May 15, 2024
Paris – Ulaanbaatar
Interview with Madame Isabelle Charleux
Director of Research at the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS), France
A.J. : Please allow me to introduce you to our readers. You are a Doctor in art history (Paris IV-Sorbonne, 1998), specializing in Inner Mongolian and Mongol studies including portraits of Chinggis Khaan, Mongolian tangible and intangible heritage, the monastic architectural history, and Buddhist pilgrimages among others. You are the director of research at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), the largest public scientific research organization in France. You were the president of the French Society for Mongolian and Siberian Studies (SEMS) from September 2019 to December 2023. The SEMS publishes the “Mongol, Siberian, Central Asian and Tibetan Studies” review (EMSCAT) and organizes monthly seminars. Thank you, Madame Charleux, for accepting the invitation to our interview.
Exposition in Nantes, France
A.J. : The Chinggis Khaan Exhibition at the Nantes History Museum took place from October 14, 2023 through May 5, 2024. Anticipated for several years following the Chinese government’s attempted intervention and then the Covid pandemic, it was an event of great importance for Mongolia abroad. According to the official website of the Museum of Château des ducs de Bretagne, “This exhibition is the first in France dedicated to one of the greatest conquerors in History: Genghis Khan. » Would you please share your thoughts?
I.C. : I would like to begin with a brief history of expositions on Mongolian culture in France. Since 1979, the Cernuschi Museum in Paris exhibited 184 modern Mongolian paintings. Then, the Musée de l’Homme organized an exposition of Mongolian ethnographic objects in 1983. Ten years later, the first major exhibition on Mongolian Buddhist art in Europe took place from 1993 to 1994 at the Guimet Museum of Asian Arts. This show titled, Treasures of Mongolia, presented the artworks of Undor Gegeen Zanabazar and the Ikh Khüree era, which achieved prominent success among the public. Then, Mongolian artifacts, most notably relics from the Mongol Hunnu burial site uncovered by the French Archaeological Expedition at “Gol Mod,” Arkhangai Aimag were exhibited in the year 2000 at the exposition titled, Steppes of Asia, from Alexander the Great to Genghis Khan at the Guimet Museum of Asian Arts as well.
The 2023 exhibition, Genghis Khan: How the Mongols changed the world at the Nantes Museum is the result of a collaboration with the Chinggis Khaan Museum in Ulaanbaatar. Marie Favereau, a specialist of the Golden Horde, is the chief scientific commissioner. Together with Jean-Paul Desroches, former curator at the Guimet Museum and director of the French archaeological expedition, as well as Bertrand Guillet, director of the Museum of Dukes of Brittany, they are responsible for the success of this project. The exhibition was inaugurated by a symposium on medieval Mongolian history headed by Ms. Favereau. I presented a lecture on Mongol Studies in France at the conference and wrote an article for the catalog titled, Les Mongols et le monde, 2023. I also contributed with ideas and advice in the early stages of the project in 2020.
It is indeed an exhibition of significance for Mongolian culture abroad. Despite its relatively modest size, it has achieved considerable acclaim among international experts as well as the public. The Association Routes Nomades, founded by Johanni Curtet, singer and khömii expert, organized numerous events such as concerts, films, and conferences in the duration of the show. The Naadam ceremony was held in the courtyard of the Museum castle from April 20th to 21st, 2024. It was attended by 350 Mongols. “Seeing this culture in real life is impressive,” were the remarks of French visitors as reported by the French public radio and television broadcaster. Therefore, the exhibition on Chinggis Khaan and Mongolian culture was widely received and celebrated in Nantes. It will soon be unveiled in Ulaanbaatar, then undoubtedly in more countries. We are all delighted with the success of this exhibition.
The image and symbolism of Chinggis Khaan in the West
A.J. : You have researched and written fascinating articles on the evolution of the image and portraits of Chinggis Khaan throughout history. At present, his portrait in Taipei is well known in Mongolia as it is printed on our bank notes. In Central Asia, the image of Chinggis Khaan is held in high regard. Yet in the rest of the world a stereotype of him as a ruthless and bloodthirsty conqueror persists. In The Orphan of China written by Voltaire in 1755, for instance, he is described as a brute villain who is ‘attenuated’ by the civilized intelligence of the Chinese. Please talk to us about your conclusions on the image of Chinggis Khaan throughout history.
I.C. : Travelers to the Mongol Empire often describe golden statues of the Great Emperor that were erected after his death. However, it is unknown whether portraits were painted during his lifetime. In the period of the Yuan dynasty, immense and sumptuous silk embroideries depicting Mongol emperors and empresses were meant to be placed in the great Buddhist monasteries. The portraits preserved in Taipei are perhaps preparatory sketches for these embroideries.
After the fall of the Yuan Empire, the Eight White Palaces (naiman tsagaan ord) preserved the relics and the portrait of Chinggis Khaan. Until the Qing Empire, the portrait of the Great Ancestor of the Mongols was worshipped by princes of his lineage in their palaces. Chinggis Khaan was represented as a deified ruler seated on a throne. This manner of representation was emulated by the Ming Chinese emperors. When the Mongol people adopted Buddhism in the 16th–17th centuries, Chinggis Khaan was integrated into the Buddhist pantheon as the emanation of Ochirvaani (Vajrapani) and represented as a protective deity of the Buddhist Dharma.
As for his depictions in France, it is difficult to isolate them from those in the rest of Europe because the images have circulated a lot. The stereotype of a ruthless conqueror is a late invention. If during the medieval period, the “tartar” armies were represented as barbaric and cruel, Chinggis Khaan, on the contrary, was often pictured as a true sovereign similar to the portrayals of European monarchs: crowned, seated on a throne, and holding an insignia of power. In the 17th century, European scholars studied the history of the Mongol Empire first from Arabic, and Persian sources, and later from Chinese and Manchurian documents. Europeans wanted to understand how a “barbarian” was able to build the largest Eurasian Empire in the world. Therefore, Chinggis Khaan was in fact admired in Europe. A very imaginative representation of him dressed as an Ottoman Sultan became widely popular during this time. In the 17th century, the Jesuits reproduced his image from a portrait they saw in China. In short, it is the Mongol armies that were depicted as barbarians, not Chinggis Khaan himself.
In the 19th century, explorers and Christian missionaries in Mongolia contrasted the “civilized, deceitful” Chinese with the “simple, innocent” Mongols, a nation they described as being in decline and noted their loyalty to the Buddhist faith. However, the Russians strongly criticized “Asianism” and the “Tartar yoke”, constructing a narrative of a despotic Mongol sovereign. European-Chinese political relations and the development of theories on race during the European colonial era created the idea of a “yellow peril.” The Chinese, Manchus, and Mongols were all feared by Europeans during this time. Descriptions of “Chinese torture” come up repeatedly in the literature of this period. Therefore, the image of an armed, fighting, “barbaric” Chinggis Khaan with a cruel face is ultimately outdated. It was spread in the 20th century following the fear of the Yellow Peril.
In 1990, Mongolians gained freedom of religion and thought, and held up the portrait of Chinggis Khaan in pro-democratic demonstrations. Chinggis Khaan became the main figure of Mongolian identity and the protective patriarch of the nation as his white and black banners were raised again. At the same time, the Mongols ensured that the figure of Chinggis Khaan was portrayed in a positive light abroad: an article in the Washington Post published in 1990 described him as the inventor of globalization. Erasing the violence of their conquests, the Mongols turned him into a man of peace, who gave them laws and traditions, thus declaring to the world a democratic and peaceful Mongolia.
In my research, I studied a variety of representations of Chinggis Khaan, which proliferated especially after the celebration of the 800-year anniversary of the establishment of the Mongol Empire in 2006. These include both the public sphere such as ministries, universities, museums, and statues in squares, as well as the private homes of shamans and places of Buddhist worship. I highlighted the image of Chinggis Khaan as a sovereign, a man of law with a book in one hand and a seal in the other, seated on a throne placed between black and white banners. He is almost never armed and rarely on horseback. He is depicted as a benevolent patriarch, who watches over the Mongolian people. His figure is therefore a deified cult symbol of both the state and the populus. Buddhists continue to consider him as the incarnation of Ochirvaani.
Chinggis Khaan is also “reinstated” in P.R. China as a “Chinese” emperor because he is considered to be the ancestor of a dynasty that reigned over China. Buryatia and Kazakhstan claim him as theirs too. In 2019, Chinggis Khaan and the Mongol Empire were once again banned from Chinese museums and public school textbooks. China seeks to destroy the identity and culture of its “ethnic minorities” to better acculturate them. Chinese publications replace Mongol Empire with the term, “the steppe civilization,” which, according to them, is fully a part of Chinese civilization.
The French National Center for Scientific Research
A.J.: Please tell us more about your institution. Is it similar to the Mongolian Academy of Sciences? If I understood correctly, the Center for Mongolian and Siberian Studies is affiliated with the Sociology of Religions and Secularism Group, which is one of hundreds of CNRS agencies. Do the activities of your organization adhere to the objectives of France’s foreign policy? What sets your research center apart from others?
I.C. : The structure of scientific research institutions is complex in France. The CNRS is a “social democratic” type of institution founded in 1939, which can be compared to the Academies of Sciences of former communist countries, Mongolia, but also the USSR, China, and others. In the West, CNRS is still one of the rare institutions entirely dedicated to scientific research. In the United States, for example, almost all researchers are required to teach, which is not the case at the CNRS. Our center brings together 32,000 researchers, the majority of whom are working in natural sciences. There are only 3 researchers in Mongol studies at the CNRS – the rest are teaching at universities.
In 1969, anthropologist Roberte Hamayon founded the French Society for Mongolian and Siberian Studies (CEMS). From 1970 to 2019, the CEMS published the journal called, Cahiers d’études mongoles, today EMSCAT. In the present, CEMS is a library housing around 6000 works in ancient Mongolian and Cyrillic, Russian, and French languages. The researchers themselves collected these books during their missions. The Mongolian-French dictionary project initiated by R. Hamayon and her team continues today in Ulaanbaatar.
The CEMS was first attached to the University of Paris-Nanterre, and in 2002 became a part of the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes (EPHE), a well-renowned postgraduate university in France. The CEMS library joined the immense human and social sciences library, Humathèque.
Our group on campus, located in the Societies, Religions, Secularities Group laboratory next to the library, is working hard to keep French Mongol studies alive. Today the CEMS no longer really exists but we are in the process of reforming a network of Mongol Scholars. Around forty researchers and doctoral students attached to several universities in Paris and the surrounding regions meet at the bi-monthly seminar. We would like to organize a European conference on Mongol studies.
We work closely with the French National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations INALCO, which trains students in the Mongolian language and cooperates with the Mongolian National University, the Mongolian University of Arts and Culture, and the Mongolian Embassy in France. The EMSCAT journal publishes articles in French and English on various subjects. We publish articles translated from Mongolian also. We would like to receive more Mongolian researchers in France – currently, I have one Mongolian doctoral student through support from the French Embassy in Mongolia.
We often invite Mongolian researchers to conferences and workshops in France, but our research budget is limited. In addition, unfortunately, the current “anti-migratory” policy frequently refuses visas. On the other hand, we often welcome Mongolians who live in Europe.
A.J.: The visit of the President of France to Mongolia last year was a significant event in the relationship between the two countries. As a result of this visit, was there an opportunity to identify new routes of collaboration regarding Mongol studies?
I.C. : We were invited to the French Elysée Presidential Palace, and had the opportunity to meet the Mongolian president and his wife, the Ministers of Culture and Foreign Affairs, and other officials. The meeting was above all political and economic, the signing of a treaty on uranium mining. It did not lead to discussions on potential academic projects. In fact, our collaborations with Mongolian researchers are disconnected from politics.
A.J.: Please tell us about the recent achievements and collaborations of CNRS with Mongolia.
I.C. : The French Archaeological Mission cooperates internationally with Mongolia, currently working in Altai mountains. I myself had the opportunity to work for the “Monaco-Mongolian Joint Expedition” in Arkhangai. In the field of nomadic pastoralism, archaeologist Antoine Zazzo directs the National Research Agency project titled, “The horse and the emergence of nomadic pastoralism in the Eastern steppes – MOBISTEPPE” advised by Charlotte Marchina.
France has research partnerships with several countries in Europe and America, but unfortunately, there is currently no bilateral research program with Mongolia outside of archaeology. However, we have many individual partnerships with Mongolian scholars. We collaborated with three universities outside of France in 2019: Berkeley University on a project titled, “Points of Transition: Ovoo and the Ritual Remaking of Religious, ecological, and historical politics in Inner Asia,” Chungnam National University on a project titled, “Mongol studies at the Crossroads: Korean-French Perspectives, and with MIASU of Cambridge University on a conference titled, “Distance and speed: Rethinking the imaginative potential of pace and velocity in Inner Asia”.
A.J.: It seems that the Chinese government finances scientific research as a political strategy, while our government’s political strategy and standards toward scientific research are still developing, hence the lack of abundant collaboration between Mongolian and French researchers. Mongolian scientists could benefit more from government financial incentives to continue their work in the long term. Is this a similar case in France?
I.C. : We would like the French government to invest in research on Mongolia, but the largest budgets are allocated to natural sciences. We are encouraged to submit interdisciplinary projects between human sciences and natural sciences. For the moment, these only concern archeology and the environment. We are also encouraged to submit proposals to French projects of the National Research Agency and the European government, but they are very competitive and favor trendy topics. There are bilateral programs between France and countries like Germany and Brazil, but not yet with Mongolia. Finally, the Mongolian embassies in former communist countries such as Poland and Hungary have funding for research thanks to their historical and sometimes economic relationships, but this is not the case for the Mongolian Embassy in France. The project that I tried to initiate with South Korea, but did not obtain the funding for was going to include the National University of Mongolia. We continue to look for funding!
Research methodology and preservation of cultural heritage
A.J.: What distinguishes the French research methodology from other countries?
I.C. : In France, Mongol scholars are mainly anthropologists, archaeologists and historians. There are also some specialists from other disciplines such as art history, sociology, political science, linguistics, law, etc.
Our research tradition is quite distinct from our neighbors. It was developed during the period of Enlightenment and favors observation, logical reasoning, and long-term studies. In France, doctoral students write a thesis for 5-10 years! Most importantly, they are required to work in the field. Anthropologists spend more than a year in an immersion program in Mongolia, often with a nomadic family, doing “participant observation.” Some learn dancing, cooking, sewing, and herdsmanship. In our research method, students first observe, and then they construct research questions and topics based on their observations. Historians also begin by observing. They build a research corpus, collect information for the database, compare and contrast different sources, and then raise questions. Dissertations can be 500 to 1000 pages long. However, the average is more than 300 pages today. First, they present the data and then analyze them. The French research methodology is founded upon an immersive, long-term scientific approach.
A.J.: As a specialist in Mongolian monastic architecture and Buddhist pilgrimages, you have published numerous works on the subject. You are one of the rare scholars to study both Mongolian and Inner Mongolian cultural heritage. What attracts you to this work? What experiences stood out to you in your research?
I.C. : For the study of Mongolian Buddhism and its material culture, it is essential to study both Mongolian and Inner Mongolian cultural heritage as they come from the same roots even if they were separated into two regions because of Qing politics. What first attracted me was the innovativeness of the constructions. The Mongols had little previous architectural tradition. They borrowed from Tibetan and Chinese architecture and created a completely new style based on the traditional ger structure. Moreover, each monastery is different. Mongols built with local materials added their own decorative elements, and superimposed different styles. This is absolutely remarkable. The monks were trained in Tibet, and learned from Chinese carpenters. Unfortunately, more than 90% of this heritage has been destroyed. We study from old photographs and testimonies.
Because of the destruction, and the general sentiment among some Mongolians that Buddhism is a foreign religion and an outdated tradition, Mongolia today does not realize the extraordinary significance of this heritage. They no longer know how to restore it, and have to call on the Chinese for expertise, or else adopt destructive techniques. I am thinking of a particular company, which used bitumen instead of clay for roof details. Modern materials do not correspond to ancient structures. My work aims in particular to raise awareness of this built heritage.
A.J.: Have you noticed any differences in restoration between Mongolia and Inner Mongolia? What are your observations on the preservation of architecture and historical objects? For us, restoration expertise is a relatively new science although the household tradition of preservation of art with organic materials is relatively long. Therefore, we often subjugate precious works and structures to the risk of damage.
I.C. : In Europe, we have evolved a lot since the 19th century regarding the question of restoration of material heritage. We try to restore identically to the original with period materials and techniques. If that is not possible, then we preserve it as is and display the difference between what is old and what is rebuilt.
In Asia, the concept of heritage and “authenticity” is entirely different. They prioritize intangible heritage over material structures. That is to say, the artisans’ craftsmanship is more valued than the works themselves. In addition, Mongolian Buddhist communities prefer new paintings and intact temples. They do not worship a partially destroyed Buddha statue.
In Inner Mongolia, in the 2000s and 2010s, monasteries received huge donations from Chinese worshipers. They rebuilt everything in a monumental way. The monasteries are shiny. The ancient cannot be distinguished from the new. So, there is also a risk of over-restoration.
By comparison, Mongolia lacks the means to preserve its Buddhist heritage, – it should also be noted that buildings deteriorate quickly in this continental climate with extreme temperatures. Structures that were restored in the 1990s are now very degraded. Not enough research and attention is paid to old techniques and materials. There is one exception. In the 1990s, the Tibet Heritage Fund restored the Sangiin Dalai Khiid monastery in Ömnögovi province entirely using period techniques and materials. Recently, Mongolia’s partnerships with South Korea and Japan in architectural studies and restorations indicate promising prospects.
A.J.: What do you wish to improve to create more partnerships with Mongolian collaborators in scientific research?
I.C. : I would like our EMSCAT journal to publish more contributions from Mongolian scholars in French and English and for some of our articles to be translated into Mongolian and published in Mongolia. If our two countries invested in bilateral scientific projects, we would really have the means to work together. But France is a “small” partner country for Mongolian scholars currently, compared in particular to Japan and South Korea, where many students study and work there.
I would like our institutions, in particular the CNRS, to become aware of the importance of developing the human and social sciences in cooperation with Mongolia. Furthermore, it is also very important that we develop activities for the general public.
The engagement of young researchers in Mongolian studies
A.J.: Do young French researchers show interest in Mongol studies? Please share any advice for those interested in pursuing Mongol Studies.
I.C. : The French like to travel a lot and comprise one of the large number of European tourists to visit Mongolia. Among the young people who start their studies in the Mongolian language each year at INALCO, it is often their passion for the culture and country that motivates them to enroll. The Mongolian language is difficult to learn, but when students return from their immersive year at the Mongolian National University, they often become more enthusiastic about finishing their research and thesis. It is especially anthropology and the discovery of the Other that attracts them, as well as shamanism and environmental studies.
Currently, Master’s and doctoral students particularly like courses on religious anthropology, sacred Buddhist sites, and the history of the Mongol Empire. The Nantes exhibition can spark new interest in potential students. My only advice for students would be to go and live for several months in Mongolia, to seriously learn the language and persevere!
A.J.: Thank you very much, Madame Isabelle Charleux, for sharing your expert opinion and time.
Published in UB Post
May 22, 2024
