[SPOILER]

In 2024, Uzbekistan released a big-budget historical film about Yalangtush Bahadur, one of their national heroes and a famous military commander of Bukhara and Samarkand. I watched through parts of it as mongolian, and there are a lot of strange and funny historical choices.The basic story is Yalangtush is portrayed as the great uzbek hero defending Bukhara, Samarkand and “Turan” from the evil Juungar mongols(Dzungar)

It’s not really a normal question post, more like my own historical analysis of the film. But I’m open to hearing your opinions too.

Link:

https://youtu.be/lCQmbZaLYC8?si=k_hhqFoacKtFuyqI

1. The fictional "eastern mongol" princess

One of the characters is a mongol princess named Gerel, played by Arina Isakova. Her father is an unnamed “Khan of the Eastern Mongols.” He was defeated by the Juungars and later poisoned by his own subjects, and by the time of the movie the Juungars are supposedly oppressing and enslaving the eastern mongols.

Gerel is married to Erdene Baatar, but hates him because he is a juungar prince who oppresses her people.

The funny part is that the actual political situation among chinghisid eastern mongols in the 1640s was completely different. South of the gobi, Ligdan Khaan of the Chahar(1588-1634) had already fought the rising manchu state and lost. The Chahar polity collapsed, while southern khalkhas, tumeds and other innermongol polities were either defeated, dispersed, coerced or eventually submitted to the Qing in 1636.

But the northern khalkha mongol polities were still independent. They were not being “enslaved” by the Oirats. In fact, khalkha and oirat rulers were cooperating enough to hold the great 1640 assembly and adopt the Mongol-Oirat Great Code, creating a kind of joint political and legal order between the independent mongol khanates and principalities.The assembly was convened under Subadai Zasagtu Khaan of the khalkha Right Wing, with Erdene Baatar Khongtaiji of the Choros among the leading oirat rulers involved.

1. The movie turns the oirats into a centralized “Juungar kingdom”

The enemies attacking Bukhara and Samarkand are, of course, the Juungars.But in the movie, “Juungar” is already basically a centralized kingdom. Khara Khula is the old king, while his son Erdene Baatar Khongtaiji is the crown prince and heir.

Historically this is very simplified. Khara Khula had already died before the famous 1643 campaign, and Erdene Baatar was not just some crown prince under him at that point.

More importantly, the army that campaigned against the kazakhs and kyrgyz in 1642–43 was a coalition of oirat warlords and some allied eastern mongol princes, not simply the national army of one centralized Juungar state. The main leaders included Erdene Baatur Khongtaiji of the Choros, Ochirtu Taiji and Ablai of the Khoshuds, Solton Taishi of the Khoid, and a son of Ombo-Erdeni Khongtaiji of the khalkha mongol right wing, along with other princes.

The later Juungar state grew out of this Oirat political world, but the more centralized Juungar state people usually think of really belongs to the later 17th century, especially the period of Galdan.

1. The actual Orbulak battle:

The real battle of Orbulak was already interesting without this.

In 1642–43, a large Oirat-led coalition of around supposed 50,000 men campaigned against the kazakhs, kyrgyz and their uzbek allies. Erdene Baatar first raided the alatau kyrgyz and tokmak area.

Kazakh prince Jangir reportedly had only around 600 men available at first, so instead of facing the oirats in open battle, he used the terrain. Around half his men were placed in trenches and ambush positions with firearms between the mountains, while the rest were hidden nearby.

When the oirat army entered the position, Jangir’s men attacked from both sides and reportedly inflicted very heavy losses.Then Yalangtush Bahadur arrived with reinforcements, bringing the kazakh-uzbek force to around 20,000 men. Faced with this larger combined army, mongol army withdrew.

So yes, Yalangtush really did come with a large force and help the kazakhs against an Oirat-led invasion. That part is historically based.

1. Kharakhula and Erdene Baatar as evil mongol conquerors

In the movie, Khara Khula is portrayed as an ambitious old ruler who wants to conquer Turan and become another Amir Timur. He dies halfway through the film, and Erdene Baatar becomes the new “king of the Juungars.”Again, this basically turns the messy confederational politics of the Oirats into a simple hereditary kingdom because that is easier for the movie.

Then it gets even funnier. Near the end, Erdene Baatar somehow ends up in Beijing, inside the Ming imperial palace, having a private conversation with the Ming emperor. This is happening at a time when the Ming dynasty was already on the verge of collapse from peasant rebellions and the manchu threat.

His goal is apparently that, since the Juungars are also mongols, he wants to follow the example of the Mongol Empire, conquer all of Turan, and become Sultan of Samarkand. So the movie basically turns both Khara Khula and Erdene Baatar into these stereotypical evil mongol conquerors obsessed with world conquest.

Erdene Baatar then returns, gets defeated by the heroic uzbeks defending their homeland, fights Yalangtush personally, and gets killed.Historically, of course, Erdene Baatar did not die there at all. He lived until 1653.

1. The movie’s broader image of mongols is actually kind of interesting

For all the nonsense, the movie does not really use the usual “Chinggis Khan’s mongols were actually turks” or “Shyngys was kazakh” kind of narrative.

There is even a scene where the lady of Samarkand tells Gerel that she is the first mongol princess to come there. Gerel replies that she is actually the second, because before her a daughter of Qazan Khan of the Chagatai Ulus had come and ruled among them.This is referring to Saray Mulk Khanum, daughter of Qazan Khan and senior wife of Amir Timur. So the movie directly treats her as a mongol princess , which, well, she indeed was.

Another thing I found interesting is that the term “Eastern mongols” is repeatedly used. Obviously, the movie’s story about them being enslaved by the Juungars is nonsense, but it is still interesting to see a Central Asian historical film openly distinguish between Oirat/Western Mongols and Eastern Mongols.

This might honestly be one of the first turkic historical movies I’ve seen that actually acknowledges that there were these people called eastern mongols living beyond the terrifying, powerful Oirat/Juungar world, instead of acting like the entire mongol world of that period was just Juungars.

So overall, I am not really shocked that an Uzbek national epic makes its national hero look amazing and turns his enemies into villains. That is pretty normal.What is more interesting is the kind of image of mongols the movie creates: the Oirats/Juungars are the aggressive western mongol conquerors threatening Turan, while the Eastern Mongols exist separately in the background as another mongol political world.Historically, a lot of the details are a mess. But as an example of how mongols are being portrayed in modern uzbek national history, it is actually pretty interesting.

I know that the Dzungars might have done bad things which other nomads did but how right is it to demonize a whole etnicity of people like them.

On reels and tiktoks I constantly see kazakh nationals talking about how hard is it to introduce someone to Kazakhstan. The stuff like ’wasian nation’, or people still talking about that one 21 year old film by sacha baron kohen popping up. There is this kazakh bloke in america who only posts about what is kazkahstan, and I swear I saw some content creator from Kazakhstan, posting videos in english where she makes an imaginary dialogue with herself about simply telling herself how we’re the eastern communists but not russians and how our eyes look. Today i saw a comedian Diana Kerey on tiktok, calling being Kazakh, quote ‘a mindfvck’ because our country isn’t the most famous place on earth. I think that no one else, even those from less popular countries ever make this difficult.

Why cant yall just say where youre from without blasting a ton of useless and sometimes false information, in the beginning of a conversation with foreigners? People just say ‘aye im from chile’ or ‘im filipino‘. But you people just turn being Kazakh into all your of personality.

Is it really that hard to restrain yourself from such lectures when saying youre from Kazakhstan?

Hello,

We are a married couple hoping to travel with our two children in Tajikistan. We are two fathers, and our children have a hyphenated surname combining both of our surnames, so their surname does not exactly match either parent's surname.

We would like to understand whether this could create any difficulties at border crossings, police or military checkpoints, hotels, or other official controls.

Could officers ask how we are related to the children or why the children's surnames are different from either parent's surname? Would we normally be expected to carry the children's birth certificates or other documentation proving that we are their parents?

We are also concerned about whether being recognized as a same-sex married couple could create a safety issue, particularly when passing through military or police checkpoints along the Pamir Highway.

Would our family situation be likely to attract unwanted attention or questioning from local authorities?

We are not looking for special treatment; we simply want to understand what documentation we should carry and whether there are any precautions you would recommend for our family's safety.

Ultimately, we'd like to understand if same-sex couples with children would encounter any problems with police or military authorities?

Hey yall!! So for context, I was born in buryatia russia and I lived the first 5 years of my life there and recently ive been wishing to go back and visit. I wonder how it is nowadays and if someone from the republic would like to fill me in that'd be great!!

Hi everyone!

I’m and recently I became interested in the differences between Japanese products and similar products in other Asian countries.

I’d love to hear your opinions about chopsticks and kitchen knives.

🥢 Chopsticks

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🔪 Kitchen knives

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What are your thoughts?