Mongol Empires

Do you want to know what (past) empires were located in the current lands of Mongolia? Or do you want to know what empires were of Mongol origin?

Based in Mongolia:
All assorted Turco-Mongol states that controlled at least half of the Mongolian Plateau

Hu
Xiongnu (sometimes called Huns)
RuRuan
Tieju/Turk
Uighir
Kirghiz
Naimen
Mongols

I have a question. If someone knows, please help me.  Thank you.

Is there any online version(english) of  the following sources?

1) The History of the World-Conqueror / Ata Malik Juvaini

2) Jami al-tavarikh(Compendium of Chronicles) / Rashid ad-Din

Originally posted by poirot Add Xianbei

Didn't really control much of the Mongolian plateaux....

Also the Khitan/Quidan only had effective control of the plateaux dring the Liao empire, which wasn't exactly a nomad state.
The early khitans didn't control it and the later Quara-Khitai only had vague control of the Western end of the plateaux.


Edited by tadamson

They all were Turkic (or proto-Turkic)-speaking Empires, even the Genghis Khan's one. Only after 1368's collapse of the Genghis Khanites' power in China, the proper Mongol speaking peoples like Oirats, Khalkha occupied territory of the modern Mongolia and around (north of the Great Wall of China). (read "Empire of the Steppes" of Rene Grousset).

Edited by Akskl

People couldn't view Hsiung-nu empire, Turuk Khanate, Uighur Khanate, Kirgiz Khanate as the foreign dynatsy of Mongolia, all of those Khanates had so many Mongolica tribes while some Turkic tribe probably got the ruling place at that time. On the other hand, Sian-pei Khanate, Ruran Khanate, Khitan empire, and Mongol empire, also had many Turkic tribes among them. It's just about that Mongolica or Turkic tribes had been the royal family in their Khanates, however, from Hsiung-nu, Sain-pei, Ruran, Turuk, Uighur, Kirgiz, Khitan, to Mongol, there're no too much difference among those Khanates at all.  so, you can view all of them as Mongolian(not Mongolica) empires/dynasty in the history of Mongolia.

 

And I would say that it was the FIRST and last the proper Mongol empire of any significance. (Ruruans and Sien-pi are under the big  question about their Mongolness).


Edited by Akskl

Turkic speaking groups (or tribes) like Kereits, Naimans, Jalairs, Qongyrats, Onguts (now Waqs or Uaks), Merkits, etc. should not be called "Mongols".  They were Turks in 11-13th centuries, and they are Kazakh Turks today. See for example:

http://www.nestorian.org/nestorian_timeline.html

  1007-1008 Conversion of 200,000 Kerait Turks

http://www.oxuscom.com/timeline.htm

1007-1008    Conversion of 200,000 Kerait Turks to Nestorian Christianity

http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=1553&am p;am p;am p;C=1362

There were Nestorian missionary activities further to the northeast, toward Lake Baikal. During the 10th and 11th centuries, several Tartar tribes were entirely or to a great extent Christian, notably the Keraits, Uighurs, Naimans and Merkits.
Keraits were a Turko-Mongolian tribe. The Kerait capital at this time was Karakoram, where Marco Polo found a church. They were a cluster of hunting tribes east and south of Lake Baikal. The principal tribes evangelized there by the Nestorians were the Naiman, the Merkit and the Kerait. It seems that the Gospel was taken to those tribes by Christian merchants. An account of the conversion of the Keraits is given by the thirteenth century Jacobite historian Gregory Bar Hebraeus. According to Hebraeus, at the beginning of the eleventh century, a king of the Keraits lost his way while hunting in the high mountains. When he had abandoned all hope, a saint appeared in a vision and said, "If you will believe in Christ I will lead you lest you perish." He returned home safely. He remembered the vision when he met some Christian merchants. He inquired of them of their faith. At their suggestion he sent a message to the Metropolitan of Merv for priests and deacons to baptize him and his tribe. As a result of the mission that followed, the Kerait prince and two hundred thousand of his people accepted baptism. (R. Grousset, The Empire of the Steppes, New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1970, p. 191. See also Moffett, A History of Christianity in Asia pp. 400-401.)

 

IGOR DE RACHEWILTZ, Turks in China under the Mongols: A Preliminary Investigation of Turco-Mongol Relations in the 13th and 14th Century, in: CHINA AMONG EQUALS - THE MIDDLE KINGDOM AND ITS NEIGHBORS, 10th - 14th CENTURIES, EDITED BY MORRIS ROSSABI, Chapter 10, University of California Press - Berkeley - Los Angeles � London, pp.281-310.

...We must not forget also that, as a young man and for many years, Chinggis Khan had been a client and an ally of the Kereyid court, and that he must inevitably have been exposed to Turkish culture through this close association. It is perhaps not fortuitous that the very title he assumed, Chinggis Khan, is of Turkish origin [8]...

Edited by Akskl

Genghis Khan's "Mongols"  were Turkic speaking tribes, who are now parts of modern Kazakh people. In modern understanding Mongols are Khalkha-Mongols, who are not Turks, and  this does not seem appropriate.

Linguistical differences between Turkic nomads and Mongolian peoples like Khalkha, Kalmucks, Buryats, are tremendous now, and were so 800 years ago. Joshi had huge linguistical and cultural diifficulties when he was conquering Hori-Tumats - ancestors of modern Buryats.
On other side, Plano Carpini wrote that when he was in Karakorum, his interpretors were  Comans -  Kipchak Turks.

http://www.uglychinese.org/mongolian.htm

Keraits
East of the Naimans, from the Orkhon in the west to the Onon and Kerulen rivers, was the new home of the Keraits. This is a group of people that had been disputed by Tao Zongyi to be Mongols, but Rashid ad-Din placed them in a subgroup with the Naimans, Uygurs, Kirghiz, Kipchaks and other Turkic peoples while acknowledging the resemblances between the Keraits and the Mongols (not Khalkha-Mongols! -A.). Still one more Chinese, Tu Ji, in his "History of the Mongols", assumed that the Keraits were Turkic and originated from Turkic Kangli and Ghuzz and their language was Turkic. It was also said that an important Kirghiz (Kazakh! - A.) tribe bears the name of Kirai, which is equivalent to Kerait. As to their Mongol characteristics, Paul Ratchnevscky assumed that some Khitans were left behind and got assimiliated into the Keraits. Paul Ratchnevsky emphasized the amicableness between the Keraits and West Khitans as exemplified by the fact that Kerait's khan, Toghrul, had once sought refuge in Western Liao. Paul Ratchnevsky mentioned that the Keraits accepted Nestorian faith and that the grandfather and father of Toghrul had Latin names like Marghus (Markus) and Qurjaquz (Kyriakus).

The importance of Keraits would lie in the fact that Genghis Khan sought the protection under Toghrul and their alliance laid the foundation for the uprise of the Mongols. Toghrul enjoyed a title called Wang Khan conferred by the Jurchens and hence an alliance with Toghrul served the purpose of elelvating Genghis Khan's position among the nomads. After exterminating the Tartars in AD 1202, Genghis Khan broke with Toghrul's Keraits, and Genghis Kan killed Toghrul in AD 1203 and took over Kerait throne.

End of quote.
 
Genghis Khan did not kill Toghrul. Toghrul Khan was killed by a Naiman border guardman who did not believed that that exhausted and lonely man was once famous Khan of Kereits.
Nestorian monks (Monks of Kublai Khan   http://www.aina.org/books/mokk/mokk.htm ) were Ongut Turks,  who are  Kazakhs of Middle Horde today -  Waq  (or Uak), so they knew the subject very well.


Edited by Akskl

Akskl,

You have missed the point.  These tribes and clans were dissolved by Temiuljin.  The people were then included amomgst the Mongolsa of the Blue Heaven.  At this point we call them Mongols.

To a large extent it is impossible to absolutely define each group as 'Mongol' or 'Turkish', though many scholars have spent long years trying to extract enough of each language to decide.

The Naiman are a case in point...
Scholars working from Rashid al-Din marked them down as "Turkish" (though the Persian text does not imply this in the way that an English translation does).  Then they got hold of samples of the language and, because it included lots of Mongol derived words, classed them as "Mongols".  Then, further analysis showed that most of the 'Mongol' words were due to them being subject to the Quara-Khitai, so they became "Turkish".  The only non language clues we have are hairstyles (The Naiman preferred a variant on the shave and plait 'mongol/tunguistic' style, rather than the one long bundle right down the back 'turkish' style) and horse fittings (classic 'turkish').     ---  decide for yourself.

It doesn't help that the tribes etc dissolve and reform with different names every time the leadership changes.