Language has a strange place in the safeguarding efforts of the intangible cultural heritage of the efforts of Chinese governments and UNESCO. The languages themselves are not recognized on the UNESCO lists and there are no specific plans for their safeguard. However, the linguistic expressions of different groups are available for safeguard, and other traditions are often taught and transmitted in minority languages.
As such, even if languages are not explicitly saved, they are implicitly part of the broader “heritage regime”.
This makes traditions recognized as a particularly powerful heritage in a moment of strong pressure on the transmission and use of minorized languages in the People’s Republic of China.
Bardes of the Gesar epic
Lobzang is sitting on a large chair in front of a window without window filled with benches and tibetan style sofas deeply. He wears a pointed hat and a traditional Tibetan shirt, and sometimes he holds a white silk scarf in his hands (at other times, he is on his knees). The hat serves a clear indication that it is a Babdrung (བབས་སྒྲུང་།),, A bard inspired by the Tibetan “national” epic, called by certain longest epic in the world.
The epic represents a rich distillation of Tibetan folk culture in a single massive opus. He combines verses, prose, song, speech and proverbs, based on Tibetan folk cosmology which extends far beyond the tangible world.
He recounts the embodiment of King Gesar, his difficult childhood, winning a horse race to get on the throne, and his victories over the neighboring kingdoms. As a living exhaustion, some versions even include Gesar exploits against the Nazis. For many, Gesar is both a historical figure and a deity that can help resolve real concerns.
Epic and Gesar heritage
In the first years of the 1980s, because the upheavals of the cultural revolution slowly gave way to a new period of “reform and openness”, the researchers and political decision -makers were worried that China has no epic. The Greeks have Homeric epics. The Indians have the Bhagavad Gita. Intellectuals in Finland and Scotland compiled Kalevala and Ossian to promote their national identities.
Lacking a significant epic for the majority Han, academics and China officials sought to minority epics of “Zhonghua Minzu(中华民族, sometimes translated as “Chinese nation”) to help fill this cultural gap. This included the Gesar epic.
Between 1980 and 2020, the Gesar epic was mentioned as “one of the most important elements of scientific research at the national level” in several of the five -year plans by which the government exhibits its strategic roadmap for a near and long -term future.
In 2003, the UNESCO Convention for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage brought a new life to oral and performance traditions through the People’s Republic of China. The Chinese government has been among the First Nations to ratify the Convention (in comparison, the United States and Australia have still not done so, while the The United Kingdom only entered 2024) and establish a system on several levels to identify and protect traditions on a national scale.
In 2009, the Gesar epic was officially written on the UNESCO list of the Cultural heritage incorporated representative of humanity.
Visibility of the Tibetan language
For the epic, heritage recognition transforms a complex genre of folklore with an audience relatively limited to a symbol of the precious cultural contributions of the Chinese nation to global culture.
In this way, cultural heritage in China has become something “brand” This allows the display of Tibetan traditions and languages, even at the current moment of increased tensions and restrictions.
A certain number of new “complete” textual editions of the epic have been created by local governments, sometimes beautifully called, often with the help of bards. Painters were used to create thangka Paintings representing different characters or scenes from the epic. In 2024, certain local bards and cultural managers of the autonomous prefecture of the Tibetan Youshu received significant funding from the government to create a website aimed at preserving the Gesar epic by establishing an online archive of epic performance to make it easily available for the public online. Meanwhile, apart from government activities, bards differ their performances on the popular app KuaishouSometimes reaching thousands of viewers at a time. Some also create informal publications on the epic.
In short, there is a real cultural production cottage industry linked to the epic.
In the context of the global pressures of homogenization and the tightening of spaces for acceptable public expression in the Xi Jinping era, this support for the Tibetan heritage seems particularly important.
Recently, the promotion of the government of the concept “Minzu Gongongti Yishi 民族 同体意识 同体意识同体意识 »- traduit dans les médias d’État comme« un sens de la communauté pour la nation chinoise »- a vu l’imposition de nouvelles restrictions à la pratique religieuse, à l’affichage culturel et à l’éducation linguistique minoritaire. Despite this, the Gesar epic and its bards remain prominent and visible.
Heritage recognition authorizes displays that could otherwise be difficult
Changes to Tibetan society, politics and performance contexts also require bards to sail in the contemporary worlds of heritage and digital media.
In this way, the bards of the epic play a crucial role as intermediaries, creating a place for the continuous presence of Tibetan language and culture through epic performance, religious services to the local community and work with the government to preserve the epic and share it with the world. Above all, this also includes the support of the heritage government.
Cynic could say that these bards and other culture workers simply collaborate with the state. However, we could also recognize that these actors use the avenues available to create a space for the visibility of Tibetan language in contemporary China – an effort that could have important implications for the future of the Tibetan language in the RPC.
A longer version of this article was initially published by Melbourne Asia Review At Asia Institute, University of Melbourne.