A Daughter of the Soil

The nomadic plains of the south-western Russian region of Kalmykia are a semi-desert. Vast stretches of untamed land stretch as far as the eye can see. They are marked by cold winters and cool summers in a world that makes for a hard life and hardier people.

Princess Nirgidma with her hooded hunting eagle at Urumchi. A striking photograph of the Torghut princess by Maynard Owen Williams in “The National Geographic Magazine” of November 1932, Vol. LXII No. 5, plate IX opposite p.568, shows her in national costume

The ancestors of Princess Nirgidma Torghut, the Kalmyks, have lived in the region for millennia. When she was born in 1907, few would have suspected that she would go on to lead the eventful life she did in the years to come.

That is not to say that the Princess was restricted in her upbringing or shackled to any particular role or place. Quite the contrary – she was a princess in a time when, and at a place where the title carried much more gravity than it does today.

The earliest pictures we have of Princess Nirgidma show her as she was in her early twenties. They appeared in the November 1932 edition of The National Geographic Magazine. The photograph of the bright, cheery Princess in her colourful royal robes was taken by a member of a Sino-Swedish expedition to north-western China. If the expedition’s historian, Georges Le Fevre and National Geographic editor, Maynard Owen Williams had expected a demure, acquiescent Torghut woman, the ensuing conversation would have left them quite surprised.

Here is an extract:

“Why do Occidentals and Orientals dislike one another?” we asked, our actual relationship belying our thesis. […]

“Why call conservatism dislike?” she replied. “Do you always welcome strangers to your clubs and homes? The oriental has his psychological Great Wall, whose protection is beginning to seem less sure. The man behind it doesn’t want to be loved or even appreciated. He wants to be undisturbed.”

“People seek to protect not only property, but modes of life. Perhaps your way of life is right for you, but it threatens ours.”

“You are in a hurry and hence barbaric. You are entranced by mechanical toys, which you haven’t mastered. You like frankness; but, until real understanding exists, even formal politeness helps. You dominate world ideals, which differ from ours.”

“You are men of auto, railway, radio. You find this a backward land, without roads, speed, a free press, a balanced budget, sanitation, or familiar forms of justice. Hence, you pity the Chinese. But they live in the Celestial Kingdom, the centre of all the world that counts. Your progress is chaotic, at least in its impact on Orientals, because its spiritual values are not realised. We Mongols are emancipated. ‘A good horse and a wide plain under God’s heaven’, that’s our desire. And we realise it.”

Perhaps the princess’s appearance should have forewarned the guests of her singular personality and character. That appearance did make enough of an impression on the explorers that they carefully documented every aspect of what she wore, and her looks, down to her hair.

She wore riding boots, a tight blue skirt and a simple white blouse, lightly touched with coral embroidery. Her hair was slightly dishevelled by her dashing ride on a tough-mouthed pony. Attractive, intelligent, objective, this oriental woman spoke French without accent and Anglo-American English seasoned with slang. Dancing with her seemed strange. Talking with her seemed utterly natural.

Princess Nirgidma is here seen at the entrance of a yurt such as Asiatic nomads have used since the days of Herodotus.

Imagine the scene. A tête-à-tête between a team of rugged Caucasian explorers on a daring eastern expedition and a sole Asian woman in the early 20^th Century. The touchy topics that they broached in this encounter flirted with controversy but the young princess spoke her mind and shared the irrefutable rationale behind her ideas.

The National Geographic editor and photographer also took a black-and-white picture of her.

What emerges from the photographs and from her words is the character of a fiercely proud young woman on the cusp of making her mark on the world. Her Torghut heritage could not be suppressed.

The Torghuts

From where did this independent streak arise? To answer that question, we have to delve into the history of the princess’s people.

A streak of fierce independence runs through every Mongolian; even tribes typically identify themselves as discrete entities instead of a part of a larger collective. This has changed at certain points in history, such as in the 15^th Century when the four largest West Mongolian tribes formed an alliance called the “Dörben Oirat”.

Even after the alliance disintegrated, the Western Mongolians were referred to as “Oirat.” In the early 17^th Century, the Choros, Dörbet and Khoit tribes came together and formed the Dzungar Empire (sometimes called “Dzungaria”) in Western Inner Asia. Simultaneously, the Khoshuts established the Khoshut Khanate in Tibet and the Torghuts formed the Kalmyk Khanate in the lower Volga region. The Kalmyks are the Qirats in Russia, whose ancestors migrated from Dzungaria in 1607.

“Kalmyk” translates to “those who stayed”, a reference to their ancestors who decided to remain in their new home west of the Volga instead of returning to China. This makes the Kalmyks the only European community that is indigenously Buddhist.

Gradually, many Oirats outside lower Volga began to identify themselves as “Kalmyk”, particularly in dealings with their Russian and Muslim neighbours. However, they continued to refer to themselves within their own communities by their tribal and clan affiliations; this was the case with Oirats within the lower Volga.

By 1761, the Manchu Empire had forced the Khoshuts and the Dzungars from their homes (in Tibet and Dzungaria respectively) into Kalmykia. The local Torghuts of Kalmykia had used the name ‘Kalmyk’ for themselves but gradually came to use it as an umbrella term for the Khoshuts and Dzungars as well.

The migrations and subsequent increased interaction blurred the previously clearly-defined lines between the different tribes. Ultimately, European scholars identified all western Mongolians collectively as Kalmyks, regardless of their location and origins.

The Bearing of Genealogy

Princess Nirgidma’s family can trace its lineage directly to Ayuka Khan (1669-1724), the most powerful Kalmyk ruler. During his reign, Ayuka Khan defended the southern borders of Russia against the Muslim tribes of Central Asia, the North Caucasus and Crimea. He then focused his military efforts eastwards and made the Kazakh and Turkmen Kingdoms his tributaries.

As a member of the royal family of the Western Mongol Kalmyks, Ayuka Khan himself was a descendant of the great Mongolian emperor, Genghis Khan. While the exact line of descent is unclear, it may be related to the Borjigin line of the Kiyat clan.

Prince Palta

Princess Nirgidma’s father, Prince Palta Wang was Ayuka Khan’s great-great-great-great grandson. He was a Mongolian statesman and a scholar of military science, which he studied in Tokyo. His daughter, the Princess Nirgidma, was born in the Japanese capital and the family lived there in her first year.

As a young man, Prince Palta is said to have astonished Chinese scholars with his profound knowledge of Chinese history and literature. He was also well-versed in English and Japanese.

The famous Finnish orientalist Gustav John Ramstedt was reportedly greatly impressed by the young Prince Palta, whom he met on a visit to the estate of the prince’s father, Bayir Wang. The men discussed subjects as diverse as Buddhist philosophy and the mutual influence of Western and Oriental culture in the future.

Prince Palta believed that a person’s greatest riches were his intellect, erudition and knowledge. He wanted his four children to receive both an Oriental and Western education, thus including elements of a Eurasian nature.

In 1906, the Chinese Qing Dynasty transferred western Mongolia’s Altai Uriyangkhai, New Torghut and Khoshut banners from the jurisdiction of Khovd Province to the new Altai District, with Chenghua as its capital (now Altay in Xinjiang).

H.E. Tsem Rinpoche’s royal family tree

In 1913, the new Altai District was divided between newly independent Mongolia and the Chinese province of Xinjiang. Shortly thereafter, Prince Palta was appointed Governor of Altai District of China. History records Prince Palta as a war hero who defended the Altai region from invasions by a Russian-backed Mongolian army. China’s hold on Xinjiang today may be attributed to the courageous deeds of Prince Palta without whom parts, if not all, of the Altai would have been annexed by Mongolia. Prince Palta was held in great regard and highly respected as an influential member of the Altai royalty. Such was the Prince’s position that he had standing to correspond directly with the Qing Dynasty Emperor Guangxu. Prince Palta’s grasp of the nuances of politics, as well as his command of English, Chinese and Japanese, and knowledge of Chinese history and culture made an impression in the corridors of power in China. He was appointed a senator of the Chinese Republic.

Prince Palta’s letter which he wrote directly to the Qing Dynasty Emperor Guangxu

His son, Migyur Wang married Queen Dechen and the couple had four children, one of whom was Princess Dewa Nimbo. She was often called “Torghut Noyen”, a respectful way of referring to a royal princess of the Torghut tribe. Princess Dewa Nimbo went on to have one child with her first love, a son she named Prince Iska Minh.

We know him better today as His Eminence Tsem Tulku Rinpoche.

A Woman of the World

Princess Nirgidma’s posture, demeanour and looks combined to captivate any audience. The exotic pastimes of horse-riding and hunting with eagles were in her blood. She spoke multiple languages and her eloquence in English, French, Chinese and Russian left indelible lifelong impressions on those with whom she spoke.

Her father, Prince Palta was governor of the expansive Altai region and senator of the Chinese Republic. He had insisted on his children receiving both an Oriental and Western education. As his daughter, she was obviously well-travelled and well-educated.

Prince Palta (second from the right)

The princess received her childhood schooling at the Sacred Heart School in Peking before attending university in Paris. The cornucopia of worldly experiences could not temper the soul of the Mongol within her.

“A good horse and a wide plain under God’s heaven,” she had said, speaking of the goals to which she and her people aspired – and achieved – every day. And with that, she displayed that under her educated manners and urban sophistication, she was a free spirit and a traditionalist at heart.

Despite her privileged upbringing, the National Geographic explorers’ notes indicate that Princess Nirgidma was incredibly grounded. The elaborate embroidery work of the traditional outfit she wears in the photo with her hunting eagle was made by her own hand.

It seems that Princess Nirgidma, widely travelled, highly educated and at home in both Eastern and Western society, held opinions that would shake the ground of the cookie-cutter feminists of this millennium.

It is easy to fall under the impression today that feminism necessitates a rejection of the traditional demarcation of male and female roles in society. Princess Nirgidma was a staunch feminist by any measure but her views on this topic deviated from the archetypical feminist of today. She questioned the equality of the sexes as sanctioned by Genghis Khan in law. Writer LaSalle Gilman describes them thus:

The Mongolian woman is as free as the man; she saddles her horse and goes to visit her relatives and friends; she receives her guests and calls on whom she will; her sexual morals are the same as the morals of her roaming brother. She is equal to him before the law, is completely responsible for herself. Adultery is punishable by death, in the case of both men and women. She has the right of inheritance, of owning property and bringing up children, of seeking marriage or divorce, of serving in the army.

However, the princess assessed the supposed privilege of equality with rather different lenses:

I do not know whether the Great Khan was honouring the woman or simply putting her in her rightful place at the man’s side… Because she is the comrade of the man, the Mongolian woman is an object of no particular regard. She shares all the man’s hardest tasks, watches the flocks in rain and snow, loads the beasts, cuts wood. She enjoys no kind of precedence; she rises when a man older than herself comes in and gives him up her place at the fireside or the softest cushions. Man and woman share equally the expenses of life. Flatteries, deferences, everything that in the West is called chivalry – are non-existent. The orphan is protected but not the woman. Having the same rights, she also has the same duties and responsibilities.

She compared this to Chinese society where men wielded unquestionable authority:

Look at the Chinese woman who until recently was of all women the type most dependent on the goodwill of the man,” the princess declares. “She had no rights in public life. She had no existence, but she was and still is the absolute mistress in her family and almost sovereign in that public life in which she never shared herself. In China, a woman is infinitely respected. A man never contradicts her, agrees with her even when she talks nonsense, carries out her whims!

Life and Times

By all accounts, Princess Nirgidma lived a blessed life. She was attractive, intelligent and wealthy, factors that together gave her far more independence and opportunities than other women of the time.

It is said that her arrival in Paris as a young lady in the early 1930s inspired a storm of excitement, especially among the elites of the Oirat-Kalmyk community. She was the subject of letters and discussions. Young men fell in love with the princess, professing their emotions through poem and song.

Princess Nirgidma’s husband, Michel Bréal (middle).

As there are with everyone, there were low points, too; she married French diplomat Michel Bréal (1896-1973) but miscarried their first child. War is always traumatic but the Second World War was especially hard on the couple because Michel suffered a nervous breakdown. Fortunately, the princess was able to nurse him back to health.

The marriage to Bréal gave her the opportunity to explore more of the world; Michel was subsequently posted as the French Ambassador to Afghanistan (1952-1954), Laos (1954-1955) and Thailand (1958-1959). Along the way, the polyglot princess learnt to speak Arabic and Persian.

Danish writer and anthropologist Henning Haslund Christensen (1896-1948), who lived amongst the Mongols for decades, gave Princess Nirgidma the honour of writing the Foreword to his 1935 book, Men and Gods in Mongolia. In it, she says,

I wish to emphasize that the European’s way of thinking and attitude to life is closer to ours than that of other races. We have the same conception of beauty and of honour and, I would say, similar ideals.

Two years later in Paris, she herself published a collection of Mongolian folk songs titled, very simply, Dix-Huit Chants et Poèmes Mongols (translated as Eighteen Mongolian Songs and Poems). It was perhaps the first time Europe received a personal insight into authentic Mongolian culture from someone who was an intimate part of it. Copies of these rare musical scores are maintained by some of the world’s most prestigious repositories of information, including Oxford University, New York’s Columbia University, Trinity College in Connecticut and Bibliotheque du Musee de l’Homme, Paris.

Princess Nirgidma made strong impressions on the people she met and they spoke of her fondly in their letters and writings. These documents provide invaluable insights into the character and personality of the princess. The writer, diplomat and sinologist, Carl Barkman wrote in The Prelude to the Mandate:

When, during our talks in Peking, I told Nirgidma that I had written an article about the trek of the Torghuts from Russia to China in my student days and had translated passages from the official Ch’ing annals about their reception by the Emperor, she wanted to read the article and so I translated parts of it from Dutch into English for her. She helped me with some of the names, and this article was later published in Hong Kong by the university there. Her people and some allied Oirat tribes had migrated from Central Asia to the Volga region in the early 17^th Century. When the pressure of Russian expansion became too strong, about three-quarters of them went back to Central Asia in 1771. Much had been written about this event, especially in Russian, but I appeared to be the only one who had studied the Chinese sources and described their reception in China. This episode, which was new to Nirgidma, fascinated her. The Oirat-Mongols are of a tolerant and peaceful nature. Nirgidma was not at all anti-Chinese, although her people had been badly treated by them.

Princess Nirgidma and her husband, the French diplomat Michel Bréal

The fictional novel Asaray by Barkman was inspired by the “impressive” Princess Nirgidma whom he had first met in Beijing in 1947. Renewed contact with her in the 1970s inspired Barkman to write a novel about Asaray, the second son of Donduk-Dashi Khan, leader of the Volga Torghuts who now reside in Kalmykia. Donduk-Dashi Khan’s other son, Ubashi Khan (enthroned as his successor), led his people in a rather catastrophic migration back from the Volga region to Dzungaria beginning early 1771.

Asaray, or Asarai, was amongst other things, famous for being the first hostage taken by the Russian rulers in the 18^th Century amidst a power struggle in the Volga.

According to Barkman, when he first read about this young Prince Asaray in Russian historical literature, he could “at that time not find anything about his life, and wondered how a young, Buddhist-educated oriental prince would react to the splendour of St. Petersburg and its alien culture. For me, he was an ideal character for a novel.”

Princess Nirgidma, whom Barkman was corresponding with, “informed that according to an oral tradition in her family, Asaray had made the return journey to China with his people and played an important role there.”

Princess Nirgidma also urged Barkman to write a book about Asaray which he eventually did but Nirgidma never saw the finished novel as she had died in 1983 in Paris. Danish explorer and writer Henning Haslund Christensen writes in his book Men and Gods in Mongolia (London, 1935), that he received the following information through Princess Nirgidma:

“A movement or revolt against the Chinese provincial government had arisen among the Mohammedan population of Sinkiang. The Chinese Governor invited [the Torghut Khan] Seng Chen to Urumchi in order, as he pretended, to discuss with him the suppression of the revolt. Seng Chen arrived surrounded by his most powerful chiefs, but no discussion ever took place. After the first day’s banquet, as the Torghuts sat drinking tea in the Governor’s yamen, he had all of the guests shot from behind by his servants.”

It was for this book, Men And Gods, that Haslund (who preferred to omit his third name) sought out Nirgidma, asking her to write a Foreword. In the piece she composed, she said of meeting him:

“… enjoyed the pleasure, seldom vouchsafed to us Mongols, of talking freely and unconstrainedly about our country. There was nothing for me to tell him or explain to him, for he was one of us.”

Haslund met Nirgidma when he participated in a Central Asian expedition led by the eminent Swedish explorer and geographer Sven Hedin. Having lived for years among the Khalka Mongols and the Torghuts, he was on his way back to Europe with Torghut friends who accompanied him to the Russian border. He writes of their experience:

“One day we were overtaken by twenty galloping Torghuts. They were lusty youths on spirited horses, wild with the delight of speed across limitless steppes. They checked their course for a while to exchange gay greetings and inquisitive questions, and though we had never seen one another before we were soon like old acquaintances. […] They were Torghuts from Khara Ossun on their way to meet their princess.”

When they had galloped away, “What was all this about a princess”, I asked Lyrup. Did I not know? Nirgitma of the Torghuts was expected back on the steppes from the land of the Franks.

“Nirgitma of the Torghuts, that was of course her whom Seng Chen had so often quoted and of whom I had heard in the tents so many unbelievable things that I had come to regard as a figment of the imagination, the Mongolian girl who spoke the languages of the West and whose qualities had made her a legendary figure on the steppes.

“The same evening we came, dripping with sweat and dusty, to the frontier town of Chugochak where I was to experience a marvellous encounter. She, Nirgitma of the Torghuts, was a slender young woman, whose exquisite Parisian clothes looked exotic against her dark Mongolian beauty. It was only two days since she had left the wagon-lit that she had boarded in Brussels, and her speech and bearing had been formed by seven years of university study and life in European capitals. As many years of nomadic life lay behind me.

“And so it came about that we sat there giving one another widely separated impressions from East and West. […] Our environment was the sun-drenched courtyard of an Asian sarai with horses, asses, camels and caravans of people, coming and going.

“She had a complete and elegant command of the speech of Western culture and to all my questions she had apt answers. For fourteen hours we talked and, as the hours went by, her speech slipped more and more into Mongolian lines of thought. When we separated to go to the starting-places of our respective caravans […] our farewell words were spoken in Mongolian.”

Such were Haslund’s impressions. Princess Nirgidma’s acclaim was also captured in Pierre Teilhard’s letters to Lucille Swan. Teilhard was a French philosopher, palaeontologist and Jesuit priest whose intense – albeit platonic – love for American sculptor Lucile Swan was documented in The Letters of Teilhard de Chadrin and Lucille Swan. The princess was a friend to both Teilhard and Swan. We learn in Teilhard’s letters that the princess was a published writer whose opinions were highly regarded by newspapers and that she was sent to various places in the Middle East – Palestine, Morocco, Egypt and Tunisia – to cover political issues. The princess had also apparently gone on a pilgrimage to Mecca. “Why a Mongol Princess?” wondered Teilhard and therein is a hint as to how much Princess Nirgidma had broken through the cultural barriers prevailing of her time.

Michel Bréal

The princess was apparently not easily impressed, not by the trappings of her Eastern royal heritage nor by the affluence and opulence of the Western upper middle class. Teilhard and Swan’s letters spoke of a princess who was socially successful in both Eastern and Western social circles and yet she had a heart for freedom that could not be extinguished.

Teilhard also observed Nirgidma had no interest in ordinary life. In her private conversations with Swan, the Princess spoke of her love for her husband, Michel Bréal. She also articulated an appreciation for the spiritual and an understanding of the suffering that all human beings have to endure. The letters portray an image of a princess who was immensely successful for a woman of her time and who charmed just about everyone she met. Teilhard observed that the princess would have accomplished even greater things in Asia had she not been so “utterly feminine”. She was described as a loyal wife, who stood staunchly by her husband Michel Bréal’s side when he suffered a mental breakdown just after the Second World War. Bréal recovered and was appointed the French Ambassador to Peking and the Mongolian princess became, in the words of Teilhard, a really impressive and dignified mistress and hostess of the French Embassy.

The Line Continues

Prince Palta in his younger days

Each one of us is not just the child of our parents but a product of our entire lineage, stretching back millennia. The talents and abilities we possess, as well as our likes, dislikes and fears, are moulded by both our environment and the genes in our DNA – nature and nurture both make us who we are.

Princess Nirgidma came from a bloodline that includes the greatest conqueror the world has ever known, Genghis Khan. It includes Ayuka Khan, who wielded more power than any Kalmyk before or since. Her father, Prince Palta was a learned man of diplomacy, keen intellect and a passion for learning.

Their qualities of leadership, grit and determination became part of the Princess. Over thousands upon thousands of years, successive generations of Mongols had tamed the challenging land that was their home. They mastered warfare mounted upon horses and on their feet; for game, they hunted with bows and arrows, spears and eagles. This, too, was passed down to the Princess.

Princess Nirgidma was mentioned in “The National Geographic Magazine” of November 1932, Vol. LXII No. 5, plate IX opposite p.568.

She showed the world that it was possible for a young woman to possess such diverse traits without losing the essence of who she was, regardless of whether she lived in the East or West. Her impassioned defence of her people’s lifestyle and their insular attitudes to the National Geographic team illustrates the solidarity of a royal who truly understood her role in the greater scheme of things.

When the Princess expressed her views on the contradictions between the progress of the West and its abandonment of spirituality, she spoke prophetic words. It was a recognition of things to come as that progress crept ever so fast into the world in which she had been born. That foresight, too, was in her blood.

Her foresight was due to inherited knowledge, leadership and prescience from generations of accomplished ancestors that comprised conquerors, kings, warriors and poets. The essence of her opinions must have been almost traumatic for the average person to hear when she spoke them. Today, they are all the more remarkable for the insight they give us into an accomplished woman’s soul and for the truths she realised so long ago in places so far away.

A family portrait of Princess Nirgidma

Publications by Nirgidma >>

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The Spectator (London, 1935)

Established in July 1828, The Spectator is a weekly British magazine covering politics, culture and current affairs. Editorship of The Spectator has often been a step to higher office within the British Conservative Party.

In the August 2, 1935 issue of The Spectator, Princess Nirgidma published a piece on women’s rights, titled The Disadvantages of Women’s Rights. The essay was subsequently included in a compilation of other essays, published under the title Redefining the new woman, 1920-1963 by Angela Howard and Sasha Ranaé Adams Tarrant (Garland Publishing, New York, 1997).

Nirgidma’s article “The Disadvantages of Women’s Rights” in the August 2, 1935 issue of The Spectator. Click to enlarge.

Nirgidma’s article “The Disadvantages of Women’s Rights” in the August 2, 1935 issue of The Spectator. Click to enlarge.

Men and Gods in Mongolia (London, 1935)

In 1935, Princess Nirgidma provided a foreword to this book by the Danish explorer Henning Haslund Christensen. Click here or on the image below to download the PDF. Please take note as the PDF is quite large, the download may take a while depending on your Internet connection.

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Princess Nirgidma’s foreword that she composed for Haslund’s book “Men and Gods in Mongolia”. Click on the image to enlarge.

Princess Nirgidma’s foreword that she composed for Haslund’s book “Men and Gods in Mongolia”. Click on the image to enlarge.

Dix-Huit Chants et Poèmes Mongols (1937)

Translated as Eighteen Mongolian Chants and Poems in English, this compilation of Mongolian chants and poems were collected by Nirgidma and transcribed be Mme Humbert-Sauvageot. It was first published in 1937 and has since become a sought-after literary collectible.

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A handwritten inscription that Nirgidma composed for a limited edition print of her book. Click to enlarge.

Media About Nirgidma >>

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The Letters of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
and Lucile Swan (1988)

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was a Jesuit priest who participated in the Croisière Jaune, an expedition into Central Asia financed by André Citroën. He participated in his capacity as a scientist. For several months, Teilhard and his colleagues remained in Urumqi, the capital of Sinkiang (Xinjiang). It was on this trip that he came to befriend Nirgidma. Both spiritual people, they would go on to have a memorable conversation about the meaning of life and the role of God in the universe.

While living in China, Teilhard also struck up a lifelong friendship with the American sculptor Lucile Swan. Nirgidma was frequently mentioned in Teilhard’s many letters to Lucile Swan, offering us a glimpse into Nirgidma’s life. Click here or on the image below to download the PDF. Please take note as the PDF is quite large, the download may take a while depending on your Internet connection.

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Politika (1933)

In 1933, Princess Nirgidma arrived in Belgrade, the capital of what was then Yugoslavia (today Serbia). A newspaper, Politika, covered her arrival and the purpose of her trip. The original article below is written in Bosnian; click on the image to read the English translation.

Click to enlarge and read the English translation. (Source: http://www.members.tripod.com/budisti/princeza.html)

The Mandate by Carl Barkman

The fictional novel The Mandate by Carl Dietrich Barkman was inspired by the “impressive” Princess Nirgidma whom he had first met in Beijing in 1947. Renewed contact with her in the 1970s inspired Barkman to write a novel about the second son of Donduk-Dashi Khan, leader of the Volga Torghuts who today reside in Kalmykia. Donduk-Dashi Khan’s other son Ubashi Khan (enthroned as his successor), led his people in a rather catastrophic migration back from the Volga region to Dzungaria beginning early 1771.

Asaray or Asarai, was amongst other things, famous for being the first hostage taken by the Russian rulers in the 18^th Century amidst a power struggle in the Volga.

According to Barkman, when he first read about this young Prince Asaray in Russian historical literature, he could “at that time not find anything about his life, and wondered how a young, Buddhist-educated oriental prince would react to the splendour of St. Petersburg and its alien culture. For me, he was an ideal character for a novel.”

Princess Nirgidma, whom Barkman was corresponding with, “informed that according to an oral tradition in her family Asaray had made the return journey to China with his people and played an important role there.” Princess Nirgidma also urged Barkman to write a book about Asaray which he eventually did but Nirgidma never saw the finished novel as she had died in 1983 in Paris.

Click on the image to download the PDF

Princess Nirgidma (Prelude to The Mandate)

Carl Barkman, the Dutch diplomat who wrote this account of Princess Nirgidma

Who was Nirgidma, to whom I dedicated my novel Asaray, a Russian translation of which (entitled Nakaz Bogov) is now being published in Elista, the capital of Kalmykia? I shall try here to describe her extraordinary personality and her interesting life.

When I first met Nirgidma in Peking (Beijing) in 1947, I was immediately impressed by that remarkable lady. Although she was a princess of the Torghuts, a nomadic people in Central Asia, she spoke beautiful French and very good English, Chinese and Russian.

She had received a Western and Chinese education at the French nuns’ school Sacré Coeur in Peking and studied a wide range of subjects in Paris and Brussels, among which political science, literature and music. Her husband, a French diplomat, Michel Bréal, was consul-general in the former Chinese capital, where I represented the Netherlands. Among the diplomatic wives, she stood out as an amazing polyglot and an authority on culture, both Oriental and Western.

She was forty years of age then but looked much younger. A slender, charming young woman, whose face reflected a serenity which suddenly could change into a lively interest. An Oriental beauty? Yes, but also Western, for her clothes, gestures, and subjects of conversation were Western, in particular French. When she discovered my interest in the history of her nation, which I had studied in my university days, we often spoke about Central Asia in general, and her people, the Torghuts, especially.

Nirgidma swiftly won the hearts of many men upon her arrival in France

Her early youth had been spent in tents, in the encampments of her nomadic people, one of the largest tribes of the Oirat-Mongols. In the far north-western province of Sinkiang (Xinjiang) they roamed from one pasture to the next. They had a wonderful time there with their flocks of horses, camels and sheep amidst the most marvellous scenery. The summer was spent in the green highlands and Alpine pastures of the Heavenly Mountains and the Altai, in the winter they stayed in the warmer valleys and oases with their subtropical vegetation. But life could be very hard for them too, in times of extreme heat and drought or of unbearable cold.

I became fascinated by the many-faceted history of this far-flung family and decided to devote some further research to it. It took me to Kalmykia, an autonomous Buddhist republic in the Russian Federation, to the south of France, where Nirgidma’s son lives, to a book by a Danish explorer and, last but not least, to old copies of that marvelous monthly, the National Geographic Magazine.

Princess Nirgidma of the Torghut tribe. She always looked so smiling, happy and open. Click to enlarge.

Who was Nirgidma’s father? Prince Palta was a man of great culture, both Chinese and Oirat-Mongolian, a statesman with a thorough grasp of military science which he had studied in Tokyo in the years 1906–1908. Nirgidma was born there. Back in China, Palta became governor of the vast Altai region. In 1917, when Nirgidma was ten years old, her father moved to Peking to take up his post as senator of the Chinese Republic. Already as a young man he had astonished Chinese scholars by his profound knowledge of Chinese history and literature. He also knew English and Japanese well. The famous Finnish orientalist G. Ramsted was greatly impressed by young Palta when during a visit to the estate of his father, Prince Bayar, they talked about such diverse subjects as Buddhist philosophy, and the mutual influence of Western and Oriental culture in the future.

Palta, who believed that a person’s greatest riches were his intellect, erudition and knowledge, wanted his four children to receive both an Oriental and Western education, thus including elements of a Eurasian nature. In 1915, at his request, Tsar Nicholas II granted his eldest son, Mindzhur-Dordzhi, admission to the Russian officers’ school for the nobility in St. Petersburg. When this son returned to Peking three years later, he was initially considered by some as a Russophile, but after his father’s death inherited his titles, and dedicated himself to the task of increasing the well-being of his people. In 1949, after the Guomintang was defeated, he fled with his family to Tibet, and thence to India, from where he emigrated to Taiwan. He briefly served as a member of parliament there and died in 1975.

Princess Nirgidma was known to be a great beauty and very independent

His sister Nirgidma, following her father’s wish, went to Europe for her university studies. When this princess, then a ravishing beauty, arrived in Paris, she created a furore there, particularly among the intelligentsia of the Oirat-Kalmyk emigrants. They dedicated poems to her, admired her, fell in love. One of them wrote that her high spirituality and boundless soul’s delight were in evidence whenever she met her compatriots from Russia. And another, Prince Nicolai Tundutov, wrote in a letter to the Kalmyk historian and journalist Ilishkin: “Are you interested in Princess Nirgidma? The mention of that name brought memories of years long past. There are in one’s life encounters which leave an indelible memory in one’s subconscious. With her sharp mind, her wide range of culture, charming manners and incredible warmth, the princess easily won the hearts of men. Just like many others I became enchanted by this amazing woman.”

While studying in Paris, she kept the Torghut Khan, Seng Chen, and her brother, who ruled the eastern wing of the Torghuts in Khara Ossun, informed of political and other developments in Europe. She never mentioned this to me, but when her brother was visiting Peking, he told me how welcome her reports had always been to them, who lived in isolation in Central Asia.

This photograph of Nirgidma was taken in Peking in the mid-1930’s by Madame Thorbecke, wife of the Netherlands Minister to China

Nirgidma and her elder brother Mindzhur-Dordzhi were children of Prince Palta and his first Torghut wife Orloma. His second wife, a Khoshut, gave him a daughter, Sertso, and a son, Tsedn-Dordzhi. Sertso, a very talented girl, who apart from Mongol and Chinese, soon mastered English, French and Japanese, died when seventeen years old.

In line with Prince Palta’s ideas about giving a different western education to each of his children, Tsedn-Dordzhi was sent to Germany for his higher learning, whence he returned in the beginning of the Second World War to teach German at the Catholic University of Peking. In his book Flaneur im alten Peking (Lounger in old Peking), he writes, under his Chinese name of Ce Shaozhen, that his sister Nirgidma, as the wife of the French Consul-General in Peking, was able to provide him and his mother with the means to return to that city from Chungking. As its title indicates, the book gives some rather superficial, though occasionally amusing glimpses of the old Peking, and one gets the impression that the author was a bit of a playboy. Tsedn-Dordzhi’s daughter Devu Nimbo studied in the U.S.A., married an American of Oirat-Kalmyk origin, and has two children. Her brother lives in Taipei and has become a Chinese author, calling himself Min Huk Hueay.

Princess Nirgidma (front row, centre) upon her arrival in Belgrade on September 20, 1933.

When during our talks in Peking I told Nirgidma that in my student days I had written an article about the trek of the Torghuts from Russia to China and had translated passages from the official Ch’ing annals about their reception by the Emperor, she wanted to read the article and so I translated parts of it from Dutch into English for her. She helped me with some of the names, and this article was later published in Hong Kong by the university there. Her people and some allied Oirat tribes had migrated from Central Asia to the Volga region in the early 17^th Century. When the pressure of Russian expansion became too strong, about three-quarters of them went back to Central Asia in 1771. Much had been written about this event, especially in Russian, but I appeared to be the only one who had studied the Chinese sources and described their reception in China. This episode, which was new to Nirgidma, fascinated her.

The Oirat-Mongols are of a tolerant and peaceful nature. She was not at all anti-Chinese, although her people had been badly treated by them. In 1932, the Danish explorer Henning Haslund Christensen writes in his book Men and Gods in Mongolia (London, 1935), he received the following information through Princess Nirgidma:

“A movement or revolt against the Chinese provincial government had arisen among the Mohammedan population of Sinkiang. The Chinese Governor invited [the Torghut Khan] Seng Chen to Urumchi in order, as he pretended, to discuss with him the suppression of the revolt. Seng Chen arrived surrounded by his most powerful chiefs, but no discussion ever took place. For after the first day’s banquet, as the Torghuts sat drinking tea in the Governor’s yamen, he had all of the guests shot from behind by his servants.”

For this book by Haslund, Nirgidma wrote a Foreword, in which she says that when meeting him she “enjoyed the pleasure, seldom vouchsafed to us Mongols, of talking freely and unconstrainedly about our country. There was nothing for me to tell him or explain to him, for he was one of us.”

Princess Nirgidma

How had they met? Haslund had participated in a Central Asian expedition by Sven Hedin, had lived for years among the Khalka Mongols and the Torghuts. When he was on his way back to Europe, Torghut friends accompanied him on his way to the Russian border. “One day we were overtaken by twenty galloping Torghuts. They were lusty youths on spirited horses wild with the delight of speed across limitless steppes. They checked their course for a while to exchange gay greetings and inquisitive questions, and though we had never seen one another before we were soon like old acquaintances. […] They were Torghuts from Khara Ossun on their way to meet their princess.”

When they had galloped away, “What was all this about a princess”, I asked Lyrup. Did I not know? Nirgitma of the Torghuts was expected back on the steppes from the land of the Franks.

“Nirgitma of the Torghuts, that was of course her whom Seng Chen had so often quoted and of whom I had heard in the tents so many unbelievable things that I had come to regard as a figment of the imagination, the Mongolian girl who spoke the languages of the West and whose qualities had made her a legendary figure on the steppes.

“The same evening we came, dripping with sweat and dusty, to the frontier town of Chugochak where I was to experience a marvellous encounter. She, Nirgitma of the Torghuts, was a slender young woman, whose exquisite Parisian clothes looked exotic against her dark Mongolian beauty. It was only two days since she had left the wagon-lit that she had boarded in Brussels, and her speech and bearing had been formed by seven years of university study and life in European capitals. As many years of nomadic life lay behind me.

Princess Nirgidma

“And so it came about that we sat there giving one another widely separated impressions from East and West. […] Our environment was the sun-drenched courtyard of an Asian sarai with horses, asses, camels and caravan people coming and going.

“She had a complete and elegant command of the speech of Western culture and to all my questions she had apt answers. For fourteen hours we talked, and, as the hours went by, her speech slipped more and more into Mongolian lines of thought. When we separated to go to the starting-places of our respective caravans […] our farewell words were spoken in Mongolian.” Such was the Danish explorer Haslund’s impressions. We also have an account and photographs by an American author.

In his accompanying article the National Geographic editor writes:

“During our stay [in Urumchi] he [Georges Le Fèvre, the Expedition historian] and I had a delightful discussion with a Mongol princess. She wore riding boots, a tight blue skirt, and a simple white blouse, lightly touched with coral embroidery. Her hair was slightly dishevelled by her dashing ride on a tough-mouthed pony. Attractive, intelligent, objective, this oriental woman spoke French without accent and Anglo-American English seasoned with slang. Dancing with her had seemed strange. Talking with her seemed utterly natural.

“Why do occidentals and orientals dislike one another?” we asked, our actual relationship belying our thesis.[…]

“Why call conservatism dislike?” she replied. “Do you always welcome strangers to your clubs and homes? The oriental has his psychological Great Wall, whose protection is beginning to seem less sure. The man behind it doesn’t want to be loved or even appreciated. He wants to be undisturbed.

“People seek to protect not only property, but modes of life. Perhaps your way of life is right for you, but it threatens ours.

“You are in a hurry and hence barbaric. You are entranced by mechanical toys, which you haven’t mastered. You like frankness; but, until real understanding exists, even formal politeness helps. You dominate world ideals, which differ from ours.”

The National Geographic editor and photographer also took a black-and-white picture of her (op.cit.):

“You are men of auto, railway, radio [Nirgidma continued]. You find this a backward land, without roads, speed, a free press, a balanced budget, sanitation, or familiar forms of justice. Hence you pity the Chinese. But they live in the Celestial Kingdom, the center of all the world that counts. Your progress is chaotic, at least in its impact on orientals, because its spiritual values are not realized. We Mongols are emancipated. ‘A good horse and a wide plain under God’s heaven’, that’s our desire. And we realize it.

“My uncle is Shaliva Gegen, the third Buddhist dignitary. One simply can’t shock him; he’s too deeply rooted in righteousness. He doesn’t know any great Westerners, even by name; but he said to me, ‘The spark of creative life now exists in the Occident. The Westerners will find the light. But it is still hidden under the husk of materialism. In a future incarnation, the Pantshen Lama will be a Nordic.”

Such were her views when she met the American writer in the thirties. They were more cosmopolitan when I knew her in Peking some fifteen years later. Her praises risk becoming monotonous, but I have it on the authority of many colleagues and my own observation, that when married to a French diplomat, she was an excellent hostess, who radiated charm and authority, a learned, culturally interested woman, who learnt Persian in Kabul, and Arabic somewhere else. Michel Bréal served as Ambassador in Afghanistan, Laos and Thailand. She liked music, gardening, and preferred essays to novels.

In the 1970s a renewed contact with her inspired me to write a novel about the second son of Donduk-Dashi, Khan of the Volga Torghuts, who in the 18^th Century was taken hostage by the Russian government. When I read about this young Prince Asaray in Russian historical literature, I could at that time not find anything about his life, and wondered how a young, Buddhist-educated oriental prince would react to the splendour of St. Petersburg and its alien culture. For me, he was an ideal character for a novel. Nirgidma, with whom I was corresponding, told me that according to an oral tradition in her family Asaray had made the return journey to China with his people and played an important role there. She urged me to write the book, which I did, in both English and Dutch. It appeared in the Dutch language in 1997 and I dedicated it to her memory. In a Russian translation, it is now being published in Kalmykia. Nirgidma never saw the finished novel; she had died in 1983 in Paris.

(Source: http://www.barkman.nl/en/werk_compleet.jsp?categorie=1&nummer=1)

Printsessa Nirdzhidma i kniga pesen torgutov Kitaia

(The Biography of Princess Nirdzhidma)

Click on the image to download the PDF

Wants to be Undisturbed

(Source: Heathen Chinese)

Click on image to enlarge (Source: https://heathenchinese.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/wants-to-be-undisturbed/)

МОНГОЛ НОЁНЫ ЦУУТАЙ ГҮНЖ НИРЖИДМАА

(Source: Analiz.mn)

Click on image to enlarge (Source: http://analiz.mn/postview/2693)

Монгол ноёны цуутай гүнж Ниржидмаа

(Source: News.mn)

Click on image to enlarge (Source: http://news.mn/r/675947)

Монгол ноёны цуутай гүнж Ниржидмаа

(Source: News.mn)

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Монгол ноёны гүнж Парист ном үзсэн түүх

(Source: Fact.mn)

Click on image to enlarge (Source: http://www.fact.mn/35403.html)

Бөх гүнж буюу Хотол цагаан гүнжийн домог

(Source: Mongolcom.mn)

Click on image to enlarge (Source: http://mongolcom.mn/read/20522)

Монгол ноёны гүнж Парист ном үзсэн түүх

(Source: Bolod.mn)

Click on image to enlarge (Source: http://www.bolod.mn/News/71008.html)

Nirgidma from Torhout

(Source: Wikiwand)

Click on image to enlarge (Source: https://www.wikiwand.com/fr/Nirgidma_de_Torhout)

Short Biography on Nirgidma

(Source: МАРКО ПОЛО Facebook Page)

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Epilogue >>

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Epilogue: Interview of Queen Dechen and
Princess Dewa Nimbo

These two audio files are a recording of an interview done by Dr Fred Adelman, an anthropologist and student of a famous professor of Mongolian studies, Professor Nicholas Poppe of University of Washington. Dr Adelman had visited Queen Dechen who was 63 years old at that time, to ask her about what she knew of the Torghuts. Rinpoche’s mother Princess Dewa Nimbo acted as the interpreter.

Amongst other things, Princess Dewa Nimbo explained that Queen Dechen’s husband or the King Migyur (Migyur Wang), is a descendent of Ayuka Khan and is a Noyin and that Princess Dewa Nimbo, together with her father, had met famous painter, Tibetologist and practitioner, Nicholas Roerich before.

The audio files are part of the Indiana University Center for Language Technology (CeLT) archives.

(Source: http://celt.indiana.edu/portal/languages/kalmyk/archive.html#menu)

Epilogue: David Minh

David is Rinpoche’s uncle, the younger sibling of Rinpoche’s mother Princess Dewa Nimbo.

He is a resident of Taiwan, having fled there from the family’s ancestral homeland of present-day northern Xinjiang where they are Kalmyk royalty. In Taiwan, he is regarded as a minor celebrity due to his status as Mongolian royalty, fluent in Mongolian, Mandarin and English. He has two children and is a notable freelance columnist who writes about politics in Taiwan.

With the help of a Lama named Yangduk, it took his family two months to travel from Kalmykia to Lhasa where they had an audience with the 13^th Dalai Lama, then later over the mountain passes of the Himalayas, to Kalimpong, India. At that time, Austrian explorer Heinrich Herrer was in Lhasa and got to know his family. In his book “Seven Years in Tibet”, Herrer mentioned meeting the family – a Mongolian prince with his two wives and the two wonderful children (one of which is David Minh).

Later, as refugees, his family relocated to Taiwan, travelling from Kalimpong to Calcutta by rail, then from Calcutta to Taiwan via Hong Kong by ship. Port calls along the way included Bangkok, Penang, and Singapore. Meeting him in Taiwan, David explains that he had lost contact with his sister Dewa Nimbo when she moved to the United States but was reunited with her in the mid-1970s when he started doing business there and met her in Philadelphia. David has however now lost contact with her and described her as becoming “quite a hermit”, refusing to also meet her own two sons.

Rinpoche stated that all his life he wanted to be close to his biological mother but she rejected him. Rinpoche lamented that if he could connect to her and help her, that it would be nice.

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