Between Siberia and Central Asia, which are far apart, stretches a vast expanse of endless steppe, larger than the whole of Western Europe. In the north, the steppe is flat, as it is part of the West Siberian Plain, while in the central regions it has an elevated relief of gentle hills. In the west, the steppes reach the coast of the Caspian Sea, in the southwest they pass into the arid deserts of Central Asia, and in the east and southeast, the massifs of the Altai, Tarbatagai, Northern Tien Shan, Dzungarian and Zailiyskiy Alatau mountains crowned with eternal snows stretch along them. In the lowland areas of the boundless steppe here and from where the Kazakhs originate are scattered shining blue large lakes, including the sea-like Balkhash located in its southeast. Between Balkhash and the mighty Tien Shan Mountains rising to the south is the historical region of Semirechye. And in the southwest, until very recently there was a lake, considered the fourth largest in the world — the Aral Sea, from which now there are only a few relatively modest salt lakes. Since these steppes have a very large extent both from west to east and from north to south, their climate, although everywhere continental and dry, has in different places its own distinct features. Summers are hot everywhere, but in the northern part have harsh winters similar to those in Siberia, while in the south, close to the subtropical Central Asian regions, winters are relatively mild and short.
Balkhash
Dzungarian Alatau
In VI — VIII centuries the steppes between Siberia and Central Asia were part of a huge state created by nomadic tribes: the Turkic Kaganate. Its supreme ruler, the Kagan (from the Chinese word «ke-kian — great ruler»), united by his authority different tribes speaking similar agglutinative languages, in which words were changed by simply adding suffixes and endings to their bases. In the VIII century the Kaganate broke up into many tribal possessions, and the Turkic peoples became more and more distant from each other in culture and language. In the eastern part of the vast steppe region described by us — at the foot of the Altai and Tien Shan mountains, in the X century. formed as a result of why the Kazakh language is similar to the Tatar Kirghiz Nogai Karachai Balkar Kumyk unification of the tribes of Sirs, Kyrgyz, Korluks and Kimaks new Turkic ethnos — Kipchaks, known in Old Russian chronicles as Polovtsians. A century later, from the area of their ethnic formation, the Kipchaks began to spread westward and southwestward, covering all steppe regions north of Central Asia and displacing the Oguz Turks who had previously nomadized there. Gradually, they settled the entire steppe region and continued to spread further into the steppe regions of Southwestern Siberia and Eastern Europe. Kipchaks were brave and very skillful warriors. They lived in a tribal system, practicing nomadic cattle breeding. They raised cows and sheep, horses and camels. Each clan had its own pasture lands in the steppes, called «kosh». A clan consisted of several families, each of which, together with its household, was called an «aul» or «ail». The clan was ruled by a representative of the most respected family in it. Sometimes several clans created associations, at the head of which they elected a common leader — khan (from the Old Turkic «kagan»). The khan appointed his representatives — koshevs — to each clan. The dwelling of all Kipchaks was a yurt — a portable tent, which was set up at nomadic camps. During migrations men traveled on horseback, and women and children — in small yurts mounted on wagons.
In the 11th-13th centuries, the Kipchak tribes practically ruled indiscriminately over vast steppe areas from the Carpathians to the Altai Mountains, from the Russian forests to the Sea of Azov and the Caucasus Mountains, from southern Siberia to the deserts of Central Asia and the Tien Shan Mountains. They caused a real awe to all their neighbors, including the rich and having ancient developed culture states of Central Asia. Central Asian, Russian, Byzantine armies always had great difficulty in stopping the raid of tribal militias of the Kipchaks, who were born warriors. At the same time, all rulers of the states neighboring the territory of ethnic settlement of the Kipchaks, called Desht-i-Kipchak, willingly took them into their service. Many Kipchaks were among the vizirs of the blossoming state of Khorezm Shahs in Central Asia. But the Kipchaks, who highly valued freedom and democratic principles in their governance and were committed to the ancient unwritten laws, at that time did not manage to create a single centralized state. Each clan lived according to its own orders; if it wanted to, it entered into an alliance with others, if it did not want to, it remained completely independent. Kipchak clans often feuded and fought among themselves. Attacking neighboring countries, the Kipchaks only plundered them, but could not and did not seek to subjugate them to their authority. Being completely fragmented politically, the Kipchaks were unable to resist the new mighty power with strict centralized administration and perfect military organization, the Mongol Empire, which had grown unexpectedly in the steppes of Central Asia. The Mongols were not inferior to the Kipchaks in bravery and martial art, and far surpassed them in the coherence of combat operations and unity of command. By the 40s of the 13th century, the Mongol armies conquered the entire vast geographical area inhabited by the Kipchaks and forced the Kipchak clans to accept the allegiance of the Mongol Great Khan and his viceroys.
The territory of Desht-i-Kipchak became part of the north-western ulus of the Mongol Empire, which was ruled by the descendants of Dzhuchi — the eldest son of the founder of that Temujin (Genghis Khan). In fact, the Ulus Dzhuchid, which in Russia, also conquered by the Mongols, was called the Horde, was a huge independent empire. The Mongols who created it, after some time assimilated into the much more numerous Turkic environment, to which most of the subjects of the Ulus belonged. The origin mattered only for the rulers — khans, powers: they could be only from among the descendants of Genghis Khan (Genghisids), other subjects were equal, regardless of whether their ancestors were Mongols, Turks or representatives of other people. The incorporation of the Kipchak steppes between Siberia and Central Asia into the united state with those and with South-Eastern Europe contributed to the rise of their population to a much more progressive level of cultural and social development. The ancient customs that had long prevented the full political unification of the Kipchaks were supplanted by written laws issued by the khan and his viceroys that met the requirements of the time. Through the endless dry steppes the roads were laid, along which merchant caravans with rich goods stretched from Central Asia to Siberia and Europe. On the instructions of the Khan and his viceroys, wells were dug on the way of trade routes, inn for travelers — caravanserais — were erected. The system of postal communication, borrowed from China, also conquered by Mongol conquerors, was established. On the roads after a certain distance rest and feeding points were organized, where fresh horses were also kept. This allowed travelers and, especially, government couriers to quickly overcome long distances. Beautiful eastern cities grew near important trade and strategic points. The Dzhuchid ulus continued its economic and cultural development, reaching the highest prosperity and power during the reign of Uzbek Khan (1313 — 1341) and his son Janibek (1342 — 1357). Under Uzbek Khan, Islam was adopted as the official religion of the state, and by that time it had already spread very widely among its subjects. Soon practically all nomadic peoples inhabiting the Ulus Dzhuchid became Muslims, leaving behind the ancient Tengrian religion based on the worship of the sky god, the veneration of the forces of nature and ancestral spirits, and primitive beliefs such as animism (animal worship). Together with Siberia, the steppes that stretched from the southern borders of that country to Central Asia constituted the so-called «right wing» (the highest administrative-territorial unit) of the Ulus Dzhuchid, known as the Blue Horde (Kok-Orda). how Kazakhstan and the Golden Horde are connected.
After the death of Janibek Khan, the Dzhuchid Ulus gradually began to decline. Now and then it was overtaken by brutal internal wars for power between different descendants of Genghis Khan and other influential persons in the state. In the 90s. XIV century. ruler of the ancient city of Samarkand in Central Asia Timur (Tamerlane), who created in the East a new (though it turned out to be short-lived) vast empire, inflicted a number of cruel defeats on the Ulus Dzhuchi, including the capture and sacking of its capital Sarai-Jadid in the Lower Volga region, expelling its khan Tokhtamysh. The steppe lands between Siberia and Central Asia also suffered from Timur’s devastating campaigns. Although soon after the death of the formidable commander of the East his power disintegrated into separate possessions, Ulus Dzhuchidov fully recover from the damage caused by the war with Timur and could not and after some time in the course of the ongoing internal struggle for power between different Chingizids also began to disintegrate.
By that time, the Southern Urals, Western Siberia and the vast steppes between it and Central Asia, inhabited by nomadic descendants of the Kipchaks, were part of the vassal possession of the Shibanids — descendants of Shiban — the fifth son of Juchi and grandson of Genghis Khan. In 1395 the ambitious and powerful military emir (commander-in-chief) Yedigei — Timur’s ally, instead of the exiled Khan Tokhtamysh, Genghisid Timur-Kutlug was put on the Dzhuchid throne. Shibanids did not recognize Timur-Kutlug as a legitimate ruler and did not want to obey him. Thus, although the state separation of their possessions from Ulus Dzhuchi was not yet in question, in fact the former Blue Horde gained independence. In the early 20-ies of the XV century. senior Shibanid Haji-Muhammad was proclaimed by his supporters Khan of the Ulus Dzhuchid. In fact, of course, outside the Shibanid possessions, including in Sarai-Jadid, he was not recognized as Khan, and other Chingizids ruled in the capital of the disintegrating state. However, in essence, this meant that the Shibanids now considered themselves the only legitimate heirs of Juchi, and therefore, no longer recognize any supreme authority over themselves. That is, de facto the former Blue Horde officially declared its state independence. In the possessions of the Shibanids, an independent state known as the Uzbek Khanate began to take shape. The main theory connects its name with the name of Khan Uzbek: the Shibanids as if proclaimed themselves the successors of the brightest of the rulers of the Dzhuchid Ulus. But some researchers tend to believe that the word «Uzbek» is composed of two Turkic words meaning «himself (himself) lord» and reflects the refusal of the Shibanids to recognize any supreme authority over themselves. The capital of the Uzbek Khanate was at first the city of Chingi-Tura in Western Siberia.
Syr Darya
The Uzbek Khanate reached its greatest prosperity and power during the reign of Abulkhair Khan (1428-1468). Abulkhair actively intervened in the internecine wars of Central Asian rulers, and his troops captured such ancient and rich Central Asian cities as Khorezm and Samarkand. In 1446 he moved the capital of his power from Siberian Tura to the city of Sygnak near the Central Asian river Syr Darya. But even in this period the situation in the khanate was not stable: Abulkhayr now and then fought with relatives who tried to challenge his khan’s authority, and in 1457 the southern possessions of the khanate were pogromized by Mongolian tribes of Oirats, almost capturing Sygnak, where the khan had to take refuge. In 1460 the leaders of another branch of the Chingizids, Zhanibek and Kerey, rebelled against Abulkhair. With who are Kerey and Zhanibeksvoy supporters they left their ancestral possessions and retreated to the lands of Semirechye beyond Lake Balkhash, which were then under the rule of Mogulistan — Turkic state of Central Asia. The rebels began to call themselves Uzbek-Kazaks: at that time, the Kipchak Turks called people who had lost their permanent nomads and wandered, grazing cattle on foreign lands or hunting as Cossacks. In Semirechye, dissatisfied with Abulkhair’s rule, the opposition of Uzbek-Kazaks entered into an alliance with the Khan of Mogulistan and created their own state: the Kazakh Khanate (the spelling of the letter «kh» instead of «k» at the end of the word was adopted in the Russian tradition to distinguish Kazakhs from Russian Cossacks). The first Kazakh khan was proclaimed Kerey. In 1468, Abulkhair marched to Semirechye to suppress this opposition alliance, but during this campaign he died near the city of Almaty. After his death, the Uzbek khanate plunged into internecine strife: various relatives of the khan now claimed his place, khan’s vassals who had ruled the Kazakhs before were trying to pursue an independent policy in their domains. Then Kerey and Zhanibek, the leaders of the Kazakh khanate, gathered troops of supporters and led an attack on the Uzbek khanate from Semirechye. By 1470, they managed to unite under their rule the entire territory of the Khanate, except for the cities along the Syr Darya River and the Siberian lands. The Uzbek Khanate ceased to exist as a political structure, although a new unified state, the Kazakh Khanate, emerged in its place within the same basic boundaries. Its capital was the same city of Sygnak. After the death of Kerey-khan in 1473, the khan’s throne was occupied by Zhanibek for a very short time. Soon he also died, and in 1474 Kerey’s son Burunduk became khan. He managed to annex to the khanate the cities of the Prisyrdarya region.
Tribes and nationalities of Kipchak origin, nomadic in the vast steppes between Siberia and Central Asia, united under the Kazakh Khanate, did not immediately realize themselves as a single ethnos. But gradually, from generation to generation, bringing taxes to the same khan, trading in the same cities, going on military campaigns together under the leadership of the same khan’s commanders, they adopted cultural elements and linguistic borrowings from each other. In the end, the predominantly nomadic Turkic-speaking population of the Kazakh Khanate began to contrast themselves as a people with the population of neighboring states and to ethnically identify themselves on the basis of subjection. This is how the Kazakh ethnos was formed, and since then, first the neighboring Turkic peoples, and already in the XX century, after the establishment of Soviet power in the steppes between Siberia and Central Asia, and the inhabitants of the rest of the world began to call the vast area of its settlement Kazakhstan, that is, the «Land of Kazakhs».
During the reign of Kasim Khan (1511-1521), reforms were carried out in the Kazakh khanate, which streamlined its administration, and a common code of laws was issued for the entire state. By its differentiation into five thematic sections, each of which included regulations concerning a certain area of state life (property relations, criminal law, organization of troops and military conscription, etc.), it approached in structural terms to modern legal acts, which testified to the highly developed level of Kazakh statehood and the complexity of the state structure. Kasym significantly expanded the already vast borders of his power, mainly due to the conquest of eastern lands from the Nogai Horde, a state formed in the 40s of the XV century as a result of the collapse of the Ulus Dzhuchid. Kasym established diplomatic relations with the Moscow state, which was formed in the extreme east of Europe in the course of unification and withdrawal from the Dzhuchid subjection of the lands of Eastern Russia. About the unification of Russia and its exit from vassal dependence on the Horde we talked in the article devoted to it. Then about the Kazakh Khanate became known in the European world. After the death of Kasym, Kazakhstan was shaken by internal turmoil for a long time, which led to its political weakening. As a result, the Nogai Horde reclaimed from the Kazakh Khanate the territories it had previously seized, and the Siberian Khan made campaigns to the Kazakh north. The eastern part of the Kazakh steppes was conquered by the Oirats. In 1538 Khak-Nazar became khan, who established internal order in the state and began to reclaim lost territories and conquer new ones. The Kazakhs defeated Moghulistan, as a result of which the Kazakh khans established a strong authority over Semirechye.
At the same time, the Kazakh khans continued to feud with the Shibanids, with whom they had family scores. At the end of the 16th century, the Shibanid threat to the Kazakh Khanate came from the south, where the Bukhara Khanate founded in Central Asia by Abulkhair Muhammad, the grandson of Abulkhair Muhammad, had gained strength, and from the north — from Siberia, the scattered feudal possessions of which Shibanid Kuchum managed to unite under his rule.
In the 70s of the XVI century, Hak-Nazar Khan established strong diplomatic and trade ties with the Moscow state (Russia). In 1554 he expelled the Oirats from Kazakhstan. Some Kyrgyz tribes of the Northern Tien Shan mountains swore allegiance to him. In the 80s of the XVI century, after the death of Hak-Nazar, the Kazakh Khanate fought a fierce war with Bukhara and its allies. The war was with variable success, its main result was the acceptance of Kazakh subjection by the ruler of the Central Asian city of Tashkent. During the reign of Esim Khan (1598 — 1628), the capital of the Kazakh Khanate was moved from Sygnak to another Central Asian city of Turkestan. At first Esim made peace with Bukhara, but after fifteen years of calm between the Kazakh and Bukhara khanates war broke out again. During it the Kazakhs captured the major Central Asian cities of Samarkand, Andijan and Fergana. Esim Khan also liquidated the vassal autonomy of the Tashkent khanate, establishing direct rule in Tashkent and its lands. Yesim-khan supplemented the code of laws issued by Kasym-khan with new articles, the most important of which were those regulating legal proceedings and the limits of judicial jurisdiction. They limited the power of the feudal aristocracy and contributed to strengthening the influence of biys — people’s judges who decided cases on the basis of Sharia — Islamic law, and adat — unwritten folk customs. The ulus administrative-territorial structure of the khanate, which was based on feudal law, was abolished. Instead of uluses ruled by khan’s vassals, three vast provinces — zhuz («hundreds») were formed, within which certain clans and tribes roamed: Senior zhuz (Uly zhuz) in Semirechye, South Kazakhstan, the lands of Tashkent and part of modern North-West China; Middle zhuz (Orta zhuz) in the center, north and east of Kazakhstan, Junior zhuz (Kishi zhuz) in the west. Both the territory and the Kazakh communities nomadic in it were called zhuz. Thus, Esim-khan, expanding the possibilities of people’s self-government, was looking for the support of his power in the people. The zhuzes were headed by biys, who came from the strongest and most respected clans. The community itself chose its biys. Each zhuz sent its delegates to the Council of Biys, which had the power to reject even khan’s decrees. Once a year in the fall Kazakh communities sent their delegates to Maslikhat — a nationwide congress that decided all the most important issues of state life of the Kazakh Khanate, including the declaration of war and peace, the election of the khan, and the adoption of laws. Kazakh people’s power was strengthened even more under Tauke Khan (1680 — 1718), who issued a new code of laws of the khanate — Zhety Zhargy («Seven Establishments»). At the same time, many provisions of the code of Kasim and Yesim remained in force.
However, the expansion of popular representation in power, although satisfying the majority of the population and giving the khan strong support in the face of the entire Kazakh people, made it difficult to make operational decisions in foreign policy. Contradictions in the opinions of different people’s communities made it difficult to mobilize in time in case of military threat. Almost immediately after the death of Esim Khan, the Kazakh Khanate began to decline irreversibly. In 1635, in Western Mongolia, the Oirats, longtime opponents of the Kazakhs, established a strong Dzungar Khanate, whose subjects became known as Dzungars. Armed with firearms, which the Kazakhs had almost none, the Dzungars began their invasion of Kazakhstan. The Kazakhs put up a very fierce and stubborn resistance. After a grueling what is famous history of Kazakhs and Kazakhstan and cruel war, which lasted almost a hundred years, the Kazakhs finally managed to inflict a decisive defeat on the Dzungars in the battle of the Anrakai Mountains in southeastern Kazakhstan in the winter of 1729 — 1730. But the Kazakh Khanate had already been deeply weakened by years of wars, and during the XVIII century its zhuzes adhered less and less to unity in domestic and foreign policy. By the end of the century, the zhuzes turned into virtually independent states, proclaimed their own khans, although still elected and vested with nominal power supreme khan. Under such conditions, the military expansion of hostile neighbors, especially Central Asian states, into Kazakhstan intensified. Among the Kazakhs themselves, the contradictions between the zhuzov and tribal nobility and the common people, burdened with heavy taxes, intensified. It was the Kazakh nobility, striving to preserve its influence and wealth, that became more and more inclined to a military and political alliance with the emperors of Russia, which had strengthened its influence in Asia after the defeat of the Siberian and Crimean khanates in the beginning of the XVII century and in the end of the XVIII century. This eventually led to the incorporation of Kazakhstan into the Russian Empire, the abolition of the Kazakh Khanate in 1822 with the subordination of its territories to the Russian administrative system, and the beginning of the settlement of Kazakh lands by natives of Russia, mainly Cossacks.