POLITICAL PROCESSES IN DASHTI-KIPCHOK IN THE 15TH-16TH CENTURIES

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MEDICINE, SCIENCE, AND EDUCATION Volume 02, Issue 10, 2025 29 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MEDICINE, SCIENCE, AND EDUCATION universalpublishings.com POLITICAL PROCESSES IN DASHTI-KIPCHOK IN THE 15TH-16TH CENTURIES Turdiyev Ilyos Ulugbek ugli Samarkand State University named after Sharof Rashidovi E-mail:[email protected] Annotation It was to some extent connected with the political and ethnocultural processes that took place in the Dashti-Kipchak in the 15th and 16th centuries, and was related to which clan leaders took which land as their share (syurkol) or similar political and military processes. Introduction. In many scientific centers of the world, including in Europe, the USA, Japan, China, Korea, Russia and Turkey, dozens of scientific and analytical centers study the socio-political, economic and ethnocultural processes that took place in Central Asia, while also carefully studying the realities that took place in the past in the Kypchak Steppe. In world scientific centers, this region is considered an integral part of Central Asia, and attention is paid to the unique place it played in the formation of the present-day peoples of the region. Main part. The term "Dashti-Kipchak" was a geographical term used in the Middle Ages, more precisely, around the 10th century AD, mainly for the northeastern and northwestern regions of Central Asia and a number of countries adjacent to these regions, its east stretched to the western foothills of the Altai Mountains, and its west to the Dnieper - Eastern Europe. The south of the Dashti-Kipchak included the middle and lower basins of the Syr Darya River, one of the largest rivers in Central Asia, the northwestern parts of the Seven Seas region, the lower reaches of the Volga-Urals, the North Caucasus, and the northern coast of the Black Sea, and its northern parts bordered on southwestern Siberia, the middle basins of the Volga-Ural rivers, and the East Slavic lands (Kiev, Moscow, etc.). Of course, this territorial classification of the Dashti-Kipchak was not always the same and changed from time to time. In the Middle Ages, this term was mainly used to refer to the period from the 10th to the 17th centuries when first nomadic Turkic and later Turkic and Turkified Mongol tribes established political dominance. Its core territories included the steppes of present-day Kazakhstan, the middle and lower reaches of the Syr Darya, the Aral Sea region, the Volga–Ural areas, the North Caucasus, and the northern Black Sea region. Before the 10th century, the term “Dasht-i Qipchaq” was preceded by the names “the INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MEDICINE, SCIENCE, AND EDUCATION Volume 02, Issue 10, 2025 30 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MEDICINE, SCIENCE, AND EDUCATION universalpublishings.com Turkic steppe,” and earlier still “Scythia.” In medieval Western literature, the region was also referred to as “Tartary.” The use of these names was closely linked to the political and ethnocultural processes of the time. During the last millennium BCE, the Scythian–Saka tribal confederation dominated the vast Eurasian steppes stretching from the Dnieper River in the west to the Ili River in the east, and many nomadic clans inhabited this region. A similar situation occurred in the early Middle Ages, when first the proto-Turkic Xiongnu groups and later numerous Turkic tribes under the rule of the Turkic Khaganate (552– 744) controlled much of the Eurasian steppe. As a result, terms such as “the Turkic steppe” and bilād at-turk (“the land of the Turks”) became common. By the 9th–10th centuries, another wave of Central Asian nomadic groups — including the Kuman, Kun, Polovtsians, “Black Hats” (Chyornye Klobuki), Uz, and Torki tribes or tribal unions — established their dominance in these lands. After this, the earlier ethnogeographical names “Scythia” and “the land of the Turks” began to be replaced with the term “Dasht-i Qipchaq,” although the former names continued to be used as well. The term “Dasht-i Qipchaq” means “the Qipchaq steppe” or “the Qipchaq desert,” reflecting the fact that many of the tribes inhabiting the region belonged to the Qipchaq branch of the Turkic peoples. Around the 10th century, when the Qipchaqs achieved political dominance over a vast area extending from Jetisu (Semirechye) to the northern Black Sea region, surrounding peoples increasingly began referring to this land as “Dasht-i Qipchaq.” Mahmud Kashgari, who lived in the 11th century, in his work "Devonu Lug'atit Turk" shows the Kipchaks as one of the largest Turkic peoples, shows the "Bijanak" (Pechanegs) as the most western tribe of the Turkic peoples, near Rum (Byzantium), emphasizing that the Kipchaks are neighbors to them, at the same time, he mentions the existence of a village called Kipchak in the vicinity of the city of Kashgar (East Turkestan), and also mentions the "Yemak" (Kimak) tribe living in the Irtysh River basin as a branch of the Kipchaks[1]. So, at that time, the Kipchaks were spread over almost the entire territory of the medieval "Dashti Kipchak" region, and no matter how diverse tribes and peoples lived in this region, it was not for nothing that this term was used in relation to the region. That is, the Kipchak tribes had already spread widely in these regions long before. In the Middle Ages, namely in the 14th-15th centuries, the Dashti Kipchak was politically mainly the core territory of the Juchi ulus[2] - the Golden Horde kingdom (1224-1459), which split into two branches in the 1350s. During the reign of the Golden INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MEDICINE, SCIENCE, AND EDUCATION Volume 02, Issue 10, 2025 31 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MEDICINE, SCIENCE, AND EDUCATION universalpublishings.com Horde ruler Uzbek Khan (1312-1342), the unified Jochi ulus was divided into two parts: the White Horde, which included the western regions of the Dashti-Kipchak - the Black Sea, Eastern Europe, the North Caucasus, the lands on the right bank of the Volga River, and the Blue Horde, which included the left bank of the Volga River, the northeast of the Caspian Sea, Western Siberia, Altai, the middle and lower basins of the Seven Seas and the Syr Darya, and the Aral Sea basins.[3] The division of the Jochi ulus into two was not accidental or under the influence of external forces, but rather, according to the ancient Turkic-Mongol statehood traditions, the method of dividing the kingdom into two wings - right and left. This ulus - the territory of Dashti-Kipchak - was given by Genghis Khan to his son Jochi, but as a result of his death in 1227, 6 months before his father's death, this territory was given to the khan's grandsons Batu and Orda-Ijan. Genghis Khan's grandsons - Jochi's second son Batu - gave the "right hand" land - the Volga River basin and the lands west of it, and to his brother Orda-Ijan - the "left hand", that is, the lands east of the Volga - the Syrdarya basin, Western Siberia and the lands around Lake Balkhash. Batu Khan, under the name "Sain Khan", became the ruler of the "White Horde", the western part of the Golden Horde, while Orda-Ijan became the ruler of the "Blue Horde" as his subordinate, and their descendants inherited power. The White Horde wing of the Jochi ulus came to power in 1227 under Batu Khan-Sain Khan[4], and continued to rule until the last ruler of his descendants, Berdibek (13571359), and existed as the largest political force in the Dashti-Kipchak for 132 years. The descendants of the Horde-Ijan, who ruled the Blue Horde wing of the Jochi ulus, ruled until 1327, when the ruler of the White Horde (Golden Horde) Uzbek Khan (1312-1342) put an end to this wing's rule in the same year. The reason was that the later descendants of the Horde-Ijan handed over power to the emirs and were sometimes punished by Uzbek Khan for their servitude to the emirs, and were given as soldiers to the emir Astai, who was from the Qiyat clan. Before Uzbek Khan ascended the throne, the paternal Uyghur Bajirtuk Buqa, taking advantage of the death of his uncle Tokhta Khan (1291-1312), declared himself khan and all the descendants of Jochi, with the exception of the descendants of Shayban, were forced to obey him. Uzbek Khan eliminated Uyghur Bajirtuk Buqa and punished those who obeyed a person from the "black people" (commoners) who were not worthy of the khanate throne, and gave special privileges to the family of the descendants of Shayban, saying, "Since you have fallen into this situation, now you will become soldiers for such people." In this way, Abulkhair Khan, a descendant of Shayban, strengthened himself in the territory of the Blue Horde and founded his own ulus [5]. INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MEDICINE, SCIENCE, AND EDUCATION Volume 02, Issue 10, 2025 32 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON MEDICINE, SCIENCE, AND EDUCATION universalpublishings.com Conclusion. Before the Shaybanid state established its rule in the oases between the Amu Darya and Syrdarya rivers, including the Jizzakh oasis, the main political and ethnic processes associated with the Shaybanid dynasty took place in the eastern part of the Dashti-Kipchak - the middle and lower basins of the Syrdarya, the Urals, Western Siberia and Balkhash. The tribes and peoples living in these regions, such as the "Kung'irat", "Man'it", "Naiman", "Burgut", "Qarluq", and "Boyrak", played a significant role in the political activities of Genghis' rulers. The concept of "Uzbek clans", which emerged as a product of political and ethnic processes in these regions, migrated to the Amu Darya-Syr Darya interfluve and adjacent territories during the reign of Muhammad Shaybani Khan and his descendants, and created the basis for the emergence of dozens of ethnotoponyms associated with the name "92-bowl Uzbek clan" in a number of oases of Central Asia, including the Jizzakh oasis and its components. Literature 1. 1. Kashgari, Mahmud. Dictionary of Turkic Words (Devonu-lugot it-turk) / Translator and editor S. M. Mutallibov. 3 volumes. T. I. – Toshkent: Fan, 1960. – B. 64, 314, 440. 2. Axmedov B. A. Историко-географическая литература Средней Азии XVI– XVIII вв.: письменные памятники. Tashkent: Fan, 1985. – S. 130-131. 3. 181. http://www. sogdcoins. narod. ru – Sogd coins 4. 180. http://www. zeno. ru – Pre-IslamicCentralAsia, Sogd 5. Kafalı M. Ötemiş Hacı’ya Göre Cuci Ulusu’nun tarihi. – S. 58-64