20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

554 Marie-Dominique Evento the previous one, having obvious difficulties distancing themselvesand applying the deconstructive and «disenchanting» process of criticalhistoriography to their own history 5 . Involved as they are in recoveringlong lost traditions and feeding them to the state and to the civil societyin need of symbolic reconstruction, they are in fact helping to forge thenew memory of the nation, re-enchanting the past in order to successfullyconfront the present 6 .The fascination for Chinggis Khan abroad has played a role incomforting the new narrative. The title of «greatest personality of thelast thousand years» granted to Chinggis Khan by Time magazine was aimportant international recognition that authorities in Mongolia do not failto mention. As did President Bagabandi in a speech broadcast in 2002 (onthe 840 th anniversary of Chinggis’ birth) and reproduced in Činggis Khaan,Mongolčuudiin ündesnii bakharkhal, sür süld [Chinggis Khan, nationalpride and tutelary spirit of the Mongols, pp. 5-8]. Several examples ofthe new historical narrative can be found in this collection of articles andmaterial produced on Chinggis Khan since the 1990s and published bythe committee for the celebration of the 840 th anniversary of his birth. Thebook by the American anthropologist Jack Weatherford (GenghisKhan and the making of the Modern World, 2004) is a recent and importantillustration of the impact of Westerners taking a fancy for Mongolia canhave on the Mongols. Himself an American anthropologist working onAmerindian societies, J. Weatherford has produced, with the supportof Mongolian scholars and state officials, a hagiographic account of theenlightened and progressive rule of Chinggis Khan, bringing a foreign“scientific” legitimacy to the new national narrative 7 .5As Tony Judt, in his recent book on Post-War Europe (cited here in its Frenchtranslation : Après-guerre. Une histoire de l’Europe depuis 1945, trad. P.E. Dauzat,Paris Armand Colin, 2007) explains that unlike memory, which tends to confirm andstrengthen itself, history contributes to “disenchanting” the world, as most of what historyhas to offer disturbs or perturbs.6Chinggis Khan is also used in building up their new historical narrative by theBuryat Mongols, although these had remained on the margins of the Mongol empire andhistory But i In view of the geographical proximity of the Khentei, base of the Chinggisids,with Buryatia and of the special marital relations between Chinggis’ lineage and ancestralclans of the Buryats, some intellectuals claim that Chinggis was indeed a Buryat, andconsequently they reconnect the sacred center of the Mongolian empire with localities onthe Buryat territory. See Amogolonova and Skrynnikova 2006, 266-269.7See Weatherford 2004. The book was first published in a Mongoliantranslation. A small article by L. Selenge (2005), an eulogy to the eulogist, publishedin one of these new Mongolian journals dedicated to Chinggis Khan praises the scientific