by Jiger Janabel
Now Available to Purchase
The Silk Road and the Cities of the Golden Horde
The formation of the Kazakh Khanate
in 1459,in the southeastern corner of modern Kazakhstan, was the culmination
of a long standing political, economic, and ethnic evolution that began after
the Mongols took over the Qipchaq steppe between 1223-1227. At this time the
steppe was divided it into three large political dominions. Although the Qipchaq
steppe was occasionally united by various nomadic confederations prior to the
Mongols' arrival, it was the Mongols who welded the vast steppe into an unprecedented
degree of unity. This was accomplished through a rigid military political system
and the absolute personal power of a supreme ruler.
Following a steppe tradition of land allotment, the Qipchaq steppe was reorganized
by Batu Khan (d. 1255), Juchi's second son, into three territorially and economically
independent entities, called ulus(es), each with a demarcated
territory. These three uluses, each led by a Juchid, sometimes bowed
in obedience to the stronger central authority, and at other times fought amongst
themselves. As a unit, they brought profound changes into the steppe society.
Nothing was more consequential than their direct contribution to the formation
of various modern Turkic speaking nationalities, including the Tatars, Nogais,
Qazaqs and Uzbeks.
At the end of the l4th century the formerly centralized Golden Horde gradually
slipped into a dissolution process. Simultaneously several subordinate uluses
merged as distinct political unions, functioning in the capacity of economic
guarantors for their subject tribes. Thus, tribes of each union increasingly
defined their mutual relationships using political and territorial affiliations.
The tendency toward an unprecedented degree of adherence within each of these
large uluses became steady as the pressure for survival grew.
Finally, various ethnonyms were incubated to respond to the emergence from the
steppes of the modern nationalities. Juchids and their subjects unconsciously
embraced their neighbors' nomenclature even though occasionally in a derogatory
fashion. Tribes reshuffled to the ulus of Orda-Ejen, Juchi's eldest son.
The Kok-orda evolved into the modern Qazaqs. Their co-tribes originally assigned
to Sheiban, Juchi's fifth son, along with other newly admitted tribes, were
united into "the Nomadic Uzbek State" by Abulkhair Khan (1429-1468).
These tribes subsequently became known as the Uzbeks, named after the magnificent
Ozbeg Khan (1313-1343) of the Golden Horde.