ABSTRACT
Challenging assumptions that travel writing is a European cultural practice, this chapter focuses on socialist Mongolian travel in the 1950s and 1960s. It examines Byambyn Rinchen’s two travelogues, Account of a Journey to the West and Account of a Journey to the South, and Tsendiin Damdinsüren’s Notes about Japan in terms of three rhetorical strategies: a nationalist strategy, in which Rinchen and Damdinsüren proclaim the significance of Mongolian language and cultural history; an internationalist strategy, in which they represent their experiences in terms of Soviet discourses; and, a cosmopolitan strategy, in which they express their fascination with cultures beyond the Soviet world. Rinchen and Damdinsüren demonstrate their rhetorical flexibility by making their nationalist perspectives acceptable by interweaving these other strategies.
