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P.B. Golden
PECHENEGS
Introduction

I do not have an impression that Professor Peter Golden posted this brief, or maybe even knew that it was posted, but since it was posted on Internet anyway, mirroring the synopsis of such authoritative expert adds a weight to the critique of the O.Pritsak's suggestion posted on these pages, and its unbiased scholarly matter-of-fact definitely adds another dimension to the Besenyos' history.

Links

http://www.encislam.brill.nl/data/EncIslam/S7/SIM-6107.html

 

PECHENEGS, a Turkic tribal confederation of mediaeval central and western Eurasia.

Their ethnonym appears in our sources as Tibet. Be-cha-nag, Arabo-Persian Bujnak, Bujanak, Bujynh, Georg. Pachanik -i, Arm. Pacinnak, Greek Patzinak›tai, Patzinakoi, Rus. Pecheneg, Lat. Pizenaci, Bisseni, Bysseni, Bessi, Beseneu, Pol. Pieczyngowie and Hung. Besenyo (< Beshenag) = Bechenak / Pechenak.

It has been etymologized, with some uncertainty, as a variant of bajanak / bajinak “in-law” (> Old Church Slav. Pashenog), i.e. “the in-law clan/tribe.”
(cf. Pritsak, Pechenegs, 211; Bazin, À propos du nom des Petchénhques)
Their earliest history and origins are unclear. They have been identified with the Pei-ju, noted in a 7th century AD Chinese source, the Sui-shu, a T'ieh-li (Modern Chinese Pinyin Tiele 鐵勒 ) tribe, located near the En-ch'ü (Onogur ?) and A-lan (Alans). But, this is far from certain (But makes a lot of sense: Bajanaks were ethnically different from the Kangly, at least to some degree, maybe in purely political aspect, because they would not otherwise be called “Bechen/In-laws”. Then, clan Dulo has a very good chance to be a dominant clan of “T'ieh-li”/Tele/Dulu confederation (aka Dubo/Tubalar/Dabo, a member of the 15 tribes that were called by the Chinese Gaogüys, i.e. “High Cart”=Tele (Türk. “Cart”, cf. common Slavic Attila-time borrowing “teliga”) that took over, with the Nushibi tribes, the Western Türkic Kaganate, and installed Dulo dynasty. Since Huns/Bulgars' ruling dynasty also was Dulo, from a branch 400-500 years older, the statement that Bajanaks spoke Bulgarian language converge with their Tele descendency. These tribes were separated for 5 to 8 centuries in time, they were influenced by and incorporated different stocks, but the linguistic ear of Mahmud Kashgari detected their linguistic commonality with the Bulgar and Suvar people speaking a “Türkic of a same type with clipped ends.” We know that dialectal differences existed between the Bulgar and Suvar vernaculars, so the observation of Mahmud Kashgari transcends these differences and underlines the common provenance. The evidence of the Chinese annals is also fitting: Onogurs occupied NE Pontic steppes at least from the time when the Greeks named their colony Onoguria/Phanagoria near the estuary of the Kuban/Cuman river (“b/m” transposition is still characteristic for N.Caucasian Türkic dialects, even within the same dialect), i.e. before the 5th c. BC. A thousand years later the Greeks, now in the Byzantine Empire, still find them pasturing in the same general location. The Alans were their eastern neighbors, extending to Kangly and even being a part of the Kangar/Kangly confederation, probably a splinter part that went on their own when they reached a critical mass. Furthermore, the evidence of Anna Comnena, who had to procure qualified interpreters to conduct negotiations determining the fate of the Byzantine, who expresses a first-hand knowledge of the Byzantians continuously in contact with the surrounding Türkic and formerly Türkic tribes (whom she summarily calls “Scythians”), and who demonstrate intimate knowledge and understanding of their close and distant neighbors, that the Besenyos speak the same language as the Kuman natives of the river Kuban/Cuman area (and yes, Kumans are a branch of Kipchaks who lived in the Pontic-Caspian steppes), does not contradict Mahmud Kashgari's observations. Kumans, and Bulgars, and Suvars, and Bajanaks, and Alans spoke the same language, and maybe with less difference than exists between Slavic Bulgarian and Ukrainian, or New York and New Orleans. What unites all these tribes is a common ancestry, close N.Pontic geographical proximity, and a culture of extensive continuous marital interactions traditionally intermingling not two, but three generations - Translator's Note).
(= Middle Chin. *PAk - Ôqi wok = Pecheneg (?), according to Pelliot, Quelques noms, 226, n.1)
More reliable is a notice in a Tibetan translation of an 8th century Uygur source on the “Northern peoples” which tells of Be-cha-nag hostilities with the Hor (Oguz) (Hor is a strange Tibetan rendition for Oguzes, it looks suspiciously close to misreading of Huns), probably in the Syr Darya region. Oguz traditions appear to confirm this.
(cf. Jahn, Geschichte der Oguzen des Raàid ad- Din, 24-5; Abu 'l-Gazi Bahadur Khan, Shajara -yi Tarakima, ed. Kononov, 41-2)

(Bacot, Reconnaissance, 147; Ligeti, Rapport, 170, 172, 175, 176)

The presence in their union of the Qangar /Kenger (Kaggar) sub-confederation  may also point to a tie to this region. Qangar has been connected with the Kengeres people mentioned in the Kl Tegin inscription and the Kangaraya (> *Qangaraye) nomads who settled in S.Caucasia. These, in turn, may be related to the Türk toponym Kengü Tarban and the Chinese K'ang-chü (Modern Chinese Pinyin Kangju 康居  ), a term designating the middle Syr Darya and adjoining lands, see  and Old Iran. Kanga.
(Const. Porph., De admin. imperii, 170-1)
(Klyashtorniy, Drevnetyurkskie pamyatniki, 156-78)
Pritsak  derives this ethno-toponym from Tokharian *kank “stone” and suggests that they were Tokharian-speaking, mercantile city-oasis (Tashkent) dwellers. The difficulty here is that although Kang, etc., may be connected with *kank, As cannot be derived from Aors (= Iran. Aorusa which produces Urs/Ors) (Pritsak's “Tokharian” stands for Kuchean and Turfanian/Arsi languages, and Kuchean/Turfanian * reconstructed *kank is an obvious  Türkic loanword). Pritsak further conjectures that the Qangars, driven into the steppe by an Oguz - Qarluq - Kimek coalition, became nomads, forming a confederation consisting of Tokharian, Eastern Iranian and Bulgaric Turkic elements (Here Pritsak's “Tokharians” stand not for the language, but for an ethnic tribe, which, considering the meager population of the oasis settlers, would make a meager nomadic tribe at best). Their connection with Eastern Iranian elements is hinted at in the remark of al-Biruni (Tahdid, tr. uli, 19) regarding a people that “are of the race of al-Lan and that of al-As and their language is a mixture of the languages of the Qwarazmians and the Baj(a)nak.” This is echoed in the Old Rus translation of Josephus Flavius (ed. Meshcherskiy, 454) which adds “the Yas, as is known, descended from the Pecheneg clan/tribe.”
(Pechenegs, 212-14) (cf. Turk. Tashkent “Stone City,” Kengeres < kank + Aorsoi > *avrs > ars > as = *Kenger As)
Németh, followed by Ligeti, however, on the basis of their fragmentary linguistic remains, view them as Common Turkic-speakers most probably, Kipchaq. Anna Comnena  remarks that the Pechenegs (whom she calls “Scythians”) speak the same language as the Komans (= Kuman - Kipchaq). Mahmad al-Kashgari (tr. Dankoff, i, 84), however, seems to lump them together with the Bulgar and Suwar speaking a “Turkic of a single type with clipped ends.” The available linguistic material points rather in the direction of Kipchaq. The possibility that they adopted Turkic is not to be excluded.
(Németh, Die Inschriften, 16, 50-1; Ligeti, A magyar nyelv, 362, 506, and Györffy, A Besenyok nyelve, 170- |  [VIII:289b] 91)
(ed. B. Leib, ii, 142)
Islamic geographers were aware that the Pechenegs had entered the Western Eurasian steppes in a series of migrations, the source of some confusion regarding the Pecheneg habitat in other Islamic authors. This confusion is furthered by the use of the ethnonym Basujirt / Bashujirt, etc., to denote both the Bashkirs (Bashqort) and the Hungarians in both their Bashkirian (Magna Hungaria) and Pannonian homelands. Warfare with the Oguz (who absorbed some of them, cf. the Oguz Pechene), Qarluqs and Kimaks drove the Pechenegs from Central Asia into the Volga-Ural/ Yayiq mesopotamia and later, with added Khazar pressure in the late 9th century ), into the Pontic steppes. Here, they nomadised from the Don to the Danube. They were, as Kashgari notes, the closest, of all the Turkic peoples, to Rum.
(cf. al-IßaaÕ9ri, 10; al-Masudi, Tanbih, 180-1)
(Const. Porph., DAI, 166-7)
(tr. Dankoff, i, 92)
The Islamic authors, without indicating which of their abodes is meant, note that they were the objects of annual raiding (for slaves and booty) by the Khazars, Burdas/Burtas and others of their neighbors. Gardizi /Barthold, however, perhaps using information pertaining to their earlier homeland, describes them as rich in cattle, horses and sheep and possessing “many vessels of gold and silver. They have many weapons. They have silver belts...” (Reference to Purdas/Burdas/Burtas is interesting, because Burtas are a branch (kin) of Besenyos - “forest as” or “asses, engaged in honey”, and consequently non-nomadic tribe, with no chance of raiding nomadic Besenyos)
(Ibn Rusta, 140; Gardizi /Barthold, 35, 36; Hudud al-ulam, 101, 142, 160 (commenting that the slaves brought from Khazaria to the Islamic lands “are mostly from here” i.e. the “Khazarian Pechenegs ”)
(al-Bakri, ed. tr. Kunik and Rozen, 42)
The Byzantines, in Constantine Porphyrogenitus' day (d. 959) were eager to use them to control the steppe approaches to the Empire. According to the De adm. imp., the Pecheneg union was composed of 8 tribal groupings (lit. themata “provinces”), headed by “great princes,” four on each side of the Dnieper (reflecting Turkic bipartite, left-right organizational principles). These further subdivided into 40 “districts” (m°rh), clan groupings (?). This internal organization, like other steppe polities, was dynamic. Thus Cedrenos (ii, 581-2) reports 13 tribes in the 11th century. The names of the 8 tribal groupings, consist of two parts, the name proper, usually a horse color, and with some possible exceptions, the titles of their rulers, e.g. Xaboujin-gula QabuqàÌn-Yula “the tribe of the Yula with bark-colored horses,” Surou-koulp°h Suru Kül Bey “the tribe of the Kül Bey with grayish horses.” The De adm. imp. also notes the names of the “great princes” (hereditary positions, passed from cousin to cousin) at the time they were expelled from their Volga-Ural/ Yayiq habitat, ca. 889 . None of the contemporary sources (Byzantine, Rus or Islamic) notes the presence of a supreme executive authority in this tribal confederation. The Hudud, 101, merely comments that they were ruled by an “elder” (mihtar) and had no towns. The notice in Aba Said (d. 1286, preserved in Abu 'l-Fida, d. 1331), reporting that they had a town, Bajanakiyya, and were ruled by a Khaqan (Abu 'l-Fida, Taqwim, |  [VIII:290a] 205), should be viewed as a topos. The Pechenegs, like most of the nomadic polities in the Western Eurasian steppes, were stateless (Within a P.Golden definition of a state).
(DAI, 166-9; Németh, Die Inschriften, 50-1; Ligeti, A magyar nyelv, 507-11)
The Bulgarian Tsar Symeon (893-927), used them to defeat the Hungarians, allies of Byzantium during his war with the Empire (894-6). Formal relations with Rus were established in 915 so that the Pechenegs, now Byzantine allies, could attack Bulgaria. After 920, Pechenegs-Rus relations were largely hostile. On occasion, Pechenegs served as mercenaries in Rus campaigns, e.g. Igor's 944 raid on Byzantium. Sometimes, they were brought in as “allies” in Rus throne struggles. They never undertook the permanent conquest of Rus.
(PSRL, i, cc. 42, 43, 45)
The Byzantines used them during Svyatoslav's Balkan wars, eventually leading to their fatal ambush of the Rus ruler in 972 . Relations with Rus worsened under Vladimir I (978-1015), producing several decades of war (988-ca. 1006-7). They were decisively defeated by Yaroslav of Kiev in 1036 and thereafter pushed (by Rus, Oguz and Kuman - Kipchaq pressure) toward the Byzantine Danubian frontier  which now became their primary area of focus. Military defeat and the loss of pasturages led to internal conflicts which resulted ultimately in their movement into Byzantine lands from which a weakened Empire could not dislodge them. The Rus defeat of the Western Oguz (1060) and the entrance of the Kuman - Kipchaqs into the Pontic steppe increased the pressure on the Pechenegs, who retaliated with their own depredations.
(PSRL, i, cc. 150-1; Diaconu, Les Petchénhgues, 39-49)
(PSRL, i, cc. 72, 73)
The Byzantine Emperor Alexius I (1081-1118), aided by the Kuman - Kipchaqs, delivered a mortal blow to Pecheneg military might at Levunion in 1091. Some Pechenegs fell under Kuman - Kipchaq overlordship, others took service as borderguards with Byzantium, the Hungarian kingdom, where they also settled, or Rus, where they became part of the Chernii Klobuki, “Black cowls” noted in Rashid ad- Din, a Turkic, nomadic force in service to the Kievan rulers.
(ed. Alizade, ii/1, 162-3, as the qawm-i kulah-i siyahan)
In their heyday, the Pechenegs had extensive commercial ties with Rus, where they sold horses, cattle and sheep, and the Islamic world. Al-Masudi notes the presence among them of merchants from Khazaria, the North Caucasus (Bab al-Abwab/Derbent, Alania) and elsewhere . On occasion, the Pechenegs threatened the “route from the Varangians to the Greeks”, but never seriously affected trade.
(Const. Porph., DAI, 48-51; al-Masudi, Muraj, ed. Pellat, i, 237)
(Const. Porph., DAI, 56-63)
We know little of Pecheneg culture and customs. Al-Idrisi reports that like the Rus they burnt their dead. “Some of them shave their beards. Some plait it. Their clothing consists of short tunics.” A late Rus source places their introduction to Christianity in the late 10th century (the conversions of Metigay and Küchük by Vladimir, himself newly converted, in 988 and 991). Latin Christianity was propagated by Bruno of Querfort (early 11th century), the consequences of which are unclear (He failed, per  Syriac records - Translator's Note).
(Al-Idrisi, ed. Bombaci et al., viii, 918)
(the Nikon chronicle, in PSRL, ix, 57, 64)
(Al-Bakri ed. Kunik and Rozen, 43)
Al-Bakri, however, reports that the Pechenegs were majasi (?? wearing earrings?? i.e. Tengriists?), but in 400/1009-10, under the influence of a captive faqih, converted to Islam, precipitating internecine strife from which the Muslims emerged victorious. Manichaeanism, along with Orthodox Christianity also came to them from the (Vasilievskiy misattributed the source, there was no Manichaeism in the Balkans, but a widespread Manichaean movement in the Central Asia, with Uigur Kagans adopting Manichaeism as a dominant religion, probably not known in Russia in the Vasilievskiy's time  - Translator's Note).
 (see Vasilievskiy, Vizantiya i Pechenegi, 38-43)

1. Sources [VIII:290b]

(a) Chinese. E. Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-kiue (Turcs) Occidentaux, recueillis et commentés suivi de Notes Additionelles, St. Petersburg 1903, 1904, repr. Paris, 1941, Taipei, 1969 Mau-tsai Liu, Die chinesischen Nachrichten zur Geschichte der Ost-Türken (T'u-küe), Wiesbaden 1958
(b) Tibetan. J. Bacot, Reconnaissance en Haute Asie septentrionale par cinq envoyés ouïgours au VIIIe sihcle, in JA, ccxliv (1956), 137-53
(c) Turkic. Abu 'l-ó9azi Bahadur Khan, Shajara-yi Tarakima / Rodoslovnaya Turkmen, ed. tr. A.N. Kononov, Moscow-Leningrad 1958
(d) Arabic. Abu 'l-Fida, Taqwim al-buldan /Géographie d'Aboulfeda, ed. Reinaud and de Slane, Paris 1840
Bakri, in A. Kunik and V. Rozen (ed. tr.), Izvestiya al-Bekri i drugiÕ9 avtorov o Rusi i slavyanakh, 102 (pt. 1 supplement to the Zapiski Imperatorskoy Akademii Nauk, xxxii [1876])
Birani, Kitab Tahdid nihayat al-amakin, tr. òjamil uli, Beirut 1962
Ibn Fa'lan, First Risala, ed. S. Dahhan, Damascus 1960
Ibn Rusta Ibn Said, Kitab al-òjugrafiya, Beirut 1970
Idrisi, Kitab Nuzhat al-mushtaq, Opus geographicum, ed. A. Bombaci et al., Naples-Leiden-Rome 1970-84
IaaÕ9ri (Istarhi?)
Masudi, Muraj, ed. Ch. Pellat, Beirut 1966 ff
idem, Tanbih
(e) Persian. Anon., Hudud al-ulam, tr. Minorsky
Gardizi, Zayn al-aÕ9bar, in V.V. Bartol'd (Barthold), Otchet o poezdke v Sredn¹³¹³ Azi¹³ s nauchnoy tsel' ¹³ 1893-1894 gg., in Zapiski Imperatorskoy Akademii Nauk, ser. VII, t. i, 74-175. Pers. text and Russ. tr. repr. in Sochineniya, Moscow 1963-73, viii, 23-62
Rashid Din, òjâmi” al-TawârqÕ9, ed. A.A. Alizade et al., Baku-Moscow 19803
idem, in K. Jahn (ed. tr.), Die Geschichte der Oguzen des Raàid ad- Din, facs. ed., Vienna 1969
(f) Byzantine. George Cedrenos, Georgii Cedreni compendium historiarum, ed. I. Bekker, Bonn 1893
Anna Comnena, Alexiade, ed. tr. B. Leib, i-iii, Paris 1937-45
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, ed. Gy. Moravcsik, tr. R. Jenkins, Washington, D.C. 1967.
(g) Russian. Josephus Flavius, in N.A. Meshcherskiy, Istoriya ¹³deyskoy voyni iosifa flaviya v drevnerusskom perevode, Moscow-Leningrad 1958
Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisey, St. Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad-Moscow 1841-.
2. Studies
L. Bazin, À propos du nom des Petchénhgues, in Passé turco-tatar, présent soviétique. Études offertes à Alexandre Bennigsen, Louvain-Paris 1986, 66-77
K. Czeglédy, A kangarok (Besenyok) a vi. századi szír forrásokban, in A magyar tudományos akadémia nyelv és irodalom-tudományi ostályának közlemenyei, v/1 4 (1954), 243-76
P. Diaconu, Les Petchénhgues au Bas-Danube, Bucharest 1970 H. Göckenjan, Hilfsvölker und Grenzwachter im mittelalterlichen Ungarn (Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des östlichen Europas, 5), Wiesbaden 1972
P.B. Golden, The migrations of the Oauz, in Archivum Ottomanicum, iv (1972), 45-84
idem, The people nwkrda, in Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, i (1975), 21-35
idem, The peoples of the South-Russian steppes, in D. Sinor (ed.), The Cambridge history of early Inner Asia, Cambridge 1990, 256-84
idem, Aspects of the nomadic factor in the economic development of Kievan Rus, in I.S. Koropeckyj (ed.), Ukrainian economic history, Cambridge, Mass. 1991, 58-102
idem, An introduction to the history of the Turkic peoples, Wiesbaden 1992, 264-70
Gy. Györffy, A Besenyok nyelve, in Besenyok és Magyarok, in A. Magyarság keleti elemei, Budapest 1990
A.N. Kurat, Peçenek tarihi, Istanbul 1937
S.G. Klyashtorniy, Drevnet¹³rkskie runicheskie pamyatniki kak istochnik po istorii Sredney Azii, Moscow  [VIII:291a]1964
L. Ligeti, À propos du rapport sur les rois demeurant dans le Nord, in Études tibetaines dédiées à la mémoire de Marcelle Lalou, Paris 1971
idem, A magyar nyelv törok kapcsolatai a hongfoglalás elott és az Árpád-korban, Budapest 1986
A. Pálóczi Horvath, Pechenegs, Cumans, Iasians. Steppe peoples in medieval Hungary, Budapest 1989
P. Pelliot, Notes sur l'histoire de la Horde d'Or suivies de Quelques noms turcs d'hommes et de peuples finissant en -ar (-ar)... (Oeuvres posthumes, II), Paris 1949
O. Pritsak, The Pechenegs : a case of social and economic transformation, in Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, i (1975), 211-35
Gy. Németh, Die Inschriften des Schatzes von Nagy-Szent-Miklós (Bibliotheca Orientalis Hungarica, II), Budapest 1932
L. Rásonyi, Hidak a Dunán, Budapest 1981, Tkish. tr. Tuna köprüleri, Ankara 1984
A.N. Scherbak, Znaki na keramike i kirpichaÕ9 iz Sarkela-Beloy Veìi, in Materiali i issledovaniya po arÕ9eologii SSSR, no. 75 (1959)
E. Tryjarski et al., Hunowie europejscy, ProtobuÑgarzy, Chazarowie, Pieczyngowie, WrocÑaw -Warszawa- GdaÔsk 1975
V.G. Vasil'evskiy, Vizantiya i Pechenegi, in idem, Trudi, i, St. Petersburg 1908.

 

 
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O.Pritsak "Pechenegs"
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