You are more than welcome to the “Digitizing Documentation Project for The Collection of the Mongolian Heroic Epics (DDP4CMHE).”
The Collection of the Mongolian Heroic Epics (Four Volume Version) covers 196 short and medium-lengthen Mongolian epic texts of 8 million words in 250,000 lines and 5,400 pages. The first volume was published by the Ethnic Publishing House in October 2007 and the set of four volumes was completed in 2010. Facing the heavy workload, the project team under the direct leadership of Rinchindorji, the renowned senior scholar, followed the principles of rigorous, scientific, and professional compilation and spent many years completing the set. The complete collection of four volumes has been well received by the academic circles at home and abroad. In 2010, it was given the second “Chinese Government Award for Publishing.”
By presenting the achievements of the Project for integration of Mongolian Heroic Epics, the collection is reputed as a “milestone” for the information science construction of Mongolian Heroic Epics in the 20th and 21st century. Most of the texts were published in China for the first time, including the precious manuscripts collected and recorded by a number of master scholars like G. Ramstedt (Finland), Bo. Ya. Vladimirtsov (Russia), Walther Heissig (Germany), and others. The collection is the world’s first centralized compilation of long Mongolian epic pieces and short and medium-length Mongolian epic pieces. It has also laid a solid foundation of information science for the study of the Mongolian epics traditions. In addition, the texts included in the collection also reflect the three historical phases for recording Mongolian epic pieces in the 20th century, which have essential value for the promotion of research work on history of scholarship in epic studies. While reflecting the concepts for studying Mongolian epic pieces in China, the arrangement of the materials follows such principles as the regional and dialect distribution of the epics, the type of structure or story-pattern, and the relation between variant forms and relevant forms, and so on.
In order to further promote the academic discussions, exchanges and communications, and achievements spreading of the professional research of folklore, ethnic literature, and related parallel disciplines, the project team of “China Epic Studies” at the Institute of Ethnic Literature under Chinese Academy of Social Sciences initiated the “"Digitizing Documentation Project for The Collection of the Mongolian Heroic Epics” in 2010 with the help of BEIJING SOFOO TECHNOLOGY CO.,LTD. While presenting all 196 Mongolian epic texts in eEdition, it aims at integrating a database of epic texts in the structure of information science construction of the Center for Studies in China Ethnic Culture and Language which is affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The readers can browse and retrieve information according to the Epic Circle, Epic Performer, Theme, Character-focus, Plot-type, Story-pattern, Collecting Place, Sub-genre, as well as Text-maker, and so on.
We sincerely hope that the Project for the construction of the database will be useful for the disciplinary construction and theoretical studies of Chinese epics to make the best possible contribution in the 21st century for the epic studies in China.
Key Discipline “China Epic Studies” at the Institute of Ethnic Literature, CASS
The Working Team for “DDP4CMHE”
Center for Studies in China Ethnic Culture and Language, CASS
