From Hovd Travel in Mongolia
Dambijantsan
Dambijantsan (second from right in photo), also referred to as the "Ja Lama", was a controversial figure in western Mongolia at the start of the 20th century. His actions made him first a revolutionary hero, and later an enemy of the state for which he was hunted down and killed by the newly-established Mongolian government. Born in or around 1862, Dambijantsan posed as a Buddhist lama, though there is some debate as to whether he actually was one. Many locals were in awe of him, believing him to be the reincarnation of Amursana, a Khoit-Oirat prince from the 18th century. A Khalmakh (an ethnic group also known as the Torguud) man from the Russian Volga, he has been described as an “insane and cruel genius”.
Dambijantsan first arrived in Mongolia sometime in 1890, and was arrested in the summer of that year by the Chinese authorities for campaigning against Chinese rule. He avoided imprisonment because the Russian consul identified him as a Russian citizen and oversaw his release and deportation to Russia. The following year, he was back in Mongolia continuing his campaign against the Chinese and was arrested and deported twice more. There is a gap in his history over the next 20 years, but in 1910 he resurfaced amongst a Torguud tribe in the Xinjiang province of China.
In 1911 even after Mongolia declared its independence from the Manchus, western Mongolia remained under Manchurian rule. Dambijantsan made his way to Hovd in 1912 and announced that he would free the Mongols from Chinese rule. He gathered an army of 5,000 troops from Hovd, and with the help of two other Generals: Magsarjav and Damdinsuren, this army liberated first the town of Uliastai in Zavkhan aimag, then the town of Ulaangom in Uvs aimag, and in August 1912 the army destroyed the Chinese garrison at Sangiin Kherem in Hovd, and declared the unity of western Mongolia with the newly-founded Mongolian state. His acts of cruelty against the Chinese military prisoners are horrifying and widely-known. For a more complete account of his vengeance, go here, because this is a family site.
From 1912 to 1914 he installed himself as the military governor of western Mongolia, and ruled his subjects with a reign of fear and violence that was beyond all reason and measure. In February 1914 he was arrested on the orders of Russian consular officials in Hovd who were acting on the flood of complaints from nobles who had had enough of Dambijantsan’s behavior. While trying to set up his own kingdom in Munjig (in present-day Uvs aimag) he was arrested, imprisoned, and later returned to his homeland in Volga in 1916 where he remained until 1918.
In the summer of 1918 Dambijantsan returned yet again to Mongolia and a warrant was promptly issued for his arrest. He managed to evade Mongolian authorities and built himself a stone palace in present-day Govi Altai aimag, which he paid for by extorting or robbing passing caravans. He operated from his palace until 1922 when the Mongolian government, fresh after disposing of the headache of the Russian madman Baron Ungern von Sternberg, decided not to take any chances with another dangerous leader with several hundred loyal and armed followers, and sent out several parties to find and kill Dambijantsan. One of the parties infiltrated his camp by posing as envoys from the Bogd Khaan, and then shot him through the head. When no one believed that the “invincible” Dambijantsan had really been killed, his head was displayed at Uliastai and then Ulaanbaatar before it was smuggled to St. Petersburg and eventually found its way into the private collection of Peter the Great, where it is still on display at the Hermitage Museum.
There are no statues in Hovd honoring Dambijantsan,
