History of Mongolia
The history of Mongolia describes the history of the actual settlement area of the Mongols.
The territory of what is now Mongolia has always been ruled by nomads who at times, like the Xiongnu or the Xianbei , founded empires. In 1190, Genghis Khan succeeded in uniting the Mongols and subsequently establishing the huge Mongol Empire . The Mongols took control of China , where they established the Yuan Dynasty . After the collapse of their empire in 1262, most of the Mongols lived nomadically again, and various successor states existed until the 16th century. At the same time the country came under the influence of Buddhism , a little later most of Mongolia was ruled by the Qing Dynasty . After their collapse, Mongolia leaned heavily on Russia and the Soviet Union . In 1911 it gained independence and in 1924 the Mongolian People's Republic was proclaimed. As a result of the changes in Eastern Europe, a new constitution was adopted in 1992 and the market economy was introduced.
overview
The following periods are distinguished in the history of Mongolia:
- Prehistory and early history (up to the 11th century)
- Unification of the tribes and conquest of a world empire (12th-14th centuries)
- The Dark Era (1368-1636)
- The Mongols under the Qing Dynasty (1637–1911)
- Aspirations for autonomy and the Mongolian People's Republic (from 1911)
- Turn to capitalism (from 1990)
In antiquity and antiquity , Mongolia was almost exclusively populated by nomadic pastoral peoples due to its inhospitable climate ; in the vast country there were only sporadic smaller cities of the Samoyed , Uyghurs and some under Chinese influence. During this time there were already several attacks by individual tribes on China or the western Silk Road through Central Asia.
In the Middle Ages, Genghis Khan (1155–1227) managed to unite the Mongolian tribes in one state and, with the help of superior warfare, to build a world empire for centuries , which at its height reached from Central Europe to the Far East . It represented the largest contiguous empire in history; the Pax Mongolica ruled inside . Genghis Khan's grandson Kublai Khan († 1294 in Beijing ) established the Yuan Dynasty in China and gave Buddhist monks the administration of Tibet .
The end of the Yuan Dynasty in 1368 marked the beginning of the "Dark Era": The Mongols were often at odds and weak. In the east, the actual Mongolian Khanate continued to exist - weakened - and is now mostly called the Northern Yuan as its dominion area . In the west, the Dörben Oirat tribal union was founded in 1368 and the Djungarian Khanate in 1640 . In the 18th century, Qing Dynasty China and Russia expanded into Mongolia.
After the collapse of China in 1911, Mongolia declared itself independent , but it took (despite Russian help) until 1921 to finally drive the Chinese troops out of the country. In 1924 the Mongolian People's Republic was proclaimed the second socialist state in history , and the country subsequently became a satellite state of the USSR .
In 1990, under the influence of the changes in Eastern Europe , a democracy movement emerged in Mongolia, a new constitution was passed and free elections took place in 1992. From 1990 to 1996 the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MRVP) ruled the country, then the more liberal “Democratic Party” until 2000. Since the parliamentary elections in 2004 there has been a grand coalition of the MRVP with an alliance of democratic parties.
Nations, nature and neighbors
Over time, the Mongolian plateau was ruled by various important tribes such as the Xiongnu , Kök Turks and the Mongols .
Tribal confederations
Historians are now endeavoring to organize the numerous Asian nomad tribes into groups according to certain linguistic, cultural and historical aspects. One differentiates them more or less justified according to Indo-European , Hunnic, Turkish, Mongolian, Tibetan or Tungusian origin.
The following tribal confederations are recorded as lords of the Mongolian plateau, some of which also ruled in China at the same time.
- Xiongnu 3rd century BC Chr - 1st century
- Xianbei 1st century - 4th century
- Rouran 4th century - 6th century
- Kök Turks 6th - 8th century
- Uyghurs 8th - 9th century
- Kirghiz 9th century - 10th century
- Kitan (see Liao dynasty ) 10th century - 12th century
- Mongols (see Yuan dynasty ) 12th - 17th century
- Manchu (see Qing dynasty ) 17th century - 20th century
The principle of forming a tribal confederation has always been the same. A prince gathered supporters of different origins around him and tried to get his own clans better under control. These people acquired titles of nobility and soon had their own servants and shepherds. With their help, the prince then began to attack and exploit the neighboring tribes until he met too much resistance.
A distinction must be made between the direct allegiance of a tribal chief ( Khan ) and the “people” who are dependent on these people. If the direct allegiance of the khan was defeated, these tribal dominions dissolved. But the name of the ruling tribe was often carried over to all of the united tribes, even if the rulers disappeared in the turmoil of history.
religion
The nomads in the Mongolian plateau mostly adhered to Tengrism . It was not until the 16th century that Tibetan Buddhism began its triumphal march under Altan Khan and his relatives - even if there were already diverse religious contacts with Buddhists, Muslims and Nestorian Christians beforehand. Mongolian beliefs today are a combination of Tengrism and Buddhism.
nature
Due to the climatic conditions with their extreme temperature fluctuations, Mongolia was, with few exceptions, not a country in which agriculture and the associated sedentary life could have developed.
The focus was on the specialized breeding of horses and sheep , which formed the basis of life, everything else was at best a sideline. But with cattle breeding you could not feed large peoples and consequently also not produce a great culture . The nomads of Eurasia were thus viewed by their neighbors as barbarians , whereby the Han Chinese divided them into raw (hostile) and cooked (friendly) barbarians.
There were smaller centers of wheat and millet cultivation . In addition, ruins of Samoyed and Uighur cities have been discovered in several places in the Tuva area. There were also smaller towns under Chinese influence in the Ordos region . Salt , coal , gold and silver were occasionally mined. They also had enslaved Chinese artisans to make weapons and woven goods.
Nomads
Up until modern times, the inner-Asian nomads knew no borders. They were forced to constantly change locations due to pastoral requirements. If the economic situation was bad due to cold snaps, drought or excessive population growth, they banded together and attacked the neighboring countries in order to obtain additional food , grazing land and cultural assets . The nomads lived in constant inner unrest.
The main destination of the tribes in what is now Mongolia, Manchuria and on the border with Tibet was rich China . If you thought you were strong enough, you would attack the country. If China turned out to be too strong an adversary, they turned to the west and to the countries on the Silk Road .
The nomads were with their highly specialized nomadic economy on trade for the procurement of missing goods instructed that they could not produce as many hardware. That is why their khans usually protected trade and the mostly Muslim traders. Restrictions on trade, as used by China in the 15th and 16th centuries as a means of political pressure, were a reason for war.
Prehistory and early history
500,000 years ago, Homo erectus settled what is now Mongolia . This is proven by finds of primitive stone tools. Back then the climate was milder than it is today. The mountains were covered with deciduous and coniferous forests. Antelopes and mammoths lived in the lush meadows .
In the valley of the Tolbor River , a tributary of the Selenga , stone tools approximately 45,000 years old were discovered at the Tolbor-16 site , the oldest evidence of the presence of anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ) in what is now Mongolia.
Cave paintings in the province of Chowd date from the later Stone Age, i.e. from 40,000 to 12,000 years ago . Back then, the country was populated by mammoths, rhinos , deer , bison , donkeys and antelopes. In the Mesolithic , around 12,000–7,000 years ago, people began to use bows and arrows and keep pets. It is also believed that people from the region migrated over the then existing land bridge into the Bering Strait to North America.
The first written evidence comes from Chinese chronicles. They testify to the enmity between the two peoples and describe the Mongols as wolves and barbarians, whose only aim was to steal Chinese supplies. It can be assumed that the predecessors of the Mongols practiced a primitive form of agriculture and that there were trade relations with other peoples, as dishes made of nephrite were found, for which the raw material cannot be found in the vicinity of the site.
In the Bronze Age , around 2500 BC Until 1000 BC BC, the culture of the region developed quickly due to the numerous deposits of copper in Mongolia. At the same time, however, the climate continued to cool, making it too cold to farm, ultimately turning the people here into cattle-raising nomads. Works of art from this period prove that horses, goats and sheep played a major role in society even then.
In the third century BC The tribe of Xiongnu invaded the southern Chinese states. They were successfully repulsed, and in response to the frequent Mongol incursions, Emperor Qin Shihuangdi began building the Great Wall of China by connecting and expanding existing fortification walls. The peoples from the steppe, such as the Xianbei , Tuoba and Rouran , overcame the wall repeatedly and plundered the Chinese areas, at times they even built their own empires and acculturated.
In the 8th century the Turkic peoples, especially the Uyghurs, took over the supremacy, in the 10th century the Kitan founded the Liao dynasty , which lasted until 1125.
Unification of the tribes and conquest of a world empire
In the 12th century Temüdschin , the son of the clan chief of the Kijat , succeeded in uniting the many divided Mongolian tribes and forming a state from them that could take on its powerful neighbors. Temüdschin, who lost his father in his early childhood, was abandoned with his family by his clan in the steppe. After killing his older stepbrother, he became the leader of his family, forming alliances with other young men and clans, and rising himself to be the leader of all Mongols through skill, generosity and violence.
Around the year 1206 he was recognized as the leader of all Mongols under the title of Genghis Khan . The national emblem he was awarded, the white standard, still stands today in the Mongolian parliament, along with nine other standards for the core tribes of the empire at that time as a symbol of today's Mongolian state. He set up a powerful army to which, with few exceptions, all men between the ages of 15 and 70 were obliged, whereby he was careful to include men from different tribes in all groups. A strictly hierarchical organization of the army and the specialization of soldiers were also new. He also gave his kingdom a uniform script and a uniform law ( Jassa ). To establish a central power, he founded the new capital Karakorum .
The Jassa code issued by Genghis Khan contained traditional Mongolian laws, but was supplemented by new laws calling for the expansion of the Mongolian Empire. The laws provided penalties for liars, required the return of lost property, restricted alcohol consumption, and established a social safety net for the survivors of killed Mongolian warriors. A largely uniform legal system contributed significantly to the Pax Mongolica from the late 12th century to the 14th century.
Caught between a central unitary state decentralized part rich it came from Kublai Khan to the division of the Mongol Empire .
Dark era
The Mongolian Yuan Dynasty in China was proclaimed by Genghis Khan's grandson Kublai Khan in 1271 and lasted until 1370 when it was replaced by the Manchurian Ming Dynasty. The Yuan fled north but never gave up their claims against the Ming. They were now called the Northern Yuan . The Ming harassed them and defeated them in a battle near Lake Buir Nur in 1388 : 70,000 Mongols were captured and the capital Karakoram was destroyed. The Eastern Mongols were weakened, which favored the rise of the Western Mongolian Oirats .
As before the time of Genghis Khan, the Mongolian tribes attacked the Chinese Empire again and again, which induced the rulers of the Ming dynasty to further expand and strengthen the Great Wall of China . Times of war alternated with times of peace. Numerous battles among the Mongolian tribes, spurred on by China, began.
In 1412, Delbeg Khan , who was dependent on the Oirats, became the Great Khan of the Northern Yuan . During this time the Oirats suffered a defeat against the Ming and Adai Khan was able to unite the eastern and then the central regions of Mongolia. In the struggle for the western, Oriental, territories he had no final success; but since the Orians had no khan for a few years, he was the only khan of the Mongols at that time. In 1425 he became Greater Khan. The Ming saw this as a threat and now again supported the Oirats. In 1430 Adai Khan suffered a decisive defeat, in 1438 he was killed by the Oirats. Now the Oirats regained the upper hand and Esen Tayishi was able to extend his rule to the whole of Mongolia, in 1449 he invaded China, in 1453 he made himself Khan, but in the following year he was murdered.
A new struggle for supremacy began: in 1475 Manduul Khan was able to assert himself against most of the khans until he was murdered in 1478. Manduul's daughter Manduchai installed her underage son Dayan Khan as the new Khan, and in the following years the Mongolian tribes were reunited. Dayan Khan organized the Eastern Mongols into two wings, each with 3 towers, so a total of 6 towers (towers means ten thousand). This classification related to both military and administrative aspects. Dayan's reign is seen as the high point in 1517, when he went with an army to Beijing. In 1542, shortly before his death, he defeated Chinese troops one last time.
During the reign of Daraisung Guden Khan (1547–57) the power of the Altan Khan , who actually only led the east wing, grew . During this time, Tibetan Buddhism began to become the state religion of the Mongols. Tümen Zasagt Khan managed to unite all Mongols for the last time during his rule from 1558–92. After that, unity among the Mongols waned.
In the struggle between the two most important Mongolian tribes, the (West Mongolian) Oirats withdrew from the (East Mongolian) Chalcha and moved west and south from 1610. New Oirat khanates emerged: in 1640 Khungtaidschi Batur founded the Djungarian khanate , in 1642 Gushri Khan founded the Khoschuten khanate .
In the east, Ligdan Khan fought unsuccessfully from 1619 against the growing pressure of the Manchus under Nurhaci and Hung Tayiji . He lost the support of many East Mongolian tribes, had to flee with his tribe, the Chakhar , and died in 1634. The Mongol Chakhar then joined the Manchurian Jurchen .
During the Qing Dynasty
The Manchu continued to gain power, in 1644 they drove out the Ming Dynasty in China and founded the Qing Dynasty . In 1696 they repulsed an advance by the Djungarian khanate , in 1717 Tsewangrabtan , khan of the Djungarian khanate destroyed the neighboring Khoschut khanate , and in 1755–58 the Manchus defeated the Djungarian khanate and massacred the Djungarians to prevent rebellions.
In the 16./17. In the 19th century, the merger of older Mongol groups resulted in the Chalcha Mongols. These groups played an important role in the formation of the Sino-Mongolian Empire under the Qing Dynasty . The decline of this empire began in the 19th century with the spread of European colonialism . In 1911, during the Xinhai Revolution, the last emperor was overthrown.
On the threshold of modernity
As civilization continued to expand , the influence of the nomadic way of life declined and became a historical anachronism . After the fall of the Chinese Manchu dynasty, the protracted formation of modern Mongolia, the elimination of feudalism and centuries of backwardness, began in 1911 .
At the same time, Outer Mongolia broke away from China, since the rebellious Khalka Mongols had only felt obliged to the ruling Manchu dynasty anyway . In Inner Mongolia things were different. Here, influential Mongolian nobles had real estate in China, especially in the Beijing region, so that Yuan Shikai's efforts for independence there could be bloodily suppressed. And the Buryats on Lake Baikal had long been part of the Russian sphere of influence.
On September 28, 1911, the Khalka nominated the Buddhist Lama Djebtsandampa under the title Bogd Gegeen as the new head of state. With a brief interruption he was to remain the nominal head of state until his death in 1924, under the bloody Baltic adventurer Roman von Ungern-Sternberg (executed 1921) and his Cossacks in 1920/21 as well as under the communists Damdin Süchbaatars (1921-1923). In the meantime international diplomacy was working, and in 1912 a Russian-Chinese agreement on Mongolia was reached.
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Analogous to this, in 1912 3,000–5,000 Mongols marched with 1,000 Russian rifles to Khovd (Kobdo). The Chinese had to leave; only 580 of the 5000 Chinese resident there survived the fighting and the subsequent flight. Simultaneously with them, Mongolia lost the workers in the gold mines and the farmers for vegetables, flour and grain because the Mongols did not have the will and the skills to replace them. However, all debts to the Chinese have been canceled, previously a pressing problem for the Mongols. This independence process continued after a Chinese interlude (1918/19) ended by Baron Sternberg under communist auspices and the influence of the Soviet Union (1921-1924). Due to the support of Soviet Russia for the Mongolian Revolutionary People's Army , Mongolia was able to maintain its independence after 1921 from the economically and militarily far superior China, but also from Japan during the Second World War.
20./21. century
The 13th Dalai Lama visited Yeke küriye khota , (Urga, today Ulan Bator ) in 1905 , contrary to the ban of the Qing government . In 1905, Japan received the concession to build the South Manchurian Railway, which reached Kalgan in 1909 . The ban on Han Chinese people to settle in the Mongolian territories was lifted in 1906, and Mongol-Han Chinese marriages became legal. Russia and Japan conclude a secret agreement in July 1907 and delimit their spheres of interest in Mongolia. With the fall of the Manchu dynasty in 1911 and the subsequent proclamation of the Chinese Republic, Mongolia separated from China and gained its statehood. Strong attachment to Russia (protective power against China). On December 30, 1911 the 8th Djebtsundampa as head of state of Autonomous (Outer) Mongolia, takes the title Boghdo Against Khan (Holy Enlightened Ruler). In China, the Republic was proclaimed in February 1912 , it formally laid claim to the Mongolian territories, in fact a power vacuum is created. In St. Petersburg on July 8, 1912, Russia and Japan set the boundaries of their spheres of interest in Inner Mongolia in a secret treaty at the 116th degree of longitude. On October 21, 1912, the Russian-Mongolian Agreement was reached. The friendship and alliance treaty between Mongolia and Tibet was signed on February 4, 1913: It includes mutual independence and recognition. The Kjachta Treaty is signed on May 25, 1915. Japan and China sign the treaty for southern Manchuria and eastern Mongolia in 1915 . China took advantage of Russia's weakness and occupied Mongolia in 1918 and 1919. The former tsarist officer Roman von Ungern-Sternberg expelled the Han Chinese in 1920/1921 and was in turn defeated by the communist revolutionaries.
Outer Mongolia declares its independence on July 10, 1921 . Inner Mongolia remains part of China . Mongolia signed a friendship and assistance treaty with Russia in November 1921. On November 26, 1924, the Mongolian People's Republic was proclaimed . The communist regime under the government of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MRVP) pursues a policy closely related to the Soviet Union.
During the Stalinist purges of 1937/38, around 38,000 Mongols were murdered, including almost the entire intelligentsia of the country and around 18,000 Buddhist monks. The Buddhist monasteries in Mongolia with their valuable cultural assets and libraries were almost all irreversibly destroyed.
Traditional nomadic livestock farming was marginalized, but this created major economic problems. Since 1945 there has been a strong boom in industrial production (oil, coal, wool, meat, leather) as well as the planned cultivation and export of grain.
The Republic of China recognized the Mongolian People's Republic in 1945. Inner Mongolia, which is part of China, became an autonomous region in 1947 . Since 1950 there has been an improvement in Mongolian-Chinese relations. In 1960, a new constitution and the raising of the Great Hural (Council of State) to the highest state organ was drawn up. In 1969, the People's Republic of China made territorial claims to Mongolia. From 1974 diplomatic relations between Mongolia and the Federal Republic of Germany were established. In 1980 an agreement was reached with the Soviet Union on the common border line. 1987 diplomatic admission to the USA was taken.
After massive demonstrations for more democracy, the politburo of the communist MRVP resigned in March 1990 . A constitutional amendment enables the establishment of new parties. This ends the communist one-party rule in Mongolia. This is followed by elections (July), the abolition of the one-party system, democratization and a move towards a market economy. Buddhism, suppressed by the communists, was revived in 1991. The last Soviet troops left Mongolia in 1992. In February 1992 a new constitution was passed and the designation "People's Republic" disappeared. The first elections after the entry into force of the republican constitution on June 28, 1992 were won by the now democratized MRVP.
After a devastating drought in 1999 and a very severe winter, agricultural production experienced a catastrophic collapse. In the parliamentary elections of July 2000, the opposition ex-communist MRVP, which has been opposition since 1996, wins 72 of the 76 seats in the »Great Hural« (parliament), where it was previously represented with only 26 seats. In 2004 Mongolia was the first country to receive observer status with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization ( SCO ). For the presidential election in May 2005 , there were even four distinguished personalities to choose from , with two former heads of government and two industrialists . The main themes of the election campaign were the market economy and the fight against unemployment and corruption ; the latter was said to be true of both politicians.
In July 2008, following parliamentary elections in the capital Ulan Bator, rioting resulted in injuries and deaths. They broke out when the defeated Democratic Party accused the MRVP of electoral fraud . International observers, however, considered the election fair and correct.
Today Mongolian democracy is more stable than in the other Central Asian countries. The transition from a planned to a market economy was accompanied by many problems, and even today around a third of the population lives in poverty, despite strong economic growth at times.
See also
Web links
- Paul D. Buell: Age of the Mongolian Empire: A bibliographical essay.
Individual evidence
- ^ Jennifer L. Hanson: Nations in transition - Mongolia. 2003, pp. 1-6.
- ↑ Timothy Michael May: Culture and Customs of Mongolia. Westport 2009, pp. 3-6.
- ^ Jennifer L. Hanson: Nations in transition - Mongolia. 2003, p. 7.
- ↑ Timothy Michael May: Culture and Customs of Mongolia. Westport 2009, p. 6.
- ↑ Felicitas Schmieder: Cinggis Khan - The face of the Mongol. Graz 2001.
- ↑ Timothy Michael May: Culture and Customs of Mongolia. Westport 2009, p. 12.
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