The Great Game

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Questo è un commento che non avevo intenzione di scrivere e che voi molto probabilmente non avreste mai voluto leggere, ma poi l'ottima Malacorda ha pensato bene di citarmi nella sua recensione del Grande Gioco, ed il sottoscritto si è sentito perciò in dovere di dare corpo a quel suo pensiero riportato altrove; per cui eccoci qua. Hopkirk describes this struggle from its nascence in Alexander I's triumph over Napoleon to the decline of Russia after the Russo-Japanese War. While Russia was intent on expanding its empire into Central Asia, Britain was trying very hard to keep India British, so they were on full-alert to any Russian incursions into Central Asia. And they were keeping a third-eye-out for any kingdoms they could snatch up with promises of Victorian infrastructural progress. (You'll enjoy visualizing manifestations of Victorian progress (the steam train, the telegraph perhaps, the Enfield Gun), when you're reading of the fate of Arthur Conolly- repeatedly, peripatetically successful in all exploration and espionage sorties, a BIG PLAYA in the Game- when he wears out the welcome of the Emir of Bukhara. (or was it Queen Victoria who wore out his welcome??) In 1236 Mongol horsemen swept westward through Russia, tying serfs to the Tartar yoke. The Golden Horde would exact tribute until Ivan the Terrible had defeated the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan in the mid 1500's, opening the way for expansion east through Siberia. Peter the Great turned his gaze south, through the Caucasus and Caspian towards Persia, yet was thwarted by Nader Shah in 1735. In 1757 the British began major territorial gains in India. The aspirations and apprehensions of these rival European empires became the 'Great Game', played out over Central Asia during the 1800's.

This is to be sure a rather blood-soaked tale, with grim betrayals, frequent beheadings but also uncommon bravery. Hopkirk contends that while the British may have had their Achilles' heel in India, the Russians had theirs in the Caucasus where the local Muslim tribes were still holding out fiercely against the might of the Czar. Uno dei lati positivi della ricostruzione fedele e documentata è nel poter quasi toccare con mano l'eleganza dei modi di questi ufficiali che sanno di doversi scannare il giorno successivo, ma il giorno prima conversano amabilmente e si offrono a vicenda il pranzo e la cena. Una certa cavalleria ed eleganza sono veramente morte e sepolte con il XIX sec., spariti la grazia e il garbo oggi ci restano solo fanatismo e ipocrisia. The other recognized partner in The Great Game was Great Briton. Her situation was relatively simple.

Covering a time period right from the 16th Century, when the Russians slowly started expanding eastwards and came in conflict first with the Central Asian Khanates, then with the British Raj in the 19th Century, the book finishes with the Great Game's own end in the beginning of the 20th Century when Japan beat the Russian Empire. Hopkirk does a decent job of covering such a massive time span without getting too technical and boring his readers. Author Peter Hopkirk culls from many period accounts. He tells the stories of adventurers, spies, secret agents and provocateurs. Geographical survey was a priority, as much was unknown about the region. Henry Pottinger, in Muslim disquise, explored from Baluchistan to Isfahan in 1810. He later played a leading role in the Opium War, the Treaty of Nanking, and founding of Hong Kong. Alexander Burnes, who made an overland reconnaissance in 1831, traced the Indus River, crossed the Khyber Pass to Kabul and became famous during his lifetime for the memoir 'Travels Into Bukhara'. La pattuglia smarrita, gli attaché rapiti, la spedizione di soccorso, e perfino la moglie di un sergente che scappa col suo carceriere afghano che diserta. Con una prosa ispirata ed un racconto avvincente, in questo volume Peter Hopkirk ci accompagna nelle ignote lande orientali a rivivere l'ormai leggendario Grande Gioco, la guerra di spie che vide contrapporsi per oltre un secolo i due più potenti imperi dell'epoca, quello russo contro quello britannico. What might be thought of as Russia’s version of Manifest Destiny. From a Russian point of view, the natural boundaries of Russia could include everything east of the Caucuses all the way to the Pacific (At one point Russia had active control of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest south into California) curbed only by whatever parts of India that England failed to hold and as much of China as she failed to hold.

I knew a little about the Great Game before – that 19th-century wrangling over Central Asia between Britain and Russia – but I hadn't appreciated before how motivated both sides were, in Britain's case because they feared encroachment on their ‘jewel of the Empire’, British India, and in Russia's case because they were hell-bent on expanding their influence as far as possible. But the real joy here is in the Boy's-Own adventuring of some of the principal players – ambitious explorer-spies who headed off the map and into a world of mountain fortresses, Himalayan snowstorms, Russian ambushes, gruelling sieges, and daring gunfights. At stake was a barely-known network of independent city-states whose rulers were befriended, betrayed, and played off one another by the two major powers in an attempt to win influence and ascendancy in the area. As a journalist, he sought a life in dangerous situations, being sent to Algeria to cover the revolutionary crisis in the French colonial administration. Inspired by Fitzroy Maclean's Eastern Approaches, he began to think about the Far East. He was based in New York during the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961, covering the events for the Daily Express. China’s Upscaling of Potato Production Sprouts Controversy : The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture start... by Karlis Rokpelnis Come tutti i principi afghani, Dost Mohammed era stato istruito sin dall'infanzia nelle arti dell'intrigo e del tradimento. A ciò si aggiungeva un talento naturale, ereditato dalla madre persiana, per le sottigliezze.

First thoughts: Am halfway through listening to this (i.e., about 8 hours in), but as excellent as the whole thing is, am going to take a little break. Like a good action movie, there is a lot of exciting plot offset with the occasional big "set piece," which at this point is the First Anglo-Afghan War which ended in the disastrous 1842 Retreat from Kabul...and I am frankly exhausted. Time for something a little lighter, before I get into Part II... Peter Hopkirk’s spellbinding account of the great imperial struggle for supremacy in Central Asoa has been hailed as essential reading with that era’s legacy playing itself out today.