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1465–1847 Turkic state in Central Asia
The Kazakh Khanate, also known as the Kazakh Khanates or Qazaq Khanate was a nomadic state in Central Asia that existed from c. 1465 to the early 19th century. It emerged after the fragmentation of the Golden Horde.
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Text from the Wikipedia article “Kazakh Khanate”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
The Kazakh Khanate, also known as the Kazakh Khanates or Qazaq Khanate was a nomadic state in Central Asia that existed from c. 1465 to the early 19th century. It emerged after the fragmentation of the Golden Horde.
By the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century, the Kazakhs consolidated their political power and established control over the vast steppe territories east of the Caspian Sea and north of the Aral Sea, extending as far as the upper reaches of the Irtysh River and the western foothills of the Altai Mountains. During the reigns of Burunduk Khan and Kasym Khan, the Kazakhs came to control nearly the entire steppe region. A widely held view is that the reign of Kasym Khan marked the beginning of an independent Kazakh state. Under his rule, Kazakh authority extended from the territory of present-day southeastern Kazakhstan to the Ural Mountains.
In the 17th–18th centuries, the Khanate experienced a period of sharp decline, and centralized authority among the Kazakhs weakened or effectively disappeared amid the rise of numerous small local rulers. After the death of Tauke Khan, the khanate, in effect, split into three independent khanates. The Kazakh Khanate was the first chronologically established nation-state in Central Asia created by the modern ethnic group itself rather than its predecessors or historical ancestors, and it existed until the early 19th century, longer than other post-Jochid states.
In Eastern sources, one encounters such names as Ulus of the Kazakhs, Kazakh Ulus, Kazakh El-Ulus, the yurt of the Urus, (i.e., of Urus Khan), Barak’s tsarev Kazatck yurt, (i.e., of Barak Khan), Ulus of Jochi, or the earlier geographical term Desht-i-Kipchak The name 'Kazakhstan' (Persian: قزاقستان) is also attested. In Russian sources of the 15th century, the designations Kazatskaya Orda, Kazatskaya Horde, and Kazachya Orda were used; in the 18th century, the term Kirgiz-Kaisak Horde appears.
In 16th-century Mongolian sources, the Jochid Ulus and the Kazakhs are referred to by the term Togmak or Toγ Maγ. In European sources, the names Kozaksche Orda, Kassachy Horda, Kasaki Orda, and Casatschia Orda, Casatschia Orda were used.
Eastern authors of the 15th–16th centuries often referred to the Kazakh Khanate by the region it occupied Desht-i-Kipchak, or Tatar Ulus/Uzbek Ulus as the Golden Horde was named after the population inhabiting it. Central Asian authors of this period collectively called the Kazakhs, the Shaybanids, and the Nogais Uzbeks, in honor of the Golden Horde khan Özbeg Khan, while European authors knew the population of the Ulus of Jochi as "Tatars".
There is no consensus among medieval historians regarding the place and time of the formation of the early Kazakh Khanate. Russian historiography follows the dating proposed by Tursun Sultanov. He considers the death of Abulkhair-khan in 875 AH (1470–1471) as the date of the formation of the Kazakh Khanate.
In Kazakh historiography, the year 1465 is commonly accepted as the date of the establishment of the Kazakh Khanate. This date is mentioned in the work of the medieval author Muhammad Haidar Dughlat Tarikh-i Rashidi.
In the 17th century, three separate orda (horde), or zhuz, emerged: the Senior (Greater), Middle (Central), and Junior, each with its own territory for nomadic movements. After the death of Khan Tauke in 1715 or 1718, the zhuzes essentially became independent khanates. Thus, the history of the Kazakh Khanate ends and the history of the Kazakh Khanates begins.
Ablai Khan was able to reunite all Kazakhs and skillfully navigated his politics between Russia and China, but after his death in 1781, the khanate once again fractured into three zhuzs, whose khans were appointed by the Russian government. In 1822–1824, the institution of the Khanate in the Russian Empire was abolished by the Statutes concerning the Siberian and Orenburg Kazakhs.
The abolition of the khan's power led to the uprising of Sultan Kasym in 1824–1827. The last attempt to restore khan's authority in the territory of the Kazakh zhuzs was made by Sultan Kenesary Qasymuly, whose rebellion against Russian authorities began in 1837. He declared himself khan and waged armed struggle with varying success until his death in 1847.
The Kazakh Khanate was formed as a result of the disintegration of the Golden Horde, or Ulus of Jochi, which had originally been a ulus of the Mongol Empire.
In 1206, Genghis Khan was proclaimed the ruler of all the Mongols. The following year, at his command, his eldest son Jochi subjugated the tribes of Tuva, Khakassia, and the Altai Mountains. These newly conquered lands and peoples were assigned to Jochi as an ulus in 1207 (or 1208). The core of Jochi's ulus consisted of the Mongol tribes of Sijiut, Kinggit, and Khushin. Between 1207 and 1211, the Oirats, Yenisei Kyrgyz, Uriankhai, and later other Turkic-Kipchak and Mongol tribes that acknowledged the authority of the empire were incorporated into the ulus. A second grant of territory to Jochi took place in 1224, when he received the northern part of Khwarazm (the lower reaches of the Amu Darya) and the eastern Dasht-i Qipchaq as his appanage. Jochi resettled there all the 'ils' (tribes) that had been granted to him by his father. The capital of the ulus was initially located on the Irtysh before being transferred to the Dasht-i Qipchaq. Following the annexation of Khwarazm, the Ulus of Jochi expanded westward as far as the Ural River.
After Jochi's death in 1227, his ulus passed, in accordance with Genghis Khan's decree, to Jochi's eldest sons, Orda and Batu. As the elder brother, Orda was expected to inherit the throne but renounced his claim in favor of Batu. Orda received the Irtysh region as his appanage, while Batu was assigned the still unconquered western territories. Between 1236 and 1242, the empire-wide Kipchak Campaign resulted in the extension of the Ulus of Jochi over the western Dasht-i Qipchaq. Following this expansion, the administration of the western and eastern parts of the ulus was separated at Batu's initiative. The permanent center of the western wing of the Ulus of Jochi became the city of Bolghar. Batu himself settled in the Volga region, while Orda's headquarters were located in eastern Kazakhstan, between the Tarbagatai Mountains and the upper reaches of the Irtysh. The Yaik River became the boundary between the two de facto autonomous khanates.
Blue Horde was inhabited primarily by Turkic and Mongol steppe tribes, including the Kipchaks and Kangly who had lived there before the Mongol conquest, as well as the Naimans, Keraites, Karluks, Khongirats, Merkits, Jalayir, and Tatars who had accompanied Genghis Khan's Mongols. The boundaries between the appanages of the Jochids were defined only in broad terms and changed according to the prevailing military and political situation. During the second half of the 13th century, the capital of the Kok Horde became the city of Sighnaq on the Syr Darya.
The eastern wing (züüngar) of the Ulus of Jochi was itself divided into the *barüngar* (the appanage of the Shibanids) and the züüngar (the appanage of the khan of the Blue Horde). In the 14th century, the possessions of the Shibanids encompassed the middle Irtysh region. The khan's domain consisted of the appanages of five sons of Jochi—Orda, Udur, Tuqa-Timur, Shingkum, and Singkum.
Following the death of Jani Beg in 1357, the Golden Horde entered a period of political turmoil. Several claimants competed for the throne, each issuing his own coinage. During this period, the Kok Horde became de facto independent. Its khans took an active part in the struggle for the throne at Sarai. Beginning in 1361, descendants of Orda from the Kok Horde ascended to the throne of the Golden Horde, including Timur Khwaja, Orda Shaykh, and Murid.
In 1361, Urus became khan of the Kok Horde. Under his rule, royal authority was strengthened, and he sought to seize the throne at Sarai. In 1368, he began campaigns against Sarai, capturing it in 1374–1375. He also besieged Hajji Tarkhan (Astrakhan) and subdued the Kama region. However, a year later he was forced to withdraw from the Volga region to the eastern Dasht-i Qipchaq, unable to defeat the powerful Golden Horde warlord Mamai.
In 1378, the young Mangyshlak prince Tokhtamysh, a descendant of Tuqa-Timur, the youngest son of Jochi, was installed as khan at Sighnaq with the support of the Samarqand amir Timur. Backed by Timur, Tokhtamysh campaigned westward and captured Sarai, the capital of the Golden Horde. He soon reunited all the dominions of the Jochids into a single empire and restored strong central authority. However, Tokhtamysh subsequently came into conflict with Timur and was defeated in 1395. The defeat cost him the throne of the Golden Horde. He never returned to the Kok Horde and was killed ten years later near the lower Terek River in the North Caucasus. After Tokhtamysh, no ruler succeeded in establishing authority recognized throughout the entire Ulus of Jochi.
The Samarqand amir Timur installed his own nominees from the Kok Horde on the throne at Sarai, while the Kok Horde itself was effectively under his control. These rulers were primarily members of the house of Urus Khan, including Qoirichaq and Timur Qutlugh.
In 1428, Abu'l-Khayr Khan of the Shibanid dynasty became khan of the independent eastern wing of the former Ulus of Jochi. From this point, the state is referred to in historiography as the Abu'l-Khayr Khanate or the Uzbek Khanate. In European and Muslim sources, the population of the Mongol Empire and the Golden Horde, including the ancestors of the Kazakhs, had originally been referred to as "Tatars". From the 14th century onward, Timurid authors began using the term "Uzbek Ulus" to designate the eastern Dasht-i Qipchaq, when rulers from this eastern ulus, such as Urus and Tokhtamysh, came to rule the entire Golden Horde, the term was extended to its western territories as well. The Turkic-speaking tribes inhabiting the eastern Dasht-i Qipchaq gradually came to be known as Uzbeks. During the 1440s, the Manghit Yurt (Nogai Horde) separated from the Uzbek Khanate. Following the decline of the Shibanid dynasty, conditions emerged for the rise of another Jochid line—the descendants of Urus Khan. A number of 16th- and 17th-century authors did not distinguish between the periods of the Golden Horde and the Kazakh Khanate, referring to both Baraq Khan and his grandson Kasym Khan as rulers of the Ulus of Jochi.
The emergence of the Kazakh Khanate was preceded by intense struggles within the Ulus of Jochi, which unfolded among various Jochid dynasties in the 15th century, already during the time of Barak Khan, the grandson of the famous Urus Khan, and intensified after his death. Different descendants of Jochi Khan attempted to unite the nomadic tribes of the Eastern Desht-i Kipchak under their rule.
With the support of powerful Manghit beys, the young Shibanid Abu’l-Khayr emerged victorious in this struggle. In the following decades, during the 1420s–1450s, he subordinated most of the tribal confederations of the Eastern Desht-i Kipchak and significantly expanded the borders of his state. He also brought under his authority the hereditary domains of the descendants of Urus Khan in the Syr Darya region and around the city of Turkestan.
The formation of the Kazakh Khanate was preceded by a struggle for supreme power in the Jochid Ulus during the 15th century. This struggle had already begun among various branches of the Jochid dynasty during the reign of Barak Khan, the grandson of the famous Urus Khan, and intensified following Barak's death. Various descendants of Jochi Khan sought to bring the nomads of Dasht-i Qipchaq, who were known in written sources as the "Uzbeks", under their control. With the support of the Manghit mirzas, Abu'l-Khayr of the Shibanid dynasty emerged victorious. Under his rule also came the hereditary domains of the descendants of Urus Khan in the region of the Syr Darya and Turkestan. Nevertheless, Kerey and Janibek rejected Abu'l-Khayr's authority. Ashtarkhanid sources recognized their Jochid claim to rule, with Mahmud ibn Wali describing their departure as a renunciation of "the country inherited [from their ancestors]".
This tribal confederation migrated to Moghulistan, where they practiced qazaqliq. At the time, qazaqlıq was a common form of political struggle among the Chinggisid elite, in which unsuccessful claimants to the throne withdrew to the frontiers and lived by hunting and raiding. Around 1470, the Kazakh tribes, led by Janibek and Kerei, settled in what is now Kazakhstan, gradually coalescing into a powerful union. The term qazaq, originally a sociopolitical designation, became an ethnic designation.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Kazakh Khanate”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.