Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/686

Rh 660 TURKS Mongolian epoch to a certain supremacy by higher culture is attested by Rashid ed-Dln and Jowaini, who often men tion Uigurian books. The The PetchenegS (Gr. Ha-r^iva/ccu, IlaT^ivaKmu Mag- Petch- yar Besenyo ; Lat. Bisseni) were of old, as Constantine euegs. Porphyrogenitus tells us, settled about the lower Ural and Volga, but were driven thence (894-899) by the Ghuzz (Ouzoi). A part of them returned afterwards to their ancient abode, but the great majority wandered westward and settled on both sides of the Dnieper, driving the Hungarians before them to the Carpathians. Here they annoyed the neighbouring peoples by their raids, and en gaged readily in the Russian expeditions against the Greek empire, till the policy of the Byzantine court incorporated large numbers of them with its own armies, sometimes with fatal result, as was experienced by Romanus Diogenes, when these auxiliaries passed to the camp of his antagonist Alp Arslan. At the period of the first crusade the Christian armies met with them on their march through Servia and Bulgaria ; but the Petchenegs are not mentioned after the 13th century. The learning of Orientalists has discovered faint traces of the language once spoken by them in the Turkish dialect of the Bosnians. 1 The Couians or Cumani (Russ. Polowtze, Magyar Palocz and Comans. Xun) is a term chiefly used by Europeans for the Turkish tribes that occupied Moldavia and the adjacent regions of south Russia. The origin of the name is uncertain ; but it seems to be Turkish, though it rarely occurs in Oriental records. The most probable conjecture regarding the people denoted by it is that they were a mixture of Ghuzz and Petchenegs. Oriental authors know much more of their neighbours to the east, the Kipchaks, a very common name of Turkish clans down to the present day. Some times both names are combined : Rubruquis speaks of the Coman Kipchaks. Anna Comnena informs us that the Comans spoke the same dialect as the Petchenegs, a dialect well known to European scholars from the so-called Codex Cuinanicus. 2 On the arrival of the Mongols in these regions, the Kipchaks suffered great hardships, and large numbers of them were sold as slaves throughout the Mohammedan world. From them sprang the Bahrite Mameluke sultans of Egypt (1250-1380). The Comans sought refuge amongst the Hungarians and became Chris tians ; but their arrival, causing internal dissensions in Hungary, greatly favoured the advance of the Mongolian arms. The remnants of the Comans, Kipchaks, and other Turkish tribes continued to dwell in southern Russia under Mongolian rule (see MONGOLS), whilst others became merged with the Hungarians. The The Ghuzz dwelt originally in the far East amongst the Ghuzz. Toguz-Ugur, but migrated in the reign of the caliph Al- Mahdi (775-785) to Transoxiana, where they adhered to the cause of the famous Al-Mokanna, not from religious predilection, but to satisfy their love of war and plunder, lu the same manner they afterwards served every warlike prince in their neighbourhood, and entered like other Turks into the service of the caliphs. The main body of the life-guard of the Abbasids consisted of Turks, and some individuals rose very soon to high commands. En trusted with the administration of distant provinces, they founded independent princely houses, such as those of the Tulunids and Ikhshids in EGYPT (vol. vii. p. 750) and the Ghaznavids (see GHAZNI). In the meantime fresh bands of the Ghuzz poured from the east and the north into Turkestan, the region becoming overstocked with a nomadic population. Some of them sought and found an outlet to the west by occupying the territory of the Petchenegs and joining the Turkish population of southern Russia ; but 1 Comp. Blau, Bosnisch-Turkische Sprachdenkmaler (Leipsic, 1868), T- 315. - Edited by Geza Kuun, Buda-Pesth, 1880-83. the great majority, seeing the ruined state of the empire of the caliphs, crossed the Oxus and overran the northern and eastern provinces of Persia. How these loose desul tory bands were guided to subsequent victories, and moulded with the peoples amongst whom they settled into regular political bodies, has been already narrated under SELJUKS (q.v.). Meanwhile they underwent a great change in their out- Turk- ward appearance, habits, Arc., as Rashld ed-Din relates, mans - owing to the influence of the air and the water, and, we may add, to frequent intermarriage with the inhabitants of the countries invaded by them. After some generations the change was great enough to strike their Iranian neigh bours, who called them Turkmans (Turcomans), 3 a term implying resemblance to Turks. It is therefore quite natural that the modern Osmanlis should have become Caucasians; for, if Rashid ed-Dln in the 13th century noticed the difference between a Turkman and a genuine Turk, the six centuries which have elapsed since amply suffice to have obliterated all original Ural-Altaic charac teristics. The old name Ghuzz, originally, as it seems, the Turkish Oghuz (an eponymous hero of whom Turkish chronicles tell many fables) was wholly superseded by the new name Turkman and by other political names. During the Seljukian period there arose in Transoxiana Empire the empire of the Kharizm shahs, founded by Mohammed of Kllil - b. Anushtegln, upon whom the government of Kharizm 1ZI &quot;&quot; (Khiva), which down to 995 had belonged to princes of Iranian descent was conferred (1097) by the Seljuk prince Barkiyarok. His son Atsiz became independent (1138), but his empire seemed destined to early ruin by the arrival of the Kara-Chitai, who defeated the Seljuk prince Sinjar (1141) and became for a time supreme masters of Turkestan. Nevertheless the Kharizmian dynasty held its place as a tributary sovereignty, and developed great power under the princes Takash and Mohammed his son. The former defeated and killed (1194) the last Seljuk prince of Irak, and the latter ex tended his dominion from the Caspian to the Indus and from the Jaxartes to the coast of Oman. His cunning antagonist, the Abbasid caliph An-Nasir, invoked the aid of Jenghiz Khan, who scarcely required this invitation to attack Mohammed. The sack of Bokhara was followed in the same year (1220) by that of the other principal cities of Transoxiana and by the persecution of the un happy prince, who died in a forgotten island of the Cas pian. His son Jelal-ed-Din was driven towards India, but by a change of fortune ascended once more the throne of his fathers, till the new Mongol khan, Ogdai, sent fresh armies against him and forced him to seek refuge in the Kurdish Mountains, where he was murdered (1231). The fate of the Turks of Transoxiana was shared by their brethren in Asia and Europe, and new Mongol-Turkish empires arose, of which an outline has been given under MONGOLS. As the Mongol rule grew weaker, there arose in Persia and on the frontiers of Asia Minor the Turkman dynasties of the Ak Koyun-lu, the Kara Koyun-lu, the Zu 1-kadria, and the Ramazan Oglu, whose history is closely connected either with that of the rise of the Ottoman power (see below) or with the history of PERSIA (see vol. xviii. p. 632 s j.). At the present day the Turkish people occupy a very extensive Modern area, the centre of which lies in Khiva, Bokhara, and Khokand, tribes., and which stretches from the lower Lena in Siberia to the Danube and from the Crimea to Kernian and India. Politically they be- 3 The term &quot;Turkman&quot; occurs iu Arabic chronicles of the Seljukian period, and even in Mokaddasi, p. 274. RashTd ed-Dln therefore exaggerates in stating that it only came into use in his lifetime. But Vambery s statement that it was applied of old to the descendants of Oghuz is contradicted by the genuine Persian text of Rashid ed-Din and the unanimous testimony of history. His objections against the popular etymology mentioned above are, however, not quite unfounded.