The once glorious Qaghanate of Kimeks suffers disintegration. That greatest steppic confederation of nomadic tribes had been left by two most ambitious groups that migrated south and west in search for new homeland. The first group of nomads marched down to the northern shore of Syr Darya and Lake Balkhash founded
Qipchaks Khanate with capital in Syghnaq. The second group took longer trip westwards, crossed the Embe river and crushed the Oghuz who withdrew to dry steppes of Mangyshlak Peninsula. Then they crossed Yaik river further west, where they gained another win, this time over a coalition of Pechenegs and Bashkirs. And they settled here, took into possession this fertile steppe between northern Black and Caspian Seas and founded
Qumans Khanate. But the once powerful
Kimek Qaghanate still persist, still occupies a vast land, though those are only wilderness inhabited by few nomads that are no threat for anyone now.
From 840 to 916 the Kimak Kaganate dominated the heartland of Asia, controlled a key central portion of the
Silk Road, and influenced events from China to Persia and Europe, on a par with the
Scythians and Mongols. The Kimak polity can now be seen for what it was: one of the great pastoral nomadic empires of all time.
[4]
After the 840 AD breakup of the
Uyghur Kaganate, the Central Asian tribes found themselves unattached. Portions of the Turkic Eymür, Bayandur and Tatar tribes joined the core of the Kimak tribes. The Tatar tribes already were members of the Kimak confederation, some of them had already participated in the initial formation of the Kimak Kaganate. The Kipchaks also had their Khanlyk, but politically they were dependent from Kimaks. The dominating Kimak tribe mostly lived on the banks of Irtysh. The Kipchaks, described by Hudud al-Alam, occupied a separate territory located to the west, approximately in the southeastern part of the Southern
Urals. Chinese chroniclers wrote about the mountains of the Kipchak land, in the chronicle
Üan-shi these mountains are named Üyli-Boli, and the Kipchaks are called "Tsyn-cha". North of Kipchaks and Kimaks lay endless forest.
[5]
Of all the numerous tribes, the Kimaks were ready to head a new political tribal union. They created a new Kimak Kaganate state, a federation of seven tribes, seven Khanlyks.
Abu Said Gardezi (d. 1061) wrote that the Kimak state incorporated seven related tribes:
Kimaks,
Yamak, Kipchaks,
Tatar,
Bayandur,
Lanikaz, and
Ajlad. At its height, the Kimak Kaganate had 12 nuclear tribes, and extended from the
Irtysh river and
Altai mountains in the east to the Black Sea steppe in the west, into the taiga fringes in the north, and southward it reached into the desert-steppe. After their decline, the
Jeti-Su Kimaks retreated back to the upper Irtysh region, and the western Kipchak-Kimaks settled in the North Pontic steppes.
[6] The Kimaks were originally
Tengrians, with some
Buddhist and
Christian communities. In the eleventh century
Islam made some inroads.
The Tatars are first mentioned in connection with the events in middle of the 6th c. in the Kül-Tegin and Bilge-Kagan inscriptions in Kosho-Tsaydam. Tatar tribes participated in the creation of Kimak state and the ethnogenesis of the Kimaks.
Arab and
Persian geographers, travelers and historians provide an abundance of information about the Kimaks.
[1] The name
Kimaks was not known to medieval Chinese geographers, just as the name
Chumuhun was not known by Arabian and Persian geographers. Both names referred to the same Kimak tribe.
[7] In 821 the Arab Tamim ibn Bahr traveled to
Tokuz-Oguzes through Kimak and Kipchak lands. His descriptions were later used by other authors. The Persian traveler
Gardezi recorded the Kimaks, noting their location was previously on record as the territory of the people called by the Chinese authors "Chumuhun".
In the 9th c. the Kimaks allied with the Oguzes.
[1] In the second half of the 9 c. the reinforced Kimaks began drifting westwards. They occupied the lands of the
Petcheneg (Besenyo, Badjinak, Patsinak, Petcheneg, called by the Arabs “Badjnaks”, and by the Byzantines “Patsinaks”), nomadic cattle breeders, whose nucleus were the tribes of the
Kangar political union. The Petcheneg position worsened, their union was defeated by an alliance of Oguzes, Kimaks and Karluks. Kimaks, together with Oguzes, seized Kangar Petcheneg lands along
Seyhun (
Syr-Darya), and in the Aral area, taking over the pastures in the Southern
Urals.
Under pressure of Kimaks, the Petcheneg moved from the
Aral to the Lower
Itil steppes, and from there on to the Don-Dnieper interfluvial, pushing the
Magyars westward. At the end of the 9th c. in the south of the Eastern European steppes formed a new nomadic union of Petcheneg. Their neighbors were stronger and better known people: Oguzes, Kipchaks, Magyars and the
Khazar Kaganate. Under pressure from joined assaults by
Cuman/Kipchaks and their linguistic Oguz cousins of the Kimak Kaganate, and using the weakness of the Khazar Kaganate, the Pecheneg moved through its territory to the west, bringing destruction to the settled populations of Bulgars and
Alans in the N.Caucasus.
[1]
In the 10th c. the Kimaks were allied with the Oguzes. In his 10th century work,
Ibn Haukal drew a map showing that Kipchak-Kimak tribes together with Oguzes pastured in the steppes north of the Aral Sea, and
al-Masudi at approximately the same time wrote that all of them were coaching along Emba and Yaik. In Middle East, the Cuman/Kipchak country began to be called
Desht-i-Kipchak and
Cumania.
[1] Biruni noted that Oguzes quite often pastured in the country of Kimaks. Some clans of Kimak tribes quite often coached along the coast of the Caspian Sea: "
Shahname" even calls that sea as Kimak Sea". The main western neighbors of Kimak-Kipchaks in the 10th c. were
Bashkirs, with whom at that time the westernmost Kipchak clans established very close contacts.
[5]
At the end of the 10th century, not only the
Caliphate writers and scientists were knowledgeable about them, but in the Central Asian states journeys to the Kimak country were well known and discussed in the markets and
chaihanas (tea houses).
[8]
In the 12th century the territory of the khanate included the southern Urals, the eastern Volga area, the
Mangyshlak Peninsula, and the region northwest of the Aral Sea. Their centers included
Kimäk and
Sangir. Most of the population was semi-nomadic, a minority were sedentary farmers, many of the city dwellers were craftsmen. In the northern parts of Kimek territory were underground towns of tunnel networks and chambers to escape the cold.
The Kimeks were ruled by a "
Kagan, alco called "Khakan" in the eastern records, not of the
Ashina dynasty. In the 10th and 11th centuries the ruling clan was
Tatar Kimek. Later they appear to have been ruled by the
Ilbari (Ilburi) clan.
During the 10th century the Kipchaks became independent within the Kaganate (if they were ever dependent in the first place), and began migrating westward. The zenith of Kimak power came under the Ilburi rulers near the end of the 12th century. In 1183, the Kimaks attacked
Volga Bulgaria, and they twice sacked
Khwarezm, in the 1152 and 1197.
The Kimak federation occupied a huge territory from the
Tobol and Irtysh rivers to the Caspian Sea and
Syr-Darya. The northern border of the Kimak federation was the Siberian taiga, the eastern border was the Altai Mountains, the southern border was the lifeless steppe Bet Pak. The borders naturally protecting them from their enemies, the Kimaks lived undisturbed. Their neighbors were Karluks, Oguzes and Kyrgyzes. Kimaks, Kipchaks, Oguzes, Petchenegs,
Ugrians and other peoples and ethnic groups of the multi-ethnic Kimak Kaganate lived peacefully and prosperous.
In the beginning of the 11th century the Kimaks and Kipchaks pushed the Oguzes to the south, Petchenegs to the west, Karluks to the southeast, and the Ugrians to the north into the Siberian taiga, and became owners of the ancient
Kangju. Individual Khanlyks of the Kimak Kaganate grew stronger, separatist forces increased, undermining central authority. The Khakan became only a militia leader, there was no central army, each subject Khan had his small army.
The Kimaks and then
Khitay pressed the Kipchaks to move west, occupying lands that earlier belonged to Oguzes. After seizing Oguz lands, the Kipchaks grew considerably stronger, and the Kimaks became dependents of them. The Kipchak migration was a planned invasion, a capture of richer pastures. Part of the Kimaks remained in the ancient land along the Irtysh, and a part left with the Kipchaks to the west. A larger portion of the Kimak Kaganate tribes, the Kimaks, Kipchaks, Pechenegs, and the Oguzes migrated to the west, to beyond Ural, Volga, Don and Dniepr, changing the ethnic map of Eastern Europe. The southern Karluks joined the
Karakhanid state.
A significant mass of Kipchaks and Kimaks remained in the Irtysh territories with the ancient
Uralic peoples of western Siberia. Subsequently, they formed the
Siberian Tatars and other Turkic peoples. In the west, the Kipchaks followed the path taken previously by the Petchenegs under pressure of the Oguzes, and later the Oguzes under pressure of the Kimaks and Kipchaks. They crossed the Volga, Don, Dniestr, and Dniepr, and reached the Danube. On their way the Kipchaks were joined by the remains of the Petchenegs and Oguzes. The Rus chronicles under year 1054 records an appearance near
Kiev of the Oguz people, who were pushed by Kipchaks, a branch of middle Irtysh and
Ob Kimaks.
[1]
A court doctor of the Seljuk Sultans,
Al-Marvazi tells that "Kais" (snakes) and "Kuns" pressed the "Shars" tribe (Turkic ‘sary = pale, yellow’), and those, in turn, occupied the lands of the Turkmen, Oguzes and Petchenegs.
Matthew of Edessa tells that the "people of snakes" pressed the "red-haired" (i.e.yellow), and the "red-haired" moved on the Oguzes, who together with the Petchenegs attacked Byzantium. The "Kais" are Kimaks, and "Shars" are Kipchaks, which Slavic peoples translated as
Polovtsy (Slav. "polovye", meaning light yellow). Besides the Sharys,
i.e. the yellow Kipchaks, participated other Kimak hordes (Kais, Kuns), and other members of the Kaganate in the advance to the West.
[9]
In this general migration to the fecund western pastures the Kipchaks were the most active participants, a number of sources calls them "yellow". Many researchers believe that Kipchaks were blonds and blue-eyed, descended from the
Dingling, who lived in the steppes of Southern Siberia in the end of the 1st millennium BC, and who were, according to the Chinese chroniclers, blonds. Certainly among Kipchaks were some blond individuals, however a great bulk of the Turkic-speaking people had a Mongoloid admixture (according to anthropologists), generally the Kimak-Kipchaks were dark-haired and brown-eyed. Possibly the color characteristic was a symbolical definition of a part of the Kipchaks.
[10]
The Kimak Kaganate's fall in the mid-11th century was caused by external factors. The migration of the Central Asian
Mongolic-speaking nomads pushed by the Mongolic
Khitay state Lyao formed in Northern China in 916 AD. The Khitay nomads occupied the Kimak and Kipchak lands west of the Irtysh. The Kaganate thereafter declined, and the Kimeks were probably at times subjected to
Kyrgyz and
Kara-Khitai overlordship. In the 11th-12th centuries the Mongolic-speaking
Naiman tribe in its westward move displaced the Kimaks-Kipchaks from the Mongolian Altai and Upper Irtysh. From the middle of the 12th century the Mongolic tribes predominated almost in all the territory of modern Mongolia.
[1]