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CREATING MONGOL DSURAG AND RE-CREATING BUDDHIST ART TRADITION IN MONGOLIA
However, there was a confined space for Buddhism to remain within an agreed
limitation, which allowed the tradition not to be completely erased. Within the post¬
Stalinist relaxation of the communist ideological pressure, the Mongolian Peoples
Republic re-examined “much of what had been annihilated in the earlier phase of the
revolution for being reminiscences of feudalism.”'* The Political Bureau of the Mon¬
golian People’s Revolutionary Party issued the resolution No. 143 on religious issues
(on 14 July) in 1969. It consulted on training educated monks with consultation of
the Office for Religious Affairs of the Ministers’ Council of the Soviet Union. It
resulted in the establishment of the School of Religion at Gandan Monastery in 1970.
The Mongol Dsurag style flourished as an art form of national identity and neo¬
traditional style in the late 1950s and 1960s after the first professionals were trained
in the Soviet Union. Tsitiltem Uranchimeg argues that Nyam-Osor Tsiiltem (1923—
2001) named and invented Mongol Dsurag as a new traditional style of painting
“to protect Mongol identity and nomadic traditional culture against the totalitarian
Sovietisation campaign.”!* However, Mongol Dsurag as a conjunctive term to refer
to a national art style was used already earlier. In his article titled Mongolian Na¬
tional Painting ‘Mongol Dsurag’ (Mongol skaja national ’naja Zivopis’) written in
Russian, Byambiin Rinchen (1905-1977), a well-known linguist and writer whose
academic legacy was widely appreciated in post-socialist Mongolia, already named
the national painting style as Mongol Dsurag and defined its features in 1958. Call¬
ing Dsanabadsar as “Mongolian Michelangelo”, B. Rinchen further highlighted to
continue modern themes in the painting style of Mardsan Sharaw and to develop
a national art style in Mongolia such as the Chinese “Gohua” style (Chin. guohuo
[5] iH] is a combination of characters meaning “nation” and “painting’”).'* Although
it was a short newspaper article, it seems to have become emblematic to draw the
further development of the national painting style while highlighting Buddhist art
tradition and connecting it with pre-revolutionary practices. In general, the idea
to flourish the national art style called Mongol Dsurag was advocating the soviet¬
style modernity (officially following the official paradigm “national in form and
socialist in content”). Mongol Dsurag artists, namely Tstiltem seemingly were not
against the Soviet-style state socialism but in the line of the new cultural construc¬
tion. At the same time, they put their efforts to preserve Buddhist art tradition that
had been exercised in the pre-communist time. Although the topics of art works
were advocating communism, some attempts were made to bring Buddhist icono¬
graphic technique (tig) to them. Hence, Mongol Dsurag is both a cultural construct
of socialist modernity and aspiration towards national identity. Many works, such
as D. Damdinsiiren’s “Khiiriye Tsam” (1966) and Ts. Dawaakhiiii’s “Festivities
Baatarnaran, Tsetsentsolmon: The ‘Gong Beat’ against the ‘Uncultured’: Contested No¬
tions of Culture and Civilisation in Mongolia. Asian Ethnicity 15: 4 (2014), 422-438. DOI:
10.1080/14631369.2014.947060.
Uranchimeg, Tstiltemin: Mongol Zurag: Nyam-Osoryn Tsiiltem (1923-2001) and Traditional-style
Painting in Mongolia. Orientations 48 (2) (2017), 135-142.
Puen, bamOa: Monroupckas HaIIHOHaJIBHaSI KHBOIIHCB "Monrori /{3ypar.” // 3 nawuezo kyremypnoeo
nacredua. Côopuux cmametü. locynapersenHas Tunorpapus, Vran-barop 1958, 65-27.
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