TheTurkic migrations were the spread ofTurkic tribes andTurkic languages acrossEurasia between the 4th and 11th centuries.[1] In the 6th century, theGöktürks overthrew theRouran Khaganate in what is nowMongolia and expanded in all directions, spreading Turkic culture throughout theEurasian steppes. Although Göktürk empires came to an end in the 8th century, they were succeeded by numerous Turkic empires such as theUyghur Khaganate,Kara-Khanid Khanate,Khazars, and theCumans. Some Turks eventually settled down into sedentary societies such as theQocho andGanzhouUyghurs. TheSeljuq dynasty invadedAnatolia starting in the 11th century, resulting in permanent Turkic settlement and presence there. Modern nations with large Turkic populations includeKyrgyzstan,Turkmenistan,Turkey,Azerbaijan,Uzbekistan, andKazakhstan, and Turkic populations also exist within other nations, such asChuvashia,Bashkortostan,Tatarstan and theSakha Republic ofSiberia inRussia,Northern Cyprus, theCrimean Tatars, theKazakhs inMongolia, theUyghurs inChina, and the Azeris inIran.
Proposals for the homeland (Urheimat) of the Turkic peoples and their language are far-ranging, from theTranscaspian steppe toNortheastern Asia (Manchuria).[1]Peter Benjamin Golden listed Proto-Turkic lexical items about the climate, topography, flora, fauna, people's modes of subsistence in the hypothetical Proto-Turkic Urheimat and proposed that the Proto-Turkic Urheimat was located at the southern,taiga-steppe zone of theSayan-Altay region.[2] According to Yunusbayev et al. (2015), genetic evidence points to an origin in the region nearSouth Siberia andMongolia as the "Inner Asian Homeland" of the Turkic ethnicity.[3] Similarly several linguists, includingJuha Janhunen, Roger Blench and Matthew Spriggs, suggest that Mongolia is the homeland of the early Turkic language.[4] According to Robbeets, the Turkic people descend from people who lived in a region extending from present-day South Siberia and Mongolia to the WestLiao River Basin (modern Manchuria).[5] Authors Joo-Yup Lee and Shuntu Kuang analyzed ten years of genetic research on Turkic people and compiled scholarly information about Turkic origins, and said that the early and medieval Turks were aheterogeneous group and that the Turkification of Eurasia was a result of language diffusion, not a migration of a homogeneous population.[6]
The Huns have often been considered a people with Turkic origins and/or associated with theXiongnu. However, the precise origins and identity of the Huns are still debated. In regard to their cultural genesis, theCambridge Ancient History of China asserts that "from about the eighth century BC, throughout inner Asia horse-riding pastoral communities appeared, giving origin to warrior societies". These were part of a larger belt ofequestrianpastoralists stretching from theBlack Sea to Mongolia, and known collectively to the Greeks asScythians.[7] The Hunsper se were first documented as anomadic people, inCentral Asia, theCaucasus, andEastern Europe, between the 4th and 6th century AD. According to the first European sources to mention the Huns, they were then living east of theVolga River, in an area that was part ofScythia at the time; the Huns' arrival is associated with the migration westward of anIndo-Iranian people, theAlans.[8] After entering Europe, the Huns incorporated members of other peoples, such as the Alans, Slavs and Goths.
None or few of the Huns were literate (judging by the accounts of contemporaries such asProcopius).[9] They left no texts and few other linguistic clues to their origins, apart from personal names.[9] Some names, such as Ultinčur and Alpilčur, apparently had endings related to suffixes used in Turkic personal names:Old Turkic -čor,Pecheneg -tzour andKirghiz -čoro. Some Turkic ethnonyms had cognate endings, such asUtigur,Onogur, and Ultingir. However, other personal names among the Huns appear to have had Iranian, Germanic, mixed or unknown origins.[10]
The earliest Turks mentioned in textual sources are theXinli (薪犁),Gekun (鬲昆),[11] andTiele (鐵勒), the last of which possibly transcribes endonym*Tegreg '[People of the] Carts',[12] recorded by the Chinese in the 6th century. According to theNew Book of Tang, Tiele may be a mistaken form ofChile/Gaoche,[13] who themselves may be related to Xiongnu andDingling.[14]
[15] Many scholars believe the Di, Dili, Dingling, and later Tujue mentioned in textual sources are all just Chinese transcriptions of the same Turkic wordtürk,[16] yet Golden proposes thatTujue transcribed *Türküt whileDili,Dingling,Chile,Tele, &Tiele transcribed *Tegreg.[17]
The first reference toTürk orTürküt appears in 6th-century Chinese sources as the transcriptionTūjué (突厥). The earliest evidence ofTurkic languages and the use ofTurk as an endonym comes from theOrkhon inscriptions of theGöktürks (English:'Celestial Turks') in the early 8th century. Many groups speaking Turkic languages never adopted the nameTurk for their own identity. Among the peoples that came under Göktürk dominance and adopted its political culture and lingua-franca, the nameTurk was not always the preferred identity. Turk, therefore, did not apply to all Turkic peoples at the time, but only referred to theEastern Turkic Khaganate, while theWestern Turkic Khaganate and Tiele used their own tribal names. Of the Tiele, theBook of Sui mentions only tribes which were not a part of the First Turkic Khaganate.[18] There was not a unified expansion of Turkic tribes. Peripheral Turkic peoples in the Göktürk Empire like theBulgars and even central ones like theOghuz andKarluks migrated autonomously with migrating traders, soldiers and townspeople.
The precise date of the initial expansion from the early homeland remains unknown. The first state known asTurk, giving its name to the many states and peoples afterward, was that of the Göktürks (gök 'blue' or 'celestial', however in this contextgök refers to the direction 'east'. Therefore, Gökturks only denoted the Eastern Turks in the 6th century. In 439, the head of theAshina clan led his people fromPingliang (now in modernGansu province,China) to theRouran seeking inclusion in their confederacy and protection.[19] His tribe consisted of famed metalsmiths and was granted land near a mountain quarry that looked like a helmet, from which they got the name Turk/Tujue突厥.[20][21][22] In 546, the leader of the Ashina,Bumin, aided the Rouran in putting down a Tiele revolt. Bumin requested a Rouran princess for his service but was denied, after which he declared independence. In 551, Bumin declared himself Khagan and married Princess Changle fromWestern Wei. He then dealt a serious blow to the Rouran Khaganate the next year, but died soon after. His sons,Issik Qaghan andMuqan Qaghan, continued to wage war on the Rouran, finishing them off in 554. By 568, their territory had reached the edges of theByzantine Empire, where theAvars, possibly related to the Rouran in some fashion, escaped.[23] In 581,Taspar Qaghan died and the khaganate entered a civil war that resulted in two separate Turkic factions. The Eastern Khaganate was defeated by theTang dynasty in 630 while the Western Khaganate fell to the Tang in 657. In 682,Ilterish Qaghan rebelled against the Tang and founded theSecond Turkic Khaganate, which fell to theUyghurs in 744.[24]
TheBulgars, also known as theOnogur-Bulgars or Onogundurs, occupied the Black SeaKuban steppe zone sometime during the 5th century. It would be in 480, while serving as allies of ByzantineEmperor Zeno, that the Bulgars are first mentioned.[25]John of Nikiû (fl. 680-690) wrote aboutVitalian (Roman general and consul, died 520) in his "Chronicle of John, bishop of Nikiu": "Vitalian withdrew into the province of Bulgaria."[26] By the 7th century, they were under the rule of theAvars, who they revolted against in 635 under the leadership ofKubrat. Prior to this, Kubrat had made an alliance withHeraclius of the Byzantine Empire. He was baptized in 619. Kubrat died in the 660s and his territory,Old Great Bulgaria, was divided between his five sons.
One of them, the elder brotherBatbayan stayed and was subjugated by theKhazars.
Another one,Kotrag, following the death of his father, began to extend the influence of his Bulgars to theVolga River. He is remembered as the founder ofVolga Bulgaria.[27][28][29]
Another of the sons namedKuber headed toPannonia where he revolted against the Pannonian Avars and migrated toThessalonika by 679.
Alcek was allegedly a son of Kubrat and led the Bulgars to Ravenna that later settled the lands of theLongobard Kingdom in the villages ofGallo Matese,Sepino,Boiano andIsernia in theMatese mountains ofsouthern Italy.[30]
Asparuh was the first ruler of theFirst Bulgarian Empire.,[31] the first state that the Roman empire recognised in the Balkans and the first time it legally surrendered claims to part of its Balkan dominions.[32] In 680 the Byzantine EmperorConstantine IV (r. 668–685), having recentlydefeated the Arabs, led an expedition at the head of a huge army and fleet to drive off the Bulgars but suffered a disastrous defeat at the hands of Asparuhat Onglos, a swampy region in or around the Danube Delta where the Bulgars had set a fortified camp.[32][33] The Bulgars advanced south, crossed theBalkan Mountains and invadedThrace.[34] In 681, the Byzantines were compelled to sign a humiliating peace treaty, forcing them to acknowledge Bulgaria as an independent state, to cede the territories to the north of the Balkan Mountains and to pay an annual tribute.[32][35]
The origin of the Khazars is unclear. According toAl-Masudi, the Khazars were calledSabirs in Turkic. Dunlop (1954) suggests a relation toUyghurs, some of whom might have migrated west before 555 CE.[36] Because imperial Chinese sources linked Khazars to Göktürks,[37] others believe the Khazars were founded byIrbis Seguy, the penultimate ruler of the Western Turkic Khaganate, since theHudud al-'Alam says the Khazar king descended from the Ansa, which has been interpreted as Ashina. By the mid-7th century, the Khazars were located in theNorth Caucasus, where they fought against theUmayyads constantly.[38]
According to theBook of Tang, the Yenisei Kyrgyz were tall, red-haired, pale-faced, and green-eyed;[39] black-eyed Kyrgyzes were claimed to be descendants of Han generalLi Ling,[40] presumably including the Kyrgyz Khagans who claimed such descent.[41][42][43] It also notes that Kyrgyz women outnumbered men, both men and women wore tattoos, and they made weapons which they gave to the Turks. They practiced agriculture but did not grow fruits. The Kyrgyz lived west ofLake Baikal and east of theKarluks. According to theBook of Sui, the Kyrgyz chaffed at the domination of the First Turkic Khaganate. The Uyghur Khaganate also made war on the Kyrgyz and cut them off from trade with China, which the Uyghurs monopolized. As a result, the Kyrgyz turned to other channels of trade such as with theTibetans,Arabs, and Karluks. From 820 onward, the Kyrgyz were constantly at war with the Uyghurs, until 840, when the Uyghur Khaganate was dismantled. Although the Kyrgyz managed to occupy some of the Uyghur lands, they had no great effect on the geopolitical configuration around them. The Chinese paid no heed to them other than to award them with some titles and reasoned that since the Uyghurs were no longer in power, there was no reason to maintain relations with the Kyrgyz any longer. The Kyrgyz themselves seemed to lack any interest in occupying the former territory of the Uyghurs in the east. By 924, theKhitans had occupiedOtuken in the territory of the former Uyghur Khaganate.[44]
In 699, theTurgesh rulerWuzhile founded a khaganate stretching fromChach toBeshbalik. He and his successorSaqal campaigned against the Tang dynasty and their Turkic allies until 711 when the resurgent Second Turkic Khaganate crushed the Turgesh in battle. Turgesh remnants underSuluk re-established themselves inZhetysu. Suluk was killed by one of his subordinates in 737 after he was defeated by theUmayyads. The Tang took advantage of the situation to invade Turgesh territory and took the city ofSuyab. In the 760s, the Karluks drove out the Turgesh.[45]
The Karluks[note 1] migrated into the area ofTokharistan as early as the 7th century.[49] In 744, they participated in the Uyghur Khaganate's rise by overthrowing the Second Turkic Khaganate, but conflict with the Uyghurs forced them to migrate further west into Zhetysu. By 766, they had pushed out the Turgesh and took the Western Turkic capital of Suyab.Islam began spreading in the Karluk tribes during the 9th century. According to theHudud al-'Alam, written in the 10th century, the Karluks were pleasant nearly civilized people who participated in agriculture as well as herding and hunting. Al-Masudi considered the Karluks to be the most beautiful people among the Turks, being tall in stature, and lordly in appearance. By the 11th century, they had integrated a considerable number ofSogdians into their population, resulting in speech that toMahmud al-Kashgari, sounded slurred. The Karluks,Chigils, andYagmas formed the Kara-Khanid Khanate in the 9th century, but it's unclear whether the leadership of the new polity fell to the Karluks or the Yagmas.[50]
Paul Pelliot (apud Pritsak, 1975) first proposed that the 7th century Chinese historicalBook of Sui preserved the earliest record on the Pechenegs; the book mentioned a people named Bĕirù (北褥; LMC: *puǝ̌k-rjwk < EMC: *pǝk-ŋuawk), who had settled near the Ēnqū (恩屈; LMC: *ʔən-kʰyt < EMC: *ʔən-kʰut < *On[o]gur) and Alan (阿蘭; MC: *ʔa-lan) peoples (identified as Onogurs and Alans, respectively), to the east of Fulin (拂菻) (or theEastern Roman Empire).[51][52] Victor Spinei emphasizes that the Pechenegs' association with theBĕirù is "uncertain"; instead, he asserts that an 8th-century Uighur envoy's report, which survives in Tibetan translation,[53] contains the first certain reference to the Pechenegs:[54] the report recorded an armed conflict between theBe-ča-nag and theHor (Uyghurs orOghuz Turks) peoples in the region of the river Syr Darya.[55] The Pecheneg tribes were possibly related to theKangly.[56] In the late 9th century, conflict with the Khazars drove the Pechenegs into thePontic steppes. In the 10th century, they had substantial interactions with the Byzantine Empire, who depended on them for keeping control of their neighbors. Byzantine and Muslim sources confirm that the Pechenegs had a leader, but the position was not passed down from father to son. In the 10th century, the Pechenegs came into military conflict with the Rus', and in the early 11th century, military conflict with the Oghuz Turks drove them further west across theDanube into Byzantine territory.[57]
The Oghuz Turks take their name from the Turkic word for 'clan', 'tribe', or 'kinship'. As such, Oghuz is a common appellation for many Turkic groups, such as theToquz Oghuz (nine tribes), Sekiz Oghuz (eight tribes), and Uch Oghuz (three tribes). Oghuz has been used to refer to many different Turkic tribes, causing much confusion. For example, the ruler of the Oghuz was called the Toquz Khagan, even though there were twelve tribes instead of nine.[58] It is uncertain if the Oghuz Turks were directly descended from the Toquz Oghuz. They may have been under the direct leadership of the Toquz at some point, but by the 11th century, the Oghuz were already linguistically distinct from their neighbors such as theKipchaks andKarakhanids.[59] Zuev (1960) connects the Oghuzes to theWestern Turkic tribe姑蘇Gūsū (< MC *kuo-suo) mentioned in the Chinese encyclopediaTongdian, as well as the三屈 'ThreeQu' (< MC *k(h)ɨut̚) in the 8th-centuryTaibo Yinjing (太白陰經) 'Venus's Secret Classic' and the threeĠuz hordes mentioned in Al-Masudi'sMeadows of Gold and Mines of Gems.[60]
The Oghuz migration westward began with the fall of theSecond Turkic Khaganate and the rise of theUyghur Khaganate in 744. Under the Uyghur rule, the Oghuz leader obtained the title of "rightyabgu". When they appeared in Muslim textual sources in the 9th century, they were described using the same title. The Oghuz fought a series of wars with thePechenegs,Khalaj, Charuk, and Khazars for the steppes, emerging victorious and establishing theOghuz Yabgu State. The Oghuz were in constant conflict with the Pechenegs and Khazars throughout the 10th century, as recorded by Muslim texts, but they also cooperated at times. In one instance, the Khazars hired the Oghuz to fight off an attack by the Alans. In 965, the Oghuz took part in aRus' attack on the Khazars and in 985 they joined the Rus' again in attackingVolga Bulgaria. The Yabgu State of the Oghuz did not have a central leadership and there is no evidence of the Yabgu acting as a spokesman for the entire Oghuz people. By the 10th century, some Oghuz had settled in towns and converted to Islam, although many tribes still followedTengrism.[61]
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The relationship and origins of theCumans and Kipchaks is uncertain. Probably, Cumans and Kipchaks had originally been two distinct Turkic peoples who joinedone same confederation, with Cumans constituting the western part and Kipchaks the eastern part. According toRashid al-Din Hamadani, writing much later in theIlkhanate,Kipchak is derived from a Turkic word which means 'hollow rotted out tree'. Cuman may be derived from the Turkic wordqun, which means 'pale' or 'yellow". Some scholars associate the Cumans-Kipchaks with theKankalis.[62] The Kipchaks might have been mentioned as Turk-Kibchak in the 8th centuryMoyun Chur inscription, though this was uncertain as only the letters 𐰲𐰴 (čq *čaq?) were readable on the damaged inscription; they were first definitely mentioned in the 9th century byIbn Khordadbeh, who placed them next to the Toquz Oghuz, whileAl-Biruni claimed that the Qun were further east of them.Habash al-Hasib al-Marwazi writes that the Qun came from the lands ofCathay which they fled from in fear of the Khitans. This may have been what theArmenian chroniclerMatthew of Edessa was referring to when he recounted Pale Ones being driven out by the people of the Snakes,[63] whom Golden identified as a Mongolic or para-Mongolic people known asQay inArabic,Tatabï inOld Turkic, andKumo Xi inChinese language.[64]
In the mid-9th century, theKimek-Kipchak confederation emerged in the northern steppes stretching fromLake Balkhash in the east to theAral Sea in the west. They were a confederation of seven minor tribes:Yemeks,Imur,Tatars,Bayandur, Kipchaks,Lanikaz, andAjlad;[65] and whose leader held the title of "Shad Tutuk", derived from theMiddle Chinese military titletuo-tuok都督 'military governor' (>standard Chinese:dūdū), but started using the title of "Yabgu" instead when remnants of the Uyghur Khaganate fled to them in 840. By the early 10th century, the Kimeks bordered the Oghuz to the south, where theUral formed the boundary. According to theHudud al-'Alam, written in the 10th century, the Kimeks used the title of Khagan. They were the most removed from the sedentary civilization of all the Turks and had only one town within their territory. In the 11th century, the Kimeks were displaced by the Cumans.[66]
Later Turkic peoples include the Khazars,Turkmens: either Karluks (mainly 8th century) or Oghuz Turks, Uyghurs, Yenisei Kyrgyz, Pechenegs, Cumans-Kipchaks, etc. As these peoples were founding states in the area between Mongolia andTransoxiana, they came into contact with Muslims, and most gradually adopted Islam. However, most groups of Turkic people who belonged to other religions, includingChristians,Judaists,Buddhists,Manichaeans, andZoroastrians[citation needed] continued to exist in smaller numbers, up until the Mongol Invasions of Inner and Central Asia.
While the Karakhanid state remained in this territory until its conquest byGenghis Khan, theTurkmen group of tribes was formed around the core of the Karluks and the more westward Oghuzes.[67] The current majority view for the etymology of the name is that it comes fromTürk and the Turkic emphasizing suffix-men, meaning 'most Turkish of the Turks' or 'pure-blooded Turks.'[68][69] Thus, the ethnic consciousness among some, but not all Turkic tribes as "Turkmens" in the Islamic era came long after the fall of the non-Muslim Gokturk (and Eastern and Western) Khanates.
Turkic soldiers in the army of theAbbasidcaliphs emerged as thede facto rulers of much of the Muslim Middle East (apart fromSyria and North Africa) from the 13th century. The Oghuz and other tribes captured and dominated various countries under the leadership of theSeljuk dynasty, and eventually captured the territories of the Abbasid dynasty and the Byzantine Empire.
Meanwhile, the Kyrgyz and Uyghurs were struggling with one another and with the Chinese Empire. The Kyrgyz people ultimately settled in the region now referred to asKyrgyzstan. TheBatu hordes conquered theVolga Bulgars in what is todayTatarstan andKypchaks in what is now Southern Russia, following the westward sweep of theMongols in the 13th century. Other Bulgars settled in Europe in the seventh and eighth centuries, but were assimilated by theSlavs, giving the name to theBulgarians and the SlavicBulgarian language.
It was underSeljuq suzerainty that numerous Turkmen tribes, especially those that came through the Caucasus viaAzerbaijan, acquired fiefdoms (beyliks) in newly conquered areas ofAnatolia,Iraq and even theLevant. Thus, the ancestors of the founding stock of the modernTurkish nation were most closely related to the Oghuz Turkmen groups that settled in the Caucasus and later became theAzerbaijani nation.
By early modern times, the nameTurkestan has several definitions:
TheSalars are descended from Turkmen who migrated from Central Asia and settled in a Tibetan area of Qinghai under Ming Chinese rule. The Salar ethnicity formed and underwent ethnogenesis from a process of male Turkmen migrants from Central Asia marryingAmdoTibetan women during the early Ming dynasty.[70][71][72][73]
The origin and early dispersal history of the Turkic peoples is disputed, with candidates for their ancient homeland ranging from the Transcaspian steppe to Manchuria in Northeast Asia,
Thus, our study provides the first genetic evidence supporting one of the previously hypothesized IAHs to be near Mongolia and South Siberia.
After the death of Kubrat, however, the newly founded and still unstable state collapsed and the Bulgar tribes started a new diaspora. Part of them settled permanently on the territories of the former Great Bulgaria; others, under the leadership of Kubrat's son Kotrag, headed northward and established themselves in the area of the Volga River. Available historical data points out that in X century the Kotragian Bulgars adopted Islam as their religion while preserving their Turkic language.
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