Ancient and Medieval Turkic History and Culture: textbook 9786010440289

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AL-FARABI KAZAKH NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

N.D. Nurtazina M.S. Nogaybayeva

ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL TURKIC HISTORY AND CULTURE Textbook

Almaty «Qazaq University» 2019

UDC 94 LBC 63.3 N 94

Recommended for publication by the Scientific Council of the Faculty of History, Archaeology and Ethnology and Editorial-Publishing Council of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (Protocol №4 dated 16.04.2019)

Reviewers: Doctor of Historical Sciences, Associate professor G.B. Khabizhanova Doctor of Historical Sciences, Associate professor G.R. Dadabayeva

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Nurtazina N.D. Ancient and Medieval Turkic History and Culture: textbook / N.D. Nurtazina, M.S. Nogaybayeva. – Almaty: Qazaq University, 2019. – 166 p. ISBN 978-601-04-4028-9 The textbook on the basis of the civilizational approach to history reveals the history of the genesis and flourishing of civilization in the great Steppe. The cultural achievements of the Prototurkic and Turkic tribes of antiquity and the Middle Ages mostly on the territory of Kazakhstan are analyzed in connection with global history, characteristics of nomadism, taking into account the intercultural relations of the Turks with neighboring countries and civilizations. The data of history, archaeology, ethnology, religious studies and other disciplines are considered from the perspective of cultural problems and the search for an answer to the question of the original Turkic civilization and the concept of the Turkic cultural world. The textbook is intended for university students majoring in “history”, and can be used for courses “Ancient and medieval history of Kazakhstan”, “Spiritual revival and formation of historical consciousness.”

UDC 94 LBC 63.3 ISBN 978-601-04-4028-9

© Nurtazina N.D., Nogaybayeva M.S., 2019 © Al-Farabi KazNU, 2019

PREFACE

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owadays the disciplines that teach the cultural history of the Turkic world play an important role in training of historians at the universities of Kazakhstan, making it possible to see the place of Kazakhstan in the global and Turkic history. The practice of teaching also shows that when studying the common Turkic history, little attention is often paid to the issues of culture, a common cultural and civilizational heritage of the Turkic ethnic groups. Meanwhile, the younger generation should be seriously interested in such questions as: Can we talk about the existence of the Turkic civilization in the past? What were the great achievements of the Turkic peoples in the past and is it possible to reconstruct the ethnocultural and spiritual integrity of the Turkic world in the future? Т������������������ he concept of the «Turkic �������� ����������� world» has ��� become a generally accepted category for describing a dynamic and increasingly integrated cultural and linguistic community of nations. “Unity in the language, ideas and actions,” a simple and sincere motto formulated by Ismail-bey Gaspirali (1851-1914) – “the man who awakened the Turkic world -» received a new impetus at the beginning of the third millennium. This was a moment when 3

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the newly independent states of the modern Turkic world – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan – entered the historical arena and when the sovereign subjects of the Russian Federation, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and others, reemerged. The negative effects of the Soviet ideology, in its decade long struggle to contain the manifestations of Turkic integration, are well known. Contemporary globalization has also had an indeterminate impact on the ethnic, cultural, and linguistic problems of the Turkic world; hence the persistent imperative to conserve and revive the historical and cultural traditions of the Turkic peoples. Unfortunately, the current state of studies on the history and spiritual and cultural heritage of the Turkic world is such that a single, unified approach to this civilization has not yet coalesced. There are inconsistencies and discrepancies regarding chronology, as well as varying interpretations of ethnic, cultural, literary, and ideological phenomena. Ethnocentrism still dominates both scientific literature and the way history is taught at schools and universities of various Turkic countries. The general laws at play in the development of the Turkic world, as well as a unified vision of the origins and development of the Turkic civilization and complex trends and prospects for its revival, are, on the whole, underestimated. Democratization, openness, and intensifying international communications are the processes that marked the 90s and the first decade of the twenty-first century, have led to the disappearance of artificially erected barriers to communication and cultural cooperation among Turkic ethnicities, creating the preconditions for the recovery of what was once a single cultural and civilizational space, a Turkic world stretching from Anatolia to Yakutia (Sakha). Despite the difficulties of the transition period – difficulties that were related to socio-economic changes in the post-Soviet Turkic republics as well as to their political modernization – the processes of integration were both progressive and productive. The establishment of the Society for the Study of the Turkic world in Istanbul, the international organization TURKSOI, which holds forums and scientific conferences in different parts of the Turkic world, forms an important milestone in these processes of cultural revival and integration.

Preface

The program article of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev «The course towards the future: modernization of Kazakhstan’s identity» promoted the transition of the Kazakh language to the Latin alphabet. As a result of conversion of the Kazakh language to the Latin alphabet almost all independent Turkic speaking states (Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan) will have a single system of writing, with minor modifications, and it has become another landmark event in the history of the reunification of a uniquely Turkic cultural space. Among research projects, held at the Republican Center for the Study of Traditional Civilizations of Central Asia at the Al-Farabi Kazakh National University much attention is paid to extensive linguistic, historical, ethnographic, and cultural studies on the past and present of the Turkic peoples, which are designed to reconstruct a common history, language, and spiritual heritage. In addition to the obvious intellectual goals, such research is meant to deepen practical cooperation and working relationships among Turkiс intellectuals, research institutes, centers, and countries as a whole. It is also significant that in most Turcological studies and textbooks encompassing general history (especially in those of the postSoviet states) the focus is on the political and ethnic aspects of the Turkic history. Approaches that actually deal with the study of culture are fragmented; only bits and pieces emerge. Contemporary Turkic studies are both contradictory and vague in the theoretical and conceptual frameworks; the research efforts of such studies should be coordinated effectively and a broader exchange of information is required. The goal of this textbook is holistic. It is an attempt to create an integrated study of the civilization and culture of the Turkic peoples from ancient times to the present day. Situated in the context of the general laws of Global history, it also takes into account the effects of Turkic interactions with other civilizations. Based on a variety of sources (written, archaeological, folkloric, etc.), and grounded in classical and contemporary scientific literatures, the work examines the history of the Turkic people as that of a single civilization. The authors study the major milestones of the Turkic culture in antiquity, the Middle Ages, and then in the modern and contemporary eras, analyzing the unique foundations of this civilization, and the success it achieved

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in the development of the language, writing, literature, religion and mythology, science and technology, art and culture, ideology, etc. In this text the achievements of the Turkic civilization are primarily illustrated through materials taken from the history of the Turkic peoples of Eurasia and, in particular, from the history of Kazakhstan. This is due not only to the fact that, historically, Kazakhstan, with its vast territory and spiritual epicenters such as ancient Dasht-i Kipchak (Sary Arka), Altai, Semirechye , Turkestan , Mangystau, etc., always functioned as an especially vital locus of cultural genesis and political formation, but also because Kazakhstan today is one of the leading countries of the Turkic world (along with Turkey ) as well as a leader in Central Asia, the initiator and active supporter of Turkic integration. The history and cultural heritage of Kazakhstan have therefore become an important and urgent area of study. Not pretending to exhaustive research, the authors have attempted to logically assemble what is available in historical, ethnological and cultural science, so that randomly scattered, contradictory and often haphazard material is structured around the main idea of the book – the idea that “Turkic civilization” has a basis in reality in the global historical space and time and that the course of its evolution in general terms is as follows. The genesis of this civilization was in antiquity (the proto-Turkic peoples: the Saka, Huns, Usun, Kangīui). Speaking strictly in terms of the Turkic peoples, ancient Turkic civilization crystallized in the early medieval era, when it experienced its heyday. The vast geographic, cultural space of the Turkic-speaking world was bound together in this period, the space where common state, political, and legal traditions predominated. However, with the end of the medieval period and the onset of the early modern era, unfavorable geopolitical circumstances interrupted the evolutionary development of the Turkic civilization and the process of its consolidation. Disintegration, conflicts, ethnic fragmentation, violence, and the intensified influence of other civilizations prevailed. In part, this may reflect processes of separation, which, according to some authors, are objective laws of global history involving ethnic groups having passed through a phase of differentiation, or that

Preface

mirror the reconstruction of society on the basis of nation states and ethnicity in the early modern era. Yet it was the factor of military and political dependence that truly complicated the emergence of independent ethnic centers in the Turkic world, their productive cooperation and co-existence, and, in particular, the modernization of Turkic communities into something resembling the global industrial and urban civilization of today. The chances of creating a competitive, viable, and unified Turkic civilization were lost in the industrial age. For many centuries the Turkic world fell into a period of mental, ideological, ethnic, and cultural crisis, political and economic dependence, historical forgetfulness, etc. The word “Turk” was abandoned within the borders of the Soviet Union and little used. The only independent Turkic state on the map of the world has long been the Republic of Turkey. Finally, the actual historical foundations for repairing broken bonds and reviving a common Turkic identity and shared traditions of civilization (especially in terms of mentality, culture, spirituality, and ideology) were born anew at the dawn of the XXI century. However, in the globalizing and changing world the Turkic civilization cannot be an isolated, autonomous entity; it will inevitably be caught up in the global flow of information, in relationships, and in mutual interdependence with other populations – in other words, with a single system of humanity, a unified, global civilization. The role and potential of Kazakhstan as a bridge between civilizations and in consolidating independent centers of Turkic cultures and states is also a valuable idea. It is symbolic and not by chance that a reproduction of the famous stone stele of Kültegin, on which the immortal words are engraved– a testament to the descendants of the Türks, was erected in the center of Eurasia, in the city of Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan. If ethnic background impacts the formation, development, decline, and renaissance of Turkic civilizations, it should be mentioned that the history of ancient and medieval Eurasia is characterized by such common, stable features as the periodic movement of masses of nomadic tribes from east (Inner Asia) to west; in this same direction there was a gradual shift in the centers of Turkic ethnic and cultural genesis.

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Beyond this, it was characterized by a complex web of processes of ethnic consolidation and differentiation, as well as diffusion and assimilation, in the course of which large sub-ethnicities or ethnic communities such as Tele-Oguz, Kipchak, Karluk, and others, periodically emerged. As a result of new ethnic regroupings and the frequent incursions of Mongol elements from the east, a new Turkic speaking communities, matching the ethnic territory of modern Turkic-speaking ethnicities, formed in the Late Middle Ages. In that epoch, the processes of ethnic and linguistic genesis were both complex and distinct, yet at the same time one can point to a number of regularities. Long before the spread of the ethnonym “Turk,” proto-Turkic ethnic communities were widely dispersed in the Eurasian steppe. These communities the researchers have correlated with the archaeological culture of “tiled graves,” (Hunnic-Scythian peoples), and with the Ogur, proto-Bulgar language community. The trend of proto-Turkic interaction with the Indo-Iranians was in the direction of increasing assimilation and the full and complete domination of the Turkic languages, something which occurred in connection with the dawn of the Turkic era in the VI century BC. In the period of Turkic antiquity, a Turkic superethnos formed, its area of distribution expanding to a total area of 11 ​​ million square km from the Adriatic Sea to the Great Wall of China, and from Siberia to the Himalayas. It is possible to say that in this era there were signs of a “Turkic proto-renaissance.” A new stage in the history of their culture and civilization begins with the adoption of Islam by the mass of Turkic nomads and the integration of Turkic-speaking communities in the broader world of Islamic civilization. This was the time when Turko-Islamic cultural principles spread and solidified and in which their world-view and spiritual and ethical ideals grew in richness and depth. A community of Turkic Muslims that was both ethnic and confessional took shape (the majority being Sunni Hanafi). From the tenth century a new Turkic literature, written in the Arabic script, circulated widely, intensifying the international links of the Turkic world with the centers of Iranian and Arabic culture and with Persian and Arabic speaking communities. After the renaissance of the Karakhanids, the era of the Golden Horde was a radiant phase and the unique Turkic

Preface

culture it generated – a distinctive phenomenon in the development of medieval Turkic civilization. In time its descendants formed the new Turkic speaking ethnicities of Eurasia – the Tatars, Kazakhs, Bashkir, Nogai, Qumyk, and others. In the south of Central Asia, the cultural renaissance of the postMongol era is embodied in the brilliant culture of Mawarannahr in the era of the great Emir Timur and his descendants, while in Asia Minor it formed the radiant and original civilization of the Ottoman Empire. In the XV-XVI centuries Turkic steppe cultures (the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, etc.) formed unique traditions while at the same time being integrated in the Turko-Islamic civilization common to the whole Eurasia. During the XVII-XX centuries the increasing challenges of powerful civilizations such as Russia and China dramatically complicated a geopolitical, ethnic, and cultural situation in Eurasia, triggering large migrations and conquests from the north, west, and east, as well as colonization and annexation of Turkic lands. With the end of the medieval era the conditions were ripe for weakening the Turkic states of Central Asia, in part due to such global trends as the decline of the Silk Road, the subsequent marginalization of Central Asia, the military and technical advances of the European peoples, as well as internal regional processes. In the XIX and at the beginning of the XX centuries, processes of ethnic transformation and evolution intensified in the territory inhabited by Turkic ethnic groups, centers and regions of Turkic cultures existed in relative isolation, and a common Turkic ethnic identity was lost, giving way in some cases to confessional (i.e. Islamic) and in other ones – to sub-ethnic (i.e. tribal) identities. In general, the Turkic community was rapidly losing its competitiveness and its ability to exist as an autonomous civilization in a context of global history and culture. In this historical context, the ideology of Turkism became a phenomenon. This was a progressive movement among new Turkic elites for the preservation of culture, political liberation, the reform of the language, alphabets, schools, and judicious Europeanization; it emerged in the beginning of the twentieth century in all parts of the Turkic world. The most important component of Turkic Jadidism (modernism) was the idea and practice of Turkic unity. The main

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achievement of the era was the rapid revival of Turkish ethnic consciousness and of Turkic ethnic and political solidarity. However, processes related to the revival of culture and civilization in the Turkic regions of the Russian and Chinese empires were artificially aborted. Communist ideology and “proletarian unity” replaced the ideal Turkic future imagined in the minds of Turkic intellectuals. The deformation of the ethnic identity of the Turkic peoples in the Russian and Soviet Empires acquired a particularly tragic character. In these polities ethnic cleansing, genocide, cultural and linguistic assimilation, the prohibition of indigenous languages, religion, the forced introduction of communist ideology, etc., were the norm. It was in fact a taboo in the development of Soviet Turkic studies to research or valorize ancient history or Turkic written monuments. It is also important to note the forced introduction of the Cyrillic. The marginalization of consciousness among the urban strata of the Turkic peoples in the Soviet republics, and above all in Kazakhstan, was truly terrifying in scope; Soviet ideologists cynically dubbed Kazakhstan the “laboratory of the friendship of the peoples.” The modern ethnic, cultural, and political rebirth of Turkic countries is associated with global challenges and complex global economic and political trends. In spite of this, the Turkic world has shown the signs of an active ethnic, cultural and spiritual renaissance in the post-Soviet space in terms of democratization and openness; exchanges of culture and information among the countries and creative collaboration have surged. This has occurred thanks to the honorable initiatives of Turkey and its full support of post-Soviet Turkic-speaking ethnic groups, as well as to the efforts of the political elites and scholars of all the states of the Turkic world. The author’s analysis of the materials and research allows us to see the very real presence of the prerequisites for establishing the concept of «Turkilik» (in Kazakh; a rough translation would be “Turkicness”) as the actual category of Mentality and Сivilization, and not merely as a metaphor. At the same time, scientific analysis shows the presence of considerable problems and contradictions, and the peculiarities and different approaches of varied states to the issue of integration. This allows the community of Turkic peoples and their leaders to set and achieve new goals in the future.

I HISTORY AND CULTURE OF PROTOTURKS AND EARLY TURKIC STATES

1.1. Formation of nomadic-equestrian civilization in the early Iron Age. Material monuments and artistic masterpieces of the proto-Turkic tribes. The development of nomadism and horse breeding played a revolutionary role in the formation and strengthening of Eurasian civilization, resulting in a radical socio-cultural transformation: the emerging nomadic-equestrian civilization of the Eurasian nomads. The genesis of nomadism in the beginning of the I century BC, resulting primarily from the arid climate of the Central Eurasian ecumene, ultimately produced an economic and technological breakthrough. This was not merely the creation of a unique economic form; it was also the optimal, timely response of a society to natural geographical challenges and socio-demographic factors. The cardinal leap in the development of steppe communities in the vast expanses of the Eurasian arid zone occurred with the transition to nomadic pastoralism. In this era, significant changes in the level of social development and material culture unfolded, facilitating the symbiosis between horse breeding and the concept of nomadic civilization. 11

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Nomadism and horse breeding made the economic development of the vast, unexploited areas of the steppes possible. The interest of scientists has focused on the Eurasian nomadic tradition of battu hunting (a type of hunting in which horseme n, usually in large numbers, surrounded and drove an animal to a trap or to a position where a killing blow could be performed), which profoundly impacted both the genesis of the nomadic economy and the later development of military affairs. The most important invention of the nomadic Eurasian proto-Turks was the yurt, a unique type of collapsible housing; the yurt had already been widely diffused by the VII-VI century BC. The new form of pastoralism was profitable and highly productive, producing more surplus product and ensuring surpluses, which in turn stimulated processes of socio-political formation. Pastoralism made possible a significant increase in the amount of livestock, while at the same time minimizing the labor costs for their maintenance. Masses of young men were freed from labor as a result and in time formed a “caste” of professional warriors. Horse breeding in essence formed a new military and political mechanism. There was a growing militarization of the nomadic way of life, intensifying bellicosity and the frequency of military-political conflicts. The fast and maneuverable cavalry of the Eurasian nomads, armed with light-weight bows and tripled edged arrows, constituted a formidable power and profound threat to surrounding neighbors. The nomadic peoples created an original military system that allowed them to achieve undisputed military and political superiority over their opponents for centuries. “Among the steppe peoples of Central Asian zone hand tools achieved one of the highest stages of their development. The permanent acquisition of hunting, military, and technological experience contributed to the steady progression of ranged combat weapons, in terms of their distance and reach, up to the onset of the medieval era”. Specialists consider the border regions of South Siberia and Central Asia the probable birthplace of the compound bow, after which the “M” shaped Scythian variant quickly spread throughout the whole

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

of Eurasia. The Hunnic bow emerged at the end of the I century BC, serving as the basis for the varied types of bows in the Turkic milieu. Even at the dawn of the Scythian- Sakâ era there was an increase in the production of weapons and various improvements to their quality: bronze arrowheads, spears, knives, daggers. Many inventions (the iron harness, multiple types of weapons, the secrets of metal-working, etc.) belong to the proto-Turks of Eurasia. Wearing a type of plate armor, the Sakâ used different types of slashing and stabbing weapons: short daggers, swords, and axes. The nomadic Sarmatian culture is characterized by its conical shaped spears and distinct helmets and chain mail. Processes of innovation, borrowings and exchanges unfolded rapidly and with unmistakable impact in the military-technical sphere. The Huns, inhabiting Inner Asia from the beginning of the I century BC, also created a nomadic culture of the Scythian- Sakâ type. They mastered bronze and iron metallurgy, metal-working, wheeled carts, horsemanship, and horse breeding. The Huns were skilled in military arts, particularly in the use of the ram, which allowed them to successfully take fortifications and cities. Those who study nomadism note the ethno-psychological features of the early nomads – the fundamental elements that characterize their mentality. The ancient nomads (the Sakâ, Huns, and Kök Türks) valued and cultivated physical and mental endurance in themselves, a love freedom, courage, and military prowess; they were mobile and open to innovation, and rejected stagnation and the static, conservative attachment to a particular place of habitation. It is worth noting the peculiarity of the nomadic state; in its functioning more significance was attached to the number of people than to the quantity of land under control. “The principle, ‘where there is a nation, community, or people, land will be found,’ informed the nomadic environment. The importance nomadic populations accorded to land in the Great Steppe is one of the most important methodological principles in understanding steppe civilization as an important phenomenon in world history,” the Kazakh academician B. Kumekov wrote. Also characteristic is that the “statehood of the Eurasian steppe nomads is notable for the constant movement of individual social or-

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ganisms within a single body, which in turn was determined by the essential features of the civilizational structure and historically conditioned by internal and external resources;” hence “researchers have observed ‘overflow ,’ ‘inter-transformation,’ ‘easy evolution,’ ‘fluidity,’ ‘the ability to restructure,’ that is to say, the mobility of the structural and functional composition of social institutions”. It should be recognized that ancient conquests and the migrations associated with them intensified the mixing of peoples and cultures, shattering archaic stereotypes and the lifeless immobility of some societies. The nomadic mode of life set off the migration of populations, which in turn stimulated ethnic, and in particular, ethno-genetic processes that unfolded with a special intensity as nomadic cultures collided and intermixed with sedentary pastoral and settled agricultural populations. “Like mariners, they (the nomads – auth.) guarantee ties among, and the flow of goods, capital, as well as of technological and cultural information, between, the islands of the sedentary economy”. E. Hara-Davan wrote that nomads stand out in history as “generators” – those types of passionate people who place their own honor and dignity above security and material well-being. This is what he wrote of nomads to the German philosopher Karl Jaspers: “Man tore himself from the usual ground, it opened to him and gave him freedom of movement, the ability to create military equipment superior to the old, to emerge as the ruling stratum, able to tame the horse and bend it to his will, to show himself as a courageous horseman and warrior, and to appreciate the beauty of the animal.”. The philosopher adds: “Having horses, these nomadic peoples knew the vast expanse of the world. They conquered the states of the great cultures of antiquity. Perilous undertakings and catastrophe helped them understand the fragility of life, and as the ruling race they brought a heroic and tragic consciousness into the world, reflections of which are encountered in the epos”. Thus, in the history of Eurasia and that of the entire ancient and medieval world, the nomads acted

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

as translators of cultural values and ​​ technological innovations, and as initiators of the dialogue of civilizations and ethnic groups. Sakâ culture – a striking phenomenon and antecedent of ancient Turkic civilization. An essential attribute of this epoch are the barrows, burial mounds, and underground tombs which evince the originality of the funeral rite. The mounds emerge with the end of the Bronze Age and are encountered everywhere up to the V century AD. Remarkable archaeological monuments of the Sakâ have been uncovered in the Altai, southern Siberia, the steppes of Kazakhstan, in the Semirechie and Syr Darya regions, as well as in other areas. Barrow culture holds a special place in the history of construction activity in Kazakhstan; it was closely linked to the ancient beliefs of the nomads. Numerous monuments of the material and cultural heritage of the Sakâ have now been uncovered: settlements, ancient structures, hearths, weapons, household items, jewelry. A multitude of arrowheads, spears, knives, hoes, axes, hammers, and pottery have been excavated. Buried along with human remains are a variety of artifacts and household items, and in more recent graves – bronze ware and gold and silver jewelry. We can mention such monuments as Pazyryk, Maiemir, Chilikty, Besshatyr, Berel, Issyk, the Tasmolinskii complexes, Tagisken, Uigarak, Araltobe, and others. Some of the monuments of the ancient Sakâ are the burial mounds of the Sakâ elite. They are encountered on the banks of the river Talas, the Chu, Ili, on the slopes of the Ili and Dzhungar Alatau, and in the Kegen and Narynkol foothills. The monument of Berel, a Sakâ burial mound of the VI century BC in the Altai, was a sensational discovery in its time. Archaeologists found various artifacts in zoomorphic or animal style in the Berel monument, including golden griffins (a fantastic creature with the head, wings, and talons of an eagle, and the body of a lion or tiger), gold-plated wooden sculptures figuring tiger-griffins, sheep, elk, deer, as well as many other ornaments. The most interesting is the tomb of 13 horses in full battle dress, which was preserved by permafrost.

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Berel Mounds Source: www.ruh.kz

Ecological culture is a key element of any civilization. The deep knowledge of flora and fauna and natural phenomena characteristic of Turkic civilization has its roots in Scythian nomadic cultures of Siberia. Archaeological evidence evinces their familiarity with astronomical, mathematical, and medical knowledge as well as the ancient Eurasian population’s understanding «Animal style» of the secrets of mummificaSource: https://e-history.kz tion, something that was aided by the artifice of ice, and trepanation, a procedure in which a hole is drilled into the cranium, among others. The pride of Scythian-Sakâ civilization was animalistic art (art in “zoomorphic” or “animal style”). Sculpture, bas-relief, and paintings

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

were originally alien to the nomads. Their luxuries were limited to clothing and jewelry, and to accessories of equipment and the horse harness.

Reconstruction, mound number 11, burial of the king Source: https://e-history.kz

Therefore, Scythian art and aesthetics found expression in items such as clasps and buckles, sword belts, and in the various elements of the horse harness, all of which were explicitly styled and formed. Images of animals and mythological creatures adorned dagger hilts, earrings and beads, cauldron stands, and ornamental horse buckles and clasps. This was applied art that at the same time held religious and magical significance (performing a totemic-magical function). These “artistic allegories” were embodied not only in metals but in wood carvings, leather, felt, applique, petroglyphs and other monumental works of art”. A persistent cluster of animal depictions formed the content of the art: elk, deer, horse, mountain sheep and goat, predators (the lion, tiger, leopard), birds of prey, and more rarely, wild boar and saiga. The animals are represented individually or in more complex compositions of mortal conflict and warfare, a distinguishing feature of nomadic art.

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A wide distance separated steppe art from that of sedentary peoples: Scythian art stands in stark contrast to that of the AssyrianAchaemenids and that of the Huns to the Chinese, despite their commonality in representing scenes of hunting and animal combat. The Assyrians, Achaemenids and Han Chinese depict animals chasing or threatening each other in a simple décor suffused with nature or sky, while the Scythians and Huns portray animals entwined in mortal warfare. Fecundity of expression and a profound, knowing philosophy often infused their representations; the image of a griffon (a fantastic creature with the head, wings, and talons of an eagle and the body of a lion) with a snake ensnaring its talons, with the griffon in its death throes, evinces this. The depiction vividly reflects the Scythian worldview, which presumed a struggle between the earthly and heavenly, the representatives of the two elements – earth and sky. At the same time, many peoples considered the sacred eagle a symbol of power, others that the eagle carried the soul into the afterlife. Researchers consider the Scythian art of Eurasia indigenous and original, though they do not exclude evidence of mutual influence and borrowing from Persian art and that of the Greeks (it is necessary to keep in mind the chronological circumstances in relation to this: such art appears among the Eurasian nomads three to four centuries later than in ancient Iran). Though a proponent in this regard, that zoomorphic art is the result of a ‘unique steppe culture ‘, the ethnographer A. Seidimbek allows for “some influence of Greek, Indian, Iranian, and other traditions as well as for the fact that artistic phenomena can sometimes emerge in parallel, so that is not appropriate to talk about borrowing, but rather typological similarity. Perhaps it would be correct to consider zoomorphic art a synthesis or fusion of original and borrowed traditions. Such images as the lion, the eagle, griffin, the tree of life – the “sacred tree,” the lotus flower, and others, may well have been borrowed from Persian or Assyrian culture. The motif of a feline predator coiled into a ring is also considered a borrowing from the Near East. In turn, the horned griffins of Persia were taken from Assyria and Babylon.

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

The Eurasian steppe may have taken the basic idea of ​​embodying animal forms in art from the Near East, borrowing its artistic style. At the same time, the nomads creatively reworked the art and infused it with their own ethnic vision. A number of scientists also believe that Scythian art originated in northern Central Siberia (namely – the Altai and the upper reaches of the Yenisei River) and was then exposed to Assyrian and Persian influence. As noted above, the images of the Scythian masters embody an excess of life and expression that accurately captures the spirit of nomadism, the cult of conflict and freedom. In general, the significant contribution of the Eurasian tribes suggests that an independent school of art embodying a novel aesthetic took shape here – that of the “Eurasian animal style;” and that the genesis of this art was, on the whole, connected with the local environment and ancient totemic traditions. In general, “processes of migration and intensive ethno-cultural, military, trade and other contacts, contributed to the similarities that developed in different cultures and to the emergence of cultural diffusion”. It is in the tombs of Scythian burial mounds that the ancient nomads of Kazakhstan found “animal style” forms, many of which are considered artistic masterpieces. The most famous monument of the Scythian era is a barrow of the Besshatyr burial ground in Issyk, located 50 km east of Almaty in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau. The barrow, in which the famous “Golden Man” was discovered (which became Golden Man (Issyk mound) the symbol of Kazakhstan), belongs to https://e-history.kz/ru/ an Issyk burial complex consisting of Source: publications/view/4681 more than 40 mounds. The archaeologist K. Akishev made the find, considered the greatest archaeological discovery of the twentieth century in Kazakhstan, in 1969. The burial

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place of the “Golden Man” was discovered in a barrow 60m in diameter and 7m in height that dated back to the IV century BC. More than 4000 gold objects created in “zoomorphic” or “animal style” were uncovered along with the Scythian warrior’s remains. All of these were decorative ornaments of his clothing. The warrior was a ruler of the Sakâ tigrakhaudâ (Herodotus called them “Orthocorybantians” or “Scythians with pointed hats”; another variant of the translation: in the language of Media, “tigra” is translated as arrow, hence the possibility that Sakâ tigrakhaudâ means “Scythians with arrow-shaped hats”). Indeed, the headdress of the buried Sakâ leader is of particular interest: 65-70 cm tall and conical in shape, it was decorated with gold emblems (150) depicting leopards, wild rams, horses, and birds. An image of two winged horses with goat horns ornamented the frontal part of the hat. There was a gold earring in the left ear of the Scythian leader and two gold rings on his fingers. The ornamented funeral arms and armor of the young man are themselves Golden ring from the Issyk kurgan of great historical value: a long iron Source:www.oursociety.ru sword, and a Scythian dagger or short sword, which is also recognized as a masterpiece of zoomorphic style. The gold plates on both sides of the dagger depict twenty one animals – wolves, foxes, mountain sheep, Saiga antelope, rabbits, snakes and others. According to the archaeologist K. Akishev, the finds of the Issyk barrow warrant speaking of the Semirechie school of master jewelers. The most important finding from the mound is a silver bowl with Runic-like inscriptions of twenty six characters. The cultural and technological potential of Scythian culture is evident in the construction of the “Besshatyr 3” barrow, the building of which involved more than three hundred Tien Shan spruce trees. The status of the young, deceased leader was very high and his authority without question, combining the functions of both ruler and high priest.

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

Thousands of people, including slaves or prisoners of war, using various technologies and methods of building, were mobilized in the construction of the barrow in connection with his death. Science considers monumental structures – whether religious, secular, or funeral – especially illuminating, marking the first signs of civilization, as they are very revealing in terms of the productive capacities of their societies. The geography of Scythian treasures has significantly expanded in recent deThe “golden man” of the Sarmatians cades in Kazakhstan. The “golden man” of the Sarmatians, dating from the III-II Zhyloy district (Araltobe) of the Atyrau region https://abctv.kz/ century BC, was uncovered in the Zhyloy district (Araltobe) of the Atyrau region in 1999. Though it was plundered, male clothing, ornamented with gold, has been preserved at the site; a total of nearly 400 decorative emblems were found. Also of interest are the monuments of Scythian culture in the Shilikty Valley (East Kazakhstan); three “royal” mounds have been examined since 2003. All in all, the Shilikty valley holds almost 200 barrows of the early Iron Age, nearly 50 of which can be categorized as elite monuments. The golden ornaments uncovered include symbols in the form of golden eagles, deer, wolves, argali (a type of wild, Golden Man of Shilikty. mountain sheep), leopards, etc. Mound Baygetobe Examples of Scythian applied arts enin the Shilikty cemetery, compass such items as the ram and the grifEastern Kazakhstan fin from the Uigaran burial ground in the Source: https://tengrinews.kz

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lower reaches of the Syr Darya (VII – VI centuries BC), bronze plates in the image of twin horse heads, golden dagger sheathes, swords with depictions of rams and fantastic monsters from the Tagisken burial ground (VI century BC), as well as other notable findings: figures of mountain goats, emblems in gold leaf representing tiger-like creatures from the Tasmaly barrows (VII – VI centuries BC) in the Pavlodar region, a bronze clasp depicting a tiger bringing down a camel, belt buckles in the shape of a mythical, eagle-like beast, and coiled horn motifs portraying wild boar from the Karamurun burial grounds, which were interred in the IV – III centuries BC, etc. Human figures are rarely depicted in “animal style.” A human mask with a beard made of wood and leather was uncovered in the Pazyrskii barrow, while a bronze statuette of a sitting Scythian leader, weighing 3kg and with a height of 40 cm, was unearthed among artifacts during excavations in the Ili Valley of what is now Xinjiang China. In general, there have been many discoveries of Scythian and Usun antiquities in the territory of East Turkestan, including in the Kazakh Autonomous Region, such as the gold ornaments of the Scythian barrow disinterred in Alagou. The most important symbols of ancient Eurasian steppe civilization are “deer stones,” stone stele depicting what appear to be flying deer. An ancient Scythian symbol of the cosmos, these depictions of prone deer with folded legs and elongated muzzles appear on the funeral stele of western Mongolia at the end of the II millennium BC, and after a few centuries spread throughout almost the entirety of Central Asia. Original findings are copper and iron cauldrons and sacral bronze incense burners from the Semirechie region belonging to the SakâUsun era (III-I centuries BC). These findings have attracted the attention of scholars of Sakâ-Usun antiquities as they are exceptional monuments evincing the refined aesthetic sense and casting techniques of skilled, master craftsman. The incense burner is a rectangular tray placed upon a quad-winged feline predator that serves as a stand and talisman. According to experts, these finds are associated with the religious practices of the ancient inhabitants of the Semirechie and reflect the cult of Mithras.

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

“Animal style” art developed over the course of history: original ideas and themes emerged, methods of ornamentation improved, and in time the stylization and simplification of animal forms evolved into a more abstract ornamentalism. Animal art passed through various stages: archaic (from the VII-VI to the beginning of the V century BC), transitional (the V and beginning of the IV century BC), the period of its highest achievements (in the IV BC), and finally decline and transformation (from the end of the IV to the early III century BC). Sarmatian art, animalistic in its basis, already reveals a subtler taste in styling and geometric design, such as that of multi-colored enamel inlay on metal, a type of design, termed “polychrome style,” that began to spread in the VII-V centuries BC. The polychrome style dominated as the highest stage of applied, ornamental art in the steppes of Eurasia and in most countries of the ancient East in the first century AD. Entirely decorative, polychrome style included inlay (setting colored stones in jewelry), filigree (soldering twisted metal threads or beads onto similar metal surfaces in decorative patterns), and other techniques. According to archeological finds, the ancient Huns possessed an original, refined art based on symbols and emblems for bronze belts, buckles and buttons in stylized animalistic motifs or with a characteristic smooth, ornamental finishing. This is often referred to as “Ordos art,” Ordos being the name of a tribe that occupied the bend of the Yellow River, north of Shanxi, where many such finds were unearthed. In many of its details – the warfare of deer, horses, tigers, bears, fantastic beasts, and in the pommels of its hilts, formed in the shape of deer and stag heads, Ordos art is reminiscent of Minusinsk, though it surpasses it in richness of imagination. Remnants of Hunnic art have been unearthed In the Upper Udi (Baikal): deer and horses with lush manes, and the claws of beasts and predators curled into rings and spirals. According to the Japanese archaeologist Umehara Sueji, Ordos Art influenced the Chinese style of the “Era of Warring states,” which reached its most profound expression in the V century BC. In 1972, 218 gold items with a total weight over 4 thousand grams were uncovered during the excavation of the Alusai mound in Inner

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Mongolia, noticeable among which is a golden diadem, or crown, of 7.1 cm in height and 16.5 cm in diameter, ornamented in animal style. The image of the eagle on the crown symbolizes the high status of its owner and possesses religious and symbolic significance. As experts have determined, the crown belonged to a Hunnic leader. A variety of gold jewelry, earrings, and rings have been uncovered in excavations of Usun and Kangiui monuments, one of which is an interesting buckle with the image of a lion’s head swallowing a bird. The Usun and Kangiui were skilled artisans, having developed pottery, weaving, tanning, blacksmithing, and jewelry. Of course, given the global historical and civilizational context, the cultural influence of China and Iran through contacts on the Silk Road, as well as that of the Hellenistic culture of Central Asia, cannot be excluded, of course. A jade cup was found in one of the Kangiui barrows, for example, indicating ties with China.

Gold diadem Source: www. kargaly.ucoz.kz

The “Kargaliniskii treasure” (II century BC) discovered in 1939, consisting of some 500 various golden items, demonstrates the high artistic level of proto-Turkic tribal art in Semirechie. Excavations of the Kargaly mound uncovered part of a gold diadem. The crown depicts birds, people, as well as real and fantastic animals encircled by a stamped, complex floral design: there are deer with inverted heads; a flying duck or goose; a bear; a mounted, winged tiger; a winged horse; a running dragon mounted by a person who is clutching the dragon’s horn; a person riding an argali (a mountain ram) with a flower in hand, etc. All of these images form a harmonious composition with the dragon at its center (an image taken from Chinese mythology). The

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

eyes of the animals are carnelian and colored almandine, their bodies inlaid with turquoise. It is believed that the crown represents a model of the universe. Researchers perceive the origins of various mythological and artistic images in the diadem. It is also possible that ancient Turkic myths of “calendric competitions” among animals (those of the 12-year animal cycle) infuse its sculptural forms. According to a famous legend, twelve animals contend to start the cycle and set its sequence in motion. 1.2. Religious and mythological ideas of the proto-Turks and the course of their evolution. The concept of “civilization” cannot be imagined without the important element of ideology, which always assumed a religious form in antiquity. V. Masson writes that “the meaning of ideology and the social psychology of ancient societies are often mistaken as merely common developments, and in concrete analysis, are frequently misinterpreted as social and economic determinism. The transition to civilization ... was associated with significant changes in the sphere of ideology, in which new ideological canons, usually clothed in religious forms, took shape. It was at the time of the first civilizations that the ideological sphere, through codification and centralization, emerged as a truly significant force “. If we discuss the spiritual aspects of the Proto-Turks, they had already formed fundamental ideas and cults which would continue to play a vital role in their subsequent history: the cult of the sun, fire, earth, ancestors, and various sacred animals, the most significant among these being the cults of the horse and wolf. Cremation, widespread in ancient Eurasia, arose from a belief in the cleansing power of fire. Remnants of ash and charcoal are encountered in the case of certain burials, in which a person is laid out with their head to the east. Red ocher was thrown on the body of the dead, and this was not by accident: red is associated with life (the blood of life), the sun, fire,

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power, etc. The fabric that tribes of the Bronze Age made clothes from was dyed in different shades of red. It is known that this color symbolized elite status among the Sakâ, Kangiui, and other proto-Turks, etc. The influence of Indo-Iranian, Aryan gods, especially Mithras, cannot be excluded from the initial stage in the religious-mythological consciousness of the ancient tribes of Kazakhstan. A full, scientific reconstruction of the myths and epics of the Eurasian steppe tribes in the Bronze Age is not possible. Familiarity with the most ancient part of the Avesta – the sacred book of Zoroastrianism – provides some assistance in this. For example, the ancient inhabitants of Turan – steppe tribes of Central Asia – revered the female deity of the ancient Aryan pantheon, Ardvi Sura, who is described as wearing a cloak made of three hundred beaver pelts. Winged horses on the Archaeological research provides headdress of the gold man evidence of ancestral shrines, often in the (Issyk mound) mountains. Rituals there entailed elaborate blood sacrifices (the Avesta speaks of “one hundred stallions and one thousand cows, and a myriad of sheep”). Petroglyphs, embodying the grandiose “art galleries” in these ancient mountain temples, provide information about the mentality of the proto-Turks (from those of the “Andronov” culture to the Sakâ). There are depictions of totemic animals on the rocks: horse, sheep, camels, goats, deer, as well as scenes of life, and lastly – masked men – who probably perform a special rite or ritual. Tamgaly, the oldest sanctuary, located 170 km north-west of Almaty, provides a vivid picture of the spiritual life of the Bronze Age. A state historical, cultural and natural reserve was created in 2004 at the base of Tamgaly, and is included in the UNESCO World Heritage list. Its rocks depict mysterious “sun like beings” that are symbols of

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

the god Mithras. The Saimaly Tash petroglyphs also portray scenes of sun-worship to Mithras.

Petroglyphs of the archaeological landscape Tamgaly Sources: www.yvision.kz

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The rock drawings, which are found in many areas of Kazakhstan and adjacent areas of Eurasia – in East Kazakhstan, the Altai, in the Karatau (mountains), and in others, include images of chariots, which were at the same time object of worships, camels, bulls, which were symbols of ancient gods, ritual dances, scenes of plowing, etc. Kazakhstan was “the most important locus of the geography of Central Asian Rock Art in antiquity”. These ancient sanctuaries in the mountains were true, open-air temples. The Kyzyltas petroglyphs (which Chinese archaeologists call the “Kantsziashimentsze”) in the territory of East Turkestan depict nearly 300 human images (with the largest being the size of a human being, and the smallest between 20-30 cm), including naked men and women participating in an ancient, erotic ritual. Scientists attribute this cultural monument to the Sakâ of the Tien Shan, though it is possible to situate them in the late Bronze Age. In general, it is believed that the areas of Shilikty, Besshatyr, Issyk, Berel’, and others were not only burial places of kings and chiefs, but also sacred places of mass rituals, feasts and sacrifices. The religious conceptions of the Sakâ have a martial coloring. This is rooted in the nomadic mentality and the warfare that constituted their way of life. Scythian-Sakâ tribes worshiped the sword, weapons and armor, and the warhorse, which they considered sacred. At the same time, when a Scythian died, 50 horses were offered in sacrifice. Weapons were buried along with the deceased in their graves. The cult of the leader and king played a huge role in the life of the Sakâ. The priest-king, embodying all the strata of the population, was considered to have been chosen by the Gods, and believed to be the intermediary between heaven and earth, the center of the world, and the guarantor of the world’s prosperity. A country’s welfare was dependent on his physical prowess and spiritual energy. It is well known what a horse signified in the life of a nomadic warrior. An episode from an ancient source recounts a young Sakâ who answered a Persian king, rejecting the proposal that the nomad offer his fastest horse in exchange for an empire. At the same time, in the spirit of the best tradition of the nomads, the cultivation of generosity,

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

the Scythian remarked that he could offer his horse in exchange for the gratitude of a valiant man. The winged horses on the headdress of the Sakâ leader in the Issyk barrow represent his status as the chosen of the Gods and his connection with the higher realms of the cosmos. The horse was an Indo-Iranian symbol of the sun. “The association of the horse with the sun had two aspects among Eurasian peoples... on the one hand, it is the charging horse., i.e. the horse as a rising or emerging sun, but, on the other hand is the inevitable image of the horse as a setting or fading sun, “a symbol of the underworld or of the grave”. The struggle between these two antagonists (black and light) embodying day and night, and life and death, is reflected in the epic traditions of the peoples of the region, as well as in their burial and funeral rites. Wearing jewelry (large earrings, rings, pendants for the neck, bracelets, etc.) in antiquity had not only aesthetic but religious, symbolic and magical significance. Even in the ancient societies of the Stone and Bronze Ages, men and women wore shells and the teeth of predatory animals as talismans. As noted, “animal style” art was also bound up with totemism and magic. Among the Sakâ, as among their kindred Scythians, reverence of the earth as a “mother goddess” was popular. There is information about Hunnic sorcerers appealing to the goddess of the earth. It is also possible to see the transformation of ancient cults in the presence of both ancient and relatively new layers in the religious and mythological consciousness of the Sakâ. For example, images of deer and goat horns are associated with ancient totemic remnants. Contradictions as well as amorphous and incomplete ethical ideas marked the spiritual world of the ancient inhabitants of Kazakhstan and Eurasia as a whole. From this emerges the quite brutal manners and eroticism characteristic of the collective mentality. The “dark” side of life in antiquity and in the ancient world of the nomads and farmers of Eurasia (the Proto-Slavs, Proto-Turks, etc.) should not be silenced. Humanity had not yet turned away from human sacrifice in these periods in the history of mankind (they were committed even in the civilization of Rome). The wife and servants of a husband were often sacrificed after

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his death. E. Kuzmina has remarked that “there have been cases of slaughter among the “Andronov” people, frequently of young children buried under the floor of the house or in a special annex”. This practice dates back to the ancient Aryans and their belief in the need for sacrifice in the construction of a home. Human sacrifice was practiced among Scythian tribes and also among the Huns; servants or prisoners of war were often sacrificed and buried alongside with their masters. The martial traditions of the pagan tribes (those existing before the creation of world religions) did not know limitations or humanitarian norms. Joseph Flavius’ ​​(circa 37 -100) remarks on the Scythians and their tribes, to the effect of their “finding pleasure in killing people” was true. There were no regulations or bans in ancient societies on sexual relations; polygamy was unrestricted, and a man could marry his stepmother after the death of this father, etc. Orgies were practiced and encouraged in some proto-Turks communities, at times being elevated to the rank of sacred magic (as evidenced, for example, in the above depiction on the Kyzyltas petroglyphs). The ritual drink khaomu, a stimulant derived from the sap of ephedra, was used for religious or cultic purposes; smoke from the kindling of hemp seeds was also inhaled. According to written sources, the proto-Turkic populations of Kazakhstan and adjacent Eurasian regions consumed wine and other intoxicants without limitation. Manners and customs were softened and refined under the influence of early Zoroastrian ethics, as well as those of Buddhism, which penetrated the ancient centers of Eastern civilization. There were processes of self-knowledge and spiritual quests among the elite of these very societies, the priests, shamans, and the aristocracy of the Sakâ, Usun, Huns, etc. External shocks played a role in these progressive changes as did contacts with the missionaries of new religions and the spiritual teachers wandering along the routes of the Silk Road. The most important feature of the epoch was the proto-Turks’ connection with the great civilizations something that was realized through trade, as well as military and diplomatic actions, and that favored the spread of new religious teachings. Preachers of Buddhism,

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

Indian missionaries, and representatives of Greco-Roman culture penetrated Kashgar and China along the caravan routes of the Silk Road. There was the far-reaching cultural impact of the invasions led by Alexander the Great, which brought Hellenic civilization to Central Asia. Although the Sakâ tribes of Kazakhstan preserved their independence, a Greco -Bactrian kingdom emerged in Central Asia, and began to spread original Gandhari (Greco -Indian) art. A portion of the Sakâ was integrated into the Achaemenid Empire; they participated in the Greco-Persian wars as soldiers. The Sakâ community in southern Kazakhstan, owing partly to the impact of classical civilizations in the course of cross-cultural interactions, accepted one or another variant of Zoroastrianism. It is therefore necessary to consider that the near Syr Darya region and the surrounding areas of Central Asia up to the Fergana valley have long represented an organic whole. It is a fact that the promotion of Zoroastrianism was a major spiritual breakthrough for the ancient peoples of the East. The prophet Zoroaster, who lived between 1500 and 1200 BC, likely emerged from among the pastoral tribes of Central Asia, presumably from the northern (that is, eastern) Iranians, and not from the Persians. Despite the moderate success of his sermons, the influence of Zoroaster’s ideas was limited because their highly moral and ethical content did not fit mentality of his contemporaries. The new prophet’s criticism of idolatry and senseless blood sacrifice, the cruel oppression of the poor by wealthy livestock owners, and the dogmatism and arrogance of the existing priesthood, was nevertheless of great importance in the evolution of consciousness among the nomads and sedentary populations of the East. Zoroaster, in contrast, promoted the priority of moral purity in his “fiery sermons,” and the need to join the side of Light (Ahura Mazda, the ancient Zorastrian god of light and wisdom) in a conscious struggle against the forces of darkness and chaos – Angra Mainyu. According to Mary Boyce, the Great Steppe experienced a vibrant cultural blossoming in this period of a scale and level that warrants the epithet “steppe renaissance.” Thus, gradually, and in accordance with

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the laws of global history, the horizons of the ancient nomads expanded. We know from the biographies of individual Scythians that they felt the influence of Greek culture; the Usun and Huns began to master Sino-Confucian civilization. All this could not have occurred without leaving a trace in such areas as mental and religious consciousness. The religious views of the Huns and other nomads of the eastern part of Eurasia differ significantly. The cult of the sky, or of the sky God Tengri, dominated among them. In the opinions of many experts (mostly those that are Western), the proto-Turkic cult of Tengri emerged under the influence of the Chinese god of Heaven (Tian); others believe that the original symbol of the sky God was among the nomads. Like other proto-Turks, the Huns deified the ruler or leader, the Shan’iui, considering him the son of heaven. The Shan’iui was probably the focus of sacred power. The Huns also worshiped the spirits of the ancestors, the earth mother, and others. According to custom, the Huns made ​​a sacrifice three times a year “at the first, fifth, and tenth moon,” bringing their offerings to the spirit of Heaven. In the first moon of each year, all of the leaders gathered at a small meeting at the invitation of the Shani’ui and made ​​sacrifices to the ancestors, Heaven, Earth, the spirits of people, and the heavenly spirits. In autumn, when the horses had been fattened, they gathered for a meeting at which they counted and checked the number of people and livestock; they discussed affairs of state and staged entertainment such as horse and camel races. It is interesting that remnant Hunnic tribes in the Caucasus (at the end of the VII century), despite processes of assimilation and the transformation of culture, preserved their faith in Tengri-khan, who was represented in the form of thunder, and as an enormous, giant hero. Two types of sanctuaries are mentioned in which rituals in honor of Tengri were performed: temples, i.e. pagan temples, in which idols (probably in the image of Tengri) were erected, and sacred groves, in which the tallest trees also embodied the sky God. Roasted horses, slaughtered in the sacred groves, were offered in sacrifice to the god Tengri-khan. Then they sprinkled their blood on the land under the trees, their heads and skins were hung on the branches, and the car-

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

casses burned in a sacrificial fire. It is also related that the late Huns worshiped the deity Īol-Tengri. 1.3. Sedentary-agricultural aspects of proto-Turkic civilization. The problem of cultural innovations and the origins of writing While recognizing the dominance of the ancient nomadic way of life in the steppes of Eurasia, including in most of what is present-day Kazakhstan, we cannot permit analyses of proto-Turkic and ancient Turkic culture that focus solely on nomadism and oral forms of the transmission of genealogical and cultural information. Numerous archaeological discoveries have altered the traditional view of the Sakâ and Usun as purely nomadic cultures. This is evidenced by substantial archaeological finds, including remnants of ancient irrigation. Sakâ cities such as Chirik-Rabat and Balanda, with advanced fortifications, monumental architecture, and highly developed construction equipment, have been uncovered in the Aral Sea region. It is proper to say that the territory of Kazakhstan and the Eurasian steppe have formed a symbiotic culture of farmers and herdsmen since ancient times. “Steppe civilization, as a stable and dynamic integrity, was based on the complementarity of the nomadic and sedentary ways of life”. In this regard, the southern regions in Kazakhstan’s history – the coast of the Syr Darya (the ancient Kang, the Iaksart of the authors of antiquity, the Seikhun of later Muslim sources) as well as the Seven Rivers, or Semirechye – have stood out for the abundance afforded to habitation and farming in the Chu, Talas, and Ili river basins. The land of the Usun, stretching from the Chu River to the eastern spurs of the Tian Shan Mountains and from Lake Balkhash to the southern shore of Issyk-Sakâ, Usun and Kangiui also reached the level of early statehood. The Kangiui (Kangly) mainly occupied land along the middle reaches of the Syr Darya; in the east their encampments reached Balkhash.

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Saka sity: Chirik-Rabat Sources: www. karmakshy.gov.kz

Syma Tsian’ and other authors characterize the Usun as pastoralists with typical nomadic life ways, but a range of archaeological and written evidence suggests the existence of sedentary elements. It is possible to name Chiguchen, on the shore of Issyk Kul, the city Kantras on the Ili River, and the settlement Talgar, among Usun cities. Ruins of large settlements have been unearthed in excavations in old Almaty, Kargaly, and in other places. Despite the widespread dominance of nomadism among the Huns, archaeologists have discovered Hunnic cities in the Trans-Baikal region, in which iron sickles, stone grinders, plows, etc., were dug up. The inscription on a silver cup of 26 characters, uncovered in the “Issyk” barrow, is not yet considered to have been definitively read. Prof. A. Amanzholov has offered one reading based on the proto-Turkic alphabet: “Brother, this center is for you! Foreigner, kneel down! Let it be fertile for the people”; another variant is based on SogdianAramaic script.

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

Records of the Grand Historian “Shi Ji” Early printed edition Sources: www.wikipedia.kz

The “Issyk writing” has become a serious argument in determining the level of Sakâ culture and civilization in the Kazakh Semirechye, as writing, along with the presence of cities and states, is always an undeniable indicator of socio-cultural development, one that corresponds to the level of a civilization.

A silver cup Source: www.mix.tn.kz

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Based on the scientific findings of modern Kazakh scholars, there is every reason to speak about a Sakâ state and civilization centered in the Semirechye in the VI-III century BC. The origins of statehood, the runic script, and the Turkic cyclical calendar are also linked to the Usun and Kangiui as proto-Turks. Scientists reconstruct a fairly complex, hierarchical, state structure among the Usun, consisting of nine levels, defined by such titles and positions as gun’mo (supreme leader), “dalu,” “iabgu,” “dartu,” “dazhian,” “dali,” “shyzhun dali,” and “iizhan “. Chinese chronicles report that the Kangiui king had a written codex stored in his headquarters. Kangiui epigraphic monuments – thirteen artifacts (including 2 full texts and 11 fragments) – have been found in the course of archaeological excavations. Chinese sources report that the Huns ade inscriptions (tamgi) on bone, wood, and other materials: “kėgu “ (engravings on bone), “kėmu” (inscriptions in wood); these same sources on the written traditions of the western Huns, as the contemporary Mongolian-Kazakh turkologist Sartkozha Karzhaubaiuly has shown, provide evidence of runic prototypes. This scientist also references the opinions of the Mongolian scientists A. Luvsandėndėv and D. Sukhbaatar. As is known, there are many hypotheses about the genesis of the runic alphabet of the ancient Turkic peoples: that it was rooted in branding or marking, pictorial images, in Phoenician, Aramaic (in numerous variants, including Parthian), Sogdian, Khorezmian, Pahlavi, in Aramaic branding or markings; there is the popular version regarding its origins in Sogdian prototypes (V. Livshits), which, in turn, reach back to the Aramaic letters of the Achaemenid era. At the same time, there is the not entirely groundless point of view of professor A. Amanzholov on the similarity between Sumerian and Turkic languages. Apart from the inscriptions on the silver cup in the Issyk Sakâ barrow, the runic writing on a bone deer amulet is among the oldest examples, the inscriptions of which date to the V-IV centuries BC. Rarely does anything occur in the history of writing without borrowing, and as J. Clawson and other scholarly authorities have noted,

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

the Turkic peoples created their own original alphabet on the basis of Greek and Pahlavi writing, which they creatively reworked, successfully modernizing their own most ancient pictograms (logograms). The pictorial hypothesis, linking the evolution of runic to the ancient tamga (brands or markings) of the nomads, is gaining support; N. Aristov, and R. Goto shared this idea. Even though the world of the Scythian-Sakâ, Usun and Huns was not considered a civilization in the classic sense but rather a “barbarian periphery” in the eyes of the ancient Greeks, Assyrians, Persians, Chinese, and other advanced nations of the ancient world, it is necessary to take into account the age-old opposition of the mentality and world view of the nomads and sedentary populations. There is an undeniable element of truth (in some sense) in respect to the primitivism and social incompleteness in the communities of warlike nomadic tribes that inhabited the steppes of Kazakhstan, which Herodotus, and Chinese and Persian sources, have noted; our task is not to mythologize the past or to artificially elevate the cultural level of our ancestors to the identifiable parameters of classical science. Yet it should not be forgotten that many descriptions of “savage” Sakâ or Huns belong, in all probability, to elements of their degraded groups or lagging regions (for example, the Massagets, according to classical authors, were among the poorest of the Scythians; and the Huns along the borders of Rome represented a bellicose horde that had already lost a portion of their Asian predecessors’ cultural achievements) . Sakâ civilization was complex and heterogeneous, it always had regions that were more developed or less developed than its others – there were centers and peripheries. In addition, our analysis of ancient communities and sub-ethnicities appropriately considers them to be historically dynamic rather than static – in a process of change and progressive spiritual and social evolution. Given the above, on the basis of the modern paradigm of pluralism and the diversity of cultures and civilizations, we can speak, in regard to the proto-Turkic peoples of Eurasia, of a unique proto-

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civilization (or early civilization), the foundations of which had been laid even in the Bronze Age. As for statehood, the nomads in all likelihood possessed an archaic proto-state in the pre-Turkic era (what in foreign scientific literatures is described as a “chiefdom”); in some developed regions (such as the Semirechye), the process of political formation was faster. In general, there was an evolving, progressive course to the cultural genesis of ancient Kazakhstan and to that of the entirety of Eurasia. In this process, positive relations with the great sedentary civilizations of the ancient world played a far from insignificant role, as did the Silk Road as a catalyst of cultural exchange. 1.4. Ethno-cultural, social, political and legal bases. The concept of “ancient Turkic civilization” If the sources of Turkic civilization matured over several millennia in the Bronze and Iron Ages, then it is possible to speak of a complete, fully realized system of civilization with the era that is termed the “ancient Turkic epoch” in “modern historiography.” A wholly formed civilization emerged in this period (VI-IX centuries AD), the foundations of which can be traced to the ancient Sumerians, Sakâ, Usun, Sarmatians, Huns, and others. The Australian theorist of archeology, Gordon Childe (the author of such terms as the “Neolithic” and “urban revolutions”), outlined ten signs of civilization in his work, included among which were the following indicators: cities, monumental public buildings, taxes and tribute, a specialized, intensive economy, involving trade and the division of specialized craftsmen, writing and the rudiments of the exact sciences (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy), the development of the arts, and social stratification, allowing for the existence of the privileged classes and the state . In 1958, there was a debate on ancient cities in Chicago, during which K Klakkhom proposed to narrow Childe’s list to three criteria: the city, writing, and monumental architecture. Of course, in modern

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science “civilization” is, in the overwhelming majority of cases, directly and far more simply tied to cities and to the criteria of a settled agricultural population; what is all the more remarkable is that the ancient Turkic peoples managed to attain the main, representative manifestations of early civilization, even according to the more complex, “classic” indicators. The ethnonym “Turk” spread in this epoch and had already been recorded in Chinese, Sogdian, Byzantine and other written sources by the second half of the VI century. In the second half of the first century AD, the ethno-linguistic situation in the Eurasian steppes was characterized by deepening processes of assimilation and the continuing, intensive Turkization of the tribes inhabiting the steppes. It is possible to say that Turkization reached its apogee and was carried to its logical conclusion in this era. It is significant that the Turkic language became the lingua franca of the entirety of the Eurasian continent. A language of runic inscriptions indicates an attempt to create a single, unified language that would supersede tribal dialects in the empire and stimulate processes of cultural and civilizational growth. The formative Türk ethnicity, (designated “Tutsiue” in Chinese sources and who termed themselves Kök Türks), related by blood and ethnicity to the proto-Turkic inhabitants of Kazakhstan and Inner Asia, enters the stage of Eurasian history in the VI century AD. Their emergence gave new impetus to development in a wide range of areas: ethnic, social, military, political, cultural, civilizational, etc. Chinese sources indicate that this new ethno-political association of nomads, which emerged along the northern border regions of China, bore ethnic and genetic links to the ancient Huns in their own, complex composition. According to L. Gumilev ‘s theory of ethnogenesis, the ancient Türks – the founders of the Türk Empire – experienced the extraordinary, dynamic growth of an ethnic group that is overflowing with creative energy and set to transform the world.

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Ancient Türk civilization was a unique phenomenon in the context of global and Eurasian history. The French Turkologist L. Bazin, characterizing the culture of the ancient Türks, used such expressions as “original culture,” and spoke of their “vivid, marked cultural traditions and statehood». J. Clawson, another well-known Turkologist, commenting on the situation of the Western Türk Khaganate at its height, notes that Ishtemi Khagan was “a ruler on a truly international scale” who established productive diplomatic relations with China, Iran and Byzantium. According to the modern Uzbek scholar B. Karimov, “Turkic civilization existed on the same level and was of a kind with such Eastern and Western civilizations as those of the Han, Romans, Indians, Germans, Arabs, Slavs, Persians, Dravidians, Malaysians, Indonesians, Japanese, and others. Though we know a civilization in broad terms as a socio-historical type, or as a socio-cultural system, it must be recognized that a diversity of elements is included in the concept of “ancient Türk civilization:” the Kök Türks created a state and legal mechanism, a military tradition, written heritage, religious and mythological beliefs, a military-warrior code, an ecological culture, the rudiments of scientific knowledge, of the arts, etc. The creation of a vast empire stretching from Manchuria to the Black Sea was in itself a marvel. The great Türk Khaganate (552-744), established by such charismatic personalities as the Khagans Bumyn and Ishtemi, became the first Eurasian empire, uniting ethnically and culturally diverse tribes, as well as nomads and sedentary peoples, under its rule, and establishing permanent diplomatic and cultural contacts with the great civilizations and states of the Middle Ages, such as those of Iran, Byzantium, China, etc. From the point of view of the material and economic foundations of a civilization, it must be emphasized that it was primarily grounded in nomadism, but the ancient Turkic ethnic and cultural community was no less a community of miners and metallurgists, artisans, builders and blacksmiths, and later, one of farmers, traders, scientists, and thinkers. The Great Steppe, from which the ancient Türks emerged

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and to whose traditions they were heir, had always been a center of ancient metallurgy. The inhabitants of the Türk Khaganate and its successors inherited and enriched this tradition of the proto-Turkic tribes. Spiritually, it is important to note that ancient Turkic civilization established the spiritual philosophy of the Eternal El. The signature elements of ancient Türk civilization are the monuments of Türk writing: those in “runic” and Uighur scripts. Uncovered in the vast spaces of Siberia, East Turkestan, the Semirechye, Central Asia, Hungary, and other parts of the Eurasian landmass, they are a reflection of the development of Türk culture and civilization. In L. Gumilev’s conception, they suggest the ancient Türks were in a state of transition from a mythological to a historical, epochal consciousness, that they had developed ethnic awareness, the foundations of rational thinking, as well as their own cultural identity. The most important and fundamental feature of ancient Turkic civilization was that it was characterized by the harmony of ethnocultural identity and a broader orientation to humanity. The tribes which inhabited the great Khaganate, and the states of the Kypchak, Karluk, Oguz, Kimek and others, closely associated with both distant and close neighbors. China, Iran, Sogdia, Byzantium, Rus’, Georgia, Hungary, Khorezm, and Egypt form a far from complete list of the countries and states with which the Turks came into close cultural contact. It is difficult to overemphasize the role of the great Silk Road, which flourished in this epoch. Dialogue with other cultures is also an indication of a people’s civilization; and an “information field of increased communicability was created in the vast expanses of the Great Steppe”. If we are to raise the issue of the ethno-cultural processes and key events of the era, the ethic and political designation “Türk” emerged in the Altai and first denoted the 10 (or 12) tribes of the Huns, who were headed by the elite Ashina tribe. As the Turkish pro-

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fessor Akhmet Tashagyl notes, the history of the Kök Türks begins with the A-shih-na, which was engaged with iron mining in the Altai. In time the term “Türk” came to apply to all local, Turkic-speaking tribes. The word was first recorded in Chinese sources that have been dated to 542 AD. In A. Kononov’s article, “analysis of the term ‘Türk’ leads to different etymologies”. According to the annals of the Suī-shu (580-618), local tribes named the Altai mountains “Türk,” which, translated very literally, meant “helmet”. In Turkology, there are interpretations of the word “Türk” as “power,” “might,” “noble person,” “honored place in the yurt.” The latter is associated with the word “tos,” denoting an idol in the place of honor in a yurt (Abdulkadir Inan and others). Even before the Kök Türks established political hegemony over large parts of Eurasian territory, including the steppes of Kazakhstan, it was inhabited by tribes of the “tele” confederation, which bore close ethno-genetic ties to the Türks-Tutsiue. Yet it was the creation of the first Türk Khaganate that gave the population of the Eurasian steppes a new social impulse, the possibility of political and ethno-linguistic consolidation, and new horizons of culture and civilization. In their totemic myths the Kök Türks relate their emergence from a Hunnic boy and she-wolf. The she-wolf rescues a crippled boy – the only surviving representative of his nation (a people that is hunted, mutilated, and eventually exterminated by enemies) – and later gives birth to his 10 sons, who form the basis of the Kök Türk people. One of the “sons of the she-wolf,” Ashina, became a leader and led his kinsman into the Altai. In another Turkic legend, cited by Rashid ad Din, the ancestors of the Türks emerged from the mountain valleys of the Altai – the Ėrkene kun (“steep slope”). There is an echo of real events in every myth, its allegoric content providing hints to the existence of an actual, historical “core.” There are reports in Chinese sources about a tribe of Huns who were pursued by a cruel enemy, the linguistically Mongol Jujan, but who escaped at Turfan, the site at which they staged an assault on their pursuers in 460. They subdued them on the southern slopes of the Altai, making them subservient. And these were the future Kök Türks.

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In our view, the well-known Turkic genealogical legend is an allegory that relates the difficult fate of the Türk people, and the martial spirit that characterized the ethnic group and the founders of the Khaganate. This ethnicity ensured its existence through tremendous pain and suffering, passionately fighting to remain in history. Perhaps this mythological story can be extrapolated to the subsequent history of many Turkic peoples, including, above all, to that of the Kazakh people “who died a thousand times and who were reborn a thousand times” (to use a poetic metaphor of the national poet, Zhuban Moldagaliev). According to the etymology of L. Gumilev, the word “ashina” comes from the Mongolian “shino” – the word for wolf to which was added the prefix “a.” According to another version, ashina means “blue,” or a dark blue color, in Iranian languages (H.W. Hausing: dressed in dark clothing), while in the Khotan-Sakâ dialect “asana” conveys the sense of “worthy” or “noble”. In antiquity, ruling dynasties in China and Central Asia chose some kind of color as a symbol for representing the division of the cosmos into four quadrants, which in turn correspond to the four parts of the world. Each quadrant matched a specific color and animal. In the Orkhon inscriptions, the first Khagans designated themselves “kök” or “blue Türks” (it is possible to draw an analogy with the Ak-Orda and Kök-Orda of the Mongol epoch). In the opinion of A. von Gabin, the color blue was a symbol of the East. Therefore, the “Kök Türks” could be considered residents of the eastern part of the empire, while the Western Turks were “ak” or white. Most scholars consider that “kök Türk” was a self-appellation of the ancient Turkic peoples. It is noteworthy that the Chinese considered the color red to be “national,” while the color blue symbolized the steppe nomads. In the poems of the Tan epoch, the nomadic yurt is called “blue.” There is a basis for discussing two stages of Kök Türk ethnogenesis. The first period from the III century to 460 is conventionally referred to as “gansu-gaochanskiī.” At that time the ancestors of the Kök Türks inhabited Ordos. The second stage – “the Altaic” – begins after 460 AD and continues until 551.

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Most scholars consider the founding of the great Khaganate to be 542 (although L. Kyzlasov, K. Salgaraily, and others believe it to be 536). There were many obstacles in the path of the Türk Empire’s creation requiring the courage, determination, and diplomatic skills of its leaders (e.g. enlisting the support of the northern Chinese state of the Western Wei in the fight against the Jujan, establishing an alliance with Sasanian Iran against the Ephthalites, winning recognition and support from the distant Byzantine Empire). The western boundary of the Khaganate steadily increased in the second half of the VI century as a result of the victorious campaigns of Ishtemi Yabgu Khagan. The empire encompassed the territory of modern Kazakhstan and Central Asia up to the headwaters of the Amu Darya, while the campaigns of the western Khagans in Tokharistan expanded the boundaries up to the north-west limits of what is now India. However, it is important to pay attention to the relatively peaceful, bloodless nature of Türk conquests in the western territories, in which nomadic Turkic speaking sub-ethnicities voluntarily integrated into the empire. After the collapse of the Empire (603), the history of ancient Türk statehood and civilization endured in the traditions of the Western Türk khaganate, and in those of the First and Second Eastern Türk Khaganates, for which reason a number of researchers, many of them Turkish historians, believe it is possible to speak of the 200-year history of the Türk Empire. The states of the Turgesh, Karluk, Oguz, the Khazars, and Kypchak themselves represented the logical culmination of ancient Türk statehood and civilization. Otüken was among the original sacral concepts of the Kök Türks – the idea of a sacred land, including north-western Mongolia and southern Siberia, specifically its mountainous, forested region, in the center of which stood the Khangai Mountains. The state was called the “Türk El,” a people who were united by the tribal principle termed

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“Türk bodun” (with bod meaning tribe), whereas the term “el” reflects a military, administrative principle of organization. It was Arab scholars of the IX-XII centuries who first began to distinguish the term “Türk” in an ethno-linguistic sense, and who came to understand that the Oguz, Karluk, Tiurgesh, Uighur, Kypchak and Kimek formed a single Turkic ethnicity speaking the languages that emerged from the same root. This understanding of the word “Türk” as an ethno-linguistic community can be seen, for example, in the dictionary of Makhmud Kashgarī. During the periods of its highest power the Kök Türk Empire commanded the tribute of Chinese principalities. Despite the scientific concept proving that the nomadic empires of Asia were mere “shadow empires” dependent on relations with China (Thomas Barfield), many scholars, including L.N. Gumilev, E.I. Kychanov and others (among them such contemporary Kazakh historians and turkologists as B.E. Kumekov, T.Omarbekov, T. Zhumaganbetov, and others) have a different view: that the empire of the Kök Türks emerged as a result of its own, internal dynamics and in accord with laws of development all its own. It is worth noting that contemporary Western authors themselves have found contradictions in Barfield’s theory of the “cycle of power “ (Barfield being a Western anthropologist himself), according to which the nomads created an autocratic, quasi-state whose stability was maintained only by the financial resources of China. Empire and civilization are closely interrelated concepts. Along with written language and urban culture, statehood is the most important, “classical” indicator of the level of civilization of a people. In the process of evolution, the ancient Türk did not merely create an ethnic

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state but the first Eurasian nomadic empire. Terms such as “nomadic empires,” “archaic empires,” and “polities” are used in modern, scholarly literature. Their empires are characterized as poly-ethnic, political groupings, formed by military-administrative means. Across an expanse of centuries, the Kök Türk managed to preserve the most important and determinative aspects of their ethnicity, including their language, the nomadic mentalité, and traditions, while at the same time integrating diverse ethnicities into a single, integral whole. Modern scholars consider the following as characteristic features of nomadic empires: 1) the preservation of forms of tribal institutions, embodying new forms of content that are directly related to the degree of development of class society and the state; 2) strict, centralized control together with the forms of a military dictatorship, which is characteristic for the largest nomadic empires; 3) a state of constant war with neighbors; 4) their enormous size. The Turkic peoples are included among those nations with an imperial “sense,” together with the Persians Greeks, and Romans. The Russian scholar R. Rahmanaliev sees the skill and ability of the Turkic peoples to absorb the achievements of other cultures as a characteristic feature of ancient Turkic civilization. Outlining the Turkic, imperial “sense,” he wrote that “they are masters of the earth by nature or character. Their empires, dissimilar to one other, demonstrated common, basic forms for three thousand years. The Turkic peoples wanted to ensure that a diversity of peoples lived together in harmony, but left them under the centralized restrictions and despotic rule of their own identities, language, culture, religion, and often, of their own rulers.” Scholar further remarks that, “having ascended to the heights of power befitting a conqueror, they did not hesitate to seek assistance

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

from vassals in those cases in which they were more civilized than they themselves were, and often entrusted important things to them; they also did not hesitate to borrow what might be useful, appropriating at one time or another technology, modes of living, religion or language. The chronicles write that their main concern was to organize the conquered nations and tribes, to rule them, and to lead them into battle. This explains why so often they ended up assimilating into the populations they subjugated. “Contemporary research is actively pursuing the idea that the nomads were in essence translators of the achievements of various civilizations”. The original political and legal system of the Turks answered the requirements of the civilization of that era. V. Trepavlov has remarked that the state legal system of the ancient Turkic people (töru) is an undeniable indicator of a high degree of civilization. The extensive Turkic titulature is also an indicator of a developed state apparatus. The office of “Khagan” existed even before the establishment of an independent Kök Türk state, as is evidenced in the diplomatic struggles of the Zhuzhan and in those of the principality of Western Wei (it is significant that this same northern Chinese dynasty was itself Turkic in terms of its ethnic origins). Sogdian officials, who played a leading role in the initial stages of the Empire, were soon replaced by literate Türks. In official sources the seat of the Khagan was termed “khundan,” in the sense of “supreme chancery.” Cup-bearers or stewards, termed “bek-iargany” and “iargan-teginy,” served in the court of the Imperial Khagan; these were positions responsible for etiquette and protocol. The tamgachs – the Keeper of the Seals – was a notable figure among the palace retainers. State officials in the empire of the Kök Türk comprised 28 or 29 individuals (according to Rene Grousset) divided into ranks. The most senior positions in the state were those of “tegin,” “yabgu,” dva shada,” “buiuruk,” “tarkhan,” “kol’ erkin,” “erkin” and others. (According to P. Golden, “tutuk” was the «Minister of War» and beg – (ulu bek) – the Minister of the Interior). The Kök Türks, of course, made creative use of the administrative experience of China. For example, the title of “siangun” – meaning

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general, “taīshi” – heir, nobleman, or prince, as well as “tutuk” may well have been borrowed from the Chinese (A. Maliavkin, E. Kychanov). According to I. Popov, the Kök Türks incorporated public palace debates and other practices from the Tan dynasty into their system of rule. The political system of the Turks underwent further evolution and reform in the western Khaganate. We will see an ever more intricate state legal system in the later Qarakhanid state.

Gold earrings and a pendant with the image of goddess Umai Source: www.umay-kypchak.narod.ru

The most important feature of Türk state and civilization was the relatively high status of women of noble birth and that of their relatives. The Orkhon epigraphic monuments refer to the status of “katun” (roughly translated as “lady”), a profound symbol of the mother and feminity, in relation to the cult of Umai. The idea of a “katun” and “Khagan” duality united in life and in the rule of the state was apparently widely promoted, as is evidenced by archaeological research and analysis of the monuments of the Western Türk Khaganate. Representations of rulers, of a “katun” and “Khagan,” are encountered on Sogdian coins. As L. Gumilev has written, “the attitude towards women was emphatically respectful and chivalrous. A son, when entering a yurt, bowed first to his mother and then his father”. It is a fact that among the Türks “it was possible to achieve everything through women,” – Muslim historians have written (Tabari). Re-

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

searchers point to such interesting phenomenon in the history of the Muslim period as the “active philanthropic work of women from the nomadic tribes”. 1.5. Writing and the ideology of the ancient Turks “The introduction of writing was of great importance. Its creation was not the result of abstract, speculative combinations; it was rooted in the urgent needs of a society entering a new phase of its development ... The complex social and economic system, which the first civilization embodied, led to a rapid increase in diverse forms of information. The introduction of writing was an important phenomenon in the social sphere, one that confronted another specific feature of the first civilizations of the epoch – the separation of mental and physical labor” (V. Masson). The spiritual culture of the Eurasian Turks rose to a new level over the course of the VIVIII centuries – Turkic writing emerged, borrowed and original inscriptions appeared in Turkic literary writing, and Turkic tribes first engaged the great religions of that time – Buddhism, Manichaeism, Christianity, Islam, and widely mastered the achievements of other civilizations ... a new, distinctive and original culture was created, which assumed its own place in the world culture of that epoch (S. Kliashtornyi). One of the highest achievements of the era was the creation and widespread diffusion to the Central and Middle Asia and Eastern Europe of ancient Turkic writing, which had two significant and undeniable advantages – it was autochthonous and authentic. The rich writing of the Turkic heritage (primarily epigraphic) has been and remains an object of scientific study throughout the entire world. The German scientist J. Messerschmidt and the Swedish officer I. Strahlenberg made the first discovery in the Yenisei valley in the

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early XVIIII century; it was initially termed “runic” (due to its similarity with Scandinavian runes), and the mysterious letters did not lend themselves to being immediately deciphered. Massive stone steles with similar inscriptions were uncovered in the Orkhon valley of northern Mongolia by N. Iadrintsev in 1889. It was only in 1893 that the great Danish linguist Wilhelm Thomsen deciphered “the Orkhon-Yenisei inscriptions,” his translation being based on a key uncovered in connection with a reading offered by the Russian turkologist V. Radloff. Thus unfolded one of the greatest discoveries of the modern humanistic sciences, demonstrating that a previously unknown writing belonged to the distant ancestors of the modern Turkic-speaking peoples of the world. The decryption of the runes and the establishment of the field of Turkology in Europe and Russia had a huge impact on the awakening of the national consciousness of the Turkic peoples – not only in Turkey but also in Tsarist Russia, a country in which the descendants of the Turks were subject to racial and cultural discrimination. To date, the sum of world turkology is impressive; there are now numerous works on the diverse problems related to the history of runic writing, and to the culture of that era, though a number of issues remain controversial. The Turkic runic alphabet consisted of 37 or 38 independent geometric characters (in the Toniukuk inscriptions there are 40, in the Yenisei variant of runic writing – 39). The phonetic alphabet was perfectly suited to the Turkic language. However, it was used primarily in the form of monumental writing – for inscriptions in stone. Along with “runic” inscriptions, the Kök Türks also used the Uighur script, which originated from Sogdian (in several modified forms). Ancient Uighur writing took the principal form of translations of religious texts and missionary literature. Even after the collapse of the great empire, a common literary language and writing were preserved along with empire-wide fashions and

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general features of material culture. The question of the genesis of the ancient Turkic alphabet is certainly interesting and significant. Several hypotheses on the origins of the runes have been mentioned: tamga, pictorial, Phoenician, Aramaic (in several variants), among others. According to J. Clawson, the Turkic people created their own alphabet, adapting and combining the Greek alphabet, Pahlavi writing and their own original characters. The genius of the ancient Turkic people allowed them to deftly modernize their own more ancient Turkic pictograms by using Greek and Pahlavi symbols, transforming them into an alphabet which embodied all the features of a living, Turkic language. “This alphabet quickly spread throughout the entire Turkic-speaking world of that time. Since the Turkic alphabet was sufficiently simple, any bearer of a Turkic language who wished to write could master it”. Old Turkic runic alphabet

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The timing of the emergence of runic writing has also generated significant controversy. The Kazakh turkologist, professor A. Amanzholov, has dated the earliest appearance of the runic script to the V-IV centuries BC, based on already existent proto-Turkic writing in antiquity. The idea of the origins of runic writing in tamga – the tribal brands and marks of different Turkic peoples – is testified to by a Kazakh turkologist. S. Klyashtornyi believes that it appeared no later than the second half of the VII century from a Sogdian prototype. The most universally accepted version of the chronology defines a period from the VI-XIII centuries (in ​​the territory of Central Asia and Kazakhstan the Arabic alphabet had already superseded the runic script by the XI century). The notion that runic prototypes already existed in the ScythianSakâ era is not unfounded. Modern turkology has established the evolution of ancient “tamga,” brands or marks, from pictograms and ideograms and their later development into an alphabet with ideographic remnants of numerous symbols. And yet, it is probable that the Kök Türks took grandiose and bold steps to revitalize, reform, and modernize the alphabet to match the scale of a single, sprawling empire in the era of the creation of the great Khaganate. The poly-ethnic composition of the Türk Empire and the dynamic cultural dialogue the Silk Road encouraged were in this case important motivating factor. In this regard, it is worth paying attention to the Sogdian and Chinese elements in the cultural genesis of the Kök Türks. It is important to understand that the Kök Türks, as a people with a nomadic mentality, entered the historical stage, above all, as warriors, as masters of weapons and the military arts, skilled in the management of state administration, whereas in terms of the book knowledge and spiritual life of the Turkic nomads, their civilization was enhanced by those living within the state, by the bearers of Persian cultures (Sogdian) vising Turkic lands, and also – to a lesser extent – by the representatives of Sino-Confucian civilization. To downplay the factor of intercultural exchange would be to depart from scientific objectivity, especially given that openness to

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cultural exchange and skill in dialogue and mutual influence are themselves indicators of the civilization of an ethnic group. The Turkic-Sogdian synthesis is a vivid expression of the fruitful dialogue between cultures in the Türk Empire. Sogdians served the Turkic Khagans as diplomats, religious figures (preaching Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Christianity, etc.), court scribes, officials, tradesmen, city builders, and as bearers of literate cultures. In the territory of the Empire, especially in the cities, the population was apparently bilingual, equally fluent in both Turkic and Sogdian. There is reason to speak of this epoch as that in which a synthesis of Turkic and Soghdian cultures and civilizations took shape in Central Asia. Most of the cities on the Syr Darya and the Seven Rivers emerged as a result of Sogdian colonization, and the majority of their inhabitants in the early stages of history were from Sogdia. According to K. Baypakov, the Sogdian language became the lingua franca of a vast territory from Merv to Mongolia and from Khorezm to northern India in the in the VII-IX centuries. Sogdians lived in the Chinese capital of Chang’an. In L. Gumilev ‘s view, the symbiosis of Turkic and Iranian (Sogdian) peoples was always positive, whereas cultural rejection emanated from China. However, a study of the sources shows that the influence of Chinese culture – up until the advent of Islam – was also quite substantial. The earliest written monuments related to the history of the first Türk Empire are the Sogdian language Bugut inscriptions, which were dedicated to Taspar Khagan (572-581). Etched in the language and alphabet of Sogdia, the inscriptions relate the history of the First Türk Khaganate and the actions of Taspar Khagan (who officially adopted Buddhism). From references to readers, it is clear that Sogdian writing was understood in the Khaganate by a wide range of educated people from the upper strata of Türk society. Contemporary Kazakh scholars of Chinese sources, Sungataī and Ezhenkhanuly, write about the fact that there was a Turko-Sogdian, Chinese synthesis in the cultural history of ancient Türk society. The Türks frequently used

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Chinese characters for diplomatic purposes. This can be clearly seen in the “Notes” of Xuanzang (VII century), when a person, literate in Chinese, is easily found in the retinue of the great Khagan of the Western Türks, Ton-dzhabgu; the man wrote letters of introduction for Buddhist pilgrims travelling to the cities of Central Asia in the name of the Khagan. There is evidence of dialogue among Chinese and Türk civilizations in the VI century. The familiarity of the Kök Türks with Buddhism is a well-known fact, the Buddhist “Nirvana Sutra” having been translated into the Turkic language (in Sogdian script). The Turkic language content of the Buddhist monument “Altyn iaruk” (Golden shrine) also evidences this. Missionaries from various branches of Indo-Buddhist religious traditions travelled to the Türks. Mention of a meeting and dialogue in Semirechye between the Khagan Ton-dzhagbu and a Buddhist scholar from China also deserves special attention. Indian missionaries extolling Prajñāpāramitā preached among the Western Türks. It is known that one of the Bugutskoī stele honoring Taspar Khagan (VI cent.) contained an inscription in Sanskrit of Brāhmī writing. Words borrowed from Sanskrit, Tibetan, and other languages are encountered in Turkic medical texts .​ The inverse impact of the Turkic people on the Iranians, Chinese, Slavs, etc. is also a fact that should be fully investigated. Setting aside the regularity with which Sogdians, Chinese, Persians, Arabs, and Slavs recruited Eurasian Turkic nomads into their own armies, the high estimation of their martial qualities, the invitations to serve as military leaders and in other capacities, Turkic influence was also felt in the spheres of language, everyday customs, material culture, and even spiritual traditions. The interaction between Türk and Chinese culture reached its peak in the Tang era. The founder of the Tang dynasty, Li Yuan, was a Sinicized Turk, but did not abandon his nomadic customs. There was a surge of interest in Türk culture and language in the era of the Tang dynasty. A Chinese-Turkic dictionary was even created, one that has unfortunately been lost to posterity.

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

The “music of the West,” that is, the music of the cities of East Turkestan and Central Asia, was popular in China. “The music of various nations, among them that of the Turkic peoples, had already been performed by the imperial orchestra in the time of the Bėī-Chzhou, the historical predecessors of the Tang Dynasty… There were ten thousand Türk families living In Chang’an already by the second decade of the VII century. Turkic clothing emerged as a “fashion” due to their influence, the craze for nomadic customs growing more successful with every year and even penetrating the everyday life of the circle of courtiers and nobles. Turkic clothes – a green or brown coat with a collar, folded over the left side and belted with a strap, became common clothing in the Tang era”. Chinese nobles began to set up yurts in their courts and occupy them in the winter months. The Chinese official and poet Bo Juyi (772-846) sang of the yurt as a refuge from the cold in a beautiful poem ending with the line: “I am one of noble royal birth who will not exchange a yurt for their palaces.” The Sogdians certainly did not escape the influence of Turkic culture, especially in regards to the role of the Turkic language. Mahmud Kashgarī testified that Sogdian had already fallen out of use by the XI century and was being assimilated by the Turkic language. The enormous impact of Persian vocabulary in the Turkic languages is a well-known fact, though the general public is unaware of the influence of Turkic on Iranian languages, even on such a developed written language of the medieval era as New Persian (Farsi). The turklogist G. Derfer has cited 1728 words of Turkic origin in the New Persian language (as well as 409 of Mongol origin), with this borrowed vocabulary encompassing material and spiritual spheres. Turkic words later penetrated Arabic, an influence that encompassed various epochs – from that of the Mamluks to Ottoman dominion (words such as “khatun” (lady), baīrak (banner or flag), etc., were encountered). It is necessary to conclude that even while actively engaged in the orbit of Chinese and Iranian cultural worlds, the nomads of Eurasia (both Turks and Mongols) “did not remain passive translators”.

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The prerequisites of writing should primarily be attributed to political, administrative, and diplomatic needs, as well as to religious and ideological requirements and objectives. According to some authors, the alphabet was created by order of an emperor and emerged out of administrative concerns. It is assumed either that motives of communication dominated or those of record keeping; there may even have been elements of cryptography. However, as mentioned in the previous section, there were already prototypes of runic writing. The ancient runic script was more suited to inscribing stone and trees, although it did not exclude other materials. Turkic envoys were accompanied by scribes. Arriving in Constantinople in 568 on a diplomatic mission to the Emperor Justinian, the Turkic envoy of the Khagan, Maniakh, delivered an imperial message writing in “Scythian writing,” according to Menander”. That literacy was widespread and available not only to the aristocracy but also to the broad masses is evidenced by communications in sources, such as those that Turkic peoples wrote on wooden slabs, calculating “quantities required of men, horses, cattle and taxes.” “The emergence of writing led to the emergence of a new profession – that of scribes, whose education in special schools also shaped the rudiments of positive knowledge “. In Kök Türk society the status of the “bitikchi,” or scribes, was, in all probability, high. They were experts in writing and calligraphers. Scribes of religious texts could be monks. That the scribe is always specified in debentures and commercial contracts speaks to the fact that the written language was fairly widespread in the empire; their identification in religious texts reinforces this (for example, it is evident from translations of Buddhist sutras that a scribe changed the names listed at the end). According to Gerard Clawson, the alphabets of monuments and documents appear to be “the result of a sophisticated art, the product of several generations of professionally training scribes in reading and

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writing”. “However, research by experts of a number of Khakass and Tuvan inscriptions suggest they were written not by highly qualified scribes but rather by self-taught individuals (possibly wandering stone carvers, semi-literate prisoners of war, etc.). This fact indicates the existence of different levels of education and literacy, and that, in general, there was a great attraction to writing among the broad masses of the people. As Muhammad ibn Mansur Merverrudi writes in the “Tarikh-ī Mubarak shah” (early XIII century): “there was writing among the Turkic people: [they] knew the mysteries of magic and the celestial bodies, children were taught to read and write. There were two types of writing among them: Sogdian and Toguz-oguz... Toguz-oguz writing… consists of twentyeight letters; it is written from right to left: the letters are not connected to one another in this writing”. The culture of writing among the Kök Türks reached a certain height. Although, as already noted, the ancient Turkic alphabet was intended mainly for carving on stone and stone stele, parchment scrolls from East Turkestan have survived. Many religious texts (of Buddhist or Manichaean content) were written on parchments manuKul Tigin Monument inscribed in  factured locally or in the Old Turkic alphabet West (from where it was Source: www. en.wikipedia.org imported). For writing on paper, the Turkic people used a thick, black ink, prepared from soot, a reed pen (its introduction the result of mission-

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ary activity recorded in Sogdian, Uighur, Syrian, and Manichaean writing), or a Chinese brush made from hair. According to the turkologist A. Gabin, the word “write” (bit + i) is derived from the Chinese name for brush (“pi”). The runic writing of the Türks was diffused throughout the whole of the territory of the Türk Empire, extending as far as the North Caucasus. The Kök Türks, Turgesh, Karluk, Kyrgyz, Oguz, Kimek, and others wrote in this language. All in all, modern science has discovered nearly 300 monuments of runic writing. The turkologist Sartkozha Karzhaubaiuly states that the ancient Turkic monuments and inscriptions (carved markings or brands) number more than 18,000, of which five or six major texts have only became widely known thanks to the classics works of Turkology. Kazakh-language Kul Tigin readers have still barely touched the nearly 300 texts that have been translated into German, French, Russian, Chinese, Mongolian, Turkish, and even the Kyrgyz languages. 1.6. Medieval Turkic civilization as a symbiosis of urban and nomadic cultures. Stages in the cultural renaissance The integration of Turkic peoples into urban civilization: genesis and context. The most important feature of the first civilizations was the development of urban settlements. It is no coincidence that the etymology of the word “civilization” can be traced back to the meaning, “urban community.” It should additionally be noted that the word “madeniet” (which in Kazakh means “culture,” and in Turkish, “civilization”) is derived from the Arabic “madinat,” which translates as “city.” “The city was an institution born in the womb of primitive society, one which symbolized the birth of a new epoch... The significance

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

of ancient cities was defined by their functions. In the first place they served as centers of agriculture, of trade and commerce, as well as a kind of ideological axis, one from which ideas radiated. The main temples of a country were located in its cities, and often the presence of a cultural center was one of the most important incentives for the formation of urban settlements. Together with this and other related functions there is also the outward form of ancient cities – the presence of multi-storied buildings”. Dynamic change, transformation and growth erupted in the historical space and time of the Türk ethnos and civilization. Born in the cradle of the nomadic cultures of Southern Siberia and the Altai, regions of mountains, forests, and steppe, the ethnic community of the Kök Turks chose a path of evolution and self-development, a process in which the foundations of their society progressed and become more complex in almost every regard: economically, technologically, culturally, socially, spiritually, philosophically, etc. The Eurasian steppe had known the rudiments of cities since the Bronze Age, but with the wide expansion of the Türk empire to the south and west, the integration into the Türk Khanate of what is now modern Kazakhstan and Central Asia up to Khorezm and the Amu Darya, and the inclusion of the oases of Eastern Turkestan, the close contact with the settled-farming cultures of the Persian world began to transform the Türks into an ethnos of citizens, builders, artisans, and merchants. A symbiosis of nomadic and settled Turkic cultures took shape in the early Middle Ages, a symbiosis that was the basis of TurkicIslamic civilization. Sedentarization had as its corollary the intensified development of construction, crafts, and cities. The city was the tie that bound the various branches of the medieval economy together. The territory of the western Türk Khanate, which was then inherited by the Tiurgesh, Karluks, and Karakhanid Turkic peoples, corresponded to the most ancient centers of the proto-Turkic civilization of the Sakâ, the Usun and Kangiuī. The fertile valleys of the Syr Darya, the Chu, Talas, and Ili created favorable conditions for the flourishing of a Turkic culture that was settled, agricultural, and urban. The area

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comprising south Kazakhstan and Semirechye had long been a singular historical and cultural region and a center of civilizational and cultural processes. Settlements in this geographic space emerged at the junction of oases and nomadic steppe. “Turkic cities were established on the shores of lakes, rivers, and in impregnable mountainous areas, regions in which minerals could be developed locally. A sizeable number of cities were set up along trade routes”. The dominant view in modern science is that there was a symbiotic relationship and synergy between nomadism and urbanism, the two types of economy and culture in ancient and medieval Eurasia, rather than an irremediable separation and opposition. It is possible to speak of a common cultural and civilizational macro system in Central Asia. The disruption of the interconnectedness and balance between these two elements – the world of the nomads and that of the sedentary, agricultural world – resulted, as history shows, in devastating and disastrous consequences for both sides. In contrast, all the high achievements of Turkic civilization in Eurasian history were made possible by the symbiosis of these two types of economy and mentality. As V.L. Egorov has remarked in relation to the post-Mongol period, “the quite common view of the incompatibility of urban and nomadic steppe cultures does not reflect the true state of affairs. As a result of the close alliance of the steppes and cities, crafts and the caravan trade developed rapidly and established the singular economic potential of the steppe, which long helped to preserve the power of the Golden Horde ... it is this symbiosis created by the nomads that constituted the numerous fundamental conditions for the existence of the Golden Horde as a state “. It is important to draw on the historical and cultural background, or conditions, under which the Turkic city arose and flourished in the early Middle Ages. The major external or international factor was, of course, the Great Silk Road, which played a catalytic role in the development of the vast region. During the VI-IX centuries the Turkic world experienced the zenith of the state form: with the modernization of state legal structures and the extensive development of a mature

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diplomacy, the conditions for urbanization ripened in the western Türk Khanate and in the states of the Karluk and Karakhanids. There was a strengthening, quantitatively and qualitatively, in the growth of cities and in their importance as centers of administration, ideology, commerce, crafts, culture, etc., in the Khanate. The expansive migrations, involving masses of Turkic peoples to the west and southwest, Sogdians along the trade routes, as well as various smaller migrations, can also be situated against a background of urban expansion. In these states both the nomads and settled population, including that part of the population resident in urban areas, were integrated within a single socio-political, economic, and legal system (and after Islam, often in the same spiritual and ideological complex). There was a commitment to strengthening mutual understanding, exchanging experiences, bonding spiritually, and consolidating. The general trend was such that processes of sedentarization intensified among the Turkic elements as did this element’s assimilation of agricultural traditions, construction, urban culture, etc. Urban culture in Kazakhstan is rooted in the Sakâ Usun era, yet large-scale urbanization was a characteristic that only merged with the early medieval era. There is considerable evidence of significant settlement among Turkic people in the Dictionary of the Turkic Languages by Mahmud Kashgari (XI c.), in which there are numerous Turkic terms to identify agricultural implements, grain, foodstuffs, as well as various Turkic communities (e.g., kishlak, a settlement or village, turaglyk-īer, an established or fixed settlement, literally “a place where one stands,” ochaglyk- īer, sengir, kent, meaning “city,” saraī, signifiying a “palace,” etc.). Also related to the sedentary or semi-settled lifeways of the Turkic peoples are the terms “yatuk” (also spelled yatak or zhatak and signifying a permanent settlement), “otrak “ (meaning “sedentary,” and derived from this – the name of the city Otrar), “koruk,” “yurt,” “kong,” “kotan,” etc. The word “koruk” designated a protected place, an area surrounded by a wall. One of the meanings ​​of the ancient Turkic word “kong” was that of a habitable, permanent settlement.

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The cultural aspect of the historical interaction between nomadic and settled population is marked by such phenomena as borrowing, imitation, diffusion, integration, etc. Modern archeologists and medievalists believe that a Turkic-Sogdian synthesis lies at the heart of the medieval urban culture of Kazakhstan. Its basis was the formation of the culture defined variously in archeology as “Kaunchin,” “OtrarKaratau,” “Zhetyasar.” Many authors consider it legitimate to talk about “Turkic cities,” “Oguz cities”, the cities of the Turgesh, Karluk, Kimak, etc. With respect to the cities on the modern territory of Uzbekistan and East Turkestan, the portion of foreign elements (Sogdian, Khorezmian, Tocharian) in their genesis was quite substantial. As they settled the Turkic peoples borrowed skills from ethnicities with centuries-old sedentary urban traditions in house construction, fortification, crafts, gardening, etc., in turn passing to the Sogdians, Khorezmians and their Türkicized descendants the secrets of animal husbandry, various weapons, ornaments, and others, the most notable of these being a language of communication. As is known, the Sogdian language in Central Asia, one of the most ancient North Iranian languages, had almost been wiped out by the ​​XI century, as it was unable to withstand growing influences from the south – those related to the development of the Farsi literary language, and from the north and east – from the intrusion of the Turkic dialects. The Turkic language​​overwhelmingly dominated in Central Asia as the language of wider communication and trade; it was in particular the language of the army, of military affairs, and of the martial, aristocratic elite. Turkic intellectual elites subsequently made efforts to enhance the prestige of the Turkic language as a language of literature, science, and administration. A characteristic feature of the cities of the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods in the history of Central Asia is the diversity of religions, and the coexistence of different cults and customs. When discussing the traditions and common typical features of urban medieval culture, the civilizational unity of the urban cultures

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

of southern Kazakhstan, Semirechye, Sogdia and Shasha should be noted. At the same time, Central Asian Turkic architecture that developed after Islam, had already become an integral part of a global Islamic urban culture with the era of the Karakhanids. The model of the centralized city was defined by such architecture as the citadel, the shakhristan (that part of a city located within the city walls but outside the citadel), and the rabat. Written works already use the term “mahalla” in the tenth century to denote city blocks. The Sogdian element played a great role in the first Turkic cities that arose along the route of the Silk Road ties as a result of the orders and resolve of the Turkic khagans. On the orders of the Turkic khagans, Sogdian artists adorned the walls of the buildings of the Turkic aristocracy with paintings and wood carvings. The professional associations of Sogdian builders and artists served as the arbiters of fashions and styles that took shape in large urban centers, on the periphery, and in the Turkic milieu. These markers of cultural prestige circulated in the elite subculture. Hence the desire for Chinese silk, Turkic military arms, and Sogdian architecture. In areas of the Turkic-Eurasian world such as the Volga-Ural region and Eastern Turkestan, the urban culture, architectural traditions, and spiritual norms had their own unique characteristics. This was due to the influence of Chinese, Mongolian, Slavic and Finno-Ugric ethnic factors that were peculiar to its historical and geographical circumstances. At the same time, the Turkic urban culture in these areas had deep roots. It is worth noting that the Volga Bulgars had already formed an enduring tradition of Turkic-Muslim culture in the tenth century. According to Ibn Hawqal, the city of Itil (the capital of the Khazar Khanate) had thirty mosques, in spite of the fact that the leadership of the Khanate had converted to Judaism. In general, one can observe the cultural and civilizational ascent of the Turkic peoples throughout Eurasia in the pre-Mongol period, an ascent rooted in their plural interactions with the surrounding environment and their adoption of the innovations of other ethnicities in this era.

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1.7. Turkic cities on the territories of Kazakhstan and Eurasia according to archaeological and written sources Chinese, Arabic, Persian, and other written sources discuss medieval Turkic cities, though the most important materials for the reconstruction of urban culture are archaeological artifacts. The center and most expansive locus of the origin of the Turkic urban tradition was the territory of the Syr Darya valley and Semirechye, zones in which nomads and settled agricultural oases interacted; the history of cities on the territory of modern Kazakhstan is a matter of great scholarly interest as a result. Like the Tigris and Euphrates, or the Yellow River and Yangtze, the Syr Darya and Amu Darya – the two largest rivers of Central Asia – became centers of ancient irrigation and the cradle of a settled, agricultural civilization. Sedentary, agrarian, and urban cultures formed in other oases, including in the basins of the Chu, Talas, and Ili (in north-west and north-east Semirechye). Urban centers along the Syr Darya such as Ispijab, Farab (Otyrar), Shavgar, Īangikent; and the cities that lined the Semirechye, including Karialyk, Iki-Oguz, Tal’khir, Almalyk, and many others, were well known to contemporaries as centers of culture, administration, political life, and of international and domestic trade. Several of the cities were residences of Turkic khagans. For example, Suiab was the capital of the western Türks, of the Turgesh, and of the Karluk. More than half of city residents were at times employed in the trade sector, something about which the Chinese traveler Xuanzang wrote in relation to Suiab. Sources began to refer to the city Balasagun (it is presumed its earlier names were Beklig or Semekna) on the site of Suiab in the Chu river valley. Sources speak of thirty three early medieval cities in the south of Kazakhstan. There were 36 towns and villages in southwest Semirechye (in the Chu and Talas river valleys) in the VII-X centuries according to archaeological data. Written sources mention twenty seven cities in this area. Several Turkic cities, cities such as Taraz (contemporaries termed it the “City of Merchants”), Suiab, Navaket, Nusket, and others, had the status of capitals or of major regional centers.

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

Certain medium-sized cities and settlement types stand out (the төрткүл – a settlement in the form of a quadrangle, located in mountain gorges and near major settlements, forts and caravanserai); the basis of classifying settlements is rooted in such parameters as the settlement ‘s size and its description in written sources. Along with Turkic cities on the Syr Darya, at the base of the Karatau, and in the Talas and Chu river valleys, Ispijab, Farab, Shavgar, Sauran, Taraz, Sus, Zhikils, Atlakh, Zhamukat, Kulan, Mirki, Dekh Navi, Balasagun, and others, should ne mentioned. Among Central Asian cities of the Turkic peoples, Ispijab gained worldwide fame. In his notes, Xuanzang refers to Ispijab by the name «City of the White River.» This is consistent with the later reports of Mahmud Kashgari: «Sairam is the name of a «White City» («al madinat-al baīda ‘), which was called Ispijab.” A Chinese traveler among cities also termed it Kulan (Tsiuī-lan). Ibn Haukal’ (X century) wrote about Ispijab, this largest of Turkic cities, claiming that it is “abundant in human beings and a vast city,” and that in all the cities of Khorasan and Transoxiana no town could escape the kharadzh (a state land tax), with the exception of Ispijab. Interestingly, Ispijab was primarily known throughout the East as a center of the slave trade. In this regard, it is worth noting that slavery and the slave market were one of the characteristic features of antiquity and the medieval era, and that this phenomenon must be understood in the context of the lifestyles and mentalities of traditional cultures. Even Islam did not abolish slavery, but only contributed to the humanization of its brutal realities and a broader democratization of social relations. In the Muslim East “white slaves” (the “ghulam,” or “mamluk “), Turkic peoples, Slavs, and Circassians, were particularly valued, being used for military service, as bodyguards, palace guards, and in other functions. Often, their influence increased to such an extent that they carried out palace coups and themselves seized power. Furthermore, Ispijab was one of the centers of Islam, in which, according to al-Maqdisi, there were 1700 ribats (or centers) for warriors of the faith. At the same time as the rise of Islamization, the ranks of the ghazis replenished Islamicized Turkic tribes.

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Taraz had already turned into a large city by the VII century, playing an important role in the trade of the Great Silk Road. Information about it is found along the trade routes, in ancient chronicles, and in geographical writings. The city was the capital of the Turgesh, the Karluk, the Karakhanids, and of the Chagataīids. It minted its own coins, as did the Turkic cities of the Syr Darya and Semirechye. Numerous numismatic materials speak to the level and intensity of trade in the city. Archaeologists have thoroughly studied the urban dwellings of the Turkic peoples, constructed mainly of mud brick, as well as their necropoli (an ancient burial mound with various accoutrements, including, at times, horses; burial coffins identified with the Nestorians; ossuaries belonging to the followers of Zoroastrianism; and more recent discoveries such as untouched crypts, and Muslim burials – from the mid IX century), fortifications, castles, palaces, etc. All of this speaks to a high level of craftsmanship, to the quality of construction and handicrafts, and to a culture and worldview that were complex, vital, and rich. Many cities were protected by strong walls: the walls of the city of Taraz were 3-3.5 m in width. Remnants of early medieval irrigation systems, irrigation networks, ditches, as well as canals and dams have been researched. The major irrigation systems, Kök-Mardan and Sangyl-Arik, were created in the Otrar basin; there was a common channel supplying water from the Arys to the cities and villages of the Otrar region that was at least 20 km. The study of palace complexes and other monumental structures that made up cities shows a correspondingly developed level of Turkic civilization. There have been careful studies of palace complexes in the city citadels of Zhamukat and Keder (the settlement Kuiruk tobe). The palace in Keder, constructed using techniques which are similar to the traditions of early medieval Sogdian towns, stood on a powerful platform 14m in height, had massive walls, and contained lodging and tower complexes. The ceremonial and religious areas of the palaces were often decorated with wall paintings, frescoes, and wood carvings. The decora-

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

tions of monumental buildings, as well as elaborate vegetal patterns and geometric motifs, testify to the aesthetic and professional level of their creators. In the tableaux on various vessels and anthropomorphic containers we see images of Sogdians and Turkic peoples with typical appearances, hairstyles and clothes. The pommels on ossuary closures often take the form of human heads, birds, beasts, and fantastic mythological figures. The singularity of religious architecture is of particular note. The monumental temples and religious buildings in the cities of Semirechye possessed remnants of the Buddhist temples of Ak Beshim and Suiab, remnants dating back to the end of the VII and early VIII centuries. They contained statues and icons of Buddha, bodhisattvas and clay sculptures. There were also Christian-Nestorian churches in the cities of Semirechye. Ceramics made from bone, metal, and stone were produced in the cities of Kazakhstan. Written sources indicate the development of crafts such as the manufacture of fabrics and garments made ​​of felt, wool, and leather. There were entire city blocks devoted to pottery; remnants of kilns and implements for making ceramics have been uncovered. There were varied dishes, pots, jars, lamps, and children’s toys produced from firing clay. There were also wineries producing a variety of wines (there was one winery, for example, in the settlement of Lugoviī, dating from the VII-VIII centuries), which embodies the pre-Islamic traditions of its Turkic-Sogdian population. The presence in Turkic cities of inhabitants specializing in mining, as evidenced by the remains of furnaces and tools for melting iron, should also be noted. This was typical, for example, of the cities of the Talas river valley and Karatau, regions in which there were abundant deposits of silver, copper, and polymetallic ores. Weapons and armor forgeries occupied a special position in the urban culture of the Turkic peoples; archaeologists have discovered numerous related artifacts: long iron swords, sabers, arrowheads and spears, as well as plate metal armor. Local jewelers were known to use such techniques as figure casting, stamping, embossing, inlay, granulation, filigree, gilding, etc.

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Ahmad Ibn Fadlan Manuscript page www.wikipedia.org

We encounter an abundance of women’s jewelry made from ​​ silver, bronze, and iron among the material artifacts of the Turkic cities in question, many of which were decorated with jade, turquoise and other stones. Refined examples of craftworks and significant objects of everyday life were created in the Turkic khanates.

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

The Kimek city of Gagan had workshops for creating clothes of red and yellow silk that were worn only by nobles. “From iron, craftsmen make objects of great beauty,” al Idrisi reported. The poet Al Jakhiz (of the IX century) praises Kimek woodenware, which, along with Chinese earthenware, enjoyed popularity everywhere”. Sources speak of a zenith of urban culture in the Volga region. In central Europe, Volga Bulgaria was termed “the country of cities;” two hundred Bulgar cities and settlements have now been found (the capital was the city Bulgar; another major city was Biliar, along with Suvar, Oshel ‘, and numerous others). They had sewers and waterworks; the streets of its Turkic cities were paved. The Arab geographer al-Balkhi first mentions the great city of Bulgar along the Volga in 920. According to some sources, the total area of the Bulgar settlement and its outlying inhabited areas comprised 12 hectares by the X-XI centuries. Ahmad Ibn Fadlan visited Volga Bularia in 922, recorded his impressions in the “Risala,” his memoir of the journey. Bulgar craftsmen – jewelers, masons, tanners, blacksmiths – enjoyed a deserved reputation. Bulgar merchants conducted extensive trade with many countries in Europe and Asia. In turn, traders from China, Baghdad, Damascus, Spain, and Scandinavia came to the annual world bazaar in Bulgar. East Turkestan was also a thriving locus of Turkic urban culture. Ancient Turkic centers of urban culture such as Turfan, Beshbalyk, Karachar, Kuchar, Kashgar, Aksu and others arose and flourished on the territory of Eastern Turkestan. 1.8. The renaissance of the Karakhanids, Timurids, and the Golden Horde: Turkic cities of the X-XIV centuries The Karakhanid state constituted a qualitatively new stage in the development of culture and civilization, including that of urbanization, in the history of Kazakhstan and in all of Turkic Central Asia; this was a period in which the Semirechye, East Turkestan, the near Syr Darya region, and Mawarannahr experienced a flowering of both

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economies and culture. A landmark event was the Turkic world’s mass conversion to Islam, which resulted in the integration of Central Asia into the broader civilization of the global Islamic community. The foundations of an architectural typology took shape with this moment, one grounded on an existing substrate of architectural and building traditions and a new ideology (that of Islam); it had developed over a thousand years and would continue to evolve up to the beginning of the twentieth century. The Turkic peoples, for their part, had made an invaluable contribution to the development of the Muslim world for centuries. It is possible to speak of a unique Kazakh urban complex, expressed through the idea of the “north Turkestani school” (K. Baypakov). The international links binding the medieval cities of Kazakhstan with Mawarannahr, Iran, China, India and even Japan in the X-XIII centuries are well known. An exceptionally favorable factor, which spurred the development of Turko-Islamic civilization in the XI-XII centuries, was the political incorporation of Turkestan (the near Syr Darya region) and that of Semirechye and Mawarannahr (the major cities of Bukhara and Samarkand) within the frame of the unified empire created by the Karakhanids. This event accelerated spiritual progress and the flourishing of Turko-Islamic culture; at the same time, the growing influence of Farsi and Iranian culture on the Turkic peoples continued to be felt. The city of Samarkand, which had previously played an important role in the Samanid emirate’s (IX-XI cc.) fragmentation, became the capital of the western Karakhanid’s rulers. This is not to downplay the increasing role and importance of Bukhara, which for the Islamicized Turkic world constituted a prime spiritual and theological center and one of the most important strongholds of Sufism (in connection with the activities of Sheikh Bahauddin Naqshbandi and his school in the XIV century). At this time there were many madrassas and mosques among the Karakhanids in the cities of Mawarannahr.

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

This cultural renaissance is confirmed, firstly, by the quantitative growth of cities, which speaks to the positive changes in the organization of the state, increasing revenues, international relations, and in the processes of sedentarization and urbanization of the Turkic ethnos. Mahmud Kashgari notes that the term “yatuk” (in Kazakh “zhatak”) meant a type of “Oguz who lives in cities, not migrating ti other areas and refraining from warfare.” It is also pertinent to mention al Idrisi’s reflection that the “cities of the Guzz are numerous. They are concentrated, one next to the other, in the north and east”. A new stage in the history of architecture in Kazakhstan unfolds with the X-XII centuries, constituting a “qualitative leap in architecture and the decorative arts”. “New construction techniques took shape, which became the basis for the art of building for the coming centuries… the architectural traditions of the Karakhanids were developing. Walls of mausoleums (those of Keshen and Kumbez) and other structures began to be built from both raw and fired brick. Brick reliefs and facades on public buildings and memorials became more widespread in construction. Portals with columns, pylons, and lancet arches were adorned with “shym-shi,” a type of indigenous ornamentation, and framed with decorative borders”. At this time the universal building material in the Semirechye, along the Irtysh, in the Altai, and Northern Kazakhstan, was wood. Pine, fir, and birch were used in erecting mausoleums. “Roads were paved, ceramic water pipes built, baths constructed. Refined building techniques marked not only the largest cities such as Otrar, Ispijab, and Taraz, but even “young” cities far removed from these famous urban centers. Excavations of Talgar, for example, have shown that its streets were paved at the end of the XI and beginning of the XIII centuries. In the XI and beginning of the XIII centuries there was growth and settlement in the Almaty region. One of these settlements later became known as Almaty”. One should be aware that there were changes in ethno-psychology and mentality in the Karakhanid epoch; a broader, multifaceted TurkoMuslim consciousness took shape, one ready to engage in a fruitful, peaceful dialogue with different ethnic groups, especially those within

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the united community of Muslim civilization. At the same time, it is not possible to speak of the complete displacement of other religions and cults in the Turkic cities, as there were remnants of Zoroastrianism fire rituals, Christianity, and Manichaeism. This is especially noticeable in the material remains of the cities of eastern Turkestan and Semirechye. Buddhism was still dominant in eastern Turkestan in the X century; the Islamization of this area was only completed in the XIV century, although the city of Kashgar was already a major center of Central Asian Islamic culture in the XI century. Written sources, primarily those works of scientists and travelers of Arabic or Persian origin, locate thirty three cities in the southern regions of Kazakhstan, whereas only about six cities were mentioned in the prior period (the pre-Islamic epoch). Previously unknown Turkic cities such as Yasy, Sauran, Sygnak, Iangikent, Zhend, Barchkent, and Siutkent were mentioned; nearly 70 cities, including Balasagun, Tal’khir, Iki-oguz, Kaialyk, etc., had already been noted in Semirechye. Many of the cities covered areas exceeding ​​30 hectares. The early medieval city of Otrar occupied an area of ​​200. Foreign authors paid attention to the size of Turkic cities: for example, the Armenian author Het’um, who travelled through Turkic lands in the XIII century, indicated that Savran (Sauran) – was “very vast.” According to archaeological studies, up to 40,000 people inhabited Ispijab in the Karakhanid period. The influx of Turkic peoples, transitioning to a settled, urban life, had always contributed to the swelling of these urban centers. Ethno- linguistic assimilation meant that the descendants of the Persians, Arabs, Indians, and Chinese dissolved into the Turkic milieu. Earlier written sources noted the multiethnic composition of many cities, and the fact that were many foreign merchants resident there (in the “rabat of Samarkand,” “the rabat of Bukhara,” etc.; there were communities of Chinese, not to mention local Sogdians). The Chinese traveler Xuanzang, describing Taraz, had already noted in 639 that there were Chinese inhabitants, captured by the Turkic peoples, living in the city: “when their clothes wore out, they began to dress like tutsziue [that is, like Turkic people], though their language, customs and laws were as in China”.

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

After the Battle of Talas (near Atlakh in 751), when the Arabs defeated the Chinese army, this practice was repeated again: captured Chinese artisans were sent to Samarkand, in which they engaged in the manufacture of paper; some of them continued to live in Taraz or its surroundings.

llustration of the Talas Battle Sources: www.e-history.kz

Battle of Talas (751)

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There was qualitative growth in Turkic urban culture and its transformation to a higher, evolutionary stage. This was due, above all, to the spiritual factor, followed by a more intimate dialogue with the Iranian-Tajik world and relations with the Middle East, Khorasan, etc., as well as owing to intensified international trade and diplomacy. Religious buildings and defensive fortifications, including fortresses, mausoleums, mosques, cathedrals, as well as caravanserai and baths, were among the architectural monuments of this era. The mosque became a new structural element of Turkic-Muslim cities According to Islamic tradition, a Muslim arriving in the city should first have asked about the mosque and then visited this sacred place, termed the “House of Allah” by Muslim populations. The remains of the earliest mosques were uncovered in excavations of Kuīruk tobe and the Ornek settlement in the Talas basin. Ornek is identified with the Karluk city of Kul’shub. Written monuments of the IX-XII centuries record the presence of mosques in numerous Turkic cities. Al-Maqdisi (Muqaddasi) notes that the Turkic cities of Isfijab, Taraz, Mirki, Kulan, Atlakh, and Zhikils were typical Muslim cities and confirms that there were mosques in them. Mahmud ibn Wali writes that the pre-Mongol city Balasagun was a true center of Turko-Islamic culture, noting that there were forty mosque complexes (i.e. large mosques able to accommodate those gathering for Friday prayers), 200 normal mosques, 10 madrassas and 20 khanaka (a type of Sufi monastery). The alteration of the funeral rite entailed creating beautiful mausoleums for it, known examples of which are the mausoleums of Aīsha Bibi (XI-XII centuries), Babaji Khatun (X-XI c.), and Khoja Ahmed Īasavi (XIV c.). In Semirechye, an expansive Muslim complex was opened in Kaialyk. Its mausoleum, khanaka (a type of Sufi refuge or hospice), necropolis, and mosque occupied much of the city. There are also remnants of a mosque and of the famous tower, or minaret, of Burana in Semirechye (dating from the end of the X to early XI centuries).

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi

Mausoleum of Babaji Khatun

The city of Iassy (the future Turkestan) acquired a special reputation in the XII century in connection with the preaching work of the great Turkic Sufi Sheikh Ahmed Īassavi. The city, which emerged as a center of regional Islam, became a point of attraction for the hundreds of pilgrims performing the “little Hajj” in Central Asia. Trade and its economic function were other important factors. Ibn Ruzbikhan wrote that “the city of Īasi imports goods and jewels and bargaining goes on there, and it has a place from which merchants export goods and a point of Mausoleum of Aisha Bibi departure for masses of travelers to other countries”. The mausoleum-khanaka of the great Sheikh Ahmed Iassavi played a prominent, instrumental role in the devel-

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opment of the Turkic traditions of Islam, and of Turkic Sufism – its spiritual, mystical, and aesthetic influence would be felt for centuries. An innovative element in urban architecture and an important indicator of civilization were the public baths and hammam, whose functions in the East were expansive – they ranged from ablution sites to centers with medicinal, health, social, and integrative purposes. There might be several dozen baths in the large cities. Remnants of such Muslim baths have been unearthed in excavations of Otrar, Taraz, Kaialyk, etc. Science and a refined culture developed in Turkic cities, and new forms of art, music, dance, entertainment, games, and sports spread. Bone and clay chess pieces, for example, were found during the excavations. “There was a significant number of clay goods: glazed, ceramic dishes, plates, and pitchers in the cultural layers of Taraz,” writes T. Senigova, and its surrounding settlements (X-XII centuries), whose surfaces were adorned with epigraphs, bearing auspicious sayings such as “prosperity” or “wealth,” or with Islamic symbols, such as that of the lion, bear witness to the significant role played by Islam in this period and the ideology of the urban population “. Experts have also confirmed the enhanced fortification of cities in this period and the emergence of new types of housing. It is worth noting that Al Maqdisi described Sauran (the settlement Karatobe), which was located on the Syr Darya, as “a large city, surrounded by seven walls, one after another, and in it there is a rabat and expansive mosque located in the inner city. It is a frontier fortress against the Oguz and Kipchak” (meaning, in this context, Turkic peoples who had not yet converted to Islam). Mahmud Kashgari regarded Sauran as an Oguz city. Authors such as Ibn Ruzbikhan have appraised Sauran highly. The poet and writer Vasifi, who lived at the beginning of the XVI century, speaks with admiration of the Turkic city Sauran, mentioning it as “one of the wonders of the world” – there were madrasas with swinging minarets, and unusual for that time, a kiariz water supply (a system of underground wells, and above ground extractions points for groundwater): “a people like this had never been seen, all of

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

them going around on dry land and on sea. 200 Indian slaves worked on its construction...”. According to medieval authors, Sauran could withstand a siege for several months as a result of its formidable defensive structures, and its provisions of water, food, and weapons. A flowering of crafts occurred: of ceramics, glass works (an innovation), blacksmithing, jewelry and other trades. Blacksmiths and their craft were highly valued in Central Asian cities. During excavation of the city Talkhira in Semirechye, scientists discovered that local craftsmen were “outstanding experts, and the city – one of the centers of iron production in the East, in which the famed Damascus steel was manufactured;” “analyzing iron findings using macro-and microstructural analysis, scientists have revealed the presence of various grades of iron, cast iron and steel in the city, including a type of steel known as Damascus steel, the secrets of which are now lost. These sophisticated technologies have restored modern metallurgy… “. The city is associated with trade, commodity, and monetary relations. Caravanserais and shops, in which there was a lively exchange of goods, were located In Turkic cities. The city Keder was termed “a place for the convergence of merchants,” and Taraz as a “city of merchants,” and “a place in which Muslims traded with the Turkic peoples.” There was a mint in the city of Budukhket in the XI century, which produced coins bearing its name. Otrar was the only city of Central Asia and Kazakhstan which issued coins in three denominations (dinars, dirhams, and fel’s). Findings of silver and monetary stockpiles containing silver and other items from Asia Minor, the Crimea, the Volga region and East Turkestan testify to the wider international links of cities and regions. In the era under consideration the caravan routes of the Great Silk Road expanded into local areas. Passing through southern Kazakhstan and Semirechye, the route grew to encompass the transit points Ispijab, Taraz, Kulan, Balasagun, Almalyk, etc. Its northern artery, into the country of the Kimak, and the so-called “steppe road” in the central regions of the Eurasian plain, are widely known. The internal trade between the nomadic steppe and cities was also concentrated in the border regions of the Syr Darya, Semirechye, and

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Chach. The Turkic peoples traded livestock (Turkic horses and sheep were especially valued), livestock feed, furs, and metal. Al ‘Idrisi reports the extraction of iron and silver by the Turkic Kimak tribes. It is important to note another trend: the expanding boundaries of Turkic, urban culture into the central, eastern, and western regions of Kazakhstan. Oases and agricultural and urban centers emerged in the steppes of central Kazakhstan, in the river valleys of the Sarysu, Kengir, and Zhezdy, as well as in the foothills of the Ulutau. The cities of Zhubin, Kongliket, the summer encampments Ortag and Ekitag, and the ore mining regions Garbiana and Bakirlytag, are mentioned in medieval sources. The Kimak cities Banjar, Khanaush, Asturias, Sisan, and the state capital Imakiia were located in Tarbagatay and along the banks of the Irtysh. There are remnants of an unnamed medieval city on the river Ishim and in parts of the city of Astana. Its ruins have been termed the “Bozok settlement,” which dates to the X-XIV centuries. The Karakhanid cultural renaissance was part of a broader Turkic renaissance throughout Eurasia in the pre-Mongol era; the flowering of the cities along the Volga and in Mawarannahr is worth mentioning in this regard. Thus, the city Bilyar – the second capital of Volga Bulgaria at the beginning of the XIII centuries, occupied an area of seven million square meters, its population reaching into the tens of thousands. Even in the XV century, a city ​​with 30 thousand people was considered among the world’s largest. Bulgar, Bilyar, Kashan, and other cities have been mentioned as prominent urban centers in the XIV century. Science, theology, poetry, and art flourished in cities. The resplendent works of Tazhetdin al Bulgari (his treatise on pharmacology), of the historian Yaqub bin Nugman, and of Kul Gali (XIII c.), the author of the poem” Kyīsa and Joseph,” were created in this period. Greater Bulgaria was the northern outpost of Turko-Islamic civilization. The crisis and decline of the early medieval urban cultures of South Kazakhstan and Semirechye were associated with processes of political disintegration and increasing military-political conflicts (the fragmentation of the Karakhanid state, the campaigns of the Khorezm-

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

shahs, the invasions of the Karakitaī, Naīman, and Mongols). Thus, the city Balasagun was captured and destroyed by the Kharakitaī (the Khitan). Turkic urban culture suffered considerable damage due to the Mongol invasions. The history of Genghis Khan’s destruction of a flowering Otrar is well known. Plano Carpini wrote of the near Syr Darya region in 1246: “In this land we have found countless razed cities, destroyed fortresses and many devastated villages”. At the same time, it should be noted that for all the obvious shattering effects of the Mongol invasion, it cannot be assumed that the urban Turkic culture of Central Asia was completely destroyed and paralyzed by these military-political actions. Not all cities suffered, in fact (there was no mass devastation in Semirechye, as the region was peacefully integrated into the state of Genghis Khan). Even Otrar was able to rise from the ashes, and in the post-Mongol period it still functioned as an important political and economic center in the Syr Darya region. Large public buildings were constructed here in the XIII-XIV centuries; madrassas, khanaka (a type of Sufi hospice), and a mosque were built. The famed Emir Timur died in this city in 1405. It is no secret that the Taoist monk Chang-chun, who met with Genghis Khan, stayed in Sairam (Ispijab) as part of his journey, terming it a large city. Archaeological evidence also testifies to the continuation of Turkic urban existence in this period and beyond the XIII century. Of particular note is the Timurid Renaissance in Mawarannahr and southern Kazakhstan (from the XIV to the beginning of the XV centuries). Under the rule of the great Amir Timur and his descendants (particularly the great Turkic ruler and scientist Ulugbek), architecture, art, and miniatures flourished; such outstanding works of Central Asian architecture as the Gur Emir Mausoleum and the Bibi Khanum mosque were constructed, along with a series of brilliant mausoleums in the Shahi-Zinda complex in Samarkand. These architectural monuments were of global significance. The Kalyan mosque, the mausoleum of Chashmai Aiub, and the Ulugbek madrasah were built in Bukhara. Under the reign of

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Ulugbek, Samarkand became a center of world science; madrasas and its famous observatory were built during his rule. There was a whole industry of ceramic production supplying architectural and decorative requirements in Mawarannahr. Its own local Ulugh Beg Madrasa, Samarkand schools of architectural and decorative craftsmanship formed, defined by the type and nature of their production (the artisanal schools of Bukhara, Samarkand, Kashkadarya, and Khorezm, among others). The mural paintings of the Timurid (XIVXV centuries) periods, together with the miniatures of that time, are not inferior to the expansive worldviews embodied in such miniatures as the “great French chronicles” (XVI century). Of course, one should also mention the remarkable fact that it was by the order of Amir Timur that the grandest monument of medieval Central Asian architecture was built in Turkestan – the mausoleum and khanaka of Khoja Ahmed Īassavi (XIV century). Speaking of the renaissance of Turkic urban culture in the Golden Horde (from the XIV to the beginning of the XV centuries), it should be noted that the Mongol rulers, as Barthold repeatedly points out in his writings, made ​​efforts to rebuild the caravan routes of the Silk Road from China to the Crimea and the cities interspersed along its arteries. The rise of the empire of the Golden Horde (the Kypchak state) was evident under the reign of Uzbek Khan, who declared Islam the official religion of the polity. “With the adoption of Islam in the Golden Horde, a comparatively refined Arab culture spread widely throughout the Desht-ī Kypchak”. Diplomacy, scientific communications, and international contacts gained momentum as a result. The Golden Horde is a model of

I. History and Culture of Prototurks and Early Turkic States

the successful symbiosis of an urban, sedentary civilization and the culture of the nomadic steppe. The Turkic-Kypchak language became the language of public records and literature. The level of urbanization was quite high. Its major cities were Saraī, Saraī al Jadid, Urgench, Gulistan, Bulgar, Bilyar, Crimea, Kaffa, Hadzhitarkhan, Orda-Bazaar, Bek-Bazaar, Saraīchik, Shahr al Jadid, etc. According to some sources, there were more than 100 cities in the Golden Horde at that time, of which more than 30 were large. “The total number of settlement points in the Golden Horde constitutes 110 entities” (only according to archaeologists). In general, the number of cities in the Golden Horde equaled that of Western Europe. “A unique civilization was created in the Golden Horde, largely surpassing the level of Western European countries in the areas of trade, finance, security, and urban development “. Many cities of the Golden Horde arose on the sites of former military encampments. This is indicated by their names: Crimea (Old Crimea), Ak Kerman, Khan-Kerman, Kermenchuk, and others. In the Kypchak language “kerman” is translated as “place,” “fortress,” “camp,” “stronghold.” The caravan trade was the factor at the root of the genesis of other Golden Horde cities. “Only look at the location of Golden Horde towns such as Solkhat, Azak (Tana), Majar, Saraī, Saraīchuk, which stood along the arteries of the caravan trade, or the cities of Astrakhan, Ukek, Bel’zhemem, Bezdezh, which were located along the Volga – the necessity of the caravan trade, which assumed a truly international character under the Mongols, shaped the development of all of these cities,” writes Safargaliev. Solkhat was an ancient Turkic city in the center of the Crimean Peninsula. International trade, in which the Venetians and Genoese began to play a leading role, peaked in Eurasia at this time. Cities such as Soldaī (Sudak), and Tanais (Azak) were founded by Venetian merchants. The Genoese established the trading post of Kafu, making it a locus of international trade in the Crimea. According to the description of Ibn Battuta, which was made in the 1330s, Kafu was a large city, “one of the most famous harbors in the world,” at which were anchored more than 200 military and commercial vessels.

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The Arab traveler also described the Golden Horde cities of Majar (in the North Caucasus) and Astrakhan-Hajji-Tarkhan (constructed by Mongol rulers along the Volga): “this town took its name from a Turkic pilgrim to Mecca, one of the most virtuous, who settled in this place. The Sultan awarded him a place free of duties or taxes (i.e. he bestowed upon him “tarkhan”), and it became a village, and then it grew and became a city.” The Venetians called the Saraī of Berke, “Saray Grando” – the “great Saraī,” and the Saraī of Batu – simply “Saraī.” The following are some descriptions of the famous capital of the Golden Horde, written by Ibn Batutta, who was amazed by this vast city: “One of the most beautiful cities, reaching to extraordinary heights on level ground, densely populated, with beautiful wide streets and bazaars; “ “one day we went riding with one of the elders, intending to overview the city and know its size. We lived in one end of it and only after midday prayer did we eat; we reached our home no earlier than sunset ... there are 13 mosques for congregational services... “. The area of ​​the Golden Horde’s capital was roughly 36 square kilometers, and it had a population of over 75 thousand people. The city was extremely sophisticated in its landscaping, and equipped with water and sewage canals. It should be added that the flourishing of west Kazakhstan’s cities was connected with the renaissance of the Golden Horde. Expansive caravanserais such as Beleuli. Churuk, and Azhigel’du, which were marked on the map of the famous Catalan Atlas, were built in this period northeast of Ustiurt. In addition to well-known centers of the Golden Horde along the Volga, fourteenth century Italian maps record cities such as Laīete (linked by archaeologists with the city of Aktobe near modern Atyrau), Konnilikari, as well as the fairly large city Trestargo (presumably identified with the city of Ushkan in the region of the famed Ushkan ata) on the northern and north-eastern coast of the Caspian. Magnificent architectural ensembles, mausoleums, and baths were built in the city Saraīchik (near modern Atyrau), which also minted its own currency (the “pul”). The city experienced a crisis in later centuries, and the wonderful city was ultimately destroyed by Russian Cossacks in the XVI century.

II CULTURAL HERITAGE OF TURKIC NOMADS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE LATE MEDIVAL PERIOD

2.1. Problems in the phenomenon of nomadism in the history of Central Asia Many negative stereotypes about nomads had been overcome in the world of science by the beginning of the XXI century; at the same time, it is not possible to speak of the heritage of nomadic culture having been exhausted as a theme. The civilizational experience of nomadism still requires further analysis, a new “reading” that will situate it properly in the context of humanity. The special mentality of the nomads has not been sufficiently investigated; the same can be said of their historical role as translators of cultural innovations, as integrators, and as bearers of an advanced ecological ethos. Modern historiography recognizes that the nomads were one of the “principal agents of cultural diffusion and cross-cultural contacts in Eurasia” However, it is necessary to support this thesis with the concrete, historical content embedded in the materials and sources of Kazakhstan and of other regions of Turkic Central Asia. This does not mean abandoning such topics as the advanced military organization of the Eurasian nomads, their refined martial skills, or sophisticated weapons, in the medieval era. 83

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Other aspects of nomadism are of interest: ethnopsychology, and the characteristics typical of the traditional culture and lifestyle of Turkic nomads, including their symbiotic relationship with the environment, and their simple, natural, and therefore healthy meals (it is no secret that in terms of human medicine and nutritional science, it would in fact be better to return to a regimen of natural foods, absent the sophisticated concoctions that are seriously debilitating the health and genetic heritage of the human race). At the same time, the traditional drink of the Turkic nomads, kumys (fermented mare’s milk), has many medicinal properties according to scientific research: it is a natural antibiotic, boosts the immune system, cleanses the blood, etc. The great Kazakh khan Kasym (beginning of the XVI century) captured the classic mentality of the nomads, the essence of their lifestyle and psychology, in his famous words to a distinguished guest – Sultan Said Khan, the ruler of Mogulistan, which were recorded in the Tarikh-i Rashidi: “We – the inhabitants of the steppe; we have no rare or expensive items or goods, our main wealth being our horses; their meat and hide provide us better food and clothing, and they offer us a pleasing drink – their milk and that which is prepared from it. In our land there are no gardens and no buildings. Our place of amusement is where cattle graze and horses herd”. These characteristics the Kazakh khan ascribes to nomadism are nevertheless exaggerations in some respects, and most importantly, reflect the realities of late medieval Kazakhstan. In earlier periods of Eurasian history (in the period of the Türk Empire or that of the Golden Horde), we can say that great wealth, and luxury items (including gold jewelry, Chinese silk, etc.), were concentrated in the hands of nomadic steppe rulers, something which is evidenced in Byzantine, Chinese, and Arabic sources. Discussing the legacy of nomadic culture, we should emphasize that the emergence of nomadism was in itself, at the dawn of ancient

II. Cultural Heritage of Turkic Nomads in the Context of the Late Medival ...

history, a type of economic progress – that of the transition to a more productive and progressive type of economy and social organization that fit the natural and geographic conditions of arid Eurasian regions. It is necessary to consider the unique path to civilization of the nomadic ethnic groups. After the transition to equestrianism, and to specialized horse gear and weapons, designed for the nomad, the Great Steppe followed a biological path in terms of developing its productive forces, in contrast to the technological route characteristic of sedentary cultures. A mark of the era was the general trend associated with the selective breeding of livestock for color, type, specific characteristics, etc. The Huns bred horses of the best strains. Hun cavalry, as noted in the Chinese annals, was divided into four armies, each of which was distinguished by the coat of its horses, with tens of thousands of soldiers mounted on horses of one color: white, gray, red or black. Well-trained and robust, these horses were the pillar of the army and the power of the state. In the early Middle Ages, the Arab traveler Ibn Tamim Bahr (IX century) saw the ruler of the Kimek and his army mounted on horses “with thin hooves;” in all probability he had in mind a slender breed of horses”. The nomads created a distinct steppe culture, for which mnemonic poetic arts (folklore, improvisation, etc.) served as a spiritual backbone. Many material innovations in the history of humanity can be attributed to the nomads; they had experience in metallurgy, in the organization of state systems, etc. Original and valuable contributions of the Eurasian nomads were taboos and norms of behavior, the development of systems to maintain and control complex ethno-genetic relationships, the knowledge of genealogies, the practice of strict exogamous marriages (prohibiting inter-marriage within seven generations), not to mention the secrets of the military arts, those of hunting wild animals, cosmological and environmental knowledge, etc. The physical, racial, and ethno-psychological characteristics of the ancient Turkic nomads have been neglected in research. As already noted, these are worthy of close attention and further study in light of current global challenges, both in order to form the theoretical

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and methodological prerequisites for a critical rethinking of human experience and to improve the quality of life in modern post-industrial societies. Contemporaries characterized the Turkic nomads as possessing exemplary physical and mental health; in modern parlance, they had athletic physiques and superior physical abilities due to their symbiotic relationship with the natural environment. An Arabic author wrote that “they (the Kipchak) are a strong people, vital and robust...”. We must recognize that the physical health and genetic characteristics of a human community are the single most important foundations of true civilization. Even before the Turkic epoch the Arabic author al Jahiz had noticed the amazing artistry of Turkic peoples with the bow and arrow, which was based on physical training and excellent physical qualities: “the Turk shoots ... galloping at full speed back and forth, left and right, up and down. He unleashes ten arrows before the (Arab)kharizhit notches one... A Turk has four eyes – two on the face, and two on the back of the head “. Al Umari wrote of such distinctive features of the Kipchak Turks as their courage, ability to run easily, beauty, stature, their tirelessness in campaigns and nobility. A. Levshin remarked on the endurance and other striking physical qualities of the Kazakhs. Even in the 1890s, the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin was amazed by their physical perfection, writing that “by the very nature of the environment, one would expect to find among the Kirghiz (Kazakhs – auth.) a highly developed and sophisticated sense of vision and awareness of terrain. So it is. Whereas a foreign traveler will spend numerous days on a road that is more or less straight, the Kyrgyz orient themselves with striking confidence even at night and without any trace of a path... I had never before had the opportunity to marvel at the keenness of sight and precise awareness of topography that the Kyrgyz possess”. The context and sources relating to the external morphological features and physical characteristics of the ancient Eurasian nomads and later Kazakhs has been little explored in the scientific literature. One can pay attention to the details of the oral histories of the Ka-

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zakhs, according to which, for example, Kabanbai batyr (Yerasyl) (“batyr” being a warrior or hero of a nation, community, people, etc.), the famous hero of the Dzhungar wars, was three meters tall (Kabanbai batyr was of the Naīman Kazakh tribe and lived in the XVIII century). According to popular rumor, it was difficult to match a mount to the warrior, until finally he found the famous horse, Kubas. The same physique is attributed to many different heroes and warriors of Kazakh history, to the great Makhambet, Syrym batyr, and Zhanhozha batyr (who at 95 headed an armed assault by the Kazakh nomads on the Tsarist regime in the near Syr Darya region), among others. Kazakhs invariably coupled the name of the Great Khan Yessim (Yeshmukhamed,) who lived in the XVII century, with the epithet “Ensegei boily (“boily” in Kazakh meaning tall, stalwart, of substantial stature, physique, etc.) An American researcher recorded reliable descriptions of the imposing physical size of the famous Kazakh rebel leader Osman batyr (XX century), who, leading 10,000 Kazakhs, declared war on the Soviet Union and China in East Turkistan in the 1940s. In particular, it is noted that his height was no less than 185 m, and that he was “a huge man with a fearsome physique, and arms as thick as his legs,” all of which, together with such characteristics as small dark eyes, pursed lips, a furrowed brow and black beard, created the image of a heroic warrior. The statements of travelers and explorers bear testament to the phenomenal memory of nomads – both of those inhabiting the Arabian desert as well as those in the Eurasian steppes, to their virtuoso mastery of the word, and to their skill in verbal improvisation. Ch. Valihanov often emphasized this marked feature of Kazakh nomadic ethnopsychology, which was influenced by the environment and nomadic lifestyle. Of particular note are the recitations of the “Manas” epic by storytellers who could continuously recount this work for days (even in the Soviet era there was a manaschy, S. Karalayev, able to recite the great epic for 12 consecutive days. In the ancient steppe not only people, but also the animals they bred were remarkable in terms of physiological characteristics. Mod-

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eling Ibn al-Faqih, the Arabic scholar Yaqut writes in the mu’jam al-buldān that “in the country of the Turks “ sheep give birth to no less than 4 lambs, and like dogs, could possibly bear up to five or six; these sheep are large and have huge rumps (tails) that drag along the ground” . An extract from the Kitab al masalik va-l mamalik by Ibn Hawkal reads: “in no country are there sheep as those in Turkestan. Sheep in this land give birth as dogs gives birth, bearing six or seven (lambs); the inhabitants of Turkistan and the Khorezmian region slaughter those exceeding two, and use their skins, this because their fleece is red or dark red in hue .... and among lambs there are also those who have black wool... their climate is favorable for their animals and increases their health and the purity of their coloring”. The breeding of livestock capable of seasonal nomadism, and the development of methods for utilizing local pastures and water resources, helped to create the ecology that was the material basis of steppe civilization. The absence of external influences, particularly those of other civilizations, led to an intensification of production without compromising the environment and what it supplied. Even with respect to later epochs (in subsequent eras there were processes of degeneration in human societies and in the constitution of steppe species, a rapidly declining quality in prairie cattle and in nomadic civilization as a whole), one should pay attention to the words of a Russian author: “The Kyrgyz (Kazakh – auth.) sheep are unusually strong and hardy, easily tolerate heat and cold, hunger and thirst, almost every type of flora, and can make extended migrations;” the tail of a well-fed sheep weighs 30 to 40 pounds and provides 20 to 30 pounds of fat. It is worth recalling descriptions of the extremely hardy and unassuming Kazakh horse breed (the Kazak zhylkysy). The “Review of the Akmola region in 1895” notes various qualities of the Kazakh horse such as “the ease, speed and power of its gait,” and the fact that that it is so hardened that it easily bears varied natural adversities and is content with meager food. It concludes that the Kazakh horse, “although simple in appearance, has such outstanding qualities that it drew the

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serious attention not only of drovers, but also of the Office of State Horse Breeding, in connection with the possible improvement of its breeding for the purpose of forming an emergency military reserve”. There were huge numbers of cattle in the ancient era, and even in the XVIII-XIX centuries, in the steppes of Kazakhstan. The sheer mass of livestock in this epoch would have been unimaginable in later periods, though there were exceptions, even in the colonial era, which was characterized by massive reductions in the nomadic population; Chokan Valikhan, for instance, cited the example of the elites of the Kazakh Middle Horde, who possessed herds of up to 25,000 horses in the XIX century. The concentration of livestock reached such proportions that the richest of the medieval Turkic Oguz, for example, had tens of thousands of mounts. When a wealthy man died among the Oguz, 100-200 horses were sacrificed in his memory, as Ibn Fadlan has reported. Ibn al Athir relates a fact relating to converts to Islam, in reference to the XI century, at which time 10,000 tents of Kipchak Turks sacrificed 20,000 sheep to Allah. The huge scale of feasts in honor of deceased khans, and the rich dowries provided to brides, were a reality even in recent times: to honor and feast the steppe elite, the wealthy would sacrifice 2500 sheep, 200-250 horses, and erect 200 yurts; “the largest dowries for brides rose to 57, 67, 77 and even 100 mares or camels among the elites”. Setting aside questions of the appropriateness or utility of such practices in the life of later Eurasian nomads, what we want to note is the sheer mass of livestock itself, and associated with this abundance (and not only this), certain unique ethnopsychological features in the mentality of the Turkic nomads, in particular, their amazing generosity, which logically devolved into profligacy among individual subjects. There were several unique types of housing and transport, which have subsequently disappeared. As is known, housing is one of the

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most important ethnic indicators of civilization. There is the famous moving home, a kind of massive yurt erected on a cart; these are mentioned in the works of Zemarkh, Plano Carpini, William of Rubric, Ibn Battuti, and others; the reports of Herodotus testify to the existence of this “yurt on wheels” even among the Schytians. Ruzbikhan (XVI century). described such a mobile yurt in detail; they were extant in the steppes of the Dasht-ī Kipchak up until the XVII century. These were magnificent conveyances, which at the same time served as homes. Ruzbikhan writes that “these houses are built in the form of carts and placed on wheels, and that camels and horses transport them from them from one encampment to the other, stretched out like an extended caravan ... “. They are called tents (shater in Russian), though Sharaf ad-Din Ali Yazdi uses the Turkic word “kutarme,” while in Kazakh folklore the word “kuīme” is encountered. Of course, these moving homes were true technological innovations in their own time (as the chariots of the Bronze Age tribes once were), which were introduced by the Turkic and Mongol nomads. Their frame and wheels were made of birch, and the yurt was placed on a massive four-wheeled carriage to which horses, oxen, or camels were harnessed. Unlike yurts, these were not collapsible dwellings. They were simply removed from the wagons and then lived in. According to many reports, women and children primarily traveled in these moving houses. As to the aesthetics of these dwellings, there are the eloquent words of Ibn Ruzbikhan: “What tents are these! Castles, built tall, houses made of wood that reach into the expanse of the sky”. Latticed windows were made in the front and rear of the houses, and over these were “felt curtains” – “very beautiful and imaginative.” These descriptions are similar to those of such carts in the lyrical epos of the Kazakhs, “Kyz Zhibek.” Moving homes belonging to the wealthy were elaborately and beautifully furnished, and they were both majestic and spacious, so that it was possible to accommodate more than 20 persons at a time. During his military campaign against the Kazakhs, Muhammad

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Shaibani seized some 10,000 of these elaborate dwellings along with what they possessed. It is also worth noting that, contrary to the enduring stereotype of the later, plain yurts of the Kazakhs and nomads, these were aesthetically pleasing and not at all the primitive dwellings of savages. From afar, a great number of yurts was perceived merely as a city of tents, but a closer examination revealed genuine works of applied art. “If we talk about the aesthetic impact of the yurt, one should start with its appearance: ​​ numerous white cupolas on emerald green grass – the sudden appearance of a heavenly city. The city in the steppe... Namely that city, otherwise termed a thousand yurts, in the descriptions of Georgi, or the four thousand felt tents on the shores of Nura, which the engineer I. Shangin witnessed”. Yurts were often huge, especially in earlier, more prosperous epochs. The elite would have several or numerous yurts varying in size and function: yurts for housing guests, for preparing food (askhana uī), etc.; it is also important to note that special yurts were erected for study and prayer (“tent mosques” are even reported in writings on Berke Khan and Uzbek khan of the epoch of the Golden Horde). There were yurts for teaching children; Russian authors at the time termed them “wandering mektebs,” or “mobile mektebs.” Although the bulk of the population enjoyed six kanat yurts (kanat being the lattice sections which combine to form the kerege, the circumferential wall of the yurt), yurts with eight, twelve, and fourteen kanat are encountered among the very rich. According to the research of the anthropologist A. Seīdimbek, even thirty kanat yurts have existed in the Turkic past, e.g. those resembling something like a huge palace. The name “Altyn Orda” used to mean “twenty kanat” and the word “Altyn үzіk” (altyn uzik being golden felts than lined the exterior of a yurt) signified a “thirty kanat” yurt. The interiors of such yurts were alive with varied colors, and with Bukharan, Kashgari, and Turkmen carpets; there were bright ribbons, rich silk curtains, various household utensils, silver and carved wooden chests used to store jewelry, manuscripts, etc. (there is the well know history of the famous silver chest of Uraz Muhammad, a Kazakh

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khan, which contained many books, and which was lost in the territory of Russia during its transportation). Having visited the guest and festive yurts of Mamet, the sultan of the Middle Horde, Christopher Bardanes (XVIII century) was so impressed that he remarked that a visit to the Sultan could only be compared with a visit to a resplendent museum. Certain prejudices imposed by Russian Communist ideology regarding the nomadic life of the Kazakhs must be overcome, particular in regard to the idea that the nomads were supposedly backward and therefore unworthy of attention. The yurt of the Turkic nomad is incorrectly associated with primitive huts, and with the dwellings of Eskimos, Indians and other primitive societies at the lowest levels of social development. Of course, there are other topics of interest: that the image of the yurt (its the anthropomorphic and zoomorphic images) was bound together with the special mentality and mythological representations of the Turkic nomads. There was a special place of honor with the yurt (the tor); and in general, the yurt functioned as a model of the universe and microcosm of the nomad. The architectural monuments of the XIII-XVIII centuries – of the nomadic Kypchaks, Oguz. and Kazakhs – are vivid expressions of the uniqueness of nomadic culture: these include burial complexes (steles and stone sculptures), religious architecture, the finest examples of which would serve as models for later Muslim mausoleums. A.J. Trimingham, an English scholar of Islam, notes that in relation to the medieval nomads – the Turks and Mongols, it was not the mosque but the sacred tomb that became a symbol of Islam in the steppe. A feature of Turkic, nomadic civilization was that the absence of stationary dwellings and a certain carelessness in regard to their own dwellings was commensurate (especially after the adoption of Islam) with the practice of building monumental funerary structures in honor of deceased ancestors and of being extremely reverent toward them. One can also draw attention to the fact that the nomads of Eurasia “achieved a high degree of craftsmanship in the construction of wells, some of them reaching depths in the tens of meters, their inner walls

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being lined with stone. Woodworking, stone masonry, and blacksmithing – one cannot provide a complete picture of nomadic life absent these crafts. Otherwise, one will be trapped in myths of “idleness,” “laziness,” and the simple year-round movements of nomads in order to pasture their livestock. Characteristic is the relative unity of the pre-Islamic grave markers from the Saiano-Altai to the Danube, which is related to the mass migrations and intensive movements of Turkic tribes to the west. Islamization brought radical changes to funeral rites, and along with this, religious architecture. The inventories accompanying burials disappear; in the place of clothing, the Muslim shroud emerges; the then dominant northwestern orientation of burial mounds is now directed south, in the direction of Mecca. New elements were used: stone stele, tomb and gravestones, epitaphs and burial columns made of piled stone, coffins, sarcophagi, and sandyktas, among others. Burial markers of the koītas type (a burial column of stone) are already encountered in the XIV-XV centuries. Particularly marked were the changes in the Dasht-ī Kipchak in the late XIV-XV centuries in connection with the religious policies of the Uzbek Khan and of the Emir Edige. “The construction of gravestones, erected to commemorate the representatives of aristocratic families, acquired special significance in architecture with the spread of Islam.” Earthen architectural structures appear – the mausoleum (the Mazar) mad of mud and burnt brick. Monuments of Qur’anic epigraphy were widespread. According to Ch. Valikhanov, “no one cares as much about the magnificence of burials as they (the Muslim nomads – auth.). It is pleasing to look at Muslim cemeteries and monuments, beautifully decorated, inscribed with writings from the Koran, and with moons and turbans ornamenting them”. According to research conducted by S. Azhigali in the western regions of Kazakhstan, a “marked increase in memorial and religious construction can be observed in western Kazakhstan and its surrounding areas in the period in which the Golden Horde adopted and accepted Islam.” “Horse burials” (burials with horses or their), anthropomor-

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phic and zoomorphic images, or their stylized representations, disappear (e.g., the symbolic image of the horse-sun, often depicted on stele; gravestones of the “koītas” type, considered a symbol of fortune, vitality and fertility, and stylized figures of ram and sheep, also succumbed to the influence of the Islamic ban on images of living beings). However, it is noteworthy that the Turkic peoples preserved the continuity and close relationship between pre-Islamic and Islamic traditions. So, in the matter of the semantics of kulpytasy there is a hypothesis about their genetic connection to ancient Turkic stone sculptures (M. Mendikulov). E. Massanov has linked Kazakh kulpytasy with the tradition of ancient Turkic obelisks inscribed with runes (the bangy-tash and bitig-tash of the Orkhon inscriptions). Speaking about remnant subjects and elements in the ornamentations of kulpytasy in western Kazakhstan, prof. S. Azhigali writes that the ancient mythological complex – the concept of the “tree of life” – was often disguised with “arabesques” in floral décor. Architecture and the art of stone masonry had already bloomed among the nomads of western Kazakhstan in the late medieval and pre-modern periods. Describing the most outstanding examples of architecture, one can point, for example, to the necropolis of Shopan Ata (or Chopan Ata, over the grave of the legendary student of Īassavi) in Mangistau, located on the ancient caravan route from Mangishlak in Khorezm; this was a monument that the Kazakhs and Turkmen, as well as the Karakalpak population of Ustiurt, Mangystau, and its surrounding areas, deeply respected. An equally important religious complex is that of Sultan Epe, which has an underground mosque that was carved into the rock. According to legend, the son of the Turkic mystic Hakim ata – Suleīman Bakyrgani – was buried here). Also, of great interest are the tombstones and epigraphy in the burial complexes of Koshkar Ata in Mangystau, as well those in the tombs of Masat Ata, Beket Ata in Beineu, Karakul in Ėmbe, among others. Famous monuments of religious architecture were built in the Nogaī epoch (XV-XVI centuries) – in particular the mausoleum of Abat-Baītak, which folk tradition associates with the personality of the great steppe philosopher, Asan Kaigy.

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Beket Ata mosque, Mangystau

Nekropolis Shopan Ata, Mangystau

Nekropolis Koshkar-Ata, Mangystau

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The memorial and religious architecture of the nomads reached its highest level in Mangystau and Ustiurt, and in the Aral-Caspian region, in the second half of the XIX century, regions in which a distinctive memorial tradition developed in connection with the art of stone masonry. The spiritual and material culture of the nomads of Kazakhstan was bound together with the traditions of other Turkic peoples and regions of Eurasia. Eastern regions were marked by a close relationship with the cities of East Turkestan and the impact of its centers of Turkic civilization, Kashgar, Yarkand, and others. For the nomads of the north and north-western regions of Kazakhstan, especially in the XVIII-XIX centuries, the importance of trade and stable economic and cultural relations with the peoples of the Volga-Ural region acquired importance, something which is reflected in the spread of the Volga-Tatar style in the construction of mosques and memorials. The southern and western regions, which were inhabited by Kazakh tribes, have always occupied a zone of ​​mutually beneficial contacts in terms of language, spiritual heritage, and arts between the Kazakhs and neighboring Turkmen, Uzbeks, and Karakalpaks, as well as those with the Turkic peoples of the Caucasus and Iran. For example, specialists have uncovered similarities between the medieval monuments of the Mangystau-Ustiurt region and the similar structures of the Caucasus and Crimea. 2.2. Nomadic culture of the Turkic peoples and Islam. Traditional Islam in the steppe region A viewpoint belittling Islam and religion in general dominated Soviet historiography; the thesis about the “deficient” Islam among Turkic nomads was pervasive within the framework of this paradigm. This was also closely correlated with the class approach, and to the time in which Islam seemed to be the religion of the social elites and rulers, while the masses of nomads supposedly adhered to the socalled pagan cults or a kind of “dual faith” up until the XIX century. In

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this context, even information from medieval sources on the realities of the nomad’s Islamization was greeted with skepticism. An example is the Soviet scholar T. Senigova and her commentary on how 200 tents of Turkic peoples accepted the Muslim religion in 960 (in the Semirechye), information which is well attested to in sources. Though the word “tents” definitely points to nomadism, the author contests or tends to diminish the role of Islam in the life of Turkic nomads: “even if this act refers to nomadic populations, for the bulk of the nomads it would have been merely formal and would have only served the interests of tribal, nomadic chiefs, who saw in the acceptance of Islam an opportunity to enslave the people “. In fact, analysis of historical sources shows that Islam was actively disseminated among the Turkic peoples of Eurasia – in the Volga-Kama region, the steppes of Kazakhstan, in the Semirechye and Syr Darya, and in East Turkistan between the VIII-XIV centuries – by scholars and Sufis who found equal support among the elites and masses of nomadic Turkic tribes. Of course, one cannot deny the reality that leaders and elites were often among the first to accept Islam; this was not, however, the rule, or at the very least this was a rule with hundreds of exceptions. There is evidence in the memoirs of Ibn Fadlan, for example, that a simple nomadic Oguz showed more interest in Islam than others, listening with pleasure when Ibn Fadlan recited the Qur’an. As is known, there is a strong egalitarian tendency in Islam. As a doctrine, it advocates equality before God regardless of origin, class, race, gender, etc. Islam also concerns itself with the poor, the impoverished, and dispossessed. The very image of the Prophet of Islam as a person who was very poor and proud to belong to the lower classes (“poverty is my pride”), made concern for the destitute, orphans and widows one of the fundamental principles of the religion; its appeal to the poor segments of society and outsiders may have had a considerable impact on the global spread of Islam. It is notable that Islam was established among the nomadic Turks in the form of a synthesis between Hanafi doctrine and elements of ancient Turkic beliefs and practices. The authority of Imam

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Agsam (as the founder of Hanafi Sunnism, Abu Hanifu, or Numān ibn Thābit, was popularly known, VIII century) was unusually high in Central Asia among the Eastern Iranians and Turkic peoples. By origin Imam Agzam was Persian, although there are opinions as that suggest roots were Turkic. Because of its tolerance and devotion to the intellect, the Hanafi legal school became the most popular school of thought, or madhab, in the Muslim world. The peaceful adaptation of religion aided Sufism, and in particular, the Īassavi school, then at the height of its influence in Central Asia. The synthesis of ancient Turkic nomadic spirituality and the theories of Islam and Sufism found its clearest expression in the formation of new concepts, and in the enrichment and transformation of the former. In this respect, it is interesting to note the ancient Turkic word “құт” again, or rather the process of its transformation in the Islamized Turkic conception of “kut-baraka” (bereke in Kazakh) and its effect on the mind and ritual practices of the Turkic nomads. The sacred word “kut” and those words it is derived from (from the verb “kutadmag” – “to help a person achieve divine fortune or blessing,” among others) have always played a huge role in the mythological worldview and religious practices of the Turkic people. As mentioned, the word “kut” is encountered four times in the Orkhon inscriptions of the VIII century. In the ancient Turkic language and later Turkic languages, ​the word “kut” had many meanings, the main understanding of it being spirit, spiritual strength, courage, luck, fortune, happiness, and prosperity. According to Sadri Maksudi, it also signifies the “strength of political power, the strength and authority of a state administration, the greatness of power”. In other words, in his “infancy,” the ancient Turkic nomad was dimly aware of some kind of spiritual energy and a state in which a person would possess or be infused by it, the conse-

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quences of which were various kinds of fortune, happiness, fertility, charisma, success, etc. Characteristically, the concept of “kut” was enriched and deepened with Islam, as it was determined that the only true source of spiritual strength and grace was Allah. The Islamo-Sufic term “baraka” (bereke in Kazakh) began to be used, merging the ancient Turkic kut and the Arabic baraka into a single phrase, “kut-baraka” (Kazakh kut bereke). This shows that the Turkic nomads were able to preserve ancient sacred concepts and ideals even when in the bosom of Islam, transforming and adapting them to Islam’s comprehensive system. The lived traditions of Islam among the Kazakhs are of particular interest in the context of an analysis of Turkic, nomadic culture. A unique mentality among Muslim Turkic nomads had already taken shape in the Golden Horde, what has been termed the ethnopsychology of “steppe Islam,” which was reflected in folklore, customs, and everyday life.” The Golden Horde as an empire emerged as a dynamic system of civilization, one in which the Islamic tradition and its Turkic and Hanafi variants were assigned a central place”. The tolerance of steppe Islam manifested itself in a cultural syncretism and co-existence that assumed a variety of forms: the dual use of the Islamic calendar (n the cities) and the Turko-Mongolian lunar, animal cycle calendar, the preservation of the symbols of Mongolian culture, etc. There were of course two languages in the state, Mongolian and Turkic, and two alphabets, Uighur and Arabic. Fazlallah Ibn Ruzbikhan has offered particularly valuable evidence in relation to Islam among the nomads (XVI century). The author, being a theologian, received a “task” from his ruler, the Uzbek khan Muhammad Shaībani, to find among the Kazakhs proof of their “disbelief” and their violations of the rules of Islam. It was possible to collect anecdotal evidence incriminating the Kazakhs in the eyes of the Muslim community: “as reliable persons say,” one still encounters idolatrous images in the steppe. With the first kumys in spring (that is at that time in the spring when the first kumys is produced), the nomads would scatter it toward the east, bowing to

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the sun. But in general, the author of the Mikhman name-i Bukhara concludes that it is not possible to classify the Kazakhs as “unbelievers” or pagans. Describing the Muslim nomadic Kazakhs, Ibn Ruzbikhan notes that they “read the Quran, perform prayers, send their children to school, fast, marry or do not marry at all without a marriage contract” (The Muslim “nikah” – auth.); further “these people” ( Kazakhs) also “certify or give witness to their faith” (in reference to the prayer of the faithful, “there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His prophet” – auth. ) and consider themselves Muslims ; the slaughter of sacrificial animals is common among them, as is the call to prayer (azan), and reading the Koran. The Bukharan theologian also writes that different ulema, and religious missionaries from Mawarannah, Khorezm, Astrabad (i.e. Persia), Haji-Tarkhan, as well as from Shirvan and Derbent (i.e. the Volga and Caucasus), have long traveled to the country of the Kazakhs. Ibn Ruzbikhan concludes that “it has already been two hundred years since they [the Kazakhs] accepted Islam,” and now they, together with the khans and sultans, are Muslims”. There are many controversial issues concerning Islam among the nomads, which have emerged because researchers failed to take into account Turkic peoples’ conceptions of themselves and the way in which they define their own identities, instead being misled by the often superficial and incorrect opinions of foreign visitors. In addition, evaluations of “true” or “corrupt” Islam must be based on the principles of Islam itself, rather than on arbitrary, subjective criteria. There are five main Fard, or “pillars,” of Islam, though there are no requirements for belonging to the Muslim community mandating the need to know the Arabic language, to study at madrassas, or to abandon nomadism and become sedentary, etc. There is sufficient historical evidence in terms of the Turkic nomad’s compliance with Islamic ritual, in particular, with prayer and the observance of Ramadan, for example, in the Arabian sources relating to the history of the Golden Horde. Russian sources report the regular performance of prayer among the Turkic Nogaī.

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Christopher Bardanes testifies to the fact that Kazakhs performed Islamic prayers in the XVIII century: “he prays, with his knees on a spread felt prayer mat...” worshiping with his face to the ground and reciting in prayer, “Subgan Allah,” that is, “God have mercy”. For any man to be called a Muslim, including the nomadic Turks, it was first necessary to accept “iman,” i.e. to believe in God, the truth of the Quran, etc. Here we must always take into account the more liberal terms of Islamization provided in the Hanafi school of law, with its main emphasis on the “iman,” or faith. The formula “kalima and shakhadat “ (the confession of the faith, in Arabic, “La illyaha illa Allah”) was taught to the children of nomadic Kazakhs from childhood. In everyday life (often in response to a question in regard to religious affiliation) it would be uttered in different ways and in their native language, as in “Ұрқым мұсылман, дінім ислам, Алла бір, Құран шын, Пайғамбар хақ, құбылам Қағба” (“I am a born Muslim, my religion is Islam , there is but one Allah, the Koran is the truth, and the Prophet real, the kybla (the direction one should face in prayer) is toward the Kaba), or the abbreviated expression “Алла бір, Құран шын, Пайғамбар хақ.” The heads of nomadic villages considered it their duty, dependent on suitability, to assume the education of children and the instruction of mullahs and ishans. Free time, a life spent in open spaces, and the contemplation of nature accustomed inhabitants of the steppe to contemplate the world, life and death, and eternity. Physical endurance, determination, an excellent memory, natural idealism, and a poetic soul also facilitated acceptance of religious truths as well as adherence to the rules of the Sharia and Tarikat (Sufism). In some cases, nomads distinguished themselves with an even greater faith and devotion to Islam than that of sedentary Muslims (in particular those of the merchant class), a fact about which foreign authors often wrote. Von Schwarz, for example, remarked that “the very Kyrgyz (Kazakhs – auth.) who, in contrast to all the nations which I know, flaunt their religiosity the least among peoples, are in regard to respect for morality infinitely superior to the sedentary population

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of Turkestan, and could serve as the embodiment of honesty, and not only among the peoples of Turkestan”. Of course, the synthesis of ancient mental archetypes and those customs of nomads with elevated standards (above all Sufism) as a basis for the later collective psychology of the nomadic, Muslim Turk, is something which requires comprehensive and special study. Nomads were superior to settled ethnic groups in terms of hospitality (the basis of which was rooted in the Muslim faith in the guest, Khizr, and in ancient steppe customs), generosity, and willingness to sacrifice all cattle and property for a pious goal. The ethnopsychology of the nomad was such that honor and the salvation of souls were for him above material concerns​​, something which is evidenced by the famous Kazakh proverb “Малым жанымның садағасы, жаным арымның садағасы» “(“the sacrifice of my soul is my wealth, the sacrifice of my honor is my soul.” The mass sacrifice of cattle during the Muslim holiday “Kurban Aīt,” on the occasion of special events and at times of joyful deliverances from trouble (“аксарбас,” “нәзір,” “құдайы”), as well as the regular payment of alms, or “zeket,” with livestock, are important features of the social life of nomadic Muslims. The originality of the lived traditions of steppe Islam was such that the nomadic Turk did not need to abandon the steppe or his lifeways in order to be bound to religion. According to century old customs, spiritual teachers (mullahs and dervishes) themselves travelled to nomadic encampments, teaching children to read in “mobile schools,” preaching and explaining the Sharia, distributing the Quran, religious works, relics, talismans, etc. A significant percentage of Sufis had educated people and situated themselves among these very Kazakhs, so that faith and religious knowledge were passed down from generation to generation within clans and tribes. Considerable spiritual and religious experience was accumulated within the most nomadic Muslim community. From this milieu emerged later major theologians, hazrat, muftis, as well as theosophists and mystics such as Mashkhur-Jusup, Shakarim, Gumar Karash, and

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others. It is no accident that Professor Muminov has energetically posed the issue of the “Kazakh Muslim community” in recent years. In this regard, the need to eradicate the Turkological myth of spiritual dependence in the scientific literature, the supposedly enduring reliance of Kazakh Islam on foreign preachers and educators (on those of the Tatars, Uzbeks, Arabs, etc.), should be mentioned. Those persons who made the pilgrimage to Mecca were enormously popular and exerted significant influence among the nomads of the Dasht-ī Kipchak (and later Kazakhstan). There were many in the nomadic encampments. In terms of mentality, the nomadic Turkic peoples stood out for their sociability, the intensive exchange of information over vast distances (“uzun-kulak”), and for their frequent visits and travels to annual commemorations (“as”) in distant encampments and villages. It is therefore clear that the influence of spiritually advanced individuals extended far beyond their tribe and clan. In certain historical periods (XIX c.), the mekteb and madrassa, and the practice of hiring mullahs to educate children and support religious ritual, emerged as the main conduits of Muslim education and for strengthening religious culture. Describing the realities of the XIX century, one traveler remarked that the “mullah receives free lodging with the most prominent member of the encampment and five rubles a month for each student, as well as extra earnings for the edifying and religious functions he performs at weddings, circumcisions, etc.”. The visit of an ishan to a nomadic encampment, a poet and singer steeped in the Sharia (songs and edifications of a religious nature dominated in their repertoire), was a true event. A refined knowledge of nomadic psychology allowed preachers of Sufism to deliver sermons with a singular efficiency, vesting religious truths in the form of refined artistic works – cautionary parables, legends, tales and poems. According to V. Radlov, the impact the poem kissa “Zhum-zhuma” (a work created in 1370 by the Kypchak poet Khusam Katib) had on the mentality of nomads contributed to the victory of Islam, and to more than a hundred mullahs travelling across the steppe. The author is referring to its successful fusion of religious edification and nomadic, poetic traditions. Listening to the kyīssa, fairy tales, and reli-

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gious legends left an enduring imprint in nomadic memory; the stories would be passed on, supplemented, altered, and remixed. At the same time, one cannot deny the comprehensive crisis and degradation of religious life in the Muslim East in later eras and among the Kazakh nomads in particular. Many positive achievements of previous religious epochs were lost in the XVIII-XIX centuries in connection with the regional wars, uprisings, struggles against external enemies, as well as with the steady encroachment of powerful states into the steppe. A. Levshin has described the decline of religious culture among the Kazakh nomads. Peter Gaverdovskiī further testified to the growth of superstition among them and fact that many mullah’s interpretations of the Qu’ran seemed ill-informed or simply ignorant: “The Mohammedan mullahs visiting Kyrgyz encampments bend to popular belief and also make wild guesses about the Qu’ran.” “Beyond this” the author continues, “they persuade them that some mysterious poems and prayers, which are written on a special paper and please them, have magical powers, fortify health, protect livestock against plague and ensure domestic prosperity; other miraculous influences supposedly go so far as to make one fearless in war and to render the weapons of enemies harmless. The Kyrgyz, deceived by these flattering hopes, happily buy and scraps of paper spiritual figures have; and both sexes, preserving them like an invaluable treasure, keep them in possession at all times, sewing them into colorful bags or attaching them to the surface of a piece of clothing on the middle of the back, shoulders, chest or the outside of a cap”. Finally, it is necessary to recognize that the prevalence of verbal forms of acquiring, keeping and transmitting spiritual and genealogical information among the Turkic nomads, in no way means belittling the Eurasian, nomadic written tradition or its level of development. This tactic was typical of the ideological historiography of the Soviet era. In fact, it is methodologically and historically inaccurate to oppose Islam and Tengriism, and the written heritage (in script and in books) of various Turkic epochs (including that after the acceptance of

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Islam) and oral folklore. In fact, both traditions coexisted and shaped one another over the long history of Turkic civilization. This is confirmed by the example of the ancient Turkic epoch, the epoch of the Golden Horde, as well as that of the Kazakh Khanate, especially in the XIX to the beginning of the XX centuries. Islam and the Muslim literary tradition enriched and complemented the ancient epic and mythological heritage. In his work, Turkic literature: introduction to history and style, A. Bombachi expresses the view that “the entry of the Turkic peoples into the Islamic milieu marked the beginning of a new phase in the history of their literature”. There is also a new, progressive, and comprehensive approach to the phenomenon of “Turkic civilization” In this theoretical and conceptual framework apparent. “In general, it is necessary to proceed from the recognition of the “complex hierarchical system of values ​​inherent in both individuals and diverse communities. Primary and secondary, central and peripheral, and dominant and situational values can be isolated​​ in this system”. Chokan Valihanov, who has written extensively about the relics of shamanism among the Kazakhs and the characteristics of steppe culture, also repeatedly noted the popularity of the Eastern classics among his countrymen. The scholar wrote, among other things, that the “nomad was raised on the fantastic tales of Solomon, of the lords of the magic ring, Seīyfulmalik, and the king of Baghdad” and that “the young Kyrgyz adults on novels, short stories, poems and tales in the Chagatai dialect of the Turkic language”. It is known that in eastern classics such as the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi and tales of 1001 Nights were very popular in Kazakh villages. In general, we can discuss the reality of a Turkic substrate in interaction with Mongolian, Arabic, and Persian, and of centuries-old processes of cultural synthesis and syncretism.

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2.3. Language, mythology, and epic heritage of the Turks. The phenomenon of the traditional poet-improvisers The vernacular languages, colloquialisms and dialects of the nomads and of those living in villages cannot be separated from the development and forms of Turkic literary languages. Everything was interconnected and both spheres impacted each other in lived experience and in historical reality. A common Turkic literary language, serving as a kind of lingua franca, was operative in Eurasia in the VIIX centuries; it had emerged from the synthesis of the many dialects and languages of ​​ Turkic Central Asia. It was a rich language, suffused with popular epithets, imaginative formulations, and models of artistic expression which embodied local and national teachings, delights, impersonations, farewells, mourning, as well as lively dialogues and monologic narratives on life and heroic exploits. An important milestone in the ethnolinguistic history of the Turkic peoples was the Karakhanid period, an era in which a new literary language (termed “khakani” by contemporaries) developed. The Arabic alphabet, which already served as the basis for the scripts of Turkic languages, also spread at this time. The Karakhanid era was an era in which intensive processes unfolded that enriched Turkic with a new lexicon, and with Arabic and Persian words, which were incorporated into the new, sacred core of the Turkic language. As the artistic heritage compiled by Mahmud Kashgari demonstrates, the Turkic peoples confidently asserted themselves in the Muslim world, transforming their language into the foremost language of a common civilization. The author suggests that the Kipchak, Karluk, Jekil, and Iagma spoke in a beautiful literary language specific to urban inhabitants. At the same time, it was among the Turkic nomads that the purest linguistic norms and patterns, derived from the deepest roots of the Turkic language, were preserved.

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World map from Mahmud Kashgari`s Diwani Lughat-at Turk

Divan-I Hikmet of Khoja Ahmed Yassavi

The bookish, literary language of the Turkic peoples experienced two additional phases in its development –those that occurred in Khorezm in the era of the Golden Horde and in Central Asia in the Timurid period (during the time of Alisher Navoi). The interaction with Arabic and Persian elements was reflected in the emergence of a new literary language in the history of the medieval Turkic world – “Turki” or Chagatai. This literary language exerted a profound influence on all of the Turkic peoples up to the early twentieth century.

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Ch. Valikhanov noted that the Kazakh “sultans [still] use Chagatai words in conversation...”. However, various mixed versions of literary “Turki” were in use in the late Middle Ages and pre-modern period. Thus, Samoilovich notes a mixture of different elements in the literary language of the Kazan Tatars: those of the Golden Horde, of Chagatai, and of the Ottoman literary language. Kipchak language elements profoundly impacted the Mukhabbat name of Khwarizmi; the influence of the language of the Muslim Turks of Eastern Turkestan and Kashgar is evident in the Khusrau Shirin of Qutb. Navoi’s contributions to Turkic civilization constitute a truly transcendent act: his creativity in the face of the “Khamsy” “freed Turkic literature from its Persian-language otherness “. A group of closely related Turkic languages and ​​ dialects, subsequently termed “Kipchak,” dominated Eurasia in the medieval era, and specifically in the X-XV centuries. The Kypchak language spread beyond the Eurasian steppe, reaching Mamluk Egypt, Kievan Rus’, and Hungary, and becoming a kind of new lingua franca. A great number of artistic, epistolary, philological, historical, religious, and other hagiographic works were written in Kypchak and in a Kypchak mixed with Oguz. The language of the famous Hikmet of Khoja Ahmed Īassavi can be included among the many works in Oguz-Kypchak. It is noteworthy that the modern Kazakh language – the official language of the Republic of Kazakhstan – belongs to the Kipchak subgroup of the Turkic language family. In general, the cultural and civilizational unity of Turkic-speaking communities in the medieval era was strong enough that it manifested itself in the sphere of language, writing systems, folklore, customs, etc. Emphasizing the spiritual unity of the Turks, the scientist and turkologist Seidimbek asks if “it would be worthwhile to consider why all Turkic peoples believe the great Korkut to be their spiritual fore-

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father and why they pass down this sacred name from generation to generation? It is worth considering why there are semantic and compositional similarities in nearly thirty dastans of Kazakh and Bashkir folklore. Or why the Turkic language groups of Central Asia and Kazakhstan, and of the Caucasus and Asia Minor, all link the origins of their literature to the names Asana Kaīgy and Kaztugana? “. In nomadic Turkic culture, the art of the word, eloquence, and poetry were elevated to an unprecedented level. The great turkologist W. Radloff correctly wrote that the Turkic Kazakh and Kyrgyz “set themselves apart by their extraordinary ability to speak.” “The Kyrgyz (Kazakhs – auth.) always speaks fluently, without stopping and without stumbling. In laying out his thoughts clearly and precisely, he is able to give his speech a certain measure of grace, and even in ordinary conversation phrases are constructed with an evident rhythmic dimension, so that the proposals follow each other in the form of poems and couplets and unfold as if they were remarkable verses... it is clear that a people who so enjoys eloquence looks upon rhyme as the highest art in the world. As a result, folk poetry among the Kirghiz (Kazakhs – authors) has reached a high degree of development ... in this widely prevalent art of improvisation”. Ch. Valihanov, discussing the manner in which the mentality of the Turkic nomads is reflected in poetic and ornate speech, notes in particular that the “the general character of the song is born in the mouth of the kaīsak under the influence of the steppe, and of its stately horses and beautiful girls, and as a consequence the kaīsak constantly concerns himself with these subjects”. The Tatar scholar Sadri Maksudi also emphasized that, the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, as nomads, had preserved traditions of improvisation and a special penchant for poetry that sedentarized Turkic peoples had lost: “the Kazakh loves to speak and to decorate his speech. Therefore, Kazakh folklore is very rich”.

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Another notable turkologist, A. Vamberi, stressed the exceptional role of poetry and verbal artistry among the nomadic Turkmen. Here it is appropriate to quote from the book of the President of Kazakhstan, N.A. Nazarbayev, In the Flow of History, in which the head of the Kazakh state proudly notes the virtuoso mastery of the word among his nomadic ancestors, a mastery which was of a mass character, in the sense of being widely diffused among the population: “rarely is there a people which can boast that its shepherds spoke in the language of princes. The spiritual culture of the Turkic nomads and that which was directly inherited by later nomadic generations – of Kazakhs, seminomadic Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, the Nogaī, etc. – represented the harmonious fusion of ancient mythological tales, folklore, and above all of the heroic epic, as well as the synthesis of historical, genealogical, and literary works, oratorical arts and songwriting. The earliest examples of the spiritual and historical identity of the Turkic are the legends of Oguz Khagan by the prophetic sage and poet Korkut. The mythological consciousness of the Turkic nomads is reflected in the Oguzname, variants of which were provided by Rashid ad Din and Abulgazy. The oldest version of the work, entitled Oguz Khagan, was written in the Uyghur alphabet and fully embodies the ancient mythological worldview of the Turkic peoples. The sons of the legendary Oguz Khagan, the primal ancestors of the Turkic peoples, bear cosmogonic names such as Giun (Sun), Aī (Moon), Īildiz (Star), Gek (Sky), Dag (Hill), Deniz (Sea). In the tableaux of kurultay, in scenes of eating together and professing oaths, it is possible to see the vibrant expression of nomadic cultural values. It is interesting to note that there are tales of Oguz Khan in folk epics preserved among the Kazakhs of China. In particular, they relate the tale of the origins of the descendants of Nukh Turk, then go on to discuss Kara-Khan and his son Oguz Khan. These are the

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numerous progenies of Oguzkhan – Aikhan, Kunkhan, Zhuldyzkhan, Tauhan, Kokkhan, Tenizkhan. Characteristically, the archaic cultural complex of the ancient Turkic peoples is vibrantly reflected in the Oguz name. When Oguz declares himself Khagan, he utters the words: “Take a bow and arrow ... Let our brand be Buian. Let the heavenly wolf be our totem. Let the sun be our banner and the sky our tent. “Each tribe will have had its own sacred bird (ongon), its own brand or mark, and at feast it will receive a portion of meat from the sacrificial lamb (ulush). The names of the 24 grandchildren of Oguz Khagan are names associated with Oguz clans and tribes. A total of 366 heroic warriors (alp), 24 beks, and 32 great sultans were born from Oguz Khan. “It is fairly clear in the epic mythological plan that a totemic motif symbolizing the favor and protection of the sacred wolf is being presented to Oguz Khagan in the traditional center of the birth of the child-hero (that is, in that place in which the first Türk is believed to have been born, at least in myth, from the mating of a human and shewolf), as a kind of animistic consecration of the Khagan’s marriage (a wife appears to him and provides for him as his motherland would), and to lend a cosmic dimension to events – the birth of sons and their sanctification with astral names... The appearance of the name of the god Tengri is the main ideologeme of the epic, which indicates the antiquity of the epos and that it occurred in the pre-Islamic era of the Turkic peoples”. The authority of the god Tengri makes possible the unity of the khagan, lords, army and people, in addition to justifying the expansion of Oguz tribes across the steppes of Eurasia. A deep symbolism as well as traditions of Turko-Mongol succession and state organization is reflected in the later rituals of Oguz Khagan, specifically in those involving the division of conquered territories among his descendants. In later, Islamized versions (such as those of Rashid ad Din) Oguz is born Muslim and refuses to take the breast of a mother who is not. In such transformations, we see the process of transcoding the thoughts and desires of later Turkic Muslims to lend ancient legends legitimacy and a sacred character.

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According to Sadri Maksudi, who, in turn, refers to N. Bichurin, such famous individuals of proto-Turkic history as the Hun leader Modė reside in the legends concerning Oguz Khagan. We see the same transformations in the legends of Korkut or of the hero Manas. The hero Manas, the son of Iakub Khan, embodies the ideal of the Turkic Muslim hero in the famous Kyrgyz epic, but at the same time clearly reflects the spirit of an early Turkic martial, nomadic culture. The spiritual ideals of nomadic Turkic culture were transmitted by the Korkut Ata cycle, in which there is a story about the “age of the Oghuz.” As V. Zhirmunsky has noted, “the Korkut legends reflect the historical past of the people on a monumental scale and in the generalized forms of epic idealization.” The image of the steppe elder, combining the qualities of a poet, musician, sage, holy man (of ancient shamanism and Sufi Islam), healer, counselor, and educator of khans and heroes, occupies a position at the center of the cycle, acting as a kind of repository filled with stories about the exploits of Oguz heroes.

In the ethnic culture of the Turkic peoples, Korkut appeared as an embodiment of higher, irrational forces. In the mythological, archaic layers of Korkut symbolism one can discern the image of the cultural progenitor, the organizer and shaper of the cosmos and primal chaos. As the personification of certain forces, he is both universal and syncretic, and he is a singer, sage, and a master of crafts, ritual, and mysteries, as well as the original author of the kobyz, a type of stringed musical instrument.

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As Barthold has written, these tales appear to have originated in the Syr Darya in an Oguz-Kipchak nomadic milieu. The time in which Korkut existed – Korkut being the prototype of the central hero – is dated to the VIII-IX centuries, a period in which there were momentous changes in the mentality of the Oguz associated with inter-tribal warfare and violent political events, migrations, Islamization, etc. The faith binding Korkut to Tengri can be traced to the ancient mythological structures of the Turkic peoples. At the same time, we see syncretism (especially in the later versions), and the prominent role of Muslim ethics and Sufi wisdom (linked to conceptions regarding Khizr), in the words and edifying speeches of Korkut. The very same Barthold, however, noted the “minor influence of Islam,” in the sense that are few elements of the written tradition in the legends surrounding Korkut. The leading and most powerful genre of the folklore of the Turkic peoples, the heroic epic, finally crystallized and took shape in the era of the Golden Horde and that of the Kypchak-Nogaī. The images of the Turkic heroic epic are a kind of “calling card” of Turkic civilization, just as the monuments of runic writing were for an earlier epoch. The basis of the heroic epic is rooted in immortal tales of heroes and warriors such as Alpamys, Koblandy, Manas, Er Sain, Ep Edige, Karasaī-Kazy, Orak Mamaī, Telagys, Ep Kokshe, Ep Kosaī, and others. The Kyrgyz epic “Manas” is the most ambitious such work, not only in Turkic folklore, but also in the entirety of world literature, which places it on par with such immortal creations as the “Iliad,” “Odyssey,” “Mahabharata,” etc. In fact, in its three parts – “Manas Seitek, Semetei – the epic “Manas” consists of some half million lines of poetry, twice the scale of the famous “Mahabharata.” “Manas” bears a direct relationship to the culture of the Kazakhs: events and celebrations, described in the work, are attended by representatives of Kazakh tribes; based on the the epic, there are 17 ethnonyms common to both the Kyrgyz and Kazakh peoples. The Kazakh hero Kokshe is an ally and companion of Manas, something which is very symbolic for the history of two such closely related Turkic peoples.

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Many hundreds of thousands of poetic lines form the cycle of tales concerning Kazakh national heroes. The heroic epic is an example of the most coherent and massive synthesis of religious, cultic, philosophical, and aesthetic principles. At the center of the poetic narrative is the figure of the main hero or batyr (batyr being the warrior or hero of a specific nation, community, people, etc.), who assumes a remarkably idealized and elevated form. The finest national and universal human traits and qualities are crystalized in this personage. Typically, the hero encounters great obstacles, which, mobilizing his strength and spirit, he successfully overcomes in order to achieve some goal (national liberation, the defeat of enemies and rivals, his marriage or courting of a bride, etc.) In terms of studying the collective mentality and the essential features of the national traditions of the Turkic peoples, it is necessary, in our view, to emphasize the distinctly life-affirming, harmonizing, and optimistic spirit of the Turkic epic, which is rooted in a divine view of life. In addition to the batyr and not by chance, such epic mythological characters as Khizr, Baba Tuklas (Baba Tukty Shashty Azyz), various spirits (aruakh and chil’tan), saints, patron saints, etc., appear in the heroic epos. The batyr draws strength from a transcendent source such as a spirit or “aruaq,” or from the divine strength of God, “Құдайдың

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қуаты.» «Бермесең, өзің қуат, Құдайым-ай, Мен жалғыз, өзің жалғыз, бұ қалмақ көп» (if you do not offer your own divine power, then, by my God, I am alone, you are alone, and the Kalmuk many). The figure of the saintly Kyzyr (Khizr, Khidr, Kydyr, Kydyr Ata, Kyzyr paīghambar) occupies a special place in Kazakh folklore and in the epic. This issue has not received objective treatment in the scientific literature. “Khadir, Khidr, Khizr is a character in oral and Muslim written traditions... It is considered that the unnamed Qur’anic appellation, “the servant of the servants of Ours,” can be applied to al-Khadir (Qur’an, 18:64 , 65). The origins of the figure of Kyzyr, and its penetration into the spiritual culture of the Kazakh nomads, still require ample scientific reflection and interpretation. Characteristically, supporters of the “orthodox” and radical branches of Islam (Wahhabism, etc.) still challenge this personage, but for the Kazakhs and for all of the Turkic ethnicities, Kyzyr “has become a mystical part of national consciousness “. The Influence of the revered Kydyr Ata on the spiritual culture of the Turkic peoples, and on their customs, traditions, and ideology, is difficult to overestimate. For the Kazakh people, Kyzyr became the personification of divine fortune (“құт”), happiness, success, and wealth. Honoring Kyzyr ata, having faith in the revered elder, expectantly hoping to meet with him, the fear of not recognizing him among many travellers, guests, and the poor – all of these ideas had a strong, beneficial effect on folkways. The ideological and theoretical foundations of the Kazakh tradition of hospitality are rooted in Muslim beliefs regarding Kyzyr and his travels spanning the world to test human souls. The Russian proverb, an “uninvited guest is worse than a Tatar,” was totally unacceptable to the mentality of a Kazakh nomad, owing not only to native steppe traditions of hospitality, but also due the fact that Kyzyr, bringing happiness and prosperity, might disguise himself in the mask of an “intruder.” Kyzyr is the most important character of the Sufi legends. Unlike aruah (the spirits of deceased ancestors), Kyzyr was considered one of the four immortal prophets (sometimes these figures were combined,

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hence the spliced appellation Khizyr-ll’ias). In the folklore and epics of the Turkic peoples, Kyzyr is always immortal, a magician of life. This comes from the belief that he had drunk from the “water of life” (Ab’u hayat) and would live up to the end of the world. Sometimes he is equated to the prophets, which is why his name is pronounced with the formulation “aleīkhis-salam” (in Kazakh “ғалайссалам”). According to another interpretation, he is holy, the greatest of the saints (“nakib al-aulie”), and the patron of all Sufis. Perhaps the Kazakh proverb “Қырықтың бірі – Қыдыр,” was inspired by the Sufi idea that Khizr is in charge of “abdal,” or spirits (chyltan and shilten), equaling forty in number. The main “function” of Kydyr Ata is to help people everywhere: to direct them along the right path, to save them from harm, to locate a lost way, to bestow happiness and good luck. Like other “invisible men” (gaip eren), Kyzyr can work wonders: he can suddenly appear anywhere – on land or water, immediately disappear, escape imminent death, avert misfortune, raise the dead, walk on water. According to Turkic-Muslim mythology, Kyzyr may appear as a person or in many different visages: as an animal, bird, child, young man, old man, etc. However, Kyzyr is most often depicted in the folklore of the Kazakhs and other Muslim nations in human form and of slender build, or even as a hero (although, perhaps, as an elderly one) on a white steed (“ақ боз ат»), or less frequently – on a camel wearing white and green clothes with a whip and spear in hand. Sometimes his face is shrouded by a green cape. Kyzyr, in Turko-Muslim representations, eats, drinks, sleeps, and has even been married several times; he often stays as a guest, talking with his hosts. Every five years a part of his body changes. To one and the same person he may come rarely or two or three times, but each time he is in a different condition or has a new look. Kyzyr may appear in dream s. After Kyzyr visits a home, livestock multiplies, wealth materializes, and long-awaited children are born. The revered Kyzyr ata endows people with power, beauty, and wisdom. He often blesses persons so that they will accept Islam. It is interesting that Turkish authors have found parallels of these represen-

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tations in Christianity, Buddhism, and in the ethnic cultures of many other nations. Thus, St. George assumes the role of Kyzyr among Christians. The Chinese know the mysterious Chang Kuo Lao, who appears on a white horse, while the Mongols revere a «white old man,» Tszagkhan Ebugen. The figure of the revered Baba Tukty Shashty Aziz (Baba Tuklas), who is traditionally considered a patron of warriors or heroes, was also created in the heroic epos. Experts believe that the roots of the epic heritage of the Turkic peoples extend back centuries. It is probable that the Alpamys theme originated in the Altai in the VI-VIII centuries, and that it was cyclized in folklore up to the XIII century; the elements of this myth were then transformed into the heroic epic of a batyr – the defender of the Konyrat tribe. Legends about the origins of Koblandy also extend into OguzKipchak antiquity; adapted to the late medieval epic tradition, it was transformed into an accurate representation of the historical figure Koblandy, who lived in the eastern Dasht-ī Kypchak under the rule of Abulkhaīr Khan, as is evidenced in the Shezhire” of Shakarim. There has been very little research on, and very little knowledge of, the extent to which Turkic epics were widely read or of the persons who read them, and there is also very little understanding of works insufficiently popularized outside of the Turkic world. In this regard, one cannot overemphasize the place in Turkic folklore occupied by the “Forty Crimean heroes” (“Кырымнын кырык батыры”), an epic narrative of massive size and scope portraying defenders of the Fatherland. The history, life and culture of late medieval Eurasian nomads are reflected in this epic cycle. Many representative works of the Kazakh heroic epic or lyrical epos were published in the printing houses of Kazan and Ufa in the early twentieth century. The epic Orak Mamaī, reflecting the life and exploits of the Nogaī and Kazakh history in the XVI-XVII centuries, for example, was published in Kazan in 1903. As is known, the “Forty Crimean heroes” cycle was banned in the Soviet period. Although Chokan Valihanov had drawn attention to

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the importance of studying the Kazakh “stratum” of the epic, personally writing down some of its fragments, it was only in the late 1980s that researchers received permission to publish the work and study its samples, many of which informed the performances of the great Muryn Zhyrau. Of particular note is the epic narrative Karasaī Kazy, which was published from this cycle in 1992. “Forty Crimean heroes” is a cycle of heroic tales about so-called Nogaī batyrs and evidences great pride in the Turkic world and Kazakh culture. Through various forms of folk cyclization (thematic, biographical, genealogical, historical, geographical, etc.), the epos was transformed into an oral folk epic, spanning events over several centuries and relating the exploits of various ruler-batyrs participating in the political life of the Golden Horde, the Nogai Horde, and the Kazakh Khanate. As already mentioned, the heroic epic of the Turkic nomads provides original and valuable information as to the history, mentality, ethnography, and identity of the Turkic nomads, in addition to valuable data on their relations with neighboring countries and peoples. It is important to note that this cycle of epic tales illustrates the existence of a single ethno-cultural, spiritual and civilizational Turkic geography, and in particular, attests to the organic cultural, linguistic, and spiritual unity of the people of the Volga region, the Caspian, Caucasus, and Crimea in an earlier time. The actions of the heroes of the Kazakh epos take place in the Crimea and the Caucasus, often involving clashes with rivals such as the Qyzylbashs (the Persian Safavids of Iran) or the Kalmuks (the Mongolian Kalmyks or Oirat). Indivduals that are portrayed in the work, such as the Kazan Khan, can, according to experts, be traced back to their earlier prototypes – in this the case Mongol ruler of Iran, Mahmud Ghazan. In the late Middle Ages, the spiritual culture of Turkic nomads was characterized by processes which shaped forms of individual creativity among singers and story tellers, as is evidenced by extant fragments of poems and the edificatory works of such personalities as Ketbuga, Kodan, and Sypyra, in particular their civilizing monologues

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and tolgau (tolgau being a type of zhyr, or lyrical poem, addressed to a specific, important occasion). At the same time, one cannot exclude the possibility that these authors and parts of their tales and lyrical poems played a part in the construction or expansion of Kazakh historical epics. These were extremely gifted persons possessing profound gifts of poetic improvisation. Asan Kaigy (Hasan Sabituly), whose biography is bound to the banks of the Edil, to Kazan, and to the Dasht-ī Kipchak, praises not only the natural environment of Eurasia, its endless steppes and rivers, but also the high moral ideals of the Turkic nomads, and especially the theme of the unity of the Turkic peoples – for example, by mythologizing and glorifying the era of Ormanbet. In the historical memory of the Turkic peoples and of the descendants of the Golden Horde, this era was considered an idyllic century, one in which the Kazakh and Nogaī lived in harmony and prospered. There is also a visible connection to Sufism and the Muslim written tradition in the content of the poetry of the great Asan Kaīgy. In modern literature there have been adequate studies of the KazakhNogaī poets Dospambet, Shalkiiza, and also of Aktamberdy, Umbeteya, Bukhar zhyrau, and others. The creative heritage of prominent representatives of nomadic poetry have been anthologized in classic multivolume editions. It must be assumed that the poetry of the zhyrau, a type of bard or lyrical poet who set legends to verse, is a unique phenomenon in the culture of Eurasia. The word “zhyrau” was already known among the Turks in the XI century (as Mahmud Kashgari has shown). However, the flourishing of the “tolgau” genre – a type of poetic improvisation on philosophical, moral, and didactic themes – belongs to the XVXVIII century. “Tolgau” is a declamatory, recitative genre characteristic primarily of the poetry of zhyrau. “The ideas and themes of the toglau genre are ambitious in scope, it being characterized by political, military, and didactic motives”. The origins of the lyric and epos are both rooted in the poetic improvisations of zhyrau poets. The figure of the Kazakh zhyrau poet is

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comparable to similar poet-improvisers and storytellers improvisers in the history of the Turkic peoples such as the bakshi (bakhshi, bakshy, or baksy among the Turkmen, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Karakalpaks, Uighurs, etc.), the ashugs (ashyktar in the Azerbaijani and Turkish tradition) and others. The word “uzan,” referring to ancient improvisational folk singers in the nomadic tradition, is also known to scholars of Turkic culture. It is also possible draw a parallel with the Kyrgyz “чоң джомокчу” or manaschy (a later term signifying a reciter of the Manas epic), both of which also represent a type of improvisational storyteller. The uniqueness of zhyrau poets is that they represented a unique syncretism of prose, verbal, and musical arts. Their tolgau were mainly performed with the accompaniment of the ancient stringed instrument, the kobyz, to which magical properties were attributed, and of which the legendary Korkut is considered the creator. Along with philosophical and didactic themes, a central motif in the works of the poet improviser was the theme of the sacred homeland. This mythologized and sacralized landscape, in which “the umbilical cord was tied” (in Kazakh “кіндік қаны тамған жер,” literally, the land in which the blood of the umbilical cord drips), is where the hero first heard the lullaby of the mother and the pledges of brave fathers and ancestors. The ideal of the unity of the nation, of consonance between the people and the khan, was extolled in song and poetry; colorful epithets and sophisticated poetic images depicted nature, the nomad, and most importantly, created an image of the batyr – the heroes and defenders of the Fatherland. Heroic pathos, expressiveness, and a romantic spirit infused these works. The focus of the philosophical zhyrau was man, the ideal hero, and they are often real persons in Turkic history, (as opposed to the heroic epic, which was the expression of the collective memory and mythology of the people) participants in the Kazakh-Kalmyk, and Kazakh-Russian wars. There were khans, sultans, noble elites, and batyrs such as Temir, Zhanibek, Bogenbaī, Abylai, Kabanbai, Issatai, and others.

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The poet-zhyrau was neither alien to nor unfamiliar with the realities of warfare or spirituality. This is evident in the poetry of Dospambet, for example, who was himself a valiant warrior and participated in the battles of his era. The zhyrau Kaztugan exhibited his knowledge in the field of religion and had some merit in his educational work among the people. Buhar-zhyrau, an adviser to seven khans, directly participated in many of the great and fateful events of his time. In the works of the zhyrau of the late medieval era, especially in the XVII-XVIII centuries, there are more pronounced traces of historicism; echoes of the actual, complex political events of the epoch are encountered in their art. Through the efforts of the zhyrau, which impacted mentality and worldview, an ideal of Turkic unity took form in the ethnic memory of the Turkic peoples. The zhyrau typically took an oppositional stance to “historical enemies” in the form of Russians advancing into the East, Buddhist Kalmyks, or “kyzyl -bashi” (the Persian Shia). This “historic” aspect of their heritage needs to be further studied and compared in view of new scientific paradigms. Specialists consider that the poetry of the zhirau forms a characteristic link to the ancient mythological system and culture of nomadic Tengriism, and also to Sufism, a later phenomenon. The last question is also poorly understood. Prof. A. Zhaksylykov has comprehensively analyzed the works of Turkic zhyrau in the medieval era in terms of religiosity, and in particular, that of the the Sufi world, and concludes that such a link is obvious. Overcoming intimations and prohibitions against religious themes in the past, we are able to shed light on the complex problem of syncretism in the spiritual images of medieval Turkic poets, in whose works mythology, magic, and religion (an obvious continuity with the baksy) played important roles, as did what modern science would term “altered states of consciousness.“ In the context of a “psychology of the future,” the study of the religious and psychological cultures of the East, including those of the Turkic nomads, is promising. Investigations conducted with a contemporary outlook reveal that tolgau and the didactic expressions of nomadic poets were spoken in

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an ecstatic, trance-like state, e.g. when appealing to God, Tengri, or to aruahi; zhyrau did not merely access a substrate of meanings in the ethnic consciousness – through the paradigm of collective subconscious experience and archetypes, embedded in genetic history, the narrator actualized memory. Following the example of the spiritual ancestor of all Turkic shamans, aulie (those individuals fully devoted to Islam and who enjoy the special favor of Allah), musicians, etc., Korkut Ata, the story teller and zyrau (uzan, bakhshi), also appeals to the collective unconscious and to the primal memories of an ethnic group, calling to mind an “ideal,” ancestral past. “The creativity of the akyn and zhyrau in some respects extends beyond verbal and aesthetic tradition, invading the sphere of historical events, sacred metaphysical practices (the zhyrau as shaman), healing magic, communion between humans and spirits”. Zhyrau were not only singers and storytellers; they were also bearers of a primal religious and psychological consciousness, and purveyors of magic. In this regard, it is productive to draw parallels with the latest scientific ideas about the story telling art of the Kyrgyz manaschi, many aspects of which were previously semi-prohibited as a topic. One of these themes has been and remains the “transcendental functions” of the manaschi. As to why the topic was taboo, the modern Kyrgyz scholar T. Bakchiev notes that this theme was too mystical, magical, transcendent (supernatural, otherworldly), i.e. it was antithetical to the ideology of a science that devalued religion; adding that the unique storyteller of the nomads was an outstanding connoisseur of popular, spiritual culture, an accomplished virtuoso of literature, knowledgeable in human psychology, hunting birds, horses, celestial bodies, etc. These story tellers were considered elect spirits and higher powers. The poly-functionality of poetry among the Turkic nomads is noteworthy in the context of ethno-folklore. In Turkic nomadic society poetry “served not only the spiritual and aesthetic needs of the Kazakhs, but it also took on the function of regulating social (inter-tribal and generational) relations, collected and focused expressions of the

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collective unconscious, inspired soldiers to fight for the freedom and independence of the Fatherland, summed up the historical experiences of momentous epochs, prophesied the future, etc. Poetry has also been characterized as having a sacred function, as the zhyrau often took on the role of a kind of medium, or mediator, between the metaphysical realm and those people in need of either healing or etiological aid”. The ancient zhyrau and bakhshi could also be called abyz. As the Academician A. Margulan notes, many of zhyrau and bakhshi became abyz, successfully combining ancient art with the recitation of the Quran, and the popularization of Islam among the people. Kazakh sources name such famous abyz as Nysan abyz, Kurmanbaī abyz, Sabyrbaī abyz, etc. According to Shakarim Kudaīberdy -uly, the Kazakh word “abyz” is derived from the Arabic “hafiz.” M.Auezov has written about this. In the Nogai Horde, the hafizes were “experts in sacred texts and traditions,” and probably that “category clergy closest to the common people and to secular politics. They participated in military campaigns, served as scribes in nomadic military headquarters, etc.”. The abyz figures in the history of many Turkic peoples as a representative of “national” Islam. This phenomenon and the term itself show the complex synthesis of a pre-Islamic mythological consciousness and Muslim values, and the conditions of amalgamation and syncretism. It seems obvious that science properly opposed the poet of the written tradition to the improvisational zyrau, and to the nomadic and Muslim poetry of the East in terms of the content of the spiritual heritage of the Turkic peoples, though this is in reality a stereotype of the Soviet era. All of these areas were interlinked and bound together, and these different types of poets in history all shared a close spiritual heritage and tradition. In the process of the enrichment of the history of Turkic civilization, the ancestors of all mankind were redesigned in connection with assigning a role to Muslim saints and Islamized aulie (Kyzyr, Arystan bab, Īassaui, Hajji Bektash, Baba Tuklas, etc.). Suleiman (King Solomon), with his magic ring, Lukman Hakim (a physician and sage of the East), the greedy Karun, the generous Khaty Taī, and the king and

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general Iskander (Alexander the Great), figures taken from the world of folklore, hagiology and the history of other countries, became particularly loved and edifying personages. In general, as S. Kaskabasov has noted, the XVIII-XIX centuries were a time in which Muslim ideas penetrated deeply into Turkic, and in particular Kazakh, folklore. The medieval Kissa-i Rabguzi, consisting of 79 tales and which is considered to be rooted in an indigenous, Turkic language tradition, related myths, parables of Islam, and tales of Biblical and Qu’ranic prophets. The Kissa was popular among the Turkic peoples, as were stories of the East and those with Islamic themes such as “Zhum-zhuma,” “Zarkum,” “Sal-sal,” “Zhusup Zuleīkha,” “Seīful’malik,” and others. These processes of transformation enriched the historical consciousness of the Turkic peoples with numerous new stories and myths that had Middle Eastern or Near Eastern roots, and which spread together with the diffusion of Qur’anic and apocryphal religious literature in the expanses of Turkic Eurasia, especially during the epoch of the Golden Horde. This process should be understood as the natural and historically irreversible process of expanding the boundaries of ethnic and cultural consciousness – their being enfolded in a larger global context. If we consider the encounters of the ancient Turkic peoples with world religions before Islam, there are the well-established cultural contacts with Byzantium, Iran, and China, and the surprising willingness of the individuals of Turkic civilization to allow into their consciousness and adapt to the diverse phenomenon of foreign cultures. In the traditional historiography and worldview of Turkic-Muslims, the Turkic peoples are considered original descendants of Īafet (Īafes or Īapas). In the concept of history which took shape in the Karakhanid period, and then developed during the spiritually progressive era of the Golden Horde, there existed the idea of the emergence, spread, and then completion of the full cycle of human history in the era of the Akyr Zaman (the End Times or Apocalypse), followed by the posthumous Resurrection from the dead and the Day of Judgment (Kiiamet). The words to describe a person, “adam,” “adam balasy”

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(literally a child of Adam), along with the ancient Turkic “kіsi,” have Qu’ranic origins, and are related to the first man and the prophet Adam. Such milestones of global history as the worldwide flood (topan su), in which the prophet Noah saved elements of mankind, the forebears of modern humanity, in his mythical ship, were considered seminal moments. And, of course, attention was paid to the time of the Prophet Muhammad ‘s arrival, the era of the first caliphs and of the righteous, which was praised in every way. The Chingissids played a curious role in the development of the historical consciousness of the Turkic nomads (and of all the Muslim Turks of Central Asia). Legends about the origins of Genghis Khan, his family, and his ancestors, were enfolded within traditional Muslim ideas on the origin of mankind and thus within the Muslim image of the world. The provenance of the human race in Turkic-Muslim historical works, which usually begins with the events of man’s creation and the history of the prophets, was supplemented by the cycle of legends about Oguz, by the genealogies of the Turkic-Mongol tribes, and by the lineage of Genghis Khan and all the branching lines of nomadic clans, tribes and peoples that traced their descent to him. In this oral historiography, the nomads paid special attention to the “shezhіre” as a legendary history of ancestors, a mythic reconstruction that nevertheless contains sediments of a true past and of the origins of distant generations. 2.4. Historical background of cultural decline in the Turkic world In the modern understanding, progress is not simply a linear process but one with cycles of organization and disorganization; it does not preclude temporary phases of regression or deterioration. The history of the Turkic world and the development of Turkic culture and civilization should be understood in view of this paradigm. Emerging from ancient processes of growth and self-development, Turkic civili-

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zation at this particular point in history, from the late Middle Ages on, was, in our view, beginning to decline and stagnate. The characteristic feature of its cultural history in this period is differentiation, fragmentation and the formation of local Turkic cultures and ethnic communities. The newest and latest epoch (XVII-XX centuries) of the Turkic world as an organic part of the East experienced and continues to experience a civilizational crisis, manifested in efforts to keep up with European nations in science, technology, and education; it is also evidenced in its increasing fragmentation, religious controversies, and the growing conflict and disunity among its varied ethnic formations and states. Neither the classical works of the Orientalists or Turkologists, nor the modern literature on the history of the Turkic peoples, gives sufficient intention to this crisis that shattered a single cultural and civilizational space stretching from Siberia and the Altai to the Black Sea. The crisis of disintegration in the Turkic world remains largely unstudied. The authors of scientific papers do not seek to analyze the factors and circumstances that led to the cultural assimilation of the Turks or their dependence on external civilizational forces such as Russia and China. So far, each of the Turkic republics has focused only on their own narrow, national history, with little attention given to global processes or the dynamics of global history. In general, major works on the history and culture of the Turkic peoples are lacking. The focus of the literature is either the ancient and early medieval periods (i.e. that era in which the Turkic world retained a common cultural basis) or certain narrow phenomenon in the history of the early twentieth century, usually associated with the spread of Pan-Turkism or the activities of intellectuals. The history of the Turkic world of the late XVI – XIX centuries is reflected only weakly and contradictorily in textbooks and joint research. What is needed is a broader, civilizational approach that will examine the origins of the fracture and crisis of Turkic civilization in Eurasia and of each of its constituent peoples, as well as their permanent struggle for cultural and political survival.

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As the author of the Kazakh textbook History of the Turkic peoples, K. Amanzholov, correctly notes in the example of East Turkestan, the majority of works about this region have been written from a Eurocentric or Sino-centric position. With this in mind we have tried, at least in general terms, to touch on the main factors that, in our opinion, led to the disintegration of a common Turkic cultural and civilizational space, as well as to characterize the dramatic history of a critical period and to precisely define the priorities and objectives of a broader and more general Turkic history. The realities of Eurasian and world history changed dramatically with the end of the medieval era and the beginning of the modern period in the XVI-XVIIth centuries. A landmark event was the collapse of the Golden Horde. “This was the last powerful imperial nomadic confederation and the last to shape Eurasian history as a whole... Despite the relative weakness of this passionate drive for Europe, its influence was felt in the East. The East at the beginning of the modern era was impacted by two forces – that of Europe, in the form of the first steps of colonial expansion, and that of the steppes, in the form of the ongoing movements and development of nomadic tribes. Europe’s influence was manifested in active colonial penetration and the establishment of trade relations. Despite this, the traditional structure of the East had not undergone major changes. « According to Prof. J. Artykbaev «from the XV to the XIX century, there was a kind of inertia, in which traditional laws continued to operate... “. In fact, the global world-system had already shifted tangibly in favor of the primacy of the Western community of nations by the middle of the XV century, a result of its having taken the path of industrial development. Economic decline in Central Asia was clearly manifested in connection with the most important event in world history – the eclipse of the Silk Road as merchants began to turn away from the ancient caravan route through Central Asia in favor of the cheaper and safer sea route to the East. This global imbalance began in the Age of Discovery (XV). The young bourgeoisie of European countries gained access to the mar-

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kets of Eastern countries owing to the brilliant discoveries of navigators and to technical innovations, above all modern firearms. “Due to global geo-economic changes the flow of goods from the European part of Eurasia to the Middle East intensified while the traditional land routes of the Silk Road and other trade routes weakened; the influx of new industrial and handicraft products and technologies to nomadic regions was reduced to a minimum”. As we analyze the underlying factors of this unprecedented crisis, the isolation and marginalization of Turkic Central Asia, it is necessary to seriously consider such problems as natural and environmental factors (climate change in Eurasia), increased starvation, migration, and finally, the pandemic plague in Eurasia – the “black death”, against which ancient man had little or no defense. The plague that swept across Europe and Asia in the middle of the XIV century (13461353) was devastating and had disastrous consequences, claiming the lives of tens of millions of people in different parts of the continent. The nidus of this terrible infection from China and Mongolia spread westward with the Mongolian armies and trade caravans. Modern science recognizes that the plague had a huge impact on world history, affecting economics, psychology, culture, and demography. Large cities and sedentary civilizations were severely impacted by the outbreaks of the disease; they had a less devastating effect on the nomads owing to their natural dispersion and mobility. The consequences of the plague directly and seriously impacted the Golden Horde, in which the decline in population led to political instability, as well as technological and cultural retrogression; it also paralyzed international trade. The natural phenomenon of the plague set the stage for the subsequent crisis. In general, the decline of the Silk Road was the beginning of decline in Central Asia. Strife and conflict spread throughout previously unified Turkic states in the region, including the Golden Horde and the Empire of Amir Temur, in the XVI-XVII centuries. A complex set of factors, both internal and external, gradually and negatively impacted consciousness, culture, education, religion, art, etc. The poor quality of the late medieval Muslim education system,

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for example, stood in sharp contrast to earlier Islamic madrassahs; their intellectual level dropped significantly, and bigotry, intolerance of dissent, and a disregard for science and knowledge intensified in the mentality of the average Muslim. It was not by chance that Western European or Russian travelers and experts were unable to travel in the open and often had to disguise themselves as persons of Muslim origin (e.g. the great Hungarian scientist and orientalist Armin Vambery and Shokan Valikhanov, a Kazakh scholar who served as an intelligence officer in the Imperial army) in Bukhara and Kashgar in the XVIII-XIX centuries, owing to the non-compliance of these states with diplomatic norms and international protocols, as well as to escalating religious fanaticism. The civilizational and ideological history of Central Asia from the XVI century on is marked by the sharp split between and growing conflict among Sunnis and Shiites, the cause of which is mainly attributed to the policies of the Safavid shahs of Iran. The main rival of Shiite Iran under the qyzylbash was the Ottoman sultanate, which declared itself “orthodox Sunni.” This fact resulted in the even deeper isolation of Muslims in Central Asia. Sunni Turkestan and Shiite Iran formed a wall of religious estrangement, a sectarian barrier that halted the exchange of cultural values, ideas, and communication among spiritual and religious elites. In this way, the average Central Asian was also cut off from Afghanistan and India. This religious-ideological problem, and, in general, the rivalry of Islamic schools of thought that begins in the modern period negatively and significantly impacted the destiny of the Islamic world and the region. These conflicts led to stagnation and dogmatism in theological matters and limited the intellectual potential of the spiritual elite. Taqlid, a ban on free intellectual inquiry in religious matters that required strict adherence to the authority of the Muktallim, medieval theologians and jurists, had already been proclaimed in the XI century. By the late Middle Ages this stricture took on an increasingly reactionary and blatant form. Islam lost its original spirit of dynamism and creativity as a result.

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Intellectual stagnation had a direct impact on the state of science, including the natural sciences and engineering, medicine, industry, etc. The Muslim East, including the Turkic world, began to lag behind the West and Russia in the types and quality of weapons and in military affairs (the Ottoman Empire and the Moghul Empire of Babur are exceptions to this). As for the Eurasian nomads, the nomadic Kazakhs, their military and political potential and global reach were inadequate in the XVI-XVIII centuries; they were unfamiliar with artillery and rifles were a rarity in the steppe. It is clear that the modern crisis in the system of science, education and technology in the Turkic lands was directly related to the crisis in the main centers of the Islamic world (in places such as Cairo and Baghdad). Incidentally, the plague severely impacted these centers (according to some sources the Muslim population of the Middle East decreased by almost 40%), physically exterminating the populace as well as many theologians. It is well known that the plague, famine, and migration also had a devastating effect on the quality and number of the clergy in Western Europe in the XIV century. If Central Asia in the pre-Mongol period developed together with the general Muslim Renaissance of the IX-XI centuries and produced luminaries such as Abunasr Muhammad Al Farabi, Biruni Aburayhan, Abu Ali Ibn Sina, Omar Khayyam, and Alisher Navoi, among others, in the late Middle Ages and modern period there was a growing decline and deterioration in science and the fine arts. This phenomenon had not only a local cause and causal framework but was also rooted in broader civilizational forces, as the Turkic world had long been an integral part of a far broader Islamic heritage. Many aspects of the history of Turkic culture and civilization should be viewed in the context of a larger problem – the competition and struggle between East and West, between Islam and the communities of western Europe. Noting the objective factors (in this case climatic, biological, demographic factors, etc.) limiting the development of Turkic culture and civilization as a whole in the modern period, we should not gloss over external political factors: the aggressive designs of the European

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powers, and the pernicious ideas of their young bourgeoisie, who in pursuit of profit drove their countries to conquer weaker areas of the East in the interest of global expansion. For Turkic history, given that the majority of its ethnic groups were located in Eurasia, we must emphasize the devastating economic, political and cultural consequences of the colonial expansion of the Russian empire, and the policies of the Qing (China) imperium, under whose authority expansive areas of indigenous Turkic lands were seized in the XVIII and early XX centuries. From the end of the XV-XVI centuries, the growing strength of Moscow and its aggressive Eastern policies splintered the unity of the Golden Horde, paving the way for the capture of Kazan, Astrakhan, and Siberia, and allowing its military to penetrate Kazakh lands. This was accompanied by a policy of “divide and rule.” Moscow sowed ethnic discord between peoples once united in the Turkic world. In the late Middle Ages there began to emerge from a single mass of Turkic tribes several, more discrete groupings: the Nogai Horde in the central steppes of Eurasia and to the west the Uzbek nomadic confederation. Parts of the Turkic Nogai were closely linked with the west, their nomadic incursions reaching up to the Dniester. Among the Kazakhs, the Nogai and Tatar intensified political divisions, fueled in part by objective socio-economic realities that Moscow consciously manipulated. At the beginning of the XVI century two powers competed for Kazan – the Crimea and Russia; as the Kazakh historian M. Tynyshbaev has written, “with such severe internal troubles it was not difficult for Ivan IV to take Kazan and finally attach it to Russia”. The same forces, those that were either pro-Moscow or pro-Crimea, competed in the Astrakhan Khanate. As for the Nogai, the words Ismail Mirza uttered to his rival brother, Yusuf, are characteristic: “Your people go to trade in Bukhara. And my people go to Moscow “. This struggle took on a violent character,

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and as a result, at the urging of Moscow, Ismail killed Yusuf Ismail and unleashed a brutal massacre in his lands. A part of the Nogai fled to the Kazakh khan Haqq-Nazar. Throughout the XVII-XVIII centuries tribalism and fragmentation steadily grew within the ruling Juchid dynastic lines in Kazakhstan. It is sufficient to recall the adoption of Russian citizenship by the junior or little Zhuz, a historical moment in which the Russian Ambassador Alexander Tevkelev observed the warring of two factions in the Kazakh horde: that of Abulkhair Khan’s fighting in favor of the Russian protectorate against a grouping of opposed sultans and elders. Under the Russian Empire, Turkic civilization reached a level of material decline, cultural stagnation, and fragmentation in language, religion, and education that was unprecedented in scope. A number of small Turkic ethnic groups in Siberia and Altai were completely and irreversibly assimilated both linguistically and ethnically or their lands depopulated. In addition to the economic plunder of their lands, the Yakut (Sakha), Khakass, and others endured profound spiritual and cultural oppression, manifested in enforced baptisms and the forced adoption of Russian personal names and surnames. Beyond this, the metripole deliberately spread alcohol in these distant lands, a proven tactic in placating indigenous populations in various colonial lands. This was intended to demoralize and completely enfeeble the population in order to facilitate the liberation of territories rich in natural resources. Of course, the integration of the Turks of the Volga-Ural region, Siberia, the Altai, Turkestan, the Caucasus, North Caucasus, and the Crimea to the growing multi-ethnic and multi-confessional Russian Empire should be treated as a complex and ambiguous historical process with diverse phases that unfolded in line with the global drama of centuries of interaction between East and West and the regularities of the global capitalist economic system. We also have to consider that for many centuries and millennia there was a natural and logical process of ethnic splintering, transformation, stages of ethnic disintegration and re-consolidation, and shifting ethnic markers and identities in these ethnic histories. However,

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the negative impact of Tsarist rule on Turkic history is undeniable and obvious, as is its deep ethnic and cultural fragmentation under Russian rule, the evidence of which is replete in the history of nearly every nation in the period of Russia’s domination. So, examining the growing political and cultural disintegration of a single Turkic and Islamic space throughout the XVI-XVIII centuries, in the space of 30-70 years in XV century the state of the Golden Horde, with its center on the lower Volga, disintegrated, this painful process due to its “fragmentation” into smaller Turkic states and khanates in Eurasia such as the Crimean Khanate, the Khanate of Kazan, the Astrakhan Khanate, the Siberian or Tyumen Khanate, the Kazakh Khanate (with links to the Ak Orda or the state of the “Uzbek” nomads), the Nogai Horde (Mangytsky Yurt), and others. The tragedy of late medieval Turkic history began with the Russian conquest of Kazan, Astrakhan, Isker, the liquidation of indigenous state functions in these areas and the accompanying massacres, vandalism, looting, and forced conversions to Christianity. The entirety of the male population was slaughtered with the capture of Kazan, and the Russian placed its women at the disposal of his soldiers. “The city presented a horrible sight: blazing fires, looted houses, streets littered with corpses, blood flows everywhere;” “the immoral slaughter of the residents of Kazan after its capture is one of the worst pages in Russian history (M. Khudyakov). When the Russian Cossacks seized Saraichik, they desecrated Muslim graves, disinterring the bodies, including those of the great khans. Hence the rampant violence and brutality of the Russian chieftains and peasants who conquered Siberia, Kazakhstan, the entirety of the middle and lower Volga, and that who brought the territory of the former Siberian Khanate Kuchum into Russia dominion. At the beginning of the XVII century Russia ended the political significance of the Turkic Nogai, and was encroaching on the borders of the Kazakh Khanate (which had existed from the 70s of the XV century). The withdrawal from the historical arena of the powerful Turkic state – the Empire of Amir Timur and his descendants, the Timurids,

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was the second most important factor after the collapse of the Golden Horde on the negative trajectory of Turkic Eurasian history. Processes of decay and disintegration, the weakening of local religious and political elites, prevailed throughout Turkic Eurasia with its disappearance. As a result, the passionate energy that had created the growth and prosperity of a single, cohesive Turkic civilization was dissipated in rivalries and bloody feuds; the remaining, fragmented Turkic political entities were unable to withstand the onslaught of their civilizational rivals. If in the ancient and medieval era processes of decay were temporary and alternated with strong resurgences (following the decline of the Great Turkic khaganate the Karakhanids and Seljuks, after the crisis of pre-Mongol era, the emergence of the Kipchak Turkic state of the Golden Horde, etc.), in the period from the end of the XV to XIX century any hope for the restoration of Turkic unity was lost: the force of decay and isolation was compounded by the incredible momentum and aggressive approach of powerful neighboring empires, and by the sharp increase in the military and technical potential of the Christian and European West. “Of all the ethnic and political formations, the Juchids of the postGolden Horde period outlasted all the states of the Kazakh sultans and the Crimean Khanate. The end of the dynastic power in the Crimea of the Girey and their accession to the Russian Empire in 1783 are related to the incorporation of Kazakh lands, a process which began in the 30s of the XVIII century and that for various reasons was delayed for decades and ended only in the 60’s of the XIX century”. With Russia’s geopolitical gains, the development of a new system of economic relations hit the Turkic peoples living at the frontier of civilization, on the border of major powers, and disputed territories particularly hard. This applies to the Nogai, the Crimeans, Kazakhs, Tatars, Bashkir, and Uighurs. In the first quarter of the XVIII century an unprecedented geopolitical situation emerged in Central Asia. In the XVIII century the Kazakhs were the most numerous Turkic ethnic group in Eurasia with 2.3 million people and had the potential and the best chance to in-

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tegrate into modern industrial and urban civilization (Russian and Western European travelers themselves testified that the Kazakhs were a smart, talented people, vibrant in health, with phenomenal memory, alertness, mobility, openness, etc.). Instead, its people became embroiled in many centuries in the hellish cultural experiments of the Russian Empire, though the most extreme of their cruelty and cynicism were achieved only after the communist takeover. The realities changed in the late medieval period, the Turkic peoples splintered and weakened and needed to reunite. Yet it must be remembered that this very disintegration was largely the result of years of subversive “work” by growing empires – Russia and China, who in various ways, both direct and indirect, undermined the foundations of the indigenous peoples’ natural unity. The “fanaticism” of so-called Muslims or the later “predatory” actions of the nomadic Kazakhs (or similarly of nomadic Uzbeks, Turkmens, etc.) that increased military conflicts in the region (including among new ethnic formations of Turkic peoples, and between tribes, clans, clans, etc.) were actually caused by external pressures. Thus, it is well known that without access to trade nomads resorted to desperate raids, the confiscation of goods, and to hostile demands for the opening of markets, etc. Growth of conflicts in Central Asia in the XVII-XIX centuries was deeply and objectively rooted in the rise and encroachment of the Great Powers, which resulted in widespread impoverishment and forced mass migrations. The seizure of pasturages by Russian authorities inevitably led to conflicts and disputes with neighboring and related nations and peoples. The notorious “laziness” or “rudeness” of the nomads or Muslim communities, their lack of hygiene, etc., were not some eternal ethnic trait but resulted from centuries of poverty, migrations, and wars, and which any nation would exhibit if it were in a state of moral crisis or degeneration. A striking example of the “historically acquired” hostility among the Bashkirs and Kazakhs. The mutual and unremitting nature of their raiding in the modern period is a result of the expansionist policy of Russia and the skillful diplomacy of the Empire in pitting one small

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people against other. In fact, as the Kazakh historian and poet Shahkarim Kudaiberdi-uly pointed out, the Bashkirs were among those ethnic groups most closely related to the Kazakhs, as indicated by their common Kipchak roots and shared ethnic characteristics. The great powers Russia and China made great efforts to deepen conflict between the two major warring ethnic groups of Eurasia – the Kazakhs and Mongol Oirats – until it turned into a large-scale, protracted, and exhausting war of mutual destruction. The periodic clashes between Kazakhs and Oirat are chronicled from the XV century and gradually increased over the centuries, culminating in intense conflict in the 20s of the XVIII century. As a result of this war, the Kazakhs were devastated demographically (according to some sources, two thirds of its population were lost) and so weakened they had to request citizenship in the Russian Empire. The southern regions of Kazakhstan along with the territory of modern Kyrgyzstan, most of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan were forcibly incorporated into the Tsarist Empire in the second half of the XIX century, forming so-called Russian Turkestan – a special general-governance with its center in Tashkent. However, speaking of subjective, political factors, and of the responsibility ruling indigenous elites, we must recognize that local leaders as well as what might be termed the “nobility of the white bone,” those of the ruling elite who could trace their descent through Chinngiz Khan , played in the support and growth of ethnic separatism and tribalism; during this period no charismatic leaders emerged from this milieu – rulers that might have had credibility and influence across the entirety of the Turkic world. M. Tynyshbaev’s statement is appropriate here: “the Khanate that emerged in XV century on the ruins of the Golden Horde was not an independent entity but a number of smaller formations depended on one another, each of which aimed to seize the territory of its neighbors, or worked toward the larger goal of reducing or even destroying the Saray Khanate so they might take its place. This feverish struggle for power resulted in endless internal warfare, which, in turn, weakened the Khanate to the extent that after a mere 70 years after winning

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its freedom in the bloodless victory on the Ugra, Russia was able to absorb the Kazan and Astrakhan khanates and the Nogai Ulus, and cut the remaining peoples of the Golden Horde in two”. In other words, we see how local dynastic ruling elites participated in the destruction of the Turkish state and civilization. As is known, the struggle of Amir Timur with Toktamysh and his allies was characterized by the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians and the destruction of the infrastructure and cities of the Golden Horde. From the point of view of a broader Turkic ideal, Timur’s invasion of Asia Minor cannot be considered either reasonable or progressive, and in general, it was the failure of the two great leaders of the Turkic world in that era – the Sultan Yildirim Bayezid and Timurlan – to find common ground and agreement that resulted in the ensuing tragedy, a fratricidal war and the capture and humiliation of the Ottoman sultan. The benefits of this misstep accrued to those outside the Turkic world. In the later history of Kazakhstan, we see how the Kazakh “white bone” leaders (with the exception of Abylai, Kenesary and others) excelled in conformism; being concerned with personal ambitions, their outlook was confined to the boundaries of their zhuz and immediate surroundings, and they were frequently willing to make concessions to the Russian Tsars, Oirat xuntaydzhi, and Manchu bogdyxan. With very few exceptions, the rulers of the Uzbek khanates (Bukhara, Khiva, and Kokand), were open in their goals of personal aggrandizement and ethnic and cultural separatism; they permitted and at times encouraged increased ethnic tensions with the Kazakhs, allowing burdensome taxes and predatory raids on the villages of the senior and little Kazakh zhuz, the Kyrgyz people, and others subject to these semi-medieval states in the XIX century. The continuing violence between Uzbeks and Turkmens in Khiva, and between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Kokand was a result of increasing distrust rooted in linguistic differences between nomadic and settled Muslims (often termed Tajiks or Sarts by various nomadic communities) despite century’s old ties and their common Sunni faith. The Uzbek Khanates lost their political independence in the end, becoming

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the subjects of the Russian empire (the Kokand Khanate was abolished by the tsarist government in the second half of the XIX century). The modern and contemporary processes of ethnic segregation in the Turkic world unfortunately intensified, and the idea of ​​a political, spiritual and cultural union lost its appeal and power. While some Turkic political leaders in Eurasia sought to unite the Kazakh ethnic group, or to form opportunistic alliances with Karakalpaks, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and others at the end of the XVI-XVIII centuries, (e.g. the Kazakh khans Haqq Nazar, Eshmuhamed (Yesim Khan), Tawakkul or Tauke, Abulmansur or Ablay Khan, among others), the centrifugal forces and forces of decline exceeded the power of their will. Of course, as has been said, none of this happened without the substantial influence of external forces (Russia, China, England, etc.) interested in disintegration and destabilization in Central Asia. Only later, in the late XIX and early XX twentieth century did a new Turkic intellectual elite of educators and educated Jadid reformers (e.g. Shagabuddin Marjani Gaspraly, Ahmad Donish, Abay Kunanbayuly, Baitursynuly Ahmed Mustafa Chokai, Mahmoud Behbudi, Yusuf Akchura and others) achieve considerable success and radical change in altering the mass consciousness of the Turkic peoples of Central Asia, the Volga-Ural region, the Crimea, the Caucasus, and Asia Minor in the direction of unity, cohesion and ethnic solidarity. Speaking about the increase of military clashes and conflicts in Eurasia, we must, of course, keep in mind their expansive scale, encompassing a huge space (to the Black Sea and the Caucasus in the south, to the Pacific Ocean in the east, and to Fergana, the Semirechye, and Merv in the south-east) and imposing on the subject peoples huge indemnities and a ruinous tax system, which caused an unprecedented wave of discontent and protest among the subject ethnic groups of the Russian empire that continued for several centuries. This was especially true in the history of the peoples of the Caucasus, Bashkortostan, Kazakhstan and Central Asia. With respect to East Turkestan, the same pattern emerged; it was conquered by the Chinese Qing Empire and renamed Xinjiang (“New

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Land”) in the second half of the XVIII century. Chokan Valikhanov noted the political and social oppression of Manchu-Qing officials and their efforts to strip the local Turkic Muslims of their lands. As the two superpowers of the XIX century, Russia and China cynically divided a once united and independent Turkic ethnic territory into spheres of influence. Signing joint agreements in Beijing (1860), and St. Petersburg (1881), the empires not only seized indigenous Turkic lands and destroyed the political sovereignty of these peoples, but also actively fostered ethnic fragmentation and division by placing parts of the same ethnic group (this applies to the Kazakhs and Uighurs), and even of the same tribe and clan, on opposite sides of distinct borders. This created numerous tragedies among families and relatives, caused pain and suffering for tens of thousands of people, and negatively impacted economic relations, trade and exchange. At a time when borders were still ambiguous, the Turkic peoples – the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uighurs – constantly found themselves trapped between “a rock and a hard place:” they fell under the rule of one oppressive state or another. Many rebelled in desperation, with migration becoming a way of life for thousands of others. All of this intensified the fragmentation of a once united Turkic community. The delimitation of national borders became a means of artificially splitting ethnic groups, a process that has spanned centuries (e.g. the concept of the “Kazakhs of Russia” or the “Kazakhs of the Soviet Union”, the “Kazakhs of China”, the “Kazakhs of Mongolia”), and created unnatural differences in mentality, lifestyle, political views, writing systems, etc. It should be noted that the involvement of the great mass of the Turkic and non-Turkic populations of Eurasia in protest movements (e.g., that of the Caucasus under the leaders Ghazi Mohammed Gamzat Bey and Shamil, the Bashkir national liberation uprising of the XVIIXVIII centuries led by Batyrsha, Karasakala, Salavat Iulaev and others, the Kazakhs uprising led by the leaders Syrym, Zhankozha, Isatai, Maxambet, Zholaman, Syzdyk, Kenesary, and others, the heroic resistance against the tsarist forces by the Teke Turkmen, the Muslim uprising against the tsarist regime in Andijan and Manchu rule in Urumqi, Turpan, etc. ) negatively affected the demography, culture,

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education, and welfare of the populations. These prolonged conflicts and wars inflicted deep psychological and spiritual trauma on the Turkic peoples in addition to the obvious negative repercussions – demographic, socio-economic, political, etc. In other words, the stagnation and decline of Turkic civilization were evident. Large-scale and permanent migrations within the region and beyond, and the unmistakable evidence of the disintegration and destabilization of the Turkic world, marked Eurasia after the collapse of the Golden Horde and the Timurid states; they continued to do so through the 30s of the XX century. There was a flight of individual figures, political and military leaders with their followers, as well as of many groups and even whole tribes and nations. “This period is particularly rich in movements of tribes, as Tokhtamysh and his children, Ulu Muhammad, Dzhanybek, Shaybakidov, and the descendants of Edyge only managed the transition from one collapse to another with the most devoted of labors” (M. Tynyshbaev). A vast array of Turkic Uzbek tribes from the steppes of the Dashti Kipchak moved south in the early years of the XVI century together with Shibani Khan (according to some sources, up to 360 thousand Kazakh steppe nomads fled and settled in Mawarannahr, forming a prominent core of the future Uzbek ethnic group). We also mentioned constant migrations to the east and south. A good example of the process of ethnic fragmentation was the gradual disintegration of the Nogai Horde, an amalgamation of nomadic Turkic tribes in the west, which had begun to coalesce in the beginning of the XV century during the collapse of the Golden Horde. After the fall of Kazan and Astrakhan, masses of Turkic peoples preferred escape, migrating to the east and to the Kazakh khans. After the annexation of Crimea to Russia in the XVIII century, a great multitude of Turkic peoples (about 500,000 people) were forced to flee from the peninsula to the Ottoman Empire. Speaking of the XVIII century, there was the unprecedented mass exodus of Kazakhs of all three zhuz from east to south-west (in the direction and up to Bukhara, Samarkand, and Khiva) and that of the nomads of the Junior or Little Horde to the south-east, resulting from what

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have been termed the Oirat invasions of 1723-1725, as well as from the ruinous incursions of the Volga Kalmyks and Russian Cossack troops. In the second half of the XIX century there was a massive migration of Kazakh tribes into the territory of western Mongolia (the Kazakhs in modern Mongolia during this period were formally subservient to Manchu China). Also, of note are the relocations of the Uighur and Dungan of East Turkestan to the Seven Rivers, or Semirechye, region in the 70-90s of the XIX century. Underlying and at the heart of all these migrations were socioeconomic and political pressures: efforts to escape wars, impoverishment, to find new pasturages, or to flee from the heavy taxes or repression of ruling states. One characteristic of the colonial era in the history of Turkic Eurasia was the periodic, mass migrations of the Kazan Tatars to the Kazakh steppes and Siberia, their loss of land, impoverishment, and forced service in the Russian army, which the Tatar population was subject to; it is also important to emphasize the constant threat of cultural assimilation and forced conversions, the result of a tsarist policy that was both anti-Islamic and bent on the Russification of its subject peoples. During the XVII-XIX centuries, Russia increasingly expanded its protectorate, moving deeper into the Kazakh steppe through the construction of forts and military lines. “Russian colonial authorities sought every possible means, from military conquest to the bribery of the steppe ruling elite by gifts, salaries and even direct blackmail, to win the consent of the Kazakhs to build Cossack villages, fortresses and fortifications “. More than 40 million hectares of Kazakh land had been forcibly seized by the Russian state at the beginning of the twentieth century alone. The Turkic peoples of Eurasia lost the final remnants of their independence, becoming part of a vast empire foreign to them in blood and spirit. In Central Asia, they became part of the Turkestan, Omsk, and Orenburg governor-generalships. The military managed the indigenous populations in the territories of the Empire’s administrative and political units, and the regular and irregular (Cossack) troops stationed in these areas were the guardians of imperial law and the military courts.

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A vast and chaotic dispersal of the nomads and the forced displacement of traditional nomadic pasture routes occurred again in the late XIX and early XX centuries on the territory of present-day Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. This caused a series of national liberation uprisings that the Russian Empire brutally suppressed, a suppression complemented by tsarist punitive actions, indemnities and heavy taxes. The masses of indigenous Turkic peoples were forcibly pushed beyond their ethnic borders, their historical homeland, becoming wanderers in a strange land. The large majority of the Kazakhs of the Middle and Senior zhuz fled their ancestral lands for Xinjiang – territory under the dominion of China – as a result of the tragic events of 1916, when the Tsar mobilized the inorodtsi in the First World War. The region’s largest anti-Russian uprising broke out in protest, involving Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, and other ethnic groups. However, the protest movement was cruelly suppressed, entire regions ethnically cleansed, and hundreds of thousands of Muslims were convicted, executed and exiled to Siberia. Large numbers of nomads – Kazakhs and Kyrgyz in particular – fled to China because of this. The late Middle Ages were characterized by the formation of new, independent Turkic peoples: the Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Tatars, Bashkir, Kyrgyz, Turkmen and others. Along with a crisis in and loss of Turkic identity and its increased fragmentation into disparate folk dialects and languages, there also occurred the formation of distinct ethnicities among Turkic peoples and an intense internal consolidation, creating the preconditions for the creation and codification of national literary languages ​​and traditions. In some contexts, taking into account the different phases of world history, it is necessary to recognize the formation of national languages as historically progressive and necessary ​​– this was true in the case of Kazakh, Tatar, Bashkir, Uzbek, and modern Turkish (as opposed to artificial Turkish-Ottoman), and others. This was particularly important in light of the dominance of the Arabic-Persian linguistic and religious consciousness that marked the Middle Ages. The artificiality of the “Turkic” literary language also

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became obvious, versions of which had performed an important integrating function but that had become outmoded and were unsuited to meeting the historical tasks of the modern era. In general, the processes of ethnic differentiation and the formation of local centers of Turkish culture expressed the objective-historical patterns and imperatives of the modern era, in which the principles of a new world order prevailed, one based on nation-states, national cultures, and secularism. The unprecedented struggles of the Turks of Eurasia and the Kazakhs for ethnic survival that unfolded over the course of the XVIXX centuries had the paradoxical and positive effect of strengthening their national spirit and historical consciousness. The struggle for freedom and homeland were vividly reflected in the historical memory and folklore of the Kazakh people, resulting in poetic masterpieces that glorified their military exploits and the great courage of their leaders and warriors. These strengthened national identity, defining and delimiting a distinct language, folklore, literary and philosophical heritage, customs and traditions, etc. Separation, suffering, and deprivation convinced the best among the Turkic peoples of the need for unity and the restoration of civilization and development. As A. Levshin wrote about the Kazakhs: “... despair convinced them of the need to regain their former homes, and disaster inspired the means of achieving this goal. Danger obviated internal strife and revived a general sense of unity ... “ However, it would be wrong to believe that independent Turkic peoples quickly forgot their common origins, language, cultural heritage, etc. In fact, this issue requires comprehensive study. Facts, both direct and indirect, need to be gathered to illuminate how separate Turkic peoples maintained a common historical memory, what motivated or worked against their unity, in what manner they mourned their former glory, freedom, and ancestral heritage, the relationship of poets and thinkers related in origin and language, as well as understanding the reasons for the decline and separation of Turkic peoples. In addition, historians need to more closely examine the mutual assistance and cooperation among Turkic peoples who for many centuries experienced similar national and religious oppression.

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In the folklore of the Nogai and Kazakhs, poets mourned their rupture and separation from a once ethnically and linguistically unified Golden Horde, which splintered after the death of the defeated Ormambeta (Ulug Muhammed). According to V. Trepavlov, after the collapse of the Golden Horde, memory preserved an ideal of unity among scattered peoples and cultivated nostalgia for it, preserving traces of a spiritual heritage long after its collapse and dispersal. This was largely due to the talented and progressive representatives of a Turkic elite, who, living in a difficult period and in spite of war, the policy of rulers, and the increasing fragmentation of Turkic and Muslim regions, remembered and nurtured a common history and lofty ideals, while condemning hatred and selfishness. These religious leaders were the medieval Turkic historians Abulgazi, Muhammad Haidar Duglat, Kadeer Ali Dzhalai, the poet-bards (common to both Kazakhs and the Nogai) Dospambet, Zhiembet, Shalgez, Asan Kaigy etc., the Turkmen poet and philosopher Magtymguly, the Tatar educators of the reform period Utyz-Imyani, A. Kursavi, H. Faizhan, S. Mardzhani, the Bashkir spiritual teacher Zaynulla Rasulev, the Azerbaijani educator Mirza Fatali Akhundov, the enlightened Kazakh thinkers Mohamed Hanafi, (Chokan) Valikhanov, Ibrahim, (Abay) Kunanbayev, the Uzbek-Tajik educator Ahmad Donish, and many others. Despite being poorly studied, there was in the national culture of the Kazakhs sentiment in favor of the ethnic solidarity of Turkic Central Asia, the idea of Islamic ​​ unity, a common origin, language, historical destiny, etc. For example, the sayings “Ozbek – oz agam” (“the Uzbeks are my brothers”), “Qazaq, qyrgyz bir tughan” (“the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz are of the same origin”), the expression “Еr Тurk” (“Turkish heroes”), “Tatar aghaynlar” (“Tatar brothers”), etc.), and others. Deserving special attention is the historical concept Аlty alash from the Kazakh genealogies, according to which it is a collective name of the three Kazakh zhuz and the Karakalpak, Kyrgyz, and Uzbeks allied with them. The Turkic peoples of Central Asia have repeatedly acted in concert against colonialists in mass armed rebellions. The highly educated Tatars, forced to settle in cities and villages among Uzbeks, Kazakhs,

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Turkmen, Kyrgyz, and sharing their fate, are highly respected. Kazakh nomads provided those Tatars who escaped from the imperial authorities and the threat of baptism ages all the assistance required to become part of their communities. In turn, these immigrants and their descendants have honorably served in the field of Islamic education. Several such facts can be noted in the history of Kazakhstan. For example, the village elder father of Abay – Kunanbai-Hajji was friends was friends with the native born but assimilated Tatar Iskhaq Nogai; the son of Abay Abdrahman married a girl of this clan. The first teacher of the great Abay – the village Mullah Gabithan Gabdynazaruly was highly respected among Kazakhs, even though his origins were Tartar. Despite artificial barriers and the policy of “divide and rule”, the Turkic peoples sought to maintain economic, trade and cultural ties, and to preserve the consciousness of their historical community, in which language played a significant role. In addition, Islam was an important integrating factor, acting as a guardian of ethnic and cultural identity in the specific historical conditions of Central Asia. An understudied issue is the perception of Turkey (then the Ottoman Empire) among Kazakhs and other Turkic peoples of the Russian Empire. In the songs of the Kazakh-Nogai warrior-poet Dospambet (XVI century), Istanbul is evoked in the image of a glorious city (“Pleasant Azov is no worse than Istanbul!”). There are Ottoman sultans in the lineages of the Kazakh khans recorded by Shahkarim and others, and in the dynastic lines of the Khans of Central Asia, the Crimea, Kazan, and others, which relate in detail Oguz migration to the west and the formation of the empire. The popularity of the male name “Sultan” and those names derived from it (Sultanbek, Sultanmaxmut, Sultanbay, Beksultan Nursultan, etc.) among Kazakhs may also be indicative, in our opinion, of sympathy for the Ottoman Empire. The names of the cities and regions of the Turkic world, such as Kyrym, Kazan, Bukhara, Samarkand, Tashkent, Kashghar, along with the Muslim holy sites – Mecca, Medina, Mysyr (Egypt), Sham, Baghdad, and others – have always been associated in the public mind with the Kazakh religion, piety, tradition, justice, etc.

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This is indicated by folklore – in tales, epics, songs, etc. In turn, the city of Turkestan, which lies at the border of the nomadic Kazakh steppe and the oases of the Syr Darya, continues to be a shared sacred site and center of worship all over the Turkic world. In the historical period of the XVI-XVIII centuries, when the majority of the Turkic world (nearly all of landlocked Eurasia) was in the depths of crisis and in a desperate struggle against the great powers, the only exception was the Ottoman Empire, which in the era of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566) and his successors reached the height of its powers; it was a civilization able to compete with European countries and Russia. The Turkic-Islamic culture of the Ottomans became part of the treasures of world civilization. The Muslim Turks of Russia and China knew of the power and glory of the Turkish sultans. Of course, it inspired them to fight and strengthened their hope. But the vast distances and the isolation of the peoples of Turkestan from the Western Turks, a result of the hostile policies of Safavid Iran and the Russian politicians of that time, made it impossible to establish normal diplomatic and cultural relations. It was only in the early twentieth century when the ideas of Turkism and modernism made possible the first regular contacts between Central Asia and their Turkic cousins from distant Asia Minor, aprocess that unfolded in the context of new communications, the first nascent steps toward democratization, and the wider distribution of periodicals.

CONCLUSION

T

urkic civilization, as a phenomenon of human civilization, emerged in the depths of Eurasia’s ancient history. Its fate was dramatic, because the Turks – in their origins an indigenous ethnic formation of the steppe – were destined for the difficult mission of integrating diverse countries and peoples, of being the catalytic agent for the ethnogenetic processes of the ancient world, and for bringing varied civilizations and ethnic groups into dialogue. The Turkic nomads made possible financial, informational, cultural and technological exchanges between the classical civilizations of the ancient world for millennia. The History of the Eurasian steppe in the ancient and medieval era is characterized by complex processes of permanent migration, as well as ethnic interactions between Turkic, Iranian, Mongol, Finno-Ugric, Slavic and other ethno-linguistic elements. For this reason, the image of Eurasia as an “ethnic pot,” fusing diverse ethnicities and cultures, is appropriate. The civilizational and phasic response of a society includes not only spiritual and cultural elements, but also material, technological, social, and economic parameters. Ancient civilization, which 147

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reached its peak in the early Middle Ages, organically absorbed the achievements of the Scythian- Saki, Usun and those of other cultural predecessors. The heritage of the proto-Turkic tribes was the cultural substrate from which early medieval Turkic civilization emerged. The domestication of the horse, the transition to agriculture and animal husbandry, the creation of horse harnesses and chariots, as well as the emergence of bronze and later iron working, were all essential prerequisites of proto-Turkic civilization, whose discoveries predetermined shifts in the constellations of Eurasian cultures. The ancient inhabitants of Kazakhstan were excellent craftsmen who mastered a variety of skills and arts. Proto-cities were already extant in Eurasia in the Bronze Age. The Great Silk Road became a unique factor in the development of civilization that connected the worlds of the Far East and Mediterranean. The Silk Road was invaluable to the Eurasian tribes as a conduit of innovation, new ideas and technologies. Many inventions can be ascribed to the proto-Turks of Eurasia (the iron harness, various weapons, the secrets of metalworking, etc.). An indicator of the Scythian-Sak civilization of Eurasia is its animalistic art, which formed part of an indigenous artistic trend – Eurasian “zoomorphic” or “animal style” art. Such human achievements as the domestication of the horse, the cultivation of horsemanship, and nomadism played revolutionary roles in the formation and strengthening of Turkic civilization. The nomadic, highly mobile, equestrian civilization of the Eurasian nomads emerged as a result of this indigenous socio-cultural transformation. Recognizing the domination of the nomadic lifestyle in most parts of modern Kazakhstan in antiquity, however, should not lead us to absolutize nomadic culture and traditions or the information transmitted orally and verbally among generations. Numerous archaeological discoveries have led to a revision of the traditional view of the nature of proto-Turkic and Turkic cultures as purely nomadic. If the origins of Turkic civilization evolved over several millennia in the Bronze and Iron Ages, then a full-fledged system of civilization can be said to have emerged with the age that historiography terms

Conclusion

“ancient Turkic.” Turkicization reached its climax and logical conclusion in this period and the Turkic language became the lingua franca of the entire Eurasian continent. Ancient Turkic civilization was a genuinely unique phenomenon in global and Eurasian cultural history. The civilization of the Kök Turks was characterized by such innovations as a state legal mechanism, arms, martial codes and codes of chivalry, a written heritage, religious and mythological beliefs, a unique ecological culture, the rudiments of scientific knowledge , sculpture , etc. The Kök Turks created the world’s first Eurasian empire. Along with urban culture and a written tradition, statehood, as well as political and legal systems, are the most important indicators of the level of civilization of this classical ethnicity. Turkic writing blossomed in the era of the Kaganates, leaving an indelible imprint on Turkic literature. Prototypes of runic writing were known before, but it was probably in the era of the Great Khanate that ambitious and bold steps were undertaken to revive, reform, and modernize this alphabet on such a massive scale in a single empire. There was an advanced written culture among the Kök Turks. The spiritual and political ideals of this ancient Turkic civilization were embodied in historical and biographical texts – texts that memorialized the lives and deeds of Kultegin, Bilge Khagan, and Toniukuk. The ethnic community of the ancient Turks followed an evolutionary path of development, during which the economic, technological, cultural, social, spiritual and philosophical foundations of life became more complex and were steadily enriched. In antiquity mythology was the sole universal means of expanding and developing the spiritual world. In terms of mythological types, the consciousness and worldview of the ancient Turks was complex and eclectic. Its initial beliefs and cults are marked by syncretism and layering. The ties of the nomads with the great civilizations, carried out by means of trade, military campaigns, and other factors, favored the spread of the influence of China and Iran. Religious and mythological structures tended to accelerate transformations, making the most dynamic and vibrant elements part of the cultural and civilizational system.

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This is evidenced in the adoption of numerous innovations, and the intermingling of the practices of Buddhism, Manichaeism, Christianity, etc. The cyclic animal calendar was widespread in the ancient Turkic era, the origins of which are associated with steppe traditions. Specific elements of the cultic, memorial culture of the ancient Turkic were engraved on rocks, stone forms, and original sculptures, created in honor of dead heroes. The Turkic world’s adoption of Islam was objectively conditioned by the internal need to further improve and qualitatively transform Turkic civilization. For the Turks, Islam, which was not initially or inherently ethnocentric, became an alternative to Chinese cultural and civilizational expansion. The cities of Mawarannahr, Southern Kazakhstan Iran, East Turkestan, and the Volga region played a large role in the spread of the values of Turkic-Islamic civilization. Belonging to the sphere of Turkic- Islamic culture and civilization, the Turks should be seen not only as nomads but as full-fledged bearers of an advanced urban culture. The building of mosques, madrasas, and Sufi centers became mandatory in the architecture of Turkic cities. In general, written and archaeological sources suggest the medieval Turkic world formed a developed urban culture. The cities of Kazakhstan, Semirechye, the Syr Darya, Volga, Mawarannahr were thriving economic and cultural hubs. Masterpieces of Turkic-Muslim architecture emerged. All of the achievements of Turkic civilization in Eurasian history were made possible by a symbiosis of two economies and mentalities – those of the nomadic and urban mileux. Energized by Islam, the Turks made significant contributions to the development of the Muslim world for centuries. The names of the celebrated scientists and poets of the Turkic world, such as those of Abū Naṣr al-Farabi at-Turki, Muhammad al-Kashgari, Isma’il alJawhari al-Farabi, Yusuf al-Balasaguni, Ahmet Yassawi, Yunus Emre, Muhammad Haidar Dulati, Alisher Navoi, and others evidence this. The Turkic language became the lingua franca of a global Islamic civilization along with Arabic and Persian. Of particular note are the resplendent military and political triumphs of the Turks in the medieval

Conclusion

Muslim world –triumphs embodied by powerful dynasties such as those of the Karakhanids, the Seljuks, the Ghaznavids, the Mamluks, Ottomans, and others The territory of Kazakhstan long remained the historical epicenter of a primarily nomadic culture. The genesis of nomadism in the Eurasian steppes let to a true economic breakthrough, the transition to a more productive and sustainable environmental situation and to more developed forms of economic and social organization. The Nomadic peoples of Eurasia were the creators of an original military system that translated into centuries of undisputed military and political supremacy in the world. In world history, the mobile nomads invariably acted as translators of cultural values; t​hey developed numerous material innovations in the history of mankind, having amassed experience in metallurgy and in the organization of state systems. Taboos and norms of etiquette and taboos, the development of a system for maintaining and knowing complex ethnic origins, relationships and genealogies, the secrets of the military arts, hunting, of cosmological and ecological knowledge, among others, were all original and valuable contributions of the Eurasian nomads. The monuments of the XIII-XVIII centuries – tomb structures (steles, and stone sculptures) and religious architecture – embodied and expressed this unique nomadic culture. Turkic civilization also elevated the art of eloquence and poetry to unprecedented heights. The spiritual culture of the Turkic nomads and the later nomadic cultures that inherited their legacy – the Kazakhs, the semi-nomadic Uzbeks, the Kyrgyz, and Turkmen – harmoniously fused ancient mythological tales, folklore (especially the heroic epos), historical, genealogical and literary works, as well as oratory and musical compositions. The Eurasian nomads, especially the Kazakhs, stood out for their heightened historical consciousness and lively interest in the past, something that is evidenced by their genealogies and their concept of “seven ancestors,” what in Kazakh is termed “zheti ata,” the ability of a Kazakh to trace their ancestry back seven generations.

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By the dawn of the new era Turkic civilization represented a unique variant of a composite, diverse civilization, one in which diverse centers of culture emerged: the Altai and South Siberia, Eastern Turkestan, the Dasht-i Kipchak, Turkestan, Mawarannahr, Azerbaijan, and Ottoman Turkey, among others. Independent Turkic ethnicities maintained their collective identity, as well as their consciousness of linguistic and religious unity, as the result of a rich literary, philosophical and scientific heritage, their traditions and rites, and due to ties rooted in history and culture. In spite the processes of disintegration at play in the late medieval era -- ethno-cultural differentiation, linguistic diversity, and diverging historical paths – it is still possible to speak of Turkic-Muslim world marked by a resilient cultural and civilizational unity up until the beginning of the dramatic events of the twentieth century. At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, the increasing sedentarization of nomadic populations added impetus to a unified Turkic culture and civilization rooted in Islam and the Turkic language. On the other hand, the Turkic peoples of Russia and of the entire the world entered a new phase of history at the beginning of the XX century, one associated with the objective, urgent need to modernize and with the profound transformation of the traditional structure of Eastern society. The Turkic world’s adoption of Islam was objectively conditioned by the internal need to further improve and qualitatively transform Turkic civilization. For the Turks, Islam, which was not initially or inherently ethnocentric, became an alternative to Chinese cultural and civilizational expansion. The cities of Mawarannahr, Southern Kazakhstan Iran, East Turkestan, and the Volga region played a large role in the spread of the values of Turkic-Islamic civilization. Belonging to the sphere of Turkic- Islamic culture and civilization, the Turks should be seen not only as nomads but as full-fledged bearers of an advanced urban culture. The building of mosques, madrasas, and Sufi centers became mandatory in the architecture of Turkic cities. In general, written and archaeological sources suggest the medieval Turkic world formed a developed urban culture

Conclusion

The cities of Kazakhstan, Semirechye, the Syr Darya, Volga, Mawarannahr were thriving economic and cultural hubs. Masterpieces of Turkic-Muslim architecture emerged. All of the achievements of Turkic civilization in Eurasian history were made possible by a symbiosis of two economies and mentalities – those of the nomadic and urban mileux. Energized by Islam, the Turks made significant contributions to the development of the Muslim world for centuries. The names of the celebrated scientists and poets of the Turkic world, such as those of Abū Naṣr al-Farabi at-Turki, Muhammad al-Kashgari, Isma’il alJawhari al-Farabi, Yusuf al-Balasaguni, Ahmet Yassawi, Yunus Emre, Muhammad Haidar Dulati, Alisher Navoi, and others evidence this. The Turkic language became the lingua franca of a global Islamic civilization along with Arabic and Persian. Of particular note are the resplendent military and political triumphs of the Turks in the medieval Muslim world –triumphs embodied by powerful dynasties such as those of the Karakhanids, the Seljuks, the Ghaznavids, the Mamluks, Ottomans, and others The territory of Kazakhstan long remained the historical epicenter of a primarily nomadic culture. The genesis of nomadism in the Eurasian steppes led to a true economic breakthrough, the transition to a more productive and sustainable environmental situation and to more developed forms of economic and social organization. The Nomadic peoples of Eurasia were the creators of an original military system that translated into centuries of undisputed military and political supremacy in the world. In world history, the mobile nomads invariably acted as translators of cultural values; t​hey developed numerous material innovations in the history of mankind, having amassed experience in metallurgy and in the organization of state systems. Taboos and norms of etiquette and taboos, the development of a system for maintaining and knowing complex ethnic origins, relationships and genealogies, the secrets of the military arts, hunting, of cosmological and ecological knowledge, among others, were all original and valuable contributions of the Eurasian nomads. The monuments of the XIII-XVIII centuries – tomb structures (steles, and stone sculp-

153

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tures) and religious architecture – embodied and expressed this unique nomadic culture. Turkic civilization also elevated the art of eloquence and poetry to unprecedented heights. The spiritual culture of the Turkic nomads and the later nomadic cultures that inherited their legacy – the Kazakhs, the semi-nomadic Uzbeks, the Kyrgyz, and Turkmen – harmoniously fused ancient mythological tales, folklore (especially the heroic epos), historical, genealogical and literary works, as well as oratory and musical compositions. The Eurasian nomads, especially the Kazakhs, stood out for their heightened historical consciousness and lively interest in the past, something that is evidenced by their genealogies and their concept of “seven ancestors,” what in Kazakh is termed “zheti ata,” the ability of a Kazakh to trace their ancestry back seven generations. By the dawn of the new era Turkic civilization represented a unique variant of a composite, diverse civilization, one in which diverse centers of culture emerged: the Altai and South Siberia, Eastern Turkestan, the Dasht-i Kipchak, Turkestan, Mawarannahr, Azerbaijan, and Ottoman Turkey, among others. Independent Turkic ethnicities maintained their collective identity, as well as their consciousness of linguistic and religious unity, as the result of a rich literary, philosophical and scientific heritage, their traditions and rites, and due to ties rooted in history and culture. In spite the processes of disintegration at play in the late medieval era -- ethno-cultural differentiation, linguistic diversity, and diverging historical paths – it is still possible to speak of Turkic-Muslim world marked by a resilient cultural and civilizational unity up until the beginning of the dramatic events of the twentieth century. At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, the increasing sedentarization of nomadic populations added impetus to a unified Turkic culture and civilization rooted in Islam and the Turkic language. On the other hand, the Turkic peoples of Russia and of the entire the world entered a new phase of history at the beginning of the XX century, one associated with the objective, urgent need to modernize and with the profound transformation of the traditional structure of Eastern society.

TASKS FOR INDEPENDENT WORK

1. Mythology and worldview of ancient ethnocultural communities of Kazakhstan. 2. «Issyk» mound and the world significance of the art of the ancient Saka tribes. 3. Classification of ancient and new Turkic languages ​​and writing systems (alphabet) 4. The specifics of the nomadic culture and its interaction with the settled cultures. 5. The ancient Turkic world as a new type of civilization. 6. Features of the world perception and mentality of the ancient Turks. 7. Tengrism – as a Turkic worldview system. 8. “Muslim Renaissance” and participation of Turkic thinkers in it. 9. The civilizational significance of Islam in the fate of the Turkic community. 10. Socio-political ideals of Abu Nasr al-Farabi. 11. Political ideals and principles of Yusuf Balasaguni. 12. «Tarih-i Rashidi» by Mirza Mohammed Haydar Dulati on the history of the Kazakhs and the Kazakh state. 13. Asan Kaigy as a poet and thinker. 14. «Codex Cumanicus» – a monument of the Kypchak culture. 15. Zhyrau as a form of proclaiming the socio-political ideals and demands of the time. 16. Political ideas in the spiritual culture of the Kazakhs in the XV – early XIX centuries. 17. Ideas of freedom, patriotism in the works of zhyrau: Asan Kaygy, Kaztugan, Aktamberdy, Tatikara, Umbetei. 18. Cultural relations of the Kazakhs with the peoples of Eurasia at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries. (Tatars, Uzbeks, Russians, etc.)

155

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CONTENT

PREFACE..................................................................................................... 3 I. HISTORY AND CULTURE OF PROTOTURKS AND EARLY TURKIC STATES .............................................................. 11 1.1. Formation of nomadic-equestrian civilization in the early Iron Age. Material monuments and artistic masterpieces of the proto-Turkic tribes.............................................................................. 11 1.2. Religious and mythological ideas of the proto-Turks and the course of their evolution........................................................................................... 25 1.3. Sedentary-agricultural aspects of proto-Turkic civilization. The problem of cultural innovations and the origins of writing................... 33 1.4. Ethno-cultural, social, political and legal bases. The concept of “ancient Turkic civilization”..................................................................... 38 1.5. Writing and the ideology of the ancient Turks....................................... 49 1.6. Medieval Turkic civilization as a symbiosis of urban and nomadic cultures. Stages in the cultural renaissance............................. 58 1.7. Turkic cities on the territories of Kazakhstan and Eurasia according to archaeological and written sources.......................................... 64 1.8. The renaissance of the Karakhanids, Timurids and the Golden Horde: The Turkic cities of the X-XIV centuries.......................................... 69 II. CULTURAL HERITAGE OF TURKIC NOMADS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE LATE MEDIVAL PERIOD..................... 83 2.1. Problems in the phenomenon of nomadism in the history of Central Asia.............................................................................................. 83 2.2. Nomadic culture of the Turkic peoples and Islam. Traditional of Islam in the Steppe region........................................................................ 96

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Content 2.3. Language, mythology, and the epic heritage of the Turks. The phenomenon of the traditional poet-improvisers................................. 106 2.4. Historical background of the cultural decline in the Turkic world...... 125 CONCLUSION........................................................................................ 147 TASKS FOR INDEPENDENT WORK .............................................. 155 LITERATURE........................................................................................... 156

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Nurtazina Nazira Dautbekovna Nogaybayeva Mendigul Sagatovna ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL TURKIC HISTORY AND CULTURE Textbook Editor V. Popova Typesetting G. Kaliyeva Cover design Y. Gorbunov Cover design photos were used from sites www.background-2672597_960_720.com

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