Criticism and bibliography

Ulan-Ude: Publishing House of the Buryat Scientific Center SB RAS, 2002, 216 p.

A well-known Buryat historian, Honorary Doctor of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Professor Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev is the author of more than 160 scientific papers, including those in the Buryat and Mongolian languages ^.1 His research interests are quite broad, but he is best known as a specialist in the medieval and modern history of Mongolia.

Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev began studying the national liberation struggle of the Mongols against the Manchus in the 1970s. The result of this work was the monograph " The Anti-Manchurian Liberation Struggle of the Mongolian people "(Ulan-Ude, 1974), which caused a lot of positive reviews among the Mongol scholars of the USSR and the MNR. For more than 20 years, the scientist continued to develop this topic, collected numerous materials from various sources, including those written in classical and modern Mongolian.

The reviewed monograph is based on multi-volume works in Old Mongolian script ("Zungaryn bodlogyn bichig" - "Code of political acts of the Dzungars", 171 volumes; "Enkh Amgalan khaany bodlogyn bichig" - "Code of political acts of Kanxi", 50 volumes), stored in the collection of woodcuts and manuscripts of the State Public Library

¹ See: Tsyrempilov V. B. List of the main scientific works of Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev before 1986 (incl.) / / Peoples of Asia and Africa. 1986. No. 5. pp. 211-212; Radnaev V. E. Osnovnye nauchnye trudy Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev [The main scientific works of Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev]. 1998. N 1. pp. 219-221.

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Ulaanbaatar; Mongolian annals and historical chronicles; archival materials from the collections of book repositories in Russia, Mongolia, China, including Inner Mongolia, as well as the works of their predecessors who studied certain important moments of the Mongol liberation struggle against the Manchu invaders.

The monograph consists of an Introduction, seven chapters [Ch. I. The Anti-Manchu struggle of the southern Mongols (I half of the XVII century); Ch. II. The Tarbagatai Congress of 1640 and the anti-Manchu Union of Mongols; Ch. III. Armed struggle of the Oirat Khan Galdan-Boshoktu against the Qing invaders; Chapter IV. The liberation movement in Khalkha in the first half and middle of the XVIII century; Chapter V. The Dzungarian Khanate and the anti-Manchu struggle of the Mongols in the first half of the XVIII century; Chapter VI. The popular uprising led by Amarsana; Chapter VII. Folk legends about Amarsan and Chingunzhav] and Appendices, which included five articles by Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev, which supplement the book with materials on the history of the Oirats, the struggle of Chingunzhav and Amarsana with aggressors. They were published earlier in scientific publications of the USSR and Mongolia.

Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev examines various aspects of the anti-Manchurian liberation struggle that unfolded during the XVII-XVIII centuries. These centuries are the most difficult and dramatic period in Mongolian history. The Mongols lived in conditions of fragmentation and internecine strife, which resulted in the departure of large groups of the population to foreign lands: Kalmyks-Torguts, Derbets-to the borders of Southern Siberia, from there to the Volga, Khoshuts - to Kuku-nor and the southern regions of Tibet; Songols, Sartuls, Atagans, Uzons, Khatagins (who then joined the Buryats- Mongolian people), - in the Trans-Baikal territory, in the Three Rivers region (Selenga, Khilok, Chikoy).

Created at the turn of the XVI-XVII centuries. a large military-feudal Qing (Manchu) state, soon embarked on the path of conquest of Mongolian and Chinese lands. Based on concrete facts, the author of the book reveals the goals and objectives of the Manchu rulers and military leaders, their aggressive plans and actions on the Mongolian land. The Qing could not immediately seize the territories of the Mongol tribes, the struggle was stubborn and bloody. Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev was able to show the historical situation in Mongolia, the alignment of political forces in the country, the tactical and strategic goals of the rulers of independent Mongolian khanates, their relationship at various stages of the liberation struggle, participation in negotiations to create a single, pan-Mongolian union in the face of Manchurian expansion, the collapse of the united front from the Soviet Union to the Soviet Union.- for dynastic, selfish differences, as well as subversive actions of the Qing (Manchu) rulers.

In historical literature, it is customary to divide the Manchu conquests into three stages: the conquest of Southern Mongolia, Northern Mongolia (Khalkha Mongolia) and Western Mongolia (Dzungaria). The author adheres to this periodization and notes that at each of these stages, such bright leaders as Ligden Khan, Tsogt-taiji, Galdan-Boshoktu, Amarsana, Chingunzhav were at the head of the liberation movement of the Mongols. Their names will forever go down in the history of the heroic struggle of the Mongolian people to preserve their independence and freedom.

The topic of the monograph was developed by Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev against the background of the international situation that existed then in Central and East Asia. The author pays attention to the relations of the Mongols with the outside world, in particular with Russia, China, and Tibet. He cites quite a lot of facts that testify to the lively Russian-Mongolian political and diplomatic relations during the Qing expansion, about the desire of Mongol leaders (Galdan Khan, Amarsana) to receive military assistance from Sagaan Khan (the White Tsar) in the fight against the Qing. Although the author notes that the Russian state, which did not have a large military contingent in the East and was interested in maintaining peaceful, primarily trade and economic relations with Qing China, did not support the Mongols, in my opinion, he does not sufficiently justify Russia's refusal to come to the aid of the Mongols in the fight against the Manchus. It would also be desirable, while describing the attempts to unite the efforts of the Mongols of various principalities, to dwell in more detail on the characteristics of the Kurultai in Tarbagatai and the Mongol-Oirat law adopted there in 1640.

Judging the reviewed work as a whole positively, we can say that it will be of interest not only to Mongolian scholars, but also to a wider circle of Orientalists. The book by Sh. B. Chimitdorzhiev is a significant contribution to Russian historiography on the problems of the East, in particular Mongolia.

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