Month: December 2020

FALL OF A KINGDOM aka The Rising Hawk

Here is another historical warrior film being made out of the Ukraine that takes on the invasion of Mongols into the Carpathian Mountains region during the 13th century. As I said in an earlier post I’m excited to see more films that are highlighting Steppe cultures and their role in the historical narrative, and in this case the massive impact the Mongols had in eastern Europe.

This film from Kings and Generals fills in some of the details about Subutai, Genghis Khan’s General who first attacked the areas depicted in the film above, and the expansion of the Mongols into Eastern Europe. These expansion seem to have come with both military success and failures, but ultimate resulted in the subjugation of much of the western Russian lands under the Golden Horde.

THE LEGEND OF TOMIRIS

The potential of this film brings me excitement for multiple reasons. One, I’ve recently found myself drawn more and more to learning about the many cultures and histories that make up Steppe of central Eurasia, and the extensive influence they exerted on their neighbors. Two, anyone that attempts to cover stories from ancient time periods are good by me, and I’m intrigued to see how they’ve done in recasting this story in all its glory. And three, any time we can showcase powerful women warriors, like Tomiris, it helps balance out the scales of what seems to be an extremely male dominated narrative. Hope the film lives up to my expectations.

The Legend of El Cid

I’m not sure what the production will be like on this film but I’m intrigued to see the cinematic reimagining of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar who is consider Spain’s national hero. And maybe this film will prompt me to examine more of the unique medieval history of Spain and it’s complex mixtures of religion and culture.

Any here is a little bit of historical knowledge from Kings and Generals to give this coming show some context and to compare with their production.

VIKINGS FINAL SEASON

Oooooh the conclusion is finally here. And while I’m bummed that an era of this historical fiction is coming to a close, I’m nevertheless excited to see the explosive end. I’ve been recently listening to The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan, and he describes in several of his chapters the formation of Rus cities to tap into the vital trade routes and cultures in the east, and how it was more influential in Viking culture than the western expansion covered mostly in this show. I’m glad they tied this in at the end and hope to see more material covering the importance of eastern cultures on European societies.

Historical Doc Series Part I

I was recently surprised to find a wealth of historical and archaeological Youtube accounts that fit nicely with much of the material I’ve been covering in this blog. I’m going to select a video from each of the videographers that I’ve been appreciating so that their is a link to their channel and the insightful topics they cover. Hope you in enjoy them as well. And Thank you Stefan Milo for being the first in the series to inspire this collection…..you can find his channel here https://www.youtube.com/c/StefanMilo/videos