Their earliest history and origins are unclear. They have been identified with the Pei-ju (= Middle Chin. *
- wok = (?), according to Pelliot, Quelques noms, 226, n.1), noted in a 7th century A.D. Chinese source, the Sui-shu, a T'ieh-lê tribe, located near the En-ch'ü ( ?) and A-lan (Alans). But, this is far from certain. More reliable is a notice in a Tibetan translation of an 8th century source on the “Northern peoples” which tells of Be- -nag hostilities with the Hor ( ), probably in the Syr Darya region (Bacot, Reconnaissance, 147; Ligeti, Rapport, 170, 172, 175, 176). traditions (cf. Jahn, Geschichte der Oguzen des ad- , 24-5; Abu 'l- , -yi , ed. Kononov, 41-2) appear to confirm this. The presence in their union of the /Kenger (Kãggar) sub-confederation (Const. Porph., De admin. imperii, 170-1) may also point to a tie to this region. has been connected with the Kengeres people mentioned in the Kül Tegin inscription and the (> * ) nomads who settled in Transcaucasia. These, in turn, may be related to the Türk toponym Kengü Tarban and the Chinese K'ang-chü (a term designating the middle Syr Darya and adjoining lands, see , Drevnetyurkskie pamyatniki, 156-78) and Old Iran. . Pritsak ( , 212-14) derives this ethno-toponym from Tokharian * “stone” (cf. Turk. “Stone City,” Kengeres < + ÖAorsoi > * > > = *Kenger As) and suggests that they were Tokharian-speaking, mercantile city-oasis ( ) dwellers. The difficulty here is that although Kang, etc., may be connected with * , As cannot be derived from ÖAors (= Iran. which produces Urs/Ors). Pritsak further conjectures that the , driven into the steppe by an - -Kimek coalition, became nomads, forming a confederation consisting of Tokharian, Eastern Iranian and Turkic elements. Their connection with Eastern Iranian elements is hinted at in the remark of al- ( , tr. , 19) regarding a people that “are of the race of al- and that of al- and their language is a mixture of the languages of the and the (a) .” This is echoed in the Old Rus' translation of Josephus Flavius (ed. , 454) which adds “the Yas, as is known, descended from the clan/tribe.” Németh, followed by Ligeti, however, on the basis of their fragmentary linguistic remains, view them as Common Turkic-speakers (most probably, , see Németh, Die Inschriften, 16, 50-1; Ligeti, A magyar nyelv, 362, 506, and Györffy, A nyelve, 170- | [VIII:289b] 91). Anna Comnena (ed. B. Leib, ii, 142) remarks that the (whom she calls “Seythians”) speak the same language as the Komans (= - ). al- (tr. Dankoff, i, 84), however, seems to lump them together with the and speaking a “Turkic of a single type with clipped ends.” The available linguistic material points rather in the direction of . The possibility that they adopted Turkic is not to be excluded.Islamic geographers (cf. al- , 10; al- , , 180-1) were aware that the
had entered the Western Eurasian steppes in a series of migrations, the source of some confusion regarding the habitat in other Islamic authors. This confusion is furthered by the use of the ethnonym / , etc., to denote both the ( ) and the Hungarians in both their Bashkirian (Magna Hungaria) and Pannonian homelands. Warfare with the (who absorbed some of them, cf. the ), and Kimäks drove the from Central Asia into the Volga-Ural/ mesopotamia and later, with added pressure in the late 9th century (Const. Porph., DAI, 166-7), into the Pontic steppes. Here, they nomadised from the Don to the Danube. They were, as notes (tr. Dankoff, i, 92), the closest, of all the Turkic peoples, to . 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 , / and others of their neighbours ( Ibn Rusta, 140; /Barthold, 35, 36; al- , 101, 142, 160 (commenting that the slaves brought from Khazaria to the Islamic lands “are mostly from here” i.e. the “Khazarian ”); al- , ed. tr. Kunik and Rozen, 42). /Barthold, 35, 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 ...”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
union was composed of 8 tribal groupings (lit. y°mata “provinces”), headed by “great princes,” four on each side of the Dnieper (reflecting Turkic bipartite, left-right organisational principles). These further subdivided into 40 “districts” (m°rh), clan groupings (?). This internal organisation, 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 colour, and with some possible exceptions, the titles of their rulers, e.g. Xaboujin-gulã -Yula “the tribe of the Yula with bark-coloured horses,” Surou-koulp°h Suru Kül Bey “the tribe of the Kül Bey with greyish 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/ habitat, ca. 889 (DAI, 166-9; Németh, Die Inschriften, 50-1; Ligeti, A magyar nyelv, 507-11). None of the contemporary sources (Byzantine, Rus' or Islamic) notes the presence of a supreme executive authority in this tribal confederation. The , 101, merely comments that they were ruled by an “elder” ( mihtar ) and had no towns. The notice in (d. 1286, preserved in Abu 'l- , d. 1331), reporting that they had a town, , and were ruled by a (Abu 'l- , , | [VIII:290a] 205), should be viewed as a topos. The , like most of the nomadic polities in the Western Eurasian steppes, were stateless.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
, now Byzantine allies, could attack Bulgaria. After 920, -Rus' relations were largely hostile. On occasion, served as mercenaries in Rus' campaigns (e.g. Igor's 944 raid on Byzantium, PSRL, i, cc. 42, 43, 45). Sometimes, they were brought in as “allies” in Rus' throne struggles. They never undertook the permanent conquest of Rus'. The Byzantines used them during 's Balkan wars, eventually leading to their fatal ambush of the Rus' ruler in 972 (PSRL, i, cc. 72, 73). Relations with Rus' worsened under Vladimir I (978-1015), producing several decades of war (988-ca. 1006-7). They were decisively defeated by of Kiev in 1036 and thereafter pushed (by Rus', and - pressure) toward the Byzantine Danubian frontier (PSRL, i, cc. 150-1; Diaconu, Les Petchénègues, 39-49) 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 (1060) and the entrance of the - into the Pontic steppe increased the pressure on the , who retaliated with their own depredations. The Byzantine Emperor Alexius I (1081-1118), aided by the - , delivered a mortal blow to military might at Levunion in 1091. Some fell under - overlordship, others took service as borderguards with Byzantium, the Hungarian kingdom (where they also settled) or Rus' (where they became part of the (“Black cowls” noted in ad- , ed. Alizade, ii/1, 162-3, as the -i -i ), a Turkic, nomadic force in service to the Kievan rulers.In their heyday, the
had extensive commercial ties with Rus' (where they sold horses, cattle and sheep) and the Islamic world. Al- notes the presence among them of merchants from , the North Caucasus ( al- , Alania) and elsewhere (Const. Porph., DAI, 48-51; al- , , ed. Pellat, i, 237). On occasion, the threatened the “route from the Varangians to the Greeks” (Const. Porph., DAI, 56-63), but never seriously affected trade.We know little of
culture and customs. Al- , ed. Bombaci et al ., viii, 918, 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 (the Nikon chronicle, in PSRL, ix, 57, 64) places their introduction to Christianity in the late 10th century (the conversions of Metigay and 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. Al- (ed. Kunik and Rozen, 43), however, reports that the were , but in 400/1009-10, under the influence of a captive , converted to Islam, precipitating internecine strife from which the Muslims emerged victorious. Manichaeanism, along with Orthodox Christianity also came to them from the Balkans (see Vasil'evskiy, i , 38-43).(P.B. Golden)
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 siècle, in JA , ccxliv (1956), 137-53.
(c) Turkic. Abu 'l- , -yi / Turkmen, ed. tr. A.N. Kononov, Moscow-Leningrad 1958.
(d) Arabic. Abu 'l-
, al- /Géographie d'Aboulfeda, ed. Reinaud and de Slane, Paris 1840, in A. Kunik and V. Rozen (ed. tr.), al-Bekri i avtorov o Rusi i , 102 (pt. 1 supplement to the Zapiski Imperatorskoy Akademii Nauk, xxxii [1876])
, al- , tr. , Beirut 1962
Ibn
, First , ed. S. , Damascus 1960, Nuzhat al- , Opus geographicum, ed. A. Bombaci et al., Naples-Leiden-Rome 1970-84
, , ed. Ch. Pellat, Beirut 1966 ff.
idem, .
(e) Persian. Anon., al- , tr. Minorsky
, Zayn al- , in V.V. Bartol'd (Barthold), o poezdke v s tsel' 1893-1894 gg., in Zapiski Imperatorskoy Akademii Nauk, ser. VII, t. i, 74-175. Pers. text and Russ. tr. repr. in , Moscow 1963-73, viii, 23-62
, al- , ed. A.A. Alizade et al., Baku-Moscow 19803
idem, in K. Jahn (ed. tr.), Die Geschichte der Oguzen des ad- , 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.
, iosifa v drevnerusskom perevode, Moscow-Leningrad 1958Polnoe sobranie letopisey, St. Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad-Moscow 1841-.
2.
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P. Diaconu, Les Petchénègues au Bas-Danube, Bucharest 1970
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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
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A.N. Kurat, Peçenek tarihi, Istanbul 1937
S.G.
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idem, A magyar nyelv törok kapcsolatai a hongfoglalás és az Árpád-korban, Budapest 1986
A. Pálóczi Horvath, Pechenegs, Cumans, Iasians. Steppe peoples in medieval Hungary , Budapest 1989
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O. Pritsak, The : 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
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, Znaki na keramike i iz Sarkela-Beloy , in i po SSSR, no. 75 (1959)E. Tryjarski et al., Hunowie europejscy, , Chazarowie, Pieczyngowie,
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