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2624 Norwegian Journal of development of the International Science No 41/2020
NOMADIC TRIBES OF CENTRAL ASIA IN PRE-MONGOLIAN PERIOD: CAUSES AND FACTORS
OF MIGRATIONS
Mensitova G.
PhD student. Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty,
Kazakhstan
Abstract
This article focuses on the migration processes of Turkic ethnic groups in the pre-Mongolian period. The author analyzed the main causes and factors of migrations of nomadic tribes, who, mixed during the endless conquests, settling on new lands, thus expanded the political boundaries of the Great Steppe.
Keywords: Central Asia, Great Steppe, nomads, migrations, tribe.
The modern ethnic map reflecting the resettlement of Turkic peoples is the result of thousands of ethnoge-netic and migration processes. The oldest centers of Turkic ethno- and glottogenesis are inextricably linked with the east of Eurasia - Southern Siberia and Inner Asia. This huge region was not isolated from neighboring civilizations, nor from mountain taiga and steppe tribes of a different ethnic appearance.
Along the mountain ranges of Altai, stretching south to the Gobi Desert, along the valley of the upper Yenisei and its tributaries, an ethno-contact zone passed in that distant era, to the east of which Proto-Altai tribes predominated, and to the west Indo-European. The routes of migration flows, now intensifying, then calming down, permeated the entire Great Steppe. For thousands of years, up to the first centuries of our era, Turkic ethnogenesis was associated with the east of the mountain-steppe zone of Eurasia.
The history of interaction and, in part, the merging of all groups of the ancient population over two and a half thousand years is the process during which ethnic consolidation was carried out and Turkic-speaking ethnic communities were formed [1, p. 108].
Nomadic herders have always been distinguished from agrarians by their mobility due to the need to graze livestock and regularly switch to new pasture. However, these cyclical "mini-migrations" were for the most part limited to movements over comparatively short distances — up to 100 km during the season. Under normal conditions, seasonal migrations rarely led to the long-distance movement of stationary winter roads and places traditionally chosen for villages of individual households and family-clan groups. Only in some cases, when the dependence of the nomadic economy on the natural and environmental factor was fatally aggravated, did nomads overcome more than a thousand kilometers of cattle [2, p. 55]. Drought, a prolonged decrease in temperature, snowstorms, deep snow cover without the possibility of shade, prolonged cold spring, epizootics - everything that led to a mass mortality of animals periodically forced nomads to move over considerable distances in order to find new pasture territories favorable in climate and epidemiologically. However, military-political factors played a decisive role in nomad migrations both within individual regions of Inner Asia or more familiar to domestic historians of Central Asia and in the direction of China, and within the entire arid zone of Eurasia. In the early Medieval Pe-
riod, its history was marked by the dominance of various nomadic empires [3, p.153, 158]. The conquests and predatory campaigns by the nomad caused numerous migrations to the northern borders of China and in the latitudinal direction from east to west. The migration of nomadic groups, sometimes large ethnic communities and tribal associations from the Mongolian steppes to the western regions of the arid zone, especially to East Turkestan, Semirechye and the steppe regions of Central Asia and Southern Kazakhstan, was quite typical. And both the reasons and the factors of these migratory flows, both intra and inter-regional, in the pre-Mongol period were varied.
One of the most revealing and lengthy migrations of this kind is Turkic. It is obvious that powerful and multidirectional migration impulses were created, as a rule, as a result of the fall of nomadic empires. These political events caused, in addition to migrations in the territory of Internal Asia and the movement towards China, the nomad movement in the western direction. The most famous are the migrations in the pre-Mongol period to the western steppes of the Yuezhi (middle of the 2nd century BC), Huns (I - II centuries BC), Avars (550th years), Turks (second half of VI - first third of the VII century), Karluks (VIII century), Oguzes (VII -VIII centuries), Kypchaks (VIII - IX centuries), Uy-ghurs (840s - early X century), Khitan in led by Elyu Dashi (1120-1140s). To this can be added the numerous migrations of individual tribal groups and clans to East Turkestan, Dzungaria, Semirechye, Southeast Kazakhstan and other regions. An example is the relocation of the Tele (Gaoju, Gaoguy) at the end of the V century to Dzungaria and the migration of their individual tribes under the pressure of the Juan-Juan to the west, right up to the Northern Black Sea [4, p. 62].
Migration of Turkic tribes to the west in the 10th -early 11th centuries, it is also interesting because it left information about the struggle of the Turks with Muslim Karakhanids. "The Islamized Karakhanid Karluks, - in the recent past - Nestorian Christians, became a barrier for the « unbelieving» Turks on the way to the oases of Semirechye and Maverannahr [5, p. 528]. Mahmud Kashgari names the tribes who opposed the Muslims -these are Basmyls, Kai, Yemeki, Chomuly. The role of the Basmyls as the main allies and the leader of the association of Turkic pagan tribes, the leader of the Yabaku named Budrach, is emphasized. Researcher S. Akhinzhanov identifies the Kai tribe with the Kimaks. The Kun tribes participating in the migration are also
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called the "Marka", and since the Kuns are also identified with the Polovtsy, the "Marka", according to some scholars, was a separate genus among the Polovtsians. Under 1068, they are referred to in the Hungarian chronicles as "black" and "white" Kuns. Russian chronicles also indcate their stay in the Polovtsian steppe. In 1095, the Polovtsian prince Kitan was killed. Under 1103, a whole genus of Khitan was mentioned -Kitan-opa. The reflection of the name Kun is visible in the name of the Polovtsian khan Ku-nuy. I. Marquart and P. Pelio, relying on the message of Aufi, who ranked the «Marka» as «Turks», who left the country of Kyt, also called Kun, consider that we are talking about the Polovtsy, which the Magyars call Kuns. G.E. Grumm-Grzhimailo believes that this should be "understood in such a way that, as part of the Polovtsian nationality ... the "Marka" constituted a separate gender or department" [6, p.73]. Researchers wrote earlier about the early penetration of some ethnic components, the appearance of which is usually identified with a later time. Some Turkic ethnic components were far away in the west of Central Asia, possibly even in the Hunnic period. As for the Mongolian ethnic component, we believe that the main conglomerate of Mongolian elements could appear in the south only with the mass migration of tribes caused by the formation of a new state and the subsequent aggressive campaigns. Such a phenomenon could be precisely the movement of the Khitan (Kara khitai). The impact of migration processes that occurred in the pre-Mongolian period is difficult to overestimate. As a result of the collapse of the Turkic state formations of Central Asia, the invasion of the Khitan and the conquest of the Karakhanids, the ethnic map of this region changed greatly, which was reflected in medieval sources. The data of medieval authors allow us to reconstruct the early stages of the formation of the Turkic-speaking tribes, as well as to determine the time of appearance of some Turkic and Turkic-Mongolian elements.
Analyzing about the migration of nomads from Mongolia to the Western regions, researcher S. Vasyutin identified several different causes and, accordingly, the types of such migrations:
1. Migration in order to join the existing empire of the western territories. Examples: campaigns to the Huns, campaigns of the Turks at Istemi in 554-558, attempts to capture the Seven Rivers by the Kapagan-Khagan at the beginning of the VIII century.
2. Long-distance migration after losing the dominant position in East Asia with the aim of creating political associations and states in the newly developed lands: Yuezhi, Zhuan-Zhuani, Turks, Seyanto, Uy-ghurs, Khitan.
3. Migration of individual tribes in order to get rid of requisitions, loots, war terror from the side of the
dominant tribal groups: some Karluks, Yagmis, Chigil-las forced to migrate to Semirechye, where after the fall in 840 of the Uigur Khaganate, the Karakhanid Khaga-nate arose.
4. Forced migration "along the chain" under the pressure of other migrants. The ousting of the Yunzhei Huns from Central Mongolia led to the displacement of other nomadic associations: Se, Tochars, Assians. Ui-ghurs migrations in the middle - second half of the 9th century also caused a wave of movements, in particular, Kimaks and Oguzes (Torques and Guz), which in turn forced the Pechenegs to move west, cross the Volga and invade the Black Sea steppes.
5. Migration as one of the consequences of the struggle for China's resources. It took place in the Turkic Khaganate at the turn of the 6th - 7th centuries: after the defeat of the Western-Turkic ruler Kara-Churin-Turk, part of the units of the Turks and the body moved to Semirechye and the empire finally divided into West-Turkic and East Turkic Khaganates [4, p. 63].
In conclusion, the diversity of causes and factors of nomadic migrations in Central Asia and beyond should be emphasized. The military-political reasons for the relocation were undoubtedly predominant. At the same time, reasons and factors of a different kind turned out to be quite significant, sometimes almost decisive: natural and climatic conditions, depletion of old pastures, territorial proximity to sources of resources highly valued by nomads, the availability of commodity exchange with a settled urban population.
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