Genghis Khan is revered in Mongolia as the greatest leader the Mongols have ever seen. In much of the rest of the world, though, he is remembered according to the biased accounts of his foes.
For the first time ever, the government of Mongolia is lending out a number of artifacts from Genghis Khan's time and the later Mongolian Empire for exhibit overseas. I had a chance to interview the organizer of this first US museum exhibit on the Great Khan's times and treasures - Don Lessem.
(See photos from the exhibit.)
1. How did a dinosaur guy get interested in Genghis Khan?
I began as a journalist, hence a self-appointed defender of the oppressed. I saw Genghis everywhere in Mongolia. He is prayed to in the morning, his name and likeness appear on hotels, the airport, the best beer and vodka, the money and even The Genghis Khan Irish Pub. I learned from the Mongolians, and later from readings by modern revisionist Western historians, how we have miscast Genghis. He was the most influential figure of the millennium, and that's the view of Time Magazine and CNN, not just me.
2. Do you feel that Genghis Khan has been unfairly characterized by western historians? If so, what parts of his reputation would you like to see changed?
You said it. Suppose for a moment you went to school in Mongolia and learned that George Washington was a toothless snob who nearly lost the Revolution in Brooklyn. That's all true, but hardly tells the story of the founder of the nation. Oddly, the West viewed Genghis Khan far more favorably in his time - Chaucer said "Nowhere in no region so excellent a lord." But once the losers became the winners and began rewriting history he became a barbarian.
Genghis did do brutal things, but no more so than the Crusaders. And his savagery had a purpose - creating a secure world empire - and once inside the Pale, people were safe and more prosperous and liberated than anywhere else. Genghis was the guy who developed diplomatic immunity, a code of laws including fair trial and tax benefits for clerics and scholars. He's the reason we have a post office, paper money, pony express, passports, even pants and hamburgers and the cry "hooray."
3. Has his grave been located yet?
Genghis's grave hasn't been found, and I doubt it ever will. The Mongols went to elaborate lengths to hide it. According to a very even-handed history written just years after his death - The Secret History of the Mongols - he was taken from the encampment where he died in western China to his homeland. All living things were killed en route to ensure secrecy. Only a pregnant camel was left at the site. Camels return each year to where they birth their young. So his sons could find his tomb, but with their passing, or the camel's, the secret was sealed.
Japanese scientists and more recently California researchers have used ground penetrating radar at Genghis's favorite hunting lands, Burkhan Kaldum to locate the burial site, without success. A charlatan Chicago lawyer named Maury Kravitz claimed to have found it. What he'd discovered was a burial complex of another era at a site to which he was brought by guides who just wanted to get a free trip to THEIR home territory.
If we were to ever find Genghis's remains, I strongly doubt there'd be any treasure with them. He dressed simply, never slept indoors, and disdained formal titles. He meticulously awarded bounty to soldiers by station and merit. And he traded wealth for influence. And, probably, women. They were what he collected.
4. How do you think that a single nomadic people among so many on the Asian steppe was able to rise up and conquer much of the known world?
Great question. Well first, they weren't the only nomads to do so, just one wave from the steppes among several. Long before Genghis was Attila the Hun, and after him Timur the Lame (Tamerlane). What distinguished Genghis's conquest and that of his sons was the Empire's size (more than 3 times the Roman Empire or that of Alexander). And its sophistication.
The mystery and the marvel surrounding Genghis's singular success was how he acquired and implemented his genius. This was an outcast from warring tribes. He and his family were on the run for years. He was, like all the peoples of the region, illiterate.
His life was savage - his father was poisoned, at age 8 he killed his brother for stealing food, his fiancee was kidnapped, his best friend tried to kill him. Yet he had a vision, and the foresight to implement it, of creating a safe world with free worship, artistic freedoms, literacy, and international trade. That is almost beyond comprehension.
5. How much time have you spent in Mongolia?
I've been going since 1989 when I accompanied a Canadian-Chinese dinosaur expedition to Inner Mongolia to write about it. I went on to Mongolia on my own to visit the Flaming Cliffs, site of the first dinosaur nests ever found from an expedition led by the real Indiana Jones, Roy Chapman Andrews. I've since been to Mongolia 8 times. Thank God, it's mostly in summer.
