Much of what we know about Genghis Khan comes from a critic who knew him
The most treasured account of Genghis Khan's youth portrays him as indecisive, frightened of dogs and guilty of killing his own half-brother. Its anonymous author was plainly no flatterer, and that is exactly why historians value it. Piecing together the man behind the Mongol Empire means weighing chronicles in more than a dozen languages.
He was born Temüjin, sometime between 1155 and 1167, the eldest child of the Borjigin chieftain Yesugei and his wife Hö'elün. His father died when he was eight and the tribe abandoned the family, leaving them close to destitute. Charisma won him followers and alliances with two steppe leaders, Jamukha and Toghrul, who helped recover his bride Börte after raiders seized her. The friendship with Jamukha later turned into open war, and after a heavy defeat around 1187 Temüjin may have spent years as a subject of the Jin before resurfacing in 1196.
At an assembly in 1206 he took the title Genghis Khan, whose meaning is still uncertain, and rebuilt Mongol society from rival tribes into a meritocracy loyal to his family. Campaigns followed in quick succession: a raid on Western Xia in 1209, a four-year war with the Jin that captured their capital Zhongdu in 1215, the annexation of Qara Khitai by his general Jebe in 1218, and the invasion of the Khwarazmian Empire the next year after his envoys were executed.
His story reaches us unevenly. The Secret History of the Mongols survived only because it was transliterated into Chinese characters, and the sinologist Arthur Waley dismissed it as literature, though later scholars trust it more. The Persian historian Juvayni, who visited Mongolia twice, wrote sympathetically, while his contemporary Juzjani, who witnessed the conquests, was hostile. Rashid al-Din later compiled a compendium with privileged access to Mongol records.
Opinion remains split. His armies caused death on an enormous scale, yet his empire also opened routes for trade and cultural exchange across Eurasia. Russia and the Arab world long remembered a savage tyrant; since the 1990s Western scholars have reconsidered the barbarian image. Mongolians honour him as their nation's founder. The spelling Genghis itself entered English in the 18th century from a misreading of Persian texts.
Source: Genghis Khan
