Photographs of Mongolian tsam-related artefacts taken by Czechoslovak researchers in the 1950s and 1960s: re‑opening an old file

Introduction. This paper deals with two sets of colour photographs of Mongolian tsam masks taken by Czechoslovak archaeologist Lumír Jisl (1921–1969) and art photographer Werner Forman (1921–2010) in Mongolia during the period of 1956–1963. Werner Formanʼs photographs appeared in Lamaistische Tanzmasken. This unpretentious, slim volume, with a text composed by B. Rinchen (with the apparent assistance of a former tsam ceremony master, giving it unequivocal authenticity) holds a unique position: it was published 32 years after the last eye-witness description of the Mongolian tsam given by Shastina in 1935 (including black-and-white photographs), and some two decades before the series of tsam mask photographs featured in Tsultemʼs Mongolian Sculpture and Iskusstvo Mongolii ʻMongolian Artʼ. In contrast, Lumír Jislʼs photographs, apart from the few that were published during his lifetime, were preserved in a family archive for more than fifty years. The goal of this paper is to describe the circumstances under which these colour photographs came into being. A brief account is given of the visits to Mongolia undertaken by Lumír Jisl and Werner Forman. The general background of Czechoslovak-Mongolian cooperation in its first decade after the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries is also sketched out. At that time, tsam masks were stored in the Choijin Lama Temple, one of the very few monastic complexes to survive the antireligious campaign of the late 1930s; the temple became shelter to many religious artefacts. In addition to photographing this temple complex, Lumír Jisl photographed the tsam masks during research trips to at least three regional museums. This paper also describes the different goals and visions of both Lumír Jisl and Werner Forman when photographing the tsam masks, resulting in differing modes of execution. In conclusion, I examine the changes in perspective of the Buddhist monks following the general atmosphere of mistrust and fear engendered by the antireligion campaigns and repressions of the late 1930s, as well as the subsequent partial easing of these repressions. Not only were Forman and Jisl both invited to take photographs of religious artefacts, but they also received assistance in doing so. The Mongolian monks who helped Forman and Jisl had to accept, however, the drastically changed status of these artefacts: once sacred items used in religious ritual dance, they were now objects of Mongolian artistic heritage.

Mongolia, Czechoslovakia, tsam, mask, photography, Lumír Jisl, Werner Forman

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