I’ve found a quiz on Facebook tited ‘What Horrible Monster of History Are You?’ and to my wonder result was Ivan IV Vasilyevich (Ivan the Terrible or Grozny), Russian Tsar of the XVI century. The epithet “Grozny” is associated with might, power and strictness, rather than poor performance, horror or cruelty. Today’s post is not about this medieval man though.

I asked my friends to take this quiz and the results were astonishing. Among the characters Facebook can define you are: Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (12 – 41 CE), Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester (1160 – 1218 CE), Lucrezia Borgia (1480 – 1519 CE) of Borgia dynasty of Valencia, Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great 356–323 BC); and — attention! — Amir Temur (1336 – 1405 CE).

I’m glad that even Facebook quiz authors know about Central Asia and its historical characters but what they wrote about Tamerlan is out of criticism. Judgement is upon you:

‘[...]Unfortunately, history has overlooked most of your contributions in this arena due to the seemingly endless of reserves of incredible brutality you meted out to those who opposed you. Legends of your deeds include:

* Creating a pyramid of 20,000 decapitated heads outside of Aleppo.
* Burning thousands of people alive in the Damascene Cathedral Mosque.
* Forcing the defenders of a town to leap to their deaths off of a cliff.
* Butchering the children of Epehesus whose singing (which was intended to placate you) annoyed you.

In addition to being astoundingly cruel, you were also a master strategist. You used information warfare to strike fear into your enemies long before your armies ever appeared, and planned out your campaigns with great forethought.

Despite this, you destroyed as much culture as you created, leveling centers of learning everywhere you went. Additionally, you did not deign to pay your troops, leaving them to rape and pillage anything they came across. Congratulations, you were a horrible monster.’

So, whom should people who take this quiz believe? Should they just follow one-sided information about him but what is mentioned in the results of this quiz? Whom do you believe?

I’m not a fan of Tamerlan’s policy and methods of rule, but I’m not for a stupid propaganda on popular (as well as on not popular) social networks neither.