Since I don't know if this is as clear as I wanted: this is looking specifically at the Jochid lands in the mid-thirteenth century, during Nogai's youth. This changes quite a bit in the fourteenth century, particularly under Özbeg Khan. I hope to at some point do a video which demonstrates this, and talks about the cities of the Golden Horde.
Just got the image of massive carts moving across the steppe in the arrangement you mentioned with the smaller carts rolling in thousands before the princely ones. What an image to picture! The only film I had seen that tries to portray the Golden Horde is that recent Russian film of the same title, but I had never pictured carts in such grandeur, some were probably brilliantly decorated with the colors of each Prince.
Very likely; we know the insides of the gers were often covered in gold, fine silks, fabrics etc. So what better way to showcase you wealth than to cover the entire outside of your home in the most expensive dye you can find? The impression from the eye-witnesses is of entire cities on wheels, essentially. I can't imagine the sound of it: thousands of animals, hundreds of carts.... earth shaking wherever such a caravan moved.
Great to see you back, Jack! It’s remarkable Chinggis Khaan lived to 64-65 considering most of the Khaans died really young due to their lack of diet discipline.
Chingis was a real tough guy due to all the hardships he faced in his youth. His kids and grand kids were raised in luxury in comparison, and gave into wine and other vices.
The fact that Khubilai not only lived longer than Chinggis, but was 79 when he died, is frankly the most amazing fact given how he indulged. Almost as if Khubilai absorbed the years from every other Khan of the late thirteenth century
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory Lol, right? But it is worth noticing that Khublai also got the best Chinese herbs to enhance his health. His wife was also looking after him greatly in every way. It was said Khublai’s health deteriorated after his wife passed away. He no longer wanted to live. It was the beginning of the end for the Yuan Dynasty.
@@superfly19751 Certainly. I think Khubilai was never in particularly great shape. I seem to recall him making a fuss about suffering from gout as early as the 1250s. I always suspected that part of his competition with Ariq Böke, was that Ariq was fit, strong, a good wrestler (indicated by his name), and that Möngke favoured Ariq as regent. Ariq fit the image of the quintessential "Mongol" ruler. Whereas Khubilai was always associated with Chinese culture, was seen as unreliable, and that perhaps was always not particularly physically capable compared to Ariq- a very polite way to say Khubilai was always overweight and unathletic. When Möngke dies and Khubilai continues to campaign, I suspect this was his attempt to build up his "resume" to become Khaan, and score some military victories. He only returns to Shangdu (then called Kaiping) and declares himself Khaan once Chabi sends a message alerting him that Ariq is on track to organize his own election in Qaraqorum.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory That’s interesting! Sounded like Boke was the more true Mongol. I think what helped Khubilai was the fact that his military was versatile. They understand how true mongols fight but also have Chinese advance war technology so they defeated Boke. If I’m not mistaken, Boke even had the backing of most Genghis Khan’s military but it didn’t matter. The truth is only the Mongols could have defeated themselves. After Genghis died internal tensions grew bigger and bigger and they ended up dividing the empire n acted as their own entities. Ego is the biggest single enemy. Even so, these khanates and the Yuan Dynasty lasted a respectable long time. I can’t even imagine if they remained United.
That continues basically in all the khanates; long lived members of the military elite like El Temür in the Yuan Dynasty or Choban in the Ilkhanate ability to outlast khans allows them to control some of the later Chinggisids.
I completely forgot about this channel's existence, despite having subscribed. Apparently, I neglected to click that damn bell but RUclips decided to send me a notification at last. It was a very interesting video. I love the extensive bibliography in the description. I was just thinking about writing a comment asking 'what language did Nogai speak?' when you started explaining this exact question. Last but not least, I appreciate the pretty good pronunciation of Jan Długosz.
To be fair, I basically didn't upload for all of 2020 so that's understandable. For Długosz, I was luckily enough to meet a Polish scholar this year who had a lot of opinions about Długosz, so I had the opportunity to hear it said a number of times.
Part of me would love to see it. I think that would be more effective than a movie. But I know it would be hard for me to watch and turn my brain off for it, and sit there going "Hey, that's not how that happened!"
Nice work defining Nogai from the naming of the Nogai Horde! A question that still remains with me however is if was not the Mongol prince Nogai, who was the horde named after? The entomology of place names and similar proper nouns is always tricky and with limited sources perhaps there is little that can be done to delve further on the matter.
There has been a number of etymologies proposed, basically that it was coincidentally sounding like Nogai. Devin DeWeese, for example, suggests the Nogai in Nogai Horde came from a Persianized Turkic curse, “ne ongģay,” meaning “will not succeed,” and was apparently used by non-Muslims to refer to Manghit converts to Islam, calling them ne ongģays. The appellation, the story goes, was adopted and over time transformed into Nogai (encouraged by its similarity to the Mongolian nokhoi, dog?). I'm not sure how much I believe that; I always struggle with "the outside group called Y group as X, so Y group adopted X as a name." The path for transmission and adoption seems very slim I find. There are other suggestions like this, which are usually some combination of terms which end of coincidentally sounding like Nogai. I think there is though a simpler explanation; Nogai/nokhoi in Mongolian (dog) appears something like 'comrades' at times, and was not a pejorative thing. Dogs and wolves are always very spiritual animals to Mongols and Turkic peoples, and employ their symbolism often. Chinggis famously called some of his generals his "dogs of war." And neither was Nogai an uncommon name among the Mongols and Turkic successor khanates. It often also appeared as Qara-Nogai. So I wonder if it's instead more like, during the formation of the Nogai Horde, they were basically calling themselves something like that; 'we are dogs of war,' kind of thing. And arose out of that. That seems a more likely explanation than "oh it's a Turkicifed Persian curse used by outsiders that the Nogais picked up." And certainly more sense than a 13th century prince who spent no time, and had no influence, that far east and was almost certainly unknown. Later Turkic writers who collected some of the oral folktales of the Golden Horde along the Volga steppe or more easterly, like Otemmish Hajji or Abu'l Ghazi, mention the khans like Möngke-Temür, Töde-Möngke etc., but never mention Nogai. Unlike Edigü, who we know became a popular figure for myths and folk tales, nothing similar exists for Nogai. But I'm not a linguist so perhaps I'm overlooking data there.
if ı remember correct Rashid al Din said,Mongol commander who defeated Kotan(Kıpchak Khan) was Berke. That mean Berke was maın actor for Baybars and his people escape to crimea ?
So I had a brief look in the translations of Rashid I have. While Berke does campaign in the area, I don't find any mention of Kotjen by Rashid (but given Kotjen's flight, it seems probable it may have been caused by Berke). The irony of the Mongols causing an influx of Qipchaps onto the market, to be purchased by the Ayyubids and eventually becoming the Mamluk Sultanate, just in time to stop the Mongol army in Syria, has not been lost on historians.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory ''Shiban, Böchök, and Büri rode to the region of the Crimea and took Tabqara of the Qipchaq people. Bärkä rode to Qipchaq and took Arjumal, Qura’umas, and Qiran, the leaders of the Makruti.'' So it seems,fled of Baibars' clan to Sodan was more connected to armies of other Jochids(Shiban,Böchök and Böri) than Berke himself
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory Nevertheless,Jochids who inderectly caused slavery of Baibars,later became muslim ally of his Sultanete. Life is full of ironies..
Аirak-Айраг is a Mongolian wonder drink which drunk by everyone in Mongolia, including children. It is rich in vitamins and nutrients which are excellent for immune system. Airak has only 1.9-2% alcohol and no one gets drunk by drinking it.
I hope to do a nice, detailed look at Möngke-Temür's reign and will talk about his efforts to consolidate the Horde. In my opinion, he was the real founder of the Golden Horde, and I intend to demonstrate that point, and talk about the Horde's interactions with subject peoples
Amazing video. Carpini and the papal letters sent to Khan was my gateway to this wonderful part of history. I always wondered about the 'nationalities' in the hordes. Could you say that Mongols were basically just a rulling class, with majority of the population being Turkic?
In records of a Persian traveler, the Mongols in the Central Asia were assimilated by Kipchak, ironically nation they once conquered. People from Kipchak groups are Tatars, Bashkirs, Nogay, Kazakh, Karakalpak and they all belong to the Turkic ethnic cluster just like Uighur. During the conquest Chenghis Khan ordered to do all official documentation using Uighur writing system. So is it speculated that even the ruling class had to learn Kipchak language for successful communication with submitted tribes
I would agree with this assessment; think of the Golden Horde as politically Mongolian, ethnically Turkic. But the Mongols were minority basically everywhere across the Empire. Usually when you see a historical empire, the name of the empire is always just a reference to the rulers, rather than the entire population... Always forget the modern idea of nation-states! They simply cannot apply to pre-modern polities (and really struggle to apply to most places even today, but that's another matter)
At this point you are an honorary Mongol. You should start having a stereotypical Mongol hairstyle. You know the one where it's shaved in the middle and knots around.
Great video. I would like to ask you whether the tatars living in Russia and Ukraine are the same as the Mongols. Or the Mongols and the tartars are 2 distinct ethnic?
During Khubilai's campaign against the Dali Kingdom, he was provided by Möngke a body of Qipchaq soldiers (if I remember correctly, some were captured during the 1230s campaign in the Desht-i Qipchaq, and some had willingly joined the Mongols). This unit preformed really well and became the core of the later Qipchaq Guard. Khubilai really fostered it's growth and it was his elite unit; mostly because when it came to fighting other Mongols, the Qipchaqs didn't feel bad about it, whereas Mongols would stop fighting to talk to each other. As the leaders of the Qipchaq Guard became very powerful and wealthy, they seemingly went out of their way to collect other Qipchaps; though the Guard was not 100% Qipchaq, as we know of Chinese, Mongols, Turks, Alans, Tanguts etc., who served in it. The leadership though, was very Qipchaq and apparently proud of it.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory What form did the Qipchaq leadership take? Was it an oligarchy of several Qipchaq families? One Qipchaq clan monopolising it? Some sort of internal 'warrior republic' of the descendants of all the original Qipchaqs? Could non-Qipchaqs get in by, for example, marrying into the Qipchaq leadership/getting adopted or something that sort?
@@Πολιτεία-λ6σ This is a very interesting topic. The Qipchaq Guard was basically led by one family, all descendants of a Qipchap chief named Banducha, who in the 1250s with his son Tuqtuq had, with 1,000 Qipchaqs, been assigned by Möngke Khaan to assist prince Khubilai against the Dali Kingdom. Because they served Khubilai well there, and against Ariq Böke, they were richly rewarded. And as all of positions were hereditary, then Banducha's descendants kept inheriting the leadership of the Qipchap Gaurd units, as well as some other top positions (they kept getting addition rewards, titles that were also hereitary). So El-Temür, the most powerful of them who reduced the Yuan khans to puppet, was Banducha's great-grandson.
@@Πολιτεία-λ6σ Banducha's descendants actually married into the Chinggisid royal family, but leadership of the guard, as far as I know, remained restricted to his family until the aftermath of El-Temür's death, when his former ally Bayan of the Merkit (now the #1 guy in the Yuan realm) kills basically all of El-Temür's family.
@@Πολιτεία-λ6σ If you're interested in more about them, I have a couple articles I've collected on the Qipchaq Guard I'd be happy to send you. It's also something (among many things) I would love to make a video on.
Not a lot. There's a lot of inferences based off what we know of other steppe societies, but regarding the Qipchaqs surprisingly little is concretely known of them except for some broad statements. All we really get is references to a few lineages, mentions of a few Qipchaq leaders who became more powerful and influential. There's some generic Eurasian steppe nomad qualities that get mentioned (such as archery, horsemanship, herding etc.). There's detail on their interactions in Crimea, but the Qipchaps there seem to take on a very different lifestyle than those in the steppe. I know there is some high quality work done on Qipchaq archaeology, but I'm not very familiar with it. The most detailed sources on the Qipchaps come after the Mongol conquest, but that is difficult to use for reconstructing pre-Mongol organization because it appears to have been a total disruption of society. Huge displacement of peoples, lands and herds confiscated, the Qipchap social and political hierarchy totally dismantled.
There was, but it's unclear the exact status of the Shibanids in the mid-thirteenth century. Though the later sources written Shibanid Dynasties, like the Qara Tawarikh of Öttemish Hajji, portray Shiban on a comparable level to Orda and Batu, this is not what the more contemporary sources have, where Shiban's territory appears to be a part of Orda's ulus. However, it's not even clear the relationship between the uluses of Batu and Orda in this period, whether they were independent, or Batu was the senior. So it's possibly that Shiban really did enjoy a nearly totally independent ulus as well.
I had actually thought about trying to show more of the known uluses on the map and discussing them a bit more, but ended up deciding against it to keep things simple. I want to do a video discussing the Blue Horde/White Horde/Golden Horde relationship, and I'll put some info on Shiban in there too if I can
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory According to Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur Khan's ''Genealogy of Turks''(17.century Shibanid source),foundation of Shiban Ulus: ''He(Batu) pay a compliment to Shiban and ,with some things from the spoils,gave him newly conquered Kurel(magyar,basghır ?) land,from bayrı(inherited) gave him Kuscu,Naiman,Karluk,Buyruk uruqs and said:country between me and my brother Ichen(Orda) is your. Spend summer in Irgız Savuk,Ur,İlek and east of Yayık until Ural Mountain;spend winter in Karakum,Arakum,edge of Sırderya,foot of Saru Savucu''
Kazakhs ruled the Golden Horde, this is our history, not a Mongol, and Genghis Khan was a Kazakh. And their names were not Mongols, but Mughals. It was Russia and China who rewrote Kazakh History.
Can you make a video regarding the ethnic origins of the Xiongnu, Huns, Hephthalites and Hunas? Like, wether they were all the same people or if they were Turkic or Mongolic in origin?
Great video as always. I was interested how many actual Mongol soldiers Batu had during initial invasion of Rus in 1230s. I know army consisted of Mongol and Turkic troops, were Mongols majority?
Even in that army the Mongols (as in, Mongolian speaking people from Mongolia) would have been a minority of the force. The exact ratio is up for debate, but we know that a lot of Turkic peoples from the steppes (including Qipchaq) served in the army (as it moved west, local peoples who submitted were incorporated, like Alans, Mordvins and Rus'). Even peoples from eastern Asia, like some Tanguts, are mentioned in the army. At one point while preparing the campaign there was discussion of sending a vast host of Chinese west with them, but was deemed too difficult to supply such a force. Though almost certainly many, if not most, of the siege engineers were Chinese.
And this is not listed in a single source, but compiled for various mentions from European, Persian and Chinese sources. So I would be very hesitant to offer any actual percentages for the sources of these troops. I'm in the camp that the army, as it set out initially, was about 100,000-150,000 (which was seemingly the upper limit for the size of a force the Mongols would bring into given theater). If I was to give a rough ratio, my gut feeling would be that no more than 25% of that force was actually Mongolian; perhaps 40-50% Turkic steppe peoples, and the remainder the various other contingents. But don't quote me on that, as that's the roughest of rough estimates.
Could you do a video on Uzbeg Khan 's reign and the islamisation of the Golden horde? By extension, a detailed description of how the Mongol aristocracies adopted Islam would be interesting
Both are topics I hope will be a part of this. Part of the reason for this series is to help me know the Golden Horde in this time better, so that when it comes to Özbeg I really understand the significance of his changes on the Khanate.
I'll have to look. I think there is? Probably in one of the Zafarnamas. But don't quote me on that, because the quote I am thinking of could be in something in ibn Arabshah, who was definitely not a Timurid author.
So everyone who would be maintaining herds would likely move. But it's likely that all the units of 100 and 10 (jaghuns and arbans) would have their own allotted pastures even within the mingghan. Kind of like a Russian nesting doll of pastures and movements, not all members moving in one large body. The nature of inner Asian animal pastoralism requires these movements between seasonal pastures, as they do not tend to collect enough fodder to provide for their animals otherwise, relying instead on the access to grass. However, these mingghans also did have towns and sedentary communities in them, and obviously they would not be moving, obviously enough.
@@Πολιτεία-λ6σ It seems to vary a bit on time, place and wealth of the given ruling lineage. Wealthier ones could have semi-permanent or permanent camps set up in their pastures that they would move between, which had a permanent staff to keep it prepared for their arrival. So they would not be moving all the time. Certainly, anyone involved in the animal husbandry, either their own herds, or animals they worked for the ruling lineage moved. But only those directly connected to the ruling lineage (i.e, they worked specifically the herds belonging to them) would move in conjunction with them.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory on this channel we are all Türük! Eyvallah kardeşim, elhhamdulillah. Inşallah one day you can do a video about the series Derilis Ertuğrul. I was dissapointed starting season 2 that they make the mongols look so silly and cartoonishly evil
Now can you find these Mongol poems in some book? Suitably translated to English of course. Would be such a fine gift to any cultured modern poem lover. ;)
There is a translation of that Mongolian birchbark poem somewhere, but I could not find it anywhere tonight. Regarding Qutb and those 14th century poems, I do not know if they've ever been made available in English, but I know people who might know if any are. I can inquire if you are interested?
Valentin A. Riasonovksy's Fundamental Principles of Mongol Law; Anne F. Broadbridge's Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds; a copy of Marco Polo; Thomas D. Conlan's In little Need of Divine Intervention; Peter Jackson's The Mongols and the Islamic World; Timothy May's the Mongol Empire; and Morris Rossabi's Khubilai Khan, His Life and Times
That's a very good question, and not one anyone has been able to sufficiently answer. Especially since there are lots of local histories/religious works/administrative documents produce in Central Asia even before the Mongol invasion, yet before the Timurids there is never a comparable historical chronicle to Juvaini or Rashid al-Din. There is no indication of the Khwarezm-shahs, for example, ever commissioning a vast dynastic chronicle. The opinion of some scholars is that, in Iran and in China there was a regional tradition of large-scale chronicles and histories, that the khans could patronize to demonstrate their right to rule (much of Chancellor Toghto's reason for leading the work on the Song, Jin and Liao Dynastic histories was in order to fill a role "required" of the Yuan as their successor in Chinese imperial tradition). The argument then goes that, when we see these types of Chronicles made under the Timurids, it was an inspiration from the well known accounts of Juvaini and Rashid, and thus becomes more regular in the region in the following centuries. Meanwhile, for the Chagatai Khans they never commissioned such a history as they did not see it beneficial or necessary to their legitimacy. The other fact though, is that there may have been Chagatayid histories, but they were lost in the various upheavals the khanates went through. Neither answer is all that satisfactory, but unfortunately we aren't really provided materials that would give a clearer idea of what the case actually was.
Keep in mind that Rashid al-Din spent considerable time, effort and resources to try and ensure his work was preserved. Much greater effort than probably any other 14th century author anywhere. And yet, there is only 4 (?) partial manuscripts which survive of the Jami' al-Tawarikh today. So imagine how easy it would be to see such documents disappear in the much less stable conditions of the Chagatai Khanate. Further, even if the Jami' al-Tawarikh did not survive, we would know it existed because lots of 15th and 16th century authors used it. However, we do not see later authors mentioning some great chronicle sponsored by the Chagatai Khans that they made use of. So it seems probable that there simply was no large chronicle ever created.
Making one of these chronicles is a large investment in time and money, and generally require considerable fore-thinking, long-reigning monarchs with peaceful transitions (so the project isn't axed by the succeeding monarch, or lost when the capital gets sacked) as well as a reasonably large percentage of the nobility or elite who would appreciate it as a piece of dynastic legitimacy (otherwise, to what end is it providing legitimacy?). The Chagatai Khanate did not usually portray these features, and with much of its elite remaining nomadic (more so in the east), or at least much prouder of their Chinggisid heritage rather than any islamic one, then it makes less sense to put up the money to fund such a project. Is that a perfect explanation? No. But it might be a suitable starting point as one.
What if no Chinghis Khan "Mongols" ever spoke Mongol language? Who would they speak to? Chagatai language was vary close to Qipchaq, and Ilkhanate could speak Oguz Turkic, like Azeri.
Here's the thing; we have Mongolian language documents from the other khanates from well into the 14th century. We have documents of the Chagatai administration that are preserved in Turfan; the latest is dated to 1379. Likewise, there are either surviving documents or references to Mongolian used in the administration of the Yuan and Ilkhanate until the end of both states. Now, the entire administration was not operating solely in these languages; rather, a part was using Mongolian. We also have references from Chinese sources to the Yuan Dynasty using Mongolian with the other khanates. Golden Horde and Yuan diplomacy continues until the Yuan are pushed from China, so if conducted mostly in Mongolian that indicates at least some parts of the Jochid administration continued to know Mongol. Using an official language for diplomacy of course, is very different from day to day usage. Latin was the primary language for most European diplomacy until relatively recently, but only a small percentage of the population there ever knew it. The use of a ceremonial language for such things made them, in some ways, "more legitimate." The idea of the Mongol Empire remained very powerful even after it no longer existed as a unified entity. The Khanates don't stop talking to each other after 1260, and in 1304 there is actually an empire-wide peace reached, wherein every khan recognized the supremacy of Oljeitu Temür, the Yuan Khan.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory how about those who were not Chingiskhan descendants but were powerful, e.g., Edygu or Tamerlane? Did they use Mongolian as well or just Turkic? For instance how Tamerlane and Tokhtamush communicated, or Edygu and Vytautas?
Temür's first language was the Turkic of the Chagatai realm. Lots of his chroniclers like to present him as fluent in all sorts of languages, but ibn Arabshah, (a man with no love for Temür) probably gave the best description: "“But he was illiterate, reading, writing and understanding nothing in the Arabic tongue, but of Persian, Turkish and the Mogul language he understood enough but no more.”" It's not clear though exactly what "Mogul" is when ibn Arabshah. Some use this statement to argue that Temür knew Mongolian; I'm doubtful of this, and think instead it could be Chagatai Turkic, and "Turkish" ibn Arabshah's use is Qipchaq or Oguz Turkic (alternatively, Mogul is how he calls Qipchaq Turkic). Edigü is harder to say. Qipchaq Turkic was definitely his primary language, but I have not researched him well enough to know if there are references to him knowing other languages. Similar for Toqtamish. When these men sent letters to each other though, they were not personally writing them. At most they dictated the letter, and more regularly would just say "I want this to be the idea of the letter, and I want my scribes to make it more dramatic." Since they would have multi-lingual scribes in their courts, they would either send letters in mulitple languages, or expect that their would be persons at the other court who would translate it for the other monarch. We have lots of eye-witness accounts with the Mongols receiving letters. Simon of St. Quentin record show, during his during to Baiju's ordu in the 1240s, it was a lot of effort to get his letters translated so that Baiju could read them. The letters were in Latin, which was explained word for word to Turkish and Greek intrepreters, who made a translation of it. Then the Turks and Greeks explained it word for word to Persians, who then did a translation of it; and finally the process was repeated into Mongolian, at which point it was finally read out to Baiju. Later, during his visit to the Jochids, William of Rubruck had had his latin letters translated into Greek while in Constantinople. But arriving at Sartaq (or another commander, I don't remember at the moment)'s camp, they could not find anyone who read Greek, so they had to send messengers to Crimea to find someone who could translate the letter in "Tatar" for them, out of Greek. Usually one of the main features which shows up in descriptions of Mongol courts is a lot of translators and scribes being present, precisely for these reasons.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory ha, you would probably wonder how accurate their translation was. I have read or heard that Peter the First wrote letters to Crimean Khan in Tatar (probably Kipchak). I wonder if that was just a translation of his original letter written in Russian.
This is a great question my friend, and I spent all day thinking about it. It kept me much company while chopping wood this afternoon. I went back and forth on it in my head a few times and here is what I think. Firstly, for most Islamic sources, and Rashid to an extent, as all of the Eurasian steppe nomads they encountered/knew of were Turks, it was sensible for them to place the Mongols as a category of Turks, given nomadism, shared physical and cultural characteristics, and some shared words in language. For most of these writers, I always get the impression that Turk is basically used as a synonym for “nomad,” similar to how Byzantine writers might call every nomad a Scythian. Rashid of course, was a very well informed individual, one with close experiences with Turks and Mongols, could speak Mongolian and was likely knowledgeable in Turkic languages. Furthermore, anything he wrote in the Jami’ al-Tawarikh was presumably Okayed by the Il-Khans. So when Rashid categorizes the Mongols as the Turks, we can assume that the Il-Khans saw no issue with this. However, contemporaries also understood a distinction between Mongols and Turks, at least in language. Consider this well known anecdote, repeated in a few sources. Juvaini, History of the World Conqueror/Boyle trans., vol. I, pg. 225 “An Arabic-speaking apostate came to [Ögedai] and said: ‘in the night I saw Chingiz-Khan in a dream and he said: “tell my son [Ögedai] to slay the Moslems, for they are evil.” After reflecting a while Qa’an [Ögedai] asked whether he [Chinggis] had spoken to him through an interpreter or in his own person. “With his own tongue,” said the man. “Dost thou know the Mongol and Turkish languages?” asked [Ögedai]. “No,” said the man.” “Neither am I in any doubt, said Qa’an [Ögedai], “but that Chingiz-Khan knew no language save Mongolian. It is clear therefore that what thou sayest is nothing by lies.” And he ordered the man to be put to death.” Juzjani, Tabakat-i Nasiri/Raverty trans. vol. II, p.1110-1114. “[Ögedai] turned his face towards that Tūni idol-worshipper, saying: “Dost thou understand the Mughali language, or the Turki language, or doest thou know both those tongues?” The Tūni idol-worshipper replied: “I understand the Turki language, and I do not understand the Mughali tongue.” [Ögedai] turned his face towards the hereditary Mughal grandess, whose lineage and descent were form pure Mughals, and said: “Unto ye it is certain and clear, that the [Chinggis Khan] used not to understand any language whatever save the Mughali tongue.” They all bent their heads to the ground, and, with one accord, replied: “Indeed, such is the case, that the [Chinggis Khan] understood no other language than the Mughali.” [Ögedai] turning his face towards that Tūni, asked “In what language did the [Chinggis Khan] deliver this command unto thee: in the Mughali or the Turki language? If he spoke in Mughali, seeing thou dost not understand it, in what manner dost thou comprehend what he was saying; and, if he spoke in Turki, since he used not to understand Turki, how did he communicate the order? Give an answer from which an odour of truth may come, in order that action may be taken thereon.” Rashid, interestingly though, drops the reference to Turkish when he copies this story in the Jami’ al-Tawarikh, but still maintains that Chinggis knew no language other than Mongolian. Rashid al-Din, The Successors of Genghis Khan/Boyle trans., pg. 79. “An Arabic-speaking apostate from Islam came to Qa'an [Ögedai] and, kneeling, said: "I saw Chingiz-Khan in a dream and he said: 'Tell my son to kill many of the Muslims, for they are exceedingly evil people.'" After reflecting for a moment Qa'an [Ögedai] asked whether he had spoken to him through an interpreter or personally with his own tongue. "With his own tongue" said the man. "Dost thou know the Mongol language" asked Qa'an. "No", said the man. "There is no doubt," said Qa'an, "that thou art lying. I know for certain that Chingiz-Khan knew no language but Mongol." And he ordered the man to be put to death.” The point of all that, is to show that these authors all clearly know the distinction between Mongolian and Turkic languages, linguistically. We also regularly see in the writings of people like Marco Polo a distinction between “Turchia/Turkestan” (roughly, Central Asia, though Polo’s usage is more like for the land between the Syr Darya and the western Altai Mountains) and Mongolia proper. Chinese sources likewise are consistent in marking between Turk and Mongol. So what about the Mongols’ own viewpoints, as not filtered through their subjects or enemy writers? Obviously, the earliest source we have is the Secret History of the Mongols (I’ve been persuaded for a composition date of 1252 for it). For the 1206 quriltai, it demonstrates three terms for categorizing the peoples of the Mongolian plateau: Felt-tent ulus, sisgei to’urqatu ulus Mongolic ulus, mongqoljin ulus Mongol ulus, mongqol ulus. Following the argument of Lhamsuren Munkh-Erdene, Felt-tent ulus refers to “the people who live in felt tents,” all across the Mongolian plateau. That is, everyone who lived in a ger, yurt, and was hence a nomad. In contrast to “Those who live in a wooden door,” (qabdasun e’üdeten), or sedentary peoples Mongolic ulus, refers to people with a “Mongolian property/quality,” i.e, people who were speakers of Mongolian Mongqol Ulus, the state established by Chinggis Khan in 1206. Obviously, the Secret History tells us nothing about how pre-1206 Mongols viewed themselves. But I think it supports the argument that, in my opinion, the Mongols certainly saw themselves as similar to Turkic nomads in lifestyle, (“we are both nomads,”) and perhaps even some sort of shared ancestry for ruling lineages (the fact that Chinggis’ earliest ancestor is a wolf, the favourite motif of so many medieval Turks, is not a coincidence, though it would take someone more qualified than me to speak on it). But not necessarily “Mongols as a category of the Turks,”; instead, almost like “Mongols and Turks are the Right and Left Hand of the same ulus.” What do we make of Rashid al-Din then? I don’t see what he wrote as contradictory. Mainly because the Mongols absolutely loved to appropriate imagery and means of legitimacy, or for other propaganda purposes. Hence their willingness to spread overblown rumours of destruction they caused, or how, after their conversion, many Khans and their officers “islamicized” Chinggis Khan, or in the Il-Khanate we see the illustration of the Shahnama where many famous Iranian kings and even Alexander the Great are depicted as Mongols. If the Mongols found it useful for their legitimacy to portray themselves as descendants of Oghuz Khan, then I do not doubt for a second they would do so. And for Rashid al-Din, writing in the Persian milieu where every nomad was a Turk, this would have worked for him just fine.
Since I don't know if this is as clear as I wanted: this is looking specifically at the Jochid lands in the mid-thirteenth century, during Nogai's youth. This changes quite a bit in the fourteenth century, particularly under Özbeg Khan. I hope to at some point do a video which demonstrates this, and talks about the cities of the Golden Horde.
This rise of Tatar
Just got the image of massive carts moving across the steppe in the arrangement you mentioned with the smaller carts rolling in thousands before the princely ones. What an image to picture! The only film I had seen that tries to portray the Golden Horde is that recent Russian film of the same title, but I had never pictured carts in such grandeur, some were probably brilliantly decorated with the colors of each Prince.
Very likely; we know the insides of the gers were often covered in gold, fine silks, fabrics etc. So what better way to showcase you wealth than to cover the entire outside of your home in the most expensive dye you can find? The impression from the eye-witnesses is of entire cities on wheels, essentially. I can't imagine the sound of it: thousands of animals, hundreds of carts.... earth shaking wherever such a caravan moved.
Great to see you back, Jack!
It’s remarkable Chinggis Khaan lived to 64-65 considering most of the Khaans died really young due to their lack of diet discipline.
Chingis was a real tough guy due to all the hardships he faced in his youth. His kids and grand kids were raised in luxury in comparison, and gave into wine and other vices.
The fact that Khubilai not only lived longer than Chinggis, but was 79 when he died, is frankly the most amazing fact given how he indulged. Almost as if Khubilai absorbed the years from every other Khan of the late thirteenth century
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory
Lol, right?
But it is worth noticing that Khublai also got the best Chinese herbs to enhance his health. His wife was also looking after him greatly in every way. It was said Khublai’s health deteriorated after his wife passed away. He no longer wanted to live. It was the beginning of the end for the Yuan Dynasty.
@@superfly19751 Certainly. I think Khubilai was never in particularly great shape. I seem to recall him making a fuss about suffering from gout as early as the 1250s. I always suspected that part of his competition with Ariq Böke, was that Ariq was fit, strong, a good wrestler (indicated by his name), and that Möngke favoured Ariq as regent. Ariq fit the image of the quintessential "Mongol" ruler. Whereas Khubilai was always associated with Chinese culture, was seen as unreliable, and that perhaps was always not particularly physically capable compared to Ariq- a very polite way to say Khubilai was always overweight and unathletic. When Möngke dies and Khubilai continues to campaign, I suspect this was his attempt to build up his "resume" to become Khaan, and score some military victories. He only returns to Shangdu (then called Kaiping) and declares himself Khaan once Chabi sends a message alerting him that Ariq is on track to organize his own election in Qaraqorum.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory
That’s interesting!
Sounded like Boke was the more true Mongol. I think what helped Khubilai was the fact that his military was versatile. They understand how true mongols fight but also have Chinese advance war technology so they defeated Boke. If I’m not mistaken, Boke even had the backing of most Genghis Khan’s military but it didn’t matter.
The truth is only the Mongols could have defeated themselves. After Genghis died internal tensions grew bigger and bigger and they ended up dividing the empire n acted as their own entities. Ego is the biggest single enemy.
Even so, these khanates and the Yuan Dynasty lasted a respectable long time. I can’t even imagine if they remained United.
He said "kolay gelsin" at the end! OMG The Jackmeister speaks Turkish!!
I think it was Qipchak.
This time it was Anatolian Turkish. I have no idea if Qipchaq has an equivalent phrase
Sa
maçallah
@@papazataklaattiranimam As!
This is your best yet
I learn a little bit with each new video I make, and I like to think it shows
excellent video... great info and btw you have the perfect voice for narration
Very kind of you to say! I am but humbly reading off a script
greetings as crimean tatar turk. golden horde is turco-mongol empire
@Mehmed Islamof Alekum selam gardasım biz hepimiz tüm türkler 1 soydanız hepimiz kandaşız
@Mehmed Islamof kipcak da oguz da türktür. uygur,tatar,nogay,kazak,kırgız,azeri,türkmen hepsi gokturklerin oğulu ve hunların torununudur
On the contrary of their Khans,Noyans just living so fucking much longer.
Many of Temujin's comrade saw reign of Möngke Khan
That continues basically in all the khanates; long lived members of the military elite like El Temür in the Yuan Dynasty or Choban in the Ilkhanate ability to outlast khans allows them to control some of the later Chinggisids.
Totally love your point mate.
I am very glad you enjoyed it, my friend!
As always great video.
I am very happy you enjoyed it!
I completely forgot about this channel's existence, despite having subscribed. Apparently, I neglected to click that damn bell but RUclips decided to send me a notification at last.
It was a very interesting video. I love the extensive bibliography in the description. I was just thinking about writing a comment asking 'what language did Nogai speak?' when you started explaining this exact question. Last but not least, I appreciate the pretty good pronunciation of Jan Długosz.
To be fair, I basically didn't upload for all of 2020 so that's understandable. For Długosz, I was luckily enough to meet a Polish scholar this year who had a lot of opinions about Długosz, so I had the opportunity to hear it said a number of times.
Nogai speak the Nogai language. I am a Nogai.
Great work
Thank you, sir!
Nogai placed the capital of his self-ruled region at Isaccea, which is now a little city in Romania.
Hope someday they will create a series about Mongol empire (like Vikings or GoT) from Genghis to division of empire to different khanates.
Part of me would love to see it. I think that would be more effective than a movie. But I know it would be hard for me to watch and turn my brain off for it, and sit there going "Hey, that's not how that happened!"
Great video !
It’s fascinating to see how the different Mongol khanates formed their own political identity
Nice work defining Nogai from the naming of the Nogai Horde! A question that still remains with me however is if was not the Mongol prince Nogai, who was the horde named after? The entomology of place names and similar proper nouns is always tricky and with limited sources perhaps there is little that can be done to delve further on the matter.
There has been a number of etymologies proposed, basically that it was coincidentally sounding like Nogai. Devin DeWeese, for example, suggests
the Nogai in Nogai Horde came from a Persianized Turkic curse, “ne ongģay,” meaning “will not succeed,” and was apparently used by non-Muslims to refer to Manghit converts to Islam, calling them ne ongģays. The appellation, the story
goes, was adopted and over time transformed into Nogai (encouraged by its similarity to the Mongolian nokhoi, dog?).
I'm not sure how much I believe that; I always struggle with "the outside group called Y group as X, so Y group adopted X as a name." The path for transmission and adoption seems very slim I find. There are other suggestions like this, which are usually some combination of terms which end of coincidentally sounding like Nogai.
I think there is though a simpler explanation; Nogai/nokhoi in Mongolian (dog) appears something like 'comrades' at times, and was not a pejorative thing. Dogs and wolves are always very spiritual animals to Mongols and Turkic peoples, and employ their symbolism often. Chinggis famously called some of his generals his "dogs of war." And neither was Nogai an uncommon name among the Mongols and Turkic successor khanates. It often also appeared as Qara-Nogai. So I wonder if it's instead more like, during the formation of the Nogai Horde, they were basically calling themselves something like that; 'we are dogs of war,' kind of thing. And arose out of that. That seems a more likely explanation than "oh it's a Turkicifed Persian curse used by outsiders that the Nogais picked up." And certainly more sense than a 13th century prince who spent no time, and had no influence, that far east and was almost certainly unknown. Later Turkic writers who collected some of the oral folktales of the Golden Horde along the Volga steppe or more easterly, like Otemmish Hajji or Abu'l Ghazi, mention the khans like Möngke-Temür, Töde-Möngke etc., but never mention Nogai. Unlike Edigü, who we know became a popular figure for myths and folk tales, nothing similar exists for Nogai.
But I'm not a linguist so perhaps I'm overlooking data there.
if ı remember correct Rashid al Din said,Mongol commander who defeated Kotan(Kıpchak Khan) was Berke.
That mean Berke was maın actor for Baybars and his people escape to crimea ?
So I had a brief look in the translations of Rashid I have. While Berke does campaign in the area, I don't find any mention of Kotjen by Rashid (but given Kotjen's flight, it seems probable it may have been caused by Berke).
The irony of the Mongols causing an influx of Qipchaps onto the market, to be purchased by the Ayyubids and eventually becoming the Mamluk Sultanate, just in time to stop the Mongol army in Syria, has not been lost on historians.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory Yeah you are right,ı misremembered
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory
''Shiban, Böchök, and Büri rode to the region
of the Crimea and took Tabqara of the Qipchaq people. Bärkä rode to Qipchaq and took Arjumal, Qura’umas, and Qiran, the leaders of the Makruti.''
So it seems,fled of Baibars' clan to Sodan was more connected to armies of other Jochids(Shiban,Böchök and Böri) than Berke himself
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory Nevertheless,Jochids who inderectly caused slavery of Baibars,later became muslim ally of his Sultanete.
Life is full of ironies..
Аirak-Айраг is a Mongolian wonder drink which drunk by everyone in Mongolia, including children. It is rich in vitamins and nutrients which are excellent for immune system. Airak has only 1.9-2% alcohol and no one gets drunk by drinking it.
Will you mention about Volga-Bulgar rebellion against Mengu Timur ?
I hope to do a nice, detailed look at Möngke-Temür's reign and will talk about his efforts to consolidate the Horde. In my opinion, he was the real founder of the Golden Horde, and I intend to demonstrate that point, and talk about the Horde's interactions with subject peoples
Amazing video. Carpini and the papal letters sent to Khan was my gateway to this wonderful part of history. I always wondered about the 'nationalities' in the hordes. Could you say that Mongols were basically just a rulling class, with majority of the population being Turkic?
In records of a Persian traveler, the Mongols in the Central Asia were assimilated by Kipchak, ironically nation they once conquered. People from Kipchak groups are Tatars, Bashkirs, Nogay, Kazakh, Karakalpak and they all belong to the Turkic ethnic cluster just like Uighur. During the conquest Chenghis Khan ordered to do all official documentation using Uighur writing system. So is it speculated that even the ruling class had to learn Kipchak language for successful communication with submitted tribes
I would agree with this assessment; think of the Golden Horde as politically Mongolian, ethnically Turkic. But the Mongols were minority basically everywhere across the Empire. Usually when you see a historical empire, the name of the empire is always just a reference to the rulers, rather than the entire population... Always forget the modern idea of nation-states! They simply cannot apply to pre-modern polities (and really struggle to apply to most places even today, but that's another matter)
At this point you are an honorary Mongol. You should start having a stereotypical Mongol hairstyle. You know the one where it's shaved in the middle and knots around.
That style is called kegül, though I don't know if I quite got the head for it...
Great video. I would like to ask you whether the tatars living in Russia and Ukraine are the same as the Mongols. Or the Mongols and the tartars are 2 distinct ethnic?
they're really closely related, but are different.
I wanna know how Khipchak mercenaries ended up in the Yuan Dynasty Of Kublai
During Khubilai's campaign against the Dali Kingdom, he was provided by Möngke a body of Qipchaq soldiers (if I remember correctly, some were captured during the 1230s campaign in the Desht-i Qipchaq, and some had willingly joined the Mongols). This unit preformed really well and became the core of the later Qipchaq Guard. Khubilai really fostered it's growth and it was his elite unit; mostly because when it came to fighting other Mongols, the Qipchaqs didn't feel bad about it, whereas Mongols would stop fighting to talk to each other. As the leaders of the Qipchaq Guard became very powerful and wealthy, they seemingly went out of their way to collect other Qipchaps; though the Guard was not 100% Qipchaq, as we know of Chinese, Mongols, Turks, Alans, Tanguts etc., who served in it. The leadership though, was very Qipchaq and apparently proud of it.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory What form did the Qipchaq leadership take? Was it an oligarchy of several Qipchaq families? One Qipchaq clan monopolising it? Some sort of internal 'warrior republic' of the descendants of all the original Qipchaqs? Could non-Qipchaqs get in by, for example, marrying into the Qipchaq leadership/getting adopted or something that sort?
@@Πολιτεία-λ6σ This is a very interesting topic. The Qipchaq Guard was basically led by one family, all descendants of a Qipchap chief named Banducha, who in the 1250s with his son Tuqtuq had, with 1,000 Qipchaqs, been assigned by Möngke Khaan to assist prince Khubilai against the Dali Kingdom. Because they served Khubilai well there, and against Ariq Böke, they were richly rewarded. And as all of positions were hereditary, then Banducha's descendants kept inheriting the leadership of the Qipchap Gaurd units, as well as some other top positions (they kept getting addition rewards, titles that were also hereitary). So El-Temür, the most powerful of them who reduced the Yuan khans to puppet, was Banducha's great-grandson.
@@Πολιτεία-λ6σ Banducha's descendants actually married into the Chinggisid royal family, but leadership of the guard, as far as I know, remained restricted to his family until the aftermath of El-Temür's death, when his former ally Bayan of the Merkit (now the #1 guy in the Yuan realm) kills basically all of El-Temür's family.
@@Πολιτεία-λ6σ If you're interested in more about them, I have a couple articles I've collected on the Qipchaq Guard I'd be happy to send you. It's also something (among many things) I would love to make a video on.
we know anything about social/military organization of old Kıpchak Khanates ?
Not a lot. There's a lot of inferences based off what we know of other steppe societies, but regarding the Qipchaqs surprisingly little is concretely known of them except for some broad statements. All we really get is references to a few lineages, mentions of a few Qipchaq leaders who became more powerful and influential. There's some generic Eurasian steppe nomad qualities that get mentioned (such as archery, horsemanship, herding etc.). There's detail on their interactions in Crimea, but the Qipchaps there seem to take on a very different lifestyle than those in the steppe. I know there is some high quality work done on Qipchaq archaeology, but I'm not very familiar with it.
The most detailed sources on the Qipchaps come after the Mongol conquest, but that is difficult to use for reconstructing pre-Mongol organization because it appears to have been a total disruption of society. Huge displacement of peoples, lands and herds confiscated, the Qipchap social and political hierarchy totally dismantled.
5:32 There were Grey Horde of Shibanids
There was, but it's unclear the exact status of the Shibanids in the mid-thirteenth century. Though the later sources written Shibanid Dynasties, like the Qara Tawarikh of Öttemish Hajji, portray Shiban on a comparable level to Orda and Batu, this is not what the more contemporary sources have, where Shiban's territory appears to be a part of Orda's ulus. However, it's not even clear the relationship between the uluses of Batu and Orda in this period, whether they were independent, or Batu was the senior. So it's possibly that Shiban really did enjoy a nearly totally independent ulus as well.
I had actually thought about trying to show more of the known uluses on the map and discussing them a bit more, but ended up deciding against it to keep things simple. I want to do a video discussing the Blue Horde/White Horde/Golden Horde relationship, and I'll put some info on Shiban in there too if I can
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory According to Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur Khan's ''Genealogy of Turks''(17.century Shibanid source),foundation of Shiban Ulus:
''He(Batu) pay a compliment to Shiban and ,with some things from the spoils,gave him newly conquered Kurel(magyar,basghır ?) land,from bayrı(inherited) gave him Kuscu,Naiman,Karluk,Buyruk uruqs and said:country between me and my brother Ichen(Orda) is your. Spend summer in Irgız Savuk,Ur,İlek and east of Yayık until Ural Mountain;spend winter in Karakum,Arakum,edge of Sırderya,foot of Saru Savucu''
Kazakhs ruled the Golden Horde, this is our history, not a Mongol, and Genghis Khan was a Kazakh. And their names were not Mongols, but Mughals. It was Russia and China who rewrote Kazakh History.
Can you make a video regarding the ethnic origins of the Xiongnu, Huns, Hephthalites and Hunas? Like, wether they were all the same people or if they were Turkic or Mongolic in origin?
They were of Oghur Turkic origin who were closely related to Gaoju.
Mongolic or Para-Mongolic peoples have nothing to do with them.
Could you do a cover for Sibir Khanate
Great video as always. I was interested how many actual Mongol soldiers Batu had during initial invasion of Rus in 1230s. I know army consisted of Mongol and Turkic troops, were Mongols majority?
Even in that army the Mongols (as in, Mongolian speaking people from Mongolia) would have been a minority of the force. The exact ratio is up for debate, but we know that a lot of Turkic peoples from the steppes (including Qipchaq) served in the army (as it moved west, local peoples who submitted were incorporated, like Alans, Mordvins and Rus'). Even peoples from eastern Asia, like some Tanguts, are mentioned in the army. At one point while preparing the campaign there was discussion of sending a vast host of Chinese west with them, but was deemed too difficult to supply such a force. Though almost certainly many, if not most, of the siege engineers were Chinese.
And this is not listed in a single source, but compiled for various mentions from European, Persian and Chinese sources. So I would be very hesitant to offer any actual percentages for the sources of these troops. I'm in the camp that the army, as it set out initially, was about 100,000-150,000 (which was seemingly the upper limit for the size of a force the Mongols would bring into given theater). If I was to give a rough ratio, my gut feeling would be that no more than 25% of that force was actually Mongolian; perhaps 40-50% Turkic steppe peoples, and the remainder the various other contingents. But don't quote me on that, as that's the roughest of rough estimates.
Could you do a video on Uzbeg Khan 's reign and the islamisation of the Golden horde?
By extension, a detailed description of how the Mongol aristocracies adopted Islam would be interesting
Both are topics I hope will be a part of this. Part of the reason for this series is to help me know the Golden Horde in this time better, so that when it comes to Özbeg I really understand the significance of his changes on the Khanate.
True successor of the Golden Horde is today’s Kazakhs 🇰🇿💛👍
No we Nogais. And the Tatars
damn my ancestors were gigachads
I am a golden horde enjoyer
In Timurid sources,is there any quote which Timur describe himself as a Turk ?
Sa
@@papazataklaattiranimam AS KEKEEE 😉
I'll have to look. I think there is? Probably in one of the Zafarnamas. But don't quote me on that, because the quote I am thinking of could be in something in ibn Arabshah, who was definitely not a Timurid author.
Would the whole Mingghan, that is including the subject nomads, move? Or just the ruling household? Depending on the case?
So everyone who would be maintaining herds would likely move. But it's likely that all the units of 100 and 10 (jaghuns and arbans) would have their own allotted pastures even within the mingghan. Kind of like a Russian nesting doll of pastures and movements, not all members moving in one large body. The nature of inner Asian animal pastoralism requires these movements between seasonal pastures, as they do not tend to collect enough fodder to provide for their animals otherwise, relying instead on the access to grass. However, these mingghans also did have towns and sedentary communities in them, and obviously they would not be moving, obviously enough.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory Right, so the people who maintain the herds belonging to the ruling lineage would move, but the rest would stay behind?
@@Πολιτεία-λ6σ It seems to vary a bit on time, place and wealth of the given ruling lineage. Wealthier ones could have semi-permanent or permanent camps set up in their pastures that they would move between, which had a permanent staff to keep it prepared for their arrival. So they would not be moving all the time. Certainly, anyone involved in the animal husbandry, either their own herds, or animals they worked for the ruling lineage moved. But only those directly connected to the ruling lineage (i.e, they worked specifically the herds belonging to them) would move in conjunction with them.
For interest’s sake if you don’t mind. What is your genealogical history?
Irish, Scottish, Austrian, mostly that arrived in Canada after WWI.
Alternative answer: 100% Turkish
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory 🐸
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory I think you are paternally Celtic
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory on this channel we are all Türük! Eyvallah kardeşim, elhhamdulillah. Inşallah one day you can do a video about the series Derilis Ertuğrul. I was dissapointed starting season 2 that they make the mongols look so silly and cartoonishly evil
Brilliant
Thank you!
Now can you find these Mongol poems in some book? Suitably translated to English of course. Would be such a fine gift to any cultured modern poem lover. ;)
There is a translation of that Mongolian birchbark poem somewhere, but I could not find it anywhere tonight. Regarding Qutb and those 14th century poems, I do not know if they've ever been made available in English, but I know people who might know if any are. I can inquire if you are interested?
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory Thanks, but probably not worth it at least on my account. I just find the idea of Mongol poetry quite interesting. :)
What are the books you have behind you?
Valentin A. Riasonovksy's Fundamental Principles of Mongol Law; Anne F. Broadbridge's Kingship and Ideology in the Islamic and Mongol Worlds; a copy of Marco Polo; Thomas D. Conlan's In little Need of Divine Intervention; Peter Jackson's The Mongols and the Islamic World; Timothy May's the Mongol Empire; and Morris Rossabi's Khubilai Khan, His Life and Times
why Chagataids in 13-14.century didnt write their history despite have scholar stock among subject people ?
That's a very good question, and not one anyone has been able to sufficiently answer. Especially since there are lots of local histories/religious works/administrative documents produce in Central Asia even before the Mongol invasion, yet before the Timurids there is never a comparable historical chronicle to Juvaini or Rashid al-Din. There is no indication of the Khwarezm-shahs, for example, ever commissioning a vast dynastic chronicle.
The opinion of some scholars is that, in Iran and in China there was a regional tradition of large-scale chronicles and histories, that the khans could patronize to demonstrate their right to rule (much of Chancellor Toghto's reason for leading the work on the Song, Jin and Liao Dynastic histories was in order to fill a role "required" of the Yuan as their successor in Chinese imperial tradition). The argument then goes that, when we see these types of Chronicles made under the Timurids, it was an inspiration from the well known accounts of Juvaini and Rashid, and thus becomes more regular in the region in the following centuries. Meanwhile, for the Chagatai Khans they never commissioned such a history as they did not see it beneficial or necessary to their legitimacy.
The other fact though, is that there may have been Chagatayid histories, but they were lost in the various upheavals the khanates went through.
Neither answer is all that satisfactory, but unfortunately we aren't really provided materials that would give a clearer idea of what the case actually was.
Keep in mind that Rashid al-Din spent considerable time, effort and resources to try and ensure his work was preserved. Much greater effort than probably any other 14th century author anywhere. And yet, there is only 4 (?) partial manuscripts which survive of the Jami' al-Tawarikh today. So imagine how easy it would be to see such documents disappear in the much less stable conditions of the Chagatai Khanate.
Further, even if the Jami' al-Tawarikh did not survive, we would know it existed because lots of 15th and 16th century authors used it. However, we do not see later authors mentioning some great chronicle sponsored by the Chagatai Khans that they made use of. So it seems probable that there simply was no large chronicle ever created.
Making one of these chronicles is a large investment in time and money, and generally require considerable fore-thinking, long-reigning monarchs with peaceful transitions (so the project isn't axed by the succeeding monarch, or lost when the capital gets sacked) as well as a reasonably large percentage of the nobility or elite who would appreciate it as a piece of dynastic legitimacy (otherwise, to what end is it providing legitimacy?). The Chagatai Khanate did not usually portray these features, and with much of its elite remaining nomadic (more so in the east), or at least much prouder of their Chinggisid heritage rather than any islamic one, then it makes less sense to put up the money to fund such a project.
Is that a perfect explanation? No. But it might be a suitable starting point as one.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory its perfect explanation🙂
Kipchak Khanate😍😍😍
Aww… No ❤️ love for the Kalmyk’s? Cmon…
What if no Chinghis Khan "Mongols" ever spoke Mongol language? Who would they speak to? Chagatai language was vary close to Qipchaq, and Ilkhanate could speak Oguz Turkic, like Azeri.
Here's the thing; we have Mongolian language documents from the other khanates from well into the 14th century. We have documents of the Chagatai administration that are preserved in Turfan; the latest is dated to 1379. Likewise, there are either surviving documents or references to Mongolian used in the administration of the Yuan and Ilkhanate until the end of both states. Now, the entire administration was not operating solely in these languages; rather, a part was using Mongolian.
We also have references from Chinese sources to the Yuan Dynasty using Mongolian with the other khanates. Golden Horde and Yuan diplomacy continues until the Yuan are pushed from China, so if conducted mostly in Mongolian that indicates at least some parts of the Jochid administration continued to know Mongol.
Using an official language for diplomacy of course, is very different from day to day usage. Latin was the primary language for most European diplomacy until relatively recently, but only a small percentage of the population there ever knew it. The use of a ceremonial language for such things made them, in some ways, "more legitimate." The idea of the Mongol Empire remained very powerful even after it no longer existed as a unified entity. The Khanates don't stop talking to each other after 1260, and in 1304 there is actually an empire-wide peace reached, wherein every khan recognized the supremacy of Oljeitu Temür, the Yuan Khan.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory how about those who were not Chingiskhan descendants but were powerful, e.g., Edygu or Tamerlane? Did they use Mongolian as well or just Turkic? For instance how Tamerlane and Tokhtamush communicated, or Edygu and Vytautas?
Temür's first language was the Turkic of the Chagatai realm. Lots of his chroniclers like to present him as fluent in all sorts of languages, but ibn Arabshah, (a man with no love for Temür) probably gave the best description: "“But he was illiterate, reading, writing and understanding nothing in the Arabic tongue, but of Persian, Turkish and the Mogul language he understood enough but no more.”"
It's not clear though exactly what "Mogul" is when ibn Arabshah. Some use this statement to argue that Temür knew Mongolian; I'm doubtful of this, and think instead it could be Chagatai Turkic, and "Turkish" ibn Arabshah's use is Qipchaq or Oguz Turkic (alternatively, Mogul is how he calls Qipchaq Turkic).
Edigü is harder to say. Qipchaq Turkic was definitely his primary language, but I have not researched him well enough to know if there are references to him knowing other languages. Similar for Toqtamish.
When these men sent letters to each other though, they were not personally writing them. At most they dictated the letter, and more regularly would just say "I want this to be the idea of the letter, and I want my scribes to make it more dramatic." Since they would have multi-lingual scribes in their courts, they would either send letters in mulitple languages, or expect that their would be persons at the other court who would translate it for the other monarch.
We have lots of eye-witness accounts with the Mongols receiving letters. Simon of St. Quentin record show, during his during to Baiju's ordu in the 1240s, it was a lot of effort to get his letters translated so that Baiju could read them. The letters were in Latin, which was explained word for word to Turkish and Greek intrepreters, who made a translation of it. Then the Turks and Greeks explained it word for word to Persians, who then did a translation of it; and finally the process was repeated into Mongolian, at which point it was finally read out to Baiju. Later, during his visit to the Jochids, William of Rubruck had had his latin letters translated into Greek while in Constantinople. But arriving at Sartaq (or another commander, I don't remember at the moment)'s camp, they could not find anyone who read Greek, so they had to send messengers to Crimea to find someone who could translate the letter in "Tatar" for them, out of Greek.
Usually one of the main features which shows up in descriptions of Mongol courts is a lot of translators and scribes being present, precisely for these reasons.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory ha, you would probably wonder how accurate their translation was. I have read or heard that Peter the First wrote letters to Crimean Khan in Tatar (probably Kipchak). I wonder if that was just a translation of his original letter written in Russian.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory Your answers are treasure dude
The Mongols may have had major drinking problems. Perhaps thats one of the reasons why they have introduced Islam into the empire.
I think Russian alcoholism is taking it's roots from somewhere around here.
I don't think alcoholism is that difficult a thing for different human societies to stumble upon on their own.
Mongols saw themselves as one of nation of Turks ?
Islamic sources,especially Rashid al-Din gives such impression
This is a great question my friend, and I spent all day thinking about it. It kept me much company while chopping wood this afternoon. I went back and forth on it in my head a few times and here is what I think.
Firstly, for most Islamic sources, and Rashid to an extent, as all of the Eurasian steppe nomads they encountered/knew of were Turks, it was sensible for them to place the Mongols as a category of Turks, given nomadism, shared physical and cultural characteristics, and some shared words in language. For most of these writers, I always get the impression that Turk is basically used as a synonym for “nomad,” similar to how Byzantine writers might call every nomad a Scythian.
Rashid of course, was a very well informed individual, one with close experiences with Turks and Mongols, could speak Mongolian and was likely knowledgeable in Turkic languages. Furthermore, anything he wrote in the Jami’ al-Tawarikh was presumably Okayed by the Il-Khans. So when Rashid categorizes the Mongols as the Turks, we can assume that the Il-Khans saw no issue with this.
However, contemporaries also understood a distinction between Mongols and Turks, at least in language. Consider this well known anecdote, repeated in a few sources.
Juvaini, History of the World Conqueror/Boyle trans., vol. I, pg. 225
“An Arabic-speaking apostate came to [Ögedai] and said: ‘in the night I saw Chingiz-Khan in a dream and he said: “tell my son [Ögedai] to slay the Moslems, for they are evil.” After reflecting a while Qa’an [Ögedai] asked whether he [Chinggis] had spoken to him through an interpreter or in his own person. “With his own tongue,” said the man. “Dost thou know the Mongol and Turkish languages?” asked [Ögedai]. “No,” said the man.” “Neither am I in any doubt, said Qa’an [Ögedai], “but that Chingiz-Khan knew no language save Mongolian. It is clear therefore that what thou sayest is nothing by lies.” And he ordered the man to be put to death.”
Juzjani, Tabakat-i Nasiri/Raverty trans. vol. II, p.1110-1114.
“[Ögedai] turned his face towards that Tūni idol-worshipper, saying: “Dost thou understand the Mughali language, or the Turki language, or doest thou know both those tongues?” The Tūni idol-worshipper replied: “I understand the Turki language, and I do not understand the Mughali tongue.” [Ögedai] turned his face towards the hereditary Mughal grandess, whose lineage and descent were form pure Mughals, and said: “Unto ye it is certain and clear, that the [Chinggis Khan] used not to understand any language whatever save the Mughali tongue.” They all bent their heads to the ground, and, with one accord, replied: “Indeed, such is the case, that the [Chinggis Khan] understood no other language than the Mughali.” [Ögedai] turning his face towards that Tūni, asked “In what language did the [Chinggis Khan] deliver this command unto thee: in the Mughali or the Turki language? If he spoke in Mughali, seeing thou dost not understand it, in what manner dost thou comprehend what he was saying; and, if he spoke in Turki, since he used not to understand Turki, how did he communicate the order? Give an answer from which an odour of truth may come, in order that action may be taken thereon.”
Rashid, interestingly though, drops the reference to Turkish when he copies this story in the Jami’ al-Tawarikh, but still maintains that Chinggis knew no language other than Mongolian.
Rashid al-Din, The Successors of Genghis Khan/Boyle trans., pg. 79.
“An Arabic-speaking apostate from Islam came to Qa'an [Ögedai] and, kneeling, said: "I saw Chingiz-Khan in a dream and he said: 'Tell my son to kill many of the Muslims, for they are exceedingly evil people.'" After reflecting for a moment Qa'an [Ögedai] asked whether he had spoken to him through an interpreter or personally with his own tongue. "With his own tongue" said the man. "Dost thou know the Mongol language" asked Qa'an. "No", said the man. "There is no doubt," said Qa'an, "that thou art lying. I know for certain that Chingiz-Khan knew no language but Mongol." And he ordered the man to be put to death.”
The point of all that, is to show that these authors all clearly know the distinction between Mongolian and Turkic languages, linguistically. We also regularly see in the writings of people like Marco Polo a distinction between “Turchia/Turkestan” (roughly, Central Asia, though Polo’s usage is more like for the land between the Syr Darya and the western Altai Mountains) and Mongolia proper. Chinese sources likewise are consistent in marking between Turk and Mongol.
So what about the Mongols’ own viewpoints, as not filtered through their subjects or enemy writers? Obviously, the earliest source we have is the Secret History of the Mongols (I’ve been persuaded for a composition date of 1252 for it). For the 1206 quriltai, it demonstrates three terms for categorizing the peoples of the Mongolian plateau:
Felt-tent ulus, sisgei to’urqatu ulus
Mongolic ulus, mongqoljin ulus
Mongol ulus, mongqol ulus.
Following the argument of Lhamsuren Munkh-Erdene,
Felt-tent ulus refers to “the people who live in felt tents,” all across the Mongolian plateau. That is, everyone who lived in a ger, yurt, and was hence a nomad. In contrast to “Those who live in a wooden door,” (qabdasun e’üdeten), or sedentary peoples
Mongolic ulus, refers to people with a “Mongolian property/quality,” i.e, people who were speakers of Mongolian
Mongqol Ulus, the state established by Chinggis Khan in 1206.
Obviously, the Secret History tells us nothing about how pre-1206 Mongols viewed themselves. But I think it supports the argument that, in my opinion, the Mongols certainly saw themselves as similar to Turkic nomads in lifestyle, (“we are both nomads,”) and perhaps even some sort of shared ancestry for ruling lineages (the fact that Chinggis’ earliest ancestor is a wolf, the favourite motif of so many medieval Turks, is not a coincidence, though it would take someone more qualified than me to speak on it). But not necessarily “Mongols as a category of the Turks,”; instead, almost like “Mongols and Turks are the Right and Left Hand of the same ulus.”
What do we make of Rashid al-Din then? I don’t see what he wrote as contradictory. Mainly because the Mongols absolutely loved to appropriate imagery and means of legitimacy, or for other propaganda purposes. Hence their willingness to spread overblown rumours of destruction they caused, or how, after their conversion, many Khans and their officers “islamicized” Chinggis Khan, or in the Il-Khanate we see the illustration of the Shahnama where many famous Iranian kings and even Alexander the Great are depicted as Mongols. If the Mongols found it useful for their legitimacy to portray themselves as descendants of Oghuz Khan, then I do not doubt for a second they would do so. And for Rashid al-Din, writing in the Persian milieu where every nomad was a Turk, this would have worked for him just fine.
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory All your answers just magnificent
@@TheJackmeisterMongolHistory Love you bro