Temüjin was proclaimed Genghis Khan in 1206 after unifying the Mongol tribes, launching campaigns that would create history's largest contiguous land empire. The Mongol Empire eventually stretched from Korea to Eastern Europe, facilitating unprecedented cross-cultural contact along secured trade routes. Mongol rule brought devastation to some regions while enabling exchange of goods, ideas, and technologies across Eurasia.

Mongol conquests disrupted traditional patronage systems for poets across Asia while creating new cosmopolitan courts where Persian, Chinese, and Turkic literary traditions interacted. The Pax Mongolica enabled travel and cultural exchange that influenced poets from Rashid al-Din to Marco Polo's contemporaries. Destruction of libraries and cities caused irreparable losses to literary heritage, yet the empire's connectivity also spread poetic forms and themes across previously isolated regions, enriching Eurasian literary landscapes.