Published: 2024-12-17

The past in the perspective of the future in Ulaanbataar museum collections. Towards new signs of identity

Dagnosław Demski
Journal of Urban Ethnology
Section: A city in a museum - a museum in a city
DOI https://doi.org/10.23858/JUE22.2024.004

Abstract

The main purpose of the article is to look at the city of Ulaanbaatar and its history in the context of the basic questions posed by researchers to the contemporary challenges of Mongolia – the attitude to the past and prospects for the future. Knowing the history of the Mongols and their nomadic traditions, widely described also in Poland, I pose the question whether the city appears next to such signs of Mongol identity as Chinggis Khan, nomadism, yurt, horses, and if so, what aspects are involved. The subject of the research are museum exhibitions from the end of 2022. I chose some of the most important museums – the Chinggis Khan Museum, National Museum, Zanabazar Museum and City Museum. I analyse the exhibitions and their message, and above all, I try to find answers to the question whether and in what form the urban threads related to the history of Ulaanbaatar appear in the public space; of which museums they are a part. Can we predict today which of these elements have a chance to enter the canon of national identity in the future? These questions are important because as a result of the rapid migration of residents to cities in the 1990s, the population of the capital of Mongolia comprises more than half of the total number of citizens of the state.

Keywords:

national identity, symbols, museums, tradition, urbanity, city, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

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Demski, D. (2024). The past in the perspective of the future in Ulaanbataar museum collections. Towards new signs of identity. Journal of Urban Ethnology, 22, 57–74. https://doi.org/10.23858/JUE22.2024.004

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