20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

566 Marie-Dominique EvenConclusionFrom the description of the ceremony, it appears that various,and sometimes opposed, elements belonging to Mongolia’s culturaland religious heritage are assembled together in order to fit today’srequirements such as pluralism and modernity. A new ritual is producedthat is established and controlled by the state (but following a publicdemand for symbolic restoration of the past at a time of important changein Mongolia’s society). What it means to be a Mongol has to be redefinedonce again. During the communist era such a symbolic definition had tobe produced too: it consisted in denying a reality reflecting the past andMongolia’s specificities and substituting for them a utopian future and anexternal model. In today’s Mongolia, the symbolic definition compensatesfor the reality of modernization and foreign influences by turning to the pastand interpreting it as needed. Facing a more and more diversified society,an increased globalization and a rapid mutation, political authorities andactors of the civil society transcend the reality to create a sacred collectivespace, “re-enchanting” the state and the nation.The new narrative about Chinggis Khan and the state rituals involvingthis unifying figure are important symbolic tools in re-mongolizingMongolia. They aim at generating national consciousness and socialcohesion in a time of social and ideological crisis. These rituals, rootedin religious traditions, are marked with religiosity and emotion. They alsopossess this “pious devotion” that could, according to Georg Schimmel,crystallize into religion in an appropriate environment. In fact, we canobserve in Mongolia some forms of millenarianism concerning ChinggisKhan. Some Mongols expect the return of the great khan after 800 yearsand claim that this time is arriving. In connection to this, a ceremony(yoslol) was held in April 2008 at the Wrestling Palace by the ChinggisKhan International Academy, a non-governmental organization headed byDavaanyam, who regards himself as a descendant of Chinggis Khan. 26But in order to qualify the process of “re-enchanting” we have to admitfirst the reality of a modern disenchantment of Mongolian society. Is theenchanted world, the world of spirits, demons, and moral forces describedby Charles Taylor (2007) as a crucial feature of pre-modern condition(as opposed to the disenchantment describing our modern condition) a thingof the past? Or rather should we consider that such an enchanted worldhas never ceased to exist underneath the communist dogmas that wereimposed, and is still the world Mongols (and probably many of us) live26I am grateful to my colleague Ts. Shagdarsürüng for this information(April 2008).