<div><i>Tamburlaine the Great</i> achieved, and sustained, great success on the Elizabethan stage. And it speaks provocatively to our own time, when it has been the subject of numerous major productions. Timur Khan--to give Tamburlaine his original name--was long perceived in the West as a ruthless conqueror, whose career was marked by vindictive massacres, the sacking of enemy cities and the assertion of egotistic will. In this light, his career connects with twentieth-century experience of genocide, ideological justifications of brutality and conflicts of rival religions' faiths. It is significant that the 1990s--four centuries on from Marlowe's play--have seen the development in Uzbekistan, of a vindication of Timur, perceived as a heroic and admirable figure in this state newly "liberated" from the Soviet hegemony.<br></div>