Timur’s curse
Tamerlane the Destroyer – how a 15th-century despot helped Stalin win the war
According to legend, the curse of Tamerlane unleashed the invasion of the USSR.
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Tamerlane was the terror of the world, history’s greatest destroyer. According to legend, his curse almost led to the downfall of the USSR – but Stalin was able to propitiate the spirit of the terrible.
Tamerlane – or Timur the Limping – is less well known in Western Europe than Genghis Khan or Attila the Hun. But compared to the Central Asian despots, they look like orphans. Tamerlane was the terror of the world. For hundreds of years he rested in his tomb in Samarkand, too great was the fear of the revenge of the mighty. He had cursed anyone who would open his grave. The tomb read: “If I rise from the dead, the world will tremble.”
Tamerlane was a man of great cruelty. Five percent of the world’s population at that time fell victim to his wars, 17 million people. As a teenager he had lost two fingers and an injury to his leg caused him to limp. When he wanted to withdraw from Baghdad in 1401, he was mocked as a cripple. Tamerlane returned and ordered each of his soldiers to bring him at least two heads. Whoever failed should lose his own head. His men provided him with heads for 120 skull pyramids.
A realm of desolation
From Delhi he left only rubble without inhabitants, the city needed 100 years to recover. At that time, the Ottomans were considered invincible. The Sultan Bayezid made fun of Tamerlane who fell upon the Ottomans, his troop movements outmaneuvered the Sultan and his men massacred the Janissaries. Bayezid was captured as booty in Tamerlane’s capital, Samarkand. There he served Tamerlane as a footstool to mount the horse. At feasts he was paraded in an iron cage while his wife had to serve the guests naked.
Smyrna, the invincible fortress of the Knights of Rhodes, took Tamerlane in just 15 days. He had the incoming ships with supplies fired at with the heads of their comrades. The city of Istafan rebelled against its tax collectors. Tamerlane ordered every single inhabitant to be killed. The children were taken to the city gates, where his riders trampled them to death while their mothers watched. Tamerlane himself began the massacre. From the skulls he built more than 28 towers, each with about 1500 heads. Timur depopulated the world, he himself died of a cold.
opening of the tomb
The researchers of the Soviet Union did not want to be misled by curses and other superstitions. In June 1941, Tashmuhammed Kari-Niyazov and Mikhail Gerasimov began work on the tomb. Muslim clerics and local residents tried to stop the excavations, but in vain. The researchers began to open the tombs. Not even another inscription could stop them. She threatened, “Whoever disturbs my grave will unleash an intruder more terrible than me.” Researchers wanted to prove that the tombs actually housed the remains of Tamerlane’s dynasty. The excavations began on June 16th. First the tombs of the sons of the ruler Ulugbek, the grandson of Timur, were opened, then those of Timur’s sons: Miranshah and Shahrukh. On June 18, they discovered the remains of Ulugbek himself. Finally, on June 19, the tombstone was removed from Tamerlane’s tomb, and on June 20, the tomb was opened. From the tomb came the scent of the oils used for embalming. The researchers were not struck by lightning, nothing happened.
Hitler invades the USSR
But two days later, the world shook. Without a declaration of war, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. In Central Asia, many associated the curse with the raid. The expedition was canceled and the remains taken to Moscow. The war brought the Soviet Union to the brink of collapse. The turning point initiated Operation Uranus – the Red Army’s offensive, which encircled and destroyed the German Sixth Army in Stalingrad.
And this event is also related to Tamerlane. Shortly before, Stalin had ordered the remains of the dynasty to be brought back and buried with all honors – they are said to have been brought over the Stalingrad front by plane beforehand. The terror of the world had scarcely rested in the earth before the fortunes of war turned. The curse was lifted from the Soviet Union.
Stalin’s calculus
Of course, both events are coincidental coincidences. At least the excavation. The honorable burial corresponded to Stalin’s calculations. Before the war, the “Iron Man” fought religion in his empire with all his might, but already in the Battle of Moscow in 1941 Stalin used every trick to exploit the religious feelings of his soldiers. With the city’s fate hanging in the knife’s scabbard and the government agencies already evacuated, Stalin conjured up an old legend. He had sacred icons fly around the capital to protect the city from the Germans. Tamerlane’s curse troubled its Asian fighters, who became increasingly important as the war progressed. They were filled with confidence when Timur rested again in Samarkand.