ID #1 for History of the Steppe

Oxus/Amu Darya river

2400 km long; flows into Aral Sea.

Ogodei

Ghenghis son, first to succeed him

Bortei

Ghengis first wife, from the Onggirat tribe, which later allied with Ghengis

Temuchin

Ghengis name before khan. From humble beginnings, born around 1167, right place, right time kind of thing for rise to power.

Kiev

The city is thought to have existed as early as the 6th century. Gradually acquiring eminence as the center of the East Slavic civilization, Kiev reached its Golden Age as the center Kievan Rus' in the 10th-12th centuries. Its political importance started to decline somewhat when it was completely destroyed during the Mongol invasion in 1240. In the following centuries Kiev was a provincial capital of marginal importance in the outskirts of the territories controlled by its powerful neighbors: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Grand Duchy of Moscow, later the Russian Empire.

Turkestan (note difference between the Russian governor-generalship of Turkestan, and the city of Turkistan in southern Kazakhstan)

lay on the frontier of the settled Perso-Islamic oasis culture of Transoxiana to the south, and the world of the Kazakh steppe to the north. In the 16th to 18th centuries Turkestan became the capital of the Kazakh Khanate. When Turkistan fell to the Russian Empire it was incorporated into the Syr-Darya Oblast of the Governor-Generalship of Russian Turkestan. When the Tsarist regime fell in 1917-18 it was briefly part of the Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic before being returned Kazakhs as a city of Kazakh SSR in 1924.

Constantinople

Was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, and also of the brief Latin, and the later Ottoman empires

Basmachi

(movement or Revolt) was an uprising against Russian Imperial and Soviet rule by the Muslim peoples of Central Asia.

Caliphate

A caliphate is an Islamic state. It's led by a caliph, who is a political and religious leader who is a successor (caliph) to the Islamic prophet Muhammad.

Turk Empire

500-800ce, fought w the Tang Dynasty and expanded on the silk road, early Islam's main competitor. Controlled most of the silk road area in the 6th century.

Khwarezm

A sultanate, in Persia and Iran. Mongol competition, but not as strong as previous arab empires. ex: of relatively weak neighbors

Ferghana Valley

A valley in Central Asia spread across eastern Uzbekistan, southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan

Herat

An invasion by Mongols in 1221-22 destroyed the city and inflicted great suffering. Herāt was then rebuilt by the local Kartid dynasty before Timur (Tamerlane), the Turkic conqueror, took it about 1380. Herāt's greatest era was during the Timurid rule. Timur's son Shāh Rokh transferred the Timurid capital from Samarkand to Herāt, where he rebuilt the citadel and the bazaar.

Qanat

Ancient type of water-supply system, developed and still used in arid regions of the world. Like an aqueduct, water gently slopes down from inside the hill, to the village.

Transoxania

Beyond the river Oxus, divides central and western Asia. Past the Oxus went to Ogodei.

Pastoralism (and relationship to nomadism)

Concerned with raising of livestock; includes the seasonal migration between pastures.

Mughals

Babur thinks of himself as a Turk, but he is descended from Genghis Khan as well as from Timur. The Persians refer to his dynasty as mughal, meaning Mongol. And it is as the Moghul emperors of India that they become known to history.

Baghdad

Baghdad lost its splendor with the decline of the Abbassid Caliphate due to religious, ethnic, and regional strife. In 1258 c.e. Hülegü Khan, the grandson of Chinggiz Khan (Jengis Khan), sacked Baghdad. Baghdad fell at the hands of Hülegü and was destroyed by Timur Lenk (Tamarlane) in 1401.

Tarim Basin

Basin in China. Mummies found with physical features of other cultural zones. Indicates spread of Indo-European influence.

Turfan

Border between the nomadic peoples of the north and the settled oasis dwellers. The region was eventually taken in the 13th century by the Mongols, after which Turfan enjoyed a new commercial prosperity as the Central Asian land routes flourished as never before.

Tamerlane /Timur

Born 1336, Kesh, near Samarkand, Transoxania [now in Uzbekistan]—died February 19, 1405, Otrar, near Chimkent [now Shymkent, Kazakhstan]) Turkic conqueror, chiefly remembered for the barbarity of his conquests from India and Russia to the Mediterranean Sea and for the cultural achievements of his dynasty.

Horse domestication (including date)

Can have larger herds. Helped mobility and military power. 3500 BC

Tashkent

Due to its position in Central Asia, Tashkent came under Sogdian and Turkic influence early in its history, before Islam in the 8th century AD. After its destruction by Genghis Khan in 1219, the city was rebuilt and profited from the Silk Road. In 1865 it was conquered by the Russian Empire, and in Soviet times witnessed major growth and demographic changes due to forced deportations from throughout the Soviet Union.

Xiongnu

Earliest Chinese records date to the 4th and 3rd century B.C. Thought to have descended from various Turkic peoples.

Sogdian

Educated traders, a city state

Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

Founded as both a political party and a revolutionary movement in 1921 by revolutionaries such as Li Dazhao and Chen Duxiu. Those two men and others had come out of the May Fourth Movement (1919) and had turned to Marxism after the Bolshevik victory in the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Tang Dynasty

Founded in 618 and ending in 907, the state became the most powerful and prosperous country in the world. Succeeded by the Liang Dynasty. Expanded into Tarim Basin and invested in it with taxes and garrisons. Wanted to control the steppe.

Balkh

Historical Balkh is located in the northwestern part of Afghanistan. The city's history was illustrious until Ghengis Khan and his Mongol hordes wreaked destruction in 1220;

Tolui and the Toluid line

Inherits the Mongol heartland. Descendants revolt and seize power from Ogedei house.

Orthopraxy

In the study of religion, orthopraxy is correct conduct, both ethical and liturgical, as opposed to faith or grace etc. This contrasts with orthodoxy, which emphasizes correct belief, and ritualism, the use of rituals.

Kashgar

Kashgar is an oasis city in Xinjiang and is the westernmost Chinese city, located near the border with Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Taklamakan Desert

Mummies were found in the region, perfectly preserved by the arid conditions, are presumed to be Indo-European-speaking Caucasians. Western China, adjacent to India, Pakistan... Tarim Basin is within.

Yasa

Laws/command authority of the Mongols, but no copy, so don't exactly know. Mongol ideology: skills, practicality (somewhat of a meritocracy)

Tanistry

Most talented royal blood succeeds.

Sufism

Mystical Islamic belief and practice in which Muslims seek to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God. It consists of a variety of mystical paths that are designed to ascertain the nature of humanity and of God and to facilitate the experience of the presence of divine love and wisdom in the world.

Scythians

Nomadic people of Iranian stock who migrated from central Asia to southern Russia in the 7th and 8th centuries B.C. They were great horsemen and had mastery of war.

Jochi and the Jochid line

Oldest son, get's Russia (golden horde) Example of tanistry, because he did not become khan after his father's death. Eventually joins with Touli house to overthrow Ogedei house.

Dnieper

One of the major rivers in Europe. It flows from Russia, through Belarus and Ukraine, to the Black Sea.

Compound recurve short bow

Smaller bow is ideal for horseback, giving the horseman a 360 degree range of shooting. Invented around 1000 BC. Replaced the chariot as the dominant form of warfare in the steppe zone.

Shibanids (Shaybanids)

Persianized dynasty of Turco-Mongol origin in Central Asia. They were the patrilineal descendants of Shiban, the fifth son of Jochi and grandson of Genghis Khan.

Mongke

Purges Ogodei's followers because they had planned to take over during Mongke's quiraltei. khan in 1252, took a census of the whole empire: for taxes and manpower.

Khitan (Qitan)

Replaced by the Jin, go west and later ally with the Mongols. Defeated by Jin in 1125.

Samarqand

Samarkand is a city in Uzbekistan known for its mosques and mausoleums. It's located on the Silk Road, the ancient trade route linking China to the Mediterranean. Prominent landmarks include the Registan, a plaza bordered by 3 ornate, majolica-covered madrassas dating to the 15th and 17th centuries, and Gur-e-Amir, the towering tomb of Timur (Tamerlane), founder of the Timurid Empire.

Han Dynasty (China)

Second imperial dynasty in China; considered the "golden age;" 206 B.C. until 220 A.D. The lack of an empire this strong allowed Ghengis to be so successful.

Steppe

Semi-arid grassland: synonymous w prairie and savannah (temperate grassland). Good for dairy animals, not crops like the agrarian sedentary lands. Historically nomadic, from Mongolia to Caspian, long and narrow.

Sericulture

Sericulture, or silk farming, is the rearing of silkworms for the production of silk.

Indo-Europeans

Steppe peoples whose origins are traced through a common Turkic language; roots in a common ancestral language spread by hunter-gatherers. Ties to Sanskrit in India.

Tatars

Strongest steppe tribe at Ghengis birth. Jin originally allied w them, so they would be a buffer zone from the rest of the steppe. Eliminated in 1202

Tengri

Supreme sky god of the steppe. Shamans mediated between Tengri and Mongols. Ghenghis was appointed as ruler by Tengri and his descendants will succeed him as the "mandate of heaven". Other ideologies were accepted on the steppe, as long as the "mandate of heaven" was accepted.

SSR

The Khorezm People's Soviet Republic (later SSR) (1923- 1925) was divided between the Turkmen and Uzbek SSRs.

Qing Dynasty

The Qing dynasty, officially the Great Qing, also called the Empire of the Great Qing or the Manchu dynasty, was the last imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917.

Kazakh vs. Kyrgyz (sometimes Qazaq, Kirgiz, Qirgiz, etc.)

The early Kyrgyz people, known as Yenisei Kyrgyz, have their origins in the western parts of modern-day Mongolia and first appear in written records in the Chinese annals of the Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian

Patriarch (in Orthodox Christianity)

The highest-ranking bishops in Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy, the Catholic Church (above major archbishop and primate), and the Church of the East are termed patriarchs (and in certain cases also popes).

Tabriz

The most populated city in the Iranian Azerbaijan, one of the historical capitals of Iran, and the present capital of East Azerbaijan Province. In 1357, the Golden Horde conquered the Chobanid-held Tabriz for a year, putting an end to the last hope for the return of the Ilkhanate.

Sarai

The name of two cities, which were successively capital cities of the Golden Horde, the Mongol kingdom which ruled much of Central Asia and part of Eastern Europe, in the 13th and 14th centuries. Located in present-day Russia, they were among the largest cities of the medieval world, with a population estimated by the 2005 Britannica at 600,000.

Ilkhanate

The term il-Khan means "subordinate khan" and refers to their initial deference to Möngke Khan and his successor Great Khans of the entire empire.

Rus

Traditional Western scholars believe them to be Scandinavian Vikings, an offshoot of the Varangians, who moved southward from the Baltic coast and founded the first consolidated state among the eastern Slavs, centring on Kiev. Russian scholars, along with some Westerners, consider the Rus to be a southeastern Slavic tribe that founded a tribal league; the Kievan state, they affirm, was the creation of Slavs and was attacked and held only briefly by Varangians.

Caspian Sea

Turks went across to avoid Sassanid-Byzantine tension. Largest enclosed inland body of water. Separated the western steppe from the middle east.

Chariot

Used as military transport or mobile archery platforms. Used in chariot burials.

Hanafi

Within the Sunni Muslim tradition, Hanafi is one of four "schools of law" and considered the oldest and most liberal school of law. Hanafi is one of the four schools of thought (madhabs / Maddhab) of religious jurisprudence (fiqh) within Sunni Islam. Named for its founder, the Hanafi school of Imam Abu Hanifa, it is the major school of Iraqi Sunni Arabs.

Xinjiang

Xinjiang, an autonomous territory in northwest China, is a vast region of deserts and mountains. It's home to many ethnic minority groups, including the Turkic Uyghur people. The ancient Silk Road trade route linking China and the Middle East passed through Xinjiang, a legacy that can be seen in the traditional open-air bazaars of its oasis cities, Hotan and Kashgar.

Tatar (Mongol-era meaning, modern meaning)

a Turkic people living in Asia and Europe who were one of the five major tribal confederations in the Mongolian plateau in the 12th century CE.

Beg / Bey

a Turkish title for chieftain, traditionally applied to the leaders (for men) of small tribal groups.

Ulama

a body of Muslim scholars recognized as having specialist knowledge of Islamic sacred law and theology.

Black Sea

a body of water between Eastern/Southeastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine

Burka (aka Paranja aka Sochvon) in relation to Soviet policy

a long, loose garment covering the whole body from head to feet, worn in public by many Muslim women.

Bolsheviks

a member of the majority faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party, which was renamed the Communist Party after seizing power in the October Revolution of 1917

Jadidism

a movement of reform among Muslim intellectuals in Central Asia, mainly among the Uzbeks and the Tajiks, from the first years of the 20th century to the 1920s.

Sart

a name for the settled inhabitants of Central Asia and the Middle East, which has had shifting meanings over the centuries. Known sometimes as Ak-Sart in ancient times, did not have any particular ethnic identification, and were usually (though not always) town-dwellers. Since the 16th century and onward Mughal historians referred to the Tajiks of the Kabulistan (now Afghanistan) and surrounding regions as Sarts.

Kulak

a peasant in Russia wealthy enough to own a farm and hire labor. Emerging after the emancipation of serfs in the 19th century, the kulaks resisted Stalin's forced collectivization, but millions were arrested, exiled, or killed

Turkmen

are a Turkic people located primarily in Central Asia, in the state of Turkmenistan, as well as in Iran, Afghanistan, North Caucasus (Stavropol Krai), and northern Pakistan.

Cossack

are a group of predominantly East Slavic-speaking people who became known as members of democratic, self-governing, semi-military communities, predominantly located in Ukraine and in Russia.

Qalmyks(Kalmyks)*

are the Oirats in Russia, whose ancestors migrated from Dzungaria in 1607. They created the Kalmyk Khanate in 1630-1724 in Russia's North Caucasus territory. Today they form a majority in the autonomous republic of Kalmykia on the western shore of the Caspian Sea.

Oirats(Oyrats)*

are the westernmost group of the Mongols whose ancestral home is in the Altai region of western Mongolia. Although the Oirats originated in the eastern parts of Central Asia, the most prominent group today is located in Kalmykia, a federal subject of Russia, where they are called Kalmyks. Historically composed of four major tribes: Dzungar (Choros or Olots), Torghut, Dörbet, and Khoshut. The minor tribes include: Khoid, Bayads, Myangad, Zakhchin, Baatud.

Manchuria

can either refer to a region falling entirely within China, or a larger region today divided between Northeast China and the Russian Far East.

Dalai Lama

considered to be the successor in a line of tulkus who are believed to be incarnations of Avalokiteśvara,[2] the Bodhisattva of Compassion, called Chenrezig in Tibetan.

Madrasa

in Muslim countries, an institution of higher education. The madrasah functioned until the 20th century as a theological seminary and law school, with a curriculum centred on the Qurʾān. Arabic grammar and literature, mathematics, logic, and, in some cases, natural science were studied in madrasahs in addition to Islamic theology and law.

Sovereignty

independent state, community, or political unit.

Georgia

is a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the south by Turkey and Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, Georgia obtained independence, though only briefly, and established its first-ever republic under German and British protection, only to be invaded by Soviet Russia in 1921 and subsequently absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Persianate (as against "Persian" or "Iranian")

is a society that is either based on, or strongly influenced by the Persian language, culture, literature, art, and/or identity.

Dungan / Hui

is a term used in territories of the former Soviet Union to refer to a Muslim people of Chinese origin. Turkic-speaking peoples in Xinjiang Province in China also refer to members of this ethnic group as Dungans. In both China and the former Soviet republics where they reside, however, members of this ethnic group call themselves Hui.

Khiva

n 1873, the Khanate of Khiva was much reduced in size and became a Russian protectorate. Following the Russian Revolution of 1917, Khiva had a revolution too, and in 1920 the Khanate was replaced by the Khorezm People's Soviet Republic. In 1924, the area was formally incorporated into the Soviet Union and today is largely a part of Karakalpakstan and Xorazm Province in Uzbekistan.

Sunni

one of the two main branches of Islam, commonly described as orthodox, and differing from Shia in its understanding of the Sunna and in its acceptance of the first three caliphs.

Zunghars (aka Jungars aka Dzungars)

referred to the several Oirat tribes who formed and maintained the Dzungar Khanate in the 17th and 18th centuries. Historically they were one of major tribes of the Four Oirat confederation. They were also known as the Eleuths or Ööled, from the Qing dynasty euphemism for the hated word "Dzungar", and also called "Kalmyks". In 2010, 15,520 people claimed "Ööled" ancestry in Mongolia.An unknown number also live in China, Russia, and Kazakhstan.

Kazan (sometimes Qazan)

s a city in southwest Russia, on the banks of the Volga and Kazanka rivers. The capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, a semi-autonomous region, it's known for the centuries-old Kazan Kremlin, a fortified citadel containing museums and sacred sites.

Volga

the continent's longest, and the principal waterway of western Russia and the historic cradle of the Russian state - discharges into the Caspian Sea, some 2,193 miles (3,530 kilometres) to the south.

Guomindang (GMD) / Kuomintang (KMT)

the political party founded in 1911 by Sun Yat-sen; it governed China under Chiang Kai-shek from 1928 until 1949 when the Communists took power and subsequently was the official ruling party of Taiwan.

Kokand (aka Khoqand aka Qoqand)

was a Central Asian state that existed from 1709-1876 within the territory of modern Kyrgyzstan, eastern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and southeastern Kazakhstan. The name of the city and the khanate may also be spelled as Khoqand in modern scholarly literature.

Jurchen

were a Tungusic people who inhabited the region of Manchuria until around 1630. Also called Jin Dynasty.