Tseren
Basic information
Interviewee ID: 990068
Name: Tseren
Parent's name: Gombo
Ovog: Borjigon
Sex: m
Year of Birth: 1956
Ethnicity: Halh
Additional Information
Education: higher
Notes on education:
Work: university professor
Belief: Buddhist (red hat), shamanism
Born in: Yosön-züil sum, Övörhangai aimag
Lives in: Bayanzürh sum (or part of UB), Ulaanbaatar aimag
Mother's profession: herder
Father's profession: herder
Themes for this interview are:
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education / cultural production
foreign relations
politics / politicians
NGOs
democracy
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Summary of Interview 090111A with Tseren
Tseren was admitted to the Philosophy Branch of Social Sciences Faculty at the National University of Mongolia after completing secondary school in Arvaiheer, the center of Övörhangai aimag in 1975. He was selected to go to the Soviet Union because he had studied successfully during the first year at university. According to the joint act 128 approved in 1972 by the Central Committee of Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party and Council of Ministers of the Mongolian People's Republic, the students who studied well in universities for a year had to study abroad for certain purposes if they were selected. Harboring belief, desire, and an aspiration to learn at the Moscow State University, he departed for Moscow in 1976. But the higher education committee of the Soviet Union reduced the number foreign students they approved and sent many foreign students including him to different cities and provinces because of the upcoming 1980 Summer Olymphic Game in Moscow. Consequently, Tseren was sent to the State University in Rostov-on-Don. He studied there for 4 years.
“Solidarity”, the Polish trade union federation, emerged in 1980 under the leadership of Lech Walesa who was a loader at that Gdansk Shipyard that was constructing a developed socialist society and he also ran the innovative/revolutionary process to changed the socialist construction of society into a different one. When this happened, Tseren reached the conclusion that it was inevitable that all socialist countries would be changed on the one hand and that the Soviet Union would collapse on the other. “I had discussed such social changes with my fellow students from different countries at Rostov University in the 1980s, and then returned home” he said.
After graduating university in 1981, he was appointed to the National University of Mongolia as a professor in the Philosophy Department and worked there until 1988. One of the many possibilities to receive information on what was happening in the Soviet Union was that there were chances to order all the newspapers and journals published in the Soviet Union. Between 1980 and 1990, Mongolians used to have ears to the ground listening carefully for what was discussed and how during Central Committee meetings of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In 1989, the Mongolian Democratic Union was established. “University professors and students played important roles in the democratic processes in Mongolia” he said.
Since 1990, Tseren worked as part-time professor for Philosophy Department at the National University of Mongolia, an expert who was responsible for learning standards for social sciences at the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science, and a chairman of Social Sciences Learning and Pedagogy Commission. In addition, he worked for the Education Monitoring Office at the Ministry of Education in 1999.
