MONGABAY.COM
Mongabay.com seeks to raise interest in and appreciation of wild lands and wildlife, while examining the impact of emerging trends in climate, technology, economics, and finance on conservation and development (more)
WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
|
|
Turkmenistan
Index
During the Mongol conquest of Central Asia in the thirteenth century,
the Turkmen-Oghuz of the steppe were pushed from the Syrdariya farther
into the Garagum (Russian spelling Kara Kum) Desert and along the Caspian
Sea. Various components were nominally subject to the Mongol domains in
eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Iran. Until the early sixteenth century,
they were concentrated in four main regions: along the southeastern coast
of the Caspian Sea, on the Mangyshlak Peninsula (on the northeastern
Caspian coast), around the Balkan Mountains, and along the Uzboy River
running across north-central Turkmenistan. Many scholars regard the
fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries as the period of the
reformulation of the Turkmen into the tribal groups that exist today.
Beginning in the sixteenth century and continuing into the nineteenth
century, large tribal conglomerates and individual groups migrated east
and southeast.
Historical sources indicate the existence of a large tribal union often
referred to as the Salor confederation in the Mangyshlak Peninsula and
areas around the Balkan Mountains. The Salor were one of the few original
Oghuz tribes to survive to modern times. In the late seventeenth century,
the union dissolved and the three senior tribes moved eastward and later
southward. The Yomud split into eastern and western groups, while the Teke
moved into the Akhal region along the Kopetdag Mountains and gradually
into the Murgap River basin. The Salor tribes migrated into the region
near the Amu Darya delta in the oasis of Khorazm south of the Aral Sea,
the middle course of the Amu Darya southeast of the Aral Sea, the Akhal
oasis north of present-day Ashgabat and areas along the Kopetdag bordering
Iran, and the Murgap River in present-day southeast Turkmenistan. Salor
groups also live in Turkey, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and China.
Much of what we know about the Turkmen from the sixteenth to nineteenth
centuries comes from Uzbek and Persian chronicles that record Turkmen
raids and involvement in the political affairs of their sedentary
neighbors. Beginning in the sixteenth century, most of the Turkmen tribes
were divided among two Uzbek principalities: the Khanate (or amirate) of
Khiva (centered along the lower Amu Darya in Khorazm) and the Khanate of
Bukhoro (Bukhara). Uzbek khans and princes of both khanates customarily
enlisted Turkmen military support in their intra- and inter-khanate
struggles and in campaigns against the Persians. Consequently, many
Turkmen tribes migrated closer to the urban centers of the khanates, which
came to depend heavily upon the Turkmen for their military forces. The
height of Turkmen influence in the affairs of their sedentary neighbors
came in the eighteenth century, when on several occasions (1743, 1767-70),
the Yomud invaded and controlled Khorazm. From 1855 to 1867, a series of
Yomud rebellions again shook the area. These hostilities and the punitive
raids by Uzbek rulers resulted in the wide dispersal of the eastern Yomud
group.
Data as of March 1996
|
|