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COMANCHE EMPIRE AND SAKHA EMPIRE
Grigori Tomski CONCORDE International Academy [email protected]
The term "Comanche Empire " was introduced into scientific usage by Professor Pekka Hamalainen of Oxford in a well-defined sense with clear criteria. This article shows that the use of these criteria makes it possible to speak of a "Sakha Empire " with a metropoly in the Baikal region and with an immense northern periphery.
Keywords: Pekka Hamalainen, Gavriil Ksenofontov, Gisbaikalien metropoly of the Yakuts, Yakut herders of the reindeer, diffusion of the Yakut language.
Professor Pekka Hamalainen of Oxford introduced the term Comanche Empire in his book [1] concerning the era of Comanche domination over neighboring tribes in the 18th and 19th centuries. The term Comanche Empire is expected to be widely used after the release of a feature film about this era based on Sam Gwin's book Summer Moon Empire [2]. Therefore, one should prepare for the correct use of a similar term Sakha Empire.
Pekki Hamalainen sur l'Empire Comanche
Pekka Hamalainen points out in her book that [1]:
- The Comanches, while preferring informal rules to formal institutions for both cultural and strategic reasons, nevertheless created a deeply hierarchical order in which the form, scope and essence of imperialism are undeniably guessed. They formed a coalition that existed through a creative blend of violence, diplomacy, extortion, trade and kinship, which more structured empires obtained through direct political control. They imposed their will on neighboring political entities, used the economic potential of other societies for their own needs, and persuaded their rivals to accept their customs and rules. The Comanche imperial power was different from that of Europe. Its goal was not conquest and colonization, but coexistence, control and exploitation.
- The parallels between the Comanches and the other imperial powers seem obvious. The Comanche Empire was built on conquest: its rise led to the destruction of the first Apache civilization in the Great Plains. The Comanches controlled the trade and alliance networks that spanned and united several ecological, economic and political sectors, and they reduced many of the surrounding regions to the status of their dependent client countries, slave markets and their zone of raids.
- They transformed Comancheria into an ethnic melting pot that housed representatives of different peoples as subordinate allies, slaves, adoptive parents, and naturalized Comanches, and they extended their cultural influence beyond their domains.
Distribution of the Comanche tribes, 1740-1850 (Wikipedia)
- Distant peoples spoke their language and adopted their economic innovations and ways of life. A bird's eye view of the southwest from the early 19th century might reveal an expanding Comancheria that was filled with bustling economic activity and diverse peoples; ruined Spanish Texas, whose vital resources
seeped north in tribute and plunder; and Spanish New Mexico, whose eastern front was slowly dissolving into Comancheria.
- A large geographical area, a center-periphery hierarchy, the systematic inclusion of foreign ethnic groups, a dynamic multiculturalism and a pervasive cultural influence - these are the characteristics of this imperial power.
Thus, the term empire is used in the case of the Comanches in the sense that they extended their influence over a vast territory inhabited by many ethnic groups, which had its own "metropolis" and periphery, they actively used the resources of this territory (mainly the products of hunting) and culturally and linguistically dominated other ethnic groups.
On the Sakha Empire
Pekka Hamalainen uses the following criteria for the concept of empire (after Robert Keith Collins, who popularizes this approach):
«V Khan Academy
Faire un don Connexion
Characteristics of Empire
Large territory y Core/periphery hierarchy
Resource extraction <S Cultural domination <S Multiethnic
This is correct, because in the general method of justifying scientific theories:
« Concepts are not words with which we refer to them and which can have different meanings depending on the context. These are the sets of objects of reality that come under our concept.
In the different tasks (texts, contexts) we use the same word to denote the different sets of objects, which, as a rule, have a common part, but, nevertheless, do not coincide. It follows that there can be no universal definitions of concepts such as "freedom", "justice", etc. In different tasks, these words have different meanings. » ([3], p. 21)
When popularizing the concept of empire in the expression "Comanche empire", it should be remembered that Pekki Hamalainen insists on the difference between the "Comanche imperial power" and the European one, because its objective was not conquest and colonization, but coexistence, control and exploitation.
Robert Keith Collins points out the absence, in the case of the Comanche Empire, of the following characteristics which are more or less specific to European empires:
\7 Khan Academy
Fa ire un don Connexion
75 points d'énergie
Characteristics of Empire
0 Clear borders
0 Central government
0 Unifying belief system
0 Large subjugated population
or a large subjugated population.
1:19/12:43
Note, however, that even in the case of "classical" empires, these criteria in many cases cannot be applied:
- clear borders disappear in the event of territorial conflicts or during wars; they are absent in all the empires of nomadic peoples;
- a central government disappears during a period of power transition or civil
war;
- a unified religious system did not exist even in the Roman and Russian empires;
- criterion of the size of the subjugated population is not applicable to large mono-national states, for example the German Empire of 1871-1918.
In the latter case, the state is called empire only because its head bears the title of emperor. This path was followed by Jean Bedel Bokassa, who declared himself
Emperor of the Central African Empire.(1976-1979).
After the expected generalized diffusion of the term Comanche Empire, the use of the term Sakha Empire will be legitimate for a historical and geographical unit made up of a Southern Baikalian Metropoly of Saka-Hunnian origin [4] formed in the first century AD described by G. Ksenofontov [5, 6] and its continuously expanding northern periphery [5-7], which has led to the spread of the Yakut language and culture, including the culture of the Yakutes, reindeer herders, even beyond of the vast modern territory of Yakutia, which is at least 5 times larger than the territory of the Comanche Empire:
Le concept de l'Empire Sakha (Yakoute) répond à tous les critères utilisés lorsqu'il s'agit de Y Empire Comanche, et sa zone d'influence était toujours beaucoup plus vastes que celle de l'Empire Comanche.
We assume that its Southern Baikalian Metropoly [4-7] took shape after the withdrawal of part of the northern Khunnus (Huns), led by their chanyu (emperor), in the Baikal region after the defeats of 87-91.
There were probably then changes of dynasties, but the permanent external threats contributed to the preservation of the state organization. At the same time, the northern periphery expanded with the penetration of the Sakha language towards present-day central Yakutia, Vilyuy and the Arctic Ocean, as well as its gradual colonization, in particular, by part of the Yakuts, who became reindeer herders [4-7].
We also point out that empires often depend on other authorities:
- Charlemagne's empire and the Holy Roman Empire were more or less dependent on the Roman popes;
- The Chinese and Ottoman empires of the late 19th century actually became semi-colonial countries, etc.
The Sakha Republic (Yakutia) is currently a member of the Russian Federation:
Conclusions
Thus, the territory of present-day Yakutia began to be colonized by the ancestors of the Yakuts of their southern Metropoly of Gisbaikalia of Saka-Hunnian origin about 2000 years ago, and among the ancestors of almost all Yakuts there are genes of indigenous peoples (Yukaghirs and others). As for the Evenks and Evens, there is a hypothesis on their relatively late entry into the territory of present-day Yakutia.
The Dolgans are part of the Northern Yakuts, reindeer herders, who are called Sakha like all Yakuts and speak a dialect of the Yakut language. In addition, there are compact groups of Yakuts near Lake Essey and other places outside the modern territory of Yakutia.
As a result, a unique situation developed: the small Sakha people, which numbered about 500,000 people, managed to successfully populate a huge territory with an area of about 4 000 000 km2.
In Figure 1, we graphically show a part of the planetary surface, inhabited by the Sakha people, which is colored (white color corresponds to the territory of Antarctica) and red color corresponds to the territory of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia ).
Figure 1
These regions with a harsh climate now occupy a large part of the last relatively virgin territories of the Earth:
REMAINING WILDERNESS: ■ Terrestrial a Marine
Boreal forest (Canada)
Arctic tundra (Alaska)
Amazon 4 (Brazil)
Okavango Delta (Botswana)
- . \ i
© James R.Allan, Nature, 2018.
Figure 2 shows the share of the Sakha people in the world population, which is approximately equal to:
500 000 / 8 000 000 000 = 5 / 80 000 = 1 / 16 000
(it corresponds to a small red cell):
Figure 2
Figure 3 shows its share in the population of the Russian Federation, which is approximately equal to:
500 000 / 150 000 000 = 5 / 300.
Figure 3
We believe that one of the historical missions of the Yakut people is to preserve for future generations an important part of the last relatively intact territories of the Earth.
References
1. Hamalainen P. The Comanche Empire. - Yale University Pressb 2009. - 512 р.
2. Gwynne S. C. Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History. - Scribner, 2011. - 384 P.
3. Воин А. М. Можно ли полагаться на науку // Bulletin de l'Académie internationale CONCORDE, 2021, N 2, p. 19-38.
4. Tomski G. Saka-Hunnian origin of the Baikalian metropoly of the Sakha people // CONCORDE, 2021, N 3, p. 3-16.
5. Ксенофонтов Г. В. Ураангхай-сахалар, Том 1. - Якутск: Национальное издательство Республики Саха (Якутия), 1992. - 416 с.
6. Ксенофонтов Г. В. Ураангхай-сахалар, Том 2. - Якутск: Национальное издательство Республики Саха (Якутия), 1992. - 318 с.
7. Tomski G. Diffusion of the Sakha langage in the Nord from the Baikalian metropoly // CONCORDE, 2021, N 3, p. 17-26.
