Impossible to Forget, Yet Unbearable to Remember: The Atsa Gol Massacre of 1919 in Buryat-Mongolia

• In Event: Narrating Repression, Rewriting Trauma: Contested Legacies in Museums, Memory, and Discourse

Abstract

This paper examines the 1919 massacre at AtsaGol, where 76 Buryat men were brutally murdered, mutilated, and buried in a mass grave, alongside the looting of their property and seizure of land. We argue that the collective trauma of this massacre, along with other atrocities and state violence against Buryats, has profoundly shaped Buryat identity and memory. The massacre occurred within the context of Russian colonialism and followed by a century of official denial of the massacre and bans on discussing related traumas. The first publication on the massacre (2010) was immediately withdrawn, and its editor dismissed. The trauma of AtsaGol, as theorized by C. Caruth, is experienced belatedly and resists straightforward narration. The official Russian narrative suppresses the truth, preventing openly addressing the suffering caused by colonization and state brutality. Despite being ‘unspeakable’ and suppressed by authorities, the massacre persists in collective memory through cultural and psychological manifestations. Efforts to decolonize this memory reveal dissociation from traumatic memory, as protection against overwhelming pain. Many Buryats, including diaspora communities, refuse to openly discuss the massacre. Some fear accusations of russophobia, criminalized in Russia, which could prevent them from visiting family in Russia. Discussions in Buryat social media groups show the internalization of colonial narratives, as discussed by Bhabha and Fanon. Some participants cite Buryat involvement in looting of Buddhist temples to suggest Buryat complicity in the massacre, distorting its historical reality as perpetrated by Russian Old Believers, reflecting the deep impact of historical trauma and the struggle to reclaim Buryat memory.

Author

• Marina Saidukova-Romanova, Independent Scholar