The Image of Genghis Khan in Contemporary Buryat Nation Building Cover Image

The Image of Genghis Khan in Contemporary Buryat Nation Building
The Image of Genghis Khan in Contemporary Buryat Nation Building

Author(s): Ayur Zhanaev, Ewa Nowicka-Rusek
Subject(s): Social Sciences
Published by: Polskie Towarzystwo Socjologiczne
Keywords: Genghis Khan, Buryats, ethnic Buryatia, national integration, mass culture, elites

Summary/Abstract: GenghisKhan is highly valued among peoples ofCentralAsia, a radical departure fromRussia, and other nations across Europe, where he is regarded as the embodiment of savagery, barbarism, destruction and ruthlessness. Yet, another image exists among the Buryats, who accept their Mongolian origin and find support for their ethnos in it. The article concerns the functioning of Genghis Khan’s image in popular culture and the everyday lives of Buryats living in the ethnic Buryatia.We are, therefore, interested in how the nation’s elite succeeds in constructing a vision of the past, its golden age, to guarantee cultural and political entity in the modern time.

  • Issue Year: 187/2014
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 381-394
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: English