Polovtsi: the first enemies of Russia. Polovtsi Polovtsi were first mentioned in the annals
The Polovtsi remained in the history of Russia as the worst enemies of Vladimir Monomakh and cruel mercenaries during the internecine wars. The tribes that worshiped the sky terrorized the Old Russian state for almost two centuries.
Who are the Polovtsians?
In 1055, the Pereyaslavl prince Vsevolod Yaroslavich, returning from a campaign to the Torks, met a detachment of new, previously unknown in Russia, nomads led by Khan Bolush. The meeting passed peacefully, the new "acquaintances" were given the Russian name "Polovtsy" and the future neighbors dispersed. Since 1064 in the Byzantine and since 1068 in the Hungarian sources, the Cumans and Kuns, also previously unknown in Europe, are mentioned. They were to play a significant role in the history of Eastern Europe, becoming formidable enemies and insidious allies of the ancient Russian princes, becoming mercenaries in fratricidal civil strife. The presence of the Polovtsians, Cumans, Coons, who appeared and disappeared at the same time, did not go unnoticed, and the questions of who they were and where they came from are of concern to historians to this day.
According to the traditional version, all four of the aforementioned peoples were a single Turkic-speaking people, which were called differently in different parts of the world. Their ancestors, the Sars, lived on the territory of Altai and the eastern Tien Shan, but the state they formed was defeated by the Chinese in 630. The remains went to the steppes of eastern Kazakhstan, where they got their new name "Kipchaks", which, according to legend, means "unfortunate". Under this name they are mentioned in many medieval Arab-Persian sources. However, in both Russian and Byzantine sources, the Kipchaks are not found at all, and a people similar in description is called "Kumans", "Kuns" or "Polovtsy". Moreover, the etymology of the latter remains unclear. Perhaps the word comes from the Old Russian "floor", which means "yellow". According to scientists, this may indicate that this people had a light hair color and belonged to the western branch of the Kipchaks - "Sary-Kipchaks" (the Kuns and Cumans belonged to the eastern and had a Mongoloid appearance). According to another version, the term "Polovtsy" could come from the familiar word "field" and denote all inhabitants of the fields, regardless of their tribal affiliation.
The official version has many weaknesses. Firstly, if all the above-mentioned peoples initially represented a single people - the Kipchaks, then in this case, how to explain that neither Byzantium, nor Russia, nor Europe, this toponym was unknown. In the countries of Islam, where they knew about the Kipchaks firsthand, on the contrary, they did not hear about the Polovtsy or the Cumans at all. The unofficial version comes to the aid of archeology, according to which, the main archaeological finds of the Polovtsian culture - stone women erected on the mounds in honor of the soldiers who died in the battle, were characteristic only of the Polovtsians and Kipchaks. The Cumans, despite their worship of the sky and the cult of the mother goddess, did not leave such monuments.
All these arguments "against" allow many modern researchers to deviate from the canon of studying the Polovtsians, Cumans and Coons as one and the same tribe. According to the candidate of sciences, Evstigneev, the Polovtsy-Sars are the Turgeshes who, for some reason, fled from their territories to Semirechye.
Weapon of civil strife
The Polovtsi had no intention of remaining a "good neighbor" of Kievan Rus. As befits nomads, they soon mastered the tactics of sudden raids: they set up ambushes, attacked by surprise, swept away an unprepared enemy on their way. Armed with bows and arrows, sabers and short spears, Polovtsian soldiers rushed into battle, at a gallop filling the enemy with a bunch of arrows. They went "roundup" through the cities, robbing and killing people, driving them into captivity.
In addition to shock cavalry, their strength was also in the developed strategy, as well as in technologies new for that time, such as heavy crossbows and "liquid fire", which they apparently borrowed from China since the time of their life in Altai.
However, as long as the centralized power was held in Russia, thanks to the order of succession to the throne established under Yaroslav the Wise, their raids remained only a seasonal disaster, and certain diplomatic relations even began between Russia and the nomads. There was a lively trade, the population communicated widely in the border areas. Among the Russian princes, dynastic marriages with the daughters of the Polovtsian khans became popular. The two cultures coexisted in a fragile neutrality that could not last long.
In 1073, the triumvirate of the three sons of Yaroslav the Wise: Izyaslav, Svyatoslav, Vsevolod, to whom he bequeathed Kievan Rus, fell apart. Svyatoslav and Vsevolod accused their elder brother of conspiring against them and striving to become an "autocrat" like their father. This was the birth of a big and long turmoil in Russia, which the Polovtsians took advantage of. Not taking the side of anyone to the end, they willingly took the side of the man who promised them big "profits". So, the first prince who resorted to their help - Prince Oleg Svyatoslavich, whom his uncles deprived of the inheritance, allowed them to plunder and burn Russian cities, for which he was nicknamed Oleg Gorislavich.
Subsequently, the call of the Polovtsians as allies in the internecine struggle became a common practice. In alliance with the nomads, Yaroslav's grandson Oleg Gorislavich expelled Vladimir Monomakh from Chernigov, he also got Moore, driving out of there the son of Vladimir Izyaslav. As a result, the warring princes faced a real danger of losing their own territories. In 1097, on the initiative of Vladimir Monomakh, then prince of Pereslavl, the Lyubech Congress was convened, which was supposed to end the internecine war. The princes agreed that from now on everyone had to own his own "fatherland". Even the Kiev prince, who formally remained the head of state, could not violate the borders. Thus, fragmentation was officially enshrined in Russia with good intentions. The only thing that even then united the Russian lands was a common fear of the Polovtsian invasions.
War of Monomakh
The most ardent enemy of the Polovtsians among the Russian princes was Vladimir Monomakh, during whose great reign the practice of using the Polovtsian troops for the purpose of fratricide was temporarily stopped. The chronicles, which were actively copied under him, tell about him as the most influential prince in Russia, who was known as a patriot who spared neither strength nor life for the defense of the Russian lands. Having suffered defeats from the Polovtsy, in alliance with which his brother and his worst enemy, Oleg Svyatoslavich, stood, he developed a completely new strategy in the fight against nomads - to fight on their own territory. Unlike the Polovtsian detachments, which were strong in sudden raids, the Russian squads received an advantage in open combat. The Polovtsian "lava" broke against the long spears and shields of Russian foot soldiers, and the Russian cavalry, surrounding the steppe inhabitants, did not allow them to escape on their famous light-winged horses. Even the time of the campaign was thought out: until early spring, when the Russian horses, which were fed with hay and grain, were stronger than the Polovtsian horses that were emaciated on pasture.
Monomakh's favorite tactic also gave an advantage: he provided an opportunity for the enemy to attack first, preferring defense at the expense of footmen, since, attacking, the enemy exhausted himself much more than the defending Russian warrior. During one of these attacks, when the infantry took the main blow, the Russian cavalry went around from the flanks and struck in the rear. This decided the outcome of the battle. Vladimir Monomakh needed only a few trips to the Polovtsian lands to save Russia from the Polovtsian threat for a long time. In the last years of his life, Monomakh sent his son Yaropolk with an army across the Don, on a campaign against the nomads, but he did not find them there. The Polovtsi migrated away from the borders of Russia, to the Caucasian foothills.
"Polovtsian women", like other stone women, are not necessarily images of women, there are many male faces among them. Even the very etymology of the word "baba" comes from the Turkic "balbal", which means "ancestor", "grandfather-father", and is associated with the cult of reverence for ancestors, and not at all with female beings. Although, according to another version, stone women are traces of the matriarchy that has gone into the past, as well as the cult of veneration of the mother goddess, among the Polovtsians - Umai, who personified the earthly principle. The only obligatory attribute is the hands folded on the stomach, holding the bowl for sacrifices, and the breast, which is also found in men, and is obviously associated with the feeding of the genus.
According to the beliefs of the Polovtsians, who professed shamanism and Tengrianism (worship of the sky), the dead were endowed with special powers that allowed them to help their descendants. Therefore, a Polovtsian passing by had to bring a sacrifice to the statue (judging by the finds, these were usually rams) in order to enlist its support. This is how the Azerbaijani poet of the 12th century Nizami, whose wife was a Polovtsian, describes this rite:
“And the back of the Kipchaks bends before the idol ...
The rider hesitates before him, and, holding his horse,
He bends an arrow into the middle of the grasses,
Every shepherd who drives the flock knows
That it is necessary to leave the sheep in front of the idol ”.
We all know from history that in ancient times the Russians often fought with the Polovtsians. But who are these Polovtsians? After all, now in the world there is no people with such a name. And yet, their blood, perhaps, flows even in ourselves ...
"Unfortunate" people
It is not known exactly where the ethnonym "Polovtsy" came from. At one time, there was a version that it was associated with the word "field", because these peoples lived in the field, steppe. Modern historians, for the most part, believe that the word "Polovtsian" came from "sexual" - "yellow-white, yellowish, straw". Most likely, the hair of the representatives of this people was light yellow, straw color. Although this is strange for the Turkic tribes. The Polovtsians themselves called themselves Kipchaks, Kimaks, Kumans ...
It is interesting that the word "Kipchak" (or, as the speakers themselves pronounced it, "Kypchak") means "ill-fated" in Turkic dialects. Most likely, the ancestors of the Kipchaks were the tribes of the Sirs, who roamed in the IV-VII centuries in the steppes between the Mongolian Altai and the eastern Tien Shan. There is evidence that in 630 they formed a state called Kipchak, which was later destroyed by the Uighurs and the Chinese.
At the beginning of the 11th century, the Polovtsian tribes came from the Trans-Volga region to the Black Sea steppes, then crossed the Dnieper and reached the lower reaches of the Danube. Thus, they managed to populate the entire territory from the Danube to the Irtysh, which was called the Great Steppe. Eastern sources even call it Desht-i-Kipchak (Kipchak steppe).
From raids to the Golden Horde
Starting from the second half of the 11th century, the Polovtsians continually raided Russia, devastating the land, taking cattle and property, and taking local residents prisoner. Border principalities - Pereyaslavskoye, Severskoye, Kievskoye, Ryazanskoye - suffered the most from the Polovtsian attacks.
At the beginning of the XII century, the troops of the princes Svyatopolk Izyaslavich and Vladimir Monomakh managed to push the Polovtsy to the Caucasus, beyond the Volga and the Don. Subsequently, they made up the majority of the population of the Golden Horde. It was from them, according to historians, that the Tatars, Kyrgyz, Gagauz, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Karakalpaks, Nogais, Kumyks, Bashkirs, Karachais, Balkars came.
Where to look for the descendants of the Polovtsians?
During the existence of the Golden Horde, Russian princes often married Polovtsian princesses. The beginning of this tradition was laid by the son of Yaroslav the Wise, Prince Vsevolod, who in 1068 married Anna, the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan, who went down in history as Anna Polovetskaya. His son Vladimir Monomakh also married a Polovtsian woman. Kiev prince Svyatopolk Izyaslavich was married to the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan Tugorkan, Yuri Dolgoruky - to the daughter of Khan Aepa, Rurik, the son of the Great Kiev Prince Rostislav Mstislavich - to the daughter of Khan Belok, son of Novgorod-Seversk
th Prince Igor Svyatoslavich, the hero of "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" Vladimir - on the daughter of Khan Konchak, Prince Galitsky Mstislav Udatny - on the daughter of Khan Kotyan, who, by the way, became the grandmother of Alexander Nevsky!
So, mother vladimiro-suzdal
Prince Andrey Bogolyubsky, the son of Yuri Dolgoruky, was a Polovtsian. The study of his remains was supposed to serve as confirmation or refutation of the theory about the Caucasian appearance of the Polovtsians. It turned out that there was nothing Mongoloid in the appearance of the prince. Anthropologically believed
m data, they were typical Europeans. All descriptions indicate that the “Kipchaks” had blond or reddish hair, gray or blue eyes ... Another thing is that in the process of assimilation they could mix, for example, with the Mongols, and their descendants already acquired Mongoloid features.
Where did the Polovtsians get their Caucasian features? One of the hypotheses says that they were the descendants of the Dinlins, one of the most ancient nations of Europe, who, as a result of migration processes, mixed with the Turks.
Today, among the Nogai, Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Tatars, Kirghiz, there are descendants of tribes with the generic names "Kipchak", "Kypshak", "Kypsak" with similar genetic haplogroups. Among the Bulgarians, Altai, Nogays, Bashkirs, Kirghiz there are ethnic groups with the names "Kuman", "Kuban", "Cuba", which some historians attribute to a part of the Polovtsian tribes. The Hungarians, in turn, have ethnic groups "Plavtsy" and "Kunok", which are descendants of related tribes - the Polovtsy and the Kuns.
A number of researchers believe that distant descendants of the Polovtsians are also found among Ukrainians, Poles, Czechs, Bulgarians and even Germans.
Thus, the blood of the Polovtsians can flow in many peoples not only in Asia, but also in Europe, and even Slavic, not excluding, of course, the Russians ...
The Polovtsi are one of the most mysterious steppe peoples that went down in Russian history thanks to the raids on the principalities and the repeated attempts of the rulers of the Russian lands, if not to defeat the steppe inhabitants, then at least to come to an agreement with them. The Cumans themselves were defeated by the Mongols and settled over a large part of Europe and Asia. Now there is no people who could directly trace their genealogy to the Polovtsians. And yet they certainly have descendants.
In the steppe (Deshti-Kipchak - Kipchak, or Polovtsian steppe) lived not only the Polovtsians, but also other peoples, who are sometimes united with the Polovtsians, sometimes considered independent: for example, the Cumans and Kuns. Most likely, the Polovtsians were not a "monolithic" ethnic group, but were divided into tribes. Arab historians of the early Middle Ages distinguish 11 tribes, Russian chronicles also indicate that different Polovtsian tribes lived west and east of the Dnieper, east of the Volga, near the Seversky Donets.
Many Russian princes were the descendants of the Polovtsians - their fathers often married noble Polovtsian girls. Not so long ago, a dispute broke out about how Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky actually looked. According to the reconstruction of Mikhail Gerasimov, in his appearance, Mongoloid features were combined with Caucasoid ones. However, some modern researchers, for example, Vladimir Zvyagin, believe that there were no Mongoloid features in the appearance of the prince at all.
What did the Polovtsians themselves look like?
There is no consensus among researchers on this score. In the sources of the XI-XII centuries, the Polovtsians are often called "yellow". The Russian word also probably comes from the word "sexual", that is, yellow, straw.
Some historians believe that among the ancestors of the Polovtsians were the "dinlins" described by the Chinese: people who lived in southern Siberia and were blond. But the authoritative researcher of the Polovtsi Svetlana Pletneva, who has repeatedly worked with materials from the mounds, does not agree with the hypothesis about the "fair hair" of the Polovtsian ethnic group. “Yellow” can be the self-name of a part of a nationality, in order to distinguish itself, to oppose the rest (in the same period, there were, for example, “black” Bulgarians).
According to Pletneva, the bulk of the Polovtsians were brown-eyed and dark-haired - these are Turks with an admixture of Mongoloid. It is quite possible that among them there were people of different types of appearance - the Polovtsians willingly took as wives and concubines of Slavs, however, not of princely families. The princes never gave their daughters and sisters to the steppe dwellers. In the Polovtsian nomad camps there were also Rusichs who were captured in the battle, as well as slaves.
Hungarian king of the Cumans and the "Cuman Hungarians"
Part of Hungary's history is directly related to the Cumans. Several Polovtsian families settled on its territory already in 1091. In 1238, pressed by the Mongols, the Polovtsians under the leadership of Khan Kotyan settled there with the permission of King Bela IV, who needed allies.
In Hungary, as in some other European countries, the Polovtsians were called "Cumans". The lands on which they began to live were named Kunság (Kunsag, Kumania). In total, up to 40 thousand people arrived at the new place of residence.
Khan Kotyan even gave his daughter to Bela's son Istvan. He and the Polovtsian Irzhebet (Ershebet) had a boy Laszlo. For his origin he was nicknamed "Kun".
According to his images, he did not look like a Caucasian without an admixture of Mongoloid features. Rather, these portraits remind us of the reconstruction of the external appearance of the steppe inhabitants familiar from history textbooks.
Laszlo's personal guard consisted of his fellow tribesmen, he appreciated the customs and traditions of his mother's people. Despite the fact that he was officially a Christian, he and other Cumans even prayed in Cuman (Cuman).
The Cuman Polovtsians gradually assimilated. For some time, until the end of the 14th century, they wore national clothes, lived in yurts, but gradually adopted the culture of the Hungarians. The Cuman language was supplanted by the Hungarian language, the communal lands became the property of the nobility, who also wanted to look "more Hungarian". The Kunsag region was subordinated to the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. As a result of the wars, up to half of the Kipchak Polovtsians perished. A century later, the language completely disappeared.
Now the distant descendants of the steppe dwellers do not differ in any way from the rest of the inhabitants of Hungary - they are Caucasians.
Polovtsi in Bulgaria
Polovtsi arrived in Bulgaria for several centuries. In the XII century, the territory was under the rule of Byzantium, the Polovtsian settlers were engaged in cattle breeding there, trying to enter the service.
In the 13th century, the number of steppe dwellers who moved to Bulgaria increased. Some of them came from Hungary after the death of Khan Kotyan. But in Bulgaria they quickly mixed with the locals, adopted Christianity and lost their special ethnic traits. Possibly, Polovtsian blood is now flowing in a certain number of Bulgarians. Unfortunately, it is still difficult to accurately identify the genetic characteristics of the Polovtsians, because there are plenty of Turkic features in the Bulgarian ethnic group due to its origin. Bulgarians also have a Caucasian appearance.
Polovtsian blood in Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Uzbeks and Tatars
Many Cumans did not migrate - they mixed with the Tatar-Mongols. The Arab historian Al-Omari (Shihabuddin al-Umari) wrote that, having joined the Golden Horde, the Polovtsians switched to the position of subjects. The Tatar-Mongols who settled on the territory of the Polovtsian steppe gradually mixed with the Polovtsians. Al-Omari concludes that after several generations the Tatars began to look like the Polovtsians: “as if from the same clan (with them),” because they began to live on their lands.
Subsequently, these peoples settled in different territories and took part in the ethnogenesis of many modern nations, including Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Kirghiz and other Turkic-speaking peoples. The types of appearance for each of these (and those listed in the title of the section) nations are different, but each has a share of Polovtsian blood.
The Polovtsi are also among the ancestors of the Crimean Tatars. The steppe dialect of the Crimean Tatar language belongs to the Kypchak group of Turkic languages, and the Kypchak is a descendant of the Polovtsian. The Cumans mixed with the descendants of the Huns, Pechenegs, and Khazars. Now the majority of Crimean Tatars are Caucasians (80%), Crimean steppe Tatars have Caucasian-Mongoloid appearance.
Another mysterious ancient people who settled all over the world are the gypsies. You can find out about that in one of our previous reviews.
... Polovtsian camp. Evening. Polovtsian girls dance and sing a song in which they compare a flower hungry for moisture with a girl hoping for a date with her beloved. Khan Konchak offers the captured Prince Igor freedom in exchange for a promise not to raise the sword against him. But Igor honestly says that if the khan lets him go, he will immediately gather the regiments and strike again. Konchak regrets that he and Igor are not allies, and calls the captives and captives to amuse them. The scene "Polovtsian Dances" begins. First, the girls dance and sing (chorus "Fly away on the wings of the wind"). The choreographic action is staged on the amazing beauty and melodic arias of the Polovtsian girl and Konchakovna. Then the general dance of the Polovtsians begins. The action ends with a general climactic dance ...
The Polovtsi are mentioned or described in detail in a huge amount of historical literature, from Russian chronicles to Byzantine treatises, in the Lay of Igor's Host, in medieval Arab authors and, of course, in detailed (as far as possible) recent studies. I will refer interested readers to the magnificent work of S.A. Pletneva "Polovtsy" (publishing house "Science", M., 1990) edited by academician BA Rybakov, where, in the author's preface, a summary of the most significant studies on this issue is given. There is no point in retelling them here, the task of this essay is completely different. Namely, using the methods and approaches of DNA genealogy, try to understand, or at least outline the outline of a solution to the issue, where do the descendants of the Polovtsians live now, in our days, and who were their ancestors, those same Polovtsians, by tribal affiliation?
History, or rather, its perception by the "popular masses", often turns out to be unfair to certain populations, ethnic groups, super-ethnic groups, nationalities. Yes, history was not made with white gloves. Russian princes were indiscriminate (at first glance) in their military alliances with other princes, Russians and non-Russians, and at the head of their troops and often in temporary collaboration with other princes, khans, murzas, emirs, kagans and other military leaders, they put a huge number of their own Russians in the name of their military-political goals, as well as just like that, because of family troubles, in the course of revenge for past insults and humiliations, and for many other reasons. The Polovtsi also fell into the kaleidoscope of this historical mosaic. They were friends with some Russian princes and were at enmity with others. They tied family ties with the Russian princes, they were father-in-law, sons-in-law, fathers and children, died along with the Russian troops on the battlefields, fighting side by side, back to back, on one side, and also against them. In general, like the overwhelming majority of other tribes, ethnic groups, peoples in those days, as, indeed, at any time, right up to the present day.
But if you read the epics and chronicles, then the Polovtsians, on the whole, turn out to be "enemies of the Russian people", and sworn enemies at that. What is one Tugarin Zmeevich worth ... This is a historical person, the Polovtsian Khan Tugorkan. For the first time, news about him appears in the writings of the Byzantine princess Anna Comnena (1083-1155), the granddaughter of the Emperor Alexei Komnenos, she calls him Togortak. She described the arrival of the Polovtsian troops to the aid of Christian Byzantium against the Pechenegs in the early 1090s. The Pechenegs were defeated by the Cumans, and in 1094, after a series of (unsuccessful) battles with the Cumans, Prince Svyatopolk made peace with them, “ singing his wife, daughter Tugorkanu, Polovtsian prince"(Complete collection of Russian chronicles, II, 1962, p. 216). In 1095, a fatal quarrel broke out between the Polovtsians and the Pereyaslavl prince Vladimir Vsevolodich, who ordered the execution of two influential Polovtsian ambassadors who came with a proposal for peace, and they were killed insidiously, even before the negotiations began. The war began again, and the next year, after an almost two-month siege of Pereyaslavl, under the onslaught of troops led by Prince Vladimir " fleeing there was a foreigner, and their prince Tugorkan was killed by the son and his son, and the princes of the other tribe were killed"(PSRL, II, 1962, p. 222). Svyatopolk found the body of his father-in-law on a slash field, and buried it: “ on the morning of the morning, Tugorkan was dead, and taking Svyatopolk, like a father-in-law and an enemy, and brought it to Kyev, a cellar and on Berestove».
21 years later, Vladimir Monomakh married his son Andrei to Tugorkan's granddaughter. Tugarin, so to speak, our Zmeevich. And George, the future Yuri Dolgoruky, married the daughter of another Polovtsian khan. This is how the Nikon Chronicle tells about the events of a little earlier: “ Volodar came with the Polovtsy to Kiev, forgetting the good deeds of his lord prince. Vladimir, taught by a demon. Vladimir, then, in Pereyaslavtsy on the Danube: and there was great confusion in Kiev. And Aleksandr Popovich is going out to meet them, and kill Volodar and his brother and kill many Polovtsians, and drive away others in the field.". Here Vladimir Monomakh, Volodar Peremyshlsky and Alexander Popovich appear, speaking in ancient epics under the name of Alyosha Popovich (link).
Omitting the subsequent complex history of the relationship of the Russian principalities with the Polovtsy, which were also different - Don, Dnieper, Bugodnistrian, Crimean (especially at the end of the 12th century), Lukomorian (the Lukomorian Polovtsian association apparently included the Crimean Polovtsy), eastern, Cumans (western Polovtsy), Ciscaucasian - recall that at the beginning of the XIII century. a relative balance was established between the Russian principalities and the Polovtsian nomads. Russian princes stopped organizing raids and campaigns on the steppes, and the Polovtsians - on Russian lands. The last time the Polovtsians approached the walls of Kiev together with Prince Izyaslav was in 1234. This was after the Battle of Kalka (1223), where the "Tatar-Mongols" defeated the combined Russian-Polovtsian troops.
I am taking "Tatar-Mongols" here in quotation marks, because this name is a remake. It is not known whether the Mongols were there at all, and they began to be called Tatars only later. Tatars as applied to those times are a purely collective term. Probably, it is more correct to call those military formations Turkic, but the majority of the Polovtsians were also Turks, so there is confusion here too. The name "Mongols" took root in that context because there was no confusion, since there were no Mongols themselves (except, probably, a small number, like other minor ethnic groups in that army). So there was no one to be confused with.
But it is worth considering the reasons and nature of the formation of the united Russian-Polovtsian army, because this will complement the picture of the interaction of these two ethnic groups. The fact is that the Polovtsians met the "Mongols" earlier than the Russians, and realized that they had met with a formidable force, accompanied by cunning and cunning. Let us give the floor to the Arab historian Ibn-al-Athir (1160-1233), who used the term "Tatars", or so it was translated into Russian, and he called the Polovtsy the name "Kipchaks" adopted in Arabic and Persian manuscripts:
« The Tatars moved through these areas, in which there are many peoples, including Allans, Lezgins and (various) Turkic tribes ... Attacking the inhabitants of this country, which they passed, they arrived at the Allans, a numerous people, to whom the news of them had already reached. They (Allans) used all their efforts, gathered a crowd of Kipchaks and fought with them (Tatars). Neither side prevailed over the other. Then the Tatars sent to the Kipchaks to say: “We and you are of the same clan, and these Allans are not yours, so you have nothing to help them; your faith is not like theirs, and we promise you that we will not attack you, but we will bring you as much money and clothes as you want; leave us with them. " The deal between them was settled on the money they would bring, on clothes, etc .; they (the Tatars) really brought them what had been pronounced, and the Kipchaks left them (Allan). Then the Tatars attacked Allan, made a beating between them, rampaged, robbed, took prisoners and went to the Kipchaks, who calmly dispersed on the basis of the peace concluded between them, and learned about them only when they descended on them and invaded their land.».
In Russian-language historical literature, this is called - in an emotional and artistic way - "the first betrayal of the Polovtsians", although such betrayals have been in history, unfortunately, on all sides. Nevertheless, the Polovtsians learned their lesson. In addition, the "Tatars" took back everything that they had given in the form of a bribe, plus much more.
In this historical evidence, given by almost a contemporary of events, attention is drawn to the fact that the Alans and the Polovtsians are "different." We know that the Polovtsians were mainly Türkic-speaking, and the Alans, most likely, were "Iranian-speaking", that is, carriers of Indo-European languages. Judging by many data, but more often interpretations, both of them took part in the ethnogenesis of a number of Caucasian peoples, and we will return to this later.
So, the "Tatars", and in fact the united Central Asian Turkic army, not only defeated the Alans and Polovtsians, but occupied their vast pastures, moved through the Taman Peninsula to the Crimea and began plundering its rich cities. In modern parlance, major geopolitical changes began to mount. The Polovtsi darted across the steppe, some went to the Caucasus mountains, some went to “the country of Russians,” as the ancient Arab historian writes, some went to the Volga or took refuge in the swamps. The chronicle from 1224 reads: “ ... the Polovtsian who came running to the Rus land, and the Russian prince who spoke to them: ... if you don’t help us, we will now be cut by byh, and you will be cut out the next morning"(PSRL, II, 1962, p. 740-741). At a meeting in Kiev, Russian princes and Polovtsian khans decided to meet the "Tatars" in battle. Moreover, "one of the most influential Polovtsians, the" Grand Duke "Basta, hastily adopted the Christian religion, obviously wishing to demonstrate his complete unity with the Russian princes." The "Tatars" sent ambassadors to the Russian princes with a proposal not to interfere in the confrontation between the "Tatars" and the Polovtsians, and promised not to touch the Russian cities in the event of Russian neutrality. But the princes already knew how the same recent proposal to the Polovtsy from the same "Tatars" ended, and they did not find anything better than to execute the ambassadors.
The result is known. In April 1224 the united Russian and Polovtsian regiments were defeated on the Kalka River. Before that, they destroyed the forward patrols of the "Tatar" troops, the commander Ganibek was killed. Let us give the floor again to Ibn al-Athir: “ They (the Tatars) turned back. Then the Russians and Kipchaks had a desire (to attack) them; believing that they had returned out of fear of them and out of powerlessness to fight them, they zealously began to persecute them. The Tatars did not stop retreating, and they chased in their tracks for 12 days, (but) then the Tatars turned to the Russians and Kipchaks, who noticed them only when they had already stumbled upon them; completely unexpected, because they considered themselves safe from the Tatars, being confident in their superiority over them. They did not have time to get ready for battle, when the Tatars with significantly superior forces attacked them. Both sides fought with unprecedented tenacity and the battle between them lasted several days».
Historians note two circumstances (among others, of course). The first is that the Russian and Polovtsian squads fought side by side, next to the regiment of the son of Prince Igor Svyatoslavovich, the regiment of the son of Khan Konchak fought, both died in the battle - both they and their regiments. Second, that in the end the Polovtsians could not withstand the onslaught of the enemy and fled from the battlefield. And this, according to historians, was one of the main reasons for the defeat. “This is how the second betrayal of the Polovtsians took place,” according to the historian Pletneva.
The next wave of "Tatar-Mongols" that followed a few years later (1228-1229), and seven years later the next (in which one of the military leaders was Batu Khan, or Baty in Russian literature) actually destroyed the Polovtsians as an ethnic group. Part went to the Caucasus, part to Hungary, Bulgaria, part to Russia. Some researchers see the descendants of the Polovtsians in the part of the Cossacks who now live in the south of Russia and Ukraine. After the devastation of the Russian lands, Batu returned to the steppe with an army to finish off the Polovtsians. This was accomplished by the complete and purposeful destruction of the Polovtsian aristocracy. As historians note, after this methodically performed operation, from the middle of the XIII century. stone Polovtsian statues were no longer erected in the steppes - there were no customers or performers left.
It should be noted that a certain role in the resettlement of some of the Polovtsians to the Caucasus was played by the Georgian king David the Builder, who sent ambassadors to the Polovtsians with a proposal to resettle the subjects of Khan Atrak. " According to the Georgian chronicle, 40 thousand Polovtsians came with Khan Atrak, including 5 thousand elite fighters.". For other reasons, only 5 thousand of those "elite" arrived in Georgia. " David resettled the Polovtsy who crossed the Daryal along the southern and eastern borderlands and in Kartliya, whose population was almost completely destroyed during the invasions of the Seljuks. Khan Atrak became a court favorite. His influence was based not only on the strength of the soldiers, but also on family relations with the king: he gave his daughter Gurandukht to him.».
As can be seen from the above, it is unlikely that the Polovtsians can be regarded only as "cursed basurmans", "filthy Polovtsians", "Polovtsians, like a brood of cheetahs" (The Word about Igor's regiment), which could be addressed in one form or another to any Russian principality, heaped mountains of corpses of his compatriots, although in those days there was no concept of "compatriots". In fact, at that time there was still no single Russian ethnos, if we understand the ethnos (among other definitions) as “a sense of a single destiny”. The Polovtsi were not only enemies, but also fighting brothers of the Russians in numerous battles, and this brotherhood was sealed with blood shed together against a common enemy.
According to S.A. Pletnev, " both the Polovtsians and in Russia had many people who knew the language of another people well. Mothers and nannies of Russian princes and boyar children were often Polovtsian: they sang Polovtsian songs to the children, spoke to them in their native language. The guys grew up bilingual. It was the same with ordinary people in all principalities bordering on the steppe. Thousands of Russians lived in the Polovtsian camps: wives, maids, slaves, prisoners of war».
And now it is time to move on to an additional deciphering of the concept of "brotherhood", which may be unexpected for many. A number of ancient sources, including Byzantine, tell of the Cumans as blue-eyed and blond people. Chinese sources called them "yellow-headed", that is, again, fair-haired - despite the fact that the Chinese are usually black-haired, like most of the inhabitants of Southeast Asia. Actually, the very Russian word "Polovtsy", according to a number of researchers, means "yellow-headed", from the word "sex". Some researchers associate them with Dinlins, light-headed Caucasians, and trace their origin from the second half of the 1st millennium BC, from the period of the Warring States (480-221 BC) in Northern China, and who then, at the end of the 1st millennium BC, they moved to the steppes of southern Siberia (for more details, see the new book by Klyosov and Penzev, which will soon be out of print). They were also called Kimaks, and in the 1st millennium AD. they were Turkic-speaking. The map below shows the migration route of the Kimaks-Dinlins-Kipchaks-Polovtsians during the 1st millennium AD.
So, fair-haired, blue-eyed Caucasians, although there were definitely Mongoloids among them when their ancestors took Mongoloid women as wives. So the general anthropology here can be varied, but it is important to know that there were Caucasians there. Further more. Archaeological studies of the burials showed that the Kipchaks-Polovtsians laid their dead with their heads to the east and west. This is a characteristic feature of the carriers of the haplogroup R1a, that is, the genus R1a - men on the right side (head to the west), women on the left (head to the east), all facing south. This is how the dead were laid in the burial of R1a carriers in Germany (Eulau), the Corded Ware culture, dated 4600 years ago; in burials of the catacomb culture (from the Dniester to the Volga, II millennium BC); parts of the ancient pit culture (the steppe strip from the Urals to the Dniester, 5600-4300 years ago, that is, IV-III millennia BC; early Maikop culture in the foothills of the North Caucasus; Koban culture; in part of the burials of the Karakol archaeological culture of the bronze century (II millennium BC) on the territory of Gorny Altai (Haak et al, 2008; Klyosov and Penzev, 2014, and references in the same place).
If this is so, then it turns out that the Polovtsians (or a significant part of them) were of the same genus, R1a, with a significant part of the Russian Slavs, or ethnic Russians (now the ethnic Russians of the south of Russia - Belgorod, Kursk, Oryol regions - the content of the haplogroup R1a reaches 67 %). The language, apparently, is different, Turkic, but the genus is the same. How did it happen?
Those who are familiar with my publications on DNA genealogy in the past few years know that the carriers of the haplogroup R1a, who arrived on the Russian Plain about 5000 years ago from Europe, apparently from the Balkans, parted in their part into several migration flows approximately 4500 years ago. On the Russian Plain, the Russians remained, mainly haplogroups R1a-Z280 and R1a-M458 (the latter were formed after the departure of the Aryans, about 4050 years ago), the Aryans of the subclade R1a-Z93 left. Perhaps, along with the subclade Z93, the carriers of the subclade Z280 also left, but they have not yet appeared where the descendants of R1aZ93 mainly live, namely in southern Siberia, in Hindustan, on the Iranian plateau, in the Middle East. Either they (Z280) have not yet been found there in noticeable quantities, or their genus has been suppressed even during the Aryan migrations - or later.
So, those carriers of the Z93 subclade (it can be called a haplogroup with the same reason, these concepts are interchangeable, based on the context), which went far to the east, to the Minusinsk Basin, Altai, northern and northwestern China, Mongolia, are known to us now under many names, among which the collective name Scythians is the most common. But it may well include the Dinlins, the Kipchaks, and the Polovtsians, and other, listed variants of the Polovtsians. Alans - also commonly referred to the Scythians, but their language is different than that of many other Scythians. Judging by the data received, there were Scythians Türkic-speaking, and there were "Iranian-speaking", if we follow the current linguistic classification. It turns out that the speakers of R1a-Z93 left to the east with their Aryan language, aka "Indo-European", aka "Iranian", and it was brought to India and Iran. And those who went further east, to Central Asia, switched to the Turkic languages. But the male haplogroup, the Y chromosome, remains the same, R1a. Thus, the migration of Kimak-Dinlins-Kipchak-Polovtsy during the 1st millennium AD. from Central Asia to the west, to the southern European steppes, Crimea, the Black Sea region - this was a return migration of carriers of the haplogroup R1a, the descendants of the Aryans, to their ancient lands.
How can I check this? In this essay I will focus on that part of the Polovtsians who migrated to the Caucasus, fleeing the "Tatar-Mongols", and if the logic of the above is correct, then their modern descendants with a good probability continue to speak the Turkic languages and have the haplogroup R1a with its subclade Z93 ...
And there are such. These are the Karachai-Balkars of the same haplogroup R1a-Z93. They are a third of the entire people, more precisely, its male part.
The Karachais are a Turkic-speaking people of the North Caucasus, they speak the Karachai-Balkar language of the Kypchak group. The number is about 230 thousand people, of which about 220 thousand live in Russia (mainly in Karachay-Cherkessia, also in Kabardino-Balkaria and the Stavropol Territory), the rest are mainly in Turkey, Syria, the USA, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan.
There are about 150 thousand Balkars, who actually represent a single people with the Karachais, of whom about 113 thousand live in Russia, the rest are in the same place as the Karachais. Historians place the Alans, Bulgars, Kobanians (representatives of the Mountain Koban culture of the Caucasus) at the basis of the origin of the Karachais and Balkars. Some archaeologists attribute the earliest material signs of the Karachay-Balkars to the 13-14 centuries. AD, that is, approximately 700-800 years ago, although ethnonyms and literary sources allow dating to be dated to the 4th-6th centuries, that is, 1700-1500 years ago. As will be shown below, this is generally consistent with the data of DNA genealogy.
Let's move on to this data. The figure below shows a tree of 12-marker Karachay-Balkarian haplotypes. It generally characterizes the Y-chromosomal structure of the (male) population. It can be seen that even at 12 markers, the tree is quite clearly divided into haplogroups. In general, the dominant haplogroup is R1a, its 31%. In second place, with a slight lag, is haplogroup G2a, 27%. The third is haplogroup J (14%), of which almost all haplotypes belong to the J2 subclade (with a bias towards the Balkars). In total, this is almost three quarters of all studied haplotypes.
The rest of the haplogroups - E1b (among the tested - all Karachais), I2a (all Karachais, half of them - one family), Q1a (almost all Balkars), R1b (most Balkars), T (only three of the tested, and two of them are from one families) - occupy only a single percentage each, in aggregate, about a quarter of all studied haplotypes. Often such small - in quantitative terms - formations are mistaken for recent aliens, but this is far from the case. These may be ancient autochthonous tribes, but relatively recently past the bottleneck of the population (pestilence, extermination in wars, etc.), and therefore their number is small. This is also studied by DNA genealogy methods, as will be shown below. An example is haplogroup R1b among (mostly) Balkars.
The purpose of this study is to conduct a DNA genealogical analysis of the Karachais and Balkars, and to answer two main questions - (1) the origin of the main clans (haplogroups) of the Karachai-Balkar people, namely which Eurasian migrations and when over time formed the Karachai-Balkar ethnic fusion, and (2) when the common ancestors of the most influential (princely) clans of Karachais and Balkars lived, and from where they (or their ancestors) could have come to the Caucasus.
A tree of 229 12-marker haplotypes constructed according to the data of the Karachay-Balkarian FTDNA project. Of these, haplogroup R1a - 71 haplotypes, haplogroup G - 62 haplotypes, haplogroup J - 31 haplotypes. These are 31%, 27% and 14%, respectively, for a total of 72%. On the tree there are 145 haplotypes of the Karachais, 64 haplotypes of the Balkars (based on how the people who presented the haplotype called themselves), and 19 haplotypes related to them, according to those who submitted the haplotypes to the database (from other countries).
Haplogroup R1a
Let's start with the most quantitatively represented haplogroup. Most of them belong to the Z93 subclade of the R1a haplogroup. This is the southeastern, Aryan branch of the haplogroup, its carriers passed along the main migration routes of the ancient Aryans - to the south, through the Caucasus to Mesopotamia and further to the Arabian Peninsula (apparently, the Mitannian Aryans of Syria had the same subclade of haplogroup R1a), to the southeast , to Central Asia, and then as the Avestian Arians passed in the middle of the II millennium BC. to the Iranian plateau, to the east and further to India at the same time, in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC, becoming Indo-Aryans, and further east, to southern Siberia, becoming Altai Scythians, during the Pazyryk culture and later. All of them mainly (but not only) were carriers of the R1a-Z93 subclade, like the Karachais and Balkars. The question is - at what stage of history did this subclade become Karachay-Balkarian? When? How?
The most obvious answer, to which the first part of this essay leads, is the Polovtsian subclade. The Kipchaks-Polovtsians, as part of the Scythian super-ethnos, brought their subclade R1a-Z93 to the North Caucasus 750-800 years ago, and their ethnos eventually took shape in the Karachai-Balkarian ethnos, preserving the Kipchak-Polovtsian language. But one can hardly expect that the common ancestors of the Karachai-Balkars lived only 750-800 years ago. After all, this is only a visit to the Caucasus, and some DNA lines really could go from that time. But on the whole, the common ancestor of those who arrived in the Caucasus could have lived much earlier. In principle, he could live as he liked deep into time, up to the time of the Dinlins (in the middle of the 1st millennium BC) and earlier, but experience shows that during long migrations, the common ancestor shifts in time to more recent times, and only what time it takes depends on a lot of factors. This should be clear.
Let's try to get closer to the answers to these questions by constructing a tree of the R1a-Z93 subclade based on the available 285 haplotypes in an extended 67-marker format, among which there are haplotypes of the princely families of the Krymshamkhalovs, Dudovs, Chipchikovs, Kodzhakovs, Temirbulatovs, Karabashevs and others. On the same tree, there are many haplotypes from the Arab countries of the Middle East, India, as well as Bashkortostan, and many European and Asian countries. Some of them are random, isolated, some form rather large groups with ancient common ancestors. All this constitutes a system in which the Karachai-Balkarian haplotypes are embedded, and shows the general connections between populations. The task is to decipher and correctly interpret the connections.
In the following figure, only the branches of the Bashkirs and Karachais-Balkars are marked, Arabs and Indians occupy many other branches, as do Western Europeans, Russians, Tatars and other carriers of the Z93 subclade. Most of the Karachais, in whom deeper subclades were determined, belong to the subclade R1a-Z93-L342.2-Z2124Z2123, in which, with this spelling, the ancestral chain of tribes is reflected, if you call them that. Each tribe below in this chain was formed from a superior one, and dispersed throughout the world. In the subclade Z2123, in addition to the Karachais, are their closest "relatives" in this tribe from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, England, Spain, Germany, Iraq, India, Pakistan, UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Bahrain, Qatar, Iran, Yemen, Azerbaijan (about the composition of the Z2123 subclade, see below). It is clear that the subclade was formed thousands of years ago, and its descendants scattered around the world, eventually arriving in the Arab countries of the Middle East and noticeably multiplying there. The fact is that according to modern data, the Z93 subclade went southeast from Europe about 5500-5000 years ago, through the Caucasus about 4500-4000 years ago, and across the Middle East about 4000-3500 years ago. But if we take into account the transition of the Polovtsians to the Caucasus, then this is already 750-800 years ago, after a long migration from Central Asia. So the European Z2123 are definitely reverse migrations, or simply the consequences of sporadic emigration. Their presence in India, Pakistan, Iran is most likely the consequences of sea crossings and coastal voyages between these regions and the Middle East. Or the consequences of the visits of the Scythians from Central Asia to those lands.
The subclade Z2124, parental to the “Karachai” Z2123, is just as diverse. Its carriers currently live in England, Sweden, Holland, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Romania, Russia, Moldova, which in general again shows the direction of the ancient migration of the haplogroup R1a-Z93L342.2, parental to Z2123. It can be seen that it is difficult to find the ancestors of the Karachais in this way, and we will go the other way, see below.
A tree of 285 67-marker haplotypes of haplogroup R1a-Z93, built according to the IRAKAZ-2014 database, with the addition of several haplotypes of the Karachay-Balkarian FTDNA project.
Let's take a closer look at the Karachai section of the haplotype tree in an enlarged view:
Assignment of haplotypes (names are given as indicated in the Karachay-Balkarian Project and the IRAKAZ-2014 database):
It should be noted that Abaza is a representative of the Abazin people, Yuldash is from Bashkortostan, but by haplotypes they are part of the Karachai group. Therefore, it should be admitted that haplotypes here are a more direct characteristic, in comparison with the region or "officially recognized" ethnicity. According to the data shown, the ancestors of one and the other were Karachais, if this is not refuted by deep snips (see below). Not yet.
The highlighted numbers of haplotypes and surnames belong to the same branch with the base (ancestral) haplotype, which in what follows we will call the Krymshamkhalovs' branch:
13 25 15 11 11 14 12 12 10 12 11 29 –15 9 10 11 11 25 14 20 32 12 14 15 16 – 11 12 19 23 17 16 17 19 35 38 13 11 – 11 8 17 17 8 12 10 8 11 10 12 22 22 15 10 12 12 13 8 14 23 21 13 12 11 13 11 11 12 13
All seven haplotypes of the branch had a total of 31 mutations from the specified base haplotype, which gives 31/7 / 0.12 = 37 → 38 conditional generations (25 years each), that is, 950 ± 195 years from the common ancestor of the entire branch. This is the 11th century, plus or minus two centuries. Does not contradict the Polovtsian times. Here 0.12 is the mutation rate constant for the 67-marker haplotype (in mutations for 25 years), the arrow is the correction for recurrent mutations (Klyosov, 2009). In principle, this time, within the limits of the calculation error, corresponds to the time of the possible movement of the Polovtsians to the Caucasus from the Crimea or from the Ciscaucasia.
The double branch in the figure above also consists of seven haplotypes. But since its two subbranches consist of a different number of haplotypes (four and three), the calculation will have to be carried out separately, since the “weights” of the subbranches are different. A branch of four haplotypes has a base haplotype
13 25 16 11 11 14 12 12 10 12 11 29 –15 9 10 11 11 25 14 20 32 12 14 15 16 – 11 12 19 24 16 16 17 19 35 39 13 11 – 11 8 17 17 8 12 10 8 11 10 12 22 22 15 10 12 12 13 8 15 23 21 12 12 11 13 11 11 12 13
And only 6 mutations (highlighted) differ from the previous one. All four haplotypes of the subbranch contain 22 mutations from the base haplotype, which gives 22/4 / 0.12 = 46 → 48 conditional generations, that is, 1200 ± 280 years from the common ancestor. Six mutations between both base haplotypes breed their ancestors by 6 / 0.12 = 50 → 53 conditional generations, that is, by about 1325 years, and their the common ancestor lived approximately (1325 + 1200 + 950) / 2 = 1740 years ago, that is, approximately at the beginning of our era.
The subbranch of three haplotypes does not give good statistics, although it is possible to work with the 67x3 = 201 allele. The base haplotype of this subbranch is as follows:
13 25 16 11 11 14 12 12 10 12 11 29 –15 9 10 11 11 25 14 20 32 12 14 15 16 – 11 13 19 24 16 16 19 20 36 38 14 11 – 11 8 17 17 8 12 10 8 11 10 12 22 22 15 10 12 12 13 8 14 23 21 12 12 11 13 11 11 12 13
All three haplotypes of the subbranch contain 9 mutations from the base haplotype, which gives 9/3 / 0.12 = 25 → 26 conditional generations, that is, 650 ± 220 years from the common ancestor. Ten mutations between both base haplotypes (subbranches of 3 haplotypes and a branch of 7 haplotypes) breed their ancestors by 10 / 0.12 = 83 → 91 conditional generations, that is, by about 2275 years, and their the common ancestor lived approximately (2275 + 650 + 950) / 2 = 1940 years ago, that is, again around the beginning of our era, given that these estimates have an error of plus or minus two centuries. In general, this does not contradict the estimates given in the introduction to this study.
It is interesting to compare the Karachai R1a haplotypes with the Bashkir haplotypes, since they also belong to the Z93 subclade. Basic haplotype of Bashkir haplotypes
13 24 16 11 11 15 12 12 12 13 11 31 – 15 9 10 11 11 24 14 20 31 12 15 15 15 – 11 12 19 23 16 15 19 20 36 38 14 11 – 11 8 17 17 8 12 10 8 11 10 10 22 22 15 10 12 12 13 8 14 23 21 13 12 11 13 11 11 12 13
It differs very significantly from the Karachai ones, namely by 20 mutations (noted) when compared with the base haplotype of the branch of the Krymshamkhalovs and related ones. The common ancestor of the Bashkir haplotypes lived 1400 ± 200 years ago (96 mutations per 15 haplotypes), but at such a large distance from the Karachai haplotypes (20 / 0.12 = 167 → 200 conditional generations, that is, about 5000 years) their the common ancestor lived (5000 + 950 + 1400) / 2 = 3675 years ago. This is the late time of the Aryan migrations (and their descendants, the early Scythians) across the Russian plain and the Trans-Urals.
Genomic analysis of a representative of the Karachais and Bashkirs showed that they belong to different subclades of the Z93-Z2123 group. It turned out that the subclade Z2123 consists of at least five of the following subclades, which include representatives of Pakistan (Y2632), India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka (Y47), India (Y875), Bashkirs and Indians (Y934), and Karachais (YP449). Such an unusual at first glance combination of Bashkirs and Indians in one subclade suggests that the Aryans during their migrations in the III-II millennium BC. passed through the territory of present-day Bashkortostan, left there the descendants of the subclade Z93-L342.2-Z2124-Z2125-Z2123-Y934, and brought it to India. Or it could be the Scythians, the descendants of the Aryans. The Karachais are another direction of migration, to the Caucasus, with the formation of the subclade Z93-L342.2-Z2124Z2125-Z2123-YP449. Snip YP449 has a carrier of the central haplotype of the Krymshamkhalovs' branch in the figure above.
Previously, we described the basic haplotype of the Arabs of the haplogroup R1a, with a common ancestor who lived 4050 ± 500 years ago (Rozhanskii and Klyosov, 2012)
13 25 16 11 11 14 12 12 10 13 11 30 –15 9 10 11 11 24 14 20 32 12 15 15 16 – 11 12 19 23 16 16 18 19 34 38 13 11 – 11 8 17 17 8 11 10 8 11 10 12 22 22 15 10 12 12 13 8 14 23 21 13 12 11 13 11 11 12 13
And another basic Arabic haplotype of the same haplogroup, but a different branch, with a common ancestor only 1075 ± 150 years ago:
13 25 16 10 11 14 12 12 10 13 11 29 –15 9 10 11 11 24 14 20 33 12 15 15 15 – 12 11 19 23 16 15 16 20 35 37 13 11 – 11 8 17 17 8 11 10 8 11 10 12 22 22 15 10 12 12 13 8 14 23 21 12 12 11 15 11 12 12 13
The first, more ancient one, differs from the base haplotype of the Krymshamkhalovs' branch (see above) by only 8 mutations, the second, more recent, by 20 mutations. For the basic Bashkir haplotype, there is also a difference of 20 mutations (see above). This already shows that the base haplotype of the Krymshamkhalovs is closer to the ancient Arab and Bashkir haplotypes (more precisely, to the common ancestors of the ancient Arab and Bashkir haplotypes) than to relatively recent ones. Let's check it out.
Eight mutations of the difference between the two basic 67-marker haplotypes are equivalent to 8 / 0.12 = 67 → 72 conditional generations (25 years each), that is, approximately 1800 years, which places the common ancestor of the Arab haplotypes and the Crimean Shamkhalov branch by approximately (1800 + 4050 + 950) / 2 = 3400 years ago. Around the same time when the common ancestor of the Krymshamkhalov and Bashkir haplotypes lived (about 3675 years ago). Twenty mutations of the difference are equivalent to 20 / 0.12 = 167 → 200 conditional generations, that is, approximately 5000 years, and the common ancestor of this late Arabian branch and the branch of the Crimean Shamkhal veins is approximately (5000 + 1075 + 950) / 2 = 3500 years ago. As you can see, the data converge quite reproducibly, within the limits of the calculation error, and show that the Krymshamkhalovs' branch is unlikely to descend from Arab ancestors, especially during the period of Islamization, only 1300 years ago. It should be noted that at such long distances in time as 3500-4000 years ago, the calculation error is 10-15%, that is, 4050 ± 500, 3400 ± 400, 3500 ± 400 years ago, that is, all these values overlap within errors. This is because the number of mutations in haplotypes is not an absolute and predetermined value, and is subject to small statistical fluctuations, like any statistical value. But, of course, the difference between 3500 ± 400 and 1300 ± 150 years can in no way be explained by statistics. These are differences of a different rank.
The other two sub-branches in the figure above (in the upper part) are further away from the ancient Arabic base haplotype, namely by 10 and 12 mutations. But this gives almost the same times to common ancestors within the calculation error - 3760 and 3740 years, respectively. In other words, all Karachai branches identified so far diverge from the same or close ancestors of the R1a haplogroup, from which both Bashkir and Arabian haplotypes diverge. They did not descend from one another, they just have common ancient ancestors. So the question of the origin of the Krymshamkhalovs and their Karachai relatives along the branches of the haplogroup R1a from the Arabs can be considered closed for now. But the origin from the Polovtsians is much more likely.
Since the Ashkenazi Jews, according to some assumptions (so far unproven), descended from the Khazars, we will check, just in case, this, at first glance, very strange hypothesis about the possibility of the origin of the Krymshamkhalovs' branch from the Khazar Jews. Basic haplotype of Jews of haplogroup R1a (the same subclade Z93) with a common ancestor 1300 ± 150 years ago (Rozhanskii and Klyosov, 2012):
13 25 16 10 11 14 12 12 10 13 11 30 - 14 9 11 11 11 24 14 20 30 12 12 15 15 - 11 11 19 23 14 16 19 20 35 38 14 11 - 11 8 17 17 8 12 10 8 11 10 12 22 22 15 10 12 12 14 8 14 23 21 12 12 11 13 10 11 12 13
The difference with the base haplotype of the Krymshamkhalovs' branch is 22 mutations (equivalent to a distance of 5600 years), which places the common ancestor of the Ashkenazi Jews of haplogroup R1a and the Krymshamkhalovs approximately (5600 + 1300 + 950) / 2 = 3925 years ago. This is the same common ancestor, both Bashkirs, Jews, Arabs, and Karachais (branches of the Krymshamkhalovs), who is equidistant in relation to all of them. In all likelihood, this is the ancient Aryan ancestor of the haplogroup R1a-Z93, from which the Scythians of the same haplogroup, and the Arabs, and the Indians, and the Iranians - all this is one common genus, spread over the millennia along the branches and fractional subclades-snips. For the Bashkirs, this is snip Y934, for the Jews Y2630, for the branch of the Krymshamkhalovs YP449.
Thus, there are two main methodological ways to show commonality or difference in DNA genealogical lines - either to compare basic haplotypes and calculate the lifetimes of common ancestors, or to compare deep snips. It is optimal, of course, to do both, but so far this is a rarity, since there is little data on deep snips. Among the Karachais - only one representative. But this turned out to be enough to draw fundamental conclusions.
Now about the Alans. On the one hand, the time of the appearance of the main branches of the Karachais of the haplogroup R1a, at the beginning of our era, agrees with the beginning of the mention of Alanic tribes in written sources - namely, from the 1st century AD, and it is in the Ciscaucasia. If we consider only this evidence, then the issue can be solemnly closed, recognizing the Alans as the direct ancestors of the Karachais. But then it should be recognized that the Ossetians, in whom the haplogroup R1a is practically absent, have practically no relation to the Alans, with the exception, perhaps, of their ancient military elite, for which there is no DNA data. Actually, I have already described it. Further, then it should be recognized that the common ancestor of the Bashkirs and Karachais of the haplogroup R1a with a dating of about 3675 years ago (and SNP Z2123) was also the ancestor of the Alans, which is quite simple to recognize, these are all Aryan-Scythian lines, one genus R1a. The revealed parallels seem somewhat unexpected, but on reflection they are quite natural.
It is too early to put an end to these considerations. The problem is that linguists and archaeologists have their own considerations, and a reasonable consensus with the DNA genealogy data is needed. Here the Ossetians abruptly drop out of the Alanian concept, they have a haplogroup mainly - two-thirds for the Digors and three-quarters for the Ironians - this is haplogroup G, for the Scythians, apparently, it is unusual, but there is no data for such a definite conclusion yet. There are, rather, general considerations. According to them, the Alans were hardly the ancestors of the overwhelming majority of today's Ossetians. Most likely, the Polovtsians were not them, especially since the ancient historians distinguish between the Alans and the Polovtsians. Above, we noted historical evidence of how the “Tatars” successfully divided the Polovtsy and Alans on the basis that they are different, and eventually defeated both.
On the other hand, haplogroup G is common for Ossetians and a quarter of Karachay-Balkars, but this is a rather distant relationship, stretching back thousands of years. There are practically no descendants of the Polovtsians of haplogroup R1a among the Ossetians. Simply put, Karachai-Balkars and Ossetians are very distant male relatives.
As a result, the Alans in this system simply "freeze". As already noted, judging by the testimony of ancient historians, Alans and Polovtsians are different peoples, or different ethnic groups. If both have the main haplogroup R1a, then it should differ in both subclades. They cannot be distinguished at the R1a level. But there are no data on deep subclades in the Karachay-Balkarians yet, with the exception of a few Z93-L342.2-Z2124-Z2125-Z2123-YP449 (snippet YP449 has a carrier of the central haplotype of the Crimean branch). If the Karachais-Balkars reveal another deep snip of the haplogroup R1a, it may refer to the Alans, but this is almost impossible to prove until a DNA analysis of fossil skeletal remains is carried out, for which it has been proved with good reliability that these are Alans or Polovtsians, or someone then another. There is no such data yet.
Haplogroup G2a
Haplogroup G2a is typical for the northwestern and central Caucasus, and manifests itself in two main subclades - G2a1 and G2a3. Among the Ossetians, for example, the former prevails, both among the Ironians and the Digors, and accounts for 90% or more of all carriers of haplogroup G. For the Georgians, the share of the latter rises to a third of all carriers of G, among the Abkhazians equally, among the Circassians and Shapsugs the second subclade predominates (more than 90% of the Shapsugs). So the "swing" of these two subclades in the Caucasus reaches almost absolute extreme points.
Among the Karachais and Balkars, the first subclade almost absolutely prevails (90%), as well as among the Ossetians (for this you should look at the tree above, there is a spreading branch of G2a1 on the upper right, and a small branch of G2a3 below). But it is somewhat different than that of the Ossetians, if we consider the haplotypes, and this leads to the conclusion that the ancestors of the haplogroup G2a1 among the Ossetians and Karachais were different. This is a somewhat unexpected conclusion, but quite reliable. Let's get a look. Below is the base haplotype of the Ossetian subclade G2a1, its age is only 1375 ± 210 years, approximately the 7th century, give or take a couple of centuries:
14 23 15 9 15 17 11 12 11 11 10 28 – 17 9 9 12 11 25 16 21 28 13 13 14 14 – 11 11 19 21 15 15 16 18 37 38 12 9 – 11 8 15 16 8 11 10 8 12 10 12 21 22 14 10 12 12 15 8 13 21 22 15 13 11 13 10 11 11 13
And here is the basic haplotype of the Karachais:
14 22 15 10 15 17 11 12 11 12 10 29 – 17 9 9 11 11 24 16 21 28 13 13 14 14 – 10 10 20 21 15 15 15 18 36 38 11 10 – 11 8 15 16 8 11 10 8 12 10 12 21 22 14 10 12 12 15 8 13 21 22 16 13 11 13 10 11 11 13
The common ancestor with this haplotype lived 3650 ± 510 years ago, that is, much earlier than the common ancestor of the Ossetians. Between the two basic haplotypes, Karachais and Ossetians, there are 13 mutations, which divides their common ancestors by 13 / 0.12 = 108 → 121 conditional generations, that is, by about 3025 years, and their the common ancestor lived (3025 + 1375 + 3650) / 2 = 4025 years ago. These are the times of the arrival of carriers of the haplogroup G2a to the Caucasus from Europe, which will be discussed below.
Thus, the Karachai and Ossetian genus G2a1 have a common ancestor more than 4 thousand years ago, and since then their DNA lines have only diverged. It is clear that these lines have nothing to do with the Alans, they are much older.
Confirmation of this position can be obtained by comparing the Karachai base haplotype with the base haplotype of the G2a1 haplogroup throughout the northwestern and central Caucasus (only 37-marker haplotypes were available):
14 22 15 10 15 17 11 12 11 12 10 29 –17 9 9 11 11 24 16 21 28 13 13 14 14 – 10 10 19 21 15 15 15 18 37 38 11 10
His common ancestor lived more than 4 thousand years ago, that is, within the margin of error at the same time as the common ancestor of the Karachai haplotypes of the G2a1 group lived. Perhaps it was the same ancestor. Two mutations of the difference on 37-marker haplotypes breed common ancestors by only 2 / 0.09 = 22 conditional generations, that is, by 550 years. Indeed, the common ancestor of the 37-marker haplotype shown above throughout the northwestern and central Caucasus (Ossetians, Shapsugs, Georgians, Circassians, Abkhazians) lived 4875 ± 500 years ago.
Where did haplogroup G2a come from in the Caucasus more than 4 thousand years ago? It appeared, by all indications, from Europe, where they found a number of ancient burials dated 5-7 thousand years ago, the analysis of DNA of which from bone remains showed the haplogroup G2a. These burials were in Spain, France, Germany. By the way, the "ice man Otzi", who was killed in the Alpine mountains on the border of Austria and Italy 4550 years ago, also had a haplogroup G2a. The study of fossil haplotypes and their modern descendants showed that during the III millennium BC. in Western Europe, almost all haplogroups of "Old Europe" disappeared, namely G2a, E1b-V13, I1, I2, R1a, and they appeared, all passing through the bottlenecks of populations, that is, practically zeroed out, outside Central Europe. R1a fled to the Russian Plain, appearing there about 4,600 years ago, I1 - to the British Isles, to Scandinavia, to the Russian Plain, I2 - to the Danube and the British Isles, and the same subclade split into two halves between these territories, E1b - to the Balkans and North Africa. The G2a left Europe and, apparently, through Asia Minor, went to Anatolia, Iran and the Caucasus. It was in the same III millennium BC.
Why did they all run, or, more neutrally speaking, moved such great distances? A hint is given by the fact that it was in the III millennium BC. western and central Europe. They didn’t run anywhere, the populations didn’t get through the bottlenecks, and they populated Europe very quickly by historical standards, starting from 4800 years ago, when the bell-beaker culture (the main haplogroup R1b) began populating Europe from the Pyrenees, and after a few hundred years they were already on the territory of modern Germany. As a result of this invasion of Erbins, the carriers of G2a moved to the Caucasus. This is the history of the appearance of the genus G2a in the Caucasus. The Karachais of this haplogroup have been living on their land ever since.
The ancient surnames of the Suyunchevs (Sunshevs), Shakhmanovs, Uruzbievs have a haplogroup G2a1. Comparison of their haplotypes showed that they are actually relatives, albeit very distant, and their common ancestor lived 3325 ± 1300 years ago. Such a large error in the calculations is due to the fact that all three families identified only 12-marker haplotypes for themselves, and there were seven mutations between them. This already shows that they are by no means close relatives to each other, but by and large relatives belonging to the same large genus-haplogroup.
Haplogroup J2
This haplogroup is expressed in the Balkars in comparison with the Karachais. Since it is in this sample of only 27 haplotypes (most of which have only a 12-marker format) from different subclades that have not been identified, DNA analysis can only be very approximate. But since a more detailed DNA genealogical analysis of the haplotypes of the Northwestern Caucasus has already been carried out (Klyosov, 2013), and the Karachai-Balkarian haplotypes show the same patterns, general conclusions can be drawn. The share of haplogroup J2 among the Karachai-Balkarians is about the same as among the Ossetians-Digors, that is, small, about 12%. The origin of these haplotypes is very ancient, with common ancestors about 7 thousand years ago and older, and the source of these ancient migrations was in Mesopotamia. This is, apparently, evidence of ancient Uruk migrations to the Caucasus.
Haplogroup R1b
This haplogroup is small among Karachais and Balkars, and it is mainly found among Balkars. It is noteworthy that almost all R1b haplotypes belong to an unusual group that is not found in Europe, and, apparently, is an archaic rudiment of some very ancient common ancestor. Her base haplotype
13 22 14 11 14 15 12 12 13 14 13 32 – 16 9 9 11 11 24 15 19 31 13 15 17 17 – 10 10 20 25 16 17 16 19 34 37 12 10 – 11 8 16 16 8 10 10 8 10 10 12 22 23 17 10 12 12 16 8 12 24 20 14 12 11 13 11 11 13 12 (Balkarian)
Extremely different (mutations highlighted) from the most common base European haplotype R1b-P312, with an age of about 4200 years ago:
13 24 14 11 11 14 12 12 12 13 13 29 - 17 9 10 11 11 25 15 19 29 15 15 17 17 - 11 11 19 23 15 15 18 17 36 38 12 12 - 11 9 15 16 8 10 10 8 10 10 12 23 23 16 10 12 12 15 8 12 22 20 13 12 11 13 11 11 12 12 (European, P312)
There are 43 mutations (!) Between them, which makes their common ancestors 43 / 0.12 = 358 → 546 conditional generations, or approximately 13650 years. The basic haplotype of the Balkars itself is relatively recent, its carrier lived 1300 ± 255 years ago. It is clear that this branch passed the population bottleneck, and miraculously survived around the 8th century AD. This places the ancient ancestor of the Balkar (and European) haplotypes at (13650 + 4200 + 1300) / 2 = 9600 years ago. At that time, haplogroup R1b migrated between the Urals and the Middle Volga, but it may have already come to the Caucasus. There is practically no data from that time. In any case, this is one of the oldest DNA dating in the Caucasus.
In conclusion, it should be noted that consideration of the Karachai and Balkarian haplotypes and haplogroups from the point of view of DNA genealogy made it possible to identify the ancient migrations of the main clans that make up the Karachai-Balkar people, and to place the origin of a number of ancient princely clans in the context of the origin of the Karachai-Balkar people. The data obtained allow us to assume with good reason that a third of the Karachais descended from the Polovtsians of the R1a haplogroup, and dismiss the Arab origin of the Krymshamkhalovs' branch. Of course, the results obtained should be carefully discussed together with historians, archaeologists, linguists, ethnographers, in order to reach a certain consensus. While representatives of the listed disciplines are far from it, and, perhaps, independent data of DNA genealogy will help to move the current stalemate.
Anatoly A. Klyosov,
Doctor of Chemistry, Professor
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158 comments: Modern descendants of the Polovtsians - Karachais and Balkars?
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In the history of Russia there are also such peoples that we know only from chronicles and legends. They once inhabited our lands for a very long time, fought or were friends with Russia (which, however, at other times was not much different), competed with it or merged with it with their culture and traditions, remaining in our historical memory and ethnogenesis. Today we are talking about one of these peoples.
... The Arab and Persian-speaking authors called them Kipchaks. Byzantine and Magyar sources called them Comans, Cumans and Kuns. In Russian sources, this people is known as Cumans... And this name is known by everyone who is at least superficially familiar with "The Lay of Igor's Host."
Actually, this is what the "well-known" ideas about the Cumans - by the way, to a certain extent our ancestors - are limited to. And, frankly, scientific knowledge also does not spoil us with details.
Who are they and where did they come from
It is almost generally accepted that the Polovtsians are Turkic tribes. Historians believe that this conglomerate of tribes, which cannot be called an ethnos, initially contains Turkic and Mongolian ethnocultural components.
The first information about the Kipchaks dates back to the 40s of the 8th century, when the Türkic (so-called Second Türkic) Kaganate finally disintegrated in the Central Asian region. As descendants of the sirs defeated by the Uighurs, the Kipchaks became part of the Kimak Kaganate, in which they were in the 9th - early 11th centuries. By the way, “Kipchak” was originally a contemptuous nickname given by the Uyghuru people to the defeated Turks, meaning “losers”, “fugitives”.
By the beginning of the XI century. The Kipchaks managed to completely free themselves from the tutelage of the Kimaks and began to claim hegemony in the Central Asian and Kazakh steppes. It was during this period that the very word "Kipchak" acquired a new meaning: now it is "an empty, hollow tree". The disintegration of the Kimak Kaganate, caused by external pressure (a new wave of nomadic expansion led by Mongol tribes) and internal contradictions, freed the active Kipchak tribes, which moved westward.
The penetration of the Kipchaks into the steppes of Eastern Europe was a wide migration of weakly connected politically Turkic-speaking tribes. Migration developed in two directions. In the first - southern, on the Syrdarya, the Kipchak element predominated, therefore it was the Kipchaks that were met in the Arab world. Kimak tribes dominated in the second - western direction (in the Volga region). This explains the spread in Byzantium, Russia and Eastern Europe of the names "Cumans", "Polovtsy". Thus, the Turkic tribes received the familiar name "Polovtsy" after their advance in the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region.
In domestic science, the opinion has been established that the name "Polovtsy" comes from the Old Slavonic "plav" (straw), which was used to denote the appearance of the new nomads. From this, some of the researchers conclude that there, somewhere else, the Caucasoid has gotten in to the Turkic and Mongolian components, or even prevailed altogether. However, the thesis of "Caucasian predominance" is not confirmed by the anthropological analysis of the majority of Polovtsian burials. In this regard, E.Ch. Skrzhinskaya drew attention to the geographical tradition of Russian annals: in her version, the word "Polovtsian" did not denote an ethnic characteristic, but the habitat of nomads - "that" ("he is sex") side of the Dnieper region.
In the middle of the XI century. the nomadic area of the Kipchaks (Kimaks) stretched from the Irtysh in the east to the Volga in the west. Contemporaries called this huge territory Desht-i-Kipchak (Polovtsian steppe).
Having displaced the Guzes, who in turn replaced the Pechenegs, the Polovtsians became the final masters in the south of Eastern Europe, coming close to the borders of the Old Russian state. In modern historiography, the prevailing opinion is that the Polovtsians had a huge impact on all aspects of the economic, socio-political and cultural life of Russia during the period of feudal fragmentation.
Restless neighbors and "multi-vector" in Russian
The first chronicle mention of the appearance of the Polovtsians at the borders of Russia dates back to 1055 and is contained in one of the lists of the Tale of Bygone Years. The text says: "In seven years come Bolush with the Polovtsi, and make Vsevolod peace with them, and when the Polovtsi returned, they came by no means." Despite the absence of any indication in the source of the militant behavior of the Polovtsians, in Russian historiography since the 19th century. the perception of nomads as a hostile "Asian" force, hindering the economic and political development of Russia, was established.
The modern Russian historian Alexander Inkov believes that the negative assessment of the first contacts between Russia and the Polovtsy, which is well established in Russian historical literature, is purely speculative and is not confirmed by sources. He also notes that the first meeting did not become the beginning of regular relations between Russia and the Polovtsi, since it was fleeting, local and went almost unnoticed in the Russian lands.
It is known, however, that since the beginning of the 60s. XI century relations with the Cumans are becoming regular and thoughtful: that is, the nomads begin to attack the Russian principalities. “For the first time the Polovtsians came to the Russian land by war; Vsevolod came out against them in the month of February on the 2nd day. And in the battle they defeated Vsevolod and, having conquered the land, left. That was the first evil from filthy and godless enemies. But the prince was looking for them. " From that time until the Mongol invasion, the Polovtsians became the main foreign policy factor in the development of Russia.
It should be remembered that the weakening of the central power under the sons of Yaroslav the Wise did not allow building a single line of relations with the nomads. Therefore, the "sovereign" Yaroslavichs built a Polovtsian policy, who in what way. Nevertheless, Izyaslav, Svyatoslav and Vsevolod in 1068 undertook a joint campaign against the Polovtsians, which ended in the complete defeat of the Russians. The princely army was defeated by nomads in a battle on the river. Alte. Subsequently, the contradictions between the brothers led to the collapse of the triune political system in Russia, which took shape after the death of Yaroslav. The Polovtsi, who by their invasion aggravated the brewing contradictions between the brothers, hastened its collapse.
The weakening of the power of the Grand Duke of Kiev, the growth of applicants for the Grand Duke's throne and the deepening of civil strife contributed to the intensification of the Polovtsian raids on the Russian borders. The initiators were both the nomads themselves, who were looking for profit, and the Russian princes, who used the Polovtsians as a military force in internecine confrontations. So, the relatively peaceful relations of the Chernigov principality with the Polovtsy were due not so much to the geographical factor (the protection of Chernigov from the Steppe by forests), as to the struggle of the Chernigov princes for political dominance in southern Russia. Chronicles indicate that in 1073, 1078 and 1079, the Polovtsian detachments supported the Svyatoslavichs in opposition to the Yaroslavichs.
As noted by the author of the first and largest work on Russian-Polovtsian relations P.V. Golubovsky, the Polovtsians acted as a kind of regulator of the political balance in Russia: supporting one or another princes in strife, they did not allow anyone to strengthen themselves enough to subjugate the rest. However, the nomads were attracted, of course, not by the "influence on political processes", but by the banal possibility of unrestrained plunder of the Russian lands. For the same reasons, the Polovtsians often helped Russian princes in armed conflicts with "third parties" - Poles, Bulgars ...
Voiced damask and male family authority
By 1093-1094. the need to unite efforts to contain the Polovtsians becomes obvious. However, it took the princes almost ten years to reconcile relations with each other. At the beginning of the XII century. the military tactics of the Russian princes are also changing, and they are going over to an active offensive. The campaigns to the Polovtsian steppe in 1103 and 1106 ended in convincing victories. And the most successful and most famous was, organized by Vladimir Monomakh: the defeat of the Polovtsians in the battle of Salnitsa, the capture of the largest encampments of Sharukan and Sugrov.
At the same time, the Russian princes did not confine themselves exclusively to military actions in relations with the Polovtsians, often resorting to "marriage" diplomacy. In 1107 Vladimir Monomakh married his son Yuri to the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan Aepa, and in 1117 another son of the Grand Duke of Kiev Andrey Vladimirovich married the granddaughter of Tugorkan. Svyatopolk II and Svyatoslav Olgovich also tied the knot with the Polovtsian families.
As a result, thanks to diplomacy and successful military campaigns, it was possible to oust the Polovtsian hordes across the Don and Volga, the possessions of the Monomakhovichs expanded, and relative calm was established on the southern and southeastern borders of the Russian principalities.
The victories over the Polovtsy, however, played a cruel joke with Russia. On the one hand, the Grand Duke, being confident in the elimination of the Polovtsian threat, abandoned allied relations with other nomadic tribes - the Torks and Pechenegs, who contributed to maintaining security on the steppe borders. On the other hand, the weakening of the general Polovtsian threat gave the princes courage in the fragmentation of Russia. If the son of Monomakh Mstislav managed to maintain the supremacy of the Monomakhs in relation to all branches of the Rurik dynasty, then after his death in 1132 the Kiev princes lost control over Polotsk and Smolensk, which marked the beginning of the final collapse of the Old Russian state.
Under these conditions, the Polovtsians were not only able to recover from the defeats of the early 12th century, but from the 40s they began to regularly invade Russian lands both to participate in the confrontation of the Russian princes and for the sake of booty.
Polovtsian onslaught of the end of the XII century. associated with the formation of a large nomadic association around the horde of Khan Konchak. Historian G.A. Fedorov-Davydov wrote: “The tendencies for the complete unification of the Polovtsians under a single khan's power can be traced only at the end of the 12th - beginning of the 13th centuries. and are associated with the activities of the Khan of the Don and Donetsk Polovtsians Konchak, who in 1185 announced his claims to the Dnieper unification of the Polovtsians. However, Konchak's activities were not crowned with success. " The latter was explained primarily by a fierce struggle for power, which negatively affected the combat capability of the Polovtsian troops.
As a result, the overwhelming majority of the raids of the second half of the 12th century. successfully repelled by the forces of border principalities, so the Polovtsians appeared in the Russian principalities mainly as mercenaries of local princes, who were at enmity with each other. However, the attempts of the Russian princes to repeat the successful campaign of Monomakh in the Polovtsian steppe turned out to be unsuccessful - one such confusion of Igor Svyatoslavich Seversky in 1185 is just narrated in The Lay of Igor's Regiment.
Where did they go and what was left for us
The Mongol invasion found the Polovtsian steppe incapable of a united resistance to the conquerors. After an unsuccessful attempt, together with the Russian princes, to stop the Mongols at the river. Kalki in 1223 the Polovtsians were forced to either leave the Polovtsian steppe, or perish.
The Mongol invasion of the Black Sea steppes forced the Polovtsians to move to the Balkans, Hungary, Byzantium and Transcaucasia. Part of the Kipchaks left for the North Caucasus, giving rise to the formation of the Kumyk, Karachai and Balkarian ethnic groups. The Polovtsy who resettled in Hungary (made up there up to 8% of the total population) by the XIV century. were completely assimilated. In Bulgaria and Byzantium, the Cumans began to be used as a military force. Finally, some of the Polovtsians fled to the Russian principalities.
The Horde who came to the Polovtsian steppe gradually began to assimilate with the Polovtsians. This process was reflected in the work of the Arab author al-Omari: “In ancient times this state (meaning the Golden Horde) was a country of the Kipchaks, but when the Tatars took possession of it, the Kipchaks became their subjects. Then they (the Tatars) mingled and became related to them (the Kipchaks), and the land prevailed over their natural and racial qualities (the Tatars), and they all became like the Kipchaks, as if from the same (with them) clan, because the Mongols (and Tatars) settled on the land of the Kypchaks, entered into marriage with them and remained to live on their land (the Kypchaks). "
Thus, having become part of the Golden Horde, the Polovtsians took an active part in the ethnogenesis of such peoples as Kazakhs, Tatars, Bashkirs, Kirghiz, Uzbeks and other Turkic-speaking peoples.
Literature:
Gurkin S.V. Polovtsi of the Eurasian steppes (problems of ethnopolitical history of the 7th - first third of the 12th centuries) // Diss ... sciences. Rostov-on-Don, 2000.
Inkov A.A. Ancient Russia and the nomads of the southern Russian steppes in the X-XIII centuries. (Rus and Cumans). M., 2007.
Pletneva S.A. Polovtsi. M., 1990.
Talashov M.V. Dynamics of Russian-Polovtsian relations in the second half of the 11th-12th centuries // Yaroslavl Pedagogical Bulletin. 2014.Vol. 1.No. 3.
Fedorov-Davydov G.A. Nomads of Eastern Europe ruled by the Golden Horde khans. M., 1966.
