The Great Game

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An account of the encounter last century between the British in India and Tsarist Russia in Central Asia which became known as the "Great Game". When the encounter began the frontiers of Russia and British India lay some 2000 apart. By the end, the gap had shrunk in places to 20 miles There are so many details missing. Nationalism and religion continue to render Europeans, especially their military as automatically to be resisted. In many of these cultures, raiding remains a part of what people do. Complete with family owned and handed down ambush positions. Villages can be situated so as to control entrance/exit for military purposes, even at the cost of commercial traffic. 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. 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. He was in fact a young British officer in disguise, Lieutenant Arthur Conolly of the 6th Bengal Native Light Calvary, having somehow survived his mission to reconnoiter the military & political no-man's-land between the Caucasus & the Khyber, through which a Russian army might march. Daring, resourceful & ambitious, Conolly was the archetypical Great Game player & it was he, fittingly enough, who first coined this memorable phrase in a latter to a friend. Despite his junior rank & tender years, his views were to have a considerable influence on the outcome of the Anglo-Russian rivalry in Asia. According to Hopkirk, Arthur Conolly also had a strongly religious nature and "in common with most of his generation, believed in the civilizing mission of Christianity & in the duty of its adherents to bring the message of salvation to others less fortunate." Indeed, the author does often view those protecting their homelands from intruders as heinous, treacherous & fanatical but he also sees British leadership as marked by incompetence, irresolution & plain cowardice, as in the case of General William Elphinstone.

Stesso discorso per le descrizioni dei luoghi, descrizioni di cui si sente fortemente la mancanza. I protagonisti attraversano migliaia e migliaia di chilometri di deserto, giungono in oasi che definire magiche sarebbe poca cosa, ma Hopkirk non concede il lusso non dico di una descrizione o di una istantanea sfuocata, ma nemmeno di una congettura. Il lettore lo sa di suo, per forza di logica, che i luoghi visitati dai protagonisti non sono tutti uguali, eppure la percezione immediata che si ricava da tale tipo di narrazione è - purtroppo - proprio quella: personaggi tutti uguali in luoghi tutti uguali. Solo verso il finale, qualche breve suggestione a proposito di Lhasa e qualche vaga descrizione di Chitral, hanno il sapore della beffa proprio perché tardive. The Great Game between Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia was fought across desolate terrain from the Caucasus to China, over the lonely passes of the Parmirs and Karakorams, in the blazing Kerman and Helmund deserts, and through the caravan towns of the old Silk Road—both powers scrambling to control access to the riches of India and the East. When play first began, the frontiers of Russia and British India lay 2000 miles apart; by the end, this distance had shrunk to twenty miles at some points. Now, in the vacuum left by the disintegration of the Soviet Union, there is once again talk of Russian soldiers “dipping their toes in the Indian Ocean.” A Kazalinsk fu ricevuto dagli ufficiali russi, i quali, pur riservandogli un'accoglienza calorosa, lo informarono che non vedevano l'ora di battersi con gli inglesi per il possesso dell'India. "Ci spareremo addosso a vicenda la mattina" gli disse uno, porgendogli un bicchiere di vodka "e berremo insieme durante la tregua".

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Hopkirk's wife Kathleen Partridge wrote A Traveller's Companion to Central Asia, published by John Murray in 1994 (ISBN 0-7195-5016-5).

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. 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.

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What the Great Game fails to analyze is the thinking and interests of the many peoples who would fight against, ally with or otherwise own all of the ground that the two recognized powers would invade, fight over or otherwise manipulate in favor of goals rarely consistent with the culture or needs of the peoples who were already there. 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'.

There’s nothing I can say about ‘The Great Game; On Secret Service in High Asia’ that has not already been said. The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia (US title The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia is a book by Peter Hopkirk on " the Great Game", a series of conflicts in the 1800s between the UK and Russian powers to control Central Asia. The other recognized partner in The Great Game was Great Briton. Her situation was relatively simple.

Selected

The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia, Kodansha International, 1992, ISBN 1568360223

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. The period covered begins in the early 19th century with the Russian Czar seeming to match wits & extensive treasury outflows with the British King and ends (roughly speaking) a century or so later with the realignment of Europe & Asia, the fall of the Czar, the death of the Ottoman Empire and the lessening of British imperial power during the time between the two World Wars.Combine intelligence activity to understand the routes a Russian invasion might take, with developing client states friendly to Great Briton. 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.