Editing Great Game (section)

== The Great Game as a legend ==

=== Mythologized aspects of the Great Game ===
A. Vescovi argued that Kipling's use of the term was entirely fictional, "...because the Great Game as it is described in the novel never existed; it is almost entirely Kipling's invention. At the time when the story is set (i.e. in the late Eighties), Britain did not have an intelligence service, nor an Ethnographical Department; there was only a governmental task force called 'Survey of India' that was entrusted with the task of charting all India in response to a typically English anxiety of control."<ref name=vescovi2014/>

According to military history scholar Matt Salyer, the "Great Game" as a British strategy was a fiction, but the "Great Game" as a vague descriptor of various actions of multiple empires, "as far back as the Seven Years' War" is accurate. He writes that "the 'legend of the Great Game' emerged as a distinct historiographical lens after the Second World War." However, he says, "That does not mean that historians who describe trajectories of British Imperial statecraft in terms of 'the Great Game' are wrong."<ref>{{Cite web |last=Salyer |first=Matt |date=2019-10-29 |title=Going All in on the Great Game? The Curious and Problematic Choice of Kiplingesque Inspiration in US Military Doctrine |url=https://mwi.usma.edu/going-great-game-curious-problematic-choice-kiplingesque-inspiration-us-military-doctrine/ |access-date=2023-01-31 |website=Modern War Institute |language=en-US}}</ref>

Two authors, Gerald Morgan and [[Malcolm Yapp]], have proposed that The Great Game was a legend and that the British Raj did not have the capacity to conduct such an undertaking. An examination of the archives of the various departments of the Raj showed no evidence of a British intelligence network in Central Asia. At best, efforts to obtain information on Russian moves in Central Asia were rare, ''ad hoc'' adventures and at worst intrigues resembling the adventures in ''Kim'' were baseless rumours, and that such rumours "were always common currency in Central Asia and they applied as much to Russia as to Britain".{{sfn|Morgan|1973|pp=55–65}}{{sfn|Yapp|2000|pages=190}} After two British representatives were executed in Bukhara in 1842, Britain actively discouraged officers from traveling in Turkestan.{{sfn|Yapp|2000|pages=190}}

Gerald Morgan also proposed that Russia never had the will nor ability to move on India, nor India the capability to move on Central Asia. Russia did not want Afghanistan, considering their initial failure to take Khiva and the British debacle in the First Anglo-Afghan War. To invade Afghanistan they would first require a forward base in Khorasan, Persia. St. Petersburg had decided by then that a forward policy in the region had failed but one of non-intervention appeared to work.{{sfn|Morgan|1981|pp=213}}

Sneh Manajan wrote that the Russian military advances in Central Asia were advocated and executed only by irresponsible Russians or enthusiastic governors of the frontier provinces.{{sfn|Mahajan|2001|p=56}} Robert Middleton suggested that The Great Game was all a figment of the over-excited imaginations of a few jingoist politicians, military officers and journalists on both sides.<ref name=middleton2005/> The use of the term The Great Game to describe Anglo-Russian rivalry in Central Asia became common only after the Second World War. It was rarely used before that period.{{sfn|Yapp|2000|pages=187}} Malcolm Yapp proposed that some Britons had used the term "The Great Game" in the late 19th century to describe several different things in relation to its interests in Asia, but the primary concern of British authorities in India was the control of the indigenous population and not preventing a Russian invasion.{{sfn|Yapp|2000|pages=198}}

Robert Irwin argues the Great Game was certainly perceived by both British and Russian adventurers at the time, but was played up by more expansionist factions for power politics in Europe. Irwin states that "Prince [[Esper Ukhtomsky|Ukhtomsky]] might rail against the corrupting effects of British rule over India and declare that there could be no frontiers for the Russians in Asia, but Russian policy was usually decided by saner heads. Canny statesmen such as [[Sergei Witte|Witte]] sanctioned the despatch of diplomatic missions, explorers and spies into Afghanistan and Tibet, but they did so to extort concessions from the British in Europe. [[War Office|Whitehall]], on the other hand, was reluctant to have its foreign policy in Europe dictated to by the Raj."<ref name=":52"/>

According to historian Patrikeeff, the concept of the Great Game was also applied, possibly inaccurately, to Northeast Asia to describe Russia and Japan's contest over Manchuria – which took the form of the [[Russian invasion of Manchuria]], [[Russo-Japanese War]], and part of the [[Russian Civil War]] – and perhaps had similar ideological underpinnings to start with. However, unlike the British-Russian Great Game in South and West Asia, where clear-cut spheres of influence were established, Patrikeeff says that this supposed Great Game in Northeast Asia ignored that economic dominance did not follow political (with Japan's victory in Manchuria not fully ousting the Russian concessions such as the [[Chinese Eastern Railway|CER]]) and that centuries-old distinct traditions such as the Qing legacy there led to key differences.<ref name=":9" /> Nonetheless, ancient and even mythic appeals to legitimacy were used by exiled supporters of empire, such as [[Roman von Ungern-Sternberg|Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg]]'s attempt at reviving a 'new Mongolian khanate'.<ref name=":9" /><ref>{{Cite news |last=Goodwin |first=Jason |date=2009-02-20 |title=Mongolia and the Madman |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/books/review/Goodwin-t.html |access-date=2023-03-19 |issn=0362-4331 |quote=With its panoply of outlandish tyrants, fortune tellers, mounted tribesmen and wild dreams advanced against absurd odds, the whole story [of Roman von Ungern-Sternberg] could have possessed the makings of a glorious offshoot of the Great Game, had Ungern been anything more than a murderous sadist.}}</ref> Whereas the Great Game between Russia and Britain was codifying imperial spheres of influence at their frontiers, the supposed Great Game between Russia and Japan did not end up in a similarly defined frontier, with [[Warlord Era|warlord states]] and [[Honghuzi]] emerging through the period.<ref name=":9">{{Cite book |last=Patrikeeff |first=Felix |date=2002 |title=Russian Politics in Exile |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9780230535787 |pages=121–124 |doi=10.1057/9780230535787|isbn=978-1-349-40636-4 }}</ref>

=== Role of legends and mysticism in the Great Game ===
{{See also|label 1=''Red Shambhala''|Red Shambhala}}

Several scholars have focused on the role of legends and mysticism (sometimes interpreted as a form of [[Orientalism]] that was prominent in the late 19th and early 20th century), during the Great Game and in its aftermath.

Some writers such as [[Karl E. Meyer|Karl Meyer]] and [[Shareen Blair Brysac|Shareen Brysac]] have connected the Great Game to earlier and later expeditions in Inner Asia, predominantly those expeditions by British, Russian, and German orientalists. Robert Irwin summarizes the expeditions as "[[William Moorcroft (explorer)|William Moorcroft]], the horse doctor with a mission to find new stock for the cavalry in British India; [[Charles Metcalfe, 1st Baron Metcalfe|Charles Metcalfe]], the advocate of a forward policy on the frontier in the early 19th century; [[Alexander Burnes|Alexander 'Bokhara' Burnes]], the foolhardy political officer, who perished at the hands of an Afghan mob; [[William Hay Macnaghten|Sir William Hay Macnaghten]], the head of the ill-fated British Mission in Kabul (and a scholar who produced an important edition of ''The Arabian Nights''); [[Nikolay Przhevalsky|Nikolai Przhevalsky]], the explorer who gave his name to a hard-to-spell horse; [[Francis Younghusband]], the mystical imperialist; [[Aurel Stein]], the manuscript hunter; [[Sven Hedin]], the Nazi sympathiser who seems to have regarded Asian exploration as a proving ground for the superman; [[Nicholas Roerich]], the artist and barmy quester after the fabled hidden city of [[Shambhala]]."<ref name=":52"/><ref>{{Cite news|date=28 January 2009|title=Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia|journal=Foreign Affairs|language=en-US|url=https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2000-05-01/tournament-shadows-great-game-and-race-empire-central-asia|access-date=2021-09-01|issn=0015-7120|archive-date=1 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210901143909/https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2000-05-01/tournament-shadows-great-game-and-race-empire-central-asia|url-status=live}}</ref>

The founder of [[Theosophy]], esotericist [[Helena Blavatsky]], has also been connected to the Great Game,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Johnson |first=K. Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bMVrr1XaADwC |title=The Masters Revealed: Madame Blavatsky and the Myth of the Great White Lodge |date=1 January 1994 |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=978-0-7914-2063-8 |pages=XVIII, 244 |language=en}}</ref> with her Himalayas-inspired [[Western esotericism|Western mysticism]] both critiquing, and falling for, two forms of [[Orientalism]] by the British and Russian Empires, as they competed to define and claim "the Orient". Blavatsky would be referenced by the poet [[Velimir Khlebnikov]], who argued that Britain and Russia had both taken traits from the [[Khanate of Kazan|Kazan Khanate]] and [[Mongol Empire]] respectively, in their colonial struggle over Asia. Blavatsky would also refer to Russia's double-layered conception of itself as a European power in contrast to Asia as well as an empire based in Asia; meanwhile, she would also "consciously appropriate" British rhetoric on Russia in labelling herself a "Russian savage". Both Blavatsky and Khlebnikov claimed [[Kalmykia|Kalmyk]] ancestry in imitation of the traditionally nomadic culture. Scholar Anindita Banerjee argued this shows a "deconstruction" of national identities by identifying with a "religious, geographic, and ethnic other", relevant to the diversity of Central Asia and India and the frontier that existed between the British and Russian Empires.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=BANERJEE |first=ANINDITA |date=2011 |title=Liberation Theosophy: Discovering India and Orienting Russia between Velimir Khlebnikov and Helena Blavatsky |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41414133 |journal=PMLA |volume=126 |issue=3 |pages=610–624 |doi=10.1632/pmla.2011.126.3.610 |jstor=41414133 |s2cid=153982002 |issn=0030-8129 |access-date=27 April 2022 |archive-date=27 April 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220427074500/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41414133 |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[File:Tibet Himalayas.jpg|thumb|1933 painting by Russian explorer Nicholas Roerich, ''Tibet. Himalayas.'']]
[[File:Command of Rigden Djapo.jpg|thumb|1924 or 1927 painting by Russian explorer Nicholas Roerich, ''Command of Rigden Djapo'']]

According to the scholar Andrei Znamenski, Soviet Communists of the 1920s aimed to extend their influence over Mongolia and Tibet, using the mythical Buddhist kingdom of Shambhala as a form of propaganda to further this mission, in a sort of "great Bolshevik game".<ref name=":11">{{Cite book |last=Znamenski |first=Andrei |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6J6T2uz1KSoC |title=Red Shambhala: Magic, Prophecy, and Geopolitics in the Heart of Asia |date=1 July 2011 |publisher=Quest Books |isbn=978-0-8356-0891-6 |pages=19–20, 232–233 |language=en |quote=No less tragic was the fate of those romantic Bolsheviks who... rushed into Mongolia, western China, and farther to Tibet to build the Red Shambhala paradise by stirring indigenous prophecies and instigating lamas to revolution. [...] Agvan Dorzhiev, another player in the great Bolshevik game in Inner Asia, ended his Shambhala quest in a secret police prison morgue. By the 1930s, futile compromises with the Bolshevik regime morally broke down this former Dalai Lama ambassador to Russia. |access-date=3 May 2022 |archive-date=24 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124202719/https://books.google.com/books?id=6J6T2uz1KSoC |url-status=live }}</ref> The expedition of Russian [[Russian symbolism|symbolist]] [[Nicholas Roerich]] has been put in context of the Great Game due to his interest in Tibet,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Nikolaidou |first=Dimitra |date=15 September 2016 |title=Why the Soviets Sponsored a Doomed Expedition to a Hollow Earth Kingdom |url=http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-the-soviets-sponsored-a-doomed-expedition-to-a-hollow-earth-kingdom |access-date=2021-09-01 |website=Atlas Obscura |language=en |archive-date=20 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210820052717/https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/why-the-soviets-sponsored-a-doomed-expedition-to-a-hollow-earth-kingdom |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Andreyev |first=Alexandre |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TI6fAwAAQBAJ |title=The Myth of the Masters Revived: The Occult Lives of Nikolai and Elena Roerich |date=8 May 2014 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-27043-5 |pages=199 |language=en |access-date=3 May 2022 |archive-date=24 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124202715/https://books.google.com/books?id=TI6fAwAAQBAJ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=McIntosh |first=Christopher |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B5dmEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT76 |title=Occult Russia: Pagan, Esoteric, and Mystical Traditions |date=2022-12-27 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-64411-419-3 |language=en |chapter=The Great Game}}</ref> Although Roerich did not like the Communists, he agreed to help Soviet intelligence and influence operations due to a shared paranoia towards Britain, as well as his goal to form a "Sacred Union of the East"<ref name=":11" />{{Rp|pages=181–182}} [[Jan Morris]] states that "Roerich brought the bewilderments of the later Great Game to America" through [[Roerichism|mysticism movements]]<ref>{{Cite web |date=7 January 2001 |title=Observer review: Tournament of Shadows by Karl Meyer and Shareen Brysac |url=http://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jan/07/historybooks1 |access-date=2021-09-01 |website=The Guardian |language=en |archive-date=1 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210901143912/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/jan/07/historybooks1 |url-status=live }}</ref> called Roerichism.

In the early 1920s, Roerich asserted that beings from an [[Esoteric Buddhism|esoteric Buddhist]] community in India told him that Russia was destined for a mission on Earth. That led Roerich to formulate his "Great Plan," which envisaged the unification of millions of [[Asian peoples]] through a religious movement using the Future Buddha, or [[Maitreya]], into a "Second Union of the East." There, the King of Shambhala would, following the Maitreya prophecies, make his appearance to fight a great battle against all evil forces on Earth. Roerich understood that as "perfection towards Common Good." The new polity was to include southwestern [[Altai Krai|Altai]], [[Tuva]], [[Buryatia]], [[Outer Mongolia|Outer]] and [[Inner Mongolia]], Xinjiang and Tibet, with its capital in "Zvenigorod," the "City of Tolling Bells," which was to be built at the foot of [[Mount Belukha]], in Altai. According to Roerich, the same Mahatmas revealed to him in 1922 that he was an incarnation of the [[Fifth Dalai Lama]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Andreyev |first=Alexandre |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MqXnOBX4dREC |title=Soviet Russia and Tibet: The Debacle of Secret Diplomacy, 1918-1930s |date=2003 |publisher=Brill |isbn=9004129529 |page=294 |access-date=24 May 2022 |archive-date=24 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230124202721/https://books.google.com/books?id=MqXnOBX4dREC |url-status=live }}</ref>