Le origini dell’impero Timuride secondo T‘ovma Mecop‘ec‘i

The second chapter of the History of Tamerlane and his successors by T‘ovma Mecop‘ec‘i (1378-1446) presents the main stages of Timur’s career, blending together historical facts and legendary elements. T‘ovma takes up a tradition according to which Timur was originally from the Kogovit province, in Armenia. From there, he would have arrived in Samarkand passing through Tabriz and the land of Khorasan. Although this journey is fictional, its description contains details that are relevant to the reconstruction of Timur’s career. On the one hand, Timur’s association with the imperial guards (kešik) is reflected in the debated question of his tribe’s descent from Qarachar, an ancient member of Chinggis Khan’s kešik. On the other hand, the fact that Timur moved from Khorasan to conquer Samarkand, and thus the leadership of the ulus Chagatay, emphasises the role of Khorasan as a land of refuge for the ruling elite’s opponents, with whom Timur formed alliances to strengthen his position. The narrative of the seizure of Samarkand and the subsequent Timurid expansion into Khorasan, with the annexation of Herat, reflects the correct sequence of events, which T‘ovma punctuates with episodes in which one can discern strategies of conquest and ways of legitimising power implemented by Timur. The conquest of Samarkand, presented as a consequence of the cattle thefts carried out by the young Timur, shows how these raids were one of the means by which one could strengthen one’s power and build new alliances, in the steppe world. On the other hand, his marriage to Saray Mulk Khanum, after having killed her husband, is the way in which Timur, a descendant of a family with no ties to the Chaghatay lineage, tries to find a place for himself within that lineage as «imperial son-in-law», while at the same time ensuring his descendants a blood bond with the khan family.