Comments on: Amir Temur in World History: A Review

By: David Essel

David Essel — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 05:21:52 +0000

I liked your comments on transliteration. What drives me crazy is the obverse. The Russians, and by extension, the other Cyrillic-using nations of the former ‘Soviet space’, do not even seem to have the concept: English and other languages are transliterated seemingly at random into Cyrillic,e.g. the ridiculous Гитлер and гамбургер (Hitler, hamburger), yet хит (hit as in pop record), and so on endlessly.
In their own translated publications, they also seem oblivious to the fact that there are recognised (Library of Congress, British Library) ways of transliterating Russian/Cyrillic into Lating characters. Consistency is a necessity if one is ever to find something in a search.
I reckon it’s a Soviet plot to prevent Russians from engaging in research and extending their knowledge!
Obviously, there needs to be a consistent way to transliterate current Uzbek writing into English. It’s just too Russian for every person to set about this as he pleases.

By: Ataman Rakin

Ataman Rakin — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 09:03:31 +0000

The irony is that Timur wasn’t even Uzbek.

Like Manas in Kyr and the Rukhnama kitsch in Turkm, this whole Timur cult is part of a completely articifial and very Soviet-inspired concept of building ‘national identities’ and ‘state ideologies’, which are both completey outdated in today’s global reality. Few in society take it seriously.

The only real and living historical cultural base and social cement in CA is Islam, now suppressed but victorious in the end.

By: Julian

Julian — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 00:04:21 +0000

Michael – enjoyed reading your post. Please do review both of the books. Hugh Pope’s and Ben Macintyre’s, that is. Thank you.

By: Michael Hancock

Michael Hancock — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 20:22:43 +0000

I think this will probably be my most “unfocused” review. You’re write, Jamal – I was all over the place. It was hard to find things to write about. If I focused on the text, it would be too negative. There is a lot of good information, you just have to really work to get to it.

Thanks for the suggestion, Noah. I’m gonna see if Ann Arbor or the University of Michigan have those at any of their libraries. It’s kind of a shame that journalists in the former Soviet Union have to live in fear as natural lightning rods for political oppression when journalists in America fight and fight to get better reputations as people actually ABLE to inspire people to action. But there you have it.

By: Jamal Nasafi

Jamal Nasafi — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 08:46:24 +0000

Michael,

Your knowledge of post-Soviet alphabets was consuming. I thought I was the only one who paid attention to all that. And, I thought I was the first to coin the term “Soviet English,” but apparently not!

Your review was entertaining but all over the place. You talked about what this book is not, but did not talk enough about what this book is. But come to think of it, who cares, it’s not like we are going to read this review and decide “hey, I am gonna go to the bookstore and buy a copy!”

I enjoyed learning about you. You are an impressive young man. I think you can easily be a future Central Asia professor.
I myself am a Kyrgyzstan RPCV and an Uzbek-American! How about that! So I related a lot to your writing.

Best,
Jamal

By: noah tucker

noah tucker — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 06:42:14 +0000

thanks for sharing your review, michael, you’re pretty brave to have actually finished the book. i worked with something similar in Russian last year for a project i did on constructing national symbols, it was indeed pretty awful. the whole “legacy” of temur is a growing, evolving project that adapts to creative needs the way that samarqand gets older by a few hundred years ever five or six.

if you or others are interested in the topic, i’d recommend Forbes-Manz and also the little circulated but much appreciated paper by Yuri Bregal from 96 in the Indiana Central Asian Papers series. Forbes Manz is actually the sort of recognized authority on Temur–”Sword of Islam” (Marozzi) is a fun read, but he is a journalist, after all.

anyway, thanks for sharing.

By: Michael Hancock

Michael Hancock — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 05:52:57 +0000

I have a couple choices for the next review. I’ve got the two following books on my plate:

Sons of the Conquerors by Hugh Pope — and –
The Man Who Would Be King by Ben Macintyre

Any preferences?