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 - 47 - 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>§ 47&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>The Khazarian Pechenegs</i>&nbsp;&nbsp; 443 <br>&nbsp; </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><b>§ 47. The Khazarian Pechenegs.</b> </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">In § 20 the older territory of the Pechenegs is described, up in the north, <i>grosso modo </i>between the Urals and the Volga. Our § 47 refers to the new seats of the Pechenegs when, following the events of A.D. 889-93, they came to occupy the Magyars&#39; lands near the Azov sea. This chapter belongs to the Balkh+ > Is</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">t</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">. tradition (cf. notes to §20 where 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, is quoted) and corresponds to the historical facts. On the contrary, geographically we are in the region where our author artificially strings together information derived from different sources. </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">Is</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">t</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">. says only that the Pechenegs settled between the Khazar and Rkm. <a href="#443 1.">[1]</a> Our author places some "Khazar mountains" east of the Khazarian Pechenegs. <a href="#443 2.">[2]</a> The latter are imaginary unless they refer to the watershed between the Volga and the Don, but at all events we are given to understand (cf. § 50) that in the east they separated the Khazarian Pechenegs from the Khazars. In the south the Khazarian Pechenegs bordered on the Aln (cf. § 48) and in Mas&#39;kd+'s account of the <i>W.l.nd.r+</i> federation (which comprised the Pechenegs) it is said that these Turkish tribes lived on peaceful terms with the Khazar king and the Master of the Aln (<i>s</i></font><i><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">h</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font></i><font face="Palatino Linotype"><i>ib al-Ln</i>), <i>v.i.</i>, notes to § 53. The detail on the Gurz sea lying to the west of the Khazarian Pechenegs is due to some wrong idea about the configuration of the north-eastern corner of the Black Sea. To the north (and partly to the west, cf. p. 440) the Mirvt&nbsp; are named as the neighbours of the Khazarian Pechenegs, but here we are certainly on a purely imaginary ground for between the Azov sea and the Danube our author tries to drive in, as a wedge, the Mirvt&nbsp; whose name he found in his special source [or passage] unknown to I.Kh., I. Rusta, or Is</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">t</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">. The latter author, <i>v.s.</i> p. 314, 1.1, is right when he suggests that the Pechenegs extended westwards down to the Rkm, <i>i.e.</i>, practically speaking, to the Danubian region, for such was the case in the beginning of the tenth century when the Magyars had already left Atelkuzu behind. With this agrees Mas'kdi's embroiled account of the <i>W.l.nd.r+</i> hordes operating against the Byzantine empire. But the above-mentioned particular source, common to the&nbsp;H</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">.-'. and Gard+z+, refers to the situation circa A.D. 900 (cf. § 42, 18.) when for a short period the Magyars screened the Pechenegs from Bulgaria (associated with the &quot;Rkm" in point of religion). The situation in the steppes in this period is extremely dark and, following Mas'kd+'s account, we may imagine that some "swarming" of the tribes was taking place. In any case the victorious Pechenegs, after the Magyars had surrendered to them their Lebedia home, most probably remained in touch with the Magyars, for after a short while they again attacked them and drove them out of their new habitat stretching between the Dniepr and the Sereth. Consequently, at the <br>&nbsp; </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><a NAME="443 1."></a><font size=-1><b>1.</b> Cf. also Const. Porphyr. quoted in the notes to §20.</font> </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><a NAME="443 2."></a><font size=-1><b>2.</b> Cf. § 5, 18. where<i> miyn-i nh</font><font face="Arial Unicode MS">#</font><font face="Palatino Linotype">iyat-i Bachank-i Khazar+ biburradh</i>, to suit § 47, ought to read: <i>miyn-i Bachank-i Khazar+</i>[<i>va Khazar</i>] <i>bigudharadh</i> (?).</font> </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><img SRC="line_down.gif" height=18 width=596> <br>444&nbsp;&nbsp; <i>Commentary</i>&nbsp;&nbsp; §§ 47-8 </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">Atelkuzu period of Magyar migrations, which the special source [circa A.D. 900] had in view, our author ought to have mentioned the Magyars as the western neighbours of the Khazarian Pechenegs. He, however, not knowing what to do with the names <i>V.n.nd.r</i> and <i>Mirvt</i>&nbsp; arranged the bearers of them from north to south, so that the Mirvt&nbsp; came to occupy the region somewhere about the Crimea (instead of Transylvania!). So, briefly speaking, the items on the north-western frontier of the Khazarian Pechenegs must be due exclusively to our author's speculations. </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">For the further destinies of the Pechenegs 'Auf+'s text published by Barthold, <i>Turkestan</i>, i, 99, and Marquart, <i>Komanen</i>, 40, is of great interest. 'Auf+ (thirteenth century) writes that the arrival of the <i>Q.ri </i>(<i>Qkn</i> ? <i>v.s.</i>, notes to §§ 14, i. and 21) in the Sr+ land made the inhabitants of the latter move into the land of the Türkmäns [ = Ghuz] with the result that the Ghuz [ = Türkmän] went to the land of the Pechenegs near the coast of the Armenian (= Caspian?) sea. <a href="#444 1.">[1]</a> Marquart, <i>Komanen</i>, 54, places these events in the beginning of the eleventh century but finally, p. 202, leaves the whole question in suspense. Barthold (in his review of Marquart's book) admits that 'Auf+ has in view the migration of the tribes in the eleventh century when the Q<img SRC="i_k.jpg" height=17 width=8 align=ABSBOTTOM>pchaq (see notes to § 21) drove the Ghkz out of their steppes. For a short time the supremacy in the southern Russian steppes passed to the Ghkz. Russian chronicles under A.D. 968 register the first incursion of the Pechenegs into Russian lands. In their turn the Pechenegs must have been considerably weakened by A.D. 1036 when Yaroslav of Kiev defeated them. <br>&nbsp; </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype"><a NAME="444 1."></a><font size=-1><b>1. </b>The term&nbsp;<img SRC="444_1.jpg" height=24 width=90 align=ABSBOTTOM> (<i>sic</i>) is very strange and suits the Caspian better than the Black sea which we would expect at this place!</font> <br>&nbsp; </font> <p><font face="Palatino Linotype">[<a href="hud_47.html">Previous</a>] [<a href="hud_48.html">Next</a>] <br>[<a href="index.html">Back to Index</a>] </font> </body> </html>