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
work
literature
NGOs
democracy
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Summary of Interview 090111B with Tseren
Professionals who graduated abroad used to be appointed to places of art, culture, and state farms where they were needed. There was a regulation according to which State Central Institutions had to appoint those professionals to work. In obedience to the regulation, Tseren was appointed as a professor at the National University of Mongolia after graduating from Rostov State University and worked there for his whole life.
Being a member of Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party was an important factor during the socialist period. It was crucial for living and working in Mongolia. If you wanted to be a chairman in the future, you had to be a party member. In case the party member committed a crime with a sentence of being imprisoned for several months or more, they could be expelled from the party for this. Social sciences professors in universities were counted officially as cadres who were belong to Central Committee of Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party. In a word, professors were ideological agents. So, any assignments were ordered from the Central Committee to the municipal unit of the party, from the municipal unit to the district unit, from the district unit to the unit of the Party at the National University of Mongolia, from there to the professors, and then they used to do the work according to the assignments.
Within such limits, Tseren never joined the party. When democratic nongovernmental political institutions such as Democratic Union, Social Democrat Movement, New Progress Union, and National Progress Party were established, Tseren took part in the democratic socialist movement and became a Social Democratic Party member in 1990. Thus, Tseren with together intellectual professors and students of that time strove to carry out a democratic revolution in Mongolia. “Democratic change was not a thing some political forces or parties did. Few people should not try to own it. It is fair to say that democracy was created by all Mongolians together”, he said. He was one of those people who participated personally in the formation and development of democracy in Mongolia. As he concluded, however, democracy in Mongolia was not implemented as he wanted and expected. So he was quite dissatisfied with it.
