Tamerlane: Path to the Summit

The Moscow Hall of Ethnicities hosted the presentation of an historical novel “Tamerlane: Path to the Summit” by Azerbaijani writer Yunus Oguz. Yunus Oguz is a well-known expert in Turkology, a novelist and author of numerous scholarly papers. His works have been translated into the English, Turkish and Persian languages. “Tamerlane: path to the summit” is the first novel of the Tamerlane series published in Russian. This captivating novel tells about the early life of Timur and ends in his campaign against India. The novel is based on rich anthropological material and a wide range of historical sources from the 14-15th centuries.

- Why did you pick such an ambiguous figure as Tamerlane?

- History repeats itself, as you know. There are two kinds of history: the history of the peoples and the history of the rulers. It turns out that a nation does much less for the history than does a single ruler. Emperors have decided the fate of the whole world. This is my fifth novel – and I still write only about great rulers.

- So you like such energetic heroes whom Lev Gumilev described as bearers of "passionarity"?

- Yes. I recently published a monograph in Turkey and in Azerbaijan, it’s called “Ancient Turkic peoples and the theory of passionarity” and is inspired by Gumilev. The excessive energy accumulated by a society is well used by certain rulers. And the aspects of their stories that can’t be described scientifically, I describe in novels. But it’s still history.

- So who is Tamerlane for you?

- The last Emperor of the Turkic world.

- Do you sympathize with him?

- Of course. He was a great person. He is a brilliant historical figure not only for me, he is important not only for the Central Asian region and the Ottoman Empire, but also for Russia and Europe.

- Every writer relies on his predecessors in a way. Who do you consider to be your teachers?

- We had a writer in Azerbaijan named Mammed Said Ordubadi. I think you can find him in Russian translation. He was very popular in the Soviet Union till the 50s. He wrote splendidly on historical topics, but he couldn’t be free from ideology. As for the others… Solovyev, for example, wrote a 28-volume History, but like he was copying censes. Karamzin was good from a literary point of view. Lev Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” had a great deal of influence on my first novel about Shah Nadir, who is called the Napoleon of Azerbaijan. But I understood after some time that I need to free myself from this influence.

- What are your plans for the future? Which historical personalities are you going to write about?

- There are many such heroes. I plan to write about the prince of Caucasian Albania. Despite the fact that he was a Christian, he was a Turk. Now I’m working on a story of a Shah and a wizard. I’ll describe all the magic rituals apart from their final pieces so that no one could repeat them. I also would like to write a book about Fatih Mehmed, who conquered Constantinople in 1453 and renamed it Istanbul. There are a lot of ideas, you just need to catch up with the writing.

- Do you think it is possible that today some kind of a ‘superhero’ will emerge?

- No, there won’t be any new ‘superheroes’ now. Today personality isn’t the most important force of history – take away Obama or Putin, nothing would change. Today’s ‘superpower’ is modern weaponry. It is impossible that a new Tamerlaine or Lenin or Ataturk would rise. Today’s global world is all about technology, personality is almost lost.

Chingiz Husseynov, Russian and Azerbaijani writer, who was present at the presentation of the book said: “What made a modern writer look back on this topic? What modern trouble caused him to choose Tamerlane and his epoch? There should definitely be a new and original concept. One can think of a great number of didactic aspects of Tamerlane’s image, to show how a ruler should be harsh and merciful at the same time, etc. But it’s hard to make an example of such an ambiguous figure as Tamerlane nowadays… But it’s still very good that he decided to take up this topic.”

However, many books have already been written about Tamerlane Husseynov doesn’t think this theme is exhausted: “In each epoch people should go back to such figures. And I still think that we should give the author his due. He is relatively young but he has already written five novels – truly historical novels. Today we need to revise almost all aspects of history. But from which point of view? That’s the main question. How are we to enlighten people? Do we make them think, or do we give him a simple answer? It’s very easy to find a ‘culprit’ in each event, but it is much more interesting to try to explain historical events. The choice is entirely up to the author.”