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The opinion of historians about Genghis Khan. Why is it impossible to find the tomb of Genghis Khan? Nobody knows what Genghis Khan looked like

Genghis Khan was one of the greatest and cruelest rulers in all of human history. He was the first khan of the Mongol Empire. If you look at the history of his reign, Hitler will seem like a petty loser. In the 18th century, under the leadership of Khan Genghis Khan, the Mongol Empire conquered all of Asia and no one dared to go against them.

15. 40,000,000 people were killed during his reign

Historians claim that Genghis Khan has the blood of 40 million innocent people on his hands. It destroyed about 11% of the entire population of the planet! There is also an opinion that the climate has changed because of it, since 700 million CO2 emissions were not produced into the atmosphere.

14. At the age of 10, Genghis Khan committed the first murder of his own brother.

The future khan of the Mongol Empire had a difficult childhood: his father died when Genghis Khan was 9, his mother was left alone and had to raise seven offspring. There was never enough food and water. On one of the hungry days, his brother Bekter ate the food he had obtained alone; Genghis Khan brutally killed him for his greed.

13. Genghis Khan is not the real name of the khan

Genghis Khan's real name was Temujin. Yesugei, the boy's father, named his son in honor of his captured Tatar leader Temujin-Uge. And “Genghis Khan” is not a name, but a title. "Khan" is a ruler, and "Genghis" once meant "ocean", but in today's context is translated as "supreme".

12. Brutal methods of torture

The Great Khan poured molten silver into the eyes and ears of his enemies. He also loved to bend a person like a bow until the spine broke. And he celebrated his victories literally on the bodies of his opponents. So, the Mongols laid planks on the Russian nobility, set up a table and chairs and began to feast until their victims were crushed to death.

11. Beauty contests among captives

Genghis Khan loved women and after each conquest he selected the most beautiful captives for himself and his army. The ruler even organized beauty contests among his concubines. There were several thousand women in his harem, many of whom bore him children.

10. The Great Khan defeated the strongest armies

The Khan's army numbered 90 thousand Mongols, and the Jin dynasty - 1 million. Nevertheless, Genghis Khan won. The conqueror defeated 500 thousand Chinese warriors before gaining control of Northern China and Beijing.

9. Turned enemies into followers

In 1201, during a battle, the archer Zurgadai killed Genghis Khan's favorite horse. The ruler was quite surprised and, instead of executing him, appointed the archer as a military leader. And Zurgaday became his most faithful general.

8. There is no exact information about the Khan’s appearance

Despite the variety of images of Genghis Khan in school textbooks and other literature, no one knows exactly what he really looked like. Some historians believe that the conqueror had red hair.

7. Father of many children

Genghis Khan believed that the more offspring a person has, the more significant he is, so he did not sit idle. According to experts, approximately 8% of Asians today are his descendants.

6. National Hero of Mongolia

The highest state award of Mongolia is the Order of Genghis Khan. His portrait is placed on the paper money of Mongolia, replicated on souvenirs, hotels, restaurants, and airliners are named in his honor.

5. Iranian genocide

In the 13th century, the Khorezm Empire fell to the Mongols of Genghis Khan, almost disappearing from the onslaught of the enemy. Then the khan’s warriors exterminated 3/4 of the Iranians. Only 700 years later the population was able to reach the pre-Mongol level.

4. Genghis Khan was tolerant of different religions

The ruler studied Islam, Buddhism, Taoism and Christianity in his free time. He wanted people with different religious backgrounds to be able to live peacefully in the Mongol Empire.

3. Punish the offenders

The Great Khan allowed people to live happily as long as they followed his laws. A sad fate awaited any violator of the order. For example, when the ruler of one of the cities of the Khorezm Empire captured the trade caravan of Genghis Khan and killed all the merchants, the khan sent 100 thousand soldiers to the city. Thousands of inhabitants were killed, and their ruler had molten silver poured into his eyes and mouth.

2. Mysterious death

Genghis Khan died in 1227, he was 65 years old. The burial place of the great conqueror remains a secret, and there is still speculation about the causes of death. Sources name different causes of death - sudden illness, a consequence of a fall from a horse. There is a version that the ruler was stabbed to death by a young Tangut princess.

1. The largest continental empire in human history

Genghis Khan founded the largest continental empire in human history. The Mongol Empire covered 16.11% of the Earth's total land area, which is 9.266 million square miles. The state included territories from the Danube to the Sea of Japan and from Novgorod to Cambodia.

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For many of us, the recognition of Genghis Khan as a man of the second millennium was unexpected, paradoxical and not entirely clear, because the mass Russian reader got an idea about Genghis Khan and the Mongols of his era, first of all, from the trilogy of Vasily Yan. It was deeply etched into our consciousness: “...everything perished and turned into a desert where the Mongols passed.”
“Modern orientalists of the West are not as burdened as the Soviet Mongolists of the recent past with the burden of a one-sided and therefore incorrect orientation towards the peacekeeping efforts of the Mongol rulers,” notes S.Sh. in his book “Ancestral Homeland of the Mongols.” Chagdurov, Doctor of Philology, Professor of Buryat State University. - We only have to regret that this great historical heritage of ours, which today’s Western scientists talk about in such an exclusively positive, kind and truthful way, still enjoys “reverse”, so to speak, popularity here in Russia, i.e. mostly negative, associated with his “barbaric cruelty.” It turns out that there has always been a completely opposite point of view on the events of that era and a different assessment of the personality of Genghis Khan. We deliberately do not turn to Mongolian sources, but even some of the conclusions of Western scientists look like a revelation to us.

Peacemaker.

The French historian Joinville, a contemporary of the great commander, said: “He (Genghis Khan) established peace.” Commenting on Jouinville, the military historian I. Rank, in his book published in Berlin in 1925, noting that this judgment seems paradoxical when you think about the incessant wars waged by the Unyielding Emperor, continued: “... but in essence it is accurate and deeply true. In this sense, he really established peace in the Universe, a peace that lasted about two centuries, at the cost of wars that in total did not last even two decades... This conqueror of the world was, first of all, its inexorable revivalist.”
Genghis Khan and his followers pursued the goal of establishing for all Mankind an era of ideal global order and prosperity, when mutual wars would cease and conditions would be created for the peaceful prosperity of mankind both in the spiritual and material culture. The life of one person turned out to be too short to accomplish this enormous task, but Genghis Khan and his heirs almost achieved this goal when they had 4/5 of the world in their state - the mongolosphere (E. Khara-Davan. Genghis Khan as a commander and his legacy. Belgrade, 1929).

Civilizer.

The Mongol era, researchers unanimously believe, was accompanied not only by colossal military campaigns and political upheavals, but also gave rise to many cultural movements that opened up new opportunities for the East and West.
“Genghis Khan...destroyed the barriers of the dark ages. He opened new paths for humanity. Europe came into contact with the culture of China. At his son's court, Armenian princes and Persian nobles interacted with Russian grand dukes. The opening of paths was accompanied by an exchange of ideas. Europeans developed an enduring curiosity about distant Asia. Marco Polo goes there after Rubruk. Two centuries later, Vasco da Gama set sail to open the sea route. In essence, Columbus set off in search not of America, but of the land of the Great Mogul.” (G. Lam. Genghis Khan - Emperor of all mankind. London, 1928).
It is believed that the Mongols gave many peoples of Eurasia the foundations of statehood, democracy, pluralism, religious tolerance and freedom of religion, law and obedience, the supremacy of the constitution, the theory of military art, a progressive tax system, intercontinental postal communication. Genghis Khan created such government system, which self-regulated and self-developed, without requiring constant strict control and repressive measures for its maintenance, i.e. This is what we are striving for today, in troubled times of instability and loss of ideals, collapse and loss of control.
Being, by modern standards, completely illiterate, not knowing any language other than Mongolian, he educated his sons and took care of the education of the younger generation of the Mongolian nobility.
As Marco Polo writes, the Mongol Empire was a prosperous and rich country, with developed industry - various superbly equipped workshops, mines that provided the country with ores and coal, with abundant gardens and fields, and there were excellent inns along all the roads. A special messenger service delivered mail at a speed of four hundred miles per day. Under Khubilai, paper money and other securities: the beginning of the modern credit system was laid - the basis of the economy of all highly developed modern states. It was Marco Polo, in addition to the secrets of silk and pasta production, who brought the idea of issuing securities and bills of exchange to Venice, and from here their victorious march across Europe and the world began.

A common arshin cannot be measured...

General M.I. Ivanin, a researcher of the military art of the Mongols, wrote back in the last century, characterizing the personality of Genghis Khan: “What kind of willpower, what military, administrative and political abilities should a person have in order to subjugate these peoples to his rule, to give them structure and subject them to harmonious discipline.” .
“The spirit of the great Genghis Khan continued to live in the members of his large family, and it was he who breathed into his offspring the ability ... to rule not only over their own steppe kingdom, but also over the conquered cultural countries of the Asian East and West. Thus, Genghis Khan must undoubtedly be ranked among the greatest personalities world history"(F. Krause, Genghis Khan. Heidelberg).
It cannot be assessed by ordinary human standards - this is the opinion of the researchers of the Universe Shaker. The herder, who had previously only been engaged in hunting and caring for animals, crushed dozens of armies and states; an illiterate nomad who had never seen a city made laws for fifty nations. The educated Muslim world of his time was convinced that such a heap of stunning events could only be the work of a supernatural being.
“This empire, as if magically conjured out of thin air, has baffled historians. The history of the era of Genghis Khan, compiled by English scientists, recognizes the emergence of this kingdom as an inexplicable fact... We cannot measure it by the standard of current civilization” (Harold Lamb).
“Genghis Khan” by Vasily Yan turned out to be one of the first novels with which Soviet literature responded to the urgent social order of the era, the urgent spiritual need of the time,” our literary scholars wrote quite recently. “Genghis Khan” was published in 1939, “To the Last Sea” was published in 1951 - these dates more than eloquently indicate who was the “social customer of the era.”
“V. Yan’s novels turned out to be very necessary for that time, in order to hide the crimes that were happening in the country, against the backdrop of the large-scale pictures of violence and murder created by the author, and to look cleaner, more civilized,” says Sergei Shagzhievich Chagdurov. “But what Stalin did to his people is not comparable to the activities of Genghis Khan, no matter how they tried to distort the past of the Mongols.

The British journalist, in his article entitled “Genghis Khan - the father of globalization,” reflects on the question of why the “shaker of the Universe” remained the most bloodthirsty barbarian in world history? The translated version was published on ARD.

In Mongolia, there is one person you will meet every step of the way. He is a national symbol, and his name - Genghis Khan, aka Genghis Khan - is used in almost all names. In the capital of the country, Ulaanbaatar, there is international Airport Genghis Khan, Genghis Khaan Bank is located on Genghis Avenue, which leads to Genghis Khan Square. Even the local bar is called the Great Khaan. In this Irish pub you can order the famous Chingiz vodka.

Locals talk about the khan with pride, and 30 km from the city stands a shining 130-meter steel statue of the famous military leader on horseback, commandingly dominating the desert steppe. Tourists can climb to the very top, stand on observation deck located in the horse's head and feel like standing on the horse's head to experience the feeling of historical dominance and feel like the khan of Eurasia.

A Mongol horseman in front of a 130-meter steel statue of Genghis Khan. Photo: ozy.com

History has already formed its opinion about the Great Khan, thanks to the records of European, Persian and Chinese scientists. So why are the actions of such a revered conqueror of the West considered the most cruel, barbaric and even equated to genocide? It's not just about nationalism.

Modern Mongolia is very different from the one we studied in school. Diplomatic genius allowed Genghis Khan to unite the eternally warring tribes under a single national banner.

He created an empire that respected religious freedom and diplomatic immunity, used primitive passports and credit cards, which made it easier international trade. Genghis Khan banned torture, created public schools, and even launched a cross-continental postal service.

Khan “was the greatest conqueror in the history of the world,” writes historian and biographer Frank McLynn, and under his leadership the Mongols conquered more land and people in 25 years than the Romans did in four centuries. After the death of the Khan, the Mongols controlled a large empire, whose territory covered almost the entire inhabited Asian continent and the Middle East, and extended to Central Europe in the West and Indonesia in the East.

Europeans had never had contact with the Mongols before. So when an unknown enemy speaking an unknown language destroyed Russian, Ukrainian and Hungarian cities in the mid-13th century, news spread like wildfire. The English chronicler Matthew Pais described the Mongol army in 1240 as “a huge Horde, that vile race of Satan.”

“They can rather be called monsters, drinking blood than men,” Jack Weatherford quotes him in his book “Genghis Khan and the Birth of the Modern World.”

Khan forbade anyone from writing anything about himself while he was alive. But after his death, “The Secret History of the Mongols” (“The Secret History of the Mongols,” Ed.) was written in Mongolian.

Statue of Genghis Khan in the parliament building in Ulaanbaatar. But no one really knows what Genghis Khan looked like, since the Great Khan forbade sculptors and artists to create sculptures of him and paint his portraits during his lifetime. Photo: ozy.com

It was subsequently lost many centuries ago, and was only deciphered and translated in the 20th century, explains Weatherford, one of the leading historians of the Mongol Empire. But by that time, history had already formed its opinion of Khan through the work of European, Persian and Chinese scholars, representatives of peoples who were “not only defeated, but humiliated” by the Mongols, considered “inferior barbarians,” says Weatherford.

The history of the khan, in other words, was written by the vanquished, not by the victors. And it is not a coincidence that several hundred years later, fear and hatred of the Mongols were so entrenched that the “scientific” classification of races belittles these people, considering the Mongoloids almost descendants of orangutans. And the word “Mongol” later began to be used to describe mentally retarded children.

We cannot know what exactly happened during the Mongol conquests, in part because they deliberately spread myths about their extreme brutality “to intimidate their enemies,” writes Jeffrey Garten, dean and professor at the Yale School of Management and author of “From Silk.” to Silicon,” which portrays Genghis Khan as the possible father of globalization. Some of these myths told of how the Mongols boiled their enemies alive and then drank from their skulls.

According to researchers, the number of civilian deaths during the Mongol conquest is often overestimated, sometimes by tens of times. In addition, “every city was given the opportunity to surrender,” says Jack Weatherford, and adds that the pogroms took place in retaliation for the killing or torture of Mongol ambassadors and traders, who were, according to Mongol custom, untouchable. Moreover, violence and barbarism flourished in the 13th century.

The extent of barbarism in the Mongol Empire remains a mystery, but we know that it is certainly not a unique case. The international duty-free shopping network, pioneered by Genghis Khan and developed by his successors, changed the world. In addition, printing, gunpowder and the compass were brought to Europe thanks to Mongolian trade routes.

Western intellectualism seems to be far from perfect when it comes to “historical truth,” so maybe it's time for Genghis Khan to become the hero of revisionist history?

During the 21 years of his reign, Genghis Khan conquered an area exceeding 30 million square kilometers - more than any other ruler in the entire history of mankind. He paved the way from Asia to Europe and littered it with millions of dead, but, besides this, the first Mongol khan united his home country, carried out massive reforms and created active trade routes between east and west. There are 10 in front of you interesting facts about a great ruler who can be equally perceived as a military genius, an outstanding statesman and a cruel, bloodthirsty conqueror.

Genghis is not the real name of the Khan

The future great khan of the Mongol state was born in 1162 on the banks of the Onon River. His real name is Temujin, which means “iron” or “blacksmith”. The ruler first received the name Genghis in 1206, when at a general clan meeting he was recognized as the “Great Khan.” While "khan" denotes status and is equivalent to the title "king", scholars find it difficult to give the exact meaning of the name Genghis. The term may have meant "ocean", but in today's context it is most often translated as "supreme or universal ruler".

Genghis Khan had a difficult childhood

From an early age, Genghis Khan became accustomed to the hard life on the Mongolian steppe. When he was 9 years old, his father was poisoned by Tatar tribes warring with the Mongols, and the future great conqueror was forced to earn food for himself and his family. As a teenager, Genghis Khan was captured and forced into slavery until he decided to escape. Despite all these difficulties, by the age of 20, Genghis Khan managed to establish himself as a dangerous opponent, a skilled warrior and an enterprising leader. He gathered an army of associates and entered into alliances with all the heads of the Mongol clans. By 1206, he united Mongolia under his flag and began thinking about territorial expansion.

An exact description of his appearance has not been preserved.

Despite its historical significance, Genghis Khan managed to keep not only his personal life, but also his appearance secret from history. All existing information about a possible portrait of the Great Khan is too contradictory and frankly unreliable. Genghis Khan is described in historical chronicles as tall, strong man with thick hair and a long beard, some sources claim that the khan had red hair and green eyes.

Some of his trusted generals were former enemies of Genghis Khan

The Great Khan always valued talent and merit above status and heritage. An ardent supporter of meritocracy, he often accepted worthy representatives of hostile tribes as officers. One day, a shooter from the hostile Taijiut tribe nearly killed Genghis Khan by shooting his horse out from under him with an arrow. The responsible shooter bravely admitted his guilt, but instead of death he received an officer's rank and the nickname Jebe, which means arrowhead. Jebe became one of the greatest Mongol generals, along with General Subedei.

Genghis Khan always settled scores

Often Genghis Khan allowed kingdoms to peacefully accept the Mongol yoke, avoiding massacres. But in case of refusal and resistance, the bloodthirsty warrior did not stop until he conquered everything, leaving hunger and destruction in his wake. After Khorezm violated in 1218 trade agreement Having killed the Mongol ambassadors, the enraged Genghis Khan did not stop the attack of his horde until he razed the capital of the empire to the ground. On his way home, he also got even with the neighboring state of Tangut, which decided to support the uprising of Khorezm.

He was responsible for the deaths of 40 million people

Despite the fact that it is not possible to determine the exact number of deaths due to the aggressive activities of Genghis Khan, scientists agree on an approximate figure of 40 million. According to information from medieval chronicles, the population of China decreased by several tens of millions during the reign of Genghis Khan. He was also responsible for three-quarters of the population of modern Iran, which he destroyed during the war with Khorezm. The total number of human losses in the Mongol wars reduced the world's population by 11%.

Genghis Khan practiced religious tolerance

Unlike other conquerors, Genghis Khan did not seek to reduce cultural differences in new territories to zero. He passed a law on freedom of religion and did not take taxes from churches and temples. In addition to being a political step, this also meant that the Mongols had a liberal attitude toward religious practices that were different from their own. According to the chronicles, the Great Khan was very spiritual and often spent several days in prayer. He was also interested in the philosophical and spiritual side of various beliefs and cults.

He created one of the first postal systems

The strongest weapon of the Mongol horde was a well-established system of communication between various points of the empire. One of the first reforms of Genghis Khan was a decree on the creation of a postal and courier service called “Yam”, with many taverns and stables along the roads, which allowed couriers to cover 320 kilometers a day.

The circumstances of Genghis Khan's death and burial place are unknown.

Of all the mysteries surrounding the personality of this great commander, perhaps the most famous is related to his death. It is generally accepted that Genghis Khan died at the age of 54 from wounds received in a fall from a horse. Many other sources indicate malaria, a shot in the knee, poisoning and other versions as the cause of death of the Great Khan. Whatever the cause of Genghis Khan's death, he and his comrades did everything possible to keep his burial place secret.

During the early Soviet period, the Bolsheviks tried to erase the memory of Genghis Khan from the national consciousness

Today, Genghis Khan is Mongolia's greatest national hero, but during Soviet times, citizens of this country were prohibited from even saying his name. Trying to destroy the sprouts of Mongolian nationalism, the Union authorities sought to eradicate the memory of it from the self-consciousness of the Mongols. It was forbidden to publish about his reign in textbooks and to make pilgrimages to his birthplace. For a while, Mongolian history was left without its brightest episode. After the collapse of the USSR, Genghis Khan again became the national pride of the Mongols.

Genghis Khan is the founder and first great khan of the Mongol Empire. The conqueror was incredibly cruel and merciless, so that even Hitler seems like an amateur in comparison. At the beginning of the 13th century. The Mongol Empire subjugated all of Asia, and not a single enemy could resist Genghis Khan and his bloodthirsty army.

15. 40 million people killed

According to historians, Genghis Khan was responsible for the death of 40 million people; at that time he exterminated 11% of the planet's population! Khan's rule even influenced the climate in the 13th century: it cooled the planet, preventing the release of 700 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

14. 10-year-old Genghis Khan killed his half-brother

The future conqueror had a difficult childhood: his father was poisoned by the enemy when the boy was only 9 years old, so his mother raised seven children alone. The family was starving. One day, half-brother Bekter did not share food with Genghis Khan, for which he was killed by him.