Interviews made in UB with old monks

by Krisztina Teleki and Zsuzsa Majer

(2006 Spring, 2007 May, August and September)

The interviews in this report were recorded mostly in Ulaanbaatar and some in Zuunmod with old monks or old ex-monks by Krisztina Teleki and Zsuzsa Majer in March 2006, and in May, August and September 2007. All in all 40 old monks living currently in Ulaanbaatar or in Zuunmod were interviewed in this way. It means that almost all old monks that are gathering today in Ulaanbaatar’s monasteries were interviewed. Some of them have passed away by 2007. Some were interviewed more than once (in 2006 and 2007, or twice in 2007).

Many of these interviews (31 in number) were recorded outside of and prior to (2006) the ACM project Documentation of Mongolian Monasteries but were offered for the project’s use. Of these 40 interviews, 19 were relevant to old monastic sites situated now in the aimags surveyed by team D (Öwörkhangai, Dundgow’ and parts of Töw), the others, 21 interviews, to monasteries situated in other aimags.

Interviews in 2006 and some even in 2007 were made by an old audio recorder (on cassettes). Those made in 2006 are digitalized by now. 2007 interviews are not digitalized yet.

All the interviews (except from those made in September, 2007) that were relevant to the aimags we surveyed, were written down in English (the main points of them, in about 1-5 A4 pages) and attached to the Registration forms of the given monasteries. Other interviews that were relevant to other aimags than Öwörkhangai, Dundgow’ and Töw have not been yet written down.

The authors keep every right to use these interviews recorded by them in Ulaanbaatar for their own scientific purposes.

Old ex-monks from all over the country who did not became monks again and are living currently in Ulaanbaatar are very difficult if not impossible to find though it is supposed there are many of them (more than the number of those who became monks again). It was outside the possibilities of the two researchers to find and interview all of them, so they only focused on old monks who gather today in one of the temples in Ulaanbaatar and are therefore possible to search for and reach.