One of the aims of this blog is to give an insight to the topic of the research project. Since the main sources of the project are the Old Uyghur documentary sources unearthed in the Turfan region, it seems useful to give an overview about the histarical background with a detaild bibliography for those who would like to get deeper into the topic. This first part is a very brief introduction concentrating on the history of the Uyghurs before the Mongol conquest in the Turfan region. One of the aims of this blog is to give an insight to the topic of the research project. Since the main sources of the project are the Old Uyghur documentary sources unearthed in the Turfan region, it seems useful to give an overview about the histarical background with a detaild bibliography for those who would like to get deeper into the topic. This first part is a very brief introduction concentrating on the history of the Uyghurs before the Mongol conquest in the Turfan region. The Kirghiz army destroyed the Uyghur Khaganate in 840.[1] Contrary to similar cases in the steppe region the majority of the defeated Uyghurs did not stay in their former territory to serve the new rulers but migrated to China,[2] Gansu[3] and East Turkestan. Those parts of the Uyghur people who migrated to the Turfan region in East Turkestan soon established their own state there; the so-called West Uyghur Kingdom or Kočo Uyghur Kingdom (9–12th cc.).[4] Although Turkic-speaking people had lived in this area for centuries, the migration of the Uyghurs led to the rapid Turkification of the territory; something that can be seen from its later Persian name Turkestan, literally: “the land of the Turks”. Parallel to this process the Uyghurs gradually gave up their nomadic lifestyle and settled in the oasis cities of the region. They merged with the mostly Indo-Iranian speaking local population and achieved a unique cultural development which was coupled with outstanding economic progress. Their state covered the eastern part of the Tien Shan Mountains, on the northern slopes of which lay the ruling centre Bešbalık, and the northern part of the Tarim basin which contained Kočo,[5] the state’s second most important city. Around 1130 the West Uyghurs were subdued by Yelü Dashi (r. 1124–1143), the founder of the Qara Khitai or Western Liao Empire.[6] According to our sources, the Qara Khitai maintained a loose control over the West Uyghur Kingdom and the Uyghur ruler the ıduk kut[7] was able to preserve much of his autonomy. This situation changed fundamentally with the rise of the Mongol Empire in the first decade of the 13th century (Allsen 1983: 245–246). Literatur Allsen 1983 = Thomas T. Allsen: The Yüan Dynasty and the Uighurs of Turfan in the 13th Century. In: Morris Rossabi (ed.): China Among Equals. The Middle Kingdom and its Neighbors, 10th–14th Centuries. Berkeley–Los Angeles, 243–280. Arat 1964 = Reşit Rahmati Arat: Der Herrschertitel Iduq-qut. Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher 35: 150–157. Biran 2005 = Michal Biran: The Empire of the Qara Khitai in Eurasian History. Between China and the Islamic World. Cambridge. Bregel 2003 = Yuri Bregel: An historical atlas of Central Asia. Leiden–Boston. Czeglédy 1984 = Károly Czeglédy: The Foundation of the Turfan Uyghur Kingdom. In: Lajos Ligeti (ed.): Tibetan and Buddhist Studies Commemorating the 200th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Csoma de Kőrös. Budapest, 159–164. Drompp 2005 = Michael Drompp: Tang China and the Collapse of the Uighur Empire. A Documentary History. Leiden–Boston. Gabain 1973 = Annamarie von Gabain: Das Leben im uigurischen Königreich von Qočo (850–1250). Text und Tafelband. Wiesbaden. Golden 1992 = Peter B. Golden: An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples. Ethnogenesis and State-Formation in Medieval and Early Modern Eurasia and the Middle East. Wiesbaden. ED = Sir Gerard Clauson: An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish. Oxford 1972. Mackerras 1972 = Colin Mackerras: The Uighur empire according to the T’ang dynastic histories. A Study in Sino-Uighur relations 744–840. Canberra. Mackerras 1994 = Colin Mackerras: The Uighurs. In: Denis Sinor (ed.): The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. Cambridge, 317–342. Moriyasu 2000a = Takao Moriyasu: The Sha-chou Uighurs and the West Uighur Kingdom. Acta Asiatica 78: 28–48. Moriyasu 2000b = Takao Moriyasu: The West Uighur Kingdom and Tun-huang around the 10th–11th Centuries. Berichte und Abhandlungen der Berlin-Brandenburggischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 8: 337–368. Pinks 1968 = Elisabeth Pinks: Die Uiguren von Kan-chou in der frühen Sung-Zeit (960–1028). Wiesbaden. Sinor 1998 = Denis Sinor: The Uighurs in Mongolia and the Kyrgyz. In: Clifford Edmund Bosworth et al. (eds.): History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Vol. IV. Part One. Paris, 190–200. Sinor 2000 = Denis Sinor: The Uighur Empire of Mongolia. In: Hans Robert Roemer (ed.): History of the Turkic Peoples in the Pre-Islamic Period. Philologiae et Historiae Turcicae Fundamenta. Tomus Primus. Berlin, 187–204. Zieme 2000 = Peter Zieme: Das uigurische Königreich von Qočo. In: Hans Robert Roemer (ed.): History of the Turkic Peoples in the Pre-Islamic Period. Philologiae et Historiae Turcicae Fundamenta. Tomus Primus. Berlin, 205–212. [1] There are a lot of publications on the early history of the Uyghurs and the history and fall of their steppe state (i.e. the Uyghur Khaganate), so here we only list some of the standard literature which provides detailed bibliographies for further reading: Mackerras 1972; Golden 1992: 155–176; Mackerras 1994; Sinor 1998; Sinor 2000. [2] This group contained 13 Uyghur tribes who settled on the Chinese border because the Chinese authorities did not let them into the country. This unfriendly attitude of the Chinese soon shifted to open hostility. The last mention of this group can be dated to the 840s and most probably they were assimilated by the Chinese. For a detailed description of these events, see: Drompp 2005. [3] This group settled in Northwest Gansu, an area populated mostly by Chinese and Tibetan people. The Uyghurs were able to consolidate their rule in the region up till the early 10th century and due to their key positions on the Silk Road their two cities Dunhuang and Ganzhou developed into flourishing trade centres. Their sovereignty was terminated by the expansive politics of the Khitan Liao dynasty (947–1125) whose territories extended across Manchuria and northern China. On the Gansu Uyghurs, see: Pinks 1968. According to Takao Moriyasu, the Uyghurs of Dunhuang were a sub-group of the West Uyghurs of East Turkestan (Moriyasu 2000a; Moriyasu 2000b). [4] The standard works on the establishment and history of the West Uyghur Kingdom are: Gabain 1973; Czeglédy 1984; Zieme 2000. [5] In the Uyghur sources the city is called Kočo and Kara Kočo (Chin.: Gaochang) as well and in some literature the latter name is used. [6] On Yelü Dashi and the Qara Khitai Empire: Biran 2005. [7] The meaning of the expression is ‘the sacred favour of heaven’ (ED: 46). On the title ıduk kut see: Arat 1964. The East Hemisphere around 900 AD. (source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/East-Hem_900ad.jpg) The West Uyghur Kingdom (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qocho#/media/File:Qocho_Uyghurs.png)
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About me
My name is Márton Vér and I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. My research interest covers topics like the history of medieval Central Eurasia, history of the Eurasian nomads, history of the Uyghurs and the history of the Mongol Empire. I specialized myself in the study of the Old Uyghur and Middle Mongolian documentary sources. Categories
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