In the center of an exhibition hall, a brush-performed painting looks like a big shining sun. A viewer wonders whether the extra brush next to the sun meant to show the energy or fire coming from the sun. Only after carefully looking at it, the viewer reads the word “тэнгри” in Mongolian, which means ‘the sky’, written in old Mongolian scripts. In other frames, the viewer also finds a galloping horse, a gentle flower, a caring mother or even a sand-storm depicted with sweeping brushes, therefore seeing the emotion of the master about the subject she or he depicted. All these items on the exhibition were paintings as well as writings that showed and told a story at the same time. This is a picture of a modern and artistic development of the ancient Mongolian craft called “Mongolian calligraphy”.

Mongolian calligraphy is a 1000 years-old writing system that connects strokes of Mongolian scripts together to create a word. Letters of Mongolian scripts have been created by nomads, taught by nomads from generation to generation using ordinary nomadic terms. Ancient nomadic Mongolians used oral descriptions to convey knowledge to each other. Therefore, the letters of Mongolian scripts are best learnt if one imagined about nomadic lifestyle while memorizing and using the letters. For example, there are six main forms used in creating letters for Mongolian calligraphy. They are named as titim, shud, shilbe, gedes, num and suul which translate into English as head, teeth, stem, stomach, bow and tail respectfully. In the modern, democratic Mongolia, free thinking artists and writers are developing the calligraphy in many different ways including the artistic one described at the beginning of this piece. The other three main uses are dictated by tradition and social needs for Mongolian calligraphy. Firstly, the need for traditional accurate beautiful writing lasts for centuries. A meticulous depiction of each element of the script makes this writing very appealing and useful for accurate recording of important events. From ancient documents, it was evident that such writing was used for letters where Khaans and lords put their signatures on, books, treatises and even political statements like the declaration of independence of Bogd

Khaan’s government in 1911 etc. In modern days, this writing is used for official letters, invitations, diplomatic correspondence and love letters. The best and most accurate writers of Mongolian calligraphy is invited to write on the graduation diplomas, family tree books, community award papers, provincial and government documents and books. Even though those, who can write accurate meticulous calligraphy, often don’t get full time jobs to write calligraphy, they are very well respected in their extended family, their community and are often invited to weddings, family festivities, official ceremonies and so on. Secondly, the calligraphy is used for synchronic writing. Before typewriters, computers and audio taping, there were trained calligraphers who documented meetings, court hearings, and speeches by writing the Mongolian calligraphy in a ‘scribbled’ style. Because, those who can do synchronic writing would always have a well-paid full-time

job, parents sent their children to “writing mentor” teachers from age 6-8. Such fast- writer’s job existed for many generations and only with the development of technology,

such job almost disappeared. Therefore, current synchronic-writers are only those who are employed at few offices like newspaper “Khumuun Bichig” (the only newspaper issued in old Mongolian script), “Script and culture center”, and the Office of the President of Mongolia. Thirdly, the calligraphy is used for emblems, coins and stamps in so called ‘folded’ forms. Those who can write round folded and square folded scripts are truly knowledgeable about Mongolian scripts. In order to write correct, but folded way, one must really understand the specialty of each letter so that each letter can be folded in small spaces making a whole word look like an exact round or exact square shape. While, during Mongolian empire of 13-14th century, folded calligraphy was used for coins and government stamps, during 15-19th centuries, these forms were used for religious ornaments, religious stamps and decorations of cloth, hat and book covers etc. In modern day Mongolia, folded calligraphy is widely used for company logos, unions and associations logos and declarations and governmental and non-government bodies’ stamps. Some brands use folded script as a pattern, whole some families use folded calligraphy for their family books and stamps. Usually, there is no full time job for doing folded calligraphy, as it is not everyday work. Those who are good at folded calligraphy are considered very talented and scholarly man or woman and are well respected in the community and they often work voluntarily or receive small fee for their work. In order to be able to ‘fold the script’, one should write a word for 10,000 times, the scholars say. Traditionally, the main way of teaching calligraphy from one generation to another was home mentorship. The traditional mentors used to select the best ones among his students and trained them for various calligraphy writers. However, during communism, especially during 1937-1940 Stalinist purges, thousands of mentors and traditional scholars were killed. Those who remained alive were banned from mentoring younger generation. Soon after that, or by 1946, a new, Cyrillic script was adopted as the only

eligible scripts therefore banning all the teachings of old Mongolian scripts and Latin. Only by 1970s, the old Mongolian script was re-introduced to scholars, allowing limited number of classes in universities. After 1990 democratic changes, along with the revival of Mongolian identity, the interest in calligraphy returned. As a sign of such revival, the very first non-communist political organization, the Democratic Union of Mongolia, used folded calligraphy as its main logo. Today, literary scholars and calligraphers D.Batbayar, Sh.Choimaa, D.Battumur, D.Ganbaatar, B.Elbegzaya and G.Akim are playing significant role for disseminating of the Mongolian art of calligraphy among the public. There are thousands of Mongolians who learnt calligraphy via Education Channel of Mongolian national TV, and those who learnt it from secondary education and higher education classes. Many company and government offices conduct temporary calligraphy trainings too.