Stages of The Study of Amir Temur’s Life and State-Building Activities in German Historiography From The 15th to The 19th Centuries

Abstract

This article examines German historians from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries who wrote about Amir Temur, and the (often competing) ideas of state-building they derived from his life. While German scholars had begun addressing the topic as early as the 1980s, a comprehensive account of the evolution of their interest in the subject over the decades had yet to be done. Through historical comparison and an examination of seminal scholarship, it uncovers the primary social, political, and intellectual forces which helped to shape German perceptions of Temur. The results illustrate four distinct levels of interest. This early phase was substantially shaped by accounts of eyewitnesses like Hans Schiltberger. In time the expansion of humanism with the advent of enlightened monarchs promoted a more nuanced awareness of Temur’s rule. His life and work were of renewed interest in the nineteenth century, with Romanticism and the expansion of Oriental studies. Eventually, as Germany progressed towards unification, historians analysed Temurian state-making in more detail. In this view German interpretations of Eastern figures tend to mirror their own internal dialogues on power, identity and historical commemoration, deepening our appreciation of how cultures see each other across time.