Oghuz, Pechenegs, and Cumans: Nomads of Medieval Eastern Europe?

chapter 10 Oghuz, Pechenegs, and Cumans: Nomads of Medieval Eastern Europe?

Before reaching the realm of Almysh, ibn Fadlan stayed for a while with “a Turkish tribe, which are called Oghuz.” They lived somewhere beyond the Ustiurt plateau between the western shore of the Sea of Aral and the north- eastern shore of the Caspian Sea, south of the river Emba, in what is today southwestern Kazakhstan.1 The first thing that ibn Fadlan has to say about the Oghuz is that they were nomads, who had “houses of felt.” However, he also mentions an Oghuz chieftain declaring that because his houses were “off the road,” he could not bring to the Abbasid envoys sheep and unground grain.2 This suggests both a more settled lifestyle and the cultivation of crops as a subsistence strategy. Several Arab and Persian sources note the existence of sedentarized Oghuz, as well as of Oghuz towns and tradings posts in border areas.3 All sources insist upon the large herds of animals on which the subsistence economy of the Oghuz was based. The numbers advanced by ibn Fadlan are indeed very high: “for I saw people among the Oghuz who possessed 10,000 horses and 100,000 sheep.”4 That the Oghuz economy was pastoralist is beyond any doubt. But were the Oghuz nomads? To be sure, nothing in ibn Fadlan’s account suggests that they had come from somewhere else or that they were not the native inhabitants of the lands in which they lived. Historians, however, believe that the Oghuz moved at some point into the lands between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya (ancient Transoxiana) from western Mongolia, as refugees from Qarluq attacks.5

1 Ibn Fadlan, Journey, pp. 33 and 42. Emba, which ibn Fadlan calls “Jam” but is known as Zhem in (modern) Kazakh, is specifically mentioned as one of the rivers that separated the Oghuz from the Pechenegs. 2 Ibn Fadlan, Journey, p. 37. Similarly, an army commander named Etrek is said to have “a large establishment, servants and large dwellings” (Journey, p. 39). 3 Golden, Introduction, pp. 207–10. For Yangikent, the Oghuz town on the eastern shore of the Aral Sea, see Spinei, The Great Migrations, p. 167. 4 Ibn Fadlan, Journey, p. 42; Spinei, The Great Migrations, p. 168. 5 Spinei, The Great Migrations, pp. 178–79. As Golden, “The migrations,” pp. 48–50 and 54, has demonstrated, the idea of a migration from Mongolia is largely based on the mention of the word “Oghuz” (in various word combinations) in inscriptions of the Göktürk found in Bain Tsokto, in the Tuul valley, and dated to the 8th century.

However, the evidence for a migration is very late and problematic.6 Much more certain, however, is the control that by 900 a major Oghuz confederacy exercised over the lands on both sides of the Aral Sea. According to Fadlan, “the ruler of the Oghuz is called yabghu” and he has subordinates called “Kudarkin and so each subordinate to a chieftain is called Kudarkin.” Historians therefore call the confederacy the “Oghuz Yabghu state.”7 Writing in the mid-10th century, Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus knew that the Oghuz had “made common cause with the Chazars and joined battle with the Pechenegs and pre- vailed over them and expelled them from their country,” and had settled there in their stead.8 The forced migration of the Pechenegs westwards is believed to have brought about the migration of the Magyars (see below and Chapter 13), although the events linked to that are dated before 900. Ibn Fadlan mentions Oghuz captives in Khazaria, who most likely resulted either from Khazar raids into the Oghuz territories, or from Khazar defeats of Oghuz marauding parties entering Khazaria.9 Furthermore, ibn Fadlan knew of Pechenegs between the Oghuz and the Bulgars, i.e., between the rivers Emba and Ural, in the steppe lands north of the Caspian Sea and the Mugodzhar Hills.10 This seems to be confirmed by what Emperor Constantine wrote about some Pechenegs, who “of their own will and personal decision stayed behind there and united with the so-called Uzes, and even to this day they live among them.”11 During the

6 Golden, “The migrations,” p. 51; Golden, Introduction, p. 206. By contrast, Fedorov-Davydov, Kochevniki, p. 139 believed that the Oghuz had come shortly before 900 from Khazaria. 7 Golden, “The migrations,” pp. 72–81; Kruglov, “Gosudarstvo guzov.” On the basis of various sources, Golden, Introduction, p. 208, distinguished between two branches of the confederacy—the Bozoq (the senior right wing) and the Üčoq (the junior left wing). 8 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, On the Administration of the Empire 37, p. 167. Nikolov, “‘Ethnos skythikos’,” p. 238, believes that the Oghuz pushed the Pechenegs “out of the Syr Darya and Volga-Ural areas.” But to Emperor Constantine, the homeland of the Pechenegs was “on the river Atil [Volga] and likewise on the river Geich [Ural],” with no mention of Syr Darya. Emperor Constantine’s description of the Pecheneg lands is consistent with that in the slightly later account of al-Gardizi, for which see Zimonyi, “The chapter,” pp. 104–105 and 108–109. 9 Ibn Fadlan, Journey, p. 41; Golden, “The migrations,” p. 77. One of the Oghuz chieftains suspected ibn Fadlan and his companions to be envoys sent by the caliph to the Khazars “to stir them up against us.” The general picture of Oghuz-Khazar relations is therefore one of hostility and suspicion, not cooperation against the Pechenegs. 10 Ibn Fadlan, Journey, p. 42. The crossing of no less than 6 rivers is mentioned before “we arrived at the Pechenegs.” The last one is Ubna, which may well be Utva, a left-hand tributary of the Ural River in what is now northwestern Kazakhstan. Upon leaving the Pechenegs, ibn Fadlan had to cross first the river Jayikh, which is the Zhayyk, the Kazakh name of the Ural. 11 Constantine Porphyrogenitus, On the Administration of the Empire 37, p. 169. Golden, “The migrations,” p. 74 is therefore wrong when assuming that by the first third of the 10th