Denis Sinor

The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia

Preface 1. Introduction: the concept of Inner Asia Denis Sinor 2. The geographical setting Robert N. Taaffe 3. Inner Asia at the dawn of history A. P. Okladnikov 4. The Scythians and Sarmatians A. I. Melyukvoa 5. The Hsiung-nu Ying-Shih Yu 6. Indo-Europeans in Inner Asia A. K. Narain 7. The Hun period Denis Sinor 8. The Avars Samuel Szadeczky-Kardoss 9. The peoples of the Russian forest belt Peter B. Golden 10. The peoples of the south Russian steppes Peter B. Golden 11. The establishment and dissolution of the Turk empire Denis Sinor 12. The Uighars Colin Mackerras 13. The Karakhanids and early Islam Peter B. Golden 14. Early and medieval Tibet Helmut Hoffman 15. The forest peoples of Manchuria: Kitans and Jurchens Herbert Franke Bibliographies Index.

The establishment and dissolution of the Türk empire

In the 540s there appeared on the Chinese horizon a people previously barely known which, within a few years, not only changed the balance of power in Mongolia – the traditional basis of great, nomad empires – but also introduced into the scene of Inner Asian and world history an ethnic and linguistic entity which in earlier times could not be identified or isolated from other groups showing the same cultural characteristics. It bore the name Turk, an appellation left in legacy to most later peoples speaking a Turkic-language. It stands to reason that the Turks of Mongolia were not the products of spontaneous generation and that one must, by necessity, reckon with other Turks living there or elsewhere in centuries preceding the foundation of the empire bearing their name. Yet, such considerations notwithstanding, it should not be lost from sight that the Turks are the first people to whom we can attribute with certainty a Turkic text written in a Turkic language, and that their name – so widely used ever since their rise to power – cannot be traced with absolute certainty before the sixth century A.D. Early mentions of Turks It could be that the first mention of the name Turk was made in the middle of the first century A.D. Pomponius Mela (I,116) refers to the Turcae in the forests north of the Azov Sea, and Pliny the Elder in his Natural History (VI, 19) gives a list of peoples living in the same area among whom figure the Tyrcae.

The Karakhanids and early Islam

It has been suggested, with some justice, that a limes system separating steppe from sown, barbarian from cultivated, urban society, spanned Eurasia. This system of fortifications and natural barriers, however, was not impenetrable. When the societies sheltered by these walls were strong, incursions from the nomadic world beyond were repulsed or contained. When their defences proved inadequate, sedentary societies either had to tame the “barbarian” by converting him to their culture or be completely transformed themselves. Western Central Asia, an Eastern Iranian area increasingly coming under the cultural influence of neighboring, kindred Sassanid Iran before the advent of Islam and the recipient of cultural currents emanating from the Mediterranean, India and China, was one of those zones through which the steppe-dweller could enter sedentary society. Conversely, its mercantile urban centers also served as a gateway through which the cultural and material achievements of settled society could penetrate the steppe. In the period under discussion, Western Central Asia, having recently accommodated itself to the political and cultural buffetings administered to it by expanding Arab power, was about to enter into another period of intense and intimate contact with the nomadic, Turkic societies to its north and north-east. In this instance, it would serve as the transmission zone for the cultural fruits of one nomadic society to another. Its role in this process was not passive, for the Islamic culture which entered the steppe zone had been influenced and reworked by the Eastern Iranians.

The Scythians and Sarmatians

From the end of the 7th century B.C. to the 4th century B.C. the Central-Eurasian steppes were inhabited by two large groups of kin Iranian-speaking tribes – the Scythians and Sarmatians. While these two groups were ethnically close and their ways of life were very similar, each of them had their own historical destinies and characteristics, in economic and social development, as well as in culture. The periods of their greatest development and greatest significance in world history do not coincide. The basic sources for the study of both these tribes are the testimonies of the Greek and Roman authors who were interested in different aspects of the life of barbarians, archeological and ancient epigraphical data. Written sources describing the Scythians are more numerous, but they contain only fragmentary and often contradictory evidence. The archeological materials dating back to the Scythians and Sarmatians are now enormous; thousands of burial sites have been examined, helping us to formulate and to resolve a number of questions about the Scythian and Sarmatian tribes, their material and spiritual culture. Along with this it must be said that the available written and archeological sources still do not enable us to give any definitive answer to certain important questions about both Scythian and Sarmatian history and archeology. These questions are still being discussed and are explained in different ways by different scholars. However, the study of the Scythians and Sarmatians in the Soviet era has made very considerable advances, particularly through the accumulation of new archeological sources in the post-war period.

Rediscovering Central Asia

The term ‘Central Asia’ has been in use for 150 years, yet it is only since the collapse of the Soviet Union and, more recently, growth in awareness and concern about international terrorism, particularly in the USA, that the countries of Central Asia have become significant players on the international political stage. Denis Sinor describes the historical, cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the newly independent republics of the area: Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Kirgizstan.

Introduction: the concept of Inner Asia

Unless they coincide with clearly defined physical boundaries – as is the case, for instance, with Australia – the borders of a cultural area can rarely be established with ease and accuracy. To some extent the problem lies with the highly subjective and often purely emotional criteria by which a civilization is defined. Thus, for example, as these lines are written, many nations would place themselves within a larger community which they call the “free world,” while no attempt is made to define what freedom may mean to human beings with a cultural background different from their own. If there is a “free world” then, presumably, there must exist, in the minds of those who use the term, another world, “not free,” and the differentiation is contingent on an emotionally charged interpretation of the ill-defined term of “freedom.” It is a well-known rule of logic that classifications made on the basis of a single attribute are artificial and of limited use. So there must be a cluster of attributes by which a human group is defined, and these must be specific and essential, if they are to serve a useful purpose. Yet what is essential to one observer is not to another. Some would opt for language, others for race, religion, or shared destiny in the past or the present. It is also quite common to find that individuals tend to identify their own community by criteria which may be different from those used for the same purpose by outsiders.

Languages and Cultural Interchange along the Silk Roads

rare goods, carrying them from the distant, perhaps even the socalled &dquo;mysterious&dquo;, East towards the Western World. This general impression is partially created by the word &dquo;silk&dquo;, name of a commodity generally and correctly linked with China where it was first produced. It is good to remember that a &dquo;Silk Road&dquo; is a historic fiction, invented in the nineteenth century by the German geographer von Richthofen to call attention to the existence of, first and foremost, commercial contacts between China and the

Uralic and Altaic: The Neglected Area:

More than a hundred million people speak Uralic and Altaic languages, but they are dispersed over a vast area stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, from the Arctic to the Mediterranean. Some of them are completely Westernized—like the Finns or the Hungarians; others—like the Koreans—belong to the cultural area of the Far East. Others again, like the Turks, numbering about 58 million, can be found from the Balkans, through the Middle East, and far into Siberia. The study of this heterogeneous group poses dif ficult problems, both on the scholarly and the administrative levels. Although the road to a better understanding of parts or the whole of the Uralic and Altaic field leads through the knowledge of at least one of the major Uralic and Altaic lan guages, Uralic and Altaic studies are basically area-oriented. Specialists trained in this field, by becoming experts in their own area, can render valuable services to various academic disci plines: linguistics, history, and the social sciences.