Byambyn Rinchen
Encyclopedia
Mongolian Cyrillic alphabet
The Mongolian Cyrillic script is the writing system used for the Khalkha dialect of the Mongolian language as the standard dialect of the modern state of Mongolia. Cyrillic has not been adopted by the Khalkha in the Inner Mongolia region of China, who still use the Mongolian script.Mongolian...
: Еншөөбү овогт Бямбын Ринчен or Ринчин, Yenshööbü ovogt Bjambyn Rinchen 1905–1977) was one of the founders of modern Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
n literature, a translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
of literature and a scientist in various areas of Mongolian studies, especially linguistics
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
.
Descent
Like Dashdorjiin NatsagdorjDashdorjiin Natsagdorj
Borjigin Dashdorjiin Natsagdorj , was a Mongolian poet, writer, and playwright, and founder of the Mongolian Writer's Union. He is considered one of the founding fathers of modern Mongolian literature and Mongolia's first "classic Socialist" writer.- Life :...
, he was a direct descendant of Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan
Genghis Khan , born Temujin and occasionally known by his temple name Taizu , was the founder and Great Khan of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death....
on both his father Byamba and mother Dulmaa's side. His ancestors held the public office of golova (head) of a stepnaya duma (steppe council, local self-government unit) in the territory of future Buryatia
Buryatia
The Republic of Buryatia is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the city of Ulan-Ude. Its area is with a population of 972,658 .-Geography:...
and the hereditary title of Taisha (Genghisid prince) until 1822. They were members of the Yungshebu-Songool tribe (a Buryaticized Khalkha
Khalkha
Khalkha is the largest subgroup of Mongol people in Mongolia since 15th century. The Khalkha together with Tsahar, Ordos and Tumed, were directly ruled by the Altan Urag Khans until the 20th century; unlike the Oirat people who were ruled by the Dzungar nobles or the Khorchins who were ruled by...
tribe) and were descendants of Okhin Taij who had submitted to Peter I of Russia
Peter I of Russia
Peter the Great, Peter I or Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov Dates indicated by the letters "O.S." are Old Style. All other dates in this article are New Style. ruled the Tsardom of Russia and later the Russian Empire from until his death, jointly ruling before 1696 with his half-brother, Ivan V...
in 1696 after fleeing from Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
. Okhin Taij was the grandson of Choghtu Khong Tayiji
Choghtu Khong Tayiji
Tsoghtu Khong Tayiji, born Tümengken , was a noble in Northern Khalkha. He expanded into Amdo to help the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism but was overthrown by Güshi Khan, who supported the rival Geluk sect.He established a base on the Tuul river...
who was descended from Dayan Khan
Dayan Khan
Dayan Khan , was a Mongol khan who reunited the Mongols under Chinggisid supremacy in the Northern Yuan Dynasty in Mongolia...
making him a descendant of Genghis Khan via Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan
Kublai Khan , born Kublai and also known by the temple name Shizu , was the fifth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire from 1260 to 1294 and the founder of the Yuan Dynasty in China...
in the line of Tolui
Tolui
Tolui, was the youngest son of Genghis Khan by his chief khatun Börte...
.
Early years
Byambyn Rinchen was born in 1905 in what is today Altanbulag sum in Selenge ProvinceSelenge Province
Selenge is one of the 21 aimags of Mongolia, located in the north of the country. The name is derived from the Selenge river. The capital is Sükhbaatar.- Administrative subdivisions :* - The aimag capital- References :...
.
Fiction writer
He wrote many novels and short stories including now classic works of Mongolian literature, many of them in the compulsory program of Mongolian schools, as Anu hatun (Queen Anu), Zaan Zaluudai, Ikh nuudel (Great migration), Ber ceceg (Flower of the bride), Nuucyg zadruulsan zahia (Letter of Betrayal) and Shüherch Buniya (Buniya, the Parachutist).He also wrote a movie script based on the biography of Choghtu Tayiji
Choghtu Khong Tayiji
Tsoghtu Khong Tayiji, born Tümengken , was a noble in Northern Khalkha. He expanded into Amdo to help the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism but was overthrown by Güshi Khan, who supported the rival Geluk sect.He established a base on the Tuul river...
that won the State prize in the mid-1940s. He transferred all the prize money to support orphans of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
in Leningrad
Leningrad
Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...
.
His novel Üüriin tuyaa (‘Dawn’, based on modern Mongolian history) was issued in Russian, Czech and Chinese.
There are some translations of Rinchen's work into other languages such as English and German.
Translator
He was proficient in RussianRussian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and Esperanto
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
.
He translated into Mongolian works of Gorki, Mayakovsky
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...
, Sholovkhov
Michail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov was a Soviet/Russian novelist and winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature. An asteroid in main-belt is named after him, 2448 Sholokhov.-Life and work:...
, Maupassant
Guy de Maupassant
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents....
and Hikmet
Nazim Hikmet
Nâzım Hikmet Ran , commonly known as Nâzım Hikmet , was a Turkish poet, playwright, novelist and memoirist. He was acclaimed for the "lyrical flow of his statements"...
into Mongolian, gaining wide recognition for these authors in Mongolia.
Scholar
In 1956, Rinchen defended his doctorate in linguistics at the Eötvös Loránd University in BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
with a “Grammar of Written Mongolian”. From 1964 to 1967, he researched the language of Mongolian monuments, historical and modern phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
and script, etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
and morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
. In 1969, he published a grammar on Khamnigan, a Mongolic language. In 1979, the “Atlas of Mongolian ethnography and linguistics” that had been prepared under his guidance and was to become one of the most important works in Mongolian dialectology was published posthumously.
Rinchen also edited diverse materials on Mongolian Shamanism
Shamanism
Shamanism is an anthropological term referencing a range of beliefs and practices regarding communication with the spiritual world. To quote Eliade: "A first definition of this complex phenomenon, and perhaps the least hazardous, will be: shamanism = technique of ecstasy." Shamanism encompasses the...
, historical linguistic documents and folklore.
Chronological selected bibliography
- (ed.) Iz nashevo kul'turnovo naslediya: sbornik stat'ei [From our cultural heritage: Collected papers]. Ulaanbaatar, 1968.
- Mongol ard ulsyn hamnigan ayalguu. Ulaanbaatar: Shinjleh uhaanii akademi, 1969.
- (ed.) Mongol ard ulsyn ugsaatny sudlal helnij šinžlelijn atlas. Ulaanbaatar: Shinjleh uhaanii akademi, 1979.