The Lama Question

Violence, Sovereignty, and Exception in Early Socialist Mongolia

Bibliographic Data

ID20003935
AuthorsChristopher Kaplonski (corresponding author)
Year2014
Pages280
Publication date2014-11-30
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueLama Question (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherUniversity of Hawaii Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.21313/hawaii/9780824838560.001.0001
OpenAlexW4231309040
Open LibraryOL28786241M
ISBN9780824838560
LanguageEN
Citations received14

In The lama question Chris Kaplonski examines the struggle between the new socialist government, which came to power following the overthrow of a Buddhist theocracy, and the dominant Buddhist establishment for the hearts and the minds of the populace in early socialist Mongolia (1924–1940). Spread over a decade and a half, the contest between the socialist government and Buddhists ultimately resulted in the death of approximately 18,000 Buddhist monks during an eighteen month period in the late 1930s. Drawing on hitherto unused archives, the book explores in unprecedented detail the policies that led to the mass repressions in the late 1930s, and the destruction of over 700 monastic compounds. Kaplonski examines the interaction between claims for legitimacy by the nascent government and the state of exception as a response to crisis to argue that the contingent and threatened nature of the socialist state led to a reluctance to acknowledge the challenges that threatened it. The use of physical violence was the last resort of the state, not a tool of the strong. What is new and challenging about the Mongolian case is precisely the efforts the socialist government spent on not using physical violence against the Buddhists

Archaeology · Buddhism · CONTEST · Economic history · Government (linguistics) · Legitimacy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics) · Sociology · State (computer science) · Theocracy · Threatened species · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Law · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Study and Philosophy of Religion · Buddhism and state · Mongolia · Political violence · politics and government

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