The Timur Podcast

The Timur Podcast gives a whole series to a single life: Amir Timur, also known as Tamerlane. It is narrative history told in order and in the first person, by a host who addresses the listener as a companion on the journey. The titles show how far that journey runs. '15) The Desert Years - Part 1' reaches back to around 1363, when Timur likely fled into the Karakum, while the third season moves through 'S3Ep6: The Three Years Campaign Part 1: The Caucasus', 'S3Ep6: The Three Years Campaign Part 2: Isfahan and the Muzaffarids', 'S3Ep7: Disaster at Home', 'S3Ep8: Disaster at Home - Invasion' and 'S3Ep9: The Tokhtamysh-Timur War: The Battle of the Kondurcha River'. Politics sit right beside the battles. Tokhtamysh, a claimant to the Golden Horde throne who once took refuge at Timur's court, is followed from former ally and adopted son to enemy, joined by a rebellion in Khwarezmia and a raid from Moghulistan in ransacking Timur's homeland while he was away. The host calls Timur's invasion of the Golden Horde arguably his first real clash with a world power. When the Sarbadars come up, rival labels are laid out (proto-communists, robber barons, a heretical movement) before the host suggests that lumping them all into one category is probably unfair. Gaps in the record are admitted, too: on how one defeated rival's rebellion unraveled, the host concedes that not all the details are known. Geography gets the same patience. The Karakum is explained down to the black sand under its surface, the Caucasus earns a pause because its politics were confusing then and still are, and the Urgench on modern maps turns out to sit well away from the historical city. Comparison crosses centuries. A four-month march on which some soldiers lived on a bowl of broth a day, or on bird eggs and small rodents, is read from a source and then set beside Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia. Nothing about the violence is cleaned up. The second part of the Three Years Campaign describes a market in severed heads whose price fell until they were free, and the towers of heads raised around a burning city. The host calls this stretch of the story haunting and warns that the sackings are only getting started. That same episode closes on lines of poetry naming Hafez. The show is also open about how it gets made, thanking people who write in and describing a hope of turning a hobby into a part-time job through Patreon. Episodes tend to end by previewing Timur's next move, and one skips its introduction entirely to get back to a cliffhanger. The arcs are built to be heard in order; the host sends anyone starting on Part 2 of the Three Years Campaign back to Part 1, which makes that Caucasus episode a sensible way in.