What's Wrong with the Popular Impression of Genghis Khan, Attila the Hun and The Mongols?

But this is more than just an idea in the popular imagination. Despite many scholars’ addition of scare quotes to the word (“barbarian”) in a nod to political correctness, or their omission of the word entirely from their writings, the traditional view of Central Eurasians it embodies has remained largely unchallenged even among specialists. The barbaric Huns appeared suddenly from out of nowhere and for no apparent reason, other than that they were barbarians and could not help themselves; they attacked the innocent Romans, destroyed their cities, killed countless people, and helped bring about the fall of the glorious Roman Empire.

Similarly, the barbaric Mongols attacked the innocent, peaceful Persians and Chinese, destroyed their cities, and killed millions of people, ending both the glorious age of medieval Islamic civilization and the great Chinese civilization of the Sung Dynasty. This picture is buttressed by repetition of biased, inaccurate accounts of Central Eurasian peoples, especially the steppe nomads, from selected ancient and medieval sources, and by omission of the positive views and accurate accounts of the same peoples in the very same sources. Historiographically we are back in the days when the American Indians were evil savages who for no good reason attacked the innocent, peaceful European settlers. Lip service, at best, is paid to the institutionalized brutality of the Roman conquerors, or the racism of the European conquerors.

Perhaps because the overt idea of the Central Eurasian barbarian has been partly suppressed due to PC, it has continued, unrecognized, to distort the history of Eurasia. According to the usual view, the ‘sedentary’ peoples of the Eurasian periphery (mainly the Chinese, Persians, Greeks and Romans) are seen as having been essentially good, while the ‘nomadic’ Central Eurasian peoples in the middle were fundamentally bad. Central Asia, a subregion within Central Eurasia, is popularly but erroneously believed to have been a stopping place on a transcontinental commercial transportation system called the "Silk Road"; trade goods passed through the otherwise unimportant region, despite the barbaric nomads, and so made their way to the important places—China and the Graeco-Roman world, especially. It is assumed that Central Eurasia, a poor, backward region in modern times, must always have been like that. The nearly universal practice of ignoring the Central Asian origin of many great early Buddhist thinkers and nearly all the great scholars and scientists of the golden age of medieval Islamic civilization only reinforces this misconception. The attempts of many specialists to correct specific errors in Central Eurasian history have not changed the broader view always lurking in the background, still ruled by the underlying fantasy of the barbarians and their innocent "sedentary" victims in the periphery as well as in Central Asia.

However, the above ideas are unsubstantiated by the historical sources. In fact, the opposite was more often closer to the truth. Certainly the general, long-term historical trend was quite the opposite:  the peripheral agricultural states repeatedly attacked the Central Eurasians without cause, seized their lands, and enslaved their people. While this is still referred to as the rational, peace-loving peripheral states closing the “frontier markets” out of their justifiable fear of the greedy, wild-eyed barbarians, the actual on-the-ground facts are that the peripheral powers seized Central Eurasian towns and people militarily, closing them off with fortresses, walls, and occupying armies, and then tried to force the captured occupants’ Central Eurasian relatives outside the new “frontier” to simply surrender. It is true that Central Eurasian culture was intrinsically commercial and Central Eurasian states did need commerce to survive, as states, but this because of the socio-political-religious beliefs of the Central Eurasian peoples, not because of their supposed greed or other bad qualities.

Their beliefs, the core of the Central Eurasian Culture Complex, can be traced back to the Proto-Indo-Europeans, who lived in Central Eurasia up to around four thousand years ago, when for unknown reasons they began to migrate to different parts of Eurasia. That fact has great implications for the history of Eurasia. For example, the Romans were a typical peripheral people in many respects, but their Romulus and Remus origin story is an excellent example of a Central Eurasian foundation legend, down to details, including a comitatus or guard corps of oathsworn mounted archers. Why should the Romans have such a legend? Because the ancestors of the Italic speakers had migrated to their homeland from Central Eurasia, just as the Celts, Greeks, Germans, Slavs, Iranians, Indians, and Tokharians, among others, had done, as is now accepted by Indo-European scholars.

Since the Indo-Europeans had a revolutionary effect on the culture of every known place where they settled, one must wonder what happened to those who reached the early Chinese cultural zone. In the late Shang capital at Anyang, from the 13th century BC on, Central Eurasian chariot warriors—with their archaeologically identified, newly intrusive Central Eurasian weapons, horses, and chariots—were buried near the lords they had served. Loan words recorded in the earliest Chinese texts reveal that these warriors must have spoken an Indo-European language. The potential implications of this Indo-European influence are obvious.

Nevertheless, the Central Eurasians lost ground over the millennia, until what remained of Central Eurasia was finally partitioned, conquered, and colonized by the Manchu-Chinese and Russians a couple of centuries ago. Although Afghanistan remained independent, that country and the rest of Central Eurasia plunged into poverty and backwardness. Much of Central Eurasian physical culture was destroyed by the forces of Modernism during the Russian-Soviet occupation and the continuing Chinese occupation.

Recently, with the breakup of the Soviet Union, part of Central Eurasia—though still poor and weak—miraculously reappeared. What will happen to it now? It is remarkable that Central Eurasia has already captured the attention of the world. Will it plunge into the darkness of Modernist fundamentalism, which still threatens Afghanistan? Or will the region once again assume its role as the economic, intellectual, and artistic center of Eurasia, as it was for many centuries in premodern times?