Inner Asia 1(1999): 3-43

Works of the poet and essayist Saichungga, a founder of modern Inner Mongolian literature, written in 1945 gave voice to the Japanese-sponsored nationalist mobilisation in Inner Mongolia during the final months of World War II. This article presents one unpublished essay and eight poems, reading them in the light of Saichungga's cultural nationalism, which focused on moral renewal and scientific and cultural revival. Expressing the supersession of Buddhist ethics by incorporating its chief metaphors, Saichungga expresses his romantic vision of national regeneration with complementary dualities: youth and age, rootedness and restlessness, and male and female.