Building Nationalism in Inner Asia: The Empowerment of the Tibetan Revolution in the early 20th century – NATINASIA

The objective of the project is to analyse the context of the Chinese Revolution of 1911 in Tibet (Central Tibetan, Kham and Amdo) through “crossed glances”. This period of Sino-Tibetan relations is particularly important because it determines the end of the privileged relationship that linked the hierarchs of Tibet to the emperors of China, generally described as “spiritual master to lay protector” (chöyön). The research carried out within the framework of this project will cover the period from 1901, marked by a Russian-Tibetan rapprochement, to 1918, when the last Manchu and Chinese civil servants and soldiers left Tibet. The studies will be based on documents and archives, but also on published accounts, reports and notebooks left by Tibetan and foreign travelers, clerics, diplomats, military officers and civil servants. Our intention is to confront the official point of view with the standpoint of the actors and witnesses of the revolution while taking into consideration the influence played by the circulation of these writings. The aim will be not only to retrace the premises, the course and the consequences of the Chinese Revolution of 1911 in Tibet, but also to identify how Tibet, by breaking off its relations with China, could have been a vector of political change in Inner Asia. The approach envisaged will be guided by the will to carry out analyses at several levels (historical, anthropological, political and philology), to shift perspectives (by Tibetan and Inner Asia geographical areas) and to combine different scales (testimonies of Tibetan actors and travelers, observations by diplomats and archival documents), in order to reveal links between the Tibetan context and the situation in Inner Asia in general, through a comparative approach, at a time when the Manchu empire (1644-1912) was breaking up and the rise of nationalism was being confirmed.