or alternative words in parentheses. I’m not sure how you normally present this in an index, but I’ve included this information here using parentheses.

Aginskii Buryat Autonomous Okrug (Aginskii Buryat-Mongolian National Okrug), 76n44, 77, 92, 93n13, 114, 114n62, 130, 139, 233, 234, 254, 258, 270 agriculture, 6–7, 8n18, 22, 27–28, 56, 61, 63, 65, 95, 100, 101, 108, 123, 162n10, 189, 196, 198, 213, 221, 236, 271 Aiushiev, D., 168 Alaska, 36 Alexander I, Tsar, 34 Alexandrov, G. F., 142 All-Buryat Association for the Development of Culture (Center of Buryat National Culture), 248–249, 253 All-Buryat Congress, 1917, 45 All-Buryat Congress, 1991, 252–254 Andrianova, Marta Fedorovna, 149 anti-religious campaigns, 75–76, 95 August 1991 Coup, 255, 256 Badluev, Shirab-Senge B., 182, 186 Badmaev, Tsyren-Bazar, 180

Baduev, A. A., 213–214 Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway (BAM), 19, 89–90, 90n4, 153, 182, 187, 203, 215, 223, 224, 239 Bal’burov, Afrikan A., 186 Baldano, Namzhil G., 171, 172, 174 Banzarov, Dorzhi, 41, 177, 179 Bardakhanov, P. F., 136 Bel’gaev, G. Ts., 171 Beliakov, Anatolii Mikhailovich, 111, 232, 238, 239n35, 241–243, 244, 245, 247, 251, 253, 257 Berklavs, Eduards, 132 Berlin, 43 Bogdanov, Mikhail N., 43–44, 45, 49 Bolshevik Party (Bolsheviks), 5, 6, 7n13, 17, 25, 46, 47, 48, 50–54, 57, 59, 72, 109, 143, 153, 187, 196, 271 Brezhnev, Leonid, 12, 132, 183, 184, 185 Buddhism, 15, 17, 27, 29–32, 43–44, 49, 57–58, 73–75, 195, 235, 244–245, 249, 252, 253, 268–269

292

Index

Bumbeev, D., 238 Buryat State Academy of Agriculture (Buryat Agricultural Institute), 203 Buryat Congresses, 1905, 42-44 Buryat language, 10, 14, 16, 23, 27, 42, 45, 54, 55, 78–82, 84, 95, 99–100, 117, 119, 125–128, 130–132, 134– 140, 147, 149, 151, 188–190, 194, 195–197, 199, 200, 208–210, 218, 221, 228, 234, 236, 237–238, 240– 241, 241n40, 246, 249, 252, 253, 261, 264–265, 265n11, 270, 271 Buryat Ministry of Education (BuryatMongolian Ministry of Education), 83–84, 130, 131, 135–138, 140– 143, 147–148, 241n40 Buryat-Mongolian People’s Party (BMNP), 250–251, 252, 253, 257 Buriat-Mongol’skaia Pravda (Pravda Buriatii), 79, 79n50, 82, 128, 151, 155, 168, 189, 196–198, 199, 201– 208, 210–211, 212, 213, 214n86, 215n91, 218, 236–238, 242–243, 245–246, 246n57, 250, 254, 255 Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen (Buriaad Unen), 79, 79n50, 82, 155, 196– 198, 199, 200, 203–208, 210, 218, 236–238, 245–246, 246n57, 254, 255 Buryat State University (Buryat Pedagogical Institute), xiii, 56, 62, 121, 127, 261, 263 Buryat Writers’ Union (BuryatMongolian Writers’ Union), 62, 84, 161–163, 173, 180, 187–188, 190, 223 Burnatskom (Buryat National Committee), 46, 47, 49–50, 51, 59, 72, 72n27, 110, 166, 271 censorship, 45, 174, 176, 179–180, 179n73, 186, 198, 217, 238 Central Asia, 6–7, 7n13, 29, 52, 67, 68, 76, 80, 98, 124, 169, 174, 186, 245 Chenkirov, Ivan Vasil’evich, 220

Chimitdorzhiev, Shirab B., 88n85, 238, 240, 248, 254–255 China, 2n2, 11–12, 26, 28, 33, 39, 49, 52, 61, 67, 69, 71, 75, 98, 114–115, 235, 248, 249, 252 Chita, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 53, 76, 77, 92, 93n13, 237, 253 collective farms (kolkhoz, sovkhoz, communal farms), 7, 20, 43, 61–71, 68n17, 73, 86, 87, 102, 104, 145, 153, 165, 170, 181–182, 199, 202n30, 203, 204, 211, 219, 221, 224, 262, 263 collectivization, 6–7, 8, 22, 61–62, 63– 70, 66n7, 73, 75, 76, 78, 82, 85, 87, 88, 95, 120, 180, 197, 230, 235, 235n20, 271 Communist Party, 65, 68, 71, 109, 113, 152n132, 152n133, 201, 206, 219 Cossacks, 27, 33, 34, 220 Dalai Lama, 31, 57, 245, 255 Damdin, Zhalsabon, 14 Damdinov, N. M., 161 Damdinova, Khandama, 144, 147 Dashibylov, Georgii, 223 datsans (Buddhist monasteries), 1, 17– 18, 29, 31–32, 36, 38, 41, 43, 57, 73–75 Dondodova, Tsyren-Dulma, 182 Dondupovich Dondubon, Tsydenzhap (Ts. Don), 72, 85, 85n74 Dorzhiev, Agvan, 57–58, 59, 73 Dugarov, Bair, 223 Dugarov, Dasha-Demberel, 185 Dugarov, Dashinima, 248, 253 Eastern Siberian State Academy of Culture and Art (Eastern Siberian Institute of Culture), 122, 122n19 Eastern Siberian State University of Technology and Management (Eastern Siberian Technological Institute), 122, 122n19 Elizabeth, Empress, 30, 244

Index

293

Emegeev, Manshud, 166 Erbanov, Mikhei Nikolaevich, 54, 56, 72, 72n29, 109, 111, 169, 232n10 Erdyneev, Dorzhi, 223

Irkutsk, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 52, 53, 76, 77, 92, 93n13, 174, 179, 237, 252, 254, 270 Izmailov, A. P., 66

Far Eastern Republic (FER), 50–51, 52, 76, 220 Fedorov, Timofei Izotovich, 150 Filippov, Vasilii Rodionovich, 111 friendship of nations (friendship of peoples, friendship of the Russian and Buryat peoples, internationalism), 6, 15, 80–81, 84, 118, 119, 129, 140–141, 143–146, 157, 160, 170, 177–178, 178n71, 181, 186– 187, 205, 206, 207, 218, 219, 219n104, 220, 235–239, 247, 249, 262, 266

Japan, 48–49, 51, 52, 71 Japanese, 48, 51, 52, 71

Galsanov, Tseden, 172–173, 173n53, 182, 223 Geser, 99, 165–176, 166n27, 179, 191, 195, 232, 234, 235, 240, 245, 249, 250, 255, 266, 271 glasnost’, 138, 190, 227, 231, 236, 237, 238, 240, 243, 245, 247, 251, 258 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 12, 16, 16n33, 23, 138, 190, 217, 227, 228, 230, 232n12, 235, 236, 241, 244, 245, 251, 258, 259 iasak (the Russian Empire’s tribute system), 27–28, 30, 31, 32, 35, 58 Ignatev, Semen Denisovich, 72, 72n30, 111, 132, 232n10, industrialization, 3, 4n7, 6, 18, 22, 26, 53, 61, 63, 85, 119, 262, 271 Inner Mongolia, 71, 98, 255 institutes of higher education (higher educational institutes), 20n41, 41– 42, 92, 94, 98, 100, 106, 120–124, 126, 129, 134, 139, 143 intermarriage (mixed marriages), 36, 93–94, 93n17, 94n20, 118, 236

Kalashnikov, Isai, 186 Karnyshev, Konstantin G., 180 Kavtyrev, Khristovor, 32–33 Kazakhstan, 67, 231–232, 231n9, 247, 266 Kazan, 41, 177 KGB (OGPU, NKVD), 64, 64n3, 66, 66n7, 67, 69, 75, 155, 170n44 Khakhalov, Aleksandr Uladaevich, 110, 111, 126–128, 131, 175, 266 Khamutaev, Vladimir A., xiii, 239n35, 247, 250n69 Khan, Chinggis (Genghis Khan), 26, 170, 172, 173, 186, 245, 267 Khomkholov, Bazhei, 178 Khomonov, M. P., 174, 175 Khrushchev, Nikita, 12, 114, 129, 132, 182, 183, 184 Khutanov, L. A., 254 Khutuktu, Jebtsundamba, 31 Kiakhta (Troitskosavsk), 41n38, 127, 136, 146 Komsomol, 64, 145, 162n8, 197, 208 korenizatsiia (indigenization), 6, 6n12, 8, 18, 53–56, 78, 80, 85, 113 Kudriavtsev, Aleksandr Vasileevich, 72n30, 111, 169, 171, 172, 175, 232n10, 266 kulaks, 1, 64, 68, 69, 71, 75 Kulomzin, Anatolii, 37 Kunaev, Dinmukhamed, 231 Lake Baikal, 18n36, 26, 27, 30, 40, 41, 43, 47, 50, 52, 53, 76, 83, 92, 93n13, 166, 185, 223, 232n12, 247 Lenin, Vladimir, 52, 54, 63, 78, 133, 141, 146, 152n133, 163, 205, 207

294

Index

libraries, 13, 32, 90, 98, 102, 136, 152, 160, 164–165, 172, 200, 223 literacy, 8, 17, 18, 18n36, 32, 32n34, 70, 105, 121, 125, 163–165, 196, 265 Modogoev, Andrei Urupkheevich, 94, 110, 111, 114, 131– 132, 134, 137, 187, 208, 243 Mokhosoev, Marks V., 242 Molodezh’ Buriatii, 197, 207, 208, 209, 210, 245, 246 Mongolia, 2n2, 26, 28, 29, 31, 39, 48, 49, 50, 52, 61, 67, 69, 71, 75, 81, 98, 109, 109n51, 114, 115, 115n65, 143, 174n60, 178, 220, 222, 235, 248, 249, 251, 255, 257 Mongolian script, 31–32, 78–82, 195, 238, 245, 246, 251 Mongols, 26–29, 32, 33, 49, 80, 98, 114–115, 166, 234, 245 Moscow, 30, 52, 53, 55, 61, 68, 69, 72, 76, 78, 82, 109, 111, 119, 132, 137, 140, 147, 161, 167, 169, 173, 174, 176, 185n101, 209, 213, 214, 224– 225, 233, 238, 243, 249, 250, 251, 255, 257 Mungonov, Baradii, 182 museums, 15, 146, 146n113, 152, 152n133, 153, 153n134, 154, 155, 265 Mustafayev, Imam, 132 Namsaraev, Khotsa, 85, 85n74, 88n84, 141, 161, 163, 168, 170, 173n53, 175, 177, 177n68 Neisse-Gegen, 49 Nevskii, Alexander, 167 Nicholas II, Tsar, 39, 44, 45 nomadism, 7, 7n14, 8, 8n18, 27, 56, 61, 63, 66, 185, 195 Nomtoev, D. G., 141, 144, 144n105 Nomtoev, Tsokto, 144, 144n105 novels, 84n72, 143, 159, 161, 161n3, 177, 182, 191, 208, 265 noyon, 28, 35, 42, 62, 64, 68, 71, 75

Ochirov, Bato-Dalai, 44 Ochirov, Mikhail N., 250 Ochirov, Tsyren, 170, 196, 213 Oriental Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 173, 174, 174n60 pan-Mongolism (pan-Mongolist), 15, 47, 49, 62, 71, 76, 80, 81, 115, 195, 235, 235n20 Pandito Khambo Lama, 30–31, 74, 269 perestroika, 227, 236, 237, 238, 240, 243, 246, 247, 249, 251, 258 Peter the Great, 33, 167 Poppe, Nicholas, 167, 170, 170n44 Potapov, Leonid Vasi’evich, 111, 242, 243–245, 248, 251, 252, 257, 257n94, 258, 259 Priamurskii governor-general, 38 publishing, 3, 79, 81, 98, 99, 114, 135, 140, 159, 162, 162n10, 165, 178n71, 179–180, 183–184, 188– 190, 194, 200, 210, 223, 234n16, 246, 249, 253 purges and terror, 8, 22, 62, 71–76, 77, 78, 81, 85, 85n74, 87, 88, 95, 112, 167, 169, 170, 171, 182, 197, 230, 232n10, 235, 235n20, 240, 247, 255 Putin, Vladimir, 257n94, 270 radio, 1, 2, 3, 13, 14, 15, 23, 99, 149, 150, 154, 155, 161n4, 193–196, 202, 210–225, 211n72, 215n91, 219n104, 234, 237n25, 239n35, 239n36, 239–240, 247, 265 Radnaeva, Galina Zhigmytovna, 139, 139n90, 180, 188 Radnaeva, L., 238 Rumiantsev, G. N., 172 Russia, 2n2, 4, 5, 15, 25, 26, 30, 31, 33, 36, 38, 42, 45, 48, 49, 51, 52, 58, 59, 133, 142, 144, 160, 178, 217, 220, 229, 230, 235, 248, 256, 257n94, 258, 266, 268

Index Russian Empire, 4, 18, 26, 27, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 39, 41, 42, 45, 46, 52, 58, 75, 176, 178, 244 Russian language, 9, 16, 18, 21, 23, 62, 78, 79, 80–84, 83n66, 88, 92, 93, 95, 98, 99, 100, 105, 117, 119, 124, 125–137, 125n32, 139, 139n89, 140, 144, 145, 151, 157, 159, 161, 163, 164, 168, 177n69, 185n101, 188, 189, 190, 191, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200, 203, 204, 208, 209, 210, 211, 218, 219, 220, 222, 223, 224, 225, 234, 236, 264, 265, 266 Russians, 3, 10, 10n20, 11, 12, 15, 19, 22, 28, 34, 36, 41, 52, 55, 66, 85, 90, 93, 95, 99, 102, 104, 110n53, 122, 123, 124, 144, 145, 173, 173n52, 187, 197, 201, 204, 205, 206, 207, 210, 236, 242, 246, 266, 267 Russian Orthodox Church, 18, 30, 34, 40, 41, 155 Sakh’ianova, Maria Mikhalovna, 47, 72, 72n32, 109, 109n50, 111 Sagaalgan (Mongolian Lunar New Year), 239, 246, 246n55, 247 Saganov, Vladimir Bizaevich, 242, 243, 253, 257 Sampilov, Tsyrenzhap Sampilovich, 152, 152n33, 153 Semenov, Ataman Gregorii, 47–51, 59, 71, 271 Shamanism, 29, 32, 73, 195, 235, 252, 268, 268n16 Sharakshinova, Nadezhda Osipovna, 175 Shulukshin, 172 social mobility, 2, 3, 7–8, 10, 11, 12, 20, 22, 23, 88, 89, 91, 105, 106, 117, 124, 156, 177, 205, 229, 230, 248, 262, 265, 268, 269 socialist realism, 84, 165, 182–183 Soviet Union, 1, 2, 3, 3n6, 4, 6, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16n32, 19, 21, 23, 53,

295

63, 67, 72, 73, 75, 76, 78, 80, 81, 84, 86, 89, 91, 92, 93n17, 94n20, 103, 103n32, 109, 111, 111n56, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 120, 123, 124, 125, 130, 132, 133, 138, 139n89, 140, 145, 146, 157, 159n1, 160, 161, 163, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 170n44, 171, 173n52, 176, 178, 179, 186, 190, 194, 195, 196, 198, 200, 205, 209, 211n72, 212n76, 213, 216, 217, 225, 227, 228, 228n2, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235, 236, 238, 240, 244, 245, 248, 250, 251, 252, 255, 256, 258, 262, 263, 264, 266, 267n14, 268 Speranskii, Mikhail, 34–36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 45, 59 Stalin, Joseph, 6, 8, 13n25, 18, 21, 22, 23, 25, 26, 58, 59, 61–64, 67, 68, 71, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 85n74, 87, 88, 112, 121, 125, 129, 167, 168, 169, 174, 180, 182, 186, 187, 230, 232, 235n20, 245, 247, 271 Stepanov, Mikhail Nikolaevich, 168, 186 Steppe Dumas, 18, 35–36, 38, 44, 45 St. Petersburg, 34, 39, 43, 44, 47, 57 television, 14, 15, 21, 23, 149, 150, 193, 194, 195, 196, 202, 210, 211, 212–225, 213n80, 215n91, 219n102, 219n104, 234, 239, 239n35, 239n36, 240, 243, 247, 265 territorial changes, 76–77, 197, 230, 233, 234, 249, 251, 252, 254, 255 Tibet, 31, 49, 50, 235 Timofeev, Professor, 140 Tiuriukhanov, P. I., 66 Trans-Siberian Railway, 37, 40, 48, 59, 251 Trubacheev, Vasilii Il’ich, 72, 72n31, 109, 111 Tsibikov, Bimba, 178

296

Index

Tsyden, Sandan, 50 Tsydendambaev, Chimit, 177, 177n68, 179, 189 Tumunov, Zhamso, 177 Tuya, Solbone (Petr Nikiforovich Damdinov), 85, 85n74, 182, 182n91 Ulanov, Alexei Il’ich, 168, 172, 174, 175 Ulan-Ude (Verkhneudinsk), 1, 19, 22, 38, 39, 39n30, 46, 47, 53, 54, 56, 72, 73, 74, 85, 86, 89, 91, 91n7, 92, 94, 94n20, 102, 106, 108, 109, 110, 110n53, 113n61, 122, 123, 127, 128, 139n89, 147, 148, 151, 152, 163, 164, 179, 185n101, 187, 197, 201, 204, 208, 212, 213, 214, 221, 222, 231, 232, 242, 248, 250, 252, 267 United Nations, 5, 5n8, 115, 115n65 United States, 3n6, 10n21, 14, 20n41, 36, 170n44 urbanization, 3, 4n7, 10, 10n20, 11, 12, 17, 61, 86, 90, 94, 94n20, 95, 105, 106, 114, 115, 262 Ust’-Ordynskii Buryat Autonomous Okrug (Ust’-Ordynskii Buryat-

Mongolian National Okrug), 77, 92, 114n62, 233, 254, 270 Verbovaia, N. N., 135 World War I, 48 World War II, 1, 5, 8, 16, 21, 74, 75, 76, 76n44, 82, 86, 87n81, 88, 91, 92, 95, 105, 108, 112, 113, 120, 125, 142, 143, 143n102, 145, 146, 155, 156, 167, 168, 170n44, 175, 176, 182, 230, 236, 239, 247, 264 Yakutia, 67, 123 Zabaikal’e (Zabaikal’skaia oblast’), 30, 44, 48, 51 Zhalsabon, Damdin, 14 Zham’ianova, Darizhap, 1–3, 9, 20, 108 Zhamtsarano, Tsyben, 43–44, 45, 50, 57, 72, 72n27, 166, 166n27 Zhdanovism, 169, 173n52 Zhigzhitov, Mikhail I., 182, 185 Zhimbuev, Tsydenzhap, 182 Zurgeev, N. D., 172 Zurich, 43

Zhigzhit Galsanov, a Buryat clan and Steppe Duma leader pictured here in 1891 wearing imperial medals. Educated in local Buddhist monasteries, Galsanov traveled to Tibet and St. Petersburg with Agvan Dorzhiev. He was arrested in the 1930s during Joseph Stalin’s collectivization and anti-religious campaigns.

Buddhist lamas at the Atsagatskii Datsan. The datsan was founded in 1925, abolished in 1936, and rebuilt in the early 1990s. The Buryat lama Agvan Dorzhiev, who served as an emissary for the 13th Dalai Lama, is seated third from the right.

Buryat family in a yurt. Early twentieth century.

Buryat typesetter at the publishing house in Ulan-Ude in 1933.

Workers constructing an administrative building in the Railroad neighborhood in Ulan-Ude in the 1950s. The sign reads “The House of the Soviets. Long live major construction. BMASSR.”

The celebrated Buryat writer, Khotsa Namsaraev (1889–1959), at his desk in 1949. A copy of Buriaad-Mongoloi Unen lies to his left. Other copies hang on the wall behind him.

Residential housing in the Railroad neighborhood of Ulan-Ude in the 1950s.

Large textile factory in the October neighborhood of Ulan-Ude. The factory was founded in 1946 and the photograph was taken in 1967.

Andrei Urupkheevich Modogoev, First Secretary of the Buryat ASSR from 1962 to 1984.

The House of Culture in the Railroad neighborhood of Ulan-Ude in the 1950s. A statue of Vladimir Lenin stands at the top of the steps. Another statue in the middle of a fountain at the bottom of the steps is of a mother with her children.

The dedication ceremony for the Vladimir Lenin Monument on the Square of the Soviets in Ulan-Ude in 1971. The monument was commissioned to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Lenin. Republican administrative buildings (the one on the left is under construction) stand behind the monument.

The Buryat State Agricultural Institute in 1972. The institute was founded in 1931.

February 1990 protests in Ulan-Ude against Buryat ASSR First Secretary Anatolii Mikhailovich Beliakov. Beliakov was in power from 1984 until 1990 when widespread opposition forced him to step down. The sign on the left reads, “Beliakov, Resign!”