Mongolian literature
Mongol literature has also been a reflection of the society of the given time, its level of political, economic and social development as well as leading intellectual trends.
The ancestors of the Mongolic peoples are the Bronze-Iron Age Donghu (630 BC-209 BC) mentioned in the Records of the Grand Historian of Sima Qian as bordering north of Yan.
Their culture was basically nomadic and thus could have included the regular singing of heroic epics to the accompaniment of early forms of xiqin and dombra.
This could have been part of a larger oral tradition that included myths, wisdom sayings and üliger not much different from present Mongol examples.
Many Mongolic words from the Tuoba era (386-534) have come down to us in Chinese transcription, such as huolan (many), wulian (cloud), ezhen (owner), akan (brother), shilou (mountain), china (wolf), kuopuochen (to hedge), tuopuochen (sole of foot) and tawusun (dust).
Compared to the other Xianbei Mongolic peoples they have left a relatively more substantial amount of written material, including lengthy inscriptions found on rocks and in tombs, that are currently being deciphered and researched.
The Mongol works that survive from this period reflect the prosperity and diversity of the global empire linked together by an efficient communications system.
Yet they represent only a fraction of what would have existed then, since the majority of the works from this period has either not been found or has been destroyed amid the convulsions following the fall of the empire.
Sonom Gara translated Sa-skya Pandita's Legs-bshad, changing the sentence pattern and modifying the text to his own views.
After the fall of the Yuan dynasty the punitive expeditions of the Ming put a definitive end to the imperial era in Mongolia, which entered into a Dark Age lasting two centuries until the "Third Introduction of Buddhism" in 1576.
Karakorum was razed to the ground in 1380 and Mongolia was reduced to a state not much different, if not worse, than that of the 12th century when it was a nomadic version of the European Dark Ages.
Other important works from the period include the anonymous allegory Ere koyar jagal ("The Two Dappled Steeds"), treating freedom and morality, and Shar Tuuj (Sir-a tuguji, "Yellow Story"), written in praise of Dayan Khan in the 17th century.
In the 19th century, there was a trend of critical thinking with Injanashi and Danzanravjaa satirizing the worldly pursuits of the Buddhist clergy as well as the excesses of the nobility.
[16] Important novels in Chinese literature were translated into Mongolian, widely read, and influenced the work of Chinese-Mongol authors like Injanashi.
The originals included Dream of the Red Chamber, Jin Ping Mei, Journey to the West, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
In 1921 the establishment of the Provisional Government of Sükhbaatar led to a radical change in Mongol society as the country abruptly entered the modern, industrial world.
Literary topics were often taken from countryside life, from the times of Mongolia's struggle for independence and the communist revolution, or from the Second World War.
The perestroika period and democratic processes of the late 1980s stimulated Mongol writers to seek new forms of expression breaking the constraints of socialist realism.
