I was wondering...

[BalkanTourist]

Just saw Troy. Awesome movie. Can't wait for Alexander to come out on DVD. IMHO Ghenghiz Khan is a historical personality worthy of a movie. Unfortunately I don't see one coming out soon. Is it because there is not that much interest? Is it because there is not much info on the subject? Or is it because Hollywood happens to belong to the Western Civilization which is only concerned with glorifying itself? What do you guys think?

[ShadesPanther]

There was one made with John wayne(? maybe) who was gengis Khan.

Holywood prefers movies with Americans in it and if there are no americans the heros have to have certain personalities like integrety honour and such...

quite hard for poor old Gengis though

[Watchman]

Given all that raping, looting and massacring that went around, there'd be certain difficulties in portraying the guy in anything approaching positive light to modern audiences. And spectacle movie makers tend not be overly keen on real anti-heroes.

There may also be the issue that on the whole he was too overwhelmingly victorious, and to boot didn't die dramatically or anything. And, of course, the bit about burying him with gazillion concubines and putting to sword all the workers involved with building the grave, and reputedly killing everyone the funeral procession encountered in order to keep the location secret, is going to be a little difficult to put right...

Fact is, the Mongols weren't a very nice bunch.

[Adrian II]

Fact is, the Mongols weren't a very nice bunch.

Bring it on!

Of course they could opt for a main character who belongs to Ghengis' entourage and who is a recognisable 'modern hero'. Toward the end of the movie, but before the apotheotic carnage starts, this hero could ride off into the sunset with a fresh slice of beef under his saddle and a gorgeous slavegirl (whom he saved, not kidnapped in the course of the movie) waiting for him across the horizon.

Wouldn't do justice to Ghengis, probably. But then, what would? I can see the trailer: Oceans of Blood.

[Krusader]

Maybe Im wrong, but the in the John Wayne Genghis Khan movie, didn't he go to a Polish river, and get attacked by an alligator or something?

Troy btw was good enough, but if you're a history buff and myth buff, then that movie was horrible. Nothing at all like the original story.

[nokhor]

there is also a genghis khan movie with omar sharif from about the 60s which is really really bad.

[Byzantine Prince]

Just saw Troy. Awesome movie.

OMFG, are you serious? Lol, well I didn't like that movie so much. I was expecting an awesome movie instead I got a couple of hollywood doodoo.

The reason there is no Ghengis Khan movie is because it would be too brutal. If you consider all the villages, towns, cities and armies that were eniolated it seem kind of hard to make. Plus he has not contributed to Western Culture. In fact he has hindered it. Alexander on the other hand pretty much IS Western Culture enbodied. Greek Culture is Western Culture.

[Meneldil]

lol, this topic is full of clichés about the mongols and Ghengis Khan.

It's a common idea that Mongols were a bunch of barbarians who did nothing to civilisation except burning cities, killing people and so on, but that's totally untrue.

In fact, when they first heard about Ghengis Khan, europeans thought he was a foreign christian prince who would help them defeating the muslims.
During the 13th and 14th century, mongols khanates (sp?) were far more advanced than many european countries, mixing all sort of cultures (from China, India, Middle-east). Just read a translation of Marco Polo's travel to Karakorum (sp), and you'll understand that mongols were at least as civilised as christians and muslims (in fact, mongols kinda thought they were more civilised than others)
I seriously doubt Ghengis Khan/mongols hindered western culture as much as you seem to be thinking. Still nowadays, we can't say if mongols' impact on Russia was neither negative nor positive.

I don't want to say that they haven't done horrible things, but only that our opinion about mongols is quite biased, probably because back during this time, people used to call "barbarian" everything they didn't understand.

[Togakure]

Hmm ... interesting opinions. I know there is at least one significant authority on Ghengis Khan who comments here from time to time, and I'll bet he has a contrasting opinion on at least some of what has been said here. Hopefully he'll pop in and offer his two pence.

Come on now--Hollywood makes plenty of movies that aren't particularly wholesome and that don't glorify American or western culture. Films of this nature just don't make it to the mainstream as often because much of the American public won't as readily flock to them as they will the other stuff.

I love epic films about legendary historical figures, as long as they're done well. Problem is, so many lousy films of this type have been made that I'm skeptical from the start (as are a lot of other people, I think), and tend to just wait fo them to come out on cable or TV unless the reviews are really good.

Haven't seen Troy (because the reviews were not great, and several friends and family members said it wasn't worth paying to see).

[Kraxis]

I actually think it would be a boon to an actor if could accurately prortray a really nasty guy, one who loved being it. And yes Genghis Khan was one such man. You need not show a lot of killing, merely a village burning in the background and very satisfied Mongols.
The problem arises that the current Mongols might not like the way we would portray their forefathers as such men. It could quickly become a widespread view that it was merely done because we had to have something to hate him for, as we would not allow an easterner to be seen as greater than our own (the good old racist argument).

Meneldil, what you speak of are the ones after Genghis, he himself despised such 'cultured' behaviour as weak. Under him it was rather deadly. Remember the mountains of skulls and the sack of Baghdad, such things did not come from nothing as the Europemans themselves were nasty, but here come a people who were worse than the Europeans.
The Mongols were, though, quickly absorbed into the local culture and they lost themselves, and as such they became 'merely' a new local elite.
When they settled down it was great for everyone, they lost that hard edge in war and became more like those they met (less likely to be as cruel as they once had been).

[Krusader]

Another good thing about the Mongols was that after they had conquered and forged their empire, it was very safe to travel across their empire. There were virtually no bandits, and anyone attempting to make a career as highwaymen, would quickly be killed by the Mongols.

And the Mongols allowed their subjects to worship any god or gods they desired.

Still. The Mongols were nasty

[The Wizard]

I actually think it would be a boon to an actor if could accurately prortray a really nasty guy, one who loved being it. And yes Genghis Khan was one such man. You need not show a lot of killing, merely a village burning in the background and very satisfied Mongols.
The problem arises that the current Mongols might not like the way we would portray their forefathers as such men. It could quickly become a widespread view that it was merely done because we had to have something to hate him for, as we would not allow an easterner to be seen as greater than our own (the good old racist argument).

Meneldil, what you speak of are the ones after Genghis, he himself despised such 'cultured' behaviour as weak. Under him it was rather deadly. Remember the mountains of skulls and the sack of Baghdad, such things did not come from nothing as the Europemans themselves were nasty, but here come a people who were worse than the Europeans.
The Mongols were, though, quickly absorbed into the local culture and they lost themselves, and as such they became 'merely' a new local elite.
When they settled down it was great for everyone, they lost that hard edge in war and became more like those they met (less likely to be as cruel as they once had been).

Actually, Chingis Khan was not such a very bloodthirsty man as everyone seems to think. When he attacked Persia -- his most notorious and bloody campaign -- it was after the Khwarizmians had slain his emissaries coming in peace, and sent their heads back. Chingis replied by an invasion. Each and every action he ever undertook, with the possible exception of his very early campaigns, were as a result of someone doing him wrong.

Also, put the Mongol killings in perspective for once. That people lived in one of the harshest climates on the planet; it is no wonder that they were able to survive the Russian winter, and not only that, but also conquer most of the country during it! It was a harsh life, for tough people. Only the strongest survived. Intertribal warfare was concluded by the victors by slaughtering the enemies menfolk and cattle, to make sure they wouldn't return and take vengeance, for fortunes on the steppes could change as swiftly as the directions of the wind.

With that background, it is actually quite logical that they undertook such brutal actions as the subjugation of the rebellious Qara-Qitai, or such great slaughterings as in Persia. Of course, this does not justify their actions, but there was no need for that in those days. An idea of 'universal human rights' has only meeted widespread support since after the great wars of the 20th century, even though its first proposal was by Cyrus the Great way back in the 540s BC.

Also, towers of skulls? That is a myth concerning Chingis Khan. In fact, it stems from a man who wished to eminate that same aura of frightened respect that Chingis seemed to possess, and a man who actually took real pleasure in killing and slaughtering: Timur-i-Lenk, Tamerlane. Understandably, the two have been mixed up in European culture, for the two were not much different in the eyes of the Europeans, especially since Timur claimed descent from Chingis Khan (the good man today has approx. 12 million descendants). It was Timur who built these gruesome structures as a warning to any who dared to oppose him. Not that it worked; Timur had to return many times to a formerly 'conquered' region to subjugate it again after it had rebelled.

Chingis was a much more able administrator, and with the administrative and legislative system he devised at the khuriltai on the banks of the Onon river in 1206, the Mongols were able to hold on to lands for much longer than their 'successor', Timur, whom's empire collapsed quickly after his death, his heirs only able to hold on to pieces of it. Of course, when the Khakhan became more interested in China (Qubilai) and after a while dropped the title Khakhan altogether in favor of 'Yuan emperor', the empire dissolved into a number of independent states.



~Wiz

[Sethik]

I seriously doubt Ghengis Khan/mongols hindered western culture as much as you seem to be thinking. Still nowadays, we can't say if mongols' impact on Russia was neither negative nor positive.

Didn't he retard Russia's development by several hundred years? Because Russian was under Mongol rule it did not participate in the Renaissance. Up until Peter the Great (1700s I think) Russia was a back water country still stuck in the middle ages.

Alexander on the other hand pretty much IS Western Culture enbodied. Greek Culture is Western Culture.

Please elaborate. I find that statement completely false.

[Watchman]

Boys and girls, let's stop apologizing for the Mongols, shall we ? There's no point in idolizing them. Conquering armies are always a veritable plague on any region they capture; nomads tend to be doubly so, as they are more mobile and can thus pillage and devastate better, and - let's be honest here - more often than not tended to consider settled people barely human (even by the low general standards of the time).

The Mongols were really just a reductio ad absurdum of the Conquering Nomad phenomenom. They conquered more land than any other nomad empire before or after them; fielded bigger armies, and possibly better too; and in some places brought such utter ruin to whole populations and entire regions so as not to have an equal anywhere* else in history, expect perhaps the conquest of South and Central Americas and even there the big killer was disease and not violence. And then they collapsed to squabbling little splinter khandoms inside about a hundred years.

* And I do mean anywhere; the only other case I know of where military violence was enough to cause permanent damage to demographics is the Albiguensian Crusades/Cathar wars, and that's a maybe. In any case the scope of those was far smaller.

The Mongols also took terror tactics to a whole new level. One of their basic SOPs was to utterly annihilate any city that tried to defy them as a warning to others, although they were pragmatic enough to spare armorers and similar useful craftsmen. This was rather helpful in terrifying enemies into surrender and convincing fortifications to give up without a fight, and to be fair they usually treated such cases reasonably humanely.

But then, for example Khwarimzam was totally razed on general principles due to the Khwarimzamshah having "personally insulted" the Khan... Ditto for Persia, far as I know, and Hungary seems to have gotten a more limited version of the same treatment.

If there were no piles of skulls, that was only because the Mongols didn't bother. They'd actually have welcomed such wild tales to further terrify their foes, though.

The bottom line is, these people took conquering nomad violence to such heights and scales as to have no equal, did so very much on purpose and out of the sheer savage joy of pillaging (something all armies tend to fall guilty of), and were quite proud of it.

Trying to excuse away their atrocities is quite pointless revisionism. They lived in a world entirely different from such modern sensibilities and would probably have been offended at such slander. In any case such anachronistic romanticism is silly and shallow; why should they even be tried to be made into something else than the terrific warriors and terrible conquerors they were and gloried in being ? Accept them as they were, both awesome and horrifying. Trying to pass judgement, positive or negative, from modern standpoints on them is really nothing more than cultural imperialism, imposing one's own values on entirely different people.

Trying to excuse away the mind-boggling massacres they carried out, however, is vulgar apologism for sheer barbarity that shocked even their thick-skinned contemporaries, as was the whole idea.

[Kraxis]

The whole 'fear of terror' theory falls apart to a great extent when we see that the Mongols practiced the wholesale slaughter of people and animals, then left for a few days, then sent back the entire rearguard to mop up any survivors that had escaped the killings.
How can you induce a practical fear if you make certain it won't get spread? Yes, others would rather soon know of the total destruction, but largely when it was too late, when they were told by those that had been drafted (armourers and egineers), and then it was too late.
Genghis died, and on his deathbed he demanded the sack of Ning-hsia, and it happened... What kind of last wish is that?
Merv was so utterly destroyed that the land could be plowed over afterwards. Hardly a case of mere cruelty, that was extreme destruction on an unneeded level.

The simple fact that a single mongol rider could enter a subjugated Persian village and begin to kill off people and nobody daring to stop him says something about the amount of cruelty they showed people (these people would know of the destruction of the cities).
There is even an instance where a mongol warrior captured an enemy but had no weapons (wonder how he did that), he then ordered the poor man to put his head on the ground, left him to get his sword, returned, found the man still there and promtly beheaded him. Why did the man stay? Out of terror.

And since both muslim and christian sources are equally apalled by the Mongols, they do not share the same view of each other. Yes, they hated and loathed each other, and said plenty of bad stuff, and did as much bad stuff as they said about each other. But to them the Mongols were always top dogs at outright slaughter. How can that be if everyone had been equally bad? The simple reason is that the Mongols had been worse. And it wasn't as if the christians loathed the Mongols any great amount really. In 1259 Armenia sent an army to help the Mongols attack into Syria, not because they had been subjugated but because they genuinely wanted to help. Hey, they were anti-muslim and that was good enough, those accounts of the brutality for the moment reserved for the muslims. So we can't say that the christians were more biased than normally.

The Kara-Khitai were an independant empire who had dared to harbour Kuchlug... Hardly renegades.

The simple message to the Mamlukes (just prior to Ain Julut) was something like 'bow down to the Khan or be destroyed'. A formal declaration of war really... Needed? No, but it is certain that they would not have been treated any differently than others who had done something to 'deserve' their fate. But luck had it that Hulegu sent most of his forces towards Mongolia.