Oldal 339 [339]
OCR
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 postStalinist 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 Mongolian 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 neotraditional 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 National 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. Calling 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 sovietstyle 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 construction. 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 iconographic 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 Notions 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. 337
