This book was started on December 5, 1935. Since then it has been revised and expanded several times. However, it did not exhaust the entire abundance of material and did not illuminate all the problems associated with the history of the ancient Turks. Therefore, continued research is not only desirable, but also necessary.
For the rest of my life I will preserve the memory of those who helped me complete this work and who are no longer among us for a long time - about my wonderful predecessor G. E. Grumm-Grzhimailo, about my mentors N. V. Kuner, A. Yu. Yakubovsky and Academician V.V. Struve.
I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to my teacher M. I. Artamonov, professors S. L. Tikhvinsky and S. V. Kalesnik, who recommended the book for publication, and my friends L. A. Voznesensky, D. E. Alshibaya.
I also thank all my reviewers for advice and criticism: I. P. Petrushevsky, V. V. Mavrodin, M. A. Gukovsky, A. P. Okladnikov, M. V. Vorobyov, A. F. Anisimov, B. I Kuznetsova, S. I. Rudenko, T. A. Kryukov. And finally, I thank our common alma mater - Leningrad University, where I learned the high craft of a historian.
The Xianbeans were treated even more harshly in Northeast China. In 550, Gao Huan's heir, Gao Yang, forced the last emperor to abdicate in his favor and poisoned him. The imperial relatives, numbering 721 people, were killed and their bodies thrown into the water to deprive them of burial. The new dynasty was called Bei Qi.
Both northern kingdoms were quite strong economically and politically. The Chinese population, freed from the domination of foreigners, developed vigorous activity to restore their culture. However, the rivalry that arose between Bei-Zhou and Bei-Qi tied up their forces and deprived them of the opportunity to conduct active politics.
In the south, the last emperors of the Liang dynasty marked their reign with arbitrariness and crime, and the Chen dynasty that succeeded them continued these traditions. The palace coup of 557 and the execution of the last Liang emperor provoked armed resistance from supporters of the fallen dynasty. The rebels managed to repel the Chen troops and create the small state of Hou-Liang in the center of China.
China found itself fragmented into four mutually warring states. The tense situation that fettered the forces of China turned out to be salutary for two small and relatively weak nomadic powers: the Rouran horde and the kingdom of Togon (Tu-yu-hun). Thanks to the easing of pressure from the south, they found themselves among the leading states of East Asia. Rouran, a steppe khanate that formed in the middle of the 4th century, at the beginning of the 6th century. survived a crisis that almost killed him.
But more on that later.
The kingdom of Togon lay in the steppe highlands of Tsaidam. Back in 312, a small Xianbei tribe with princes from the Muyun clan migrated from Southern Manchuria to the west and settled near Lake. Kukunor. Here it waged successful wars against scattered Tibetan clans and very unsuccessful ones against the Tobas. As a result of the latter, Togon became a vassal of the Wei Empire, but its collapse returned freedom to the Togons. In the second quarter of the 6th century. Prince Kualyu declared himself khan and in 540 sent an embassy to Gao Huan, thereby becoming an enemy of Yuvin Tai. This fact determined Togon’s further foreign policy, which we will encounter below. Despite the fact that Togon occupied a vast territory, where there were “cities” (apparently fortified villages), and had an already organized government, apparently borrowed from the Tobasans, it was not a strong state. Tibetan clans, conquered by arms, dreamed of liberation and revenge; the economy was built on extensive pastoralism; the level of culture was low, and the arbitrariness of the khans caused constant conspiracies, betrayals and repressions, which added fuel to the fire. All these circumstances limited Togon's capabilities and later led him to an inglorious end.
Rourans and Teleuts
The question of the origin of the Rouran people has been raised several times, but has not received a final solution. One might think that the very formulation of the question here is incorrect, because we must talk not about origin, but about addition. The Rourans as a people did not have a single ethnic root. The origins of the Rouran people were somewhat peculiar. In troubled times there have always been many people unsaddled and compromised. There were quite a few of these in the middle of the 4th century. Everyone who could not stay at the headquarters of the Tobas Khan or in the capital of the Xiongnu Shanyu fled to the steppe. Slaves fled there from cruel masters, deserters from armies, and impoverished peasants from impoverished villages. What they had in common was not origin, not language, not religion, but fate, which doomed them to a miserable existence; and she imperiously forced them to organize.
In the 50s of the 4th century. a certain Yugyulyu, a former slave who served in the Xianbei cavalry, was sentenced to death. He managed to escape to the mountains, and about a hundred fugitives like him gathered around him. The fugitives found an opportunity to come to an agreement with neighboring nomads and lived together with them.
Yugulyuy's successor, Gyulyukhoy, established relations with the Tobas khans and paid them an annual tribute in horses, sables and martens. His horde was named Rouran. The Rourans roamed throughout Khalkha to Khingan, and their khan’s headquarters were located near Khangai. The life and organization of the Rourans were both very primitive and extremely far from the clan system. A regiment of a thousand people was considered a unit, combat and administrative. The regiment was subordinate to a leader appointed by the khan. The regiment had ten banners of one hundred people each; each banner had its own commander. The Rourans had no written language at all; Sheep droppings or wooden tags with serifs were used as counting instruments. The laws corresponded to the needs of war and robbery: the brave were rewarded with a larger share of the spoils, and cowards were beaten with sticks. Over the 200 years of existence, no progress was noticeable in the Rouran horde - all their strength was spent on robbing their neighbors.
What language did the Rourans speak among themselves? Chinese sources give us very contradictory data. "Weishu" sees the Donghu branch in the Rourans. "Songshu", "Liangshu" and "Nanshu" consider them a tribe related to the Huns, and finally, Bei shi (?) attributes Gaogyu origin to Yugyul. The information of southern Chinese historians was obtained second-hand, and the origin of Yugyulyu himself does not matter, since it is clear that it was not his fellow tribesmen who gathered around him. Most likely, the Rourans spoke in Xianbei, i.e., in one of the dialects of the Mongolian language, since, translating the titles of their khans into Chinese, the Chinese historian indicates how they sound in the half-ruble - “in the language of the state of Wei,” i.e. e. in Xianbei. The Rourans themselves also considered themselves to be of the same origin as the Toba [ibid., p. 226], but, given the diversity of their people, one must think that the reason for such a statement was given by the similarity of their languages, and not by a vague genealogy.
The main strength of the Rouran Khanate was the ability to keep the Tele tribes in subjection. At the dawn of its history, i.e. in the 3rd century. before i. e., the Telesians lived in the steppe west of Ordos. In 338 they submitted to the Tobas Khan and at the end of the 4th century. migrated north, to Dzungaria, and spread throughout Western Mongolia, right up to Selenga. Being scattered, they could not resist the Rourans and were forced to pay them tribute.
The Tele tribes were very necessary for the Rourans, but the Teles did not need the Rouran horde at all. The Rourans were formed from those people who avoided exhausting labor; their children preferred to generally replace labor with the extraction of tribute.
The Telesians were engaged in cattle breeding; they wanted to graze their cattle and not pay anything to anyone.
In accordance with these inclinations, the political systems of both peoples developed: the Rourans merged into a horde in order to live at the expense of their neighbors with the help of military power; the body remained a loosely bound confederation of tribes, but defended their independence with all their might.
The Teles lived next to the Rourans, but were in no way like them. They left the Xiongnu empire early, retaining the primitive patriarchal system and nomadic life. Sinicization also did not affect the humble nomads who inhabited the remote steppes, where there was nothing attractive for the Chinese. The bodies did not have a general organization; each of the 12 clans was ruled by an elder - the head of the clan, and “relatives live in harmony.”
The Teles roamed the steppe, moving on carts with high wheels; they were warlike, freedom-loving and not inclined to any kind of organization. Their self-name was “tele”; it still lives in the Altai ethnonym – Teleut. The descendants of the Tele are the Yakuts, Telengits, Uighurs, etc. Many of them have not survived to this day.
Rouran Khanate
At the beginning of the 5th century. In the steppe from Khingan to Altai, the Rouran Khan Shelun, nicknamed Deudai - “shooting an arrow at a gallop,” reigned supreme. Having conquered the Telesky nomads, he encountered the Central Asian Huns who settled on the river. Or. Their head was a certain Zhibaegi. In a stubborn battle on the river. Ongin Zhibaegi defeated Shelun, but could not cope with the Rouran power as a whole and “bought peace for himself by submission” [ibid., p. 249].
Shelun's main task was to prevent the strengthening of the Toba-Wei empire, whose forces were far superior to those of the Rouran Khan. Only constant wars in the south of China prevented the Toba-Wei emperor from dealing with his abandoned subjects, and therefore Shelun supported all of Toba’s enemies. In 410 Shelun died and his brother Khulyu became khan.
Khulyu left Toba alone and turned to the north, where he subjugated the Yenisei Kyrgyz (Iegu) and Hewei (some kind of Siberian tribe). In 414, he fell victim to a conspiracy, but the leader of the conspirators, Buluchen, also died in the same year. Shelun's cousin, Datan, became Khan. The beginning of his reign was marked by a war with China, but the Rouran raid was ineffective, as was the punitive expedition sent after them. The situation remained unchanged.
In 418–419 The war resumed between the Rourans and the Central Asian Huns and Yuezhi. The Rourans penetrated into Tarbagatai and instilled such fear in everyone there that the leader of the Yuezhi group, Tsidolo (Kidara), wanting to get away from the neighborhood with the Rourans, moved south and occupied the city of Bolo in the Karshi oasis. Here he encountered the Persians and Hephthalites. Kidara's comrades - the Kidarites - are known in history not by their ethnic name, but by the name of their leader.
Lev Gumilev
I dedicate this book to our brothers - the Turkic peoples of the Soviet Union.
This book was started on December 5, 1935. Since then it has been revised and expanded several times. However, it did not exhaust the entire abundance of material and did not illuminate all the problems associated with the history of the ancient Turks. Therefore, continued research is not only desirable, but also necessary.
For the rest of my life I will preserve the memory of those who helped me complete this work and who are no longer among us, about my wonderful predecessor, my friend G. E. Grumm-Grzhimailo, who glorified the history of the peoples of Central Asia and died awaiting recognition, about my mentors N.V. Kuier, A.Yu. Yakubovsky and academician V.V. Struve, who helped me during the difficult camp years.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to express my gratitude to my teacher M. I. Artamonov, professors S. L. Tikhvinsky and S. V. Kalesnik, who recommended the book for publication, my friends L. A. Voznesensky, D. E. Alshibaya, who measured together with I was imprisoned in the camps of Norilsk and Karaganda.
I also thank all my reviewers for advice and criticism: I. P. Petrushevsky, V. V. Mavrodin, M. A. Gukovsky, A. P. Okladnikov, M. V. Vorobyov, A. F. Anisimov, B. I Kuznetsova, S. I. Rudenko, T. A. Kryukov. And finally, I thank our common alma mater, Leningrad University, where I learned the high craft of a historian.
INTRODUCTION
Theme and its meaning. The history of mankind has been studied extremely unevenly. While the sequence of events and changes in social formations in Europe and the Middle East was outlined in publicly available summary works already at the end of the 19th century, and India and China were described at the beginning of the 20th century, the vast territory of the Eurasian steppe is still waiting for its explorer. This is especially true of the period before the appearance of Genghis Khan on the historical arena, when two wonderful peoples formed and died in the Central Asian steppe - the Huns and the ancient Turks, as well as many others who did not have time to glorify their names.
It would be a mistake to assume that they all just repeat each other, although their method of production - nomadic cattle breeding - is indeed the most stable form of economy, almost impossible to improve. But the forms of life, institutions, politics and place in world history among the Huns and ancient Turks are completely different, just as their destinies were different.
Against the background of world history, the history of the ancient Turkic people and the power they created comes down to the question: why did the Turks arise and why did they disappear, leaving their name as a legacy to many peoples who are by no means their descendants? Attempts to solve this problem by analyzing only political history or only social relations have been made repeatedly, but have not yielded results. The ancient Turks, despite their enormous importance in the history of mankind, were small in number, and the close proximity to China and Iran could not but affect their internal affairs. Consequently, the social and political history of these countries is closely intertwined, and in order to reconstruct the course of events we must keep both in sight. An equally important role was played by changes in the economic situation, in particular those associated with the high or low level of export of Chinese goods and the protective measures of the Iranian government.
Since the borders of the Turkic Khaganate at the end of the 6th century. closed in the west with Byzantium, in the south with Persia and even India, and in the east with China, it is natural that the vicissitudes of the history of these countries in the period we are considering are connected with the fate of the Turkic power. Its formation was to some extent a turning point in the history of mankind, because until now the Mediterranean and Far Eastern cultures were separated, although they knew about each other’s existence. Endless steppes and mountain ranges prevented relations between East and West. Only the later invention of metal stirrups and pack harnesses, which replaced carts, allowed caravans to cross deserts and passes with relative ease. Therefore, from the 6th century. the Chinese had to reckon with prices on the Constantinople market, and the Byzantines had to count the number of spearmen of the Chinese king.
In this situation, the Turks not only played the role of mediators, but also simultaneously developed their own culture, which they considered possible to contrast with the culture of China, and Iran, and Byzantium, and India. This special steppe culture had ancient traditions and deep roots, but is known to us to a much lesser extent than the culture of sedentary countries. The reason, of course, is not that the Turks and other nomadic tribes were less gifted than their neighbors, but that the remains of their material culture - felt, leather, wood and furs - are preserved worse than stone, and therefore among Western Europeans Scientists have a misconception that the nomads were “drones of humanity” (Viollet de Duc). Nowadays, archaeological work carried out in southern Siberia, Mongolia and Central Asia annually refute this opinion, and soon the time will come when we can talk about the art of the ancient Turks. But even more than material culture, the researcher is struck by the complex forms of social life and social institutions of the Turks: el, appanage-ladder system, hierarchy of ranks, military discipline, diplomacy, as well as the presence of a clearly developed worldview, contrasted with the ideological systems of neighboring countries.
Despite all that has been said, the path that ancient Turkic society embarked on was disastrous, since the contradictions that arose in the steppe and on its borders turned out to be insurmountable. At critical moments, the overwhelming majority of the steppe population refused to support the khans, and this led in 604 to the disintegration of the Kaganate into Western and Eastern, in 630 and 659. - to the loss of independence (though returned in 679) and to the death of the people in 745. Of course, this death of the people did not yet mean the destruction of all the people who made it up. Some of them submitted to the Uighurs, who inherited power in the steppe, and the majority took refuge in the Chinese border troops. In 756, these latter rebelled against the emperor of the Tang dynasty. The remnants of the Turks took an active part in it and, together with other rebels, were chopped into pieces. This was already the true end of both the people and the era (and, consequently, our topic).
However, the name “Turk” did not disappear. Moreover, it has spread to half of Asia. The Arabs began to call all warlike nomads north of Sogdiana Turks, and they accepted this name, because the original bearers of it, after disappearing from the face of the earth, became a model of valor and heroism for the steppe inhabitants. Subsequently, this term was transformed once again and became the name of the language family. This is how many peoples who were never part of the great Khaganate of the 6th–7th centuries became “Turks.” Some of them were not even Mongoloids, such as the Turkmens, Ottomans, and Azerbaijanis. Others were the worst enemies of the Kaganate: the Kurykans - the ancestors of the Yakuts and the Kyrgyz - the ancestors of the Khakass. Still others formed earlier than the ancient Turks themselves, for example the Balkars and Chuvashs. But even the widespread linguistic interpretation that is now given to the term “Turk” has a certain basis: the ancient Turks most vividly implemented those principles of steppe culture that matured back in the Xiongnu era and were in a state of suspended animation in the timelessness of the 3rd–5th centuries .
So, the significance of the ancient Turks in the history of mankind was enormous, but the history of this people has not yet been written. It was presented incidentally and briefly, which made it possible to avoid difficulties of a source study, onomastic, ethnonymic and toponymic nature. These difficulties are so great that this work does not pretend to construct definitions. The author only hopes that it will serve as a step towards solving the problem. The book is conceived as an experience in combining methods of historical analysis and synthesis. Individual phenomena in the history of the ancient Turks and the peoples associated with them or preceding them were subjected to analysis. This also includes criticism of sources and problems of onomastics and ethnogenesis. The synthesis is the understanding of the history of the Turkuts, Blue Turks and Uyghurs as a single process that has formed a certain integrity in the aspect of periodization, as well as applying the described phenomenon to the outline of world history.
PART ONE. GREAT TURKIC KHANATE
Chapter I. THE EVE (420–546)
Changes on the Yellow River. The Great Migration of Peoples in Europe, which broke in the 5th century. decrepit Rome, in East Asia happened 100 years earlier. During the time known in Chinese history as the “era of the five barbarian tribes” (304–399), Northern China was captured and conquered by the Huns and Xianbeans, who founded a number of ephemeral states there, similar to the barbarian kingdoms of the Goths, Burgundians and Vandals. Just as the Eastern Roman Empire survived in Europe on the Balkan Peninsula, so in China, on the banks of the great Yangtze River, the independent Chinese Empire, the heir to the Han Empire, survived. It was as similar to its great predecessor as early Byzantium was to Rome in its heyday, and it also found strength only for defense against the barbarians attacking from the north and west. Weak and incompetent emperors of frequently changing dynasties left the Chinese population of the “Middle Plain” as a sacrifice to the barbarian leaders, as the Yellow River Valley was called at that time, and yet, despite the cruel oppression of foreigners and bloodshed during constant internecine wars, the Chinese in Northern China numerically prevailed over the peoples who defeated them, which led to the 6th century. rebirth of China.
Descendants of the gray wolf
In 552, a huge nomadic empire was born in Central Asia - the First Turkic Khaganate. The vast expanses of Siberia - the Altai and Minusy valleys, the Priobskoe plateau, the remote southern taiga, along with the entire population - did not remain aloof from its bloody history. Twenty years were enough for the Turkic state to become the most influential Eurasian power with borders stretching from the banks of the Yellow River in the east to the North Caucasus and the Kerch Strait in the west. Its ruler, Khagan Istemi, established equal political and trade relations with the “rulers of the world” of that time - Byzantium, Sasanian Iran and the North Chinese kingdoms. Northern Qi and Northern Zhou actually became tributaries of the Kaganate. The core of the new legislator of world destinies was the “Turk” - a people who formed in the depths of the Altai mountains.
According to legend, the ancient Turks descend from a boy - a descendant of “a separate branch of the House of the Xiongnu.” When all his relatives were killed by warriors from a neighboring tribe, the enemy threw the boy with his arms and legs cut off to die in a swamp. Here the cripple was found and fed by a she-wolf. One of the children of the grown boy and the she-wolf was Ashina - “a man with great abilities.” His descendant Asyan-shad moved to Altai. In the new place, the newcomers mixed with the local population and formed a new people - the Turks, whose ruling family was Ashina. A descendant of Asyan-shad Bumyn (in another transcription, Tumin) founded the First Turkic Khaganate.
According to another legend, the ancestors of the Turks come from the So tribe, which once lived to the north of the Xiongnu. Its head Apanbu had 70 brothers (according to another version - 17). The eldest of them, Nishidu (or Ijinishidu), was born from a she-wolf and had outstanding abilities. There were also wives to match him - the daughter of summer and the daughter of winter. The daughter of summer bore him four sons, and one of them, Nodulu-shad, who took the name Turk, ruled in the Basychusishi mountains. Nodulu had 10 wives, and his son Ashina was from the youngest of them. After the death of the father, the son who jumped the highest on the tree was supposed to inherit his power. Ashina managed to do this. Having become a leader, he took the name Asyan-shad.
The entire history of the Kaganate is full of wars and civil strife. Its territory was too large and its population too heterogeneous for the state to stand firmly on its feet. The Kaganate faced the fate of all the empires of antiquity, created by force of arms and not welded together by a common economic life, empires that, starting with the power of Alexander the Great, briefly outlived their creators. In 581, the great power fell apart into two warring and unstable associations - the Western (centered in Semirechye) and Eastern (centered in Mongolia) Turkic Khaganates. The latter quickly fell into decline and in 630 fell under the blows of the army of the Chinese Tang Empire. The Western Turkic Kaganate retained its dominance in Central Asia for another 20 years; in 651, its main forces were defeated by Chinese troops. True, peace on the borders of the “Celestial Empire” did not last long. An endless series of unrest and uprisings led, forty years later, to the emergence of another powerful state formation - the Second Turkic Khaganate, led by the ruler Ilteres, all from the same Ashina family. Soon the Kaganate extended its power to the lands of Transbaikalia, Semirechye, and Manchuria. The territories of Altai and Tyva now constituted only its northern outskirts.
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Rice. 1. River valley Katun is a high road of nomadic civilizations. Rice. 2. Turkic woman. Once upon a time, such stone sculptures of mustachioed men with a vessel in their hands adorned the mountain steppes of Altai, Tyva, Mongolia and Semirechye. As a rule, their waists are covered with belts with weapons suspended from them. They were placed near small stone fences. Often near them there were chains of vertically dug stones - balbals. It is believed that these sculptures are images of the patron ancestors of the Turkic people. Stone women, deer stones and bronze-faced idols of the West Siberian taiga have one thing in common. All these images were supposed to have weapons: carved on stone - among the steppe nomads, and real ones - among the taiga inhabitants. In Turkic sculptures, the left hand is pressed to the belt - a sign of respect common among many peoples of Siberia and Central Asia. The sculpture seems to transmit or receive the vessel. It is not yet clear what this vessel is filled with. Perhaps a sacred drink similar to what was placed in front of the statue. Size 150x45x20 centimeters. VII-IX centuries Left bank of the river Aktru, Gorny Altai. MA IAET SB RAS. |
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Fig.3. All heavily armed Turkic warriors had several bows and quivers with arrows for long-range combat, long spears for attacking in close formation, swords, broadswords, sabers and axes for close combat, and lassos. combat knives and heavy whips that served as auxiliary weapons. Horses and riders were protected by various types of brightly colored armor, knitted either from individual metal or leather plates connected with belts, or from solid leather ribbons. |
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Rice. 4. Lattice frame of the Xiongnu period, the predecessor of a hard saddle. I century BC e. - I century n. e. Noin-Ula burial ground, Mongolia. Rice. 5, a-c. Scythian saddle (early Iron Age). Carved medallions on the ends of the saddle (a), wooden arches (b), quilted pillows that formed the basis of the saddle (c). The pillows were covered with felt, decorated with animal-style appliqués. Pazyryk tract. Mountain Altai. Saint Petersburg. Hermitage Museum. Rice. 6, a-c. Wide flat shelves (a) lie on the sides of the horse and are “sandwiched” between high vertical bows (b). Under these bows there are end inserts (c). IV-VI centuries Reconstruction based on materials from Southeast Asia |
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Rice. 7, a-d. The ancient Turks made the back bows of their saddles inclined and sometimes decorated them with horn overlays. Such decorative elements could cover both bows or only one of them: a, d - a horn composite overlay on the rear pommel of the saddle. VII-VIII centuries Cemetery Verkh-Kaldzhin. Mountain Altai. Excavations by V.I. Molodin. MA IAET SB RAS; b - reconstruction of the saddle frame based on materials from the Verkh-Kaldzhin monument. VII-VIII centuries Mountain Altai. Excavations by V.I. Molodin. MA IAET SB RAS; c - horn plate on the front pommel of the saddle with a hunting scene. VI-VII centuries Kuderge burial ground, Altai Mountains. According to A. A. Gavrilova. Saint Petersburg. Hermitage Museum. |
The state reached its greatest prosperity during the reign of Bilge Kagan (716-734). The Turks defeated first the Chinese allies, and then China, which after that was forced to agree to peace with the mighty winner and pay him tribute, but after Bilge’s death, a struggle for the throne began among his heirs. In 744, the last ruler of the Ozmish Khaganate was killed, and the Second Turkic Khaganate ceased to exist. In its place arose the Uyghur Khaganate (745-840).
But, having suffered defeat, the Turks did not disappear from the historical arena. Part of the population of the Altai Mountains, its steppe foothills and Central Kazakhstan migrated north to the Western Siberian forest-steppes (Ob-Irtysh interfluve, Priobye), where they contributed to the formation of the Srostkin culture and significantly influenced the development of the local Upper Ob, Relkin, Ust-Ishim cultures . Others, along with the Yenisei Kyrgyz, participated in a grueling war with the Uyghurs (820-840), which ended with the destruction of the Uyghur capital, the city of Ordubalyk on the Orkhon River. The new, already Kyrgyz, Kaganate included Altai with its foothills and lands in the west almost to the Irtysh region. In the middle of the 10th century, under the blows of the Mongol-speaking Khitans, the Yenisei Kyrgyz left the territory of Mongolia, retaining their possessions only in Southern Siberia - on the lands of the Altai Mountains, Tyva and the Minusinsk Basin. The last mention of the ancient Turks in Chinese dynastic chronicles dates back to approximately the same time.
Khitan (China) - Mongol-speaking tribes of hunters and herders who roamed the territory of the modern southeastern part of Inner Mongolia. Known from Chinese chronicles since the 4th century. They constantly fought with neighboring tribes, the Turks, and China. In the 6th-7th centuries, the consolidation of the Khitan tribes led to the creation of a state formation - a union of tribes with an elected ruler at its head. In the 10th century, the Khitans formed an empire. Immigrants from China are involved in streamlining the state apparatus, cities, fortresses, roads are being built, crafts and trade are being developed. In 947, a new calendar was introduced, and the state received the name Great Liao. The Khitan developed history, literature, medicine, architecture, arts, poetry, and writing. With the spread of Buddhism, printing (woodblock printing) appeared. The Khitan Empire, after a series of victorious wars, spread over the territory from the shores of the Sea of Japan to East Turkestan and from the Yellow Sea to Transbaikalia and was the most powerful in East Asia. Song China, having lost the war, paid her an annual tribute. From the end of the 11th century, the decline of the Khitan empire began. In 1120, the Tungus-speaking Jurchen tribes destroyed the Liao state. Some of the Khitans went west to Central Asia.
The influence of the Turks on the historical destinies and material culture of the peoples of Siberia and Central Asia was so great that archaeologists often simply call the period of domination of the First and Second Turkic Khaganates simply “Turkic time.” At this time, a number of discoveries of nomadic culture spread across the lands of settled populations from East Asia to Europe, and, in turn, a considerable number of achievements of the agricultural population became the property of the nomads. During the era of the First Turkic Khaganate, runic writing was created, new types of horse harness, clothing, and weapons appeared.
The largest event in the history of technology, which largely determined the appearance of the era, was the invention of a rigid frame saddle and stirrups. The combat capabilities of horsemen sharply expanded, and the striking power of heavy cavalry increased. Sitting in strong saddles with a rigid frame and resting their feet on the stirrup footrests, riders gained extraordinary freedom of movement, which immediately led to the creation of new types of weapons. This could not but affect the tactics of combat.
The saddles of the Scythian period were two pillows stuffed with wool and hair, connected above the horse's spine by a leather bridge. Along the edges facing the horse's neck and croup, they thickened and were decorated with thin arches and paired carved plates made of wood or horn. Such a saddle was attached to the back of the animal using a girth, chest and undertail straps. Such a device only slightly reduced the pressure of the weight of the rider and his equipment on the horse’s back. In addition, the soft saddle did not provide the rider with support during an oncoming impact.
At the turn of the era (1st century BC - 1st century AD), rigid frames appeared, consisting of two narrow arcs, which were connected to each other by several slats. The opinions of experts expressed regarding the purpose of these lattice frames differ. According to one belief, the structure was the supporting part of pack saddles; according to another, wooden crossbars ran inside leather cushions, forming the base of a soft saddle. In any case, such a frame can be called a direct forerunner of a hard saddle.
At the next stage of its creation, the place of the pillows was taken by two boards located on the sides of the horse. They were fastened at the ends with wide arched bows, which, it is believed, “grew” from the decorative wooden overlays of Scythian saddles. The bows rested on the horse's back. In order not to interfere with her movements, they tried to make the distance between them minimal. Such a saddle literally pinched the rider, gave him strong support and even protected him from a spear strike. Similar devices for riders are well known from materials from Korea and Japan of the 4th-6th centuries, where they were probably invented. The advantages of this invention are obvious - firstly, it ensured a high seating position for the rider; secondly, sitting in such a rider could quite successfully use a spear, without fear of falling off his horse if he moved incorrectly. But it was extremely inconvenient to sit in such lock saddles in long armored clothing. Then a special backing appeared on the left side of the saddle - a prototype of the future stirrup.
In the 6th century the frame was further improved. The longitudinal boards between the bows increased in length. Now the bows were simply placed on top of a plank base, which acquired a characteristic shape with a blade in the middle. This way, the rider’s weight was distributed more evenly across the saddle - accordingly, its pressure on the horse’s spine decreased. The protruding edges made it possible to tie the stirrups in front of the pommel, rather than throwing the rope connecting them across the saddle, as was the case before. A little later, the rear bow was placed at an angle to the horizontal and, like the front, it was made entirely planed. The rider was able to deviate in any direction, lean back, jump to the ground and, as they say, “fly like a bird” onto the horse. Cavalry mobility increased significantly. The described saddle first appeared somewhere on the border of the sedentary and nomadic worlds, in the zone of contact between the pastoral and agricultural cultures of Northern China. This is where his triumphant march around the world began.
Stirrups were also invented in approximately the same area. At first, paired wooden footrests were bent from a wooden rod and lined with iron or copper. It soon became clear that a wooden base was not needed. For some time, stirrups were made from flat iron sheets. However, the narrow plate cut the leg, the footrest (the lower part of the stirrup on which the leg rests) acquired a flattened shape. Later, stirrups were entirely forged from a metal rod.
"Siberian weapons: from the Stone Age to the Middle Ages." Author: Alexander Solovyov (candidate of historical sciences, senior researcher at the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences); scientific editor: academician V.I. Molodin; artist: M.A. Lobyrev. Novosibirsk, 2003
I dedicate this book to our brothers - the Turkic peoples of the Soviet Union.
This book was started on December 5, 1935. Since then it has been revised and expanded several times. However, it did not exhaust the entire abundance of material and did not illuminate all the problems associated with the history of the ancient Turks. Therefore, continued research is not only desirable, but also necessary.
For the rest of my life I will preserve the memory of those who helped me complete this work and who have not been among us for a long time, about my wonderful predecessor, my friend G.E. Grum-Grzhimailo, who glorified the history of the peoples of Central Asia and died awaiting recognition, about my mentors N.V. Cuiere, A.Yu. Yakubovsky and academician V.V. Struve, who helped me during the difficult camp years.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to express my gratitude to my teacher M.I. Artamonov, professors S.L. Tikhvinsky and S.V. Kalesnik, who recommended the book for publication, to my friends L.A. Voznesensky, D.E. Alshibay, who meted out imprisonment with me in the camps of Norilsk and Karaganda.
I also thank all my reviewers for advice and criticism: I.P. Petrushevsky, V.V. Mavrodina, M.A. Gukovsky, A.P. Okladikova, M.V. Vorobyova, A.F. Aisimova, B.I. Kuznetsova, S.I. Rudenko, T.A. Kryukov. And finally, I thank our common alma mater, Leningrad University, where I learned the high craft of a historian.
INTRODUCTION
Theme and its meaning. The history of mankind has been studied extremely unevenly. While the sequence of events and changes in social formations in Europe and the Middle East was outlined in publicly available summary works already at the end of the 19th century, and India and China were described at the beginning of the 20th century, the vast territory of the Eurasian steppe is still waiting for its explorer. This is especially true of the period before the appearance of Genghis Khan on the historical arena, when two wonderful peoples formed and died in the Central Asian steppe - the Huns and the ancient Turks, as well as many others who did not have time to glorify their names.
It would be a mistake to assume that they all just repeat each other, although their method of production - nomadic cattle breeding - is indeed the most stable form of economy, almost impossible to improve. But the forms of life, institutions, politics and place in world history among the Huns and ancient Turks are completely different, just as their destinies were different.
Against the background of world history, the history of the ancient Turkic people and the power they created comes down to the question: why did the Turks arise and why did they disappear, leaving their name as a legacy to many peoples who are by no means their descendants? Attempts to solve this problem by analyzing only political history or only social relations have been made repeatedly, but have not yielded results. The ancient Turks, despite their enormous importance in the history of mankind, were small in number, and the close proximity to China and Iran could not but affect their internal affairs. Consequently, the social and political history of these countries is closely intertwined, and in order to reconstruct the course of events we must keep both in sight. An equally important role was played by changes in the economic situation, in particular those associated with the high or low level of export of Chinese goods and the protective measures of the Iranian government.
Since the borders of the Turkic Khaganate at the end of the 6th century. closed in the west with Byzantium, in the south with Persia and even India, and in the east with China, it is natural that the vicissitudes of the history of these countries in the period we are considering are connected with the fate of the Turkic power. Its formation was to some extent a turning point in the history of mankind, because until now the Mediterranean and Far Eastern cultures were separated, although they knew about each other’s existence. Endless steppes and mountain ranges prevented relations between East and West. Only the later invention of metal stirrups and pack harnesses, which replaced carts, allowed caravans to cross deserts and passes with relative ease. Therefore, from the 6th century. the Chinese had to reckon with prices on the Constantinople market, and the Byzantines had to count the number of spearmen of the Chinese king.
In this situation, the Turks not only played the role of mediators, but also simultaneously developed their own culture, which they considered possible to contrast with the culture of China, and Iran, and Byzantium, and India. This special steppe culture had ancient traditions and deep roots, but is known to us to a much lesser extent than the culture of sedentary countries. The reason, of course, is not that the Turks and other nomadic tribes were less gifted than their neighbors, but that the remains of their material culture - felt, leather, wood and furs - are preserved worse than stone, and therefore among Western Europeans Scientists have a misconception that the nomads were “drones of humanity” (Viollet de Duc). Nowadays, archaeological work carried out in southern Siberia, Mongolia and Central Asia annually refute this opinion, and soon the time will come when we can talk about the art of the ancient Turks. But even more than material culture, the researcher is struck by the complex forms of social life and social institutions of the Turks: el, appanage-ladder system, hierarchy of ranks, military discipline, diplomacy, as well as the presence of a clearly developed worldview, contrasted with the ideological systems of neighboring countries.
Despite all that has been said, the path that ancient Turkic society embarked on was disastrous, since the contradictions that arose in the steppe and on its borders turned out to be insurmountable. At critical moments, the overwhelming majority of the steppe population refused to support the khans, and this led in 604 to the disintegration of the Kaganate into Western and Eastern, in 630 and 659. - to the loss of independence (though returned in 679) and to the death of the people in 745. Of course, this death of the people did not yet mean the destruction of all the people who made it up. Some of them submitted to the Uighurs, who inherited power in the steppe, and the majority took refuge in the Chinese border troops. In 756, these latter rebelled against the emperor of the Tang dynasty. The remnants of the Turks took an active part in it and, together with other rebels, were chopped into pieces. This was already the true end of both the people and the era (and, consequently, our topic).
However, the name “Turk” did not disappear. Moreover, it has spread to half of Asia. The Arabs began to call all warlike nomads north of Sogdiana Turks, and they accepted this name, because the original bearers of it, after disappearing from the face of the earth, became a model of valor and heroism for the steppe inhabitants. Subsequently, this term was transformed once again and became the name of the language family. This is how many peoples who were never part of the great Kaganate of the 6th-7th centuries became “Turks”. Some of them were not even Mongoloids, such as the Turkmens, Ottomans, and Azerbaijanis. Others were the worst enemies of the Kaganate: the Kurykans - the ancestors of the Yakuts and the Kyrgyz - the ancestors of the Khakass. Still others formed earlier than the ancient Turks themselves, for example the Balkars and Chuvashs. But even the widespread linguistic interpretation that is now given to the term “Turk” has a certain basis: the ancient Turks most vividly implemented those principles of the steppe culture that matured back in the Xiongnu era and were in a state of suspended animation in the timelessness of the 3rd-5th centuries ..
So, the significance of the ancient Turks in the history of mankind was enormous, but the history of this people has not yet been written. It was presented incidentally and briefly, which made it possible to avoid difficulties of a source study, onomastic, ethnonymic and toponymic nature. These difficulties are so great that this work does not pretend to construct definitions. The author only hopes that it will serve as a step towards solving the problem. The book is conceived as an experience in combining methods of historical analysis and synthesis. Individual phenomena in the history of the ancient Turks and the peoples associated with them or preceding them were subjected to analysis. This also includes criticism of sources and problems of onomastics and ethnogenesis. Synthesis is the understanding of the history of the Turkuts, Blue Turks and Uyghurs as a single process that has formed a certain integrity in the aspect of periodization, as well as applying the described phenomenon to the canvas of world history.
PART ONE. GREAT TURKIC KHANATE
Chapter I. THE EVE (420-546)
Changes on the Yellow River. The Great Migration of Peoples in Europe, which broke in the 5th century. decrepit Rome, in East Asia happened 100 years earlier. During the time known in Chinese history as the “era of the five barbarian tribes” (304-399), Northern China was captured and conquered by the Huns and Xianbeans, who founded a number of ephemeral states there, similar to the barbarian kingdoms of the Goths, Burgundians and Vandals. Just as the Eastern Roman Empire survived in Europe on the Balkan Peninsula, so in China, on the banks of the great Yangtze River, the independent Chinese Empire, the heir to the Han Empire, survived. It was as similar to its great predecessor as early Byzantium was to Rome in its heyday, and it also found strength only for defense against the barbarians attacking from the north and west. Weak and incompetent emperors of frequently changing dynasties left the Chinese population of the “Middle Plain” as a sacrifice to the barbarian leaders, as the Yellow River Valley was called at that time, and yet, despite the cruel oppression of foreigners and bloodshed during constant internecine wars, the Chinese in Northern China numerically prevailed over the peoples who defeated them, which led to the 6th century. rebirth of China.
The ancient Turks (Turkuts) were Mongoloids.
Encyclopedic YouTube
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✪ The settlement of North and South America according to new DNA data from the ancient inhabitants of Beringia. Indian history
✪ Scythians and Saki.
✪ History of Russia in anthropological perspective
✪ Klyosov A.A. - Examination of the Veles Book. - 2015
✪ Cimmerians, Scythians and Sarmatians in a genetic study of Iron Age nomads
Subtitles
The study of the DNA sequence of the ancient people of the Americas has renewed debate about one of the greatest migrations in human history, the settlement of North and South America. In the period from approximately 28 to 11 thousand years ago, ancient people moved between North-Eastern Siberia and North America, along the now flooded landmass called Beringia. This name was first proposed in 1937 by the Swedish botanist and geographer Erik Hulten. However, it is very difficult, based on the data that scientists currently have, to judge the number of migrations that have occurred over such a long period of time. The isolated complete genome from the skull of one of the babies, which were discovered in 2013 in the Tanana River Basin, central Alaska, part of ancient Beringia and dated 11.5 thousand years, indicates that a certain part of ancient people lived for thousands of years in the territory of Beringia, in while other groups of settlers conquered North and South America. A team of scientists from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and the University of Cambridge in the UK, led by geneticist Eske Willerslev, repeatedly sequenced the DNA to obtain a virtually complete copy of the genome. They then compared it with the genome of modern American Indians and people throughout Eurasia and the Americas, as well as with the DNA of other ancient remains. By studying genetic similarities and estimating how long it would take for key mutations to manifest, the scientists compiled a family tree with approximate dates. As a result, it turned out that the found remains are not the direct ancestors of the Native Americans, although they are closely related to them. Most likely, both of them have common ancestors who came to the Americas earlier more than 25 thousand years ago. Which confirms the theory of Beringian peace. According to which the first Americans lived for thousands of years in the Far North, and then went to North and South America (when the climate began to warm up about 12-15 thousand years ago). The researchers also found that the ancient Beringian infant is equally related to both northern and southern genetic subgroups of Native Americans, implying that both subgroups originated from the same wave of migrations. And only in the interval between 17.5 and 14.5 thousand years ago, one general group divided into subgroups significantly south of Beringia. Modern Indians belong to five main genetic groups (commonly referred to as A, B, C, D and X). It is worth noting that even the babies found belong to different subgroups of mitochondrial DNA: C1b and B2. That is, their mothers were representatives of two different genetic subgroups. Using demographic modeling, the scientists concluded that the ancient Beringinian population and the ancestors of other Native Americans descended from a single founder population that originally split from East Asians about 36,000 years ago, with gene flow persisting between 36,000 and 25,000 years ago. back. After which the gene flow from the ancient northern Eurasians to all Native Americans came about 25-20 thousand years ago. And the ancient Beringians belong to the time interval from 22 to 18 thousand years ago. It is also worth considering that migrations to North and South America occurred later, after the formation of the genotypes of Native Americans. So after 11.5 thousand years, some of the northern populations of Native Americans received gene flow from Siberian populations most closely related to the Koryaks - the inhabitants of modern Kamchatka, but not to the Paleo-Eskimos, Inuit or Kets. And ultimately, the genotypes of the ancient inhabitants of Beringia were replaced or absorbed due to reverse migration from the south. And in later times, with the advent of means of transportation by sea, there were other infusions into the genotypes of North and South Americans. However, the already established populations of both Americas absorbed or dissolved the genes of the small, newly arrived peoples. I also consider it necessary to recall that the theory of the first migration to America from Australia and Oceania was refuted back in 2015 after DNA analyzes of Indian tribes with the most pronounced Australoid features in the structure of the skull. Why did one group of ancient migrants linger and prosper in Beringia while another set off to explore the Americas? It is impossible to give a definite answer to this question, because different people were pushed to travel by different thoughts. There were people who were content with what they had. But there were others who looked into the distance and wanted to find out what was beyond the horizon. And as soon as they entered North America, they were so captivated by what they saw that within just a few thousand years they conquered South America. A cultural or genetic propensity to explore may explain this speed.
About the ancient Turks
Origin
In the medieval book tradition
Descendants
In the center of the Altai Mountains, a clan of Teles was preserved, existing independently until the 18th century, after which it merged with the Telengits, who fled to the mountains from the Manchus and Chinese, who exterminated the Oirat people. They forgot about their origin, but they remember the ethnonym.