An exhibition "Sons of Heaven and the Steppes" devoted to Mongolia and Genghis Khan was to open in Nantes. Rather than having its content redacted by Beijing, the Nantes History Museum preferred to cancel the event. Interview with Christian Grataloup, specialist in geohistory of the Old World.
Portrait of Genghis Khan, National Palace Museum, Taipei, 14th th century.
On October 12, 2020, the Nantes History Museum, located in the castle of the Dukes of Brittany, had to postpone to October 2024 the opening of an exhibition on the 13th century Mongol Empire and its great conqueror Genghis Khan. . At issue, according to the organizers, is the pressure exerted by the Chinese authorities. The museum of Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia (China), was to loan 225 pieces. But the National Heritage Bureau in Beijing - the official body that manages these exchanges - would then have intervened, requesting that certain contents be modified. In particular, he would have demanded the deletion of the terms "Genghis Khan", "Mongolia" and "empire"... On the other hand, a "control of the production of the exhibition" by checking the texts and maps would also have been urgently requested, the Mongolian space then becoming "the steppe of northern China". What the management of the Nantes museum refused, while explaining the reasons in a press release. We asked the geohistorian Christian Grataloup, professor emeritus at the University of Paris-Diderot, to come back to this incident, in order to decipher it.
Christian Grataloup. © Claude Truong-Ngoc
Sciences et Avenir:China would have demanded from the Nantes History Museum that it not use the name of Genghis Khan, as well as those of Mongolia and the empire. Why do you think?
Christian Grataloup: The Mongols are, for the Chinese, a very bad memory! A memory of invasion, destruction... and above all submission. This incident is part of what we call in France the "national novel", in other words the official narrative that a nation wishes to make of itself. In this case, China is reconnecting with the imperial novel! Chinese history is entirely written in the perspective of the glorification of the country. And therefore strictly controlled. And what this incident in Nantes reveals to us is that what is usually censored inside the country is becoming increasingly monitored outside. Anything that can be experienced as a painful or negative moment by China must be erased. The 13th century is one of them.
Poster of the exhibition Genghis Khan and the birth of the Mongol Empire, Son of Heaven and the Steppes, postponed to 2024. ©Musée d'Histoire de Nantes
Can you specify how?
At the time, China was divided into several parts, the best known of which was that of the Song dynasty, to the south. As every time the country is divided, the power does not control the northern steppes or its inhabitants, groups of potentially dangerous nomadic herders. Little by little, a formidable military power was thus built up on the periphery around a small ethnic group centered on one individual, the future Genghis Khan. He took advantage of China's internal divisions to unite the "peoples living in tents ". In 1207, the beginning of a universal empire was thus proclaimed during the great Kurultay , the assembly where Temujin becomes the chief of chiefs under the name of Genghis Khan!
However, did the Mongols also play a big role in the history of China?
On October 12, 2020, the Nantes History Museum, located in the castle of the Dukes of Brittany, had to postpone to October 2024 the opening of an exhibition on the Mongol Empire of the 13 th century and its great conqueror Genghis Khan. At issue, according to the organizers, is the pressure exerted by the Chinese authorities. The museum of Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia (China), was to loan 225 pieces. But the National Heritage Bureau in Beijing - the official body that manages these exchanges - would then have intervened, requesting that certain contents be modified. In particular, he would have demanded the deletion of the terms "Genghis Khan", "Mongolia" and "empire"... On the other hand, a "control of the production of the exhibition" by checking the texts and maps would also have been urgently requested, the Mongolian space then becoming "the steppe of northern China". What the management of the Nantes museum refused, while explaining the reasons in a press release. We asked the geohistorian Christian Grataloup, professor emeritus at the University of Paris-Diderot, to come back to this incident, in order to decipher it.
Christian Grataloup. © Claude Truong-Ngoc
Sciences et Avenir:China would have demanded from the Nantes History Museum that it not use the name of Genghis Khan, as well as those of Mongolia and the empire. Why do you think?
Christian Grataloup: The Mongols are, for the Chinese, a very bad memory! A memory of invasion, destruction... and above all submission. This incident is part of what we call in France the "national novel", in other words the official narrative that a nation wishes to make of itself. In this case, China is reconnecting with the imperial novel! Chinese history is entirely written in the perspective of the glorification of the country. And therefore strictly controlled. And what this incident in Nantes reveals to us is that what is usually censored inside the country is becoming increasingly monitored outside. Anything that can be experienced as a painful or negative moment by China must be erased. Gold on the 13 e century is one of them.
Poster of the exhibition Genghis Khan and the birth of the Mongol Empire, Son of Heaven and the Steppes, postponed to 2024. ©Musée d'Histoire de Nantes
Can you specify how?
At the time, China was divided into several parts, the best known of which was that of the Song dynasty, to the south. As every time the country is divided, the power does not control the northern steppes or its inhabitants, groups of potentially dangerous nomadic herders. Little by little, a formidable military power was thus built up on the periphery around a small ethnic group centered on one individual, the future Genghis Khan. He took advantage of China's internal divisions to unite the "peoples living in tents ". In 1207, the beginning of a universal empire was thus proclaimed during the great Kurultay , the assembly where Temujin becomes the chief of chiefs under the name of Genghis Khan!
However, did the Mongols also play a big role in the history of China?
Absolutely, but their role is deliberately minimized. Surrounded by his sons and grandsons, Genghis Khan was responsible for the creation of a new dynasty! In 1207 he attacked China, and his grandson Kublai Khan, after his death in 1227, completed the conquest by destroying the Song Empire. Then in 1271, by establishing his capital at Cambaluc, the future Beijing, he founded the Yuan dynasty. A non-Chinese dynasty.
Illustration depicting Genghis Khan. ©Wikimedia
Is this the first time Chinese authorities have made such demands to a foreign institution?
Yes, this is the first time we have heard of such demands on a power like France. But they are also part of a very particular political context:they coincide with demonstrations in Inner Mongolia against the imposition of Mandarin - the official Chinese language - in elementary school, whereas until then it was a matter of a language of secondary education. Currently, there is a real desire to eradicate non-Han languages (non-Chinese) and to force the Mongols to write, read and speak in Mandarin. China is toughening its tone everywhere within its territory (control of social networks, etc.), but we can say that now it considers that there are no longer any borders. There's no reason she can't start controlling what's going on outside too. This Chinese attitude is felt all over the world. Ten years ago such actions would have been unthinkable. If between 1980 and 2010 the Chinese government was remarkably skillful, it is currently wasting a whole capital of sympathy that is difficult to understand.
Why did you also demand the disappearance of the word "empire" from the cartels of the Nantes exhibition when such an attitude is precisely a matter of real imperialism?
It is the word "mongol empire" which should not be used I imagine. The very idea that China could have belonged to a Mongol empire - that is to say, been colonized - is literally inconceivable in the eyes of Chinese power. Especially since the Mongolian Yuan dynasty lasted about a century.
Is there still a fear of so-called peripheral populations in China?
The Mongols symbolize the peoples of the steppes, the "barbarians" who for 3,000 years have constantly pressed their borders. We can even say that the concentration of power in China until the advent of Qin Shi Huang Di , the first emperor (259-210 BC), was born of the need to unite the forces of the country to face these external populations and the threat they posed. It took until the Russians pacified the steppe in the 18th century for that to change! The Mongols are for the Chinese something of the order of trauma. It is a constant in their geopolitical thinking.
A very different perception from that of the West...
Indeed. For most countries, Genghis Khan is a fascinating character who was the head of the greatest geopolitical empire on earth! This period corresponds for us to the peregrinations of Marco Polo, to the explosion of great travels, to a period of great commercial exchanges, especially during the Pax Mongolica, the period of relative peace that followed the vast Mongol conquests; While in the Chinese psyche, it is not conceivable to accept an exhibition valuing Genghis Khan.
Comments collected by Bernadette Arnaud