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51 - Joseph Van Oost (1877–1939), missionary, ethnomusicologist a…
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Estimate €300 - €600
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Description
Joseph Van Oost (1877–1939), missionary, ethnomusicologist and ethnographer of the Sino-Mongolian border Lot of 10 letters from the field, 1926–1930, addressed to René Benjamin FIND THE FULL AND DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THIS LOT IN OUR ONLINE AUCTION CATALOGUE An interesting and rich collection of correspondence, a valuable and previously unpublished historical account by a missionary who provides illuminating geopolitical analyses of the decline of the young Republic of China in Mongolia, which had fragmented into autonomous military domains. Kweihwating (the ‘Blue City’, now Hohhot), where Van Oost settled from July 1926 as the mission’s procurator, lay at the heart of a bitter struggle between northern and southern factions. The priest witnessed the advance of the army led by the Nationalist general Feng Yuxiang, ironically dubbed the ‘Christian general’ by the Western press but described by Van Oost as a ‘traitor’ in the pay of the Soviets. The Russian ‘Red’ presence and student xenophobia Van Oost provides a detailed account of the massive technical and military aid supplied by the Russian ‘Reds’ to Feng Yuxiang’s People’s Army. He describes the arrival of thousands of Slavic Bolshevik soldiers manoeuvring heavy guns, aeroplanes and armoured trains in the Nan-K’eou Pass region. This communist incursion was accompanied by an unprecedented wave of xenophobic agitation within the region’s state schools. Committees of revolutionary students and local unionised teachers, drawing inspiration from the doctrines of Sun Yat-sen’s ‘Three Principles of the People’ (San Min) of Sun Yat-sen, are demanding the immediate repeal of the unequal treaties, confiscating the properties of the Holy Childhood mission and organising open-air theatrical performances aimed at exposing the clergy to public ridicule. The Protestant missions in the region, mainly composed of Swedish pastors financially supported by American funds, bore the brunt of this politicisation. Having themselves taught democratic and modernising theories in their private schools, the Reformed missionaries found themselves ousted by their own Chinese converts who, under the influence of student propaganda, declared they no longer needed the foreigners before confiscating the mission’s assets and squandering them. The symbiosis with the bandit-general Weng Dechen Faced with the betrayal of the republican authorities, the Catholic clergy of Kweihwating owed their survival to direct feudal alliances with local warlords. The relationship between Father Van Oost and General Eou’eng te chen (Weng Dechen) is, in this respect, emblematic of the ambiguities of missionary work in times of anarchy. Weng Dechen, who was then commanding the First Mounted Brigade of the 31st Army Corps, was a former convict. Eight years earlier, whilst he was a mere, destitute cart driver hunted down by the police for banditry, he had found refuge with Van Oost at the mission in Ou Kin nicou yao tse. This act saved his life, whilst his companions were beheaded. Having risen to the rank of general after recruiting his own army of bandits and successively offering his services to Feng Yuxiang, Yen Xishan and then Zhang Zuolin, Weng Dechen remained eternally grateful to his former protector. Thanks to this alliance of convenience, the priest secured detachments of soldiers to protect vulnerable Christian communities and managed to secure the release of his fellow priest, Father Eugène Jamart, who had been captured by a rival gang in the mountains of northern Shanxi. However, the letters describe the missionary’s physical revulsion when he had to visit his ‘friend’, a man who amassed a harem of sixteen-year-old concubines armed with Mauser pistols, squandered the soldiers’ funds on gambling and lived in constant fear of having his throat slit by his own lieutenants. The famine of 1928–1930 The famine that struck Suiyuan Province from 1928 onwards rivalled the worst disasters in modern Chinese history in terms of severity. Van Oost’s correspondence report dissects the mechanisms behind it with relentless rigour. Whilst extreme drought was the climatic trigger, the root cause was political: regional armies systematically plundered grain reserves, requisitioned draught animals and forcibly compelled peasants to cultivate opium poppies at the expense of food crops in order to finance the generals’ military campaigns. FIND THE FULL AND DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THIS LOT IN OUR ONLINE AUCTION CATALOGUE
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About the sale René Benjamin, the 20th-century Balzac scholar
Auction location
Auction time 10/06/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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