>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. [ Silence ] >> Good afternoon everyone. I am Carolyn Brown. I'm the director of the Office of Scholarly Programs in the John W. Kluge Center here at the Library of Congress, and as we begin this program, let me ask you to please turn off or mute your cell phones so they don't go off during the program and interfere with our speaker. Today's wonderful program is a talk by Dr. Uranchimeg Tsultem. Her title is prior to Lenin, US Diplomacy and Western Explorers in Early 20th Century Mongolia. And we are totally delighted to have joined us today, his Excellency, Altangerel, who is the Ambassador from the Republic of Mongolia to the US, and he's going to say a few words to us. Ambassador? [ Background Noise ] >> Thank you very much. Good afternoon everybody. I am very very pleased to be in the Library of Congress and thank you very much for your kind invitation. My thanks also to Mr. Shao, chief of Asia division of the Library. I thank you very much to Susan. Very important specialist and Mongolistist and working in the Library of Congress for many years. He is very excellent and wonderful, close friend of Mongolians. And thank you very much because I visited the Tibetan Mongolian division in part of the Library. I was really impressed that you have a collection more than 6000 books on Mongolia, and it is a really wonderful collection. I am really impressed. Today, of course it is a very special day, and I am actually the first time in the Library of Congress. I am very sorry because I am newly appointed Mongolian ambassador. I can just [inaudible] and so I have today wonderful occasion and the opportunity to be here. Also, I am very happy that Dr. Uranchimeg today, Mongolian scholar. She is making her presentation on Mongolian foreign policy and diplomacy in only 20th Century. It is also I think this paper and presentation [inaudible] very important part of Mongolia US relations. It's also very important I heard that actually this lecture about Mongolia which is given to the Congress Library for the first time. So it is also a very very important. And I again once more would like to express my sincere appreciation, Carolyn Brown, to you and director of the Kluge Center of the Library. And very interesting you know when I was introduced you know during the, when I visited Tibetan Mongolian part of the Library. It is very very rare collection of Mongolian history, very interesting photos, and I would like it really, you know, to come maybe when I have free time, I really want to visit your Library from time to time, you know. It is a really really interesting collections. Really I would like to be acquainted with myself with this important collection of Mongolian history. So I once more thank you very much for your organization for this wonderful, very important lecture of Mongolian scholar in the Library of Congress. Thank you very much. [ Applause ] >> Well thank you so much Mr. Ambassador. What better endorsement could we have of the Mongolian collections but then to have our Ambassador speak to them. I will say a few additional words about those collections, because they're part of the Asian division, which was started with a collection of 933 volumes given by the Emperor of China in 1869, and the Mongolian collections are an important part of that larger Asian collection. As the Ambassador mentioned, there are about 6000 monographs, 140 serial titles, microfiche, and among these are some very rare materials from the 18th and 19th Century. But I also want to say although we have a very current, active program in acquiring Mongolian materials, we have also been very generously supported by the Embassy, by visitors from Mongolia, and some members of the Mongolian community here in Washington, and additional donations to the Library's collections, things that we might not have been able to acquire through our regular channels. So we are deeply grateful to the Embassy and all those others who have helped us. I would note at the end of this presentation, Susan Meinheit, our wonderful Mongolian/Tibetan specialist, has agreed to keep up the small exhibit that she prepared this morning for the Ambassador. So if you want to leave right after this program, you can go and have an opportunity to see the special materials that would not normally be available to you. I want to say a little bit about the program under which our speaker is here today. It's part of, she was a Kluge fellow in the Kluge Center, okay. And the Kluge Center was established with a very generous donation by John W. Kluge in the year 2000 to create a venue on Capitol Hill where the world's some of the world's finest senior scholars might have opportunities for informal conversation with members of Congress and other policy holders, but we also have a very active program with dissertation and post-doctoral fellows, and these 2 groups come together to form a vibrant community. And today's speaker is one of the Kluge fellows that is paid by the Kluge endowment within the Kluge Center to continue her own research and writing. We offer a number of programs, primarily given by our own residents but not exclusively, and if you would like to know more, you can sign up in the back of the room for email alerts and let you know, you know, what's happening, as well as to pick up a brochure, so I urge you to consider doing that. Today's program then, we are really excited to be talking today about Mongolia, the history of Mongolia, Mongolian art, and the fascinating story of the interrelationship of Mongolia, Tibet and the US. It's an area that, an area of study that Americans usually don't have that much opportunity to learn about, and yet here we are with that wonderful opportunity. Our lecturer today, Dr. Tsultem, as I notice is a Kluge fellow currently. When she is not at the Kluge Center she has joint appointments as Associate Professor of Art History at the National University in Mongolia, and as a lecturer in art history at the University of California Berkley. She has written and taught about Mongolian art, relationship to politics and history, in articles, exhibition catalogues, and several books. And her lecture today is based on research that she conducted here at the Library in preparation for writing her next book. So you're getting a kind of preview on what we are sure will be a wonderful and interesting publication of the future. So please welcome Dr. Uranchimeg Tsultem. [ Music ] >> Hi everyone. Thank you very much for coming to, for my presentation. And before I start talking about my lecture today, I would like to extend my big thank you to Kluge Center with Carolyn Brown as the director, Mary [inaudible] and Jason, all those guys who were very helpful during my time for my research and writing as well as a couple of interns that also were helpful during the stages of my research, Jonathon Mensa [phonetic] and David Moon [phonetic]. Well, this time has been very productive for research, finding really treasures of various kinds here at the Library of Congress, and through my presentation, which is really a small part of a chapter in fact in my book, larger book manuscript, I will be introducing hopefully those questions and showing you some images that will be part of my larger manuscript sometime in the very near future. [background noise] So let me begin, the larger interest of intersectional art and politics and we feel we have a wonderful example of very uneasy agency between the politics and art history and history exercised in this image of Tsongkhapa, which is a 19th century thangka held in Asian division here in Library of Congress. And the history of this image is presented to American, it was presented at this pilgrimage site, Wutaishan it's called, a 5-peak mountain, which is a very important pilgrimage site for Buddhist, Chinese, Mongolians, and Tibetans still today in 1908. And it was presented by 13th Dalai Lama, political leader of Tibet, and to American diplomat and statesmen, William Woodville Rockhill together with another gift of a book, which is also held in the collection of the Library of Congress. So looking at the location where we are now, is 1908 marks the time of the last days of imperial dynasty in China, which was formed by non-Chinese rulers, Manchu emperors, and Wutaishan is really here, in the border territory between Tibet and middle China. The Manchu congress, Manchu dynasty was able to annex non-Chinese territories, such as Tibet, Central Asian, and Mongolia. And 1908 was marking the days of upheaval and rebellions, political turmoil within China giving opportunity to such countries like Mongolia and Tibet to think about their future and to think about opportunities for independence. For this reason, there was a political meeting happened between 13th Dalai Lama and various western dignitaries at Wutaishan including William Rockhill. When you look at this image of Tsongkhapa, this is a very traditional image, yet for instance we see that there are many opportunities of depicting Tsongkhapa, such as for instance this one, a Mongolian thangka held in Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. And we see this sort of traditional imagery depicts a live story of Tsongkhapa. And Tsongkhapa is known as a prolific writer and prolific teacher, who had an extensive teaching sessions with various Tibetan scholars from all over Tibet. There's another image at the Asian Art Museum also defined as a Mongolian work, which also shows here Tsongkhapa with his 2 major disciples, Kedrub Je and Gyaltsab Je, and showing again all the narrative about Tsongkhapa's life. So the question here arises that why particular this composition and why particular this image, which not only depicts Tsongkhapa in his imagery of, with main attributes with sword and book, which refers to visions, his multiple visions of detailed knowledge and wisdom [inaudible] that throughout his life he was having visions and direct connections with his deity, and the deity was helping him to write and en masse that incredible knowledge of Buddhist philosophy. But this composition also shows a very unique, in fact the only thangka that I know is this one, that shows the close entourage of Tsongkhapa with his very intimate circle of 8 disciples here. This image was studied and published by Susan Meinheit, who discovered that this is a very intimate circle of 8 people who were close entourage of Tsongkhapa having extensive retreats with him, moving from one monastic site to another [inaudible] Tibet and having those famous 3 million times of frustrations and very extensive retreats, meditation sessions, studying of what is philosophy. Tsongkhapa because he was open to all this sectarian teachings without any boundaries and limits, he is also known as a founder of Gelug Sect, which became a political, sort of leading authority within Tibet and a had a vast [inaudible] through Mongolia and Himalayan regions. Because his open-minded approach, he also gained his name as a reformer of Tibetan Buddhist [inaudible] and the institution of Dalai Lamas to whom 13th Dalai Lama of course belongs is institution that is a product of Gelug Sect, and it is institution which was named by Mongolian alliance with Tibet in 16th Century, Dalai Lama, meaning Mongolian word or [inaudible] teacher. So 13th Dalai Lama was most likely seeing himself in the parties that were involved in this gift exchange, seeing himself, as well as Rockhill, scholar as well as a diplomat as well as a modernizer in very similar terms as a thangka by himself was a modernizer and reformer of his own times. So we know that this is a very difficult time for Tibet and Mongolia, this early 20th century, and Dalai Lama was in exile 2 times. First time he was in Mongolia and en route from Mongolia from 1907 he stopped in Wutaishan. He was second time in India in exile fleeing from the British conquests and fleeing from the Chinese presence in Tibet, and he befriended Charles Bell for instance, political scholar, political official in Sikkim, and he was very open to all this modern technologies, modern inventions and western technologies that Tibet didn't have access to. He was also aware of modernizing efforts of Tibetan army, and he was also designing the Tibetan flag, which is still used today. So when we look at image, at this thangka, not only the message of this reformer and new thinker and modernizer that the 13th Dalai Lama probably saw in choosing this image, but also he most likely thought about the connection that he had specific connection with Mongolia. For instance, if we see the details in this painting, the colorism, color spectrum, traditional art history also looks at stylistic [inaudible] and stylistic details to sort of locate the origin of the production. And we see this in comparison images of contemporaneous Mongolian production, we do see that this is a Mongolian work. We see the details for instance here in the shape of clouds, in the shape of for instance in the top register particularly the shape of clouds that you see here, the shape of plantation, of trees, and the particular shape of garments and the folding and the shading that this artist used at various, this is a traditional art history that deals with it. And based on this traditional approach, we may say that this is a Mongolian work, most likely dating back to [inaudible] or the main seat where Dalai Lama spent almost 3 years from 1904, 1907, before he ended in Wutaishan. So here's more details of this. And I wanted to show that, to show the visual analysis here, for instance the details of the [inaudible], the shading, how similar this is to contemporaneous Mongolian work. Yet we have this figure here on the top, and all these images of course are inscribed, and we know the identity of these real people that are depicted here. And this person is Gendun Chokyong Gyatso, who was an important Amdo teacher, Mongolian in ethnicity, ethnically Mongol but living in Amdo area, who was based in [inaudible] monastery, and he recognized a [inaudible], 7th [inaudible] who, and he was a tutor to 7th [inaudible], who was en route from Amdo towards meeting in Beijing with emperor Guangxu right at the time when 13th Dalai Lama was moving from Wutaishan. So the meeting happened between these 2 men, to Amdo person and the 13th Dalai Lama. And most likely that meeting, during this meeting, this painting was given to 13th Dalai Lama. And this painting really depicts Gendun Chokyong Gyataso, who was a teacher of [inaudible]. In other words, this is a commemorative portrait, commemorative image of the teacher by his disciple. So this collection really tells us that just a stylistic analysis, the conventional art history, does not really capture those complexities of agencies that are involved in the production and later reception of the images. This image is really a production of all this political and artistic exchanges that were happening in Amdo area in Mongolia and now involving even parties such as 13th Dalai Lama and American statesmen. So I would place as a product of Eastern Tibet and Mongolia. It's a Mongolian artist, but it is very much made in Eastern Tibet. And the area of Urga, or as it is known in western literature, Ikh Khuree, is the place where the 13th Dalai Lama spent 3 years in exile. He describes himself as a Mongolian merchant and fled from the British occupation in 1904 when it reached [inaudible]. And he decided to go to Urga because that was the city where he would be able to have access to westerners and he would be able to meet with Russians. The Russian Consulate in Urga was established already as early as 1861, and in fact when he was in Urga he had bank deposits, he had a treasury representative in Urga dealing with the matters of 13th Dalai Lama, and he met with [inaudible], who was the counsel of Russian Tsar in Ikh Khuree. When the 13th Dalai Lama was in his second exile in India from 1910 to 1913, he was still was keep in contact with Urga with Mongolia, and he appointed his very close friend, Buryat-Mongol Lama Agwaan Dorjiev, who was in connection with Russian Tsar. He appointed as his representative to discuss the political matters of Tibet, of Tibetan independence continuously in Urga. By the time when Agwaan Dorjiev came to Urga, this is the time also when William Rockhill also made a trip, a special detour to Urga in 1913. Although William Rockhill was a Nobel scholar as well as a diplomat, who throughout his diplomatic service, serving as an Ambassador to China, serving as an Ambassador to St. Petersburg to Turkey to Greece, he made a special detour to Urga in 1913 to stay there a week, and he wrote a lengthy article assessing the political situation, assessing the town that he saw the outer Mongolia. This is the time when the Bogd Khan, the political leader of Mongolia sent letters to various governments, similar to, similar to 13th Dalai Lama seeking for political alliances outside of China. And he was reaching out to Russia, Bogd Khan, 13th Dalai Lama, trying to form new political alliances that would help to find independence of the 2 nations. And Bogd Khan was sending letters, 1913, 1914, sending his representative minister to American [inaudible] and forming a appeal to American government to support the independence and protect Mongolians from the Western Congress. Rockhill as a notable scholar was fluent in Tibetan and fluent in Chinese. Throughout his diplomatic service he is known to have contained a large library, and he would spend hours, besides his diplomat career, learning and reading text and translating. He is not only a pioneer of Tibetan studies in this country, his early books arrived to Library of Congress as early as 1899, but also he was also a translator and publisher and one of the earliest scholars of Buddhism in this country. He published excerpts from Tibetan country or life of, life of [inaudible]. He translated texts. He also published diaries of his journey in Amdo area in [inaudible] lands trying to reach [inaudible] 2 times in the late 19th century. He never was able to, but in fact he was fluent in Tibetan language. And he was communicating with Tibetan leader from 1905, eventually both meeting in 1908 and conversing in Tibetan language. The meeting was so extraordinary and unique experience that he right after the meeting he sends a 12-page letter to the President, American President, Theodore Roosevelt, saying how impressed he was with his [inaudible] 13th Dalai Lama. And not only Tibetan text and translations that he produced, but he also brought a lot of books including Mongolian books, and because he was a translator, he brought a lot of Tibetan Mongolian dictionaries to the Library of Congress. Even before he reached Urga in 1913, he was commissioning books from Urga because Urga again was a center for education, a center for printing. He was commissioning books from Urga, and we have books here in Library of Congress that has sort of coliforms and writings that are saying to us that he commissioned that and had it shipped from Urga to him in Beijing. So 1913 when all this was happening and the 2 nations were struggling for independence, Mongol and Tibet forms an alliance and produces this treaty of political alliance and mutual friendship, written in both languages, in Tibetan and Mongolian, and fortunately the copies of this text were saved at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Mongolia and recently in fact discovered and studied in the past 2 or 3 years. In this alliance, the [inaudible] representative of 13th Dalai Lama in Urga, he is now signs this treaty made between Mongolia. A few days after the treaty between Mongolia and Tibet was signed, Tibetan Declaration of Independence was issued by 13th Dalai Lama where he really sees Tibet as an independent nation. Unfortunately that was very short lived independence because the next year 1914 in India, Britain, British, Chinese, and Tibetans meet so now a similar convention is issued now to in fact divide the Tibetan territory to 2 parts, which is still [inaudible] until today the central U-Tsang was now as an autonomous under [inaudible] of China but having a Tibetan government. And Amdo Kham area of eastern Tibet where the Mongol nomads were historically leaving together with Tibetans became a complete part of China. And the similar convention unfortunately dividing Tibetan territory between the 2 made it possible for later complete absorption of Tibet into Chinese land. So Urga in 13 becomes, is one, my large book manuscript talks about this monastic establishment, which grows, which is a moving site in the beginning, moving from one local to another but then becoming the essential political center of the government and to the extent that now foreigners traveling through Mongolia have to have traveled passes, and this is a document dating to second year of Tongzhi Emperor, that's 1862, also held in Asian division in Library of Congress, which tells us about a particular names of people who were supposed to travel to Urga, through Urga to Kyakhta and Bisonei French person or Filosi American person, who traveled into Urga in 1862. There was this map, which I found in Library of Congress, also dating to 1749 made by French missionaries, also depicts Urga and calls it [inaudible] residents. It's extremely interesting how many people made their way in early 20th century. During this turmoil period of rebellions and wars happening in the entire region of China, Mongolia, Tibet, how many residents made their way to Urga at this time. Here we have for instance a Danish person, Danish explorer and Danish agriculturist in fact. It turns out that Danish dairy farms and cheese processing was happening in Siberia and when Russian borders were closed, now they made way to Urga, and they tried to open the agriculture farms. And here we have Haslund, Henning Haslund coming to Mongolia and liking this country that much that he keeps on coming and he visits Urga and he writes, there's no town such as Urga. There's a cloister of living Buddha, this is the term of Mongolian leader. Another westerner who comes here and he likes it so much is Roy Chapman Andrews, paleontologist, a countryman of Rockhill, who makes his way from 1918 on routinely basis until 1926. He is coming from with 5 expeditions, having a long caravan of camels at the same time riding Dutch cars and he is writing about, he is giving an extremely vibrant, writing about Ikh Khuree the way he saw it in 1918 and later in 1922, 23, 25 here. He was routinely on the way to Mongolia. So I would like to read that excerpt from Roy Chapman Andrews. We're up in northern Mongolia where the forests stretch in an unbroken line to the Siberian frontier, lies Urga, the sacred city of the living Buddha. The world has other sacred cities but none is like this. Is it a relic of medieval times overlaid with a veneer of 20th century civilization, a city of violent contrast and glaring [inaudible]. Motor cars pass, camel caravans fresh from the vast long spaces of the Gobi desert. Holy lamas in robes of flaming red or brilliant yellow walk side by side with [inaudible] priests and Swahili Mongol women in the fantastics. So this is pictures. Swahili Mongol women [inaudible] stare wonderingly at the latest fashions of their Russian sisters. [inaudible] with fluttering [inaudible] ornate houses, [inaudible] and Chinese shops mingling at dazzling [inaudible] of conflicting civilizations. The Mongol [inaudible] has remained unchanged. The Chinese shop with its wooden counter and [inaudible] is pure Chinese. And the ornate cottages proclaim themselves to be only Russian. Almost every race of central Asia might be seen on the streets of Urga. It was a Meca for the pilgrimages of devout [inaudible] and its [inaudible] mass of life and color the city was like a great pageant on the stage of a theater with the added fascination of reality. Many strange costumes and [inaudible] nomads from the steps of Tibet [inaudible] here. Not only all those religious dignitaries and religious establishments and political activists were here but also businesses flourished in Mongolia and specifically in Urga, and 2 business firms, American firm Mongolian Trading Company, and [inaudible] company, which had state offices in China and Beijing but had branch offices also in Urga had active presence here. So when Roy Chapman Andrews had his expeditions riding his Dutch cars, part of his expedition was also by the man named Charles Goldman [phonetic]. He is in this first car with his family. Charles Goldman really imported cars to Mongolia, and he was a part of this firms that had businesses in Urga, and the trail that this man was following is from this gate in China called Kalgan [inaudible] modern day in Urga here. So this trail was passed by this westerner numerous times by camel car once, by cars, except of Dutch cars, there was also foreign model T that was introduced and widely used in the businesses here. Roy Chapman Andrews is well known for his paleontological findings of dinosaurs. He is the one who has shown to us and proven to us that dinosaurs hatched from eggs. And he found those skeletons of mammals that were sort of origins of what we know as whales today. They were actually mammals, and he found those in Gobi desert. All this is on display in American Museum of Natural History, but he was also as recent scholars such as [inaudible] has shown to us, he was also a civil informant, so to speak a spy that was throughout his scientific research so to speak he was also informing about military capabilities, economic situations about different parties in Mongolia specifically and also in China. Gold mining was another part of very successful business in Mongolia, found by a French person [inaudible] and owned by Russians and the French. [inaudible] was another one who was farming this gold mining from Mongolia, but it was ill-fated. It didn't have success because as [inaudible] to us, the technology did not catch up with huge amounts of fields of gold that they were finding in Mongolia, which again talks about reflecting to what mining happening in today. In 1925 another economic map was made, possibly by the, based on the records that Roy Chapman Andrews was reporting back to Washington, and this map really shows about those economic wealth and minerals, mineral resources and gold in the fields that are available in Mongolia. And 1925 was one of the latest expeditions of Roy Chapman Andrews in Mongolia, which he considered, who was recording him as most successful and most adventures of his own. So based on this reports, there was a routine presence of American diplomacy in Urga. Charles Eberhardt is a counsel general who visited Urga in 1920, and meeting with foreign colony in Urga, meeting with American [inaudible] in Urga, he makes a suggestion back in Washington that a counsel, US consulate, must be opened in Urga. Not only he was suggesting that but also an active aid was sought by Mongolian leadership, by Mongolian political leader, Bogd Khan, who was sending letters continuously, which Charles Eberhardt carried 3 documents from Mongolian political ruler addressing really the situation, addressing really what is called, quote unquote, statement of facts, of political situation in Mongolia, the territorial interests coming from Russia and Russia now being divided between whites and reds and groups in China, war lords in China, and also the colonial powers of a lot countries having their interests now centered in this vulnerable, independent, yet vulnerable, state of Mongolia. The man who was sending letters to Charles Eberhardt and asking the protection from United States, very similar as 13th Dalai Lama was doing that, is Bogd Khan, the last emperor of Mongolia, who was here to meet with Dalai Lama in 1908 when the 13th Dalai Lama was in Mongolia. As well, he met with all those westerners that we saw. Roy Chapman Andrews tells us how, how big was his garage was with all the cars that were represented here. He tells us there is huge, there are truck capable of 20 people and it was recently purchased by 8500 US dollars, 2 Franklin cars, old Ford were in the garage of Bogd Khan and there were also motorcycles and French 3-wheeled cars there. Looking at this portraiture, this is another genre that my book is dealing, is [inaudible] portraiture. It is a subject matter that has a long history in Tibet, that has a long history in Asia in fact. But the particular iconography that is found has not really been very carefully understood. Again looking at this portrait of Tsongkhapa that we saw before, shows us very established iconography of [inaudible] with a book and sword in a teaching gesture. Bogd Khan and as well as all the rulers of Mongolia have again numerous portraits made for reasons that are not completely clear and not completely known, so I'm trying in my [inaudible] book manuscript sort of to speak about and see what kind of agencies were sort of connected on [inaudible] portraiture. What is, not only Bogd Khan was open to all this modern inventions and collecting cars and collecting stuffed animals from exotic western countries, having his live zoo and having his sort of museum zoo and translating projects all going on under his auspices, but just looking at this portrait, we see that not only several parties are involved here. This is a Tibetan style portraiture. It's a Tibetan style painting, but a very western approach of realistic realism here. If Tsongkhapa has shown a transcendental body, which is a Buddhist concept in itself, here he wants to be really recognizable. He really aims to be known as his physical physionomy, known to his people. This shows a very different approach to portraiture here as well as iconography of the surroundings that show us also a team presence, team portraiture, which again becomes a sort of umbrella of all this production in the larger region. But also what is enormously interesting to me, and I'm dealing on my book project is his approach to women. Women become, historically women played a very important role alongside their husbands and their men in Mongolia. Yet of course Gelug Sect and Tsongkhapa were introducing a very strict [inaudible] monastic discipline in Gelug. They were not allowed to get married. They were not allowed to have families raised, yet this new thinker, Bogd Khan, now gets married. Not only once, several times, and he is very open to women and recalls he was a gay bird of the times. He was, and [inaudible] tells here how often he was drunk and another person who was at court very close with him, Larson, Frans August Larson, tells how often he would see him drinking French champagne. And he was open to women in his portraiture. We see a woman, his wife in fact, depicted right underneath his throne. Do you see it here, we have a woman. This is very unusual. This is the deviation of all norms. This is a deviation of Tibetan Gelug Sect. This is a deviation of monastic portraiture. This is a deviation of all kinds of standards that we understand if we follow only art history or we follow just one disciplinary [inaudible]. So I'm trying to also look into this aspect of this openness between the genders and between of course open questions of sexuality within the monasterisms in my book. So the 2 men met and throughout 3 years of their intercourse in 1904 and 1907, they had numerous meetings together, and 13th Dalai Lama's biography that has been again recently started by scholars such as [inaudible] and [inaudible] tell us that they were not very friendly to each other. There were dignitaries and very similar modernizers and new thinkers for which, which each having a struggle for its own independence, yet their own, had their own also issues with their own rituals and their own prospects of audiences that they had. Just looking at these 2 portraits. Here is a portrait based on a photograph made by his quite favorite artist, and this photograph that is taken in India of the 13th Dalai Lama we see that even in this presentation we see many similarities of pose and many similarities of objects, [inaudible] and the Chinese teacups on both sides, so we see this as the language that speaks in a larger region that it is not only specific for any tradition, this kind of very good exemplary evidence that all the parties that are involved depending on the production purposes and [inaudible] that were sort of embedded in this agency. Herbert Hoover was 31st President of the United States, but before he even became the President, when he was a young man living in China he made a special trip and horse ride to Mongolia 19, in 1890s, late 19th century. And he met with Bogd Khan, and he writes to us that when he came to the court to meet with Bogd Khan, Bogd Khan was riding a bicycle, he was madly riding a bicycle, another evidence that he was sort of very open to technology and he was not really restricted to all this monastic discipline that he was supposed to [inaudible]. And he was also having those Russian music and Russian phonogram and was entertaining and amusing all of the audience with his Russian collection. Frans August Larson was a man from Sweden who came to Mongolia at the age of 23, and he left when he was 70. He lived here all his life. He loved Mongolia to the extent that he couldn't imagine himself living outside of Urga, and he worked at various, he took different jobs. He was [inaudible] in bible for bible society, traveling all around Mongolia. He was also working for businesses, being a representative [inaudible] company, and he formed his own company, Larson and Company, for trading furs, and he was an interpreter for all those people that were coming to Mongolia. He was outfitter and helper and assistant to all expeditions [inaudible] expedition, Roy Chapman's expedition and also interpreter and helper to all those diplomats who were coming such as Charles Eberhardt. He was interpreting and helping them. Larson was a very close friend of Bogd Khan, and to the extent that he would tell us very anecdotal moments of Bogd Khan's life. His first encounter that he mentioned in his books are worth mentioning because when he first passing by Bogd Khan palace there was a huge crowd standing and laughing loud, and he finds himself inside of this crowd looking at what those people are sort amused at, and he saw that a window opens in the palace and a lady's corset is just thrown at him. So gets this lady's garment but it's snatched out immediately by someone in the crowd. And then there were just tons of different western objects, lady's gowns, silver, and evening gowns and Swiss watches and clocks and hats of all kinds of fashion that were thrown out of window by Bogd Khan to this crowd. Amusing and loud and everybody was amused as a circus at this kind of entertainment. And he recalls that he, Bogd Khan, had a sort of catalog arriving to him on a regular basis from all these western shops, and he would sort of have samples of those western goods and objects, but he wouldn't keep them all at his court and distribute them just the way he saw it out of his palace to audiences. And people were having perfumes from western shops or fashions, those peculiar fashions, and were trying this out and being amused by Bogd Khan in a kind of a stage. Because of his very close relationship with political leaders in Mongolia and especially Bogd Khan he was given a title, a very sort of high rank called a [inaudible] or a duke in Mongolia, and he was considered as a kind of very highly recognized person in Mongolia. And he was also a assistant to Sokobin, who was one of the last diplomats who visited Urga, had a meeting with Bogd Khan in July, in August 1921. 1921 is the time when now the Soviet Russia puts strong hands in Mongolia and Soviet troops and throw Soviet Mongol troops together, occupy regard establishing a continuous presence of Soviets now, Bolsheviks, in Urga. And Samuel Sokobin's visit is very important because he comes only weeks after that happens in August, and he witnesses before even the actual declaration of Mongolian Republic is formed as an independent pro-Soviet satellite, he witnesses how people were sort of organized and how the activities were engaged. He has a meeting with Bogd Khan, and Bogd Khan issues him this letter, which was first published by [inaudible] who discovered this document unknown to Mongolian historians and to western historians as well as well as prime minister of this new government Bodoo also writes a letter to American government asking really for protection and asking really for US recognition. In a similar way where continuously the political leaders of Tibet, 13th Dalai Lama [inaudible] were constantly seeking alliance, seeing US government as sort of a political, new type of political alliance, for this very vulnerable, independent country. None of his letters were answered, and Sokobin's trip was one of the last presences of diplomacy in Urga. In 1927, when Buddhists of Mongolia were completely closed Sokobin witnessed the beginning of [inaudible] the time when he visits second time, second and his last time, Urga, Prime Minister Bodoo who was writing a letter asking for recognition now who will be executed, now removed from his service, executed among other revolutionaries as a part of this huge devastation that happens, putting complete [inaudible] Urga, putting complete [inaudible] Buddhist faith as a socialist intolerance to religion. There were out of 1022 monasteries that existed in Mongolia, only 2 would be limitedly spared, and everything will be made by Russians to sort of have Mongolia detach from the past. As a part of this campaign, of course of detachment, was changing the alphabet, the tradition script [inaudible] script, which is still in use of modern-day Mongolia. Another aspect that I'm dealing with this larger project of Mongolian art in my book is looking also again at from the religious aspect what do we know and what do you understand looking at this lama portraiture as a genre. And this is where my next finding is at Library of Congress and the last I will be concentrating is this test of Sum pa [inaudible] another 18th century Amdo scholar who built a rosary of flowers that is called. And I found this text first in [inaudible] monastery in Mongolia but access was so impossible, the library is so freezing cold that there are no librarians are helped in the library, so I was never able to get actually. When I got a hold of the text there were many images were missing, pages were missing from the document. It was to my relief Library of Congress had reprinted version of the same txt, reprinted in India in 1975 [inaudible]. To my relief, those pages that are missing were here. They actually give us a very precise econometric treatise about what we call aesthetics in the west or calculation of those symmetries and balances and elements that artists must consider in compiling his image. So Sharav, who is a court favorite in the portraitures of Bogda Gegeen, of course being aware of those aesthetic properties, now puts us together in a conversation between buddhologists who look at each aspects of those religious images and also art historians who look at aesthetic properties together. Sharav now he is forced to paint [inaudible] and he is a not a lama, he is a part of the printing, Russian printing house in Urga, and he also paints Lenin as a part of his survival methods and also we have photographs from Hermann Consten, a German traveler, who shows us that now described in Mongols very much [inaudible] outfitted with leather boots and leather costumes and of course the background, we don't have any Buddhist images anymore because everything is destroyed by now, and the only thing that we have is Lenin. And this is post-Lenin period is of course a story of its own that I will leave to the next stage and I'd like to conclude with this image. Thank you very much. [ Applause ] >> We have time for about 1, 1, 1 question. [background noise] >> Yeah, I think we have time maybe for 1 question. >> You had some very nice photographs of the western buildings [inaudible] especially the Russian consulate. [inaudible] it looked like, did it get demolished? [inaudible]. >> Yeah, they all got demolished. Those are photographs taken in 1912 by [inaudible]. >> [inaudible] >> [inaudible] Russian diplomat who came to Urga to make a treaty, trade treaty with Russia and Mongolia in 1912. Those photographs are taken by him. >> [inaudible] what happened to the buildings? >> They were all destroyed. >> When was that? >> They were destroyed in 1930s. >> [inaudible] they're very impressive. >> Yeah. >> [inaudible] the only one that looks like [inaudible] do you know how long, that's a big building. >> Yes. >> Do you know when that was built? >> I don't know when it was built, but I know that it was used as a Russian shop before it was turned into a museum. >> Was the Russian [inaudible] Consulate held where the British embassy now is? >> Yeah, that, that whole region was called American Consulate, American held, American [inaudible]. >> [inaudible] >> That's right, that's right. >> [inaudible]. >> Yes, yes. >> Thank you. >> Yes. [background noise] >> Actually my clock fooled me, I think we have about time for a second last question, so maybe you can take one more and then we'll conclude, so yeah. >> Thank you very much [inaudible]. Do you think with all the efforts made by Bogd Khan and the 13th Dalai Lama [inaudible] no response from the US side, do you think the US [inaudible] or did Britain offer any kind of [inaudible] to the nonresponse? >> Well, Sikoban for instance when he was writing about all the nonresponse from Washington to all these appeals, he tells us, he tries to tell us that it was very sort of regular that there was no response to even his own letters and his own documents, so he was trying to say that it wasn't a sort of a political stand of United States at the time, but it was very often to see what the purposes of United States had in terms of protection of the businesses and economic sort of interests along with the political interests, but just the fact that there was no response, it shows that there was no really willingness to support those new dependencies. [background noise] >> Well please join me in thanking our speaker and also remember you're invited back to the Asian division for a display. Thank you very much. [applause] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress.