The Great Game

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Da un lato ne ammiro la coerenza, sempre preciso, documentato, sempre saldo nel suo intento di non inventare nulla, eppure Hopkirk proprio a causa di questi suoi buoni propositi si rende in alcuni passaggi comicamente sbrigativo o goffamente approssimativo. The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia, Kodansha International, 1992, ISBN 1568360223 Naturalmente nel mentre all'ambasciatore viene notificato che un un ferocissimo nomade, Yakoob Beg, è andato a prendersi la Kashgaria.

This library has been posted for non-commercial purposes and facilitates fair dealing usage of academic and research materials for private use including research, for criticism and review of the work or of other works and reproduction by teachers and students in the course of instruction. Many of these materials are either unavailable or inaccessible in libraries in India, especially in some of the poorer states and this collection seeks to fill a major gap that exists in access to knowledge. Hopkirk travelled widely over many years in the regions where his six books are set – Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, and eastern Turkey. A bit about the content of the book might be useful after all of my bombination on style: The Great Game relates the history of the struggle between the British Empire and the Russian Empire over the strongholds of Central Asia. Basically this was an imperialist struggle. It wasn't a race for oil (yet.) The Brits had a ton of colonies, the jewel of which was the Raj. As the Russians made attempts to grab parts of Central Asia, the Brits freaked out over the safety of their sacred cow and engaged in a very entertaining, deadly and technical spy game with the Russians to infiltrate and map these unknown regions and try to ingratiate themselves with the local leaders. Ogni capitolo contiene avventure che fanno sembrare il Signore degli Anelli un libro noiosissimo, intrighi da "i Misteri dei Gonzaga", tradimenti e torture da "Conte di Montecristo", e che se sviluppate sarebbero tranquillamente una scaletta per un buon romanzo anche oggi, romanzo che non si scrive preferendosi sfraganare i cabbasisi nostri colla solita menata familiare, da Roccasecca al Wisconsin.Un esempio. Questa mappa, dove il Pamir sono pochi tratteggi malposti, prima di dire che fa schifo, sappiate che è desunta dal rapporto di uno dei personaggi, un inglese. Se l'è fatto a piedi. Non il Pamir, ANCHE il Pamir. Prima di lui non c'era nulla. Annotando cosa accade alle virilissime truppe russe nei guai solitamente compare "morte", così come "soccorse" nelle stesse condizioni si applica alle vicende delle "effeminate" truppe inglesi, così spesso definiti dai barbari locali.

I found myself reading late into the morning, at times I couldn't put the book down. Most of the time I had heard of the places and people involved but a lot of this story was new to me. The narrative read like a novel, gripping but informative, never boring and full of information, breathing life into history in a way that is hard to find now-a-days. Combine intelligence activity to understand the routes a Russian invasion might take, with developing client states friendly to Great Briton.

Success!

The absence of this third/fourth/however many points of view leads me to caution readers against thinking that with this book they can speak definitively about the challenges Soviet Russia failed to overcome in the end of their empire; or the reasons why the American Invasion had to last as long as it has while being careful about purposes and minimal goals. The reason I gave it three, not four stars (I almost never give five, 'cause I'm difficult to please), is that I read William Dalrymple's Return of a King just days before The Great Game. There is a big chunk of events where these two books overlap and compared to Dalrymple's balanced approach, Hopkirk emerges too Brit-centric for my taste. This is probably partly due to objective problems with access to Russian sources at the time of writing, but surely the Tsarist players could have been covered in more detail. And while Hopkirk mostly avoids hard-core stereotyping, for some reason the Russians are always lurking in the steppes or skulking in the mountains, while the Brits are, of course, gallantly exploring. When the Afghans slaughter someone, it's because of their savage nature; when the Brits do the same, it's a regrettable consequence of difficult circumstances or simply "not entirely clear". Like Homer with his "rosy-fingered dawn", Hopkirk seems unable to mention the word "steppe" without calling it lawless. The story encompasses places that I was fortunate enough to visit some years after that first youthful trip, such as the marvellous cities of the Silk Road. It begins with Prince Alexander Bekovich, sent by Peter the Great in 1717 to propose an alliance with the Khan of the glorious, pink-walled city of Khiva. The Khan however had other ideas. Many years later my Khivan guide Ali gleefully showed me the place on the Great Gate where Bekovich’s head had been hung.