THE MONGOLS AND THE KIPCHAKS

I don’t see this dichotomy between Cumans in the West and Kipchaks in the East. They’re simply different names people use for the same group. However, it’s important to note that the Cumans weren’t really unified before Chinggis Khan. At times they formed steppe federations, teamed up, and made alliances.

They even made alliances with the Rus’ princes. But they never really formed a unified whole. They were a collection of groups that shared many common features, whose leaders spoke a Turkic language, and who were spread across thousands of kilometres.

So I think we’re talking about the same kind of people.

Chinggis Khan set out to crush the Kipchaks. But did he succeed?

I don’t think a large group of people occupying thousands of square kilometres of land is ever completely eradicated. Even much smaller groups are rarely wiped out entirely. But the Mongol conquest certainly changed the character of this region forever.

I don’t think the Kipchaks simply disappeared, leaving behind an empty steppe occupied by new people. I think there was continuity, although the identity of the survivors was transformed. They came under Chinggisid rulers and eventually identified as Tatars, Kazakhs, or other groups. But that doesn’t mean they lost their Kipchak origins. It’s a very complicated and, to some extent, speculative issue.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence is what happened to the conquerors themselves. The Mongol elite gradually became Turkic-speaking. The Mongols and the Kipchaks already shared important cultural similarities—above all, their nomadic way of life—and after the initial destruction there must have been a great many Kipchak survivors.

If the Cuman Kipchaks had really been annihilated, as some scholars once believed, why would the Mongols have switched to Turkic? They would only have done so if the overwhelming majority of the population surrounding the Mongol ruling elite had already been speaking Turkic. Within forty or fifty years, everyone in the Golden Horde was speaking Turkic.

We know this from al-Umari, who says that everyone in the Golden Horde spoke Turkic. That means there must have been a great many Cumans who survived. In the end, they became the cultural conquerors of their own conquerors: the Mongols adopted their language and, to a large extent, their culture.

Mongol pressure drove waves of Turkic tribes westward into Anatolia. Who were they, where did they come from, and what legacy did they leave to the empire that would become the Ottoman state?

Let’s start with one individual whose story we know well: the poet Rumi1¹Rumi (1207–1273)was a poet, Sufi mystic, and theologian who lived in Konya. In addition to Persian, he also wrote in Turkic, Arabic, and Greek. His works had a profound influence on the literature and spiritual culture of Central Asia, Iran, Anatolia, and the wider Islamic world..

He was born in the Khwarazmian Empire, perhaps somewhere around Turkestan—I don’t remember the exact place—but it was in the eastern reaches of the Islamic world. His family fled the Mongol advance as refugees, travelling as far west as they possibly could, to Anatolia. There, Rumi became a great poet and mystic.

But that’s only one example. We know many similar stories of refugees who fled as far as they could. Some found refuge in Egypt.

Others fled to the Delhi Sultanate in India. Some settled in Anatolia. Others reached Europe.

Many Cuman Kipchaks entered the service of the Latin Empire, while large numbers settled in Hungary. They left such a lasting mark that many towns in central Hungary still bear Turkic names today. This is a direct legacy of the Kipchak migrations and settlements of the thirteenth century.

Mongol ideology called for the conquest of the entire world "to the last sea." But how seriously did the Mongols themselves take that mandate?

If you ask a lot of scholars who are much more influential than me, they'll say it was just lip service. I think they were dead serious about it. So maybe I don't know if I'm in...

It seems like the majority opinion is – don't take that too seriously – it's more just like the Chinese emperor called himself the ruler of the world.

Charlemagne held an orb, you know, that meant the world. And it's more just figurative. But with the Mongols, it's different.

I think this was a real project that they were really carrying out. Because they're very consistent. The message is so consistent.

If they're talking to the Chinese, if they're talking to the Pope, if they're talking to the king of France and these letters survive, the Persians, the Koreans. It's a very similar message. And, you know, they had so many...

It's like, yeah, he does have enough. But he's following his grandfather's command. Which is actually not Chinggis Khan's command.

If you take them at their word. It's the command of Tengri. It's the command of heaven.

This is the command of heaven. Those who wish to survive will surrender and come in person to the Khan and kneel and accept that there is only one god, one heaven over the earth, and there's only one ruler on the earth. And that's Chinggis Khan.

And his descendants.