By Josh Gregory
I was in Mongolia a few months ago, and initially I found it rather surprising that the name 'Genghis Khan' (or as his descendants call him, 'Chinggis Khaan') is used to sell everything, from beer, cigarettes and vodka, to T-shirts and tissue paper. In fact, his name (and quite often his face) is hard to avoid. It has reached the point that the Parliament of Mongolia is now discussing ways to regulate unauthorized use, to make his name the equivalent of a registered trademark.
This is all new. During the communist era, there was systematic repression of any celebration of the name of this great Mongolian, on the grounds that it would encourage rebellion and nationalism, and therefore threaten Soviet hegemony over Mongolian hearts and minds. But, as the saying (probably) goes, you can't keep a good barbarian down for long. The last decade has seen a huge renaissance in Khaan studies, which have generally established that he was far from the demon of popular western portrayals. To complete his rehabilitation, in 1999, Time magazine named him 'Man of the Millennium', and in the USA, they're now considering erecting a statue of him in the capital.
Why? According to the 2004 book 'Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World', (which I would wholeheartedly recommend), although he pursued policies of ethnic cleansing against those peoples who opposed him, he established universal religious freedom, a paper money system, and the largest networks of trade the world had ever seen, which led to rich and long-lasting interchange between the previously disparate cultures of Eurasia. He was the ultimate 'poor boy made good'; and he may have been the world's greatest lover.
Thus his image commands a certain amount of veneration in his home country. The problem is, as no contemporary portraits were made, no-one knows what Chinggis really looked like. Years later, the Chinese made him look like a sage, whilst the west portrayed him as a vengeful and bloodthirsty barbarian. By portraying him in these ways, an ideological purpose was served. And in the same way today, modern Mongolian gift manufacturers tend to tailor his image according to what they are trying to sell. So, the Chinggis of vodka is fierce, haloed by the hair of a dragon, befitting the effect of too much vodka. I prefer to remember a kinder Chinggis: on my T-shirt commemorating 800 years of the Mongolian state, he is stout and serene, gazing off into the middle distance, as befits his rehabilitation as one of history's greatest world statesmen.
(Image courtesy of Wikipedia)
