ÿþ<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en"> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=unicode"> <meta name="Author" content="Vassil Karloukovski"> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0"> <meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document"> <title>Hudud al-'Alam - 20 - Commentary of V. Minorsky</title> </head> <body> <font face="Palatino Linotype"> <b><font size=+1>Hudud al-'Alam, The Regions of the World</font></b> <br><b>V. Minorsky</b> <br>&nbsp; </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><img SRC="line_down.gif" height=18 width=596> <br>312&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Commentary</i>&nbsp;&nbsp; §§ 19-20 </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">& </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><b>§ 20. The Turkish Pechenegs</b> <br>&nbsp; </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">V. G. Vasilyevsky, <i>Byzantium and the Pechenegs</i> (in Russian) in the author's <i>Trud1</i></font><i><font face="Arial Unicode MS"> </font></i><font face="Palatino Linotype">, SPb., 1908, i, 1-175 ; P. Golubovsky, <i>The Pechenegs, Torks</i>, <br>&nbsp; </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><img SRC="line_down.gif" height=18 width=596> <br>§ 20&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>The Turkish Pechenegs</i>&nbsp;&nbsp; 313 </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><i>and Polovtsi before the Mongol Invasion</i> (in Russian) in <i>Kiev. Universit. Izv.</i>, 1883-4 (not found in London or Paris libraries); Marquart, <i>Streifzüge</i>, 63 ; Marquart, <i>Komanen</i>, 25-6, 98-9, &amp;c. A short survey in English is given in C. A. Macartney,<i> The Pechenegs</i>, in<i> The Slavonic Review</i>, viii, 1929, pp. 342-53. J. Németh, <i>Die Inschriften des Schatzes von Nagy-Szent-Miklós</i>, in <i>Bib. Orient. Hungarica</i>, ii, Budapest, 1932 (inscriptions found on vessels dating, as it appears, from the beginning of the tenth century; the author attributes them to some princes of the Pechenegs, who shortly before that time settled in the present-day Hungary, and it is curious to read in Gard+z+ that the Pechenegs possessed numerous gold and silver vessels). D. A. Rasovsky, <i>The Pechenegs, Torks, and Berenders in Russia and Hungary</i> (in Russian), in <i>Seminarium Kondakovianum</i>, Prague, 1933 (concerns later times; very complete Russian and Hungarian bibliography). </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">§§ 20 and 22, as well as 43-4 and 48-52, find close parallels in the respective chapters of I.R., Gard+z+, Bakr+, and 'Auf+ who all depend on one principal source and vary only in details. </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">Our author speaks of the Pechenegs in two chapters: under § 20 is described the old Pecheneg country and under § 47 their new habitat. Taking his information from two distinct sources he presents the two consecutive stages of the Pecheneg peregrinations as existing simultaneously. </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">The fullest presentation of the facts is found in Constantino Porphyrogenitus, <i>De administrando imperio</i>, chap. 37, which Marquart, <i>Komanen</i>, 25, calls the "basis of the historical ethnology of Southern Russia". The Byzantine author says that the seats of the&nbsp;<img SRC="313_1.jpg" height=20 width=119 align=ABSBOTTOM> were first between the Volga (<img SRC="313_2.jpg" height=23 width=51 align=ABSBOTTOM>) and Yay<img SRC="i_k.jpg" height=17 width=8 align=ABSBOTTOM>q (<img SRC="313_3.jpg" height=23 width=44 align=ABSBOTTOM>, the "Ural river") where they had for neighbours the *Majars (<img SRC="313_4.jpg" height=22 width=85 align=ABSBOTTOM>) <a href="#313 1.">[1]</a> and the Oghuz (<img SRC="313_5.jpg" height=21 width=35 align=ABSBOTTOM>). Fifty-five years before the composition of the book (written a.d. 948) <a href="#313 2.">[2]</a> the Khazars and the Oghuz simultaneously attacked the Pechenegs and drove them out of their country, which was occupied by the Oghuz. The Pechenegs settled in a new country (namely that formerly occupied by the Magyars) <a href="#313 3.">[3]</a> from which the distances were as follows: 5 days both to the Khazars and the Oghuz, 6 days to Alania (cf. § 48), and 10 days to Mordia (cf. § 52). In chap. 42 of his work Constantine explains that at a later date (after the expulsion of the Magyars from Atelkuzu, § 22) the Pecheneg possessions extended from a place opposite Distra <a href="#313 4.">[4]</a> on the lower Danube to Sarkel (a Khazar fortress on the Don). These events of the end of the ninth century are known to Is</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">t</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">., 10, who says: "A tribe of Turks called Bachank (Pecheneg) <br>&nbsp; </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><a NAME="313 1."></a><font size=-1><b>1.</b> Cf. Ibn Fad</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">ln&nbsp; on the Bshghurt = Majghr, <i>v.s.</i>, p. 312, line 19.</font> </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><a NAME="313 2."></a><font size=-1><b>2. </b>In 889, according to <i>Reginonis Abbatis Prumiensis Chronicon</i>. Cf. Németh, o.c., p. 48.</font> </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><a NAME="313 3."></a><font size=-1><b>3.</b> More precisely the region which Constantine calls&nbsp;<img SRC="313_6.jpg" height=18 width=59 align=ABSBOTTOM> and which must be located somewhere north of the Azov sea, its river&nbsp;<img SRC="313_7.jpg" height=19 width=51 align=ABSBOTTOM><i> alias <img SRC="313_8.jpg" height=19 width=83 align=ABSBOTTOM></i> being sometimes identified with the Chingul (?) river flowing into the Molochnaya. The Magyars moved to the country called <i>Atelkuzu</i> ("between the rivers" ?) stretching between the Dniepr and Sereth. A new advance of the Pechenegs made the Magyars move across the Carpathians into their present land (shortly before A.D. 900).</font> </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><a NAME="313 4."></a><font size=-1><b>4.</b> Distra = DurustUlkm = Silistria.</font> </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><img SRC="line_down.gif" height=18 width=596> <br>314&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Commentary</i>&nbsp;&nbsp; § 20 </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">having been ousted from its land settled between the Khazars and Rum. Their place is not their ancient home, but they have come to it and occupied it.&quot; In our author the seats of the Pechenegs near the Azov Sea are described under § 47, and in that connexion we shall have occasion to examine &#39;Auf+'s interesting text on the further migrations of the tribes. </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">Our § 20 undoubtedly has in view the situation before a.d. 893 (or 889). It is true that Const. Porph., <i>o.c.</i>, admits that until his own time (<img SRC="314_1.jpg" height=20 width=117 align=ABSBOTTOM>) some of the Pechenegs (<img SRC="314_2.jpg" height=20 width=122 align=ABSBOTTOM>) stayed on under the Ghkz, but according to our author the Turkish Pechenegs were at war with their neighbours which shows that they were still independent. This is still clearer from the parallel text of Gard+z+ who uses the same source. He describes the Pechenegs at the zenith of their power possessing herds, horses, precious vases and girdles, battle-trumpets in the form of bulls' heads, and plenty of arms. Gard+z+, 95, describes a road from Gurgnj (in Khwrazm) to the Pechenegs which touched the Khwrazmian mountain <a href="#314 1.">[1]</a> and left the Aral Sea to the right. After a journey in the desert, where water was found only in wells, on the tenth day a more pleasant country was reached with springs and abundant game. The whole journey to the Pechenegs took seventeen days. Their country stretched for 30 days and their neighbours were: towards the east the Qipchq, towards the southwest (at 10 days' distance) the Khazars, and to the west the Slavs (<i>sic</i>). This picture is entirely different from what Ibn Fad</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">ln as an eye-witness found in 922. He met the Pechenegs to the south of the river&nbsp;<img SRC="314_3.jpg" height=24 width=24 align=ABSBOTTOM> (A. Z. Validi: *<i>Jayikh</i> = <i>Yay1</i></font><i><font face="Arial Unicode MS"> </font></i><font face="Palatino Linotype"><i>q</i>) and he opposes their poverty (undoubtedly a result of the events of a.d. 893) to the wealth of the Ghkzz. A. Z. Validi, <i>o.c.</i>, p. 246, thinks that these Pechenegs belonged to the class of nomad "proletarians" (<i>jataq</i>) adding that they, too, shortly after crossed the Volga in a westerly direction. <a href="#314 2.">[2]</a> </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">Our author considerably embroils the description of the Pecheneg frontiers. He does not say that their lands reached the Uninhabited Northern Zone, but the comparison with the Kimäk country shows that the Pechenegs lived in a very cold region. Under § 44 it is said that east of the Rks lay the Pecheneg mountains under which only the Ural mountains or their (western) spurs can be understood. <a href="#314 3.">[3]</a> Under § 6, 43. the Itil downstream of Bulghr separates the Turkish Pechenegs from the "Burt</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">s&quot; by which, owing to some mistake, our author (see § 51) usually means the Volga Bulghrs. In our § 20 the Burt</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">s and Bardhs are mentioned to the south of the Pechenegs. In § 19 the&nbsp;til (Volga) forms the western and northern frontier of the Ghkz while according to § 20 the western neighbours of the Ghkz were the Turkish Pechenegs. Did, then, our author think that the Pecheneg territory somehow stretched from the Urals down to the right (western) bank of the Volga? Still more embarrassing is § 6, 45., <br>&nbsp; </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><a NAME="314 1."></a><font size=-1><b>1.</b><i> i.e.</i> the <i>Chink</i> of the Üst-yurt. Bakr+, 42, places the mountain at 10 farsakhs from Gurgnj.</font> </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><a NAME="314 2."></a><font size=-1><b>2.</b> But <i>v.s.</i>, Const. Porph., <i>o.c.</i>, cap. 37.</font> </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><a NAME="314 3."></a><font size=-1><b>3.</b> At its northern and southern extremity respectively the Rks and the Kimäk were supposed to live, cf. § 18.</font> </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><img SRC="line_down.gif" height=18 width=596> <br>§§ 20-1&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>The Turkish Pechenegs</i>&nbsp;&nbsp; 315 </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">according to which the enigmatic Rkt river (flowing westwards!) rises from a mountain on the frontier between the Pechenegs, Majghar+, and Rks. Such an involved idea would be comprehensible to some extent only if the author imagined that the Pechenegs and Majghar+, or a part of them, were found to the south-west of the great bend of the Volga (in the region of Kazan). <a href="#315_1">[1]</a> The Rkt was evidently considered as the frontier between the Pechenegs and Rks (cf. § 42). </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">It is curious that neither in § 20 nor in § 50 are the Turkish Pechenegs and the Khazars explicitly considered as neighbours, though from Const. Porph. we know that the Pechenegs were ousted from their former seats by the concerted action of the Ghkz and Khazar. Gard+z+'s text (<i>v.i.</i>) is also clear in this respect. <br>&nbsp; </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><a NAME="315_1"></a><b><font size=-1>1</font><font size=2>.</font></b><font size=2> If the Pechenegs lived north of the Burt#s (<i>i.e.</i> Bulghr) and Bardhs, how could they neighbour on the Ghkz along the Volga, unless under&nbsp;<i>til</i> we have to understand the Kama? But this surmise would create new difficulties. According to Mas'kd+, <i>Tanb+h</i>, 160, the operation zone of the Pechenegs extended (at some time?) down to the Aral Sea. </font> <br>&nbsp; </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">[<a href="hud_20.html">Previous</a>] [<a href="hud_21.html">Next</a>] <br>[<a href="index.html">Back to Index</a>] </font> </body> </html>