Kazakhstan, the largest country fully within the Eurasian Steppe, has been a historical crossroads and home to numerous different peoples, states and empires throughout history. Throughout history, peoples on the territory of modern Kazakhstan used to have a nomadic lifestyle, which developed and influenced Kazakh culture.
Human habitation of the territory of present-day Kazakhstan dates back to the Paleolithic, with Neanderthals and later modern humans inhabiting the region. The Neolithic period saw the development of agriculture, animal husbandry, and the Botai culture, associated with early horse domestication. From the first millennium BC, the region was inhabited by nomadic peoples including the Saka, who spoke Iranian languages.
In the 13th century, the region became part of the Mongol Empire and subsequently the Golden Horde. The Kazakhs emerged from the Turkic and Mongol peoples of the Jochid Ulus, and in the 15th century Zhanibek Khan and Kerey Khan established the Kazakh Khanate. By the 16th century, the Kazakh Khanate had become a major nomadic power in the steppe and the last major Chinggisid state in the region.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Kazakh Khanate fragmented into the three zhuzes and gradually came under Russian control. The khanate institution was formally abolished in 1822, and the final major attempt to restore Kazakh independence, led by Kenesary Qasymov, ended with his death in 1847. Following the Russian Revolution, the Alash Orda government sought Kazakh autonomy, but Kazakhstan was incorporated into the Soviet Union. Soviet collectivization caused a catastrophic famine in the early 1930s, resulting in the deaths of large numbers of Kazakhs and the flight of many others abroad. Kazakhstan became a Soviet republic in 1936 and declared independence on 16 December 1991 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Prehistory
Humans have inhabited Kazakhstan since the Lower Paleolithic, generally pursuing the nomadic pastoralism for which the region's climate and terrain are suitable. Prehistoric Bronze Age cultures that extended into the region include the Srubna, the Afanasevo and the Andronovo. Between 500 BC and 500 AD Kazakhstan was home to the Saka and the Huns, early nomadic warrior cultures.
According to the Journal of Archaeological Science, in July 2020 scientists from South Ural State University studied two Late Bronze Age horses with the aid of radiocarbon dating from Kurgan 5 of the Novoilinovsky 2 cemetery in the Lisakovsk city in the Kostanay region. Researcher Igor Chechushkov indicated that the Andronovites were riding horses several centuries earlier than many researchers had previously assumed. Among the horses investigated, the stallion was nearly 20 years old and the mare was 18 years old. According to scientists, animals were buried with the person they accompanied throughout their lives, and they were used not only for food but also for harnessing vehicles and riding.
Turkic people migrated into Kazakhstan
At the beginning of the first millennium the steppes east of the Caspian were inhabited and settled by a variety of peoples, mainly nomads speaking Indo-European and Uralic languages, including the Alans, Aorsi, Budini, Issedones/Wusun, Madjars, Massagetae and Sakas. The names, relations between and constituents of these peoples were sometimes fluid and interchangeable. Some of them formed states, including Yancai (northwest of the Aral Sea) and Kangju in the east. Over the course of several centuries the area became dominated by Turkic and other exogenous languages, which arrived with nomad invaders and settlers from the east.
Following the entry of the Huns many of the previous inhabitants migrated westward into Europe or were absorbed by the Huns. The focus of the Hun Empire gradually moved westward from the steppes into Eastern Europe.
For a few centuries events in the future Kazakhstan are unclear and frequently the subject of speculation based on mythic or apocryphal folk tales popular among various peoples that migrated westward through the steppes.
From the middle of the 2nd century the Yueban – an offshoot of the Xiongnu and therefore possibly connected to the Huns – established a state in far-eastern Kazakhstan.
Over the next few centuries peoples such as the Akatziri, Avars (known later as the Pannonian Avars; not to be confused with the Avars of the Caucasus), Sabirs and Bulgars migrated through the area and into the Caucasus and Eastern Europe.
By the beginning of the 6th century the proto-Mongolian Rouran Khaganate had annexed areas that were later part of east Kazakhstan.
The Göktürks, a Turkic people formerly subject to the Rouran, migrated westward, pushing the remnants of the Huns west and southward. By the mid-6th Century, the First Turkic Khaganate was established. A few decades later, a civil war resulted in the khaganate being split, and establishment of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate and Western Turkic Khaganate. In 630 and 659, the Eastern and Western Turkic Khaganate were invaded and conquered by the Tang China. Towards the end of the 7th century, the two states were reunited in the Second Turkic Khaganate. However, the khaganate began to fragment only a few generations later.
In 766 the Oghuz Yabgu State (Oguz il) was founded, with its capital in Jankent, and came to occupy most of the later Kazakhstan. It was founded by the Oghuz Turks, refugees from the neighbouring Turgesh Kaganate. The Oghuz lost a struggle with the Karluks for control of Turgesh, other Oguz clans migrated from the Turgesh-controlled Zhetysu to the Karatau Mountains and the Chu valley, in the Issyk Kul basin.
Cuman-Kipchak period
In the eighth and ninth centuries, portions of southern Kazakhstan were conquered by Arabs who introduced Islam. The Oghuz Turks controlled western Kazakhstan from the ninth through the 11th centuries; and Turkic peoples of Kipchaks and Kimaks, controlled the east at roughly the same time. In turn the Cumans controlled western Kazakhstan from around the 12th century until the 1220s. Since then, those vast lands are came to be known as Dashti-Kipchak, or the Kipchak Steppe.
During the ninth century the Qarluq confederation formed the Qarakhanid state, which conquered Transoxiana (the area north and east of the Oxus River, the present-day Amu Darya). Beginning in the early 11th century, the Qarakhanids fought constantly among themselves and with the Seljuk Turks to the south. The Qarakhanids, who had converted to Islam, were conquered in the 1130s by the Kara-Khitan (moved west from North China). In the mid-12th century an independent state of Khorazm along the Oxus River broke away from the weakening Karakitai, but the bulk of the Kara-Khitan lasted until the Mongol invasion of Genghis Khan from 1219 to 1221.
Mongol Empire and Golden Horde (1206–1502)
At the beginning of the 13th century, the lands in the west and north of present-day Kazakhstan (the eastern part of Desht-i Kipchak) came under the rule of Jochi, the eldest son of Genghis Khan, forming the left wing of the Golden Horde ( White Horde)< the territory in the south came under the rule of Jochi’s brother Chagatai (Chagatai Khanate). The ethnic composition of the Golden Horde was heterogeneous and included sedentary peoples conquered by the Mongols, as well as masses of Turkic and Mongol tribes and clans that had not yet developed into distinct ethnic groups
A comparative analysis of published narrative texts shows that the nomadic Kazakhs perceived the history of the rise and decline of the Golden Horde, as well as the stages in the development of their own state that emerged after its fragmentation into separate parts, as a constantly recurring cyclical succession of eras. In the popular consciousness of the bearers of the oral tradition, this perception had a clearly pronounced personalized character. Consequently, the overwhelming majority of Kazakh folkloric materials devoted to the medieval history of Eurasia are associated with specific historical figures of the Ulus of Jochi or with characters closely connected to them, both in reality and in literary narrative. Among the most popular figures in the Kazakh narrative tradition are Genghis Khan (1206–1227), his eldest son Jochi (? – c. 1227), who became the subject of the musical and poetic works of many Kazakh akyns, the khans Batu (1243–1255), Jani Beg (1342–1357), and Tokhtamysh (1380–1406), Urus Khan (1368–1377), Edigu — beg (early 1390s – 1419), as well as the Samarkand emir Timur (1370–1405), who founded the Timurid state in Transoxiana.
Formation of the Ulus of Jochi
The state of the Ulus of Jochi encompassed the entire Great Steppe — from the Danube in the west to the Irtysh in the east. The state was officially known as the Ulu Ulus ("Great Ulus").
After the death of Jochi Khan, his position was taken by Batu. Orda (Jochi’s eldest son) voluntarily ceded precedence to his younger brother. They repeatedly yielded seniority to one another out of mutual respect. Their dispute was ultimately resolved by their grandfather Genghis Khan. At the same time, the Ulus of Jochi was effectively divided into two uluses (peoples). According to Rashid al-Din, "one half of Jochi Khan’s army was commanded by him (Orda), and the other half by Batu". Batu, who did not display exceptional military talents but possessed notable administrative and political abilities, managed during the years 1242–1256, without waging major wars, to establish suzerainty over the Russian principalities, Georgia, Armenia, the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, and several regions of Iran. A number of Golden Horde cities are associated with his name.
Good relations began to develop between Karakorum and Sarai. However, Möngke, fearing that Batu’s status had become too elevated, sought to equalize his rights with those of the rulers of the other Chinggisid uluses. First, payments of revenues from Mongolia and China were refused on the pretext that such payments were draining the imperial treasury. He then dispatched officials to the Ulus of Jochi and its vassal states to conduct a census. In 1253, Batu received an order to provide 20% of his warriors for the campaign in Iran. Batu could not resist this demand, since disobedience to the khan was punishable — a policy he himself had previously helped to enforce. At the same time, Batu did not seek the independence of the Golden Horde and regarded it as part of the Mongol Empire.
After Batu’s death, Berke became khan. Berke was the first ruler to come to power without confirmation from Karakorum. Kublai, preoccupied with numerous problems in Mongolia and China, was forced to recognize him because he lacked the means to remove him. Coins bearing Berke’s tamga began to be minted in Bulgar, and when the struggle between Kublai and Ariq Böke erupted, Berke began minting coins in the name of Ariq Böke, thereby recognizing him as the more legitimate claimant to the Mongol throne. Kublai responded by confiscating the possessions of the Jochids in the Chinese province of Shanxi, while in Bukhara the Golden Horde garrison under Jochid control was massacred. Nevertheless, Berke had little interest in these cities, which generated relatively small revenues for the Golden Horde treasury. In response, Berke eliminated Mongol tax collectors in the Russian principalities.