Since the Middle Ages, the name of Genghis Khan has been associated in the West with the idea of the Apocalypse. In accordance with this negative representation, the women who contributed to the rise of his empire have long been described as sinister witches and warriors, indistinguishable from the men of their horde. However, studies carried out starting in the last century, thanks to the opening of Mongolia to the West and the rediscovery of new local sources, have led Western scholars to a profound revaluation of Genghis Khan, now seen as one of the makers of the modern world. This revaluation has also affected our view of Mongol princesses, who enjoyed a freedom and a consideration unknown to their sedentary neighbours. Wise and resilient, they took part like men in war, politics and trade, and could choose whether and with whom to marry.
WISE is a comparative literature project financed by the European Commission under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions and hosted in 2022-2024 by the research units THALIM Théorie et Histoire des Arts et des Littératures de la Modernité (CNRS-Paris 3-ENS) and GSRL Groupe Sociétés Religions Laïcités (CNRS-EPHE-PSL) at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University. It analyses the representation of Genghisid queens in American and Anglophone, Francophone and Italophone European literature and cinema. Its objectives are: a) to understand whether the new anthropological, archaeological, historical, and philological studies carried out by mongolists starting in the last century have triggered a change in the Western perception of Mongol female royalty; b) to Identify both elements of unity within the Western tradition and specificities related to the geographical provenance of the texts, to the author, the literary genre, and artistic form; c) to understand the possible cultural reasons for the metamorphosis of the images in question, especially its link with Western feminist claims; d) to explore the possibility of an Oriental influence, linked to the steppe culture, on the model of free, emancipated and combative women, prevalent in the West today.
