Language, Literacy, and Social Change in Mongolia: Traditionalist, Socialist, and Post-Socialist Identities (Contemporary Central Asia: Societies, Politics, and Cultures) by Phillip P. Marzluf; 234 pages; $95 (Lexington Books, 2018)

Language, Literacy, and Social Change in Mongolia is the first full-length treatment of literacy in Mongolian. Challenging readers’ assumptions about Central Asia and Mongolia, this book focuses on Mongolians’ experiences with reading and writing throughout the past 100 years. Literacy, as a powerful historical and social variable, shows readers how reading and writing have shaped the lives of Mongolians and, at the same time, how reading and writing have been transformed by historical, political, economic, and other social forces.

Mongolian literacy serves as an especially rich area of inquiry because of the dramatic political, economic, and social changes that occurred in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. For the seventy years during which Mongolia was a part of the communist Soviet world, literacy played an important role in how Mongolians identified themselves, conceived of the past, and created a new social order. Literacy was also a part of the story of authoritarianism and state violence. It was used to express the authority of the communist Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party, control the pastoral population, and suppress non-socialist beliefs and practices. Mongolians’ reading and writing opportunities and resources were tightly controlled, and the language policy of replacing the traditional Mongolian script with the Cyrillic alphabet immediately followed the violent repression of Buddhist leaders, government officials, and intellectuals.

Beginning with the 1990 Democratic Revolution, Mongolians have been thrust into free-market capitalism, privatization, globalization, and neoliberalism. In post-socialist Mongolia, literacy no longer serves as the center for Mongolian identity. Government subsidies to pastoral literacy resources have been slashed, and administrators now find themselves competing with other “developing countries” for educational funding. Due to the pressures caused by globalization, Mongolians have begun to talk about literacy and language in terms of crisis and anxiety. As global flows of English compete with new symbols from the distant past, Mongolians worry about the perceived lowering standards of Mongolian linguistic usage amid rapid economic changes. These worries also reveal themselves in official language policies and manifest themselves in the multiple languages and scripts that appear in the capital of Ulaanbaatar and other urban areas. 

Phillip P. Marzluf is associate professor in the English Department at Kansas State University, where he teaches classes on literacy, professional writing, pedagogy, and world literature.  A former ACMS Fellow, he also served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia.

Ulaanbaatar Beyond Water and Grass: A Guide to the Capital of Mongolia by M.A. Aldrich; 328 pages; $39 (Hong University Press, 2018)
 

Ulaanbaatar Beyond Water and Grass is the first English language book that takes visitors to an in-depth exploration of the capital of Mongolia. In the first section, M. A. Aldrich paints a detailed portrait of the history, religion, and architecture of Ulaanbaatar with reference to how the city evolved from a monastic settlement to a communist-inspired capital and finally to a major city of free-wheeling capitalism and Tammany Hall politics. The second section offers the reader a tour of different sites within the city and beyond, bringing back to life the human dramas that have played themselves out on the stage of Ulaanbaatar.

At its best, Ulaanbaatar Beyond Water and Grass: A Guide to the Capital of Mongolia reveals much that remains hidden from the temporary visitor and even from the long-term resident. Writing in a quirky, idiosyncratic style, the author shares his appreciation and delight in this unique urban setting—indeed, in all things Mongolian.
 

M. A. Aldrich is a lawyer and author who has lived and worked in Asia for nearly thirty years. His previous books include The Search for a Vanishing Beijing: A Guide to China’s Capital Through the Ages and The Perfumed Palace: Islam’s Journey from Mecca to Peking. He has also written numerous articles on Chinese and Mongolian law and is currently writing a book about Lhasa.

Wolves by Jeon Sungtae (author) and Sora Kim-Russell (translator); paperback; $11 (White Pine Press, 2017)

On the basis of a blog review by Charles Montgomery, a former English teacher in Seoul, this book will be of special interest to those interested in a fictional reflection on the growing connections between Mongolia and South Korea.  Six of the ten short stories in Wolves take place in Mongolia itself, involving "sad and lonely" characters from Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea and elsewhere who often "are trying to escape their circumstances or rediscover themselves".

The very first story takes its name from a Korean restaurant in Ulaanbaatar operated to earn hard currency for North Korea, in turn becoming a platform for critical reflections on Mongolia's shift from communism to a market economy. The title story "Wolves" revolves around similar reflections, in this case told in part by a Mongolian who voices deep skepticism about both Korean tourists and the lure of money which draws him to them.

According to Montgomery,  "Jeon is very good at interweaving the elements of his stories to create a larger context. . . (he) creates very particular characters and events and places them in a mosaic they are incapable of seeing".

Buddhism in Mongolian History, Culture, and Society, edited by Verna A. Wallace (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016);  xxii + 325 pp. $105.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-995864-1; $36.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-19-995866-5

H-Net recentlly posted a review of this book by Erdenchuluu Khochahar (University of Tokyo), describing it a an "innovative and progressive work" and noting that it provides a usesful reflection on how Buddhism has adapted to Mongolian indigenous culture and society, in turn developing into a unique “Mongolian Buddhism” and Mongolian Buddhist identity:

"This book contains fifteen individual articles that focus on three major topics. The first group of articles addresses the religious and political activities of Mongolian Buddhist personages of the prerevolutionary period. This includes chapters 1 to 5, by (respectively) Johan Elverskog, Richard Taupier, Baatr Kitinov, Matthew King, and Vesna A. Wallace, on what happened to Queen Jӧnggen; the western Mongolian Clear Script and the making of a Buddhist state; the last attempt to build the Buddhist state; modernities, sense making, and the inscription of Mongolian Buddhist place; and envisioning a Mongolian Buddhist identity through Chinggis Khan.

"The second set of articles addresses strategies used to indigenize and popularize Buddhism in Mongolian society through religious, cultural, and artistic practices. This section features work by Uranchimeg B. Ujeed, Uranchimeg Tsultemin (chapters 7 and 8), Simon Wickham-Smith, and Vesna A. Wallace (chapters 10 to 12) on the establishment of the Mergen tradition of Mongolian Buddhism; Vajrayāna and the state in medieval Mongolia; the power and authority of Maitreya in Mongolia; a literary history of Buddhism in Mongolia; how Vajrapāṇi became a Mongol; commonalities among protective deities, Mongolian heroes, and swift steeds; and Buddhist sacred mountains, auspicious landscapes, and their agency. 

Finally, three articles cover the persecution and revitalization of Buddhism in modern Mongolian societies. These include Christopher Kaplonski, Karma Lekshe Tsomo, and Hürelbaatar Ujeed, on court cases against Buddhist monks in early socialist Mongolia; Buddhist women of Buryatia; and the social and cultural practice of Buddhism in the local context of Inner Mongolia in the first half of the twentieth century".