Skillful Means, Romantic Visions: Piotr Dambinov

• In Event: Buddhists, Marxists, and Nationalists: Buryat-Mongol Intellectuals in History

Abstract

Those who knew Piotr Dambinov (1892-1938) describe him as somewhat of a whirlwind–a talking blue streak, teacher, revolutionary activist, poet, artistic instigator, and cultural administrator, who published a groundbreaking book of poems, laid the foundation for Buryat theater, and played a key role in establishing some of the first modern cultural institutions in Buryatia. Dambinov imagined a modern Buryat identity and aesthetics that spanned his people’s many differences and embraced elements from across the Mongolian world. Although Dambinov’s Romantic, nationalist imagination felt new, the strategies for creating and institutionalizing it were not. Dambinov’s creative and organizational work does not present a radical break with the past, but a continuation of the same lineage of “skillful means,” a Buddhist concept that guided the actions of many Buddhist clergy and leaders and requires strong tactical knowledge of the power structures in play, as well as a large dose of self-awareness. Like many Buryats before him, Dambinov worked simultaneously within and outside of the Russian systems of administrative and cultural influence and control, changing his rhetoric and tactics as needed. In examining his life’s work—poems, plays, speeches, and articles—we can see both the Romantic vision of ethnic subjectivity and sovereignty that shaped Soviet policy and the tactical savvy of skillful means that speaks to a long lineage of Buryat interaction with Russian power.

Author

• Tristra Yeager, Independent Scholar