Typhaine Cann (1986–2025)
It was with profound shock and sorrow that we learned of the death of the exceptionally talented young French Mongolist and Cultural anthropologist, Typhaine Cann, who passed away on June 7, 2025. This devastating news is difficult to grasp; in our grief, we join Typhaine’s family, friends, and colleagues in mourning her loss.
Born in 1986 in Brest, a coastal city on France’s western edge, Typhaine devoted her studies to the exploration of cultures in their many dimensions. Alongside her work in anthropology, she pursued studies in political science (Institute of Political Sciences, Lille) and social sciences (UBO / Lycée de Kérichen, Brest).
Her first encounter with Mongolia came in 2005, when she began working as an intern at the French Embassy in Ulaanbaatar. This experience, renewed over several years, marked the beginning of a lifelong dedication to Mongolian culture and history.
Typhaine earned her master’s degree in 2009 and her first PhD in cultural anthropology in 2014 at the University of Western Brittany (UBO), Brest. Her dissertation, L’invention du paysage culturel sous-marin: le traitement en patrimoine des épaves de la Mer d’Iroise et ses ambiguïtés (link), examined how scuba divers engaged in preserving underwater cultural heritage appropriate and reinvent history – both collective and personal memory – through their practices. Her city of Brest, occupied by the German Navy for four years and later destroyed by Allied bombardments, provided a poignant context for her research on the weight of memory. In 2016, her dissertation was published as the monograph Secrets d’épaves, plongeurs, archéologues, collectionneurs (Presses universitaires de Rennes, link).
From 2014, Typhaine worked as a Research Associate at the University of Western Brittany, teaching courses on Anthropology and patrimonialisation, Material civilisation, Tourism and identity, Introduction to anthropology, and Maritime anthropology. Beginning in 2015, she conducted extensive fieldwork in Mongolia, often for several months each year, in association with the Academy of Sciences, Department of History and Archaeology, focusing especially on Zuungov’ province. Alongside her scholarly pursuits, she also served as an official interpreter of Mongolian for French courts.
It was the late Alexander Vovin who first drew my attention to Typhaine, and after our initial exchanges, I was honored to become the supervisor of her second PhD, this time in Mongolian studies. After long preparations, she began her doctoral training at the University of Szeged. This period of collaboration proved extraordinarily fruitful, thanks to her tireless energy and intellectual curiosity. Despite the disruptions of the covid pandemic, Typhaine relocated to Ulaanbaatar to gather crucial material for her dissertation. In 2021, she presented on site at PIAC’s only hybrid session in Ulaanbaatar, delivering her paper The invention of the national hero in socialist Mongolia: Magsarzhav, Sükhbaatar, Choibalsan.
Her stamina and dedication were remarkable. While completing and defending her second doctoral dissertation at the University of Szeged – Heroes, exemplars and mediators. The concept of patriotism in the Mongolian historical novel of the socialist era (link) – she simultaneously undertook the monumental task of translating one of Mongolia’s literary classics, Chadraabalyn Lodoidamba’s Tungalag Tamir, published in 2024 as La Tamir aux eaux limpides (Transboréal, link). This translation represented a major contribution to the dissemination of Mongolian literature in Europe, extending its reach well beyond a specialist readership.
Following her successful defense, Typhaine immediately began translating Byambyn Rinchen’s novel Üüriin Tuyaa. She was full of plans for the future: her next academic ambition was to pursue the Doctor of Science degree at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. Yet time was too short, and this extraordinary path was cut short by her untimely passing in the country she had chosen as her second homeland.
For those of us who knew her, her death leaves an irreplaceable void.
Dear Teegii, Бурхны оронд тайван нойрсдоо!
Ákos Bertalan Apatóczky
August 30, 2025