print

From the frontier of opposition to the ruins of oblivion, or politics of memory in post-socialist Inner Asia

Mikhalev A.V.,

Banzarov Buryat State University, Ulan-Ude, Russia, mihalew80@mail.ru

elibrary_id: 385873 | ORCID: 00000-0001-7069-2338 | RESEARCHER_ID: E-2218-2014

Article received: 2022.10.11. Accepted: 2023.06.28


DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2023.06.08
EDN: OHFTIY

Rubric: Orbis terrarum

For citation:

Mikhalev A.V. From the frontier of opposition to the ruins of oblivion, or politics of memory in post-socialist Inner Asia. – Polis. Political Studies. 2023. No. 6. https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2023.06.08. EDN: OHFTIY

The article was prepared with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation, project No. 22-28-01087, https://rscf.ru/project/22-28-01087/.

Abstract

The presented article discusses how politics of memory changed in the territory of Inner Asia in relation to the history of the demilitarization of the Soviet-Mongolian border. Memories of the withdrawal of troops from Mongolia from 1989 to 1992 and the destruction of one of Asia’s most powerful fortified areas remain traumatic to this day. In this paper, we analyze two key trends in the politics of memory in Inner Asia: the resentment of the Soviet past and the trauma of the collapse of the USSR. These are two competing models that frame the memory, not only of the withdrawal of troops from Mongolia, but also of the collapse of the huge military zone created during the Sino-Soviet confrontation in the region in the 1960s-1980s. It is not just a large fortified area with a developed social infrastructure, but also an important place of memory. Tens of thousands of Soviet citizens who worked or served in Mongolia in the 1960s-1980s contributed to its creation or to the maintenance of this frontier. Our study was based on memorial laws, personal memories, materials from the regional press, and considered the practice of reformatting monuments to Soviet soldiers in accordance with new contexts. The practices of oblivion, which are becoming increasingly widespread, were also analyzed. Exclusion from official documents, ignoring at the level of political rhetoric certain aspects of the history of socialism, the demolition of monuments, the elimination of places where military rituals were performed – all this transforms the former “crush zone” into a vast expanse of oblivion.

Keywords

politics of memory, Inner Asia, oblivion, commemoration, Russian world, ruins, Soviet legacy.

 Full Text

Assmann, A. (2013). Transformations of the modern time regime. In Breaking Up Time. Negotiating the Borders between Present, Past and Future (pp. 39-56). Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Brzezinski, Z. (1997). The grand chessboard: American primacy and its geostrategic imperatives. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

Delaplace, G. (2012). Neighbors and their ruins: remembering foreign presences in Mongolia. In Frontier Encounters: Knowledge and Practice at the Russian, Chinese and Mongolian Border (pp. 211-234). London: Open Book Publishers.

Lattimore, O. (1953). The new political geography of Inner Asia. The Geographical Journal, 119(1), 17-30. http://doi.org/10.2307/1791615

Myadar, O. (2017). In the Soviet shadow. Soviet colonial politics in Mongolia. Inner Asia, 19(1), 5-28. https://doi.org/10.1163/22105018-12340077

Myadar, O. (2019). Living under the Soviet shadow: postcolonial critique of Soviet politics in Mongolia. In Shifting Forms of Continental Colonialism: Unfinished Struggles and Tensions (pp. 387-412). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9817-9_15

Peshkov, I. (2011). From “border socialism” to “border capitalism”: past dependency in the Inner-Asia border triangle. Sensus Historiae. Studia interdyscyplinarne, 2(3), 139-148.

Radchenko, S. (2003). The Soviets’ best friend in Asia: the Mongolian dimension of Sino-Soviet split. In Cold War International History Project. Working Paper. № 42 (pp. 2-30).

Riessman, C.K. (2005). Narrative analysis. In Narrative, Memory & Everyday Life (pp. 1-7). Huddersfield: University of Huddersfield.

Simmel, G. (1958). Two essays. The ruins. The Hudson Review, 11(3), 371-385. https://doi.org/10.2307/3848614 

Assmann, J. (2004). Cultural memory and early civilization: writing, remembrance, and political imagination. (Russ. ed.: Assmann, J. Kul'turnaya pamyat'. Pis'mo, pamyat' o proshlom i politicheskaya identichnost' v vysokikh kul'turakh drevnosti. Moscow: Languages of the Russian Culture).

Baabar, B. (2010). Istoriya Mongolii: ot mirovogo gospodstva do sovetskogo satellita [The history of Mongolia: from world domination to the Soviet satellite]. Kazan: Tatarskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo. (In Russ.)

Batsajhan, O. (2014). Mongoliya na puti k gosudarstvu-natsii (1911-1946) [Mongolia on the way to the nation-state (1911-1946)]. Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude: Ottisk. (In Russ.)

Benjamin, W. (1995). Über den Begriff der Geschichte. (Russ. ed.: Benjamin, W. O ponyatii istorii. Khudozhestvennyi zhurnal, 7, 6-9).

Dyachenko, N.V. (2012). Sovetskie voiska v Mongolii vo vtoroi polovine 1960-kh – 80-e gg. [Soviet troops in Mongolia in the second half of the 1960s – 80s.]. In X International Congress of Mongolists (pp. 217-222). Ulaanbaatar: IAMS. (In Russ.)

Ganzhurov, V.C. (1997). Rossiya – Mongoliya (na trudnom puti reform) [Russia – Mongolia (in the difficult way of reforms)]. Ulan-Ude: BSC SB RAS Publ. (In Russ.)

Lishtovannyj, E.I. (2007) Ot velikoj imperii k demokratii: ocherki politicheskoj istorii Mongolii [From great empire to democracy: essays on the political history of Mongolia]. Irkutsk: IGU Publ.

Luzyanin, S.G (2003). Rossiya – Mongoliya – Kitai v pervoi polovine KhKh veka. Politicheskie vzaimootnosheniya v 1911–1946 godakh [Russia – Mongolia – China in the first half of the twentieth century. Political relations in 1911-1946]. Moscow: Ogni. (In Russ.)

Malinova, O.Yu. (2017). Commemoration of historical events as instrument of symbolic policy: possibilities of comparative analysis. Politeia, 4, 6-22. (In Russ.) http://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2017-87-4-6-22

Malinova, O.Yu. (2020). Rezhim pamyati kak instrument analiza: problemy kontseptualizatsii [Memory regime as analyses instrument: problem of conceptualization]. In Politika pamyati v sovremennoi Rossii i stranakh Vostochnoi Evropy. Aktory, instituty, narrativy [The politics of memory in contemporary Russia and in countries of Eastern Europe] (pp. 26-39). St. Petersburg: EUSP Press. (In Russ.)

Mikhalev, A.V. (2008). “Russian quarter” of Ulaanbaatar: collective memory and classification practices. Acta Eurasica, 2, 7-29. (In Russ.)

Mikhalev, A.V. (2020). Symbols of Soviet presence in post-socialist Mongolia. Political science (RU), 2, 126-142. (In Russ.)

Panarin, S.A. (2014). A chicken is not a bird? Memories of socialist Mongolia. Labyrinth. Journal of Social and Humanitarian Studies, 6, 66-76. (In Russ.)

Schönle, A. (2009). Apologia of ruins in the philosophy of history: providentialism and its collapse. The New Literary Observer, 1, 24-38. (In Russ.)

Sergeev, S.N. (2021). Vospominanija o sluzhbe v MNR [Memories of service in the MPR]. Chita, Ulaanbaatar: Arvajhjevjer. (In Russ.)

Shirendyb, B. (1967). Minuya kapitalizm [Bypassing capitalism]. Ulaanbaatar: State Publishing House of the MPR. (In Russ.)

Trigubenko, M.E. (1991). Aziatskij “sindrom” socializma [Asian “syndrome” of socialism]. Moscow: Nauka. (In Russ.)

Vorobyev, V. (2016). About the settlement of the border issues with China. Far Eastern Studies, 3, 104-113. (In Russ.)

Zheleznyakov, A.S. (2009). Mongol'skii polyus politicheskogo ustroistva mira [The Mongolian pole of the political structure of the world]. Moscow: Institute of Sociology RAS. (In Russ.) 

See also: