Monastic sites visited by A. M. Pozdneev during his second trip to Mongolia (1892–1893)

Teleki, Krisztina (2014) Monastic sites visited by A. M. Pozdneev during his second trip to Mongolia (1892–1893). Acta Orientalia, 67 (3). pp. 337-361. ISSN 0001-6446

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Abstract

The present paper summarises the results of a survey executed in Mongolia in 2010 with the support of the Stein-Arnold Exploration Fund of the British Academy (SA100018). The aim of the survey was to study the present stage and heritage of the monasteries visited by the Russian scholar, A. M. Pozdneev (1851–1920) in the area of Mongolia in 1892–1893. The survey included documentation fieldwork and research work in local archives and libraries. Pozdneev visited a total of 47 monastic sites that covered different types of monasteries existent in Mongolia at that time including monastic “villages” or monastic “towns”, imperial monasteries, yurt-temples, and others. The present article describes Pozdneev’s journey in brief and lists the monastic sites he visited. Due to the destructive activities of Soviet ideology not much has remained out of these marvellous monastic sites for today: their majority was ruined in 1937–1938, and only few of them were rebuilt after 1990. Due to the lack of written sources, in many cases Pozdneev’s account is the only source that reports on these sites. Based on the sites he visited and his general definition of monasteries, six different types of monastic sites are determined in the present article that existed in Mongolia at the end of the Manchu period (1691–1911).

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