In Weimar, Germany in 1802, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe conducted the opera Turandot, created by Friedrich von Schiller. The combination of the two greatest geniuses of that era became a good story for a while, and Turandot became an enduring theme in German cultural circles and even in Europe as a whole.
Tischbein, "Goethe on the Plains of Rome"
Turandot, the protagonist of Turandot, is a princess of the Yuan Dynasty emperor of China, who hates men because her female ancestors were abducted. She ordered that if a man could guess her three riddles, she would marry him and, if he guessed wrong, execute the other. The Tatar prince Karaf, who was in exile in China, was attracted by Turandot's beauty, and despite the persuasion of his father Timur and his maid Liu'er, he went to the marriage and guessed all three riddles. The arrogant princess refused to admit defeat and did not want to marry Prince Carav, the prince proposed that if the princess knew his real name before dawn, he would not only cancel the marriage contract, but also willing to take death, the princess tortured the prince's father and maid, Willow, with her admiration for the prince, preferred to commit suicide to keep the secret, at dawn, the princess still did not know the prince's name, at this time the prince himself told the princess the truth, and handed his life to his sweetheart, at this time the princess's heart was conquered by the prince.
▲ Turandot opera poster
The name Turandot is derived from Persian, "Turan" is a Persian name for Central Asia, and "dokht" means daughter or girl. The Chinese princess in the opera can be literally translated as "the girl of Central Asia" in Persian, why does a Chinese princess have a Persian name in Europe? The otherwise complex and intractable Turandot then added another veil of mystery, and to answer this question, we must face many mysteries like Prince Calaf, which is really a story that is too long and long.
▲ Turandot commemorative bronze medal existing in the Chinese market
Schiller's opera is based on the five-act fable of the same name written by the Italian playwright Carlo Gotz in 1762, inspired by a european bestseller of the time, One Thousand and One Days, which is little known today. In 1704, "One Thousand and One Nights" was published in Paris, and at one time Luoyang was expensive, in response to the European interest in the mysterious East, and another collection of oriental stories, "One Thousand and One Days", compiled and published by the French orientalist François Betis Delacova, was published in Paris around 1710. Drakova's father was an Arabic translator of Louis XIV, which gave Drakova the opportunity to train in orientalism from an early age. In 1674, the young Drakwa traveled to Isfahan, the capital of the Safavid Dynasty in Persia, to learn Persian, and it was during this period that Darwis Merklas, the Sufi cleric who instructed him in Persian, told Drakwa the story that was later collected in The Thousand and One Days.
▲ The English version of "One Thousand and One Days"
"One Thousand and One Days" adopts a similar framework story structure as "One Thousand and One Nights", with a main story stringing together multiple other stories, and this interlocking routine is mostly found in folklore in India and Persia. The main story line tells the story of the Kashmir princess and the Egyptian prince met because of a strange wind, and in the blink of an eye, the princess suffered from lovesickness, depressed, the princess's nurse told the princess various fantasy stories every day in order to resolve the pain of lovesickness, the nurse told the princess a thousand and one days, and when the princess's lovesickness was about to be cured, the story of the nurse was exhausted, and at this time, the Egyptian prince came thousands of miles away. "The Story of Prince Carav and the Chinese Princess" is one of the stories told on the forty-fifth day, and the Chinese princess in the story is the future household name Turandot.
Why were Europeans of that era particularly interested in the East, especially China? Even in the one hundred years from the end of the seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, "Chinese style" was popular. Europeans have longed to understand China for a long time, and after entering the sixteenth century, missionaries traveled to China, bringing reports that aroused great interest among Europeans. The missionaries wrote about the beautiful and rich China, which made the whole of Europe extremely envious, and people were madly obsessed with objects from China, imitating Chinese art and living customs. Among them, the most satisfying to the Oriental imagination of Europeans is naturally the Chinese princess full of exotic feelings, and during this period, the image of Chinese princesses emerged in large quantities, like the spokesman of the Chinese image in European literature.
▲ A map of the world centered on China produced by missionary Matteo Ricci.
This fanatical fascination with the Chinese princess culminates in a hilarious farce: in 1694, a woman breaks into the French court who tells her story in stumbling French, claiming to be the daughter of a Chinese princess, the Kangxi Emperor! As soon as this remark came out, the French nobles were all shocked, and this woman said that she was married to a Japanese prince by the Kangxi Emperor, unfortunately caught by pirates on the way, and came to France after several tribulations. The nobles and noble ladies in the court rushed to adopt the poor "Chinese princess" and give her food and clothing to make up for her previous suffering. Soon after, a Jesuit priest who had traveled to China to familiarize himself with Chinese exposed the false identity of the "Chinese princess", but most of them were still immersed in the imagination of the East.
▲ Chinese screen in the British Museum
The story of the "Kangxi Daughter" is still like this, and the more well-known Chinese princess Turandot has made Europeans even more addicted. When One Thousand and One Days was published, it coincided with the Safavid dynasty in Iranian history, and unlike China, which was far out of reach, Persia was clearly the "East" more easily accessible to Europeans. Since King Louis XIII, France has wanted to establish direct diplomatic relations with the Safavid dynasty. The story of "Turandot" can be described as having a favorable time and place, from Persia across the sea to France, which is a gimmick in itself, and the Chinese background in the story caters to the French people's desire and imagination for distant China. Not surprisingly, Turandot became the most popular story in One Thousand and One Days, followed by the publication of the French text and the English version in London. Because of its popularity, the story of Turandot soon broke away from "One Thousand and One Days" and gradually became an independent oriental story. At the same time, the Chinese princess who came to Europe from Persia began a process of continuous sinicization, and Schiller's script vigorously exaggerated Turandot's Chinese color, which became the abuse of this trend in the future. For example, Schiller deliberately changed the name of the Islamic Allah in the original play to "Tian", which is more in line with Chinese customs, and "Fuxi", the first Chinese emperor in the minds of Europeans at that time.
▲ Fuxi in Chinese painting
If we remove these Chinese elements, what is left of the whole story? What kind of connection does it have with distant China, and has such a Princess of the Yuan Dynasty really existed in history?
In the Yuan Dynasty, the term princess was expanded compared to the traditional Zhongyuan Dynasty, not only to the daughters of the emperor, but also to the daughters of the kings. Unlike Turandot's dramatic selection of sons-in-law, the marriage of princesses of the Yuan Dynasty had strict rules and strong political implications. As we set our sights off Turandot's capital, an equally shocking Mongol princess appeared, but not by her beauty, but by her extraordinary courage and physique. She was the great-granddaughter of Genghis Khan, the great-granddaughter of Wokoutai, and the daughter of Haidu, Kudu Lunchahe, whom Marco Polo called AggieNiti in his travelogues.
The Mongol princess does not appear in any Chinese historical sources, and what we know today is mainly based on the travels of Marco Polo and the Collected Histories compiled by Rasht, the prime minister of the Persian Ilkhanid dynasty. Born around 1260, her father Haidu was the most powerful ruler in Central Asia at the time, and Haidu was the grandson of Wokoutai, who was related to Kublai Khan, then the Great Mongol Khan. In order to fight for the position of supreme khan and restore the status of the Wokoutai clan, Haidu was constantly at war with Kublai Khan and his descendants.
▲ In the American drama "Marco Polo", Korean movie star Kim so-hyun plays Ku Ba Lun
Ku Baldron is tall, athletic, good at riding and shooting, especially with wrestling. Wrestling, also known as wrestling, is called "boke" in Mongolian and plays an important role in the lives of Mongolians. Growing up with fourteen of his elder brothers, Ku Baldlun learned wrestling from an early age, and as an adult, he was amazed by this skill. This talent was supported by her ambitious father, as wrestling was also a particularly enthusiastic activity of Wokoutai, and kubrunn's undefeated record earned him a high reputation, which in the Mongolian tradition was undoubtedly a powerful political symbol, and the ambitious Haidu apparently wanted to use this resource to compete with Kublai Khan for the position of supreme khan.
Marco Polo portrayed Kubrun as a first-class warrior: she galloped on horseback, into enemy arrays, and captured a captive general as easily as an eagle catching a chicken. Kubrun played an extremely important role in Haidu's later life, and this unusual intimacy even affected Kuron's marriage, Rasht mentioned in the "History Collection": "The father did not marry her, and people suspected that he had an inadmissible relationship with his daughter." However, given the poor relationship between the Ilkhanid dynasty and Haidu, Rasht's words are likely to be evil.
Ku Balun's marriage is imperative, unlike Turandot's puzzle fighting wisdom, Ku Balun chooses to compete, who can win her in the wrestling ring, who is her husband, if she loses, she will be fined a hundred horses. Compared to Turandot, Ku bald lun is really much more merciful! Men from all over the world were eager to try it, and soon they found themselves facing a formidable opponent who was ruthlessly formidable, and Kubrun maintained his undefeated record and won more and more loot. Around 1290, a prince was expected to break the curse, and like Karaf, the man who admired Kubrun was also a prince of a neighboring country, and he confidently bet on a thousand horses, and Kuron's family also told her to pretend, but Kubrun categorically refused this request. On the day of the race, there were many onlookers and Haidu himself, and Marco Polo described the game with the half-record and half-imagination that medieval travelers used to write:
The woman appeared first, dressed in a small velvet jacket. The prince followed out, dressed in brocade; is sincere and beautiful also. The two of them went to the corner field, hugged each other, and each wanted to wrestle on the ground, but for a long time, the victory or defeat was undecided. Finally the maid prince fell to the ground.
The prince was defeated by Ku Baldron's men, ashamed, and left behind a thousand horses to return to his country, which may be the difference between art and history, there is no so-called great joy for everyone.
In the fifth year of Yuan Dade (1301), Haidu died of wounds in the war with the Yuan Dynasty, and the last years of Ku Baldun's life were spent in the tomb of his father Haidu, as for the final marriage, we now only know that Kulhulun chose a follower of his father Haidu, Abta Kule, and everything else has long passed away with the wind.
After Marco Polo, a ghost called Kulopron floated over Europe. In Renaissance Italy, this image appeared in several adaptations of epic works. In Marco Polo's depiction, it is easy to believe that Marco Polo witnessed the grand game, but the truth is that after 1275, Marco Polo never set foot in Central Asia. Therefore, his Kubrun should come from his residence in the Persian Ilyidhanid dynasty. That is to say, regardless of whether Mark Polo and Rashter's account of this story is true or false, as early as the Ilkhanid dynasty, the image of Kubrun or the prototype of the story of "Turandot" has appeared.
▲ Persian national epic "The Age of Kings", written by the Persian poet Fildo in the late 10th and early 11th centuries
Historically, the place where Kukhurun competed to recruit relatives was most likely in the famous Central Asian city of Samarkand, which was then in the territory of the Wokoutai Khanate under the rule of Haidu, which was the boundary of the "Turan" referred to in the "Book of Kings", so Kubrun was remembered by the Ilkhanid Dynasty as a Princess of Central Asia.
Slowly, why did the "Princess Turan" become a Chinese princess in the story after Persia?
This should start from the persian concept of China and Central Asia, as early as the seventh century Sassanid Persian canonical history of the "Imperial Chronicle", the concept of "Turan" is relatively vague, to a large extent only Persian counterpart, and there is no actual geographical direction. In Feld's Chronicle of kings, "China" and "Turan" sometimes become synonymous, and Felddo wrote the Chronicle of Kings during the reign of the Qarakhanid Dynasty in Central Asia, the Qarakhanid Dynasty was vast and neighboring to persia in the west, and the rulers of the Qarakhanid Dynasty often called themselves "Peach Blossom Stone Khan" or "Chinese Khan" to highlight their distinguished status.
The eleventh-century Qarakhanid scholar Mahmu Kashgari divided Qin (China) into three parts in the Great Turkic Dictionary: Upper Qin in the east, for peach blossom stones; Middle Qin for Khitan ; lower Qin for Balhan, and Balhan as the format Gar (the capital of the Qarakhanid Dynasty). The Upper Qin and Middle Qin here correspond to the Song Dynasty and the Liao Dynasty respectively, and perhaps the Qarakhanid Dynasty, which regarded itself as the Lower Qin, made the Persians at that time affirm the connection between Turan and China before.
The situation was more complicated during the Mongol Empire, when Genghis Khan expanded his territory to establish a large empire spanning Asia and Europe. Although the western frontier of the Mongol Empire was later divided into the Wokoutai Khanate, the Chagatai Khanate, the Golden Horde, and the Ilkhanate, the rulers of the four khanates were all descended from Genghis Khan's golden family, nominally with the Yuan Dynasty as their suzerainty. Therefore, in the Persian folktales of the Ilkhanid and later, it is also possible that the Turan princess kubrun of the Wokoutai Khanate is remembered as a Chinese princess.
Leng Ye personal WeChat ID:
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