SAMARKAND “For lust of knowing what should not be known We make the Golden Journey to Samarkand.” Sir James Elroy Flecker *** It is unlikely that Tamerlane’s famed capital had, or ever will have a greater publicist than Flecker. For a man who went no further east than Syria, much less Central Asia, he did far more for Central Asian wanderlust than anybody before or since. Entire generations of travellers set forth, with his lines ringing in their ears. Of course, as a poet he wasn’t much, and the quote above - his best known - is as much a product of Orientalist fantasy (or nonsense) as anything that roused the ire of the late Edward Said, but the fact remains that most people’s ideas of Samarkand (not least mine) had their origins in an early exposure to Sir James’s poem. Indeed, in 2010 I overflew Samarkand on my way back from the US, and when I wrote a poem on my return I inevitably doffed a hat to him and Marlowe in it. Of course, I hardly imagined then that I would actually make that famous Golden Journey four years later. One thing is certain. Timur must rejoice in his grave at the celebration and continued glory of his capital even seven centuries after his death. His nearly megalomanic vision of a city-state which he intended to be the greatest in the world, and second only to the heavens - not surprising for someone who described himself as God’s viceroy - was realised with very little deviation from the dream. But Time however is unsparing in its depradations, even of viceregal excesses, so by the early 20th century Samarkand - which began life as Maracanda when Alexander, another megalomaniac, briefly passed through in the 3rd century BC - was already a crumbling, haunted ruin, and would soon have been claimed by the sands of the Kizil Kum if it hadn’t been for one of the more benign fallouts of imperialism. We owe it - and certainly the shade of Timur does - to the enlightened conservationist zeal of Tsarist and Soviet Russian regimes that Samarkand has been restored to its fabled magnificence. And notwithstanding our cynicism about 20th century restorations, even the most critical would find little to cavil in the final result. That old bloodthirsty skull-collector wouldn’t have been displeased. *** JJ.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 16:19:33 +0000
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