In connection with the recent presentation of the seven-volume anthology  “Uriangkhai. Tyva Depter.”,  edited by Sergei Shoigu, I would like to demonstrate the value of this entire project by a single example of a rare publication included in this anthology – namely a translation of Otto Maenchen-Helfen’s book “Journey to Tuva”.

The anthology presents, together with other interesting scholarly works, the first published translation into Russian language of the book of an Austrian German, Otto Maenchen-Helfen, who was a social democrat in his political convictions. It can be stated without any exaggeration that the author of this relevant translation, aide to the Chairman of the Government of Republic Tuva, Dina Oyun, produced a magnificent contribution to the study of a multitude of problems in the more recent history of Tuva. She translated the” Foreword” to the 1992 USA edition, written by the Austrian scholar’s wife, Anna Maenchen, from English, and the entire book “Journey to Tuva” from the German original, which was first published in Berlin almost 80 years ago.

There is another, earlier translation of this book from German into Russian in existence, which was performed by an unknown author for NKID of USSR ( Foreign policy committee). This translation was made shortly after the first German edition was published. It was made specifically for the use of this office, was never released to public, and for a long time was not available even for academic use by fragments. I have first learned of it in 1990, while working with documents in one of the archival collections of the Foreign policy of Russian federation, and I have copied many voluminous quotes from it. Comparing them to analogous excerpts of D. I. Oyun’s translation allows me to state that the results of her efforts may be described exclusively in positive terms.

I will present one example:

The variant of the translation kept in the archive: “In the summer of 1029, in Tuva, on orders of Moscow, a “lefting” began. It never even entered anyone’s head to ask Khuruldan how he looks at it… How did the Russians turn the course to the left? Very simply. Those five students from Moscow had the authority to expel anybody from the party who awakened even the slightest suspicion… around Tes these artists succeeded that out of eight hundred party members six hundred people were cleaned out, they made a three quarter majority of the party to expel themselves. Nobody even thought of resisting. Everybody knew that this was the will of the Russians and against their will all were helpless.”

Now for D. I. Oyun’s translation: “In the summer of 1929 Tuva made a radical “left turn”. Moscow ordered it. Nobody even thought of asking the khural’s opinion… How did the Russians engineer this “left turn”?  Very simply.  It was done with the help of their own creatures – five students from Moscow. They purged out of the party ranks anybody who provoked even the slightest suspicion.  In Tes kozhuun, these zealots managed to get 600 out of 800 party members expelled! To force three quarters of the cell members to vote to have themselves expelled! It never occurred to anybody to protest. They all knew that this was the Russians’ will, against which they were powerless.”

It is very obvious from this example that Dina Oyun’s variant of the translation is original, completely independent, sufficiently literal, and even literary. It bears eloquent testimony to her high qualifications as a translator. I can judge it not simply on the basis of comparison of the translated materials, but also as a person who performs independent translations from German himself. For example, at one time I had the occasion to translate a passage from Maenchen-Helfen’s book for Dr.Ph. B. I. Tatarintsev, concerning projects of Tuvan alphabet, which were invented by Tuvan lama Lopsan-Chinmit and Soviet turkologist Nicholas Poppe.

Now with the publication of D. I. Oyun’s translation in the scholarly anthology  “Uriangkhai. Tyva Depter.”, the book is available not only to our country’s scholars, but to all who are interested in the historical past of Tuva.

And for researchers of history of TNR, who are especially studying the events of the milestone year 1929, its academic relevance has no equal. Here we can see how the Bolsheviks, not directly but by the means of the Komintern,  united all the” Leftists” ( leaders of revsomol, the first graduates of the KUTV, and several people of the CK TNRP), removed the “Rightists” from power, and how an apparent minority could expel from the party two thirds of its members. Could a person of democratic beliefs ignore such blatant transgressions of freedom of elections and democracy? Of course not.

Unfortunately, the Austrian scholar’s book contains theses which are archaic and debatable from academic point of view, as well as some factual inaccuracies.  That may be the reason why his wife in her “Foreword’ to the American edition expressed doubts about the necessity for a new edition of the book. These are her words (this is directly from the American 1992 version): “I feel some reluctance in writing it, stemming from the doubt I have as to whether my husband would have wanted this book to be revived…”

Among the theses which could today provoke categorical disagreement by scholars is, for example, all O. Maenchen-Helfen’s argumentation in favor of justification of the concept of “Lamaism”. Many contemporary Buddhologists, as well as our Tuvan scholars of religion, as is well known have completely renounced it, and prefer to speak and write about Buddhism, not about Lamaism. This is not just because His Holiness the Dalai-Lama XIV pointed out the existing mistake. In religious life, what is important is not the forms of its realization, not the structures of religious institutions, not the role of those or other clergymen, in this case lamas, but the spiritual and moral precepts and postulates of the teachings. And from this point of view it is hardly justified to separate “Lamaism” from Buddhism.

That is only one significant aspect. There are others, but discussion of mistaken theses of the whole  book (for example, opinions about the time of origin of pan-mongolism, about smuggling at Soviet-Tuvan borders, etc.) is not within the scope of this article. However,  I will examine with a little bit of detail the author’s key idea, which can be traced like a red thread running throughout his work. It is his categorical assertion that Tuva of that time was nothing else but a Soviet colony. I had the opportunity to read several books, including some published quite recently, here and in foreign countries, (in translation), whether raising this question about Soviet colonialism is justified.  It needs to be said that conscientious, politically independent scholars answer in the negative.

 There was a prominent American scholar O. Lattimore . His sphere of professional interest encompassed the recent history of the countries of the East. In the 1930’s he was an adviser to the head of Chinese state, Chiang Kai-shek. He visited Mongolia on several occasions, an in the middle 70’s he visited Tuva. In the early stages of his studies of the history of Central Asian countries, O. Lattimore formulated a so-called theory of satellitism, according to which Mongolia and Tuva were totally obedient satellites of the Soviet government. He found quite a few followers in foreign countries. However, later, under the pressure of facts and of things he witnessed personally, he recanted of his theory.

From the author’s factual mistakes, I can, for example, quote the overly categorical assertion that everything in Tuva was decided by two people – the Soviet envoy and the representative of Komintern. Otto Maenchen-Helfen had only a superficial understanding of the situation, and he certainly did not have enough time to delve more deeply into it. It is because the USSR envoy in TNR, A. G. Starkov at that time, was accused by the representative of Komintern in Tuva, V. A. Bogdanov, of categorically refusing to help the “Leftists” come to power. For that reason the Soviet diplomat was recalled from Tuva.

Otto Maenchen-Helfen would have taken an enormous risk  had he tried to document the political situation in Tuva on paper. He understood that very well. Despite that, there are quite a few pages of his book that the scholar dedicated to the Chief political administration of USSR (GPU). He could not have been oblivious to the fact that to bring information from “hermetically closed Tuva” to Europe meant to achieve sensational success in the eyes of the public. How did the scholar solve this quandary? Most likely, this is how he did it. He could safely present for examination his notes on the research themes which he reported before the expedition and which was approved beforehand. The information of political character he sequestered and smuggled through as contraband…in his own head.

And it is easy to imagine the effect of the book when it was published in Berlin. It was not empty curiosity that induced Soviet specialists to quickly produce a translation.  Even though it was not sufficiently convincing (what could be proved by only one example?), it was a totally concrete, obvious and brilliant confirmation that Stalin was right in his evaluation of social democrats of the West as social traitors and social fascists. And it was even published in the country where fascism was just then raising its head.

Certainly there is nothing surprising that it was precisely in democratic Russia where the academic book of a foreign scholar, who was a social democrat in his convictions, saw the light. It had to happen sooner or later. It happened in 2008, thanks to the fact that among Tuvan intelligentsia there are not just Tuvan patriots, but also excellent specialists who prepared and published the anthology “Uriangkhai. Tyva Depter.”