In the
two decades since the Soviet Union dissolved and Mongolia became an independent
democracy, the country has struggled to resuscitate cultural traditions lost
during its many years as a Soviet satellite, Sheila Melvin has written in The
New York Times.

“Stalin wanted to bring Russian culture to Mongolia and destroy
Mongolia’s national ambition,” explained the poet G. Mend-Ooyo, speaking in the
book- and calligraphy-filled office of the Mongolian Academy of Culture and
Poetry, of which he is president and founder. “He couldn’t do it completely,
but from 1940 to 1990 we were far from our culture. We used Russian script, we
couldn’t mention the name ‘Chinggis Khaan’ [Genghis Khan], we didn’t know our
own history.”

Efforts to revive the nation’s traditional culture have borne
mixed results, bogged down by factional bickering, philosophical disagreements,
budgetary restraints and habit. So, while Genghis Khan is once again a
household name, the Soviet-imposed Cyrillic alphabet continues to replace the
flowing Uighur script that the great Khan himself is said to have borrowed for
his people. Surnames — which were abolished by the Soviet-backed government in
the 1920s — are still rarely used, despite government mandates to revive them.
(Instead, the initial of the father’s first name is often added to given names
for official usage.)

There is, however, one area in which near unanimity of purpose has
enabled major progress: the revival of the morin khuur, or “horse-head fiddle.”
The general revival of the instrument has been bolstered by the government,
which went so far as to issue a decree aimed at restoring its special role in
the nation’s cultural life. In Mongolia’s music schools, the number of morin
khuur students has increased significantly, as has production of the
instrument.

A two-stringed bowed instrument with a scroll in the shape of a
horse’s head, the morin khuur both springs from Mongolia’s nomadic heritage and
embodies it.

“Mongols really like horses,” explained B. Bayaraa, a dean at the
Mongolian University of Culture and Arts. “The morin khuur really reflects the
feeling, the spirit of the Mongols — it was the main musical instrument.”

The origins of the morin khuur are hazy, but legends recounting
its creation all center on a herder’s abiding love for a horse who dies. To
numb his grief, the herder is said to have fashioned a musical instrument from
the animal’s carcass, covering a wooden frame with its skin, crafting strings
and a bow from its tail hair, and carving the scroll in its image. When the
instrument was finished, he played upon it the sounds his beloved steed once
made as it galloped over vast green steppe, whinnied on a frosty starlit night,
or snorted and shook dew from its mane in the first rays of the morning sun.
Soon, there was a morin khuur in every ger (or yurt) in the land.

“Every family used to have a morin khuur as a kind of altarpiece —
it was a sacred part of the household,” said B. Sharav, a composer at the
Mongolian State Theater of Opera and Ballet, who as a child was taught to play
the instrument by his father and grandfather and as an adult has written
orchestral concertos for it. “This is one thing the Mongols can be really proud
of.”

The morin khuur became an integral part of nomadic culture, used
to celebrate the beginning of a new year; to mark the end of a long day
pounding wool into felt; to break the monotony of herding sheep; to accentuate
the joy of drinking fermented mare’s milk — even to encourage a recalcitrant
camel to nurse a newborn foal.

The process of making the instrument was gradually standardized.
It was determined, for instance, that the thinner of the two strings (which
nowadays are generally tuned a fourth apart to F and B-flat) should have about
105 hairs from the tail of a mare while the thicker string should have about
130 from that of a stallion. Goat or camel skin was sometimes substituted for
horse hide and the instruments were painted green, to symbolize fertility. A
repertoire evolved and the instrument, which is held on the lap as it is
played, was used to accompany dance, folk songs and poetry.

“The morin khuur’s sound is a part of life,” Sharav said,
gesturing toward one propped on a piano in his office. “The head of every
household should be able to make a sound on it — the melody of the rhythm of a
horse galloping.”

As Soviet control over Mongolia tightened, however, the status of
the morin khuur was deliberately diminished. “There were purges and the
abandonment of traditional instruments in the 1930s,” explained Ts. Ariunbold,
director of foreign affairs at the College of Music and Dance in Ulan Bator.
Echoed his colleague, N. Ganchimeg, deputy director of the college, “This was
within the stream of abandoning our traditions — instead classical music was
promoted.”

The morin khuur was not completely cast aside — the College of
Music and Dance continued to teach it, alongside violin, cello and other
Western string instruments — but it lost its central role in Mongolia’s musical
life. Its comeback began in the general flowering of traditional culture that
accompanied democracy. The instrument got a considerable boost in 2002 when
then-president Natsagiin Bagabandi issued a presidential decree aimed at
re-establishing its lost primacy.

“The regulation says that every household needs to have a morin
khuur and the head of the household needs to know how to make a sound on it,”
Ariunbold said. Though the decree — which also established a state morin khuur
on which the national anthem is to be played on special occasions — is
non-binding, it has been broadly propagated and appears to have widespread
support.

“We have so many requests to study the morin khuur,” Ganchimeg
said. “The policy has really had a big impact in society.”

Of the 170 College of Music and Dance students who play
traditional instruments, 50 major in morin khuur; the College has an
accomplished morin khuur ensemble that performs works by Mongolian and other
composers in a recital hall lined with portraits of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven on one wall and Glinka, Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky on the other.

The situation is similar at the Mongolian University of Culture
and Arts, and many government-sponsored activities have been implemented to
support the decree. “There is a Golden Autumn competition that encourages
composers to write for the instrument,” said Bayaraa, of the University of
Culture and Arts. “And every two years there is a morin khuur competition. Many
people participate — including amateur players from abroad. There is a
symposium on techniques, music, and research. We also invite the people who
make morin khuur to share their experiences.”

Modern technology has been used to update the instrument, which
now often has an all-wood sound box — the leather changes shape when taken to
more humid countries — and synthetic strings. Although the instrument is widely
used in rock, folk rock and jazz ensembles that play in Ulan Bator’s clubs,
amplification comes from a microphone rather than electric pickups on the
instrument itself.

Efforts to revive the morin khuur at home have been so successful
that many of its advocates have set their sights on promoting it overseas,
noting that its sound is comparable to that of the cello and that it blends
well with Western orchestras.

Indeed, the poet Mend-Ooyo — whose writing is laced with
references to the morin khuur — may at long last achieve the dream expressed in
the closing stanza of his poem, “All Shining Moments 3”:

Remaining there, listening in sadness to our Mongolian melodies, 
I shall awaken every morning
to the sound of the horse-head fiddle. 
And living around the
stones, watching over the fire of the Mongol home, 
I shall shine everywhere
upon the hoof-drum steppe.