Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and the Turks

[Turkophagos]

The day the world came to an end

Noel Malcolm reviews Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453 by Roger Crowley.




http://gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs1/1588156_o.gif



Even as a young schoolboy, I couldn't help noticing the uncanny resemblance between the siege of Minas Tirith in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and the siege of Constantinople. On one side, the beautiful walled city with its ancient nobility and the few adventurers who had come to help in its defence; on the other, evil teeming hordes under a despotic ruler. You had only to look at the map in the end-papers, where the land of Mordor loomed to the east like Asia Minor, to get the point.

Tolkien even chose the name "Uruk-Hai" for some of his nastiest creations, fighting forces of Sauron who were a cross between orcs and goblins. This was surely borrowed from the "Yuruk", nomadic tribesmen used as auxiliary soldiers by the Ottomans. Few readers would have known that; but most would have got a whiff of something Asiatic here. For one thing Tolkien was outstandingly good at was tapping into the subconscious of our own, European, cultural history.

Deep down, we still think of the last great clash between Byzantium and the Turks as a Manichaean confrontation of civilisation and barbarism, West and East. But the historical reality, not surprisingly, is much less black and white. Above all, what sealed the fate of the defenders of Constantinople was the failure of "the West" to think of itself in any such monolithic, civilisational terms. When Venice, the leading Christian naval power in the eastern Mediterranean, received the Emperor's desperate pleas for help, it thought about its trading interests with the Ottomans and decided to do nothing.

Inside the embattled city there were tensions between Greeks and Italians, and bitter divisions between those Greeks who favoured the idea of union between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, and those who opposed it. Some even said they would prefer Turkish rule to Papal tyranny: it seems they had not forgotten the previous conquest of their city, when their churches had been looted and their women raped not by Turks but by Catholic "crusaders".

Outside the city, the besieging forces were not exactly monolithic either. A large part of Sultan Mehmet's army was made up of Christian soldiers from his European dominions; some may have been fighting unwillingly, but some probably saw this military service as just a normal feudal obligation to their ruler. In the early Ottoman period there are even reports of peasants migrating into the Ottoman-ruled parts of the Balkans, because they found the conditions of life preferable there.

But wasn't the whole Turkish campaign driven by the spirit of Islamic jihad? Apparently not. Mehmet himself was motivated partly by Realpolitik, and partly by romantic notions derived from his study of Latin and Greek authors. As for his troops, we have the opinion of his own spiritual adviser, Sheikh Ak Shemsettin: "The number of those who are ready to sacrifice their lives for the love of Allah is extremely small. On the other hand, if they glimpse booty they will run towards certain death."

And run they did. However much one qualifies the ideological significance of this conflict, however far one downgrades its geopolitical importance (the Byzantine "Empire" was already tiny and quite powerless), nothing can diminish the human interest of this closely-fought contest with its colossal loss of life. This will always remain one of the most exciting, cliff-hanging stories in world history; and in Roger Crowley's new book it is told extremely well.

The background to the conflict is deftly sketched; so too are the characters of the leaders on both sides - the middle-aged Emperor Constantine, a politically weak man who showed extraordinary resolution in war, and the young Sultan Mehmet, barely out of his teens, animated both by soaring ambition and by a terrible fear of failure. And the geographical setting is also lucidly explained: the city was almost impregnable by sea, but its great land walls had two weak spots on which Mehmet cannily concentrated his attacks.

Crowley describes the advances in technology (above all, in the manufacture of gunpowder for artillery) that made it possible, for the first time, to reduce such massive walls to rubble - and the brilliant improvisations of the defenders, whose earthwork replacements for the shattered walls were actually more resistant to cannon fire. Meanwhile, under those very ramparts, a bizarre game of cat and mouse went on as Ottoman miners tunneled in the dark, and the defenders (led by a Scottish engineer) intercepted them with tunnels of their own.

With a little reinforcement from outside, the defenders could have won. Defeat was never certain, but what ensured it in the end was the astonishing logistical abilities of the Ottomans and the sheer imbalance of numbers: perhaps 60,000 Ottoman fighters versus 8,000 Greeks and Italians. For this was no mighty metropolis; Constantinople had become a shell, a poor shadow of its former self. As Crowley says of the Turks, in one of the most poignant sentences in this book: "the city they imagined did not exist".

Crowley has studied the sources carefully. Just occasionally he makes odd slips: when he talks of ulemas wandering among the Turkish troops he apparently does not know that "ulema" is a collective term (the Islamic equivalent of "clergy"). Nor do I understand why he refers to the Venetian Bailo (the governor of the Venetian community there, and quasi-ambassador) as the "bailey", which is a type of castle wall.

Occasionally he adds a touch of purple prose, or some novelistic detail that cannot be contained in his sources. And he is sometimes too eager to accept as authentic the made-up speeches put in the mouths of leading figures by some of the early chroniclers; as he admits only in a postscript, the trustworthiness of these sources is variable, and limited. But this is not an academic monograph. It is, rather, a powerful telling of an extraordinary story, presented with a clarity and a confidence that most academic historians would envy.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3646769/The-day-the-world-came-to-an-end.html#

[Absinthe]

:picard1:

[Hayalet]

There is a fatal difference: Minas Tirith was saved, but not Constaninople.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Zonaro_GatesofConst.jpg

:laugh:

[Siberian Cold Breeze]

:rotfl:

[Partizan]

Inside the embattled city there were tensions between Greeks and Italians, and bitter divisions between those Greeks who favoured the idea of union between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, and those who opposed it. Some even said they would prefer Turkish rule to Papal tyranny: it seems they had not forgotten the previous conquest of their city, when their churches had been looted and their women raped not by Turks but by Catholic "crusaders".

Own goal detected.

[Hochmeister]

Very possibly. Tolkien encoded a lot medieval stuff in his works. For instance the final scene takes part at the day of Anglican Easter.

[Peyrol]

Also Venetian Republic, a western state, sacked and invaded Byzantion in the 4th Crusade, not only the turks...

[Hochmeister]

And I always considered Mordor to be Central Asia or Mongolia.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8SdPh-SpNHk/Tyaje2KK6lI/AAAAAAAANQg/CdCMGbuXO5U/s1600/Middle+Earth.jpg

[Comte Arnau]

But wasn't Minas Tirith in Berlin? :D

http://images.wikia.com/uncyclopedia/images/archive/b/bd/20060302220736!Europe_middle_earth.JPG

[Peyrol]

Gondor it's obviously a metaphor of southern Europe: with a glorious past, but with a modern decadent society...Rohirrim are obviously a representation of the germanic people, the same story of rohirrim settlements in Rohan (the invitation by Gondor's warden Cirion to populate the area after the battle, and the military alliance under a ''free statal association'') remind the roman call to some germanic population to settle in some zones of the Empire.

[Anglojew]

The day the world came to an end

Noel Malcolm reviews Constantinople: The Last Great Siege, 1453 by Roger Crowley.




http://gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs1/1588156_o.gif



Even as a young schoolboy, I couldn't help noticing the uncanny resemblance between the siege of Minas Tirith in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and the siege of Constantinople. On one side, the beautiful walled city with its ancient nobility and the few adventurers who had come to help in its defence; on the other, evil teeming hordes under a despotic ruler. You had only to look at the map in the end-papers, where the land of Mordor loomed to the east like Asia Minor, to get the point.

Tolkien even chose the name "Uruk-Hai" for some of his nastiest creations, fighting forces of Sauron who were a cross between orcs and goblins. This was surely borrowed from the "Yuruk", nomadic tribesmen used as auxiliary soldiers by the Ottomans. Few readers would have known that; but most would have got a whiff of something Asiatic here. For one thing Tolkien was outstandingly good at was tapping into the subconscious of our own, European, cultural history.

Deep down, we still think of the last great clash between Byzantium and the Turks as a Manichaean confrontation of civilisation and barbarism, West and East. But the historical reality, not surprisingly, is much less black and white. Above all, what sealed the fate of the defenders of Constantinople was the failure of "the West" to think of itself in any such monolithic, civilisational terms. When Venice, the leading Christian naval power in the eastern Mediterranean, received the Emperor's desperate pleas for help, it thought about its trading interests with the Ottomans and decided to do nothing.

Inside the embattled city there were tensions between Greeks and Italians, and bitter divisions between those Greeks who favoured the idea of union between the Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, and those who opposed it. Some even said they would prefer Turkish rule to Papal tyranny: it seems they had not forgotten the previous conquest of their city, when their churches had been looted and their women raped not by Turks but by Catholic "crusaders".

Outside the city, the besieging forces were not exactly monolithic either. A large part of Sultan Mehmet's army was made up of Christian soldiers from his European dominions; some may have been fighting unwillingly, but some probably saw this military service as just a normal feudal obligation to their ruler. In the early Ottoman period there are even reports of peasants migrating into the Ottoman-ruled parts of the Balkans, because they found the conditions of life preferable there.

But wasn't the whole Turkish campaign driven by the spirit of Islamic jihad? Apparently not. Mehmet himself was motivated partly by Realpolitik, and partly by romantic notions derived from his study of Latin and Greek authors. As for his troops, we have the opinion of his own spiritual adviser, Sheikh Ak Shemsettin: "The number of those who are ready to sacrifice their lives for the love of Allah is extremely small. On the other hand, if they glimpse booty they will run towards certain death."

And run they did. However much one qualifies the ideological significance of this conflict, however far one downgrades its geopolitical importance (the Byzantine "Empire" was already tiny and quite powerless), nothing can diminish the human interest of this closely-fought contest with its colossal loss of life. This will always remain one of the most exciting, cliff-hanging stories in world history; and in Roger Crowley's new book it is told extremely well.

The background to the conflict is deftly sketched; so too are the characters of the leaders on both sides - the middle-aged Emperor Constantine, a politically weak man who showed extraordinary resolution in war, and the young Sultan Mehmet, barely out of his teens, animated both by soaring ambition and by a terrible fear of failure. And the geographical setting is also lucidly explained: the city was almost impregnable by sea, but its great land walls had two weak spots on which Mehmet cannily concentrated his attacks.

Crowley describes the advances in technology (above all, in the manufacture of gunpowder for artillery) that made it possible, for the first time, to reduce such massive walls to rubble - and the brilliant improvisations of the defenders, whose earthwork replacements for the shattered walls were actually more resistant to cannon fire. Meanwhile, under those very ramparts, a bizarre game of cat and mouse went on as Ottoman miners tunneled in the dark, and the defenders (led by a Scottish engineer) intercepted them with tunnels of their own.

With a little reinforcement from outside, the defenders could have won. Defeat was never certain, but what ensured it in the end was the astonishing logistical abilities of the Ottomans and the sheer imbalance of numbers: perhaps 60,000 Ottoman fighters versus 8,000 Greeks and Italians. For this was no mighty metropolis; Constantinople had become a shell, a poor shadow of its former self. As Crowley says of the Turks, in one of the most poignant sentences in this book: "the city they imagined did not exist".

Crowley has studied the sources carefully. Just occasionally he makes odd slips: when he talks of ulemas wandering among the Turkish troops he apparently does not know that "ulema" is a collective term (the Islamic equivalent of "clergy"). Nor do I understand why he refers to the Venetian Bailo (the governor of the Venetian community there, and quasi-ambassador) as the "bailey", which is a type of castle wall.

Occasionally he adds a touch of purple prose, or some novelistic detail that cannot be contained in his sources. And he is sometimes too eager to accept as authentic the made-up speeches put in the mouths of leading figures by some of the early chroniclers; as he admits only in a postscript, the trustworthiness of these sources is variable, and limited. But this is not an academic monograph. It is, rather, a powerful telling of an extraordinary story, presented with a clarity and a confidence that most academic historians would envy.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3646769/The-day-the-world-came-to-an-end.html#


Very interesting summary. It's true that this particular case is quite nuanced. The Turks weren't Mongols or Arabs and in many ways quite civilised.

[Turkophagos]

There is a fatal difference: Minas Tirith was saved, but not Constaninople.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Zonaro_GatesofConst.jpg

:laugh:

Constantinople is Osgiliath, not Minas Tirith. Osgiliath had a river in the middle of it seperating the city in two parts, Minas Ithil and Minas Anor. Osgiliath was the most important city of Gondor for a millenium, and its east part fell to Orcs long before the western part (Costantinople was the most important city of the known world for a millenium and its Asian part fell to Turks long before the European one.)

Minas Tirith is Vienna. Rohirrim's horse charge in the Minas Tirith battle is the one of Jan Sobieski who saved the Austrians in the battle of Vienna.


In any case, Turks=Orcs, obviously.

[Hochmeister]

Compare these maps



http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8SdPh-SpNHk/Tyaje2KK6lI/AAAAAAAANQg/CdCMGbuXO5U/s1600/Middle+Earth.jpg

http://mir-map.ru/435370_BIG_0_0.jpg

Note the Mountain chains in both Mordor and Central Asia

[Graham]

Meanwhile, under those very ramparts, a bizarre game of cat and mouse went on as Ottoman miners tunneled in the dark, and the defenders (led by a Scottish engineer) intercepted them with tunnels of their own.



Always in the story somewhere. :D

[Dandelion]

Tolkien also based the ugly cacophonic Black Speech on Turkish (divided into two forms, comparable with Ottoman Turkish and the debased Turkic dialects) while he based the beautiful melodic Quenya on Finnish. ;)

[Hochmeister]

But wasn't Minas Tirith in Berlin? :D

http://images.wikia.com/uncyclopedia/images/archive/b/bd/20060302220736!Europe_middle_earth.JPG

Here you are the Gondor's warriors' look

http://www.monkeyinthecage.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Stewards-of-Gondor.jpg

And here you are how it used to have ancient Russians:

http://images02.olx.ru/ui/4/52/36/1267366532_77214636_1----.jpg

[Hayalet]

Minas Tirith is Vienna. Rohirrim's horse charge in the Minas Tirith battle is the one of Jan Sobieski who saved the Austrians in the battle of Vienna.
Hmm, so would you say the Greek campaign of 1919 in Anatolia was the march to Mordor?

...

Except, Greeks, being themselves, lost the damn war and in turn, ruined the entire allegory. :icon_cheesygrin:

Here we see the victorious orc host parade in Izmir/Minas Morgul, formerly known as Smyrna/Minas Ithil.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/KiMOiG.jpg

:laugh:

[Hochmeister]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Zonaro_GatesofConst.jpg


First Gastarbeiter in Europe?

[Pecheneg]

In 1071 AD, Turkish Cavalrymen led by Alp Arslan crushed the sissy e3bhiopian greek infantries at manzikert just like the Rohirrim led by Eomer crushed the Orcs. How funny.

[Turkophagos]

Here we see the victorious orc host parade in Izmir/Minas Morgul, formerly known as Smyrna/Minas Ithil.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/KiMOiG.jpg

:laugh:



Gu kibum kelkum-ishi, burzum-ishi. Akha-gum-ishi ashi gurum.

[TheMagnificent]

Gu kibum kelkum-ishi, burzum-ishi. Akha-gum-ishi ashi gurum.

Very intelligent. :bored:

Here you have some Orcish war music:

tW3brndnI-s

:D

[Partizan]

As I know there was a claim about Orcs being Elves once :lol: Perhaps it is about the Finnic-Turkic lingual connection? :p

[Turkophagos]

This is how turkish soldiers see themselves:





tW3brndnI-s




This is how Europeans portray them:

http://gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs4/1587061_o.gif

[Pallantides]

But wasn't Minas Tirith in Berlin? :D

http://images.wikia.com/uncyclopedia/images/archive/b/bd/20060302220736!Europe_middle_earth.JPG

Norway, Sweden and Finland is more like Dale than Rohan.


Another map:
http://strangemaps.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/middle-earth.jpg

[Peyrol]

Norway, Sweden and Finland is more like Dale than Rohan.


Another map:
http://strangemaps.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/middle-earth.jpg

So, we're Gondor and magyars are the orcs.
Cool :D

[Dandelion]

I would picture the Shire being Ireland, but that's maybe Peter Jackson's influence playing a role here.

[Pecheneg]

Now i'm sure Criterioh made this hilarious video.
NJxAVf3N0Cw

I didn't know that greeks can ride horses btw.

[Pallantides]

I always pictured Arnor to be like western Rome
http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Arnor

[Smaug]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8SdPh-SpNHk/Tyaje2KK6lI/AAAAAAAANQg/CdCMGbuXO5U/s1600/Middle+Earth.jpg

No, Rhûn is the land of the Easterlings, and the funny fact is that the Tolkien-made language called "Rhûnic", that was spoken in Rhûn, was inspired in the Turkic languages.

[Hochmeister]

Very intelligent. :bored:

Here you have some Orcish war music:

tW3brndnI-s

:D

WTF? :picard2:

[Linet]

I didn't know that greeks can ride horses btw.

What is a horse? :blink:

[Turkophagos]

So what then are the Orcs? They may have been inspired by images of the rampaging Turkish, Mongol, and Persian armies that assailed Europe during the Middle Ages. They may also have been inspired by archetypal figures of evil and destruction: the Huns of Allied propaganda in both wars.



http://greenbooks.theonering.net/guest/files/040102_02.html

[Linet]

http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/civil/greece/images/gr0019b.jpg

Oops whats that? :icon_ask:

[Partizan]

I have no problem for being Orc, since they are ex-Elves. The Elf-Finn connection is clear enough, which means Tolkien was aware of Ural-Altai connection. It also shows how even the Western Europe(where Turks did not even reach) got afraid of Turks and therefore demonized them :cool:

It just lacks historical background, though:


Hmm, so would you say the Greek campaign of 1919 in Anatolia was the march to Mordor?

...

Except, Greeks, being themselves, lost the damn war and in turn, ruined the entire allegory. :icon_cheesygrin:

Here we see the victorious orc host parade in Izmir/Minas Morgul, formerly known as Smyrna/Minas Ithil.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/da/KiMOiG.jpg

:laugh:

[Graham]

I would picture the Shire being Ireland, but that's maybe Peter Jackson's influence playing a role here.

The shire reminds me of Yorkshire. Yorkshire Dales

[Dandelion]

The shire reminds me of Yorkshire. Yorkshire Dales

True, but Hobbits are too Irish-like in Peter Jackson's films in my opinion. I dunno.

[poiuytrewq0987]

Death to the Orcs

[Graham]

True, but Hobbits are too Irish-like in Peter Jackson's films in my opinion. I dunno.

The earthy accent & culture mixed with the landscape, works perfect for old Yorkshire riddings.

A Yorkshire accent would be perfect for a hobbit imo.

Nidderdale, Yorkshire
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3b/Upper_Nidderdale.JPG/800px-Upper_Nidderdale.JPG

Wouldn't be suprised if that place influenced the book. I have no idea though.

[morski]

http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1105065&postcount=181

[Hochmeister]

tW3brndnI-s



Poor Moscow...

And now the real music of the real Army:

C0IYnRQJas0

[Partizan]

Poor Moscow...

And now the real music of the real Army:

C0IYnRQJas0

I think, despite its all hostility of USSR against Turkic people, we can consider Red Army as "Orc Army in Denial".

http://i49.tinypic.com/2ms57h3.jpg

http://i46.tinypic.com/15oyvwx.jpg

http://i49.tinypic.com/117qx3q.jpg

http://www.international.ucla.edu/media/images/SovietBudapest.jpg

Some orcs in denial from Soviet officials:

http://www.emersonkent.com/images/leonid_ilich_brezhnev.jpg

http://www.isfp.co.uk/images/vladimir_lenin.jpg

(Despite being not Turkic), that is the guy who raised Soviet flag over Reichstag (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdulkhakim_Ismailov) :)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2QJSeWQoKyA/TRjxCpr0XSI/AAAAAAAAI5M/rTVbru_FA9Y/s400/121682_Ismailov_Hak_Isak.jpg

:)

[Hochmeister]

I think, despite its all hostility of USSR against Turkic people, we can consider Red Army as "Orc Army in Denial".

On the other hand Turkic wannabe Nazis whine here, that they were used as cannon fodder.


http://i49.tinypic.com/2ms57h3.jpg

No doubt, a bullshit Cold war propaganda (1946) is a very "reliable" source. But alas for you, Soviet units were to consist of more than 50% Slavs, since your Mongoloid brethren are good for nothing there in fighting ability and discipline.

And you forgot about Africans and other sand nigers there in French and American armies:

...thousands of French Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian and Senegalese troops, attached to the French Expeditionary Corps, swarmed over the slopes of the hills surrounding Monte Cassino and in the villages of Ciociaria and Esperia, which is in the region of Lazio, raped every woman and girl that came within their sight. Over 2,000 women, ranging in age from 11 years to 86 years suffered at the hands of these gang-raping soldiers as village after village was entered. Menfolk who tried to protect their wives and daughters were murdered without mercy, around 800 of them died. Two sisters aged 15 and 18 were raped by dozens of soldiers each. One died from the abuse, the other was still in a mental hospital in 1997, 53 years after the event. Most of the dwellings in the villages were destroyed and everything of value was stolen. Later in the war, these same troops raped around 500 women in the Black Forrest town of Freudenstadt, on April 17, 1945, after its capture. In Stuttgart, colonial French troops, mostly African, but under the command of General Eisenhower, rounded up around 2,000 women and herded them into the underground subways to be raped. In one week more women were raped in Stuttgart than in the whole of France during the four year German occupation.
(see: members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_axis.html)

http://www.emersonkent.com/images/leonid_ilich_brezhnev.jpg


He is Ukrainian


http://www.isfp.co.uk/images/vladimir_lenin.jpg


He is of Swedish, Jewish and Uralic ancestry.


(Despite being not Turkic), that is the guy who raised Soviet flag over Reichstag (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdulkhakim_Ismailov) :)



It were Berest, Yegorov and Kantariya (Slavs) who raised that flag.

http://img11.nnm.ru/b/b/1/3/7/17eab394d23ad1d69f8a77ff9f2.jpg


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_2QJSeWQoKyA/TRjxCpr0XSI/AAAAAAAAI5M/rTVbru_FA9Y/s400/121682_Ismailov_Hak_Isak.jpg

He is from Caucasus.

[Partizan]

On the other hand Turkic wannabe Nazis whine here, that they were used as cannon fodder.

Many Turkic soldiers and officers in Soviet army were granted with "Hero of Soviet Union" medal.


No doubt, a bullshit Cold war propaganda is a very "reliable" source. But alas for you, Soviet units were to consist of more than 50% Slavs, since your Mongoloid brethren are good for nothing there in fighting ability and discipline.


Well, there were many Turkic soldiers also, especially in last years of WWII.

Those Red Army soldiers of Azerbaijani Turk origin who had guts to escape from captivity and fight in Partizan side are evidences of that, Turkic people among Red Army were the ones who had guts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehdi_Huseynzade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya_Jabrayilov


And you forgot about Africans and other sand nigers there in French and American armies:

...thousands of French Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian and Senegalese troops, attached to the French Expeditionary Corps, swarmed over the slopes of the hills surrounding Monte Cassino and in the villages of Ciociaria and Esperia, which is in the region of Lazio, raped every woman and girl that came within their sight. Over 2,000 women, ranging in age from 11 years to 86 years suffered at the hands of these gang-raping soldiers as village after village was entered. Menfolk who tried to protect their wives and daughters were murdered without mercy, around 800 of them died. Two sisters aged 15 and 18 were raped by dozens of soldiers each. One died from the abuse, the other was still in a mental hospital in 1997, 53 years after the event. Most of the dwellings in the villages were destroyed and everything of value was stolen. Later in the war, these same troops raped around 500 women in the Black Forrest town of Freudenstadt, on April 17, 1945, after its capture. In Stuttgart, colonial French troops, mostly African, but under the command of General Eisenhower, rounded up around 2,000 women and herded them into the underground subways to be raped. In one week more women were raped in Stuttgart than in the whole of France during the four year German occupation.
(see: members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/massacres_axis.html)


If you look at my posts about Azerbaijani Guerrillas, place of Turkic people in Red Army was rather detent.


He is Ukrainian

Probably a Khazar, Cuman or Golden Horde leftover than :) He looks Turanid as hell.


He is of Swedish, Jewish and Uralic ancestry.

You forget Chuvash(or maybe Keraşen/Christian Tatar) and Kalmyk.



It were Berest, Yegorov and Kantariya (Slavs) who raised that flag.

http://img11.nnm.ru/b/b/1/3/7/17eab394d23ad1d69f8a77ff9f2.jpg

Not really:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/soldier-reichstag-photo-dies


A Red Army soldier who appears in a historic photograph helping hoist a hammer-and-sickle flag over the Reichstag in Berlin in 1945 has died, aged 93.

Abdulkhakim Ismailov died of unspecified causes on Tuesday in his native village of Chagar-Otar.

Ismailov was one of the three Soviet soldiers seen in the iconic photograph, which was taken shortly after the fall of Berlin in May 1945. He stands beneath the man holding the flagpole.

The photo became an iconic image of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. It has often been compared to the 1945 Associated Press photograph of US soldiers raising the American flag on Iwo Jima. The Soviet photographer, Yevgeny Khaldei, said years later that the image was staged, and the flag was sewn from three tablecloths. as the original hammer-and-sickle flag flown from the Reichstag was shot down by German snipers.

After the war, Ismailov served as a chairman of a collective farm and a Communist party official. He is survived by four children and eight grandchildren.



He is from Caucasus.

Yes, and I said he was not Turkic. However, it is still ironic, a churka raised the Soviet Flag over Reichstag and many Russians boast with it :rolleyes:

[Jackson]

The shire reminds me of Yorkshire. Yorkshire Dales

Tolkien stated himself that he based the Shire on the pre-industrial west Midlands, where he was from. He grow up seeing it becoming industrialised, and the works of Saruman and the invading Mordor armies are equivalent to the spread of industrialisation, and the machine.

As far as i know.
-Shire = Rural England (specifically west Midlands, but could indeed be broader, i imagine pre-industrial Yorkshire was quite similar).
-Rohan = Anglo Saxons, but with horses. He hated the Normans and disliked the French - And probably the Rohirric peoples were his ideal of an Anglo-Saxon England that survived the Norman invasion - Due to their use of similar tactics (perhaps).
-Arnor - I'd agree probably is similar to the old western Roman empire. An old power that has collapsed, and a lot of people of Eriador would see it rebuilt again.
-Gondor = I'd agree it is probably Byzantium or the eastern Roman Empire.
- Dale = Again almost like a different branch of the Rohirric peoples. So i guess while Rohan was essentially West Germanic, Dale (and probably the Beornings too, who were of the same/similar stock) were probably North Germanic.
- Elves = I'd put the western/Eriador Elves equivalent to the Celtic fringe of Britain, and the Rhovanion elves similar to the Finnic peoples. He used both Welsh and Finnish (two languages that he loved, apart from OE) in creation of the Elvish languages. And Mirkwood, a thick ancient forest full of a mysterious Elvish people, sounds a bit like Finland to me. And of course looking at the rugged, coastal but milder terrain of Lindon and the Blue Mountains it seems more like western/northern Britain.
- Dwarves = There are some ideas that he based this on Jews or something similar, although i don't know. Anyway they seem sort of Norse, apart from that.

Don't know if this is correct, but this is just what i've heard from him and his family on a few documentaries, and also read elsewhere. Interesting stuff.

[Siberian Cold Breeze]

Death to the Orcs

What happens to Ex Orcs ?
Oh... No Bulgarians in the story? Not fair :mad:

[archangel]

i think we Turks would be Nazgul riders lol:)

[Insuperable]

And I always considered Mordor to be Central Asia or Mongolia.


Seems Mordor is Turkey:D
http://imageshack.us/a/img607/2186/googlemiddleearthcorrec.jpg

[Numenorean]

we Turks would be Numenoreans in middle earth i think you know:)

[Serpent Mist]

Many Turkic soldiers and officers in Soviet army were granted with "Hero of Soviet Union" medal.



Well, there were many Turkic soldiers also, especially in last years of WWII.

Those Red Army soldiers of Azerbaijani Turk origin who had guts to escape from captivity and fight in Partizan side are evidences of that, Turkic people among Red Army were the ones who had guts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehdi_Huseynzade

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadiyya_Jabrayilov



If you look at my posts about Azerbaijani Guerrillas, place of Turkic people in Red Army was rather detent.



Probably a Khazar, Cuman or Golden Horde leftover than :) He looks Turanid as hell.



You forget Chuvash(or maybe Keraşen/Christian Tatar) and Kalmyk.




Not really:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/soldier-reichstag-photo-dies






Yes, and I said he was not Turkic. However, it is still ironic, a churka raised the Soviet Flag over Reichstag and many Russians boast with it :rolleyes:

You know Abdulkhakim Ismailov is an ethnic Kumyk. He was born in the kumyk village of Chagar Otar in Khasavyurt.

[Serpent Mist]

Tolkien stated himself that he based the Shire on the pre-industrial west Midlands, where he was from. He grow up seeing it becoming industrialised, and the works of Saruman and the invading Mordor armies are equivalent to the spread of industrialisation, and the machine.


The Shire makes me think of the Welsh Marches, you can see how places like rural Worcestershire were an inspiration for him.
http://www.oldukphotos.com/graphics/England%20Photos/Worcestershire,%20Malvern,%20Worcestershire%20Beac on.jpg

[Jackson]

The Shire makes me think of the Welsh Marches, you can see how places like rural Worcestershire were an inspiration for him.
http://www.oldukphotos.com/graphics/England%20Photos/Worcestershire,%20Malvern,%20Worcestershire%20Beac on.jpg

Indeed. They were basically ruining his shire, i guess. That whole area especially now in the southern part of the Welsh Marches (some of the northern bits have been ruined) down through Wiltshire is an idyllic area of the country, from what i've seen. :)

[Teyrn]

we Turks would be Haradrim in middle earth i think you know:)

http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Haradrim

Or Easterlings.

The association with Elves and the Valar implies that the Numenoreans were stand-ins for Christian Western Europeans (Eru Iluvatar is the Christian God, which Tolkien himself confirmed), like their descendents in Arnor and Gondor.

[Scholarios]

:rotfl:

said the girl with the chinese girl avatar

[Siberian Cold Breeze]

said the girl with the chinese girl avatar

Chinese ? :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

That'a Mongolian baby, not Chinese

[Scholarios]

Chinese ? :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

That'a Mongolian baby, not Chinese

Northern Han and Mongolians are physically indistinguishable. She's also wearing Chinese旗袍 (chipao) So it's not that funny.

I bet I could never mistake you for a Chinese, right?:D

[Siberian Cold Breeze]

Northern Han and Mongolians are physically indistinguishable. She's also wearing Chinese旗袍 (chipao) So it's not that funny.

I bet I could never mistake you for a Chinese, right?:D

for you yes..same as ,I can't distinguish you guys either ..
..but thank you for late night laughter anyway :D


btw It is a "deel" A Mongol robe,not Chinese -_-

Gece gece benden mi göründüler sana ha?

[Styrian Mujo]

BUMP

[Rudel]

And I always considered Mordor to be Central Asia or Mongolia.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8SdPh-SpNHk/Tyaje2KK6lI/AAAAAAAANQg/CdCMGbuXO5U/s1600/Middle+Earth.jpg
I've always thought it was Germany. I guess every one has its own version.


-Rohan = Anglo Saxons, but with horses. He hated the Normans and disliked the French - And probably the Rohirric peoples were his ideal of an Anglo-Saxon England that survived the Norman invasion - Due to their use of similar tactics (perhaps).

Well, I have to throw my LotR tomes away now.

[gültekin]

i think we Turks would be Nazgul riders lol:)
agree :D :thumb001:
<img src="http://img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130702035635/poohadventures/images/5/59/Nazg%C3%BBl.jpg" width="500" height="300" >
Orcs and uruk-hai are infantry, its not possible they cant be ,Turks without Horses ? :picard2:

[MinervaItalica]

Minas Tirith should resemble the events in Vienna with the Turks but not its structure. San Marino is much more similar to Minas Tirith.

http://www.passioneperilvolo.it/Link%20immagini/704701_4947092645834_492037497_o.jpg