The Secret History of the Mongols (55/58)

Deutsch - Zweites Kapitel: Tschingis Chaans Jugend
English - Second Chapter: Genghis Khan's Youth

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The Secret History of the Mongols
The Secret History of the Mongols (Mongolian: Mongγol-un niγuca tobčiyan, Cyrillic script: Монголын нууц товчоо, Mongolyn nuuts tovchoo) is the oldest surviving Mongolian-language literary work. It was written for the Mongol royal family some time after Genghis Khan's death in AD 1227, by an anonymous author and probably originally in the Uyghur script, though the surviving texts all derive from transcriptions into Chinese characters dating from the end of the 14th century.
The Secret History is regarded as the single significant native Mongolian account of Genghis Khan. Linguistically, it provides the richest source of pre-classical Mongolian and Middle Mongolian. The Secret History is regarded as a piece of classic literature in both Mongolia and the rest of the world.

Content
Like many texts during the period, it contains elements of folklore and poetry, and is not really as factual as some historians would have wanted. It is also at times inconsistent. The work sets out with a rather mythical genealogy of Temüjin's family. The description of Temüjin's life begins with the kidnapping of his mother Hoelun by his father Yesügei. It then covers Temüjin's early life, the difficult times after the murder of his father, the many conflicts, wars, and plots before he gains the title of Genghis Khan in 1206. The later parts of the work deal with Genghis' and Ögödei's campaigns, and the text ends with Ögödei's reflections on what he did well and what he did wrong. Several passages of the Secret History appear in slightly different versions in the 17th century Mongolian chronicle Altan Tobchi.

Text from Wikipedia