‘THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE MONGOLS’ now available in Japanese
The Fund for Spreading the Secret History of the Mongols to the World published a fully-illustrated “The Secret History of the Mongols” in Japanese to promote the history of Mongolia.
“The Secret History of the Mongols” is the earliest and most important literary document of Mongolians as it is considered as the only genuine native record of the life of Chinggis Khaan, one of the world’s most successful rulers who founded the Great Mongol Empire.
The book inauguration was held last Friday at the National Library of Mongolia. The book was translated into Japanese by Ozawa Shigeo, a renowned Mongolist and former general secretary of the Union of Mongolian Studies, and illustrated by R.Battsengel, an artist and initiator of the project “Let’s Spread the Secret History of the Mongols”.
The project launched in 2008, publishing “The Secret History of the Mongols” book in seven languages to date, including Hungarian, Chinese, Russian, French, German, Japanese and English.
“The translations of ‘The Secret History of the Mongols’ aren’t just an ordinary literature translations. Especially the Japanese version was translated by famous Mongolist Ozawa Shigeo who is well-acquainted with the Mongolian history,” historian and archaeologist D.Erdenebaatar said at the book inauguration.
As noted by D.Erdenebaatar, artist R.Battsengel has been making contributions to promoting the Mongolian history and its cultures across the globe for nine years. He said that the illustrations make the complex book more understandable for people of all ages and shared that the fund plans to publish the book in German, French, Italian and Spanish in the future.
“Most importantly, illustrations in the book are not just any artworks - they were drawn using various research works by historians as reference,” he said.
“I made the illustrations to the book with the aim to help readers feel like they are watching a scene in a film and get a better picture of the lifestyle at the time. The most important thing is that the pictures in the book were drawn based on archaeological findings and results of historical studies. The book contains pictures in addition to the text. Now, more than 120 million Japanese-speakers will be able to read ‘The Secret History of the Mongols’,” R.Battsengel stated.
Yamamoto Keigo, chairman of the Culture and Education Department of the Embassy of Japan to Mongolia also commended the illustrated book saying, “Professor Ozawa spent several years translating ‘The Secret History of the Mongols’ to Japanese. The illustrated book is very useful to everyone interested in Mongolia or those who have some kind of connection to Mongolia. I consider this book as a wonderful work of art, especially because the pictures in the book harmonize perfectly with the translation.”
He emphasized that the book will encourage many to read more books and expressed his pleasure in launching the book during the 45th anniversary the establishment of diplomatic relations between Mongolia and Japan.