Traditional Institutions of Public Authority in Mongol-Inhabited Lands of Imperial and Republican China, 1900s–1920s: Spatial Localization and Visualization

Introduction. The territorial organization of Inner Asian polities underwent significant transformations in the first quarter of the 20th century, which resulted in a need for its visualization. Goals. The article attempts to reconstruct the system of key public governance institutions in Mongol-inhabited lands of China in the mentioned period, and to describe tools of their visualization supposed to spot the former across present-day geographical points of the region. So, the study aims to examine some basic institutions of princely power and khoshun administration, religious and aimag/league-level authorities, impacts of the Chinese colonization on Mongol-inhabited territories, investigate sources, tools and methods instrumental in spatial localization and visualization of territorial /governance structures across the lands. Materials and methods. The work focuses on two groups of sources, namely: unpublished materials from P. Dudin’s doctoral thesis (manuscript) (Statehood of Inner Mongolia: Late 19th to Mid-20th Centuries) discussing public governance structures of Mongolian banners (counties); and unique maps of 1914/1925 mentioning khoshuns, aimags and leagues of almost all Mongol-inhabited domains. The research methodology rests on an interdisciplinary approach, methods of historical science to comprise the ideographic (descriptive-narrative) and retrospective ones, a narrative approach, and principles of historicism; knowledge of political science yields an opportunity to employ functional and behavioral approaches. The geographical methods involved rest on the scheme of analysis proposed in works of O.  Medushevskaya (1957) and L. Goldenberg (1958), as well as on some analysis of the data generalization degree. Results. The work has reconstructed the early 20th-century system of key Mongolian public governance institutions, outlines how the system of princely power functioned, how khoshun-level administrative bodies took shape and worked, identifies the governance role of religious institutions, while insights into different levels of the administrative/territorial organization facilitates further understanding as to actual scopes of power attributed thereto, and makes it possible to visualize the investigated space with the aid of contemporary tools and techniques. Conclusions. The paper points to the efficiency of the then management system where it was the khoshun that had served — and remained — a key structural element. The latter’s detailed illustrations on V. Surin’s maps make it possible to restore the ancient territorial organization of Mongolia using the GIS system, free access be provided for researchers of the region.

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