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The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia
... We are now faced with the intricate task of planning, securing and executing the ongoing research, and to achieve relevant and accurate reconstructions of the events leading to this horrendous incident.The forensic reconstruction of the cave contents will be arduous, hampered partially by the difficulties of studying the remains in situ and by alteration, destruction, and removal of the remains in recent decades The analytical phase has been initiated and we have obtained our first radiometric dates derived from rope and skin tissue samples with dates between AD 1300 to 1470 (2 Sigma calibrated).This dating corresponding to the end of the Great Mongolian Empire (AD 1206 to AD 1368) contextualize them into a period of volatile cultural change and crisis (Grousset, 2002).This allows us to begin focusing our research on well defined objectives, including the reconstruction of diet and an estimation of the nutritional status.There are several reasons for this approach. For example, the historical record suggests that Mongolian population groups suffered profound malnutrition during the Yuan Dynasty (AD 1279 to 1368) most likely caused by increased demands on Mongolian resources (Endicott, 2005). ...
... For example, the historical record suggests that Mongolian population groups suffered profound malnutrition during the Yuan Dynasty (AD 1279 to 1368) most likely caused by increased demands on Mongolian resources (Endicott, 2005). The Mongolian Yuan administration's relocation in AD 1264 to present day Beijing and the subsequent switch toward a sedentary behavior resulted in an economic, cultural, and geographical disconnect with the nomadic base population Endicott, 2005;Grousset, 2002).The nomadic base population plunged into a crisis for the duration of the Yuan dynasty, and most likely for a substantial number of years after the fall of ...
In the spring of 2004 a joint team from the Mongolian Academy of Sciences and the Smithsonian Institution removed mummified human remains from a subterranean cave in the southern Mongolian Gobi Desert, just kilometers north of the Chinese border. The remains represent approximately ten individuals, adult and juvenile, and include stomach and bowel contents. Tentative analysis indicates that the individuals were killed through strangulation, garroting, and hanging. Radiometric dating on two samples suggests ages between 1300 AD and 1470 AD (2 sigma calibrated), contextualizing them into a period of volatile cultural change and crisis. Currently, the remains have been shipped to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and a study by a multidisciplinary team of Mongolian and American medical, archaeological, and anthropological researchers is in progress.
... The role of the Eurasian steppe, which stretches from Mongolia to the mouth of the Danube, is yet another popular geographical explanation to China's unification. The idea can be traced to Lattimore (1940), who argues that Eurasian ecology created a line of cleavage, approximated by the Great Wall, between agriculturalists based in the river basins of China and pastoral nomads of the steppe (see also Barfield, 1989;Grousset, 1970;Turchin, 2009). Three observations on the historical conflicts between China and the Eurasian steppe are worth discussing here. ...
We survey the recent economics and history literature on the Chinese state to investigate its role in China's long-term socioeconomic development. We highlight three insights. First, unlike in Europe, where interstate competition helped give rise to capitalist states with high capacity, the Chinese state emerged from a different historical context. Second, the 18th- and 19th-century Chinese state does not fit into the mould of a strong and extractive Oriental despotic state as once commonly believed. By conventional measures, early modern China had a weak state. Third, state building and centre-local relations are two useful dimensions to understand development and change in China's recent history and political economy. To adapt China to a changing world, Chinese state builders embarked on a long process of state building from the late-19th century through the Republican and Communist eras. Facilitated partly by regional decentralisation, the process now sees the Chinese state playing a substantially larger role in the economy and everyday life than any previous time in history.
... For decades, books about the history or prehistory of Central Asia have focused on the image of a highly mobile warrior nomad (e.g., Beckwith 2009;Drews 2004;Koryakova and Epimakhov 2010;Golden 2011a;Grousset 1970;Liu 2010;Simpson and Pankova 2017). This image dominates the academic discourse concerning this region and has largely directed the research questions that scholars ask. ...
Nomads, or highly specialized mobile pastoralists, are prominent features in Central Asian archaeology, and they are often depicted in direct conflict with neighboring sedentary peoples. However, new archaeological findings are showing that the people who many scholars have called nomads engaged in a mixed economic system of farming and herding. Additionally, not all of these peoples were as mobile as previously assumed, and current data suggest that a portion of these purported mobile populations remained sedentary for much or all of the year, with localized ecological factors directing economic choices. In this article, we pull together nine complementary lines of evidence from the second through the first millennia BC to illustrate that in eastern Central Asia, a complex economy existed. While many scholars working in Eurasian archaeology now acknowledge how dynamic paleoeconomies were, broader arguments are still tied into assumptions regarding specialized economies. The formation of empires or polities, changes in social orders, greater political hierarchy, craft spe-cialization—notably, advanced metallurgy—mobility and migration, social relations, and exchange have all been central to the often circular arguments made concerning so-called nomads in ancient Central Asia. The new interpretations of mixed and complex economies more effectively situate Central Asia into a broader global study of food production and social complexity. © 2021 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved.
... Throughout the history of China and the world, it was common for high-latitude nomadic groups to use force to invade and defeat residents living at low latitudes who relied on farming (Barfield, 1992;Di Cosmo, 2002;Grousset, 1970). However, during the Qin and Han dynasties, there was a singular event in which lower-latitude inhabitants triumphed over those of higher latitudes (Twitchett & Loewe, 1986). ...
This article aims to reveal the subsistence economy of the Qin and Han empires and why they continued to advance northward to defeat the Huns (Xiongnu匈奴) and other grassland peoples in the Ordos Plateau. We present the δ13C and δ15N results for the dietary reconstruction of animals and humans from the Fuluta cemetery in the Ordos Plateau, a nomadic farming junction area, from the late Qin dynasty (221–207 BCE) to the Western Han dynasty (202 BCE–8 AD). Results show that the δ13C and δ15N values for humans (‐8.5±0.4‰, 9.2±0.5‰, n=29), pigs (‐8.6±1.4‰, 7.7±1.1‰, n=3), and dogs (‐9.1±0.3‰, 7.7±0.4‰, n=3) were generally higher than those for cattle (‐15.7±1.4‰, 6.5±1.0‰, n=8) and sheep (‐17.8±0.9‰, 6.2±1.6‰, n=11), indicating humans, pigs, and dogs may have relied primarily on C4‐based food (millet), whereas cattle and sheep mainly relied on C3‐based food (wild plants). Related research shows that the diet of the population of the Fuluta cemetery was relatively homogenous and mainly based on millet agriculture and domestic animals, such as pigs, indicating that millet‐based agriculture was narrowly focused on for subsistence in the frontier region of northern China. The results of stable isotope work of the past populations in the surrounding areas of the Ordos Plateau from the period of the late Western Zhou dynasty (1046–771 BCE) to the Han dynasties (202 BCE–220 AD) show trends of northward advancement and stability of the agricultural economy were constantly strengthening. Therefore, agriculturalization in the Ordos Plateau may have been the motivating force for Qin and Han imperial expansion into the frontier region.
... Throughout history, the territory of present-day Kazakhstan was crossed by various populations, including Tartar and Mongolian tribes, and experienced numerous invasions. In the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan's troops invaded central Asia that became part of the Mongol Empire known as the Golden Horde (Grousset 1970). In the fifteenth century, the Golden Horde was fragmented into khanates, which included the Kazakh Khanate (located approximately in the territory of modern-day Kazakhstan) (Zardykhan 2002). ...
From the Soviet era to the present day, conceptions of Kazakh citizenship have undergone continuous transformations, notably due to changes in political regimes, shifts in the demographic composition, and economic fluctuations. Despite its tumultuous history, Kazakhstan has managed to forge a flexible approach to citizenship and relatively peaceful relationships between the county’s different ethnic groups. In today’s post-independence nationhood, Kazakhstan may represent a unique case of citizenship building in the context of globalization.
The first part of this chapter addresses the ambiguities concerning conceptions of citizenship during the Soviet era, which were marked not only by deportations, evacuations, voluntary and involuntary migrations but also by a rhetoric that depicted Kazakhstan as the ‛Promised Land’ benefiting from the Soviet Union’s friendship. The second part analyzes citizenship building following the county’s independence in 1991 that could be described as a subtle blend of Soviet heritage and renewed Kazakh national identity. The third part will focus on the transformations driven by the country’s economic globalization and new migratory flows. Finally, the fourth part suggests that Kazakhstan’s trilingual policy may open up new prospects for global citizenship education (GCE).
... The intellectual legacy of linking civilization with urbanism, permanent agriculture and specific types of social order has impacted interpretations of Central Asia's past through to the present day, distilled into popular accounts and regional histories as the clash between sedentary farming and mobile pastoral communities (Baumer 2012;Cunliffe 2015, 197-201;Golden 2011;Grousset 1970;Tolstov 1948). In recent years, many archaeologists working throughout Central Eur/Asia have engaged directly with the 'problem' of pastoralism and mobile groups in contact with sedentary agricultural contexts, offering alternate interaction models that reframe our broadest notions of the way societies are held together (Brite 2013;Chang 2018;Frachetti 2012;Honeychurch 2015;Rogers 2012;Sneath 2007). ...
Civilizations are as complex as the human relationships that engendered them, and outlining these relational qualities within open notions of mobility and interaction frames a reconceptualization of Central Asia’s past. Recent Eurasian archaeological research deconstructs deterministic political-economic or hierarchical typologies of civilization and the overly simplified narrative that roots it in urban centres perpetually juxtaposed with nomadic groups. Archaeological evidence from the Oxus Civilization, Central Asia’s earliest complex polity (ca. 2500–1400 BCE), reveals the deep roots of sedentary–mobile interactions. I argue that Oxus–steppe relationships helped maintain the long-term structural cohesion of the Oxus Civilization as a multicultural entity, with implications for subsequent Central Asian polities. As we begin to balance the lopsided conversations about the social formations of Central Asia’s past and present, the silent partnership that characterized the Oxus Civilization is given a voice that forces us to reconsider who, exactly, belongs inside our notions of civilization.
... The skulls of the most distinguished enemies were turned into drinking cups. Those men who had killed no enemy endured disgrace and were not served wine during feasts (Grousset 1970;Rolle 1989). Before centralization under Rugula and Attila, the Huns did not have a strong royal authority and the raids were carried out by independent tribes. ...
The purpose of this article was to integrate the multidisciplinary studies of the nomad‐dominated empires of Eurasia in the field of historical sociology. The large polities of militarized pastoralists ruled over most of Inner Eurasia for about two millennia (c. 500 BC–c. 1500 AD). By examining five such polities (the Scythians, the Huns, the Xiongnu, the Turks, and the Mongols), this study addresses four research questions: Why did such states emerge? How did it happen? How did the nomadic rulers obtain resources to uphold their power? Why did the nomad‐dominated empires have a limited life span? In conclusion, I discuss the long‐term effects of the rise and fall of the steppe empires on state formation in the whole Eurasia.
... He was expelled in battle by Alauddin and again four years later when the sultan of Delhi was concentrating on capturing Warangal. In these events, the Mongols managed to reach the capital Delhi, razing the streets, temples and buildings of the city 226 . ...
How do we define India? In historical terms, India originated in the Indus River Valley, today on Pakistani territory. In cultural and religious terms, India was home to Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism among others, and sheltered the Zoroastrians from the Persian lands to the west, as well as the place where Islam flourished since the 7th century through Gujarat and Sindh in northwest India. In geographical terms the country since 1947 is bordered to the north with Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and China. With ex-Burma, today Myanmar, to the east. Also the proximity to the island of Sri Lanka to the south. Or would India be its enormous diaspora community in the world estimated at more than 30 million? Is India simply Hindu that makes up almost 80% of its population? If so, would the Hindus be only the Brahmins, followers of Vaishnavism or Shaivism, or other popular currents? And the large Hindu communities in Nepal, Mauritius, Bali and other parts of the world? Are they India as well? And the approximately 14% of the Indian population claiming to be Muslims, around 180 million people, the second largest Muslim community in the world, are not they also Indians? And the Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains and Christian community in India? In linguistic terms, India has more than 20 official languages, more than 1,500 dialects and ethnic groups. Who would be more Indian than the others?
The concept of India, therefore, is much more complex than it seems to be at first glance. In order to understand this stunning and kaleidoscopic country, we must seek its history that may give us some insight into how India has formed, consolidated, influenced and assimilated its policies, identities, values and cultures. India is perhaps much more a civilizational concept than a mere expression defined only in geographical, religious and ethnic terms.
... Scholars working in Mongolia have extensively discussed the formation of hierarchical political systems and greater concentrations of population densities in the absence of farming, often describing imperial systems in Central Eurasia as unique due to their economic basis [65][66][67][68][69] . In other parts of Asia, farming is linked to demographic expansion and the congregation of greater population densities 70 . ...
Populations in Mongolia from the late second millennium B.C.E. through the Mongol Empire are traditionally assumed, by archaeologists and historians, to have maintained a highly specialized horse-facilitated form of mobile pastoralism. Until recently, a dearth of direct evidence for prehistoric human diet and subsistence economies in Mongolia has rendered systematic testing of this view impossible. Here, we present stable carbon and nitrogen isotope measurements of human bone collagen, and stable carbon isotope analysis of human enamel bioapatite, from 137 well-dated ancient Mongolian individuals spanning the period c. 4400 B.C.E. to 1300 C.E. Our results demonstrate an increase in consumption of C4 plants beginning at c. 800 B.C.E., almost certainly indicative of millet consumption, an interpretation supported by archaeological evidence. The escalating scale of millet consumption on the eastern Eurasian steppe over time, and an expansion of isotopic niche widths, indicate that historic Mongolian empires were supported by a diversification of economic strategies rather than uniform, specialized pastoralism.
... Latin sources of the period believed that Hulagu had converted to Christianity, an interpretation that probably resulted from the fact that Hulagu's army comprised some Christian soldiers: Kitbuqa Noyan, for example, one of the leaders of Hulagu's forces, was a Nestorian belonging to the Turkic group of the Naiman. 8 Hulagu's invasion of Iraq and various cities in the Levant contributed to spreading stories about his army and his atrocities. Hulagu's self-portrayal as a supernatural king invested with irresistible power and presiding over a countless army who had been sent by God to rule the world and to punish the Muslims revived the crusaders' hope that Prester John was coming to help them. 1 Indeed, the crusaders' situation in the 1250s was not exactly rosy. ...
This study aims to provide a general-examined understanding of a specific “source text," or “sources excerpt," explaining the context and content of that text and its sources. It also provides a piece of brief information about the writer or historian, his method, his works, and his life, analyzing the text and its contextualization in connection with other works or events. This article endeavours to study and analyze the letter of 656/1258 addressed form Hulagu Khan (r. 654/1256- 663/1265) to al-Malik al-Nāṣir of Aleppo (r. 633-34/ 1235- 658/1260). The Syrian cleric and scholar Ibn al-ʿIbrī (d.c.685/1286) was present at Aleppo during this time and had the precedence, among his Arab, Latin, Syrian and Persian contemporaries, to record such a letter in his unique Arabic chronicle Tārīḫ Muḫtaṣar al-duwal. Therefore, this article studies the discourse of the writings and life of Ibn al-ʿIbrī, provides an examination for the context and content of the said letter and in which historical context it was written. I propose to determine the Latin perception of Prester John in the figure of a Mongol ruler, especially Genghis Khan during the Fifth Crusade, and the late imagined perception in Hulagu Khan. Eventually, I analyze, contextualize, and interpret the letter and its historical context, comparing it with some (selective) contemporaneous and subsequent sources.
... Throughout history, the territory of present-day Kazakhstan was crossed by various populations, including Tartar and Mongolian tribes, and experienced numerous invasions. In the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan's troops invaded central Asia that became part of the Mongol Empire known as the Golden Horde (Grousset 1970). In the fifteenth century, the Golden Horde was fragmented into khanates, which included the Kazakh Khanate (located approximately in the territory of modern-day Kazakhstan) (Zardykhan 2002). ...
Open acess: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-030-44617-8
This book takes a critical and international perspective to the mainstreaming of the Global Citizenship Concept and analyses the key issues regarding global citizenship education across the world. In that respect, it addresses a pressing need to provide further conceptual input and to open global citizenship agendas to diversity and indigeneity.
Social and political changes brought by globalisation, migration and technological advances of the 21st century have generated a rise in the popularity of the utopian and philosophical idea of global citizenship. In response to the challenges of today’s globalised and interconnected world, such as inequality, human rights violations and poverty, global citizenship education has been invoked as a means of preparing youth for an inclusive and sustainable world.
In recent years, the development of global citizenship education and the building of students’ global citizenship competencies have become a focal point in global agendas for education, international educational assessments and international organisations. However, the concept of global citizenship education still remains highly contested and subject to multiple interpretations, and its operationalisation in national educational policies proves to be challenging.
This volume aims to contribute to the debate, question the relevancy of global citizenship education’s policy objectives and to enhance understanding of local perspectives, ideologies, conceptions and issues related to citizenship education on a local, national and global level. To this end, the book provides a comprehensive and geographically based overview of the challenges citizenship education faces in a rapidly changing global world through the lens of diversity and inclusiveness.
... At the same time, the nomads interacted with the sedentary civilizations that generated much greater assortment of goods, including prestigious luxury items. Grousset [30] wrote: "The poor Turko-Mongol herdsmen who in years of drought ventured across the meager grazing of the steppe from one dried-up waterhole to another, to the very fringe of civilization, at the gates of Pechili (Hopei) or Transoxiana, gazed thunderstruck at the miracle of sedentary civilization: luxuriant crops, villages crammed with grain, and the luxury of the towns." Being unable to offer the equivalent goods for exchange, the nomads routinely resorted to violent appropriation of such goods. ...
... The second major wave of East Eurasian gene flow into Central Asia, then further to Eastern Europe can be attributed to the Asian Huns (Xiongnus), whose migration from Mongolia to West through Altai and Tuva lead to a significant increase of Mongoloid anthropological components in Central Asia between the 3 rd century BC and 2 nd century AD [54,60]. During the first centuries AD Northern Xiongnus were expelled from Inner Asia and escaped westward [61]. According to some archaeologists traces of European Huns can be detected on the Pontic steppe already in the 2 nd century AD [62], but European Huns entered history just from the middle of the 4 th century as an empire. ...
Endre Neparáczki and Zoltán Maróti contributed equally to this study. Abstract It has been widely accepted that the Finno-Ugric Hungarian language, originated from proto Uralic people, was brought into the Carpathian Basin by the Hungarian Conquerors. From the middle of the 19 th century this view prevailed against the deep-rooted Hungarian Hun tradition, maintained in folk memory as well as in Hungarian and foreign written medieval sources, which claimed that Hungarians were kinsfolk of the Huns. In order to shed light on the genetic origin of the Conquerors we sequenced 102 mitogenomes from early Conqueror cemeteries and compared them to sequences of all available databases. We applied novel population genetic algorithms, named Shared Haplogroup Distance and MITOMIX, to reveal past admixture of maternal lineages. Phylogenetic and population genetic analysis indicated that more than one third of the Conqueror maternal lineages were derived from Central-Inner Asia and their most probable ultimate sources were the Asian Huns. The rest of the lineages most likely originated from the Bronze Age Potapovka-Poltavka-Srubnaya cultures of the Pontic-Caspian steppe, which area was part of the later European Hun empire. Our data give support to the Hungarian Hun tradition and provides indirect evidence for the genetic connection between Asian and European Huns.
... During the first centuries AD Northern Xiongnus were expelled from Inner Asia and escaped westward [70], leading to another major wave of east Eurasian gene flow into Central Asia, then further to the Pontic steppes. According to some archaeologists traces of European Huns can be detected on the Pontic steppe already in the 2 nd century AD [71], but European Huns entered history just from the middle of the 4 th century as an empire. ...
It has been widely accepted that the Finno-Ugric Hungarian language, originated from proto Uralic people, was brought into the Carpathian Basin by the conquering Hungarians. From the middle of the 19th century this view prevailed against the deep-rooted Hungarian Hun tradition, maintained in folk memory as well as in Hungarian and foreign written medieval sources, which claimed that Hungarians were kinsfolk of the Huns. In order to shed light on the genetic origin of the Conquerors we sequenced 102 mitogenomes from early Conqueror cemeteries and compared them to sequences of all available databases. We applied novel population genetic algorithms, named Shared Haplogroup Distance and MITOMIX, to reveal past admixture of maternal lineages. Our results show that the Conquerors assembled from various nomadic groups of the Eurasian steppe. Population genetic results indicate that they had closest connection to the Onogur-Bulgar ancestors of Volga Tatars. Phylogenetic results reveal that more than one third of the Conqueror maternal lineages were derived from Central-Inner Asia and their most probable ultimate sources were the Asian Scythians and Asian Huns, giving support to the Hungarian Hun tradition. The rest of the lineages most likely originated from the Bronze Age Potapovka-Poltavka-Srubnaya cultures of the Pontic-Caspian steppe. Available data imply that the Conquerors did not have a major contribution to the gene pool of the Carpathian Basin.
... Ona göre Attila, 441'de sefere çıkarak Naissus'u ele geçirmiş, Philippopolis'i yağmalamış, Arcadiopolis'e kadar olan tüm Trakya'yı tahrip etmiş ve bu şehri yakmış, 448'de ise Doğu Roma İmparatorluğu'yla barış yapmıştır. 67 Váczy, Hunların 441'de Sirmium, Singidunum, Viminacium, Ratiaria ve hatta daha iç bölgelerdeki Naissus, Philippopolis, Arcadiopolis ve Constantia gibi şehirleri yerle bir ettiklerini yazmıştır. Ona göre Hunlar, 442'de Sicilya'dan geri dönen Doğu Roma ordusunu da Chersonesus'ta bozguna uğratmışlar ve 442 ya da 443'te Doğu Roma İmparatorluğu'yla Priscus'un anlattığı antlaşmayı yapmışlardır. ...
Avrupa Hun hükümdarı Rua 434’te ölünce onun kardeşinin çocukları Bleda ve Attila, imparatorluğun yönetimini birlikte devralmışlardır. Attila, selefleri tarafından yürütülmekte olan Doğu Roma İmparatorluğu’nun sürekli baskı altında tutulması siyasetini terk etmemiş ve 441’de Doğu Romalılarla savaşa girerek Birinci Balkan Seferi’ni düzenlemiştir. Savaş sona erdikten sonra, kardeşi Bleda’nın 444-445 yıllarında ölümüyle birlikte Attila, Hun İmparatorluğu’nun tek hâkimi olmuş ve tüm Hun ordularını kendi komutası altına almıştır. Aradan geçen birkaç yıl içerisinde, Doğu Romalıların 434 yılında Attila ile yapmış oldukları Margus Antlaşması’nın koşullarını hâlâ tam olarak yerine getirmemiş olmaları ve Doğu Roma İmparatorluğu’nda yaşanan bazı doğal felaketler, Attila’nın 447 yılında ikinci bir Balkan Seferi’ne çıkmasına yol açmıştır. Bu seferin tarihlendirilmesi ve seferin nasıl yürütüldüğü konularında farklı görüşler vardır. Biz de bu bildirimizde Attila’nın 447 yılı Balkan Seferi hakkında mevcut olan Roma-Bizans kaynaklarındaki kayıtları aktardık ve bu sefer konusunda modern tarihçilerin yapmış oldukları incelemeleri elden geçirdik. Ayrıca, bugüne kadar Avrupa Hun tarihi konusunda özellikle Türkiye’de üzerinde pek durulmamış olan bir Süryani kaynağı olan Antakyalı İsḥaḳ’ın Hunlara ve bu sefere ilişkin yazdığı kayıtları da bildirimizde sunarak bu bilgileri değerlendirdik.
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When the Hunnic ruler Rua died in 434, the sons of his brother, Bleda and Attila, mutually inherited the rule of the empire. Attila did not abandon the policy of constantly keeping the Eastern Roman Empire under constraint pursued by his predecessors, entered into a war with the Eastern Romans in 441 and launched his First Balkan Campaign. After the war came to an end, Attila became the sole ruler of the Hunnic Empire following the death of his brother Bleda in 444 or 445 and he brought all the Hunnic armies under his command. In the meanwhile, the Eastern Romans abstained from entirely fulfilling the agreements of the Treaty of Margus they had concluded with Attila in 434. Within a few years, while the Eastern Romans did not fulfill the agreements of the Treaty of Margus, some natural disasters occurred in the Eastern Roman Empire. The disobedience of the Eastern Romans to the treaty and these natural disasters caused Attila to launch a second Balkan Campaign in the year 447. There are different views on the dating of this campaign and how exactly it was conducted. In our paper, we narrated the records found in Romano-Byzantine sources regarding Attila’s Balkan Campaign of the year 447 and we examined the studies made on this campaign by modern historians. Additionally, we presented and evaluated the records written by Isaac of Antioch, a Syriac source not emphasized much on Hunnic history especially in Turkey until now, regarding the Huns and this campaign.
... Moreover it was made of bone. This archaeological find could be dated to the Hun era of the 3 rd to 1 st centuries BC. 31 The jew's harp was discovered below 30 Cf. Grousset, René (1999). the left hand of the buried man who was lying on his back. ...
... Steppe. Throughout its history, China was repeatedly invaded by the nomadic and seminomadic people north of its borders: Hu, Xiongnu, Xianbei, Juan-juan, Uyghurs, Khitan, Jurchen, Mongols, and Manchus (Grousset, 1970;Barfield, 1989;Di Cosmo, 2002;Chaliand, 2005). This was an inevitable outcome of China's proximity to the grasslands of Central Asia. Figure 4 illustrates the distance of cities in China and Europe from the Eurasian steppe. ...
This paper studies the causes and consequences of political centralization and fragmentation in China and Europe. We argue that a severe and unidirectional threat of external invasion fostered centralization in China while Europe faced a wider variety of smaller external threats and remained fragmented. Political centralization in China led to lower taxation and hence faster population growth during peacetime compared to Europe. But it also meant that China was more vulnerable to occasional negative population shocks. Our results are consistent with historical evidence of warfare, capital city location, tax levels, and population growth in both China and Europe. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
... Since around 1000 BCE the IMAR has functioned largely as a pastoral economy (Shelach, 2009). Numerous groups (including the Hun, Xianbei, Gaoche, Rouran, Qidan, and other peoples) inhabited current IMAR boundaries at different times between 1000 BCE up to 1206 CE (Grousset, 1970), with nomadism being dominant by at least the start of the Spring and Autumn Period in Chinese history (770 BCE) (Hao and Chimeddorji, 2011). Total nomadic ranges were larger than today's Inner Mongolia, but the core grazing areas were distributed in Hetao plain of middle-west Inner Mongolia (Xiaojuan, 2015;Yang, 1991). ...
Although violence against women is widespread, its frequency—and responses to it—vary from country to country. The Thomson Reuters Foundation (2018) Annual Poll indicates that the most dangerous countries for women to live in, in terms of being subjected to
aggressive treatment, are India, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Nigeria, and the United States of America. It might be suggested that the majority of these countries with the exception of the US tend to share such features as: the preservation of patriarchal norms, which entails male privilege and gender inequality; high poverty levels, which implies unemployment; corruption; and a weak education system (Conant 2019; Olowoniye 2020). While Kazakhstan is not listed in this unfortunate ranking, domestic violence remains an all-too-common tradition that remains to be addressed properly by the authorities.
In beginning of XIII century turco-mongol army was sent by Genghis Khan under the command of Jebe Noyan and Sebutai Bahadur had occupied some of the Azerbaijan cities and came back to Mongolia through the Darband passage - way. However, after the dead of Genghis Khan was conducted second turcomongol compain in order to complete invasion and settled in South Caucasus under the comand of Chormagan qorchi by the order of Ogedei Khan. In 1231-1239 years the mongols occupied Ganja, Shamkir, Tavus, Darband and others cities of Azerbaijan and created ”tamma” which military management apparatus by Chormagan Korchi and his noyans in the center of Mughan plain. However, after some years the Grand Mongol Khans of Mongol Empire decided to send civil viceroys instead of Mongol military commanders in order to rule the region. In the paper we attempt to investigate the rule of military and civil viceroys of Mongol in Azerbaijan
The dissolution of the Soviet Union and 1992–96 Tajik civil war resulted in huge human and economic losses. Nevertheless, contemporary data suggest the persistence of investments in human capital in the region most affected by famine and least favoured since the cessation of hostilities, Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast. Famine-affected women have greater stature and final educational attainment, later ages at marriage and lower fertility than do those in the neighbouring border province, Khatlon. Educational interactions between adults and children under age six are much more frequent. The continued emphasis on human capital after economic collapse is consistent with a locational imperative for households to earn incomes outside of agriculture, and with a higher relative status of women in non-agrarian societies.
In Procopius's account of the Hephthalite-Sasanian War of 484, the Sasanian defeat is attributed to an overextended and camouflaged ditch. Over the time, some other ancient historians have retold these events with alternative and occasionally controversial details. The authors have found these narratives problematic, and based on ancient military and historical facts have questioned the historicity of the ditch story. The authors propose that the Sasanian army was either ambushed or was soundly defeated in a pitched battle. As a result, the battle survivors and the Sasanian state may have spread disinformation about the deadly ditch for lifting the lost prestige of their military machine and to keep the empire intact as its very foundation was already shaken.
This paper begins as a critical review of the archaeology of the Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age Eurasian steppe, primarily in seeking the distinctions of its postulated horse-riding nomadic inhabitants known variously as Cimmerians, Scythians, Sauromatians, Sarmatians, Saka, Alans, etc., within a dialogue of what defines archaeological evidence as opposed to historical evidence and the problem of conflating one with the other. Eschewing historical labels, archaeological evidence alone for LBA/EIA Eurasian steppe cultures has been primarily based on recognizing artefacts and ecofacts as assumed remnants of a pastoral nomadic adaptation to the steppe environment; however, such a presupposition requires reflection on how a nomadic lifeway may be ascertained with any degree of confidence from a particular residue of material culture and ecofacts.
In addressing this question, the paper veers into a discussion of pastoral nomadism itself, whether it exists independent of other modes of subsistence, and if it can be specifically identified among the cultural and environmental residue constituting a particular archaeological site. From this question, the argument proceeds to a critical understanding of archaeology itself, its goals, its areas of expertise, its theoretical principles, its methods of discovery and evaluation, its relationship to anthropology and history, its strengths and limitations, and how archaeology may be identified as a distinct academic discipline.
The comparative molecular genetic study of museum and modern representatives of cattle breeds can help to elucidate the origin and maintenance of historical genetic components in modern populations. We generated the consensus genotypes for 11 microsatellite loci for 24 museum samples of Kalmyk, Kyrgyz, and Kazakh cattle, dated from the first quarter of the 20th century, and compared them with those of modern Kalmyk, Kyrgyz, and Kazakh white-headed breeds. The level of genetic diversity of the modern Kalmyk and Kyrgyz cattle (uHe = 0.771–0.778) was similar to those observed in the museum samples (uHe = 0.772–0.776), while a visible decrease in genetic variability in the modern Kazakh white-headed breed compared to museum Kazakh cattle was detected (uHe = 0.726 and 0.767, respectively). The PCA plot, FST- and Jost’s D-based networks, and STRUCTURE clustering provided strong evidence of the maintenance of the historical genetic background in modern populations of Kalmyk and Kyrgyz cattle. In spite of the allele pool of Kazakh white-headed cattle having undergone great changes compared to the museum Kazakh cattle, several animals still carry the visible aspect of the historical genetic components. Our results can be used for the selection of individuals for the creation of gene banks and may significantly improve the efficiency of conservation programs aimed at preserving genetic diversity in the national genetic resources of cattle.
The development of human resources (HR) plays a crucial role in determination and
support of Business strategies (BS). The present paper aimed at studying the relationship
between human resource management (HRM) and Business strategies alignment with the
effectiveness of HRM practices (HRMP) as there was a need for further research in this
area. This descriptive-survey study has an applied objective. The data collection is done
through library research and applying a researcher-made questionnaire to confirm the
research hypothesis.
The statistical population of the study consisted of managers and experts at Nayer
Pars Mapna Company; the subjects were selected by random sampling method. The
findings indicated that there would be a meaningful relationship between HR and Business
strategies alignment and the effectiveness of HRM practices in areas such as training,
staffing, performance appraisal and compensation.
Μέσα από τα κείμενα τριών Ελλήνων περιηγητών που ταξίδεψαν στη νότια Σιβηρία έως τον ποταμό Αμούρ και την Κεντρική Ασία, έως το σημερινό Xinjiang, μεταφέρονται γεωγραφικές, τοπογραφικές, πολιτικές και διπλωματικές πληροφορίες για τις περιοχές που επισκέφτηκαν οι συγγραφείς τους. Οι Νικόλαος Σπαθάρης, Βασίλειος Βατάτζης και Παναγιώτης Ποταγός είναι τρεις Έλληνες που καθρεφτίζουν την μακραίωνη παράδοση των σχέσεων του Ελληνισμού με το κέντρο της Ευρασίας. Εξάλλου, και οι τρείς, με κάποια εξαίρεση τον Νικόλαο Σπαθάρη, περιηγούνται την Ασία περπατώντας κατά μήκος των βραχιόνων του λεγόμενου «Δρόμου του Μεταξιού», γνωστού από τα αρχαία χρόνια και κυρίως από τις μεσαιωνικές πηγές, που συνέδεαν την Άπω Ανατολή με την Άπω Δύση. Οι τρεις περιγραφές τους αντανακλούν διαφορετικές φάσεις του ανταγωνισμού των μεγάλων δυνάμεων στην Ευρασία, που έγινε γνωστός, κατά τον 19ο αιώνα, ως το "Μεγάλο Παιχνίδι".
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk continues to stand firm as a major symbol of the Turkish republicanism, though there is little doubt that Turkey today undergoes deep transformation in the sphere of the relations between politics and religion. As Bernard Lewis explains, the Ottoman Turks identified with Islam so profoundly that they in fact submerged their identity in Islam. It is, therefore, only right and proper to inquire and pursue the theoretical foundations and origins of the Turkish laicism. Although Turkey constitutes a rare example of a Muslim country where laicism was instituted by its own authorities and not imposed on the country by the Western colonial powers, still, it is beyond doubt that the very idea of laicism is of the European origin and that it drew its inspirations from the range of ideas of the French Enlightment. It is the perspective that enables to understand fully the scope and depth of the reforms implemented in Turkey; it also elucidates the contemporary attempts to overcome the secularism and enforce the political re-Islamization of the state. The contemporary question on the place of religion in the political community is at the same time a question on the identity of Turkey.
In this chapter, by reviewing the major scholarship focusing on the cultural politics of rural
migrant labour, I will tackle the following questions: how has the Party-state altered its ideological system and its own identity to the conditions of the political economy of global capitalism to reconcile exploitative forms of labour with its own founding narratives?1 How does the cultural politics of labour inform the issue of the changing relationship built between the Party-state and rural migrant workers, as well as with other subject categories? Moreover, the following complex question will be dealt with: how can the analysis of the cultural politics of rural workers’ labour inform the processes through which a “new field of articulation” is shaped where various forces such as the Party-state, contemporary capitalism, as well as the agency of rural migrant workers meet and are constituting the identity of the subject worker ( Pun 2005 : 7, 26).
The reign of Xusrō I Anōšīrvān highlighted decisive turn in the history of the relations between Iran and China. Initially the king made a political and military alliance with the Turkish Qaghanate which enabled him the annexation of the territories belonging to the Hephthalites (558–568). This remarkable success was assured by the active diplomatic actions in China which assured military and political isolation of the state of the Hephthalites. The break-even point in Sino-Iranian relations was the moment when the relations of Xusrō with the Turkish Qaghanate deteriorated. The Northern Chou Dynasty and later the Sui Dynasty became the natural allies of Sasanian Iran in the Far East.
In two previous papers (Philica, 2017, Articles 1097 and 1100), we investigated the travels of Marco Polo, using Google Earth and Wikimapia. We reconstructed the Polo's travel from Beijing to Xanadu and from Sheberghan to Kashgar. Here we continue the analysis of this travel from today Kashgar to Xanadu.
In 1241, Mongol armies invaded Poland and Hungary, and small reconnaissance forces even penetrated the borders of the Holy Roman Empire. The following year, the Mongols pulled out of Central Europe though they retained their hold on Russia, the Black Sea steppe, and the Volga region. A number of explanations have been offered for the withdrawal by modern scholars. This thesis argues that these theories are unconvincing and contradicted by the existing primary source evidence. As an alternative explanation, it posits that European fortifications produced a strategic problem that the Mongols were unable to surmount in the 1240s with their available manpower and siege engine technology. In order to corroborate this theory, analyses of several Mongol campaigns against sedentary societies outside of Europe are provided. These analyses reveal that fortifications posed a serious problem to any Mongol effort to subjugate a sedentary population. iii
This article explores the experience of entering the Russian Empire by the Oirat – Central Asian people. The aim is achieved by solving the following tasks: to justify the necessity of studying the problem of entering the empire in the context of Asian Russia; base on the experience of Stavropol baptized Kalmyks to consider the methods applied by the imperial power for their integration; to
show how the historical memory of the Altaians, subjects of the Dzungars, influenced the growth of
their national self–awareness and attitude to the empire. The necessity of applying the imperialogical approach to the study of entering non-Russian peoples into the Russian Empire and
their subsequent acculturation is substantiated. It makes possible to retrospectively study theinfluence of the historical memory of the Mongolian empire and the Dzungarian Khanate forboosting the ethnic self-consciousness of Central Asian peoples belonging to the empire. The
civilizational heterogeneity of the peoples living in the Trans-Ural territories colonized by the
Russian state indicates the differences in their status in the course of the implementating the
imperial project in Russia. Unlike many other peoples, the Oirat-Kalmyks not only had their own
imperial experience as heirs of the Mongol Empire and participants in creating such steppe empire
as Dzungarian Khanate, but also managed to create their own relatively autonomous statehood
within the Russian Empire — the Kalmyk Khanate.
Originally built during the Ayyubid era by the son of Saladin, al-Malik al-Zahir Ghazi (1186–1216), and rebuilt throughout the Mamluk era (1260–1516), the entrance to the citadel of Aleppo was particularly affected by an earthquake in 1822, bombings during the Battle of Aleppo in August 2012, and a collapse of ramparts due to an explosion in July 2015. Even if compared to other Syrian sites, there are still enough vestiges to grasp the initial architecture, the civil war situation makes extremely difficult any “classic” process of digitization by photogrammetry or laser scanning. On this basis, we propose a process to produce a 3D model “as relevant as possible” only from a few sightseeing photographs. This process combines fast 3D sketching by photogrammetry, 3D modeling, texture mapping and relies on a corpus based on pictures available on the net. Furthermore, it has the advantage to be applicable to destroyed monuments if sufficient pictures are available. Five photos taken in 2005 by a tourist archaeologist around the entrance were first used to generate a partial and poor quality point cloud with photogrammetry. The main elements of the inner gate and a part of the arched bridge are distinguishable on the point. Because the architecture is fairly rectilinear and symmetrical, it has been possible to redraw in 3D most of the outlines by constantly comparing with what is visible on these first photos. The next step is the enrichment of the 3D model from the initial geometric basis and thanks to a corpus of photos available on the internet. This corpus was constituted from selection of pictures obtained with a search on Google Web Search and the keywords “Citadel” and “Aleppo”. The selection took into account both the resolution of the images and the coverage of the items of interest and gathered 66 pictures. The enrichment of the 3D model is performed through an iterative process made up of four main steps: (i) orthophoto extraction from some photos of the corpus (ii) 3D modeling from these orthophotos (iii) seamless texture extraction (iv) texture mapping. There are still some uncovered lateral areas, unreadable engraved wall writings, and some details are reconstructed naively, but the essential items, allowing to visually characterize the fortified entrance as a whole, have been reconstituted. The 3D model was first used to produce some renderings intended to obtain first reviews from archaeologists and architecture specialists, photos and complementary documents allowing correcting and filling the gaps. We wish to set a collaborative process to improve the model, based on an exchange with experts of the domain. The resulting model aims at feeding an interactive website dedicated to 3D display of heritage under threats. Other rendering of the model such as virtual reality or 3D printing could also be considered to share this testimony of our heritage. The application of this methodology to other sites deserves further studies that would depend on the possibilities of photogrammetry, the architectural complexities and human means for 3D modeling.
Ancient historians, such as Herodotus and Sima Qian, believed the mobile peoples of Iron Age (c.1000–100 BCE) north central Eurasia (i.e. Scythian, Saka, Xiongnu) were nomadic, warlike barbarians. Accounts by ancient historians are paradigm setting, linked with behaviours observed in ethnographic contexts. Most research operates within this paradigm, prioritizing information from historic and ethnographic sources to archaeological evidence. This paper focuses on the cycle of historical inquiry and the way early descriptions have affected archaeological investigations into north central Eurasia, during the Iron Age. The degree of implied nomadism in this region is tested against archaeological evidence, presenting a more nuanced view of widespread material culture attributes and current limits to our understanding of mobility in six subregions of north central Eurasia, throughout the Iron Age.
The sack of Baghdad is a dramatic event which was immediately followed by several key historical events, including the rise of Islamic Mongol. Founded by Chengiz Khan, the Mongol are the destroyer machine who previously ended the glory of Islam in 13th century Middle East. A lot has been said concerning that dramatic siege, but little has been discussed regarding the continuation between the siege and the "reverse flow" of the Mongols as the unique events in the aftermath of the Baghdad's fall. The object of this paper is to examine the siege of Baghdad in the light of Central Asian frame and to explore the important events in the aftermath of the siege which are related to the rise of the Islamic Mongol Dynasties.
Animal style is a centuries-old approach to decoration characteristic of the various cultures which flourished along the Eurasian steppe belt in the later half of the first millennium BCE. This vast territory stretching from the Mongolian Plateau to the Hungarian Plain, has yielded hundreds of archaeological finds associated with the early Iron Age. Among these discoveries, high-end metalwork, textiles and tomb furniture, intricately embellished with idiosyncratic zoomorphic motifs, stand out as a recurrent element. While scholarship has labeled animal-style imagery as scenes of combat, this dissertation argues against this overly simplified classification model which ignores the variety of visual tools employed in the abstraction of fantastic hybrids. I identify five primary categories in the arrangement and portrayal of zoomorphic designs: these traits, frequently occurring in clusters, constitute the first comprehensive definition of animal-style art. Each chapter focuses on the materiality and strategic placement of a different type of animal-style object: headdresses, torques and plaques often embellish the body of the deceased whereas felt, leather and silk textiles used as ceiling hangings, rugs, and coffin covers serve to define the tomb’s spatial parameters. Lastly, the dissertation also delves into the continuous retention of animal-style motifs in the arts of the Eurasian steppes after the dawn of the first millennium BCE thus challenging the narrative that animal art disappeared after the Iron Age. I demonstrate that elite members of the various pastoral societies perched along the peripheries of sedentary empires invented local interpretations of a common visual language made of tropes and devices (such as “visual synecdoche” and “frame narrative”) resulting from ingenious interpretations of the above-mentioned five categories. In so doing, they aimed to tackle an identical conceptual problem: the attendance of a real audience of a certain social stature during the funerary ceremony and the presence of an imagined (divine) one in the afterlife. The dissertation thus deconstructs the politically-motivated role of animal-style items in elite burials and argues that animal art was a constructed visual language intelligible to a small nucleus of elites whose sociopolitical status and network of influence were in fact inextricably linked to their level of fluency in it.
Ma thèse s’intéresse à l’influence des comportements culturels sur la diversité génétique neutre des populations humaines, en particulier les populations d’Asie intérieure. Notamment, ces travaux explorent comment certains comportements affectent l’histoire démographique des populations, en agissant sur l’intensité des migrations et de la dérive génétique. Pour ce faire, j’ai étudié des données génétiques, au regard de données ethnologiques, collectées dans des populations habitant actuellement en Asie intérieure, qui diffèrent, entre autres, par leur organisation sociale. La première partie de cette thèse cherche à retracer l’histoire du peuplement de l’Asie intérieure, de l’âge du Bronze jusqu’à nos jours à partir données génomiques d’ADN moderne et ancien. Les résultats montrent que les populations actuelles forment deux groupes génétiques distincts correspondant à deux groupes linguistiques (Turco-Mongol et Indo-Iranien) et reflétant des composantes ancestrales contrastées. En étudiant la diversité génétique de marqueurs uniparentaux, j’ai montré des différences génétiques sexe-spécifiques telles qu’une différenciation des populations réduite pour l’ADN mitochondrial par rapport à celle du chromosome Y. Cette homogénéité génétique des populations pourrait être causée par de la patrilocalité, une règle de résidence commune à toutes les populations étudiées et entrainant principalement des migrations féminines entre populations. D’autre part, j’ai observé des différences de diversité génétique entre les groupes d’Asie intérieure pour le chromosome Y, que j’ai interprété à la lumière des différences de règles de filiation suivies par ces deux groupes : l’un des groupes est patrilinéaire, c’est-à-dire que la filiation sociale est héritée du père ; l’autre groupe est cognatique, et la transmission est indifférenciée entre les parents. La patrilinéarité conduirait à la formation de noyaux d’hommes apparentés par la lignée masculine dans la population et donc partageant le même chromosome Y, ce qui réduirait la diversité génétique du chromosome Y des populations patrilinéaires, comparées aux cognatiques. La diversité mitochondriale est, par contre, similaire entre patrilinéaires et cognatiques, illustrant le fait que seule la diversité génétique masculine est affectée par la patrilinéarité. Enfin, pour étudier le processus d’ethnogénèse, j’ai calculé l’âge génétique des groupes ethniques patrilinéaires et j’ai montré que cet âge biologique est plus ancien que les âges historiques, suggérant que l’ethnie, du moins chez les Turco-Mongols d’Asie intérieure, est une construction en partie sociale, plutôt qu’une entité entièrement biologique. Dans la troisième partie, je me suis intéressée aux mécanismes d’évitement de la consanguinité, que j’ai estimée au moyen de données génomiques. J’ai notamment testé l’hypothèse selon laquelle des unions exogames, entre conjoints nés dans des villages différents, permettraient de réduire la consanguinité. Malgré une importante variabilité du taux d’exogamie entre populations et entre groupes linguistiques dans notre jeu de données, je n’ai trouvé aucune différence significative de consanguinité. A l’échelle des individus, j’ai pu mettre en évidence le fait que certains descendants de couples exogames sont néanmoins consanguins. Cette situation est particulièrement répandue pour des conjoints nés à moins de 40 km l’un de l’autre, à tel point que leurs descendants sont statistiquement plus consanguins que les descendants de couples endogames. Ces résultats illustrent que, chez l’Homme, des comportements culturels d’alliance peuvent s’opposer aux attendus de la biologie évolutive. Ainsi, mes travaux illustrent plusieurs cas de figure, à des échelles géographiques et temporelles différentes, où des comportements culturels ont modifié et laissé une signature génétique particulière sur la diversité des populations humaines d’Asie intérieure.
The article analyzes the phenomenon of labor in the culture of three Turkic-Mongol peoples — Buryats, Kalmyks, and Tuvans. The author proves the typological unity of their labor culture. These peoples were unified by the Turkic-Mongolian ethnogenesis, as well as by the common experience of being reformatted as Socialist nations in the course of Soviet modernization.
The key moments in the development of their labor cultures can be outlined in accordance with the stages of their ethnicity formation and their transformation into Socialist nations: the period of the Mongol Empire; accession into the Russian Empire; the Soviet period. Two basic models of labor were competing within the labor history of these ethnic groups: that of a nomadic livestock breeder (and, connectedly, a warrior) and that of an agricultural worker. Finally, the labor model of a sedentary living worker has appeared in the course of Soviet modernization.
The article also considers how the change of labor models and images occurred during the period of social transformations that began in the early 1990s. The economic collapse of the post-Soviet society helped elaborate various survival strategies, including a turn to the archaic in ethnic regions. Such labor strategies include the revival of pasture livestock breeding, the legalization of shamans and healers (medglchi), whose work is recognized as a source of legitimate income.
Research objectives: Despite Jebe Noyan’s importance to the establishment of
Chinggis Khan’s empire, he remains a shadowy figure, and much uncertainty still exists on
when he died, and in what circumstances. While also providing an overview of his background
and military career as it is recorded in the sources, the main objective was to discover
when and how Jebe Noyan died. That is, the aim was to find clues in the sources that
help make sense of his disappearance from records around 1223.
Research materials: A diverse range of primary sources originating from a variety of
medieval societies was consulted. The most important sources were the Russian Novgorod
and Galicia-Volhynia Chronicles which offer the most detail on the last campaign that we
know Jebe participated in. Two biographies from the Yuan Shi was consulted for additional
details. Persian sources (Juvaini, Rashiduddin), Arabic sources (Ibn al-Athir), and Caucasus
sources (the Georgian Chronicle) were also explored, along with the views of a number of
scholars in secondary literature.
Research results and novelty: The main finding is that the Novgorod First Chronicle
appears to describe Jebe Noyan’s death roughly a week before the Battle of the Kalka. This
is a novel argument as Jebe is widely thought to have died after his putative return to Mongolia.
Another important finding is that the primary sources do not support the view that
Jebe and Sübe’etei’s 1221–1223 campaign around the Caspian Sea was an exploratory raid;
rather they tend to record that the objective was conquest.
2017 CESS Book Award Winner
This is the first book to comprehensively cover the emergence of Kazakh identities within the broader cultural and political context of Central Eurasia. It avoids the pitfall of projecting national identity back in time, and shows what early Kazakhs thought made them distinct from other groups. He brings places such as Ukraine through the Cossack Hetmanate into a much larger Central Eurasian world by focusing on a Central Eurasian institution (qazaqliq). Lee’s book is concise, very clearly written, engaging, and easy to read, even though it tackles a vast geographical area, a number of ethnic groups, and a premodern time period with which many people are not familiar. The work is incredibly impressive in terms of the breadth of research and the multilingual nature of the sources, both primary and secondary. It is a true exemplar of Central Eurasian studies, tracing a Central Asian institution (ambitious brigandage) as far west as Ukraine (the Cossack Hetmanate). It is also provocative - and Lee is clear about where his arguments and interpretations are building on or conflicting with the interpretations of other scholars, which makes it a welcome addition to the field. http://www.centraleurasia.org/book-award
The consequences of NATO and EU enlargement have discouraged Eurasian political elites from using the EEU as a stepping-stone to the neo-liberal world economic system. Their economic and geopolitical interests have been infringed by Western policies as illustrated by the conflict in Ukraine. The EEU has reacted by turning inward and eastward and an alternative geo-political bloc is in formation. It is likely to form a nationally based administratively coordinated form of capitalism, which in turn might lead to greater international conflict. The West should practise democracy between states to secure international stability rather than promoting democracy within states. A more pluralistic multi-speed EU, with less ambitious goals and taking into account external interests, could become a complimentary partner to the EEU and enhance peace and well-being.
The article examines the issue of origins and specific features of the mindset of Kalmyks. The categories of honor and dignity, very important for Kalmyks, are proved to be of military origin. The article traces how a change in Kalmyk practices led to corresponding alterations in menthal structures. Our analysis in the theoretical aspect is based on the theory of habitus developed by P. Bourdieu and phenomenology of the Other (Alien) as explicated by E. Husserl, E. Lévinas, B. Waldenfels and A. Schütz.
The author highlights several key moments in the history of Kalmyks that helped shape and alter the mindset of Kalmyks, such as annexation to Russian Empire, the heyday of Kalmyk Khanate, the relocation of the majority of Kalmyks to Dzungaria, the rise of administrative and economic structures in post-khanate period, large-scale departure for seasonal works in mid-19th century, two revolutions, the Soviet modernization project, WWII and the deportation to Siberia, the subsequent restoration of autonomy, and finally, the post-Soviet period.
The article analyzes the mindset of Kalmyks is analyzed within the framework of Empire studies, which allows to focus on the evolution and alterations in mindset of Kalmyks as an imperial ethnos. Ethnogenesis of Oyrats occurred within the military and political domain of Mongol Empire, Kalmyks as ethnos arose in the ethnopolitical landscape of Russian Empire, and Kalmyks as nation appeared within the “empire of nations” – USSR. The author shows that the construction of a new nation and identity of Kalmyks in the post-Soviet period also affected their mindset.
The article is based on the studies of the documents preserved at the National Archive of the Republic of Kalmykia, pre-revolutionary literature and periodicals of the early Soviet period.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.