Kipchaks

The Kipchaks interpreted their name as meaning "hollow tree" (Middle Turkic: kuv ağaç);[1] according to them, inside a hollow tree, their original human ancestress gave birth to her son.[2] Németh points to the Siberian qıpčaq "angry, quick-tempered" attested only in the Siberian Sağay dialect.[3] Klyashtorny links Kipchak to qovı, qovuq "unfortunate, unlucky"; yet Golden sees a better match in qıv "good fortune" and adjectival suffix -čāq. Regardless, Golden notes that the ethnonym's original form and etymology "remain a matter of contention and speculation".[4]

Their name appears occasionally transliterated in other languages, such as Arabic: قفجاق‎, romanized: Qifjāq; Persian: قبچاق‎, romanized: Qabčāq/Qabcâq; Georgian: ყივჩაღები; Turkish: Kıpçak; Crimean Tatar: Kıpçaq, Karachay-Balkar: Къыпчакъ, romanized: Qıpçaq; Uzbek: Qipchoq, Қипчоқ/قىپچاق; Uyghur: قىپچاق‎ /Қипчақ; Kazakh: Қыпшақ, romanized: Qypşaq; Kumyk: Къыпчакъ, romanized: Qıpçaq; Kyrgyz: Кыпчак, romanized: Qıpçaq; Nogai: Кыпчак; Romanian: Copceac; and Chinese: 欽察 ~ 欽叉 ~ 可弗叉 ~ 克鼻稍 Qīnchá ~ Qīnchā ~ Kěfúchā ~ Kèbíshāo. Other English transliteration include Kypchaks and Qipchaks.

The Russian "Polovtsy" (Russian: Половецкие пляски, tr. Polovetskie plyaski) was the name given to the Kipchaks and Cumans by the Rus' people - hence the Polovtsian Dances at the end of act 2 of Alexander Borodin's opera Prince Igor.

In the Kipchak steppe, a complex ethnic assimilation and consolidation process took place between the 11th and 13th centuries.[5] The western Kipchak tribes absorbed people of Oghuz, Pecheneg, ancient Bashkir, Bulgar and other origin; the eastern Kipchak merged with the Oghuz-Kimek, Karluk, Kara-Khitai and others. They were all identified by the ethnonym Kipchak.[5]

According to Ukrainian anthropologists, Kipchaks had phenotypical characteristics of Caucasians and Mongoloids, namely a broad flat face and protruding nose. Researcher E. P. Alekseeva drew attention to the fact that European Kipchak stone images have both Mongoloid and Caucasoid faces. However, in her opinion, most Kipchaks, who settled in Georgia in the first half of the 12th century, were predominantly Caucasoid with some admixture of Mongoloid traits. They were already joined by Cumans. In the course of the Turkic expansion they migrated into Siberia and further into the Trans-Volga region.[6]

The Kipchaks were first unambiguously mentioned in Persian geographer ibn Khordadbeh's Book of Roads and Kingdoms as a northernly Turkic tribe, after Toquz Oghuz, Karluks, Kimeks, Oghuz, J.f.r (either corrupted from Jikil or representing Majfar for Majğar), Pechenegs, Türgesh, Aðkiš, and before Yenisei Kirghiz[7] Kipchaks possibly appeared in the 8th-century Moyun Chur inscription as Türk-Qïbchaq, mentioned as having been part of the Turkic Khaganate for fifty years;[8] even so, this attestation is uncertain as damages on the inscription leave only -čq (𐰲𐰴) (*-čaq or čiq) readable.[9] It is unclear if the Kipchaks could be identified as the Juéyuèshī (厥越失) in Chinese sources[8] or, according to Klyashtorny, the Syr in the Orkhon inscriptions (薛延陀; pinyin: Xuè-Yántuó).[10] The relationship between the Kipchaks and Cumans is unclear.[8]

While part of the Turkic Khaganate, they most likely inhabited the Altai region.[8] When the Khaganate collapsed, they became part of the Kimek confederation, with which they expanded to the Irtysh, Ishim and Tobol rivers.[8] They then appeared in Islamic sources.[8] In the 9th century Ibn Khordadbeh indicated that they held autonomy within the Kimek confederation.[8] They entered the Kimek in the 8th- or beginning of 9th century, and were one of seven original tribes.[11] In the 10th-century Hudud al-'Alam it is said that the Kimek appointed the Kipchak king.[8] The Kimek confederation, probably spearheaded by the Kipchaks, moved into Oghuz lands, and Sighnaq in Syr Darya became the Kipchak urban centre.[8] Kipchak remnants remained in Siberia, while others pushed westwards in the Qun migration.[8] As a result, three Kipchak groups emerged:[12]

• Kipchaks of the Pontic–Caspian steppe.
• Kipchaks of the Syr Darya, associated with the Khwarazmian dynasty.
• Kipchaks of Siberia, later composing the Siberian Tatars.

The early 11th century saw a massive Turkic nomadic migration towards the Islamic world.[13] The first waves were recorded in the Kara-Khanid Khanate in 1017–18.[13] It is unknown whether the Cumans conquered the Kipchaks or were simply the leaders of the Kipchak–Turkic tribes.[13] By the 12th century, the two separate confederations of Cumans and Kipchaks merged.[14]

Cumania in c. 1200.

The Mongols defeated the Alans after convincing the Kipchaks to desert them through pointing at their likeness in language and culture.[15] Nonetheless, the Kipchaks were defeated next.[15] Under khan Köten, Kipchaks fled to the Grand Principality of Kiev (the Ruthenians), where the Kipchaks had several marriage relations, one of which was Köten's son-in-law Mstislav Mstislavich of Galicia.[15] The Ruthenians and Kipchaks forged an alliance against the Mongols, and met at the Dnieper to locate them.[15] After an eight-day pursuit, they met at the Kalka River (1223).[15] The Kipchaks, who were horse archers like the Mongols, served as the vanguard and scouts.[15] The Mongols, who appeared to retreat, tricked the Ruthenian–Kipchak force into a trap after suddenly emerging behind the hills and surrounding them.[15] The fleeing Kipchaks were closely pursued, and the Ruthenian camp was massacred.[15]

The nomadic Kipchaks were the main targets of the Mongols when they crossed the Volga in 1236.[16] The defeated Kipchaks mainly entered the Mongol ranks, while others fled westward.[16] Köten led 40,000 families into Hungary, where King Bela IV granted them refuge in return for their Christianization.[16] The refugee Kipchaks fled Hungary after Köten was murdered.[16]

After their fall, Kipchaks and Cumans were known to have become mercenaries in Europe and taken as slave warriors. In Egypt, the Mamluks were in part drawn from Kipchaks and Cumans.

The Kipchak–Cuman confederation spoke a Turkic language.[13] Mongolian ethno-linguistic elements in the Kipchak–Kimek remain unproven.[13]

Kipchaks and Cumans spoke a Turkic language (Kipchak language, Cuman language) whose most important surviving record is the Codex Cumanicus, a late 13th-century dictionary of words in Kipchak, Cuman, and Latin. The presence in Egypt of Turkic-speaking Mamluks also stimulated the compilation of Kipchak/Cuman-Arabic dictionaries and grammars that are important in the study of several old Turkic languages.

When members of the Armenian diaspora moved from the Crimean peninsula to the Polish-Ukrainian borderland, at the end of the 13th century, they brought Kipchak, their adopted Turkic language, with them.[17] During the 16th and the 17th centuries, the Turkic language among the Armenian communities of the Kipchak people was Armeno-Kipchak. They were settled in the Lviv and Kamianets-Podilskyi areas of what is now Ukraine.[18]

The Cuman language became extinct in the 18th century in the region of Cumania in Hungary, which was its last stronghold.

The Kipchaks practiced Shamanism.[19] Muslim conversion occurred near Islamic centres.[19] Some Kipchaks and Cumans were known to have converted to Christianity around the 11th century, at the suggestion of the Georgians, as they allied in their conflicts against the Muslims. A great number were baptized at the request of Georgian King David IV, who also married a daughter of Kipchak Khan Otrok. From 1120, there was a Kipchak national Christian church and an important clergy.[20] Following the Mongol conquest, Islam rose in popularity among the Kipchaks of the Golden Horde.[21]

Kipchak confederations

• Ayyub Khan (fl. 1117), Kipchak leader.
• Bačman (fl. 1229–36), Kipchak leader in the Lower Volga.
• Qačir-üküle (fl. 1236), Kipchak leader in the Lower Volga.
• Köten (fl. 1223–39), Kipchak leader.

Kipchak ancestry

• Al-Mansur Qalawun, Mamluk sultan of Egypt (r. 1279–1290)
• Baibars, Mamluk sultan of Egypt (r. 1260–1277)
• Faris ad-Din Aktai, Mamluk Emir

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kipchaks.

History of the Turkic peoples pre-14th century
History of the Turkic peoples
Göktürks
First Turkic Khaganate 552 – 581 Western Turkic Khaganate 581 – 657 Eastern Turkic Khaganate 581 – 650 Second Turkic Khaganate 682 – 744
Khazar Khaganate 618–1048
Xueyantuo 628–646
Kangar union 659–750
Turk Shahi 665-850
Türgesh Khaganate 699–766
Kimek confederation 743–1035
Uyghur Khaganate 744–840
Oghuz Yabgu State 750–1055
Karluk Yabgu State 756–940
Kara-Khanid Khanate 840–1212
Western Kara-Khanid Eastern Kara-Khanid
Ganzhou Uyghur Kingdom 848–1036
Qocho 856–1335
Pecheneg Khanates 860–1091
Ghaznavid Empire 963–1186
Seljuk Empire 1037–1194
Sultanate of Rum
Cumania 1067–1239
Khwarazmian Empire 1077–1231
Kerait Khanate 11th century–13th century
Delhi Sultanate 1206–1526
Mamluk dynasty Khalji dynasty Tughlaq dynasty
Qarlughid Kingdom 1224–1266
Golden Horde 1240s–1502
Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo) 1250–1517
Bahri dynasty

• Codex Cumanicus
• Afghan Kypchaks
• Sir-Kıvchak
• History of the central steppe

• Agajanov, S. G. (1992). "The States of the Oghuz, the Kimek and the Kipchak". History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume IV: The Age of Achievement AD 750 to the End of the Fifteenth Century. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 61–76. ISBN 978-81-208-1595-7.
• Golden, Peter B. (1990). "The peoples of the south Russian steppes". In Sinor, Denis (ed.). The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. Cambridge University Press. pp. 256–284. ISBN 978-0-521-24304-9.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Golden, Peter B. (1992). An Introduction to the History of the Turkic People. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden.
• Grousset, René (1970). The Empire of the Steppes: A History of Central Asia. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-1304-1.
• Howorth, Henry Hoyle (2008) [1880]. History of the Mongols from the 9th to the 19th Century, Part 2: The So-Called Tartars of Russia and Central Asia. Cosimo, Inc. ISBN 978-1-60520-134-4.
• Timothy May (7 November 2016). The Mongol Empire: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]: A Historical Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. pp. 221–. ISBN 978-1-61069-340-0.
• Hildinger, Erik. Warriors of the Steppe: Military History of Central Asia, 500 BC To 1700 AD. Da Capo Press, 1997.
• Galip Güner (2013), Kıpçak Türkçesi Grameri, Kesit Yayınları, İstanbul.
• Mustafa Argunşah, Galip Güner (2015), Codex Cumanicus, Kesit Yayınları, İstanbul.
• Roux, Jean-Paul (1997), L'Asie Centrale, Histoire et Civilization, Librairie Arthème-Fayard, ISBN 978-2-213-59894-9
• "Kipchak" Encyclopædia Britannica, Academic Edition. 2006.
• "Polovtsi" The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-05.

• Boswell, A. Bruce. "The Kipchak Turks." The Slavonic Review 6.16 (1927): 68-85.
• Golden, Peter B. (2009). "QEPČĀQ". Encyclopaedia Iranica.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Győrfi, Dávid. "Khwarezmian: Mapping the Kipchak component of Pre-Chagatai Turkic." Acta Orientalia 67.4 (2014): 383-406.
• Shanijazov, K. "Early Elements in the Ethnogenesis of the Uzbeks." The Nomadic Alternative: Modes and Models of Interaction in the African-Asian Deserts and Steppes (1978): 147.
• Ushntskiy, Vasiliy V. "KIPCHAK COMPONENT IN THE SAKHA ETHNOGENESIS." VESTNIK TOMSKOGO GOSUDARSTVENNOGO UNIVERSITETA-ISTORIYA 3 (2015): 97-101.
• Mukhajanova, T. N., and A. M. Asetilla. "KIPCHAK" ETHNONYM AND THE HISTORY OF ITS ORIGIN." International Scientific and Practical Conference World science. Vol. 3. No. 12. ROST, 2016.
• Baski, Imre. "On the ethnic names of the Cumans of Hungary." Kinship in the Altaic World. Proccedings of the 48th PIAC (2006): 43-54.
• Róna-Tas, András. "The reconstruction of Proto-Turkic and the genetic question." (1998).
• Biro, M. B. "The «Kipchaks» in the Georgian Martyrdom of David and Constantin." Annales. Sectio linguistics 4 (1973).
• Kadyrbaev, Aleksandr. "Turks (Uighurs, Kipchaks and Kanglis) in the history of the Mongols." Acta Orientalia 58.3 (2005): 249-253.
• Halperin, Charles J. "The Kipchak Connection: The Ilkhans, the Mamluks and Ayn Jalut." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 63.2 (2000): 229-245.
• Eckmann, János. "The Mamluk-Kipchak Literature." Central Asiatic Journal (1963): 304-319.
• Csáki, E. (2006). Middle Mongolian loan words in Volga Kipchak languages. Turcologica, Bd. 67. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-05381-X

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kipchaks.

• Codex Cumanicus
• Kipchak dateline at the Wayback Machine (archived October 13, 2004)
• Murad ADJI, The Kipchaks