Timur and the Paradox of Defining a State

In Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, one can hardly avoid the name of Timur. There’s Amir Timur Square, where the conqueror sits atop his steed on a pedestal, his hand raised toward the west in the kind of wave a ruler may give to their subjects huddled on the ground. Behind Timur, to the east, looms Hotel Uzbekistan with golden letters spelling the hotel’s (and the country’s) name perched atop its 17-story Soviet brutalist facade.

Just north of the square, a blue dome rises above marbled columns. Housing the Amir Timur museum, the facility opened in 1996 and attempts to chart the history of Timur, which the modern Uzbek state has claimed as a forefather.