Polovtsy, they are also Kipchaks, they are also Cumans (in the Western version), a warlike steppe people who lived in the neighborhood, including with our ancestors - Kievan Rus. This neighborhood was very turbulent and many times there were wars between the Polovtsians and Russia, and sometimes the Russian princes even used them in their princely civil strife, often the Polovtsian khans married their daughters to our princes. In a word, the relationship of Kievan Rus with the Polovtsy has always been contradictory from enmity to friendship. For the last time, former bosom enemies / friends united in front of a new formidable enemy - the Mongol-Tatar invasion, but alas, they could not resist, Russia was destroyed and plundered to the ground, while the Polovtsians were partially destroyed by the Mongol-Tatars, partially mixed with them, partially fled to the West, where they settled on the territory of Hungary, entering the service of the Hungarian king.
Origin of the Cumans
But how did it all begin and where did the Polovtsy come from? Answering these questions is not so easy, given the fact that the Polovtsy themselves did not leave written evidence of themselves, all that we know about this people comes from the stories of Russian and Bulgarian chroniclers, and Hungarian historians.
For the first time on the pages of history, the Polovtsy emerge in 1055, when Prince Pereyaslavl Vsevolod Yaroslavovich, returning from a campaign against the Torques, met this hitherto unseen nomadic tribe led by Khan Bolush. However, the first meeting was peaceful, the new nomads were called "Polovtsy", under which they entered our history.
A little later, in 1064-1068, the same nomadic tribe, already under the name of Cumans or Kuns, begins to be mentioned in Byzantine and Hungarian historical chronicles.
However, none of the available historical sources gives an answer about the reliable origin of the Polovtsy, this question is still the subject of discussion among historians. There are several versions of this. According to one of them, the homeland of the Polovtsy is the territory of Altai and the eastern Tien Shan. Their ancestors lived there around the 5th century, the nomadic tribe of the Sary, who, being defeated, went to the steppes of modern eastern Kazakhstan. There they received the nickname "Kipchaks", which means "ill-fated." So gradually migrating to the West, the Polovtsy ended up on the borders of Kievan Rus.
As for the origin of the name "Polovtsy", according to one version, it comes from the Old Russian word "polov", which means "yellow" and serves as a description of the appearance of these nomads. According to another version, the name "Polovtsy" comes from the familiar word "field", they say, in the old days all nomads were called inhabitants of the fields - Polovtsy, regardless of their tribal affiliation.
What did the Polovtsy look like? More or less like this.
History of the Cumans: Cumans and Kievan Rus
The Polovtsy, the new southern neighbors of Kievan Rus, soon turned from good neighborliness to outright hostility, making devastating raids on the cities and villages of Rus. Being excellent riders and well-aimed archers, they suddenly attacked, bombarding the enemy with a bunch of arrows. Robbing, killing, taking people into captivity, they also quickly retreated back to the steppe.
Nevertheless, while dynastic centralized power existed in Kievan Rus, the Polovtsian raids were only a temporary unpleasant phenomenon, larger walls were erected to protect against them, castles were built, and military squads were strengthened.
On the other hand, intensive trade was conducted between the Polovtsy and Russia, and even diplomatic relations were established, which were supposed to be strengthened by dynastic marriages - so the Polovtsian khans often gave their daughters in marriage to Russian princes. But interestingly, this principle worked only in one direction, since the Russian princes themselves did not marry their daughters to the Polovtsian khans. There are several reasons for this phenomenon, the main of which is that the Polovtsians were not Christians, and if the daughter of the Polovtsian Khan, marrying our prince, simultaneously accepted Christianity, then in the minds of the people of that time, an additional charitable deed was performed. But it was no longer possible to marry the baptized daughter of a Russian prince to a “non-Christ”.
Fragile neutrality between the Polovtsians and Russia cracked at the seams with the onset of the first great turmoil of Kievan Rus: the sons of Yaroslav the Wise: Izyaslav, Svyatoslav and Vsevolod, as usual, began a struggle for power. The Polovtsy at first, as they would say in our time, “stocked up on popcorn” watching the princely strife from their steppes, until a certain prince Oleg Svyatoslavovich, the nephew of the sons of Yaroslav the Wise, invited them directly to participate in the “fun”. In his struggle for power with his uncles, he used the Polovtsy as the main military force, at the same time allowing them to maraud plenty on the lands of Russia. For his worthless act, Oleg Svyatoslavovich received the nickname "Oleg Gorislavovich."
Soon, the tradition of involving the Polovtsy in princely feuds became a bad habit for many princes, until they faced the real danger of losing their own territories. Only Vladimir Monomakh could put an end to the princely and Polovtsian outrages, who, firstly, stopped the princely civil strife, and secondly, inflicted a crushing defeat on the Polovtsy themselves. To fight them, Vladimir Monomakh chose a new effective tactic - to attack them on their own territory, for the first time he went on a campaign to the Polovtsian steppes.
Unlike the Polovtsy, who were dangerous with their sudden cavalry raids, the Russian soldiers were stronger in open battle, as a result, the Polovtsian light cavalry crashed into a close-knit formation of foot soldiers. Then the fleeing Polovtsian riders were successfully finished off by Russian horsemen. Even the time of the campaign against the Polovtsy was not chosen by the prince by chance, in early spring, when the Polovtsian horses, emaciated during the winter on grazing, were not so frisky, which gave another additional advantage in the fight against them.
A few more additional campaigns by Prince Vladimir Monomakh in the Polovtsian steppes for a long time discouraged them from raiding Russian lands, however, over time, under his successors, the Polovtsian invasions resumed.
Subsequently, Igor Svyatoslavovich, Prince of Seversk, undertook another famous campaign against the Polovtsy. But as we know, Prince Igor's campaign against the Polovtsy ended unsuccessfully and became the basis for the tragic historical epic "The Tale of Igor's Campaign".
All conflicts with the Polovtsy had to be forgotten when a new terrible threat came from the east, the Mongol-Tatar horde. The lands of the Polovtsians were the first to be under attack, and they turned to the Russian princes for help. And now the combined forces of the Russians and Polovtsy on the one hand, and the Mongol-Tatar horde on the other, converged in the legendary battle on the Kalka River (modern Donetsk region), which resulted in a crushing defeat for our troops and Polovtsian allies. After that, the Polovtsy scattered, some of them fled to the west, where they settled on the territory of Hungary.
Late history of the Cumans
Having fled to the territory of Hungary, the once powerful Polovtsian Khan Kotyan turned to the Hungarian king Bela IV with a request to provide the Polovtsians with the eastern outskirts of the kingdom as lands in exchange for faithful service and military assistance. Aware of the impending Mongol-Tatar threat, Bela agreed and even married his son and successor to the Hungarian throne, Prince Stefan, to one of Kotyan's daughters. True, Stephen later executed his Polovtsian father-in-law under the pretext of treason, which caused an uprising of Polovtsian refugees.
And although the Polovtsy caused a lot of anxiety and discontent, both among the Hungarian nobility and ordinary Hungarians, including because of predatory raids (the old nomadic habits are not so easy to get rid of), nevertheless, they began to gradually assimilate with the Hungarians. Finally, their adoption of Christianity in the Catholic version contributed to the acceleration of assimilation. True, there were also conflicts here, so from the Hungarian historical chronicles we know that the complete Christianization of the Polovtsy was preceded by several uprisings of nomads who did not want to accept the new faith.
The last mention of the Polovtsy dates back to the reign of the Hungarian king Sigismund Luxembourg, who used Polovtsian mercenaries in some of his military adventures.
Cumans in the historical computer game Kingdom Come Deliverance.
Culture and religion of the Polovtsians. Polovtsian women.
The culture of the Polovtsy, like many other nomadic peoples, cannot boast of its richness and diversity, but, nevertheless, it left its traces - the Polovtsian stone women. These women are perhaps the only cultural trace left by the Polovtsians in history.
Scientists historians are still arguing about the purpose of the Polovtsian women, it is believed that according to the Polovtsian beliefs they were called upon to “guard” the dead and protect the living. Moreover, it is interesting that the Polovtsian women are not necessarily stone images of a woman, there are many male faces among them, and indeed in the Turkic language the etymology of the word “woman” goes back to the word “babal” - “ancestor”. That is, the Polovtsian women represent not so much the veneration of women as the veneration of ancestors, and they are a kind of protective amulets from the souls of dead people.
All this is consistent with the pagan religion of the Polovtsy, which was a mixture of shamanism with tengrism (worship of the sky). The souls of the dead in the Polovtsian beliefs were endowed with a special power, capable of both helping and harming the living. The conductor and mediator between the world of the living and the world of the dead was a person with special spiritual abilities - a shaman, whose importance in Polovtsian society was very great.
Article content:
The Polovtsians (Polovtsy) are a nomadic people who were once considered the most warlike and strong. The first time we hear about them is in history class at school. But the knowledge that a teacher can give in the framework of the program is not enough to understand who they are, these Polovtsy, where they came from and how they influenced the life of Ancient Russia. Meanwhile, for several centuries they haunted the Kievan princes.
The history of the people, how it arose
Polovtsy (Polovtsy, Kipchaks, Cumans) are nomadic tribes, the first mention of which dates back to 744. Then the Kipchaks were part of the Kimak Khaganate, an ancient nomadic state that formed on the territory of modern Kazakhstan. The main inhabitants here were the Kimaks, who occupied the eastern lands. The lands near the Urals were occupied by the Polovtsians, who were considered relatives of the Kimaks.
By the middle of the 9th century, the Kipchaks achieved superiority over the Kimaks, and by the middle of the 10th century they had swallowed them up. But the Polovtsy decided not to stop there, and by the beginning of the 11th century, thanks to their militancy, they had come close to the borders of Khorezm (the historical region of the Republic of Uzbekistan).
At that time, the Oguzes (medieval Turkic tribes) lived here, who, due to the invasion, had to move to Central Asia.
By the middle of the 11th century, almost the entire territory of Kazakhstan submitted to the Kipchaks. The western limits of their possessions reached the Volga. Thus, thanks to an active nomadic life, raids and a desire to conquer new lands, a once small group of people occupied vast territories and became one of the strong and wealthy among the tribes.
Lifestyle and social organization
Their socio-political organization was a typical military-democratic system. All the people were divided into clans, the names of which were given by the names of their elders. Each clan owned land plots and summer nomadic routes. The heads were khans, who were also the heads of certain kurens (small divisions of the clan).
The wealth obtained in the campaigns was divided among the representatives of the local elite participating in the campaign. Ordinary people, unable to feed themselves, fell into dependence on aristocrats. The poor men were engaged in cattle grazing, while the women served the local khans and their families.
There are still disputes about the appearance of the Polovtsy, and the study of the remains continues using modern capabilities. Today scientists have some portrait of these people. It is assumed that they did not belong to the Mongoloid race, but were more like Europeans. The most characteristic feature is blondness and reddishness. Scientists from many countries agree on this.
Independent Chinese experts also describe the Kipchaks as people with blue eyes and "red" hair. Among them, of course, were dark-haired representatives.
War with the Polovtsy
In the 9th century, the Cumans were allies of the Russian princes. But soon everything changed, at the beginning of the 11th century, the Polovtsian detachments began to regularly attack the southern regions of Kievan Rus. They ravaged houses, took away prisoners, who were then sold into slavery, and took away cattle. Their invasions were always sudden and brutal.
In the middle of the 11th century, the Kipchaks stopped fighting the Russians, as they were busy fighting with the steppe tribes. But then they took it up again:
- In 1061, Prince Vsevolod of Pereyaslav was defeated in a battle with them, and Pereyaslavl was completely ravaged by nomads;
- After that, wars with the Polovtsians became regular. In one of the battles in 1078, the Russian prince Izyaslav died;
- In 1093, an army assembled by three princes to fight the enemy was destroyed.
These were difficult times for Russia. Endless raids on the villages ruined the already simple economy of the peasants. Women were taken prisoner, and they became servants, children were sold into slavery.
In order to somehow protect the southern borders, the inhabitants began to build fortifications and settle there the Turks, who were the military force of the princes.
Campaign of the Seversky prince Igor
Sometimes the princes of Kyiv went with an offensive war against the enemy. Such events usually ended in victory and inflicted great damage on the Kipchaks, cooling their ardor for a while and enabling the border villages to restore their strength and life.
But there were also unsuccessful campaigns. An example of this is the campaign of Igor Svyatoslavovich in 1185.
Then he, united with other princes, went out with an army to the right tributary of the Don. Here they encountered the main forces of the Polovtsy, a battle ensued. But the numerical superiority of the enemy was so palpable that the Russians were immediately surrounded. Retreating in this position, they came to the lake. From there, Igor rode to the aid of Prince Vsevolod, but could not carry out his plan, as he was captured, and many soldiers died.
It all ended with the fact that the Polovtsy were able to destroy the city of Rimov, one of the major ancient cities of the Kursk region, and defeat the Russian army. Prince Igor managed to escape from captivity and returned home.
His son remained in captivity, who returned later, but in order to gain freedom, he had to marry the daughter of a Polovtsian khan.
Polovtsy: who are they now?
At the moment, there is no unequivocal data on the genetic similarity of the Kipchaks with some peoples living now.
There are small ethnic groups that are considered distant descendants of the Polovtsy. They are found among:
- Crimean Tatars;
- Bashkir;
- Kazakhs;
- Nogaytsev;
- Balkars;
- Altaians;
- Hungarians;
- Bulgarian;
- Polyakov;
- Ukrainians (according to L. Gumilyov).
Thus, it becomes clear that the blood of the Polovtsy flows today in many nations. The Russians were no exception, given the rich common history.
To tell about the life of the Kipchaks in more detail, it is necessary to write more than one book. We have touched on its brightest and most important pages. After reading them, you will better understand who they are - the Polovtsy, how they are known and where they came from.
Video about nomadic peoples
In this video, historian Andrey Prishvin will tell you how the Polovtsians arose on the territory of ancient Russia:
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The Polovtsians are one of the most mysterious steppe peoples, which entered Russian history thanks to raids on principalities and repeated attempts by the rulers of Russian lands, if not to defeat the steppe people, then at least to negotiate with them. The Polovtsy themselves were defeated by the Mongols and settled over a significant part of the territory of Europe and Asia. Now there is no people who could directly trace their ancestry to the Polovtsians. And yet they certainly have descendants.
In the steppe (Dashti-Kipchak - Kipchak, or Polovtsian steppe) lived not only the Polovtsy, but also other peoples, who are either united with the Polovtsians, or considered independent: for example, the Cumans and Kuns. Most likely, the Polovtsians were not a "monolithic" ethnic group, but were divided into tribes. Arab historians of the early Middle Ages distinguish 11 tribes, Russian chronicles also indicate that different tribes of the Polovtsy lived west and east of the Dnieper, east of the Volga, near the Seversky Donets.
Many Russian princes were descendants of the Polovtsians - their fathers often married noble Polovtsian girls. Not so long ago, a dispute broke out about how Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky actually looked. According to the reconstruction of Mikhail Gerasimov, in his appearance Mongoloid features were combined with Caucasoid ones. However, some modern researchers, for example, Vladimir Zvyagin, believe that there were no Mongoloid features in the appearance of the prince at all.
What did the Polovtsy themselves look like?
There is no consensus among researchers on this matter. In the sources of the XI-XII centuries, the Polovtsians are often called "yellow". The Russian word also probably comes from the word "sexual", that is, yellow, straw.
Some historians believe that among the ancestors of the Polovtsy were the “Dinlins” described by the Chinese: people who lived in Southern Siberia and were blondes. But the authoritative researcher of the Polovtsy Svetlana Pletneva, who has repeatedly worked with materials from the mounds, does not agree with the hypothesis of the "fairness" of the Polovtsian ethnos. “Yellow” can be a self-name of a part of the nationality in order to distinguish itself, to oppose the rest (in the same period there were, for example, “black” Bulgarians).
According to Pletneva, the bulk of the Polovtsians were brown-eyed and dark-haired - these are Turks with an admixture of Mongoloidity. It is quite possible that among them were people of different types of appearance - the Polovtsians willingly took Slav women as wives and concubines, though not of princely families. The princes never gave their daughters and sisters to the steppes. In the Polovtsian pastures there were also Russians who were captured in battle, as well as slaves.
The Hungarian king from the Polovtsians and the "Polovtsian Hungarians"
Part of the history of Hungary is directly connected with the Cumans. Several Polovtsian families settled on its territory already in 1091. In 1238, pressed by the Mongols, the Polovtsy, led by Khan Kotyan, settled there with the permission of King Bela IV, who needed allies.
In Hungary, as in some other European countries, the Polovtsians were called "Kumans". The lands on which they began to live were called Kunság (Kunshag, Kumaniya). In total, up to 40 thousand people arrived at the new place of residence.
Khan Kotyan even gave his daughter to Bela's son Istvan. He and the Polovtsian Irzhebet (Ershebet) had a boy, Laszlo. For his origin, he was nicknamed "Kun".
According to his images, he did not look at all like a Caucasian without an admixture of Mongoloid features. Rather, these portraits remind us of those familiar from textbooks on the history of the reconstruction of the external appearance of the steppes.
Laszlo's personal guard consisted of his fellow tribesmen, he appreciated the customs and traditions of the people of his mother. Despite the fact that he was officially a Christian, he and other Cumans even prayed in Cuman (Polovtsian).
The Cumans-Cumans gradually assimilated. For some time, until the end of the 14th century, they wore national clothes, lived in yurts, but gradually adopted the culture of the Hungarians. The Cuman language was supplanted by Hungarian, communal lands became the property of the nobility, who also wanted to look "more Hungarian". The Kunshag region in the 16th century was subordinated to the Ottoman Empire. As a result of the wars, up to half of the Polovtsy-Kipchaks died. A century later, the language completely disappeared.
Now the distant descendants of the steppes do not outwardly differ from the rest of the inhabitants of Hungary - they are Caucasians.
Cumans in Bulgaria
Polovtsy arrived in Bulgaria for several centuries in a row. In the XII century, the territory was under the rule of Byzantium, the Polovtsian settlers were engaged in cattle breeding there, tried to enter the service.
In the XIII century, the number of steppe dwellers who moved to Bulgaria increased. Some of them came from Hungary after the death of Khan Kotyan. But in Bulgaria, they quickly mixed with the locals, adopted Christianity and lost their special ethnic features. It is possible that Polovtsian blood flows in a certain number of Bulgarians now. Unfortunately, it is still difficult to accurately identify the genetic characteristics of the Polovtsy, because there are plenty of Turkic features in the Bulgarian ethnos due to its origin. Bulgarians also have a Caucasoid appearance.
Polovtsian blood in Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Uzbeks and Tatars
Many Cumans did not migrate - they mixed with the Tatar-Mongols. The Arab historian Al-Omari (Shihabuddin al-Umari) wrote that, having joined the Golden Horde, the Polovtsians switched to the position of subjects. The Tatar-Mongols who settled on the territory of the Polovtsian steppe gradually mixed with the Polovtsians. Al-Omari concludes that after several generations the Tatars began to look like the Polovtsians: “as if from the same (with them) clan”, because they began to live on their lands.
In the future, these peoples settled in different territories and took part in the ethnogenesis of many modern nations, including the Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Kirghiz and other Turkic-speaking peoples. The types of appearance for each of these (and those listed in the title of the section) nations are different, but in each there is a share of Polovtsian blood.
The Polovtsians are also among the ancestors of the Crimean Tatars. The steppe dialect of the Crimean Tatar language belongs to the Kypchak group of Turkic languages, and Kypchak is a descendant of the Polovtsian. The Polovtsy mixed with the descendants of the Huns, Pechenegs, Khazars. Now the majority of the Crimean Tatars are Caucasoids (80%), the steppe Crimean Tatars have a Caucasoid-Mongoloid appearance.
Many historians studying the history of Russia often write about the internecine wars of the princes and their relations with the Polovtsy, a people with many ethnonyms: Kipchaks, Kypchaks, Polovtsy, Cumans. More often they talk about the cruelty of that time, but very rarely touch on the question of the origin of the Polovtsians.
It would be very interesting to know and answer such questions as: where did they come from?; how did they interact with other tribes?; what kind of life did they lead?; what was the reason for their resettlement to the West and was it connected with natural conditions?; how did they coexist with the Russian princes?; why have historians written so negatively about them?; how did they disperse?; Are there any descendants of this interesting people among us? These questions should certainly be answered by the works of orientalists, Russian historians, ethnographers, on which we will rely.
In the 8th century, almost during the existence of the Great Turkic Khaganate (Great El), a new ethnic group, the Kypchaks, was formed in the Central and Eastern parts of modern Kazakhstan. The Kipchaks, who came from the homeland of all the Turks - from the western slopes of the Altai - united the Karluks, Kyrgyz, Kimaks under their rule. All of them received the ethnonym of their new owners. In the 11th century, the Kypchaks gradually move towards the Syr Darya, where the Oghuz roam. Fleeing from the warlike Kipchaks, they move to the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region. Almost the entire territory of modern Kazakhstan becomes the domain of the Kipchaks, which is called the Kypchak Steppe (Dasht-i-Kipchak).
The Kypchaks began to move to the West, almost for the same reason as once the Huns, who began to suffer defeats from the Chinese and Xianbeis only because a terrible drought began in the eastern steppe, which disrupted the favorable development of the Xiongnu state, created by the great Shanyu Mode . Relocation to the western steppes was not so easy, as there were constant clashes with the Oguzes and Pechenegs (Kangls). However, the resettlement of the Kipchaks was favorably influenced by the fact that the Khazar Khaganate, as such, no longer existed, because before that, the rise in the level of the Caspian flooded many settlements of the Khazars who settled on the shores of the Caspian Sea, which clearly battered their economy. The end of this state was the defeat of the cavalry Prince Svyatoslav Igorevich. The Kypchaks crossed the Volga and advanced to the mouth of the Danube. It was at this time that the Kypchaks appeared such ethnonyms as Cumans and Polovtsy. The Byzantines called them Cumans. And the Polovtsy, the Kypchaks began to be called in Russia.
Let's look at the ethnonym "Polovtsy", because it is around this name of the ethnic group (ethnonym) that there is so much controversy, since there are a lot of versions. We highlight the main ones:
So, the first version. The ethnonym "Polovtsy", according to nomads, came from "polov", that is, it is straw. Modern historians judge by this name that the Kipchaks were fair-haired, and maybe even blue-eyed. Probably, the Polovtsy were Caucasoid, and it was not for nothing that our Russian princes, who came to the Polovtsian kurens, often admired the beauty of the Polovtsian girls, calling them "Polovtsian red girls." But there is one more statement, according to which we can say that the Kypchaks were a Caucasoid ethnic group. I turn to Lev Gumilyov: “Our ancestors were friends with the Polovtsian khans, married “red Polovtsian girls, (there are suggestions that Alexander Nevskiy was the son of a Polovtsy), accepted the baptized Polovtsy into their midst, and the descendants of the latter became Zaporozhye and Sloboda Cossacks, replacing the traditional Slavic suffix "ov" (Ivanov) with the Turkic "enko" (Ivanenko).
The next version is somewhat similar to the version above. The Kypchaks were the descendants of the Sary-Kypchaks, that is, those same Kypchaks that formed in Altai. And "sary" is translated from ancient Turkic as "yellow". In Old Russian, “polov” means “yellow”. It may be from the horse's suit. The Polovtsy could be called that because they rode sex horses. Versions, as you can see, diverge.
The first mention of the Polovtsy in Russian chronicles comes down to 1055. Historians such as N. M. Karmzin, S. M. Solovyov, V. O. Klyuchevsky, N. I. Kostomarov they considered the Kypchaks to be terrible terrible barbarians, who badly battered Russia. But as Gumilyov said about Kostomarov, that: “it’s more pleasant to blame your neighbor for your own troubles than yourself”.
Russian princes often fought among themselves with such cruelty that one could mistake them for yard dogs who did not share a piece of meat. Moreover, these bloody civil strife occurred very often and they were more terrible than some small attacks of nomads, for example, on the Principality of Pereyaslavl. And here everything is not as simple as it seems. After all, the princes used the Polovtsians as mercenaries in wars among themselves. Then our historians began to talk about the fact that Russia allegedly endured the struggle with the Polovtsian hordes and defended Europe, like a shield from a formidable saber. In short, our compatriots had plenty of fantasies, but they never came to the point.
It is interesting that Russia defended the Europeans from the "evil barbarian nomads", and after that Lithuania, Poland, Swabian Germany, Hungary began to move to the East, that is, to Russia, to their "defenders". It was painfully necessary for us to protect the Europeans, and there was no protection at all. Russia, despite its fragmentation, was much stronger than the Polovtsy, and those opinions of the historians listed above are unfounded. So we did not protect anyone from the nomads and have never been a “shield of Europe”, but rather were even a “shield from Europe”.
Let us return to the relations of Russia with the Polovtsians. We know that the two dynasties, the Olgovichi and the Monomashichi, became irreconcilable enemies, and the chroniclers, in particular, lean towards the side of the Monomashichi, as heroes of the struggle against the steppes. However, let's look at this problem objectively. As we know, Vladimir Monomakh concluded “19 worlds” with the Polovtsy, although you can’t call him a “peacemaker prince”. In 1095, he treacherously killed the Polovtsian khans, who agreed to end the war - Itlar and Kitana. Then the prince of Kyiv demanded that the prince of Chernigov Oleg Svyatoslavich
either he gave his son Itlar, or he himself would have killed him. But Oleg, a future good friend of the Polovtsy, refused Vladimir.
Of course, Oleg had enough sins, but still, what could be more disgusting than betrayal? It was from that moment that the confrontation between these two dynasties began - the Olgovichi and the Monomashichi.
Vladimir Monomakh was able to make a number of campaigns against the Polovtsian nomad camps and forced out part of the Kypchaks beyond the Don. This part began to serve the Georgian king. The Kypchaks did not lose their Turkic prowess. They stopped the onslaught of the Seljuk Turks on Kavakaz. By the way, when the Seljuks captured the Polovtsian kurens, they took physically developed boys and then sold them to the Egyptian sultan, who raised them as elite fighters of the caliphate - the Mamluks. In addition to the descendants of the Kipchaks, the descendants of the Circassians, who were also Mamluks, served the Sultan in the Egyptian Caliphate. However, they were completely different units. The Polovtsian Mamluks were called al-Bahr or Bahrits, and Circassian Mamluks al-Burj. Later, these Mamluks, namely the Bahrits (descendants of the Cumans) seized power in Egypt under the leadership of Baibars and Kutuza, and then they will be able to repel the attacks of the Mongols of Kitbugi-noyon (the state of the Khulaguids)
We return to those Polovtsians who nevertheless managed to stay in the North Caucasian steppes, in the northern Black Sea region. In the 1190s, the Polovtsian nobility partly accepted Christianity. In 1223, the commanders of the Mongol army in two tumens (20 thousand people), Jebe and subday, made a sudden raid in the rear of the Polovtsy, bypassing the Caucasus Range. In this regard, the Polovtsy asked for help in Russia, and the princes decided to help them. It is interesting that, according to many historians who had a negative attitude towards the steppes, if the Polovtsy are the eternal enemies of Russia, then how will they explain such a quick, almost allied, help from the Russian princes? However, as you know, the joint troops of the Russians and the Polovtsians were defeated, and not because of, say, the superiority of the enemy, which was not there, but because of their disorganization (there were 80 thousand Russians with the Polovtsy, and only 20 thousand Mongols. pers.). Then followed the complete defeat of the Polovtsy from the temnik Batu. After that, the Kipchaks dispersed and practically ceased to be considered an ethnic group. Some of them dissolved in the Golden Horde, some converted to Christianity and later entered the Moscow principality, some, as we said, began to rule in Mamluk Egypt, and some went to Europe (Hungary, Bulgaria, Byzantium). This is where the story of the Kipchaks ends. It remains only to describe the social structure and culture of this ethnic group.
The Polovtsians had a military-democratic system, practically, like many other nomadic peoples. Their only problem was that they never submitted to a central authority. Their kurens were separate, so if they gathered a common army, then this rarely happened. Often several kurens united in a small horde, the leader of which was the khan. When some khans united, the kagan was at the head.
Khan occupied the highest position in the horde, and the word "kan" was traditionally added to the names of the Polovtsians holding this position. After him came the aristocrats, who disposed of the community members. Then the heads who led the rank and file soldiers. The lowest social position was occupied by women - servants and convicts - prisoners of war who performed the functions of slaves. As it was written above, the horde included a certain number of kurens, which consisted of aul families. A koshevoi was appointed to own a kuren (Turkic “kosh”, “koshu” - nomadic, nomadic).
“The main occupation of the Polovtsy was cattle breeding. The main food of ordinary nomads was meat, milk and millet, and koumiss was their favorite drink. The Polovtsy sewed clothes according to their own steppe patterns. Shirts, caftans and leather pants served as everyday clothes for the Polovtsy. Housework reportedly Plano Carpini and Rubruk usually done by women. The position of women among the Polovtsy was quite high. The norms of behavior of the Polovtsians were regulated by "customary law". An important place in the system of customs of the Polovtsians was occupied by blood feud.
In the majority, if we exclude the aristocracy, which began to accept Christianity, then the Polovtsy professed tengrism
. Just like the Turks, the Polovtsy revered wolf
. Of course, shamans called “bashams” also served in their society, who communicated with spirits and treated the sick. In principle, they did not differ in anything from the shamans of other nomadic peoples. The Polovtsians developed a funeral cult, as well as the cult of ancestors, which gradually grew into the cult of "hero-leaders". Over the ashes of their dead, they poured mounds and placed the famous Kipchak balbals (“stone women”), erected, as in the Turkic Khaganate, in honor of the soldiers who fell in the struggle for their land. These are wonderful monuments of material culture, reflecting the rich spiritual world of their creators.
The Polovtsians often fought, and their military affairs were in the first place. In addition to excellent bows and sabers, they also had javelins and spears. Most of the troops were light cavalry, consisting of mounted archers. Also, the army had heavily armed cavalry, whose warriors wore lamellar shells, plate shells, chain mail, and helmets. In their free time, the warriors were engaged in hunting to hone their skills.
Again, stepophobic historians claimed that the Polovtsy did not build cities, however, the cities of Sharukan, Sugrov, Cheshuev, founded by the Polovtsy, are mentioned in their lands. In addition, Sharukan (now the city of Kharkov) was the capital of the Western Cumans. According to the travel historian Rubruk, for a long time the Polovtsy owned Tmutarakan (according to another version, at that time it belonged to Byzantium). Probably, the Greek Crimean colonies paid tribute to them.
Our story about the Polovtsy ends, however, despite the fact that this article has insufficient data on this interesting ethnic group and therefore needs to be supplemented.
Alexander Belyaev, MGIMO Eurasian Integration Club (U).
Bibliography:
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