The stateless nomads of Early medieval Central Eurasia Текст научной статьи по специальности «История и археология»

Peter B. GOLDEN

THE STATELESS NOMADS OF EARLY MEDIEVAL CENTRAL

EURASIA*

States and statelessness among the nomads of Central Eurasia Vasilij Bartol'd (W. Barthold), referencing Radlov's observations of the 19th century Qazaqs1, long ago observed that nomads, normally "do not strive for political unification". Most of their needs, in that regard, are handled within the traditional order of clan and inter-clan relations, without any formal, overarching "apparatus of power". They form states only when "khans", under "favorable" and "exceptional" circumstances, are able to seize power often as the consequence of prolonged struggle. Un-appointed and unelected, the xan reconciles his subjects to the new orderthrough the acquisition and redistribution of booty gained from military campaigns, combined with plundering expeditions, usually directed against sedentary society or their nomadic neighbors. Thus, continuing, successful warfare, the acquisition of booty, in particular "prestige" goods, and their redistribution to followers and underlings, were essential to the maintenance of khanal authority2. The pastoral nomadic economy did not require a supreme authority beyond clan chiefs or "big men" nor a bureaucracy to function efficiently3. The dissatisfied always had the possibility, at least in theory, to

* Система ссылок и списки литературы публикуются в авторской редакции (Прим. ред.).

1 Radlov, 1893: 67-74, concluded that the powerbrokers of Qazaq society were the biys whose authority was based on personal wealth and / or hereditary position. Given favorable circumstances, a powerful biy, with his supporters could make himself a xan, a position obtained by "usurpation" and maintained by force as long as those who recognized him were able to derive some advantage for themselves.

2 Bartol'd, 1968: 22-23. See also Fletcher, 1979-1980: 237-238. Kradin, 2002: 375-376.

3 See Kradin, 2002: 372; Kradin, 2005: 151-153.

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decamp for greener pastures or more generous chieftains4. Leaders of nomadic groups, appearing under a number of titles, could be deposed for actions that were deemed unfavorable, for changes of fortune (e.g. climate changes that produced disasters) or simply for being in office too long. Internecine strife was common5. Leadership on the local and higher (even imperial) levels was fragile and frequently contested6. In short, the default position for the nomads of Central Eurasia was most often statelessness7.

Eurasian nomadic socio-political organizations consisted of clans andtribes8 (subdivided into various branches) and were often part of hierarchical tribal unions / supra-tribal confederacies. At the higher level, i.e. that of the tribal union or confederacy, they were often of complex, heterogeneous origins containing groups that linguistically and ethnically differed from one another. Ruling elites

4 The practicalities of doing so, which invariably meant infringing on the pastures of others, could make such moves more difficult (see de Crespigny, 1984: 179-180. Movement most often may have meant shifting from one aul or the authority of one beg / bey / biy to another within the same larger clan or tribal grouping. On the complexity of the rights of clans and individuals to land and water among the Qazaqs, see Masanov, 2011: 418444. Battles for pastures, resulting from climate disasters or thedisplacements caused by other peoples, were not uncommon and could produce political reconfigurations. Incursions into the pasturages of another required compensation. Once Russian rule was established in Qazaq and Qirgiz lands, Russian authorities frequently had to settle squabbles over lands rights (Grodekov, 2011: 99-102).

5 See Taskin, 1984: 29-30, drawing on a variety of Chinese accounts. Even the Khazar sacral qagan could be toppled for similar reasons, see Golden, 2007: 167-169.

6 In the Türk Qaganate, as the Suishu notes, family feuds pitting brother against brother and deep mistrust for one another was typical of the ruling stratum (Liu Mau-tsai, 1958, I: 46-47). This was true of tribal unions as well (Taskin, 1984: 29-30, drawing on a variety of Chinese accounts). Xans or other leaders could be deposed for missteps, changes of fortune (e.g. drought / famine-producing climate changes) or simply for being in office too long. Charisma could have temporal limits, Khazanov, 1984: 167-169: "nomadic chiefdoms are usually extremely unstable ... their leadership is diffuse and decentralized and their composition fluid and impermanent" (p. 169). Even in the Türk Qaganate, as the Suishu notes, family feuds pitting family members against one another and deep mistrust for one another was typical of the ruling stratum (see Liu Mau-tsai, 1958, I: pp. 46-47; Golden, 2007: 167-169.

7 Golden, 1991: 135-136; Perdue, 2002: 373, notes that the nomads, given their "dispersed resources" and the need for empire-builders "to accumulate wealth through trade, tribute, or plunder from neighboring agrarian states", had "only brief moments of unification". Perdue also underscores the "tribal rivalries and fragmentation" that were typical of the pastoral nomads. As a consequence, resources for empire building had to be acquired from outside the steppe, see also Perdue, 2005: 520. One should add here that expansion beyond the steppe had to be prefaced by the unification of sufficient forces within the steppe that would make such expansion possible.

8 "Clan" and "tribe" have become hotly contested terms in Anthropology and definitions vary. Ba^tug, 1998: 97-98, comments that "clan" is "haphazardly applied to any sort of group which seems to be defined in kinship terms", its members claim "a common ancestor, but do not specify the genealogical connections to that ancestor". Genealogies, in turn, do not necessarily reflect biological or historical realia. They are "socially constructed" and are "subject to a continual process of contestation, negotiation and redefinition". Tribes do not fare much better. They are "flexible, adaptive and highly variable". Moreover, "tribalism" was / is a "dynamic" not a "static social form"; one, which "undergoes and generates a range of social transformations over varying time scales" (Szuchman 2009, 4-5). Tribes arose, it has been argued, in among peoples on the borderlands of states in reaction to the latter. They were, thus, "secondary phenomena" (Fried, 1967: 168-170, Fried, 1970: 10, 30, 49, 52). On the question of "tribe" among the Pre-Cinggisid Mongols, see Atwood, 2010: 63-89. On shifting applications of the term "tribe" to nomadic peoples in medieval Chinese historiography, see Togan, 2015: 88-118.

did not necessarily speak the same language as some of their "confederated" tribes9. Over time, the ethno-linguistic components associated with a particular ethnonym could change. In effect, these were highly fluidpolitical entities, whose names, or the names by which they become known in our sources, were influenced by external as well as internal factors. Politically, ethnonyms had a certain malleability10. Political cohesion, when achievable, was based on ideologies promoted by the ruling clan11, kinship, real and fictive12, and successful military action that secured pastures and access to goods from the outside world.

Nomadic polities rarely met the traditional criteria of "statehood"13. In principle, a "nomadic state" should consist primarily of nomads, organized into "ruling and subordinate strata". However, sedentary societies that have been conquered by nomads and in which nomads held political power or the ruling dynasty was of nomadic origin have also been termed "nomadic states"14. The terminology for the former and the latter varies. Barfield has posited the "imperial confederacy" as "the most stable form of nomadic state" in Eurasia, "autocratic and statelike in foreign affairs, but consultative and federally structured internally"15. Nomadic political organization, the expansion into empires or empire-like structures, he argued mirrored that of their opposition: China. Barfield terms them "shadow" or "mirror empires", which rose and fell in consonance with the fortunes of the Chinese realms to their south16. This consonance, however, was not always present17. Kradin, terms them "super-complex chiefdoms" or "xenocracies" sometimes with imperial functions, but lacking bureaucracies and a monopoly by the ruling elite of the use of force18. Di Cosmo, summing up his views on the Xiongnu polity, argues that whether defined as a state or a super-complex chiefdom, the Xiongnu realm was an empire in that it brought under its authority lands that had not been part of its original core or "ethnic" territory and "a variety of peoples ... that may have had different types of relations with the imperial center, constituted by the imperial clan and its charismatic leader"19. In brief, nomadic "empires" differ from those of their contemporaries in the period under discussion in that they may be viewed as "stateless", according to traditional definitions of "state", but exercised state-like, imperial functions over more than their core groupings.Whether these state-

9 Johanson, 2006: 163.

10 Janhunen, 1996: 25: "Most ethnic groups have several ethnonyms, and the ethnonym used for a given ethnic group in historical records is normally based on some name by which it was once known to its neighbors". Geary, 2002: 118: "Names were "renewable resources. They held the potential to convince people of continuity, even if radical discontinuity was the lived reality". The ethnonym Türk became a politonym, becoming "coextensive" with the areas and peoples under Türk rule (Ecsedy, 1972: 247). See also Pohl, 1991: 39-49.

11 Turchin, 2009: 196-197. Whether these were based on imposed or adopted "nuclei of tradition" (Traditionskern) associated with a ruling house or clan (cf. Wolfram, 1988: 5-6) or not remains a much-debated subject, see the critical survey of the Traditionskern model by Murray: 39-68.

12 Khazanov, 1984: 138-144; Barfield, 1990: 165.

13 On the thorny question of "state", see the survey of definitions in Scheidel, 2013: 5-57. The various criteria

involve "demarcated" borders, an organized government with delineated institutions, i.e. a bureaucracy, a legal

system and a monopoly (perhaps more a desideratum than a reality) over the means of violence. On nomads

and statehood, see Scheidel, 2011: 111-120; Kradin, 2002: 372.

Khazanov, 1984: 228.

Barfield, 1989: 8. Barfield, 2001: 10, 33-35. Turchin, 2009: 194.

Kradin, 2007: 141-145, Kradin, 2011: 77-96 and Kradin, 2004: 506, 513. Di Cosmo, 2011: 45.

like polities / "xenocracies" / "empires" were "secondary formations" responding to threats from neighboring empires or arose from the need to gain access to the goods of the sedentary world, often by intimidation or conquest, or from internal crises, remains a debated question20. In reality, all of these factors could coexist and are not mutually exclusive.

Dynamic warlords, in a process of superstratification, were usually the founders of these states, conquering their nomadic neighbors and rivals, before turning their attention to the settled lands. Their clans became charismatic ruling clans, some of considerable longevity (e.g. the Asina among the Türks, the Cinggisids from the 13 th to 19th centuries). They raided settled lands, but usually did not occupy them. Nomadic states sometimes achieved populations (including subjects) running into the millions, but retaining control over their nomadic subjects remained problematic, even more so when the ruling core considered some forms of urbanization or shifted its political center to conquered sedentary realms. As noted previously, constant military success and the redistribution of war booty and tribute among the core tribes (at the least) played a key role in maintaining political cohesion21. The process of conquest could unfold in an often relatively brief period of time. Consolidation proved to be more problematic and these states tended to be fissiparous. The history of the Seljuks or Tamerlane (Aqsaq Temür, Timür-i Lang) and his successors illustrate these points22.

"Statehood" was always embryonic among the nomads. After the Xiongnu, there were traditions of state-like organization on which the nomads could draw. In essence, nomads moved along a scale ranging from structurally loose, acephalous tribal unions (often containing a number of leading clans, but no supreme leader)23 to state-like confederations or states according to the nature of the "opposition" or problems of interaction and access to goods that they encountered with their sedentary state neighbors24. China was the major catalyst for state formation in the Eurasian

20 See Bartol'd, 1963-77, V: 23; Khazanov, 1984: 229-230; Di Cosmo, 1994: 1092-1126; Di Cosmo, 1999: 1-40; Di Cosmo, 2002: 128 ff., 178-181. A brief overview of the differing viewpoints can be found in the "Introduction" of Amitai and Biran 2005: 4-5.

21 Deer, 1938: 10-16; Fried, 1967: p. 232; Fletcher, 1979-1980: 237-238; Christian, 1998: 51, 54, 58.

22 Ba§an, 2010 and Manz, 1989.

23 The Pecenegs and Cuman-Qipcaqs, among others, are typical examples, see Tryjarski, 1975: 479-616; Golden, 1992: 264-282; Spinei, 2003: 93-159, 217-301. This is somewhat different from the notion of "headless states," proposed by Sneath, 2007: 1-2 et passim, which does away with "kinship society" and privileges "aristocratic power" that produced "statelike features" of governance "a configuration of statelike power formed by the horizontal relations between power holders, rather than as a result of their mutual subordination to a political center".

24 Khazanov, 1984: 228 ff., Kradin, 2004: 504; Trepavlov, 1995: 144-151. On the various forms of nomadic polity, see Vasjutin, 2003: 50-62; Perdue, 2005: 518. Barfield, 1989: 5-9, advanced the thesis that nomadic states rose and fell "in tandem" with strong and weak ruling houses in China. A strong and hence economically prosperous China, he argues, provided the necessary stimulus for the development of powerful nomadic states. These were "shadow empires" (Barfield, 2011: 10-41). This thesis had found its critics, see Drompp, 2005: 101-111 and Turchin, 2009: 192-200. Indeed, one could argue a position opposite to that of Barfield: a weak China encouraged the nomads to create a strong force (a state) to take advantage of the situation. Pritsak, 1981: 13, 16-19, accented the role of international merchants as catalysts in state formation in the Eurasian steppe and concluded that a nomad-based state "always developed in response to the challenge of sedentary society".

steppes25. No such catalyst existed in the western steppe zone. Iran rarely projected its power into the steppelands; Byzantium even less so and preferring to exert influence via short-termed alliances and ententes with steppe powers (the Oguric tribes, Sabirs, Khazars, Pecenegs, Cumans). Kievan Rus' (later half of 9th century to ca. 1240), the only force on the western Eurasian steppe zone, periodically capable of projecting its power into the lands of the nomads, after having dealt a serious blow to the Pecenegs (1036) and the western Oguz (1060s), itself fragmented and never provided requisite catalyst needed for state formation among the Cumans26.

It was only with the conquest of sedentarystate societies that the nomads, in the post-Türk imperial era (after 742/3 in eastern Central Eurasia and after 766 in the central zone of Central Eurasia), imposing a kind of carapace of their political traditions upon the already existing governing traditions of the conquered27, took on many of the features of more traditional, sedentary states. The Qitan (Liao dynasty, 916-1125) in northern China, the Qaraxanids (992-1212) in southern central Inner Asia and the Seljuks (1040-1194 in Iran, Iraq and Syria, 1071-1307 in Anatolia) typify this kind of state evolution among the nomads. The Mongol Empire, the fullest articulation of the nomad-based state imposed on already existing empires and monarchies (China, Iran, Rus', Georgia), did much to break up the older, tribe, tribal-confederation-based system, including their own highly complex society28. Our evidence for the pre-Cinggisid era is sparse in comparison with what followed. The nomadic "states" of the pre-Cingissid era only infrequently speak for themselves (e.g. the Türk, Uygur and Qirgiz runiform inscriptions) and the "stateless" tribes are silent.

Terminology and the Shaping of Peoples

Definitions are a problem. TheeBvn, gentes, nationes and that appear in the Graeco-Latin sources of Late Antiquity - early Middle Ageshave become the subject of an interesting and ongoing debate among Western medievalists29. No less complicated are the terms jins30, jiP\ qawm32 and

25 Turchin, 2009: 197-199, in tallying up the zones of empire formation, concludes that the northern Chinesesteppe borderlands constituted the greatest center of "imperiogenesis". The nomads and China, in response to each other, created ever larger politico-military units in an "autocatalytic process" each side providing "feedback loops with causality flowing in both directions".

26 Golden, 1987-1991; Golden, 1991; Turchin, 2009: 211.

27 Khazanov, 1984: 230-263, discusses the various forms of organization that "nomadic statehood" adopted.

28 Golden, 2000: 21-41; Morgan, 2007: 34, 79.

29 See Gillet, 2002; Garipzanov, Geary, Urbanczyk, 2008. See also the challenge (on occasion misguided in my view) to the notions of "clan" and "tribe" in Inner Asia, Sneath, 2007. When comparing seemingly similar structures, care has to be taken to first understand the cultural baggage that informs and shapes the observer's perceptions, see M-ch. Poo, 2005: 12-18, 20-22.

30 "Kind, sort, variety, species ... race; nation" (Cowan, 1994: 167); "rod, sort, kategorija" (Polosin, 1995: 95); "genus, kind, or generical class, comprising under it several species" (Lane, 1968) I/2: 470). Often translated as "tribe", jins really means "kind" or "sort", e.g. jins min al-turk "a kind / variety of the Turks".

31 "Nation, people, race, tribe, or family of mankind ... such as the Turks and the Greeks and the Chinese" (Lane, 1968, I/2: 494).

32 "A people, or body of persons composing a community ... kinsfolk ... tribe" (Lane, 1968, I/8: 2996), "Peuplade, tribu, peuple" (Kazimirski, 1860, II: 840), "certain nombre de personnes réunies, qui sont du même rang, groupe" (Dozy, 1968, II: 432); "ljudi, plemja, sorodici" (Polosin, 1995: 408).

qabila33 of the medieval Arabo-Persian geographical literature dealing with nomadic Eurasia34, and Chinese terms such as xing M "clan", bu ^ and buluo the latter two rendered as "tribe" in modern Chinese but denoting "tribe" and "tribal segments" respectively in Middle Chinese35. Complicating the imprecision of terminology is the frequent shifting of "tribal" groups, giving them an almost kaleidoscopic quality. The nomads seemed to be in constant motio36. Their "super-tribal unions" / tribal confederations comprised numbers ranging from the low thousands to 100,00037. Needless to say, population estimates for mobile populations that were rarely understood and viewed with varying degrees of prejudice by their neighbors who wrote about them, are at best, "guesstimates".

Another complicating factorabout the peoples of the imperial "tribal zones" is their internecine strife, fractionation and reconfiguration38. Neighboring sedentary states intervened, intrigued and promoted internal discord, especially among rival claimants in the ruling houses. Han China's relations with the Xiongnu and those of the Sui and Tang dynasties with the Türks and some of their more recalcitrant subject tribes are replete with accounts of attempts at divide et impera - or at least intrigues to keep the nomads off balance. Beyond that, the offer or withholding of economic ties and an occasionally active marital diplomacy could also be used to keep the nomads more amenable to China39.

The costs of direct military engagement against the nomads in the steppes were high40

33 "Tribe", cf. Polosin, 1995: 383, "plemja"; Kazimirski, 1860: 668, "tribu (chez les peuples nomades)". Qabila, when referring to a specific subgrouping can denote "subtribe", and is sometimes used "synonymously" with batn "branch".

34 See Dankoff, 1972: 23-43.

35 Togan, 2015: 88, 90, 93, 96-97, 100-107. Meanings and nuance changed over time and with the dynasties under whose aegis the dynastic histories were written.

36 Ba^tug, 1999: 77-109; Golden, 2001: 21-24. Cf. the musings ofAgathias, 1967: 176-177, about the "Huns" (Owvoi) who formerly lived east of the Sea of Azov and north of the Don (Tavai^) and "other Barbarian peoples": "...all of them in general are called Scythians and Huns, but individually according to their tribes (yevq), such as Koxpiyoupoi and Oirayoupoi. Others are OtiXTiZoupoi and others yet are BoupouyowSoi and others (are called) as has become customary and usual for them. After many generations they crossed into Europe ... but they were destined to remain not for long, but to disappear, as they say, root and branch. Thus, the OlXxtZoupoi and the BoupouyouvSoi were known up to the time of the Emperor Leo [Leo I, 457-474] and the Romans of that time and appeared to have been strong. We, however, in this day, neither know them, nor, I think, will we. Perhaps, they have perished or perhaps they have moved off to very far places". Agathias' History covers the period 552-559 (he died ca. 580), see Kazhdan 1991, I: 35-36.

37 Christian, 1998: 58. According to Christian, tribes had populations ranging from 500 to the 1000s, nomadic empires ranged from the 100,000s to millions. Pritsak's "tentative estimation" of a population of "2.8 to 3 million" for the stateless Peceneg confederation (Pritsak, 1975: 226-227), is perhaps overdrawn. The Pecenegs dominated parts of the Pontic steppes from the mid-9th century to 1036 and then troubled Byzantium's Danubian frontier until their massive defeat in 1092 (Golden, 1992: 264-270).

38 Cf. the post-Turk Oguz polity (led by a yabgu, an old Inner Asian title of probable Chinese origin, see Appendix and Clauson, 1972: 873), whose 22-24 subunits frequently fought one another (Pritsak, 1952: 279292; Sumer, 1980: 52-59, 140-141, 202 ff.; Golden, 1992: 205-211; Hudud, 1962: 87; Minorsky, 1971: 101). The pre-Cinggisid Tatar union, among others, was also prone to internal strife (Rasid ad-Din, 1994, I: 76).

39 Cf. the heqin policy of the Han with the Xiongnu, see Yu, 1967: 10-13, 36-43; Pan, 1997: 100-107; Skaff, 2012: 203 ff.

40 Barfield, 1989: 56-57, calculates that the Han campaign of 119 BCE against the Xiongnu consumed "half of the treasury's annual receipts".

and perilous. Momentary military triumphs rarelyresolved the problem of nomadic raiding. The Byzantines were loath to venture beyond the Danube and never launched a campaign into the steppe zone41. It was much more cost efficient to employ the time-honored techniques of pitting one nomad grouping against another, a policy followed by China as well - with considerable success42. Nomad state formation or "imperiogenesis", in the period of interest to us - when it occurred - tended to do so in close interaction with China43. Nomad-based states in the western steppes (the European Huns - if they can be classified as a state - the European Avars, the Western Türks and the Khazar empire, which emerged at the end of the period under consideration), all had roots in the East.

Stateless Nomadic Polities It is in connection with the rise of the Xiongnu "empire" under Modun (r. 209174 BCE) and the expansion of his power to some of the neighboring peoples to the north, in particular the Dingling T® (later called Tiele, see below) and Gekun (the early Qirgiz)44 both of which are subsequently clearly demarcated as Turkic-speakers45. Dingling groupings extended from Lake Baikal - Northern Mongolia to the Irtysh River region and the Qirgiz were on the Yenisei46. These conquests in part consolidated Modun's usurpation of authority47. The question of Xiongnu ethno-linguistic affiliationsis unresolved. Yeneseic / Kettic, Turkic and Iranian have all been suggested48. The relationship of the Xiongnu to the European Huns, long a matter of scholarly dispute, is important to an understanding of the stateless nomadic polities that become noticeable in the course of the Hunnic era and its immediate aftermath. Many of the most recent considerations of

41 Byzantine military manuals of the era contains sections on how to do battle with the "Scythians", i.e. Avars, Turks and other "Hunnic" peoples, that are well-informed regarding the nomads' ars militaria, cf. the Stratigikon (XI.2) attributed to the Emperor Maurice (582-602) and probably written in the late 5th - early 6th century (Maurice, 1970: 268-274; Maurice, 1984: 116-118). The perspective, however, appears to be defensive, rather than offensive.

42 Yang, 1970: 33 ("fighting barbarians with barbarians"); Whittow, 1996: 48-52; see also Vasil'evskij, 1908, I: 1-117, a classic study of Byzantium's relationship with the Pecenegs.

43 Golden, 1982: 37-76 and Golden, 1987-1991: 41-81; see broad discussion in Turchin, 2009: 191-217.

44 For the Han-era and Middle Chinese reconstructions of these names, see AppendixA. The Qirgir / Qirgiz were, perhaps, a Palaeo-Siberian people under Turkic leadership who were in the process of Turkicization. Qirgiz ethnogenesis is particularly complex. See discussion in Pulleyblank, 1990: 98-108, Pulleyblank, 2000: 72-73; Golden, 1992: 143, 176-179, 404-406; Janhunen, 1996: 186; Karaev, Zusupov,1996.

45 Sima Qian, 1993, II: 138, 140; Hanshu, 2004: 9, 14; Golden, 1992: 61, 94-95. Maenchen-Helfen, 1939: 77-86 has a useful summary of the data, perhaps somewhat dated in some of its conclusions. See the lengthy discussion in Ogel, 1981, I: 201 ff. of Modun's career. On the Turkic connections of the Dingling and Qirgiz, see Pulleyblank, 1983: 454-456.

46 Krjukov, Perelomov, Sofronov, Ceboksarov, 1983: 62-63; Czegledy, 1983: 62-64, 113; Yu 1990: 120; Di Cosmo, 2002: 189, Borovkova, 2001: 47-48. There were also Dingling groupings in northern China (Pulleyblank, 2000: 79). On the Qirgiz, see Bartol'd, 1968: 40-42; Golden, 1992: 177-178.

47 Sima Qian, 1993, II: 138.

48 See Ligeti, 1950: 141-188; Pulleyblank, 1962: 206-265 (especially Appendix "The Hsiung-nu Language" 239-265). Pulleyblank, 1986: 29-71 (translation of Pulleyblank, 1962) contains some newer readings of Xiongnu forms. See also Pulleyblank, 2000: 62-65. Janhunen, 1996: 185-189, views them as "dominated by speakers of Pre-Proto-Bulgharic". Bailey, 1982: 91-92; Bailey 1985: 25-41; Harmatta, 1997: 159-173, consider them Iranian. Vovin, 2000: 87-104, revives earlier Yeniseic theories. Horvath, 2007: 63-67, argues for Turkic, rebutted by Zieme, 2011: 37-52. Kljastornyj, 2001: 49, suggests that the Xiongnu were not Altaic, but Turkic-speakers may have been the predominant linguistic grouping in their confederation.

the material argue for a Xiongnu-Hun connection49. What we can say with some certainty is that Han China, and its steppe allies (especially the Xianbei), defeated major groupings of the Xiongnu in the 1st century BCE and 1st and mid-2nd centuries CE. Each of these defeats appears to have precipitated a series of migrations of Xiongnu groupings and some of their subject peoples westward50, a pattern in Turkic history that would be repeated throughout the Middle Ages. De la Vaissiere, based on notices in the Weishu (551-554) and Tongdian51, posits a series of migrations of tribes living in the foothills of the Altay, heirs of the Northern Xiongnu and still maintaining a Xiongnu "political identity", to Transoxiana and the Volga in the 350s-360s52. De la Vaissiere's data, however, does not exclude earlier movements of "Hunnic" peoples westward. According to Czegledy and Harmatta, the Northern Xiongnu / Huns were already penetrating Central Eurasia before the 40s BCE. These numbers increased after a Northern Xiongnu defeatin 91 CE that brought themto Jungaria, the Ili River zone, South Kazakhstan and Kangju (^S)53, with others following from East Turkistan to Kangju in 158. The Xianbei (see below) then occupied their lands in East Turkistan in 166. Kangju, including Sogdiana, came under the Xiongnu / Xyon / Chionitae until 370. The movement of what became the Hephthalites ca. 350, perhaps under pressure from the kindred Avars / War-Huns or part of their expansion, divided these Xiongnu; one grouping moved westward to the Volga54, setting the stage for the European Huns.

In the western steppe zone, the Hunswere raiders, military hirelings and generally troublesome neighbors. Whether they actually formed a state may be debated. Under Attila, they had a number of proto-urban settlements, a stratified society and office of governance, albeit only dimly discerned55. Attila's polity threatened the Eastern and Western parts of the Roman Empire. He was a "nuisance," but never a mortal danger56. The extent of his realm is uncertain. He held Pannonia and some adjoining regions (e.g. "Scythia Minor", i.e. the Dobrudja zone) and had Slavic, Germanic and doubtless other "subjects" over which varying degrees of authority were exercised, but it is not clear that he was master of all the "Hunnic" peoples. After his death in 453, the union, dependent on his

49 Czegledy, 1983: 32-35, 62 ff., 85 ff.; Erdy, 1995: 5-94; Wright, 1997: 77-112; Harmatta, 1997: 159-173; Pulleyblank, 2000: 60; De la Vaisssiere, 2005: 3-26. The current trends in Xiongnu studies, in particular the archaeological evidence, can be seen in the studies collected in Brosseder, Miller, 2011.

50 See Czegledy, 1983: 34, 92-97; Harmatta, 1997: 164-167; Pulleyblank, 2000: 59-60; Kljastornyj, Savinov, 2005: 36-37.

51 The Weishu authored by Wei Shou (d. 572, covering the period 386-550), compiled 551-554 and the Tongdian by Du You (732-812), published in 801, see Wilkinson, 2012: 626, 646.

52 De la Vaissiere, 2005: 21-23. They played a key role in the shaping of the Chionites and Hephthalites.

53 OC khay ka, LH khay kia (Schuessler, 2009: 77 [3-12h], 46 [1-1c']) = Iranian Kangha, Kang, Turk. K(a)ngu = Middle Syr Darya -Talas - Cu - Taskent oasis (Kljastornyj, 1964: 171-175). Hill, 2009: 33, 171-184, 238, based on the Hanshu, describes it as "the Talas Basin, Tashkent and Sogdiana". In the Tang era, the latter was meant, see Stark, 2009: 8-9, 37 ff. After 91 CE, the Xianbei occupied the Northern Xiongnu territories and became a threat to China (Yu, 1986: 443-444).

54 Czegledy, 1983: 99-101; Harmatta, 1997: 166-169.

55 Maenchen-Helfen, 1973: 190-198; Nikonorov, 2010: 281-282 for the various terms used for Hunnic commanders and leaders. It is not unlikely that their structure became more complex as a result of interaction with the Late Roman Empire. On Hunnic proto-urban settlements, see Golden, 2013: 31-38.

56 Maenchen-Helfen, 1973: 126.

ability to extort tributes and other payments from the Romans, east and west, quickly unraveled57.

In the east, in Mongolia, the Xianbei = *Sarbi, see Appendix A) who became the masters of the Xiongnu core lands by the mid-2nd century CE58, may be ranked among the stateless nomads. They derivedfrom the Donghu ^^ ("Eastern Hu")59. According to the Hou Hanshu, the languages and customs of the Xianbei and Wuhuan, peoples that Modun had conquered early in his career, were similar60. The defeated Donghu fled to the Liaodong regionand divided into the Xianbei and Wuhuan Both peoples were alternately subjects of the Xiongnu and the Han62. With the

fall of the Xiongnu, the Xianbei became masters of substantial parts of the Mongolian steppe. The Xianbei, like the other Donghu, probably consisted of a variety of peoples, including speakers of Pre-Proto-Mongolic, which divided into Proto-Mongolic and Para-Mongolic63. Despite philological arguments (see Appendix A), it is far from clear that the later Asian Avars are to be sought in the Wuhuan64. The latter were badly defeated by the Han in 207 CE and were largely absorbed by the Xianbei or took service with the Han. Elements of the Xianbei, following defeats by China, may well have moved westward in the third century CE65. Their lack of political unity permitted China to exercise some control over them66. Under the dynamic Tanshihuai 131?-181), not long after

the collapse of the remnants of Xiongnu power in 155, some kind of political unity was achieved; his authority was extended to their nomadic neighbors (including the Dingling) and he occasionally raided China. However, his triumphs proved to be ephemeraland his "empire" did not long survive his death - although senior leadership did become hereditary67. It is among one of the Xianbei tribal

57 The history of the European Huns has produced an extensive literature, which need not detain us. In addition to Maenchen-Helfen, 1973; see Nemeth, 1940; Thompson, 1996; Dqbrowski, 1975: 11-146; the overview of Sinor, 1990a: 177-205 (Sinor does not accept a Xiongnu-Hun continuity); and more briefly Golden, 1992: 88-92.

58 They had begun to absorb Xiongnu elements after the defeat of the latter by China in 91 CE. These Xiongnu now began to call themselves Xianbei, Taskin, 1984: 45. This is an example of an ethnonym becoming a politonym.

59 Hu was a flexible term denoting in the era before the Han dynasty (pre-206 BC), "nomads". In Han times (206 BC-221 AD) it was usually associated with the Xiongnu (Pulleyblank, 1983: 449-450; Di Cosmo, 2002: 127-130). Subsequently, in the Sui era it also denoted Central Asian Iranians, especially the Sogdians (Liu Mau-tsai, 1958, II: 490-491, n. 22, 584, n.786; see also De la Vaissiere, 2005a: 57 ("populations of the Northwest"); Abramson, 2008: viii, 19-20, 87).

60 Sima Qian, 1993, II: 135-136; Taskin, 1984: 63-65, 70, 296, n.1; Hanshu, 2004: 6-7.

61 On the Wuhuan and Xianbei, see Eberhard, 1942: 35-37; Kljastornyj, Savinov, 2005: 44-48. The ancient homeland of the Wuhuan was located in the upper Amur (Taskin, 1984: 7-9) one of the Donghu areas of concentration. Taskin considers them Mongolic. In the Han era, the Xianbei and Wuhuan were associated with western and southern Manchuria respectively. The Shiwei emerged from the Xianbei in the north and the Qitan from the southern Xianbei (Janhunan, 1996: 184).

62 Yu, 1967: 53-57.

63 Janhunen, 1996: 184, 190-193; Schonig, 2003: 405; Schonig, 2005: 140-141. "Para-Mongolic" languages were "collaterally related to Proto-Mongolic" (Janhunen, 2003: 391-393).

64 Cf. Pulleyblank, 2000: 71; Kljastornyj, Savinov, 2005: 44-48, pair the Wuhuan and Xianbei with the Avars and Sabirs and argue for a westward movement of the Xianbei (see below).

65 According to the Hou Hanshu they were led by an elected "great man" da ren (A A), but had no system of hereditary rule. Following their defeat in 207, thousands of them were brought to China (Taskin, 1984: 63, 69, 85; De Crespigny, 1984: 40-41, 398-415).

66 Barfield, 1989: 86-87.

67 De Crespigny, 1984: 314-345; Yu, 1986: 442-446; Taskin, 1984: 80.

polities, the Qifu ' that emerged after his passing that we first encounter, in 265, the title qagan, a title of uncertain origin68, which subsequently supplanted Xiongnu chanyu (S ^) as the imperial title in the steppe world. The Rouran ruler, Shelun (Chin. tt-m, r. 402-410) was the first to use it as a title superior to or supplanting chanyu69. The ethno-linguistic affiliations of the Rouran, who appear to have derived from the Donghu peoples, remain in murky70. What is of concern to us here is that the system of imperial titulature that we find in the Türk Qaganate and its imperial successors (the Uygurs and Khazars) consists entirely of foreign, non-Turkic terms many of which appear to have been taken from the Rouran and not improbably from the Xianbei traditions, which are apparent among the Early Mongolic or Para-Mongolic-speaking Tabgac71 (Chin. ДШ Tuoba, see Appendix A). The latter had become masters of North China as the Northern Wei dynasty (386-534 and their short-lived successors, the Eastern Wei, 534-550 and Western Wei, 535-556) and the Asian Avars / Rouran ШШ, who emerged contemporaneously and often in conflict with them.

The rulers of the stateless nomadic polities that emerged in the post-Türk era (after 742/744) bore titles beneath that of qagan: e.g. yabgu, erkin, tügsin and others72. Without getting into the question of the relationship of the Rouran / Asian Avars to the European Avars73, we can note that the latter employed many of these same titles74. The Türks appear to have taken over the Rouran system75. In this sense, we can speak of a translatio imperii. The westward advancing Türks led by Istämi, who bore the title Sir Yabgu / Jabgu Qagan16, slightly below that of his brother Bumin

68 Liu, 1989: 98; Taskin, 1984: 90, 335, n.4. The Qifu later founded the Xi Qin (385-431), one of the "Sixteen Kingdoms" (Taskin, 1984: 4). On these ethnically complex statelets founded by non-Chinese (often Xianbei or Xiungnu) warlords, see Barfield, 1989: 97-118, Graff, 2002: 54-75; Vovin, 2007: 177-187. Vovin, 2011: 28, derives qagan from Yeniseic with a Mongolic / Para-Mongolic Tabgac -n ending: *qe "great, big" + qAj "ruler" + -n, cf. also Tremblay, 2001: 285, n.305. See Appendix A.

69 Taskin, 1986: 216.

70 Previously considered Mongolic (Taskin, 1984: 47-49 suggests that the contradictory comments on Rouran origins derive from their being a Mongolic people ruling over Turkic peoples), Vovin, 2004: 127-130 and Vovin, 2011: 27-36, maintains that Rouran was not "Altaic" nor related to any other neighboring language. The data is sparse and we cannot come to any firm conclusions.

71 On the Tabgac language, see Ligeti, 1970: 265-308; Vovin, 2007a: 191-207. Doerfer, 1993: 78-86, posits titles such as qagan, qatun, tarxan, tegin, erkin, tudun, sagun as "all ... presumably borrowed from Xianbei", of which Tabgac was a dialect. Tegin may have come from Xiongnu via Mongolic intermediation (Pulleyblank, 2000: 64).

72 See Golden, 2006: 23-61.

73 For an overview, see Golden, 1992: 76-83, 106-111; Golden, 2013: 62-65; Kollautz, Miyakawa, 1970, I: 138 ff.; Grignaschi, 1984: 219-248. On the European Avars, see Pohl, 1988. Beckwith, 2009: 390-391, n.18, makes the important point that it is only after the defeat of the Rouran and the Türk "pursuit of them across Eurasia" that the title qagan appears outside of Mongolia, hence the European Avar "ruling clan must be equatable with the Jou-jan ruling clan or one or more legitimate heirs of it". The Asian Avars have been associated with both Xiongnu and Xianbei groupings. The sparse remnants of the European Avar language may indicate Turkic linguistic affiliations for the latter, see Harmatta, 1983: 71-84, and Györffy, 1997: 141-144, who concludes that the bulk of late European Avar society spoke Bulgaro-Turkic (Oguric).

74 Pohl, 1988: 293-306; Rona-Tas, Berta, 2011, II: 1163.

75 See a full listing of titles with references to citations in User, 2010: 254-271

76 Dobrovits, 2004: 111-114

El[l]ig Qagan, the founder of the Türk state from the Asina clan77, made this clear to the Byzantines. He announced that when he finished his war with the Hephthalites (who fell to the Türks between 560-567/56878) the fleeing Rouran / Avar remnants, whom he viewed as rebels, "shall not escape my might". One of his successors, Toup^av0o<; (a son of Istämi) called them "our slaves"79. The fact that the Avar rulers in the West were still calling themselves qagans and thus claiming imperial status, was, no doubt, more than a source of irritation to the Türks.

When the Türk Qaganate fell in 742/743, it was briefly replaced by that of the Basmil, a subject tribal union led by a branch of the Asina who seized power with the assistance of the Uygurs (of the Toquz Oguz / eastern Tiele) and Qarluqs, another subject tribal union of the Türks. When the Uygurs took the qaganate in 74480, ruling until 840, they claimed in the Terxin (ca. 753, made in the name of Eletmis Bilgä Qagan, r. 747-759) and Tes inscriptions (762) that this was, in essence, a restauratio imperii, in that the Uygur qagans had previously held the state (el) for three hundred years. In the Terxin inscription mention is further made of three qagans, including the Asina, Bumin (founder of the Türk Qaganate), who ruled for two hundred years and "my ancestors" who ruled for eighty years. The Uygurs, thus, claimed to have moved in and out of statehood / qaganal authority81. Some scholars place the "first Uygur Qaganate" to the rulership of Tumidu Ht^®, who following the Tang-Toquz Oguz victory (646) over the Xueyantuo was recognized at the "Great

Eltäbär" by the Tang and unilaterally claimed the Qaganate (647), a status China did not grant him. Thus, the First Uygur Qaganate would have existed from 647 until ca. 680 when the Asina-Türks had revived82. This, however, would appear to contradict the Uygur runiform inscriptions. When the Uygur Qaganate fell to the Qirgiz in 840, the Qarluqs, hitherto led by a Yabgu now claimed qaganal status in a further translatio imperii. This legacy was bequeathed to the Qaraxanids, who had Qarluq roots83.

The Uygurs were the leading grouping within the Toquz Oguz and we should now turn to their Ogur "kinsmen" in the western steppes. There is no trace in our sources of statehood, much less imperial consciousness among the western Dingling / Tiele / Oguric peoples.

Stateless Nomads of the western steppes

A decade after the death of Attila, Priscus (d. after 472) mentions the arrival into the Pontic steppe zone and thus into the Byzantine orbit of a series of steppe nomads coming from the east ca.

77 Asina, see Appendix A, as well as the names of the early Türk qagans were largely East Iranian, Klyashtorny, 1994: 445-447; Golden, 1992: 121-122; Rybatzki, 2000: 206-221.

78 Chavannes, 1941: 226; Kljastornyj, Savinov, 2005: 94-95; Tremblay, 2001: 183; Frye, 1984: 327, 349-350; De la Vaissiere, 2005: 200. The precise dating and degree of Säsänid involvement as allies of the Türks (an alliance that quickly ended) remains under discussion.

79 Menander, 1985: 44-47, 110-117, 174-175; Chavannes, 1941: 240. The actual identity of Toüp^av9o^ as well as his name (title?) remains uncertain. Menander says he "was one of the leaders of the Turks" whose holding were divided into eight parts.

80 Liu Mau-tsai, 1958, I: 179-180 (Jiu Tangshu), 229-230 (Xing Tangshu), 260-261; Ta§agil, 1995-2004, III: 53-59, 74-79, 82-83, 91-92.

81 Kljastornyj, 2006: 157 (Tes, W, 7-8); Kljastornyj, 2006a: 135 (Terxin, E, 16, 18); Erhan, 2011: 33 (Tes, N, 1-2), 42-43 (Terxin [Taryat], E, 1, 3); Kamalov, 2001: 58-68. The Türks, before they overthrew the Rouran (552) subjugated the Tiele who were preparing yet another revolt against the Rouran (Liu, 1958: 7; Ta^agil, 1995-2004, I: 17). The Tiele-Türk rivalry had deep roots.

82 Pulleyblank, 1956: 37; Kamalov, 2001: 62-63; Cheng, 2012: 98-99; Pan, 1997: 192.

83 Pritsak, 1951: 270-300; Golden, 1982: 37-76; Hunkan, 2007: 75-80.

463. These were the Eapayoupoi: *Sara84 Ogurs ("White" or "Yellow" Ogurs85), Oupwyoi: *Ogurs86 and 'Ovoyoupoi: On Ogurs (usually written Onogurs, "Ten Ogurs"). These Oguric tribes fled into the Pontic steppes from the east, most probably from the Kazakh steppes87 evicted by the Sabirs88, who were set into motion by a chain of migrations initiated by the Asian Avars / Rouran to their east. The latter were pressed by "tribes who lived by the shore of the Ocean", who were fleeing ocean mists and - with a nod to Herodotus - a flock of man-eating griffins89. In reality, these migrations were prompted by Asian Avar / Rouran-Northern Wei warfare of the 430s-458, recorded in the Weishu90. In many respects, this migration was the culmination of a series of movements of nomadic peoples beginning with the Sino-Xiongnu encounters. Xiongnu, or peoples deriving from the Xiongnu polity, had come to the Kazakh steppes by the late first century CE. These peoples may have included Oguric tribes, which were part of the Dingling (see above). A later chanyu Zhizhi (S^, d. 36 BCE), in the course of Xiongnu fragmentation, moved westward and re-established or more accurately secured his dominion over the Dingling in the mid-first century BCE (they had broken away from Xiongnu control in 69-70 BCE). Zhizhi subsequently migrated, with considerable losses, to Kangju with which he had formed an alliance against the Wusun, an Indo-European people and ultimately Han China91. The Dingling remained subjects of the Xiongnu until 85 CE when they joined the Xianbei in attacking the weakening Xiongnu realm. Several years later, in 91 CE, the Northern Xiongnu grouping went to the Ili Valley. The brief Xiongnu resurgence in the "Western Regions" in the early decades of the second century ended by mid-century when the Xianbei became

84 The Oguric or West Old Turkic form is *sar(i)g / sarug "white" = Eastern Old Turkic (Common Turkic) *sarig "yellow", cf. Cuvas surä "white", a loanword in Hungarian sar [sar], sarga (sarga) "yellow". The distinctive "rhotacism" of Oguric (hence oguz > ogur) had already occurred before their arrival in the Pontic steppes, see Rona-Tas, 1999: 104; Rona-Tas, Berta, 2011, II: 691-695, 1112-1115, perhaps as early as the first century BCE. See also Dybo, 2006: 772-773, who dates the development of Oguric / West Old Turkc / "Bulgaric" to the "Proto-Turkic period" sometime in the 1st century BCE.

85 West Old Turkic / Oguric Turkic ogur and Old East Turkic ("Common Turkic") oguz were probably originally technical, kinship terms denoting groupings of kindred peoples that later took on socio-political, ethnonymic status, see Golden, 2012.

86 The Greek form is generally viewed as a corruption of 'Dyoupoi, i.e. Ogurs. Rona-Tas, 1999: 210, reads this as Ugur (cf. Moravcsik, 1958, II: 227: Ouyropoi) and associates it with the family name of the founder of the Asian Avars / Rouran: f X H Yujiulü (see Taskin, 1984: 58-59, 267, 461) = MC ?juk kjSu Ijwo (Schuessler, 2009: 96 [4-17a'], 95 [4-13a], 57 [1-54g]) or Early Middle Chinese (EMC) as ?uwkkuw'liS and as ?iwkkiw'liS / lyS (Pulleyblank, 1991: 384, 161, 204). Rona-Tas, 1999: 210-211, suggests, further, that this is a rendering of *ugur(i) > Ugur, which he considers a "secondary" form of Ogur. The implication is a possible connection with the Ogur tribes. Interestingly, Janhunen, 1996: 190, speculates that the Rouran may have been speakers of "General Turkic, a view not widely shared".

87 Gening, Xalikov, 1964: 142-147; Czegledy, 1983: 97-103.

88 Most probably *Säßir. On the various forms of this ethnonym, see Czegledy, 1959: 373-383 and below. As Sabir is the form most frequently found in the literature, we will retain it.

89 Priscus, 1981, I: 48-70; 1983, II: 344-345. For variant renderings of these ethnonyms, see Moravcsik, 1958, II: 219-220, 227-228, 230, 267-268. Herodotus, III.116.1, IV,13,1-2, IV,27.1. The griffins were mythological winged beasts with a lion's body and an eagle's head who guarded gold at the ends of the known lands (Dovatur, Kallistov, Sisova, 1982: 96-97, 104-105, 110-111, 257-258, n.250). Herodotus' chain of migrations theme is taken from Aristeas' Arimaspeia, see Romm, 1992: 60-72, 118.

90 Taskin, 1984: 273-276.

91 The Han destroyed Zhizhi in 36 BCE, see Borovkova, 2001: 278-279, 295-310; Borovkova, 2008: 79-81. 344

the dominant nomadic force in Mongolia (ca. 130 - ca. 180s)92. The Weilüe written by Yu Huan in the 3rd century CE93, notes a Dingling polity, "north of Kangju"94. Subsequently, from the 4th century CE, they appear in the Chinese sources under a variety of names, e.g. Dili $XM), Tele Chile and subsequently Tiele M® (see Appendix A)95, all of which may perhaps be renderings of *tägräg which has been interpreted to denote "cart"96. The Tiele, in any event, are not to be identified with the Töles, a Turkic people later noted within the Eastern Türk confederation97. The term Tiele is not without problems. If it does, indeed, represent tägräg, a rendering (pars pro toto) of an ethnonym that would denote "(people of the) carts", semantically in keeping with the later Chinese usage, Gaoche ^^ "(people of the) High Carts", a term used to denote the Eastern, Uygur-led Tiele98; we are hard-pressed to find other such examples in Turkic ethnonymy.

The Tiele formed a large, important but still vaguely defined union of tribes that ultimately divided geographically into eastern (northern Mongolia and adjoining areas), southern (at the Great Wall) and western (Ponto-Caspian steppes) units that spanned the Eurasian steppes99. We have no evidence of an overarching central authority for all three groups. What is interesting for us is the usage of the term ogur (in West Old Turkic / Oguric) and oguz (in East Old Turkic / Common Turkic, see Appendix B), usually prefaced with a number (or adjective) as the name of some of the constituent tribes / subgroupings. In the course of the turmoil and displacements set off by the rise of the Rouran (Uar-Hun) / Asian Avar polity, the Dingling / Tiele came to southern Kazakhstan from northern Kazakhstan and the Irtysh zone. Here they remained until pushed westward ca. 460 by yet another drive initiated by the War-Huns / Rouran / Asian Avars100. Among the western Tiele peoples recorded in the Chinese accounts (cf. the Suishu by Wei Zheng d. 643, published ca. 629-636101), were the Enqu MS (LH ?en khut, MC ?3n khjw3t102) which appears to render *Ongur = Onogur, located near the Alans (ß^W MC ?a lan103), "and others" to the East of Fulin ft^, the Eastern Roman / Byzantine Empire, i.e. most probably in the Caspian-Pontic steppes104.

The newly arrived Ogur (Tiele) tribes entered what was probably something of a power

92 Maenchen-Helfen, 1939: 80; Hanshu in Taskin, 1968, 1973, II: 81-96; Yu Ying-shih, 1990: 148-149; Ogel, 1981, II: 357 ff.; Golden, 1992: 69-71; Janhunen, 1996: 184.

93 Wilkinson, 2011: 732.

94 Weilue in Borovkova, 2008: 89-90, pointing to another grouping of Dingling, west of the Wusun.

95 The Jiu Tangshu dates this usage to the time of the Tuoba Wei (Chavannes, 1941: 87). The ethnonym Tiele became particularly associated with their eastern branch, the Toquz Oguz of which the Uygurs were the dominant grouping. During the 7th-8th century, Tiele was gradually replaced by Jiuxing A H "Nine Surnames / clans" which translated the term Toquz Oguz, see Skaff, 2012: 343, n.12.

96 Pulleyblank, 1956: 35-36; Pulleyblank, 1983: 448, 455.

97 Czegledy, 1951: 266-267.

98 See Liu, 1958, II: 491-492, n.24; Pulleyblank, 1990a: 21-26; Kamalov, 2001: 59-60. The nomads often transported their tents on carts.

99 Golden, 1992: 93-95; Kljastornyj, Savinov, 2005: 63.

100 Czegledy, 1983: 33-36. Hamilton, 1962: 36 and Harmatta, 1992: 258-261, 265, identify these "Avars" with the Apa H® (*.a b'wat, Northwest Tang *.a b'waJ = Apar, Apar etc.), one of the Tiele tribes, but alternate readings for this tribe are also found and the sound similarity is far from conclusive.

101 It covers the period of Sui rule (581-617). The chapter on the Tiele in the slightly later Beishi by Li Yanshou (618-676), completed in 659, has much the same material. On the authors, see Wilkinson, 2012: 626.

102 Schuessler, 2009: 319 [32-9j], 314 [31-16k]; Pulleyblank, 1991: 87, 266: EMC: ?sn khut, LMC ?sn khyt.

103 Schuessler, 2009: 211 [18-1m], 246 [23-7n].

104 For Suishu account of the Tiele, see Cheng, 2012: 104-108; Liu, 1958, I: 127-128, II: 569-570, n.663.

vacuum in the Pontic steppes following the death of Attila in 453 and the revolt of the Hunnic vassal tribes in 454105. In particular, Priscus highlights the conflicts of the Sara Ogurs who defeated the Akatirs (AKdnpoi / AKdxZipoi106), a people that had perhaps been under Hunnic ruleand made their presence known by sending an embassy to Constantinople. The Sara Ogurs then set out to campaign against Iran (perhaps with the encouragement of Constantinople), but unable to pass through the Sasanid-controlled "Caspian Gates", took another route and plundered Georgia and Armenia107.

The migrations of ca. 463, their participants and their immediate aftermath have been discussed at length108. The account, regardless of its flourishes, undoubtedly depicts one or several outcomes of the ongoing warfare between the Tabgac and the Avars / Rouran109. The migrations brought new tribal groups westward. These almost certainly included Oguric tribes that would later become part of the Khazar Qaganate (ca. 630s/650 - ca. 968/9), centered in the lower Volga - North Caucasian steppes, but radiating out to the Middle and trans-Volga steppes, the Dneprzone and the Crimea. Whether these included the Qasars, interpreted by some as the pre-Turk Khazars, remains an open question110.

The Sabirs, the most immediate catalyst for the Ogur migration, unless buried among other Tiele peoples111, an unlikely prospect as they were among the most powerful groups of the region, are absent not only because by the time of the Suishu's composition the Khazars had largely subsumed them, but also - more importantly - because they were not part of the Tiele. Tracing the path of the Sabir migrations is not without problems. The name appears in relatively uniform transcriptions: Byzantine Greek - Edpipoi, Edpeipoi; Latin - Saviri; Armenian (Ananias Sirakets'i)

105 Golden, 1992: 91-92.

106 See Moravcsik, 1958, II: 58-59 for variant readings. The Acatziri are also recorded in: Jordanes, 1960: 72 (Russ. trans.), 136 (Latin), 221, n.116, who depicts them as a powerful nomadic people living to the south of the Aesti. This is, undoubtedly, too far to the north. Their home was in the Pontic steppes. Nemeth, 1991: 71-72, viewed AKdi^ipoi as Turk. Agaceri "forest people", cf. an Oguz Turkic grouping bearing this name noted in the eastern Anatolian-Iranian zone in the Cinggisid Mongol and Qara Qoyunlu eras (13th-15th century) and later, see Sumer, 1980: 147157, 159, 174, 646. For other readings, see Golden, 1992: 87. On the fruitless attempts to identify the AKdi^ipoi the *Aq Khazars, see Pelliot, 1949, II: 210-214; Henning, 1952: 505-509; Hamilton, 1962: 34.

107 Priscus, 1985, II: 352-355. Czegledy, 1983: 98, hypothesizes that in light of the repeated clashes with the powerful Akatirs, the Sara Ogurs may have arrived in the Pontic steppes some years before 463. Priscus's account, however, does not mention this.

108 Cf. Marquart, 1961: 42-43; Sinor, 1946: 1-78; Hamilton, 1962: 33 ff.; Artamonov, 2002: 86 ff.; Czegledy, 1983: 97 ff.; Nemeth, 1991: 138-156; Ligeti, 1986: 341-353; Golden, 1992: 92-106; Rona-Tas, 1999: 209-213; Ziemann, 2007: 66 ff.; Salmin, 2011: 23-28.

109 On Avar / Rouran - Northern Wei warfare of the 430s-458 recorded in the Weishu, see Taskin, 1984: 273-276.

110 Dunlop, 1954: 34-38, who offers the connection "tentatively". Czegledy, 1983: 103-106, following Rona-Tas, 1982: 349-379 and Rona-Tas, 1983: 126-133, posits an identification ofthe Khazars with the Uygur / Tiele Qasar noted in the Tes (N4) and Terxin (E2) Uygur runiform inscriptions (Aydin, 2011: 33-34, 42, 147); see also Kljastornyj, 2010: 171-179. Ligeti, 1986: 347, accepts a Sabir ~ Khazar connection, but adds that the details remain unclear. Others do not accept any definite notices on the Khazars until the period 630-650, see Golden, 2007a: 52-55 and Zuckerman, 2007: 401 ff.

111 Cf. the Tiele Supo SS EMC so ba, LMC suSphua (Pulleyblank, 1991: 294, 241), located west of Hami and north of Yanqi in the Tianshan region are possible candidates, as suggested tentatively by Hamilton, 1962: 26-27 (following the Suishu), 53, n.16, which he reads as *suo-b'wat = SuPar (?).

- Um^pg / Urnifrpg Savirk'/Sawirk'U2; Syriac - sbr and Arabic: [s.waz, ms. •"•113], recte: •"• [s.war], ••••, [sawar], •«••• [suwar]; Hebrew - 0NV~i (savir)114. Al-Mas'üdi in his Tanblh (completed in the year of his death, 956) notes "the Khazars who are called Sabir (••••) in Turkic and Xazarán in Persian"115. If this reconstruction by the editor is correct, it would strengthen the argument for an earlier presence of the Sabirs as a constituent and perhaps key element of the Khazar union116. Whether the name is preserved in the ethnonym Eápapxoi ác^aloiborne by the Hungarian union while still in Levedia and allies of the Khazars117, and a people bearing the name Sevordik' in Armenian and Sáwardiyya in Arabic sources, remains problematic118. Setting aside al-Mas'üdi's *Sabir (if it is, indeed, a reference to the Sabirs), the name may be read as: Sabir / Savir, Safiir /Savir, Sawar / Sawñr or or possibly Savar (although one would have expected an Arabic •••• * *Sawar). The damma (u) vocalization is an editorial interjection119. These may represent Com. Turk sabir / sabir or perhaps Oguric Savir /Savñr / Sawñr / Sawár (?)120, noted as one of the subgroupings of the Oguric-speaking Volga Bulgars: *Sawárs / *Sawars. Pritsak derived the name from a metathesized form of the ethnonymXianbei W^* * Sarbi (see Appendix A) > Sabir121. This kind of metathesis was not unknown in the ethnonymy of the Oguric peoples, cf. the *Quturogur (Kouxoúpyoupoi and variants122) = *Toqurogur ("Nine Ogurs", cf. Common Turk. Toquzoguz123, the paramount tribal union among the eastern Tiele). The westward moving Xianbei may not necessarily have been from the core Xianbei tribes, but may have represented tribes associated with them who retained this prestigious name. We do not know the linguistic affiliations of these "Xianbei". Some may have been Oguric-Turkic in speech. Eastern Iranian elements cannot be excluded. It was, perhaps, in that environment that a probably Proto-Mongolic / Para-Mongolic Xianbei / Sarbi became Sabir / Safíir.

The original meaning of the name remains obscure. Hoong Teik Toh compares Sarbi with Mongol serbe (cf. serbei- / sirbei "to prick up, bristle, stand erect") and similar terms which may

112 Sirakec'i, 1992: 57, 124, n.111, places them east of the Caucasian Huns and extending to the Volga.

113 Zimonyi, 1990: 42.

114 See Golden, 1980, I: 256 for sources and mss.

115 Al-Mas'udi, 1894: 83, but cf. the mss.: .........(bsr, ysir).

116 Golden, 2007a: 52-53.

117 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, 1967: 170-171. "Levedia", the territory of the Hungarian union c. 830, after it had left its earlier territory in Baskiria, was probably located west of the Don River (Kristo, 1996: 107-112).

118 Marquart, 1961: 35-40; Czegledy, 1959: 373-385; Nemeth, 1991: 153, 301-305; noted in Golden, 1980, I: 256-257. Ligeti, 1986: 346-347, notes the problems, Zimonyi, 1990: 45, excludes them from his discussion.

119 Cf. Ms. forms in Golden, 1980, II: 129, 219, 220; Zimonyi, 1990: 42-44. Karatay, 2010: 99-100, prefers Suvar, based on Mahmud al-Kasgari's reading, but the latter did not know this part of the Turkic world well and misvocalized Khazar as Kh'zar, Kasgari, 1941: 25, 26 (Suwar(in), 27, 207 (Xuzar).

120 The Volga Bulgar realm included other Turkic peoples from the Khazar Qaganate that had made their way to the Volga-Kama zone starting from the latter half of the eighth century to the late ninth-early tenth century (Zimonyi, 1990: 82, 156-157, 179-183) when the Volga Bulgars were becoming a regional economic power, albeit increasingly unhappy vassals of the Khazars.

121 Pritsak, 1976: 22, 30, who speculated that the Xianbei mixed with Ugrians "in the Ob-Irtysh basin" to form the core of the future Hungarian union. Clauson, 2002: 20, who viewed the Xianbei as speakers of Oguric, was prepared to see Xianbei as a rendering of Savir. Karatay, 2010: 101-102, suggests that the Chinese sources do not report a Xianbei migration.

122 Moravcsik, 1958, II: 171-172. On the Quturgurs (Quturogurs) see below.

123 Nemeth, 1991: 132, n.155

stem from "Altaic" *sirp'a "thick hair, bristle"124. This could refer to their horses. Semantically, such ethnonyms are not unknown in the Eurasian nomadic world; cf. the Yabaqu / Yapagu people noted by Mahmüd al-Käsgari125. Harmatta identified Sabir with the western Türk Nushibi (MC

nuo si pjiet126), which he reconstructs as nu si pü, *nu sipir = *Nu Säbir and derives from Iranian127. The Nushibi, together with the Dulu, formed the tworival groupings of the Western Türk On Oq tribal confederation128. There is no direct evidence indicating Xianbei / Särbi or Nushibi East Iranian connections but such a possibility cannot be excluded. The Türk ruling clan and early qagans bore names that were largely Iranian (see above n. 75). The names of the constituent tribes of the western Türks that formed the On Oq, for the most part, remain obscure and cannot be etymologized on the basis of Turkic129. Nemeth read Eaßipoi, Eaßeipoi et al. as Sabir which he derived from Turkic sap- "to go off the road, lose one's way, wander", an ethnonym that he viewed as belonging to a category of names denoting "nomad"130. While semantically, Nemeth's solution is attractive, there are problems. Among others, all of our forms indicate sav- or säv- except, perhaps, for the Byzantine Greek variants of this ethnonym which may indicate sab- or sav- (the ß, by that time pronounced v could be used to render the Classical b and hence is ambiguous) and al-Mas'üdi's sabir (if that is the correct reading). Another possibility is *Sirvi, one of the reconstructions of Xianbei suggested by Pulleyblank, cf. Class. Mong. sirbe-, Mod. Mong. sirvex "to lash, whip, sweep away"131. The question remains open. The few Sabir names that are recorded in our sources can be explained on the basis of Turkic, but are insufficient in number to determine whether they spoke Oguric of Common Turkic132.

Karatay associates the name with Subar, Subartu in northern Mesopotamia and argues for possible migration of the "Subar" from there to Siberia133. Whether the Sabirs are to be identified with the Eampoi, noted by Claudius Ptolemy (d. ca. 168 CE) in his Geography134 among the tribes

124 Hoong, 2005: 10; Starostin, Dybo, Mudrak, 2003: 1260; see also Lessing 1995: 689, 715, cf. 694, 695 sibar [sibar, Mod. Mong. savar] "mud, slush, morass, marsh, mire", siber [siber, Mod. Mong. siver] "dense shrubbery on a marsh, overgrowth on a river bank, ... dense forest, thicket". Poppe, 1955: 123.

125 Kâsgarî, 1982, 1984, 1985, I: 24; II: 166; Clauson, 1972: 874-875 "matted hair or wool ... an animal whose hair is long and matted".

126 Schuessler, 2009: 58 [1-56z], 279 [26-19a], 304 [29-42a].

127 Iran. *nu < Old Iran. naiba, Middle Pers. nêvak "outstanding, hero" + *saßir ~ *säßir < Old Iran. Assaßära (asva-bâra or *assaßärya, cf. Saka assa "horse", Old Indic bhârya, "servant, soldier"), Harmatta, 1992: 257-258, cf. Bailey, 1979: 11, 278 assa-barai "horse-rider", Rastorgueva, Édel'man, 2000-ongoing, I: 243-244: Old Pers. asa, asa-bara "vsadnik" (< *asua-bara "vsadnik na losadi", Old Pers. asabara, Middle Pers. asvar "vsadnik", Bactr. asbaro, Class. Pers. savar, Mod. Pers. Sävär).

128 Beckwith, 1987: 210 derives Nushibi from Nu (?) Sadpit, the latter a Türk title (sadapit, see Clauson, 1972: 867) of uncertain function.

129 Ligeti, 1986: 329-330, suggested that they could come from an unknown language, or perhaps even had connections with Rouran or Iranian.

130 Németh, 1991: 93-94, 153.

131 Luvsandendeba, Cerendamba, 2002, IV: 361. But, this may be an old loanword from Turkic (sipir- "to sweep", Class. Mong. Sigur > si'ür, see Rôna-Tas, Berta, 2011, II: 707-709, Hung. seper "to sweep, to broom"); Scerbak, 1997: 144-145.

132 The words are collected in Németh, 1991: 152-156; Golden, 1980, I: 257-259.

133 Karatay, 2010: 104-106; Zakiev, 2003: 6-93, posits an Ancient Turkic "habitat" in the Near East and migrations thence to Central Asia. This is highly conjectural.

134 Salmin, 2011: 22, makes this connection.

of "European Sarmatia" which extended up to the Rhiphaean Mountains (Ural Mountains?), remains uncertain - and probably unlikely.

Aswas noted above, the collapse of the Xianbei polity, like that of its Xiongnu predecessor, led to displacements and some groupings probably went westward. The early stages of Rouran / Asian Avar expansion, ca. 350, which drove one of the Tiele / Oguric groupings to Kangju, pushed elements of the Xianbei / Sarbiinto the former Xiongnu holdings between the western Tianshan mountain chain / Jungaria and the Ili River zones. The second round of Rouran / Avar warfare in the first half of the fifth century, pushed them westward to the Tobol-Isim River zones in western Siberia and northern Kazakhstan, touching off the migrations described by Priscus ca. 463135. Toponymic and folkloric traces (among the Ob Ugrians and Siberian Tatars) would appear to attest to the presence of a people bearing names resembling Sapir. The suggestion has often been made that Siberia / Sibir' takes its name from this people136. Sibir / Sibir, however, is only first noted in this form in the Cinggisid era137.

From western Siberia and Kazakhstan, elements of the Sabirs moved westward, appearing in the lower Volga-Caspian-Pontic steppes in the early 6th century. Here, ca. 506-515, the Sabirs constituted a formidable military presence, possessing a large army, sophisticated military (siege) equipment, but lacking central authority. In 515, they are noted in Byzantine accounts as fierce raiders of Armenia and Anatolia, who returned to the steppes laden with booty138. In 520, Byzantine accounts mention ZiXyipi;139, the "king of the Huns" (it is unclear if he was a Sabir), to whom both Justin I (518-527) of Byzantium and the Sasanid Shah Kavad I (488-497, 499-531)140 sent gifts, seeking an alliance. The Persian offer proved more tempting to the "Hun" ruler, who broke his earlier pact with Constantinople and joined the Persians with some 20,000 troops. Infuriated by this turn of events, Justin Iconvinced Kavad that ZiXyipi^was untrustworthy. Kavad had him executed, killed many of his troops and then moved against the "Huns". Their survivors fled141. Where these confrontations took place is not mentioned by Malalas who has the fullest account of events. Somewhere in the Caucasus seems most probable, as it is hard to imagine Kavad (whose domestic program had gained him numerous enemies at home) risking all in the steppe.

Mid-6th century authors place the Sabirs in the northeastern North Caucasian - Pontic steppe

135 Moravcsik, 1958, I: 68; Czegledy, 1983: 36-37, 100-101, 103; Kafesoglu, 2011: 151-152; Ta§agil, 2004: 15-16; Hamilton, 1962: 34, places them around the Irtysh or more generally in western Siberia. Harmatta, 1992: 257, 267, n.7, puts them in the region of the Cu or Ili Rivers or "further north between the Irtysh River and Lake Balkhash", but noted earlier theories placing them in the Turfan region, cf. Henning, 1952: 502, n.5, who equated them with the *s[']pyry = Sabir-e in the Sogdian Nafnamaknear Turfan. Sinor, 1946: 15 ff. and Ligeti, 1986: 344-345, among others, disagree. Karatay, 2010: 101 puts them in Eastern Kazakhstan.

136 Patkanoff, 1900: 258-277; Nemeth, 1991: 149-150; Harmatta, 1992: 257-258, 266.

137 Secret History, 2004, I: 164 (#239) "Joci conquered the 'People of the Forest, from the Sibir, Kesdim, Bayit, Tuqas, Tenlek, To'eles, Tas and Bajit...". One of Batu's grandsons bore the name ••-• [Sabir] = Sibir (?), see Rasid al-Din, 1994, I: 723.

138 Malalas, 1831: 406; Procopius, 1978, V: 156-161; Theophanes, 1980, I: 161; Czegledy, 1983: 37; Hamilton, 1962: 35; Golden, 1992: 105.

139 For other forms of the name, see Golden, 1980, I: 260.

140 Kavad was experienced in dealing with the nomads. He had spent time at the Hephthalite court (as a hostage) and used Hephthalite forces to gain and regain his throne, Frye, 1984: 322-323.

141 Malalas, 1831: 414-415; Theophanes, 1980, I: 167

zone142. A Syriac compilation known under the name of "Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor"143, composed ca. 568/9, which contains a listing of "Hunnic" peoples beyond the "Caspian Gates", i.e. the Caspian-Pontic steppes, probably dated to ca. 555 or slightly later (the presence of the Avars would point to a slightly later date). The enumerated ethnonyms are clearly drawn from multiple sources, stemming from different times. These included the Bulgars (Burgäre), the Alans, the Onogurs (Üngur), Ogurs (Ügär), Sabirs (Saber), Quturogurs (Kurtargar), Avars (Äbär), Käser [KSR] (Qasars? ÄKaxipoi / ÄKaiZipoi?144), Sara / Sari Ogurs (Sarurgur), the Hepthalites (cited in two forms, Abdel and Eftalit145) and others. Curiously missing are the Oturogur (Oüxoupyoupoi, Oüxiyoupoi146), who were closely associated with the Quturogurs (see below). The 7th century Armenian Geography (Asxarhac'oyc')141, already dealing with the Türk era, places them to the east of the "North Caucasian Huns", extending to the Volga. The Türks (or Khazars by this time) were to their east148.

The Sabirscontinued to be muchcourted, but fickle allies of the Säsänids and Byzantines, their numerous rulers easily bought149. Justinian I (r. 527-565) in 528, through gifts and bribes, brought Bwap^, the formidable widow and ruler of a recently deceased Säßir leader ßaXax, into closer cooperation with Constantinople. She captured and dispatched one troublesome "Hunnic" ruler to Justinian I and killed another who was allied with Iran. She was said to command some 100,000 people150. In 530, however, the Sabirs again passed through the "Caspian Gates" and raided Anatolia151.

The precise identity of these "Huns" in the Azov-zone - southern Pontic steppes and around Crimea is not specified. In the same year in which Justinian I was dealing with Bwap^, Malalas and Theophanes mention a "king of the Huns" (p^ xwv Oüvvwv), Tpra5 / rop5a^, near the Crimean Bosporos, who came to Constantinople, was baptized (part of a project to bring these nomads under Byzantine control), but was subsequently killed by his pagan fellow tribesmen and replaced by his brother MouyeX / Mouayepi^. Justinian retaliated, sending a force against the "Huns", driving them

142 Daniel of Salah (541/542), see Dickens, 2008: 29; Jordanes, 1960: 72 (Russ. trans.), 136 (Latin); Procopius, 1978, V: 74-75.

143 Dickens, 2008: 19-30; Marquart, 1961: 355-356; Pigulevskaja, 2000: 283, 286; Kmosko, 2004: 48, 99; Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor, 2011: 65 (on dating of the work), 447-450.

144 On the highly problematic association of KSR, Akat[z]ir with a conjectured *Aq Xazar and the latter with an alleged Aq-Aqataran, see Henning, 1952: 505-509; Hamilton, 1962: 34 and the well-placed critical comments of Maenchen-Helfen, 1973: 434-437.

145 Theophylactus Simocattes, 1972: 257, remarks that the ApSsXai are also called 'E^BaHxai, indicating that both forms of the ethnonym were known in Constantinople. Tremblay, 2001: 183-188, surveys the Hepthalite linguistic remnants and concludes that they were East Iranians - a far from certain conclusion.

146 See Moravcsik, 1958, II: 238-239 for the variants of this name.

147 The much-discussed Asxarhac'oyc' was probably composed between 591-636 and has come down to us in the redaction of Ananias Sirakec'i (c.610-685). It largely depicted Transcaucasia and the Sasanid Empire prior to 636, but additional materials covering the 640s. Later interpolations (some from the late 8th century) were made, see Sirakec'i, 1992: 15-35.

148 Sirakec'i, 1992: 57, 57A, 124, nn. 111, 112, 113.

149 Procopius, 1978, V: 154-161 (who comments that they were "a very numerous people and properly divided among many different rulers"); Agathias, 1967: 139; Golden, 1980, I: 34-35, 256-258.

150 Malalas, 1831: 430-431; Procopius, 1978, V: 156-161; Agathias, 1967: 106, 139; John of Nikiu, 1982: 140-141.

151 Malalas, 1831: 472-473. A Byzantine force was able to retake some of the plunder from them as they returned.

away from Bosporos152. Although the sources mention "kings", these were, in all likelihood, the leaders of tribal unions. There is no evidence of higher forms of governance. Whether these "Huns" were Sabirs or other nomads, perhaps even groups that had been part of the Hunnic union led by Attila, is unclear. Sabir forces, sometimes clearly noted as mercenaries - and including infantry - are found in both Byzantine and Persian forces in the ongoing struggle between Iran and Byzantium in the mid-6th century153.

The fugitive Rouran / Avars, defeated and overthrown as the hegemons in Mongolia by the Türks in 552 and their remnants trounced again by the Türks in 555, very likely with new elements added to those that had made their way westward, soon entered the Pontic steppe zone. Here, they "crushed" the Onogurs, Sabirs and others and established contact with Constantinople by 558154. The arrival of the Avars and then the Türks in the late 550s-560s marked the end of the Sabirs as a regional power. They were last noted in 576-578 when, together with the Alans and "others", they submitted to the armies of Tiberius (578-582) during a Byzantine campaign in Caucasian Albania. Tiberius offered to pay them more than the Persians were giving them for their services, an offer they readily accepted and then just as quickly turned on Constantinople "and joined the Persians". Menander, our source, mentions a further attempt by the Byzantines to buy their "loyalty" coupled with a threat to "subdue them by force of arms". Later, a force of 8000 "Saracens and Sabirs" are noted in Persian service155. These may have been Sabir fragments as it is likely that the majority of them and had already been subsumed by the Türks. When the power of the latter diminished in the western steppes, the Sabirs, along with the Bulgar tribescame under the rule of the Khazars (the heirs of the Western Türks in the region). I have spent some time with the Sabirs because their history, such as it can be reconstructed, is less well-known. Although their military skills were formidable -and in demand - they never formed a state. Their polity was, in essence, an advanced confederation of chieftainships. They appear to have been content to raid Transcaucasia and Anatolia, when the opportunity arose and to participate in the Perso-Byzantine wars, siding with the highest bidder of the moment. Aside from mention made of their ingenuity in creating military devices (siege equipment), we know little else about them. They did not pose the kind of threat to Constantinople that the Quturogurs did in the 550s.

The Türk conquest of the western steppes, brought the Sabirs and others into an empire. It is only later, after the shaping of the Volga Bulgar state, a process that appears to have begun with the movement of tribes to the Middle Volga in the course of the 8th century Arabo-Khazar wars, which subsequently were joined by others displaced by the migrations of the Pecenegs into the Pontic steppe zone in the 9th century. The process of state formation was completed in course of the 9th - early 10th century156. At an unknown period, perhaps early on, Sabirs appear to have joined the Volga Bulgar union. Within it the Sabirs retained a distinct status and were led by a vuyrig (Common

152 Malalas, 1831: 431-433; Theophanes, 1980: 175-176; John of Nikiu, 1982: 141 renders TproS / ropSa^ as Jaroks; Chronicle of Zuqnin, 1999: 75, calls him "Gordius, king of the Huns" who came s.a. 533-534, to Constantinople "with a large army" seeking conversion. See also Ivanov, 2003: 87-88.

153 Agathias, 1967: 106-108, 139-140

154 Menander, 1985: 50-51; Hamilton, 1962: 35. On the origins of the European Avars, see 71 above and Pohl, 1988: 18 ff.; Golden, 1992: 108-111; Rona Tas, 1999: 213-214, and Beckwith, 2009: 390-391, n.18, who argue that the European Avars, notwithstanding other elements brought into their union as they moved across Central Eurasia, had a ruling elite that derived from the Rouran / Asian Avar Qagans.

155 Menander, 1985: 162-167, 196-199.

156 Zimonyi, 1990: 82-83, 156-157, 175, 179-183.

Turk. buyruq, the title of an officer)157. Artamonov, followed by Novosel'cev, believed that they, as well as the Sara Ogurs and Onogurs and other Oguric peoples were Turkicized Ugrians. There is no evidence for such a conclusion158.

The Bulgars159 make their first reliably attested appearance in the 480s in service to the Byzantine Emperor Zeno (474-491) against the Ostrogoths. Bulgar raids and involvement in internal Byzantine disturbances (the revolt of Vitalian, 513-515) quickly demonstrated that they could be a threat160. Bulgar pasturages, perhaps initially centered in the northwestern Caucasian steppes, extended westwards to the Bug and Danube. Their name is sometimes paired with that of the Onogurs / Onogundurs161, particularly by Byzantine historians of the 8th-10th centuries, reflecting various possible political unions162. The relationship of the Quturogurs and Uturogurs to the Bulgars remains uncertain. Some Bulgarian scholars regard them as the western and eastern groupings respectively of the "Hunnic" Bulgars, which had divided into two by in the first half of the 6th century. Others reject any political or other connections (aside from common Oguric origins)163. By the mid-6th century, the Quturogurs, who ranged across the Azov-Pontic steppe zone and were recipients of Byzantine "gifts", had been drawn into an alliance with the Gepids, ostensibly against the Lombards. However, they were soon raiding Byzantine Balkan holdings and warred with the Slavic Antes / 'Avion. Justinian I incited their kinsmen, the Uturogurs (who lived to their east), to undertake a devastating attack upon them. When the revived Quturogurs, under their chieftain, ZaPepyav, again threatened the Empire, in 558/559, Justinian once more brought in the Uturogurs, which culminated in a massive mutual slaughter. Like China, Constantinople was fighting "barbarians with barbarians". Quturogur-Uturogur conflicts continued until they fell to the Avars (550s)164. Avar domination of the Pontic steppes was short-lived. By 568 (and perhaps slightly earlier), the Turkswere in contact with Constantinople, which was anxious to have them as allies against Iran. Turko-Iranian relationshad turned hostile. The Avars, accompanied by some Quturogur and perhaps other elements that would be deemed "Bulgar" subsequently, had retreated to Pannonia, the old Hunnic center, from which the Avar Qagans raided (often with the Slavs as allies or subjects) the Byzantine Balkans165. How far to the east, i.e. into some areas of the Pontic steppe, the Avars

157 Clauson, 1972: 387, a person "commanded by the xagan to perform specific duties, civil or military"; User, 2010: 257-258 ("officer, high-ranking officer"); Ibn Fadlan, 1939: 33 (Arabic), 74-75 (Germ.); Ligeti, 1986: 375.

158 Artamonov, 2002: 92-99; Novosel'cev, 1990: 72.

159 Turk. bulga-"to stir, disturb, ... produce a state ofdisorder" (Clauson, 1972: 337, Nemeth, 1991: 130).

160 Zlatarski, 1994-2002, I: 42-47, considers them to have already been active players in events by the mid-5 century in the Pontic-Danubian steppes. See also Ziemann, 2007: 44-45, 83-85.

161 Moravcsik, 1930: 53-90; Rona-Tas, 2000: 1-22.

162 Golden, 1992: 102-103. Ziemann, 2007: 73-77, suggests that by the 8th century, Bulgar was a kind of collective name encompassing groups that had earlier appeared under the name of Onogur. Constantine Porphyrogenitus, 1952: 85, says that the Bulgars formerly called themselves 'OvoyouvSotipoi. Semenov, 2010: 179-186, places them in the western zone (left bank of the Middle Dnepr) of the Bulgar state of Qubrat, with Quturogur (Koxpayoi) groupings to their west and argues that their union formed under "under the control of the Avars".

163 Cf. Dimitrov, 2011: 16-17; Besevliev, 2008: 43.

164 Procopius, 1978: 86-95, 235-251; Agathias, 1967: 176-179, 180, 194-197; Menander, 1985: 42-45, 138139; Malalas, 1831: 490 (who notes that Slavs had joined Zabergan's expedition). See discussion in Gindin, Litavrin (eds.), 1991, I: 268-272; Pohl, 1988: 21, 39.

165 On Byzantine-European Avars relations, see Pohl, 1988: 58 ff. 128 ff., 205 ff. 352

were able to maintain some control (and during which periods) is unclear. The Türks clearly had control of the Oturogurs in the late 570s166.

The more formal division of the Türk Qaganate into eastern and western halves (implicit in the structure of the state since its founding) is dated to the reign of Istämi's son, Tardu (r. ca. 576603, see Appendix A)167. The Western Türk Qagan, despite the Persian defeat of his armies (led by his son) at Herat, in 588/589, sought to gain control over the whole of the Türk Empire. These plans were brought to naught by an uprising of the revolt-prone Tiele (probably manipulated by the Sui), which forced Tardu to flee to the Tuyuhun, never again to play a role in pan-Türk politics. Tiele disturbances, among others, continued168.

Although Tardu's younger brother, Tog Yabgu (r. 618/619?-630), Byzantium's ally in its successful wars against the Persians in Transcaucasia (627-628), subdued the Tiele (temporarily) and strengthered Western Türk rule in Transoxiana, he was killed by a kinsmen and the internal divisions of Western Türks grew, leading to their division into two rival factions each composed of five tribal unions, the On Oq (consolidated ca. 635-650)169. In the meantime, the Eastern Türksbeset by internal divisions, fell to the Tang in 630. The Western Türks, facing similar domestic problems, were overcome by the Tang in 657/659170.

The Tiele revolts adding to the turmoil within the Türk realm undoubtedly played a role in the emergence of the Bulgar state in the Pontic zone, and of the Khazar state (ruled by an Asina branch) during that same period (ca. 630s - ca. 650). The weakening of Avar authority following the collapse of the Perso-Avar attack on Constantinople (626) was probably a contributing factor. Byzantine diplomacy was already at work. Qubrat of the Dulo clan171, the founder of the Bulgar state, appears to have been baptized in Constantinople, ca. 619, a preparatory move by Heraclius, probably aimed at the Avars. Qubrat threw off Avar overlordship in 635. His state was short-lived, in some respects a personal creation, coterminous with his life (he probably died ca. 665 - if not earlier). His burial site is believed to be Mala Perescepyna (Poltava Oblast', Ukraine). His sons, unmindful of their father's admonition to maintain unity, were soon defeated by the Khazars, now the masters of the North Caucasian - Volga - eastern Pontic steppes. One son, Asparux, fled the Khazars, crossing into the Balkans in 679 and founding there the Balkan Bulgarian state. Other Bulgar groupings, moving to the Middle Volga zone, created in the course of the 8th to early 10th century the Volga Bulgar state. Yet others, took refuge in Italy, Pannonia or remained in the Pontic steppes as Khazar subjects172.

The rise and fall of Qubrat's "Magna Bulgaria" / nalaia or ^eyo&n BouXyapia is an example

166 Menander, 1985: 171-179, 277-278, n. 235.

167 Some scholars maintain that the break occurred in 581, cf. Wang, 1982: 124-154; Stark, 2008: 17; others place it ca. 603, cf. Kljastornyj, Savinov, 2005: 97. Tardu was senior to his brother Toup^avBo^ (Menander, 1985: 178).

168 Chavannes, 1941: 2-3, 47-48, 51, 89, 242-243; Liu, 1958: 49-61, 107-108; Ta§agil, 1995-2004, I: 164, 166; Wright, 1978: 188; Pan, 1997: 107. The Tuyuhun (284-685) were also Xianbei-derived (Pulleyblank, 2000: 83), ruling in Qinghai and even extending their power to southern Xinjiang. Their state comprised Xianbei and Tibeto-Burmese elements.

169 Kljastornyj, Savinov, 2005: 97-98; Dobrovits, 2004a: 101-109; Golden, 2012: 166-170.

170 Chavannes, 1941: 36-38, 267-268; Pan, 1997: 176-196.

171 On the various attempts to etymologize this name, see Simeonov, 2008: 108-113; none of which can deemed successful.

172 Artamonov, 2002: 176-187; Golden, 1992: 244-247, 253; Romashov, 1992-1994: 207-252; Rona-Tas, 2000: 1-22; Ziemann, 2007: 142-160; Besevliev, 2008: 45-74.

of a nomadic tribal union that briefly became a state and then reverted to tribal unions - except for Asparux's grouping that took over an already existing Byzantine state structure in the Balkans and now ruled over a sedentary (Slavic) population (themselves recent arrivals). Balkan Bulgaria, in direct contact and conflict with Byzantium, became a state.

Disturbances in the eastern Eurasian nomadic center produced in the course of interaction with China touched off migrations, often in stages, westward. The early nomads (e.g. the "Huns" / Chionitae, the Hephthalites) that came to the borders of the Säsänid Empire raided and traded their military services with occasionally disastrous results for those Shähs who attempted to invade their lands173. Those that came to the Volga - North Caucasian - Pontic steppes raided Byzantium and the Near East through the Caucasus or by crossing the Danube. Iran and Byzantium often shared expenses for the upkeep of the forts guarding the Caucasian passes, until the late 6th century by which time Iran was the dominant military power in the region174. The Danubian frontier was equally hazardous. The Byzantines regularly tried to buy off the nomads with "gifts" and occasional (and sometimes uncertain) military employment. The Byzantines rarely crossed the Danube175. The absence of direct threats allowed the nomads to remain stateless. The consolidation of Khazar power, an offshoot and ultimately a successor state of the Western Türk Qaganate brought many of the nomads of the western Eurasian steppes into a state.

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Appendix A

Reconstructions of Inner Asian Names / Titles recorded in Chinese sources

For dating, see Schuessler, 2009: ix-xi, xv, 1-5. OC Old Chinese (ca. 1000-200 BCE) LH Late Han (1st-2nd centuries CE) MC Middle Chinese ca. 600 CE (Schuessler, 2009: xv, 5)

EMC Early Middle Chinese (ca, 589-601), LMC Late Middle Chinese (Tang era, 618-907, Pulleyblank, 1991: 1-4).

Asina: Ashina Hi®: EMC *?a §i' na', LMC îagr'na' (Pulleyblank, 1991: 23, 283, 221); Khotanese Saka (Bailey, 1979: 26-27): ässeina "blue" = Turk. kök.

Chanyu —T: OC dan wa, LH dzanwa (Schuessler, 2009: 255 [24-21az], 50 [1-23a]) previously usually rendered as Shanyu. For attempts to read into these reconstructions various Inner Asian titles (jabgu /yabgu, tarxan), see Taskin, 1984: 305-306 and Taskin, 1986: 213-218; Pulleyblank, 2000: 64. Beckwith, 2009: 387, n.7 suggests that the OC reconstruction rendered *dargwa / *darga and then *danga to be compared with the later Cinggisid-era Mongol title darugaci in Yuan China (daruga elsewhere), but see Endicott-West, 1989: 2-3, 16-18, who views the latter as "purely Mongolian in origin", derives it from Mong. daru- "to press, press down..." (Lessing, 1995: 233), and correctly compares it with Turkic basqaq (bas- "to press, crush, oppress", Clauson, 1972: 370-371) in Cinggisid-ruled Rus'.

Dingling TS: OC têy rêy, LH tey ley *têy-rêy, MC tiey liey (Schuessler, 2009: 137, 140 [9-11a, 9-18i]), cf. Dybo, 2007: 113, OC *tieyliy. See Tiele et al.

Gekun ШШ (the early Qirgiz): OC krêk kûn, LH kdk kudn (Schuessler 2009: 130 [8-2f], 333 [34-1a]; Dybo, 2007: 103 suggested OC / Presumed Western Han krëk-kwën = *kirkir / *kirkir) possibly reflecting an Oguric / West Old Turkic *Qirgir.

Modun H^M: OC msk tuns, LH msk-tusn (= *bagtur?) perhaps representing the well known Inner Asian title bagatur "picked warrior, hero" (Schuessler, 2009: 113 [5-37a], 336 [34-17j]; Clauson, 1972: 313 and Clauson, 2002: 19; Beckwith, 2009: 5, 387, n.8). Dybo, 2007: 111 reconstructed the name as *muh-twsnh, which does not represent *bagtur / bagatur.

Qifu LH №stbuk(Schuessler, 2009: 305 [30-1f], 113 [5-36a]).

Rouran ^M: LH nu nan, MC nzjsu nzjan (Schuessler, 2009: 180 [13-48a], 258 [24-36ab]) or EMC:puwpian, LMC: riw rian (Pulleyblank, 1991: 267, 264; Golden, 2013a: 43-66).

Shelun |±m: MC zjaB lwsn (Schuessler, 2009: 53 [1-36j], 339 [34-24hij]), EMC dzia' lwsn, LMC ghia* lun (Pulleyblank, 1991: 278, 202).

Shiwei: see under Xianbei

Tanshihuai LH dan dzek yusi / yuei (Schuessler, 2009: 256 [24-23e], 69 [2-17a], 291 [28-1i]).

Tardu (Chin. Datou) 3 M: EMC dat dew, LMC thap / that thaw (Pulleyblank, 1991: 69, 311, 299). Grk. TapSou (Menander, 1985: 178), Sogd. TrSw (Lurje, 2010: 389, #1239).

Tiele: Dili ft®: LH dek lek, MC diek like (Schuessler, 2009: 131 [8-10a, 8-13c]), Tele #M: OC dsk rsk, LH, MC dsklsk(Schuessler, 2009: 98 [4-26h'], 110 [5-21f]), Chile KM: LH fiklsk,MC fjsklsk(Schuessler, 2009: 109 [5-15ka], 110 [5-21f]) and subsequently Tiele ®M: LH thet lsk, MC thiet lsk, EMC *thet-lsk (Schuessler, 2009: 227 [20-09b], 110 [5-21f ]; Pulleyblank, 1991: 308, 184). Pulleyblank's *tagrag follows Boodberg, 1979: 354, 356, who invoked Mongol telegen, terge, tergen "cart". However, Mong. terge(n)< Altaic *t'idrko: Proto-Tung. *turki "sleigh" and Proto-Mong. *terge "vehicle", is not attested as such in Turkic, see Starostin, Dybo, Mudrak, 2003, II: 1433-1434. Old Turkic has tagrak "the rim of anything, ring, circle" (Clauson, 1972: 485), cf. Middle Qipcaq (Toparli, Vural, Karaatli, 2003: 275, 282) has: tigrek "toka" ["buckle"] and togerik "degirmi, teker" ["round, circular", "wheel"], cf. Turkish teker "wheel", tekerlek "wheel of a vehicle" (Redhouse, 1974: 581). See discussion of Hung. teker "to wind something round, to twist" < West Old Turkic *takir-, East Old Turkic *tagir- in Rona-Tas, Berta, 2011, II: 877-882. Clauson, 2002: 20-21, has no doubts that they were Turkic-speakers, but sounds a note of caution in that Tiele / *Tiglig / *Tigrig, as he renders it, is only noted in the Chinese sources.

Tumidu : LMC thus mjiaj tfius (Pulleyblank, 1991: 312, 213, 83).

Tuoba ft®: MC *thak bat (Schuessler, 2009: 69 [2-17m], 237 [21-31h]) = Taybac > Tabyac meaning "Rulers of the Earth", Beckwith, 2005: 9-12.

Wuhuan HII: LH ?a yuan, MC ?uo ywan = ?a-yuan (Schuessler, 2009: 31 [1-28a], 267 [25-12f]; Pulleyblank, 1983: 453: EMC *?o ywan < *?dywdn; Pulleyblank, 2000: 71: ?d-wdn) = *Awar.

Wusun OC ?a sun, LH ?a susn (Schuessler, 2009: 51 [1-28a], 339 [34-28e]), perhaps Indo-Iranian *Aswin = Asvin "the Cavaliers" (Beckwith, 2009: 6, 33, n.20, 41, n.50, 376). The Wusun, like their Yuezhi neighbors (and often foes) appear to have contained Tokharian and Iranian elements (Ivanov, 1992: 17). Originally located in the Gansu region between Dunhuang and the Qilian mountain range, the Wusun progressively moved westward to the Ili Valley causing displacements in the 170s-160s BCE (Borovkova, 2001: 107-113, 245-252; Ogel, 1981, I: 490). Alemany, 2000: 397-399, discusses the attempts to connect the Wusun with the Alano-As. Kangju was to their northwest (Czegledy, 1983: 45 ff.) and Dayuan (Ferghana), to their west (Wakeman, 1990: 513-530, 539 ff. (on the Wusun and Dayuan)).

Xianbei ffiQ: LH *sian pie, MC sjanpjie (Schuessler, 2009: 248 [23-21a], 127 [7-29a]), EMC sian pjis / pji (Pulleyblank, 1991: 334, 31). Pelliot, 1920-21: 326, 331, identified them with the later Shiwei MC sjetjwei (Schuessler, 2009: 299 [29-15j], 192 [28-5a]), as does Pulleyblank, 1983: 452-453, Pulleyblank, 2000: 71: *Sarbi, *Sarvi, *Sirvi. On Xianbei and variants, see Hoong Teik Toh, 2005: 10-12: Xibei *se / *sai pi

(Schuessler, 2009: 283 [26-31a ], 248 [23-21a] LH sei pie, MC siei pjie ) and Shibi *se / sai pi (LH, MC *sipi, Schuessler, 2009: 283 [26-36a], 284 [26-38g]), perhaps rendering *särpi. The Shiwei appear in the Türk inscriptions as the Toquz Tatar and Otuz Tatar. For an overview of the Xianbei, see Kycanov, 2010: 68-73. Säßir may be a metathecized form of this name.

Xiongnu mX: OC hoy na, LH huoy na (Schuessler, 2009: 164 [12-5def], 57 [1-561]) = hona or huna, EMC *xuawy no (Pulleyblank, 1991: 246, 227). Dybo, 2007: 103: OC yöynhä, hoynho = hunga (?). In any event, it is not Turkic. For the most recent discussion of the many forms of this ethnonym, see Atwood, 2012: 27-52, who posits an OC *Xoya / *Xoyai which entered Sanskrit (Huna) and thence to Bactrian, Sogdian et al.

Xueyantuo : LMC siat jian tßa (Pulleyblank, 1991: 351, 356, 314). Not to be identified with the

mythical *Sir-Tardus. Siat most probably represents Sir in the Türk runiform inscriptions. Kljastornyj, 1986: 156-160, gives brief summary of the Xueyantuo history and the literature pertaining to them, concluding that the Sir later became know as the Qibcaq (on the problems with this identification, see Golden, 2014: 194-196). Kljastornyj also tentatively proffers an identification of the Yantuo with the Yamtar of the Orxon inscriptions. However, the latter is noted only as a personal name, Isbara Yamtar (Kül Tegin, E 33: User, 2010: 143, 449). The Tardus are identified as a subgrouping of the Tölis, living west of the Altay (User, 2010: 165-166) and their identity remains problematic.

Yabgu <xi hou Ä ft: OC hspgo, LH hipgo, MC xjspysu (Schuessler, 2009: 355 [37-1q], 146-147) a title noted among the Yuezhi in the 2nd century BCE. It later appears in the Graeco-Bactrian script as laßyo (SimsWilliams, 2003: 233, 235, who views it as of Chinese origin). Bailey, 1985: 32, considered it an Old Iranian term (*yavuga < *yavuka) for "troop leader", Hill, 2009: 587-590.

Zhizhi EMC teit teia / tei (Pulleyblank, 1991: 410, 404).

Appendix B

The r ~ z Question in Turkic

Much of the argumentation on dating the r ~ z alternation or r > z shift in Old Turkic rests on the term for "stirrup", Common Turk. Izäyi / üzäyi (izäyülük "arch of the foot", Erdal, 1991, I: 128) ~ Oguric / West Old Turkic iräyi (cf. Cuv. yärana), but the dating of the invention of the stirrup remains problematic. Nikonorov, 2010: 272, places its invention in the Far East, not earlier than the first half of the 1st millennium CE. Drews, 2004: 167, n.101, notes primitive stirrup-like contraptions ("big toe loops") in 1st century India, but locates the earliest metal stirrups in northern China in the 4th century. Schönig, 2003: 408, dates it to ca. 400-300 BCE. Rona-Tas, 1999: 101-104; Rona-Tas, 2011: 226-227; Rona-Tas, Berta, 2011, II: 1112-1114: place it to the last centuries (or century) BCE to the first century CE. While this issue remains open, it is probable that leather stirrups (and the word for them), or something similar, were in existence well before the mid-5th century CE. Since the linguistic ancestors of the Cuvas were part of the peoples that arrived in the Caspian-Pontic steppes ca. 463, *iräyi must have already been present. Mong. dörüge (> Tung. duriki, duriyki) may be related to it (Sevortjan, 1974: 623-625; Cincius, 1975, I: 226), cf. Mong. dörü "iron or rope nose-ring (for cattle); lead rope" etc. (Lessing, 1995: 269).

П. Голден

Не имеющие государственности номады раннесредневековой Центральной Евразии

Резюме

В статье дан краткий обзор формирования и миграций ранних тюркских народов около 250-650 гг. н.э. и вопросов translatio imperii и restauratio imperii, а также анализируются вопросы их взаимоотношений с Ираном и Позднеримской и Византийской империями. Рассматривается специфика развития не имевших государственности кочевых народов западных степей Евразии. Китай являлся катализатором государственности у номадов Внутренней Азии. Сасанидская, Позднеримская и Византийская империи никогда не представляли собой достаточной угрозы соседним тюркским племенам и племенным союзам в западно-евразийских степях, поэтому последние не видели необходимости в создании государства. В общем, институт государственности в западно-евразийские степи был привнесен извне (например, Хазарский каганат).

Ключевые слова: тюрки, раннее средневековье, Центральная Евразия.

P. B. Golden

The Stateless Nomads of Early Medieval Central Eurasia Summary

The article suggests a brief review of the shaping and the migrations of early Turkic peoples ca. 250650 AD and the problems of translatio imperii and restauratio imperii, and also analyses the aspects of their relations with Iran and Later Roman and Byzantine Empires. The specificity of stateless nomadic peoples in western Eurasian steppes has been discussed. China was the accelerator of the statehood of Inner Asian nomads, though the Sassanide, Later Roman, and Byzantine Empires never were ample threat to Turkic tribes and tribal unions in western Eurasian steppes, which why the latter did not need their own polity. Generally, the institution of statehood was brought to western Eurasian steppes from outside (e. g. Khazar kaganate).

Keyword: Turks, Early Middle Ages, Central Europe.