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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Turkmenistan
Index
Like the other Central Asian republics, Turkmenistan underwent the
intrusion and rule of several foreign powers before falling under first
Russian and then Soviet control in the modern era. Most notable were the
Mongols and the Uzbek khanates, the latter of which dominated the
indigenous Oghuz tribes until Russian incursions began in the late
nineteenth century.
Origins and Early History
Sedentary Oghuz tribes from Mongolia moved into present-day Central
Asia around the eighth century. Within a few centuries, some of these
tribes had become the ethnic basis of the Turkmen population.
The Oghuz and the Turkmen
The origins of the Turkmen may be traced back to the Oghuz
confederation of nomadic pastoral tribes of the early Middle Ages, which
lived in present-day Mongolia and around Lake Baikal in present-day
southern Siberia. Known as the Nine Oghuz, this confederation was composed
of Turkic-speaking peoples who formed the basis of powerful steppe empires
in Inner Asia. In the second half of the eighth century, components of the
Nine Oghuz migrated through Jungaria into Central Asia, and Arabic sources
located them under the term Guzz in the area of the middle and
lower Syrdariya in the eighth century. By the tenth century, the Oghuz had
expanded west and north of the Aral Sea and into the steppe of present-day
Kazakstan, absorbing not only Iranians but also Turks from the Kipchak and
Karluk ethnolinguistic groups. In the eleventh century, the renowned
Muslim Turk scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari described the language of the Oghuz
and Turkmen as distinct from that of other Turks and identified twenty-two
Oghuz clans or sub-tribes, some of which appear in later Turkmen
genealogies and legends as the core of the early Turkmen.
Oghuz expansion by means of military campaigns went at least as far as
the Volga River and Ural Mountains, but the geographic limits of their
dominance fluctuated in the steppe areas extending north and west from the
Aral Sea. Accounts of Arab geographers and travelers portray the Oghuz
ethnic group as lacking centralized authority and being governed by a
number of "kings" and "chieftains." Because of their
disparate nature as a polity and the vastness of their domains, Oghuz
tribes rarely acted in concert. Hence, by the late tenth century, the
bonds of their confederation began to loosen. At that time, a clan leader
named Seljuk founded a dynasty and the empire that bore his name on the
basis of those Oghuz elements that had migrated southward into present-day
Turkmenistan and Iran. The Seljuk Empire was centered in Persia, from
which Oghuz groups spread into Azerbaijan and Anatolia.
The name Turkmen first appears in written sources of the
tenth century to distinguish those Oghuz groups who migrated south into
the Seljuk domains and accepted Islam from those that had remained in the
steppe. Gradually, the term took on the properties of an ethnonym and was
used exclusively to designate Muslim Oghuz, especially those who migrated
away from the Syrdariya Basin. By the thirteenth century, the term Turkmen
supplanted the designation Oghuz altogether. The origin of the
word Turkmen remains unclear. According to popular etymologies
as old as the eleventh century, the word derives from Turk plus
the Iranian element manand , and means "resembling a Turk."
Modern scholars, on the other hand, have proposed that the element man
/men acts as an intensifier and have translated the word as "pure
Turk" or "most Turk-like of the Turks."
The Seljuk Period
In the eleventh century, Seljuk domains stretched from the delta of the
Amu Darya delta into Iran, Iraq, the Caucasus region, Syria, and Asia
Minor. In 1055 Seljuk forces entered Baghdad, becoming masters of the
Islamic heartlands and important patrons of Islamic institutions. The last
powerful Seljuk ruler, Sultan Sanjar (d. 1157), witnessed the
fragmentation and destruction of the empire because of attacks by Turkmen
and other tribes.
Until these revolts, Turkmen tribesmen were an integral part of the
Seljuk military forces. Turkmen migrated with their families and
possessions on Seljuk campaigns into Azerbaijan and Anatolia, a process
that began the Turkification of these areas. During this time, Turkmen
also began to settle the area of present-day Turkmenistan. Prior to the
Turkmen habitation, most of this desert had been uninhabited, while the
more habitable areas along the Caspian Sea, Kopetdag Mountains, Amu Darya,
and Murgap River (Murgap Deryasy) were populated predominantly by
Iranians. The city-state of Merv was an especially large sedentary and
agricultural area, important as both a regional economic-cultural center
and a transit hub on the famous Silk Road.
Data as of March 1996
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