U469  Mongolia:  Theocracy, Communism, Democracy
    (formerly Mongols of the 20th Century)
    Week 15:  Tuesday
     

The New Mongolians

  1. Demography
    1. Three stage model: the fertility transition
      1. Pre-modern period: High birth rate, high death rate
      2. Modernizing period: High birth rate, low death rate
      3. Modern/developed period: Low birth rate, low death rate
      4. Death constraint: food, public health; birth constraint: utility of children
    2. Mongolia’s experience: typical factors
      1. Demography agricultural up to 1947-1950
        1. Deaths in purges NOT confirmed by sex imbalance
      2. Birth rate drops 1947 on (center & east), 1950 on (west)
      3. Fertility maxes in 1963: 8; drop steady from 1975 on; 4 in 1990
      4. Today: extremely youthful pop.; 40% under 18
    3. Mongolia’s experience: unusual factors
      1. Gov’t strongly pro-natal; birth control, abortion illegal till 1989
      2. Limits on fertility: venereal disease? Smoky yurts?
      3. 1947-1975: fertility AND women’s education increase together
    4. Nuclear family as norm, unilateral descent disappears
      1. Romantic sex-roles: caring cultural mother/strong tough father
      2. Urbanization >> apartments >> few children, brothers not together
      3. Remaining clan affiliations (matrilateral, patrilateral) decline
  2. Ulaanbaatar and urbanization
    1. Galactic (multi-center) polities and radial (single-center) polity
      1. Galactic: capital not large in pop., other functions centered elsewhere
      2. Radial: capital large in pop., center of all functions
    2. Mongolia strongly radial
      1. UB: 1950: 12.6%, 1986: 26.1%
      2. Center for ALL spheres of life
      3. Central zone: major center of population, industry
    3. Urbanization
      1. Low rural population >> urbanization rapid, in place by 1969
        1. 1956: 22% urban; 1969: 44%; 1991: 56%
      2. Planned cities: Darkhan, 1961 (industry); Erdenet, 1973-83 (mining)
      3. Aimag centers: often large percent of pop., esp. in gobi zones, far west
  3. Dependent industrialization: the Tsedenbal bubble
    1. 1969-1989: Period of economic boom
      1. Based on Mongolia’s foreign position
      2. Subsidized by Soviet aid: est. 11% of GNP from Soviet aid
      3. Brezhnev deal: increased attention to visible wants for political passivity
        1. In Mongolia: apartment blocks, hospitals, schools, telephones
        2. Not developed: basic infrastructure, balanced economy
    2. Dependency
      1. Agricultural "self-sufficiency": mechanized agriculture
        1. seeds, spare parts, oil and gasoline all imported
      2. Mining economy: Erdenet (Cu, Mo), Choibalsan (flourspar) cities
        1. Mineral concentrates: 40% of exports to USSR
      3. Triple structure of Mongolian industry
        1. Nalaikh coal mine, no. 4 power plant, Erdenet
  4. New Intellectual Life
    1. National narrative: from grade schools to grad school
      1. History of the MPR, first edition, 1956: Soviet-Mongolian project
      2. Narrative: one nation progressing to communism (=modern society)
      3. Concepts based on Vladimirtsov’s "Nomadic Feudalism"
      4. Basic research on socio-economic history of Qing, autonomy
      5. The Tsedenbal reaction, 1969-1984
    2. Art and culture: European "high" art, Mongolian "folkloric" art
      1. Socialist realism
        1. Sentimental, formulaic
      2. European neo-classical art forms: architecture, ballet, opera, theater
      3. Folkloric themes: workers: peasants : : epochalist:essentialist
        1. Mongol zurag (thangka techniques, modern topics)
        2. Collected folklore (shows peasant/essentialist side of nation)
        3. Religious, aristocratic elements rigorously purged