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Medieval Turkic state formed by the Kimek and Kipchak people
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The Kimak–Kipchak confederation was a medieval Turkic state formed by seven peoples, including the Kimaks and Kipchaks, in the area between the Ob and Irtysh rivers.
Minorsky, citing Marquart, Barthold, Semenov and other sources, proposes that the name Kīmāk (pronounced Kimäk) is derived from Iki-Imäk, "the two Imäk", probably referring to the first two clans (Īmī and Īmāk) of the federation.
On the other hand, Pritsak attempted to connect the Kimek with the Proto-Mongolic Kumo of the Kumo Xi confederation (庫莫奚; Middle Chinese: kʰuoH-mɑk̚-ɦei; *qu(o)mâġ-ġay, from *quo "yellowish" plus denominal suffix *-mAk); Golden judges Pritsak's reconstruction "highly problematic", as Pritsak did not explain how Quomâġ might have produced Kimek; still, Golden considers the connection with the Proto-Mongolic world seriously.
Mahmud al-Kashgari does not mention any Kimek, but Yamāk; Kashgari further remarked that Kara-Khanids like him considered Yemeks to be "a tribe of the Kipchaks", though contemporary Kipchaks considered themselves a different party. The ethnonym Yemäk might have been transcribed in the mid 7th century by Chinese authors as 鹽莫 Yánmò < Middle Chinese *jiäm-mâk, referring to a Tiele group who initially inhabited northwestern Mongolia before migrating to north of Altay Mountains and Irtysh zone.
Initially, Golden (1992:202, 227, 263) accepted the identification of Kimeks with Imeks/Yimeks/Yemeks, because the /k/ > ∅, resulting in Kimek > İmek, was indeed attested in several Medieval Kipchak dialects; Golden also thought Yemeks unlikely to be 鹽莫 *jiäm-mâk > Yánmò in Chinese source. However, Golden later changed his mind, reasoning that, as the Medieval Kipchak dialectal sound-change /k/ > ∅ had not yet happened in the mid-7th century Old Turkic, the identification of Yemeks with Kimeks is disputed. As a result, Golden (2002:660-665) later abandons the Kimeks > Yemeks identification and becomes more amenable to the identification of 鹽莫 Yánmò with Yemeks, by scholars such as Hambis, Zuev, and Kumekov, cited in Golden (1992:202).
According to Tishin (2018), Yemeks were simply the most important of the seven constituent tribes whose representatives met at the Irtysh valley, where the diverse Kimek tribal union emerged, as related by Gardizi.
The Kimek confederation originated as a tribal union of seven tribes or clans. These tribes originated in the steppes of eastern Central Asia. The bulk of these migrated to present-day Kazakhstan after the destruction of the Uyghur Khaganate (840). The Kimek state was formed at the end of the 9th and beginning of the 10th century composed out of tribal domains, ruled by a khagan who was the supreme among subject leaders.
The 10th century geographical treaty Hudud al-Alam gave a description of the cultures and ways of life of Kimeks and Kipchaks. The Kimaks led a semi-settled life, as the Hudūd mentioned many wandering tribal grazers as well as a town named *Yimäkiya (> Yamakkiyya > ms. Namakiyya); while the Kipchaks, in some customs, resembled the contemporary Oghuzes, who were nomadic herders. The southern neighbors of Kimaks were Karluks, who preserved their independence for another 200 years. The Kimak Khakan's residence was in the city Imakia (Pavlodar, Kazakhstan) on the Irtysh.
In the middle of the 7th century, one of the future Kimek confederation's constituent tribes, the Yemaks, lived near the Irtysh, north of the Altai, as part of the Western Turkic Khaganate, and were possibly known to the Chinese as 鹽莫 Yánmò (< Middle Chinese *jiäm-mâk). After the disintegration of the Western Türkic Kaganate in 743, a part of the Kimaks remained in its successor, the Uyghur Kaganate (740–840), and another part retained their independence. Lev Gumilyov connects the Kimek to Western Turk tribe Chumukun (處木昆): as Kimaks were known only to Arabs and Persians with Chumukun only known to Chinese. During that period a nucleus of the Kimak confederation's tribes was consolidated. The head of the Kimak confederation had the title shad tutuk, i.e., "Prince Governing, or Ruling". The Yemek tribe became the head of the union, and later of the Kimak Kaganate. According to Pritsak (1982:331-333), Kimeks were known to Chinese as 庫莫 Kumo < MC kʰuoH-mɑk̚ < *qu(o)mâġ associated with the Xi < *ɦei < *Ġay, a people whom Islamic writers knew as Qay and whose ethnonym is often linked to Mongolic *mogaï "snake" (Khalkha могой mogoj). Pletnyova proposed that "A snake has seven heads"/"A dragon with seven heads", recorded by Kashgari reflects the consolidation of the Kimek confederation. However, Golden (1992) found no textual evidence to link qay with Mongolic *mogaï. Golden, following Klyashtorny, contended that the Qays' identification as the "People of the Snake", or rather "People of the Chieftain named Snake/Dragon", actually resulted from Qays' participation in an anti-Karakhanid coalition led by Yabaku chieftain Budrach, whose epithet Böke means "Great Dragon / Great Snake".
Before the middle of the 8th century, the Kimaks bordered the Karluks and Tokuz-Oguzes on the south, and the Yenisei Kyrgyz on the east. After the dissolution of the Western Turkic Khaganate in 743, the main body of the Kimaks remained in the Irtysh area. In the late 8th or early 9th century, part of the Kimak tribes migrated in two directions, northwest to the Urals and southwest to the northern Zhetysu. The migration changed the ethnic composition of the Middle Volga and Lower Kama areas in the west. Spreading from the Irtysh area, Kimaks occupied territory between the rivers Yaik and Emba, and between the Aral and Caspian steppes, to the Zhetysu area.
Between the 9th and 11th century the Kimek were concentrated in the middle Irtysh basin and northeastern Semirechye.
After the breakup of the Uyghur Khaganate in 840, the Central Asian tribes found themselves unattached. Portions of the Turkic Eymür, Bayandur, and Shiwei Tatar tribes joined the core of the Kimak tribes. The Tatar tribes were already members of the Kimak confederation — some had already participated in the initial formation of the Kimak Kaganate. The Kipchaks also had their Khanlyk, but politically they were dependent on the Kimaks. The dominating Kimak tribe mostly lived on the banks of the 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 Yuanshi, these mountains are named Yùlǐbólǐ (玉里伯里), and the Kipchaks are called Qīnchá 欽察. North of the Kipchaks and the Kimaks lay endless forest.
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: Yemeks, Kipchaks, Eymür, Tatar, Bayandur, Lanikaz, and Ajlad. At its height, the Kimak Kaganate had 12 nuclear tribes, extending 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 into the desert-steppe. After their decline, the Jeti-Su Kimaks retreated to the upper Irtysh region, and the western Kipchak-Kimaks settled in the North Pontic steppes. The Kimaks were originally Tengrians, with possibly some Nestorian Christian communities. In the 11th century, Islam made some inroads.
Arab and Persian geographers, travelers, and historians provide an abundance of information about the Kimaks. 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 that their location was previously on record as the territory of the people called by the Chinese authors "Chumukun".
In the 9th century, the Kimaks allied with the Oguz. In the second half of the 9th century, the reinforced Kimaks began drifting westwards. They occupied the lands of the Pecheneg (Besenyo, Badjinak, Patsinak, Pecheneg, called by the Arabs "Badjnaks", and by the Byzantines "Patsinaks"), nomadic cattle breeders whose nucleus was the tribes of the Kangar union. The Pecheneg position worsened; their union was defeated by an alliance of Oguzes, Kimaks, and Karluks. Kimaks, together with Oguzes, seized Kangar Pecheneg lands along the Seyhun (Syr-Darya) and in the Aral area, taking over the pastures in the Southern Urals.
Under pressure of Kimaks, the Pecheneg 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 century in the south of the Eastern European steppes formed a new nomadic union of Pechenegs. Their neighbors were stronger and better known people: Oghuzes, Kipchaks, Magyars, and the Khazar Kaganate. Under pressure from joint assaults by Cuman/Kipchaks and their linguistic Oghuz cousins of the Kimek Khaganate, and taking advantage of 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.
In the 10th century, the Kimek were allied with the Oghuzes. In his 10th century work, Ibn Haukal drew a map showing that Kipchak-Kimak tribes together with Oghuzes 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 the Middle East, the Cuman–Kipchak country began to be called Desht-i-Kipchak and Cumania. Al-Biruni noted that Oghuzes quite often pastured in the country of Kimek. Some clans of the Kimak tribes quite often lived along the coast of the Caspian Sea: "Shahname" even calls that sea the Kimak Sea. The main western neighbors of Kimek-Kipchaks in the 10th century were Bashkirs, with whom at that time the westernmost Kipchak clans established very close contacts.
They 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 may be seen as one of the great pastoral, nomadic empires of all time.
At the end of the 10th century, not only were the Caliphate writers and scientists 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).
The Kimeks were ruled by a "Kagan, also called "Khakan" in the eastern records, not of the Ashina dynasty. In the 10th and 11th centuries, the ruling clan was the Tatar. Later they appear to have been ruled by the Ilbari 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 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 and the southern border was the lifeless steppe of Bet Pak. The borders naturally protecting them from their enemies, the Kimaks lived undisturbed. Their neighbors were Karluks, Oguzes and Kyrgyz. Kimaks, Kipchaks, Oguzes, Petchenegs, Ugrians and other peoples and ethnic groups of the multi-ethnic Kimak Kaganate lived peacefully and prosperously.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Kimak–Kipchak confederation”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.