Kazakhs
While Muslim and Turkic speaking, the Kazakhs emerged as a people from the breakup of the MONGOL EMPIRE and have been in constant contact, both warlike and peaceful, with Oirats and Khalkha Mongols.
Today they form Mongolia’s largest non-Mongol minority.
ORIGINS
The Kazakh aristocracy reckons its descent from ToqaTemür, the 13th son of CHINGGIS KHAN’s son JOCHI (d.
1225?). The descendants of Toqa-Temür seized power over the BLUE HORDE in modern Kazakhstan under Urus
Khan (d. 1377) but were driven east by the Uzbeks (Özbegs) under the rival Shibanid line in the mid-15th
century. Urus Khan’s descendants became qazaqs, “freebooters,” around the modern Xinjiang-Kazakhstan border. (Kazakh is simply the Russian pronunciation of qazaq, a term that also gave rise to the designation Cossack.) Under Qasim Khan (d. 1523) the Kazakhs rose to power again and eventually drove both the Uzbeks and
the rulers of MOGHULISTAN south to the oasis cities of Mawarannahr (Transoxiana) and the Tarim Basin.
Kazakh tribal and CLAN NAMES show their mixed origins. JALAYIR, Qunghrat, Manghit, Dughlat (Dogholad)
and, of course, Chinggisid Qiyat clan names are of Mongolian origin (see BORJIGID, MANGGHUD, QONGGIRAD). The
Nayman, Kerey, Qara-Qitay, Tangut, and Arghin (Arghun)clans are descended from conquered steppe peoples of
the MONGOLIAN PLATEAU subjugated by the Mongols and brought west with the Mongol conquest (see KEREYID,
NAIMAN, ÖNGGÜD, QARA-KHITAI, and XIA DYNASTY). QARLUQS, QIPCHAQS, and Qanglis were the native Turkish
tribes of the area. Other tribal names are of obscure origin. The Kazakh language is a dialect of Common Turkish and shares with Tatar, Baskir (Bashkurt), and other Turkish languages of the Qipchaq family the change of
initial y- to j- or zh- (thus zheti, “seven,” and zhïl, “year,” not yeti or yïl).
WARS WITH THE OIRATS
From their emergence in the 15th century the Kazakhs faced the OIRATS (whom they, like all Turkish peoples,
called KALMYKS) on their eastern frontier. During the 16th century the Kazakhs pushed the Oirats north toward
southern Siberia, but in the 17th century the Oirats conquered Züngharia (Junggar Basin) and the Ili Valley and
attacked the Kazakhs. Under TSEWANG RABTAN KHUNGTAIJI (b. 1663, r. 1694–1727) and Galdan-Tseren (r.
1727–45) the Oirats’ Zünghar principality smashed the Kazakh confederation and drove the Kazakhs north and
west in what was long remembered in Kazakh folklore as the “Barefoot Flight” (Aqtaban Shubirindi). By this time
the Kazakhs were divided into three zhüz (100s, called “hordes” in Russian): the Great (Ulu) Zhüz in eastern
and southeastern Kazakhstan, the Middle (Orta) Zhüz in central, northern, and southern Kazakhstan, and the
Lesser (Kishi) Zhüz in western Kazakhstan.The wars with the Oirats left a strong impression on
the Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, and other Islamic peoples of the Inner Asian steppes. The Kazakhs had become Muslim in
the 14th century, and after the Oirats converted to a peculiarly militant form of Tibetan-rite Buddhism around
1580–1615, their conflict became not just a struggle for livestock, territory, and honor but also on both sides a
religious war against unbelievers. In Kazakh and Kyrgyz epics the hero’s enemy is always a Kalmyk (i.e., Oirat).
EXPANSION EAST
As the Manchu QING DYNASTY (1636–1912) destroyed the crumbling Zünghar principality in 1752–59, Kazakhs
migrated westward to occupy Oirat lands. The Ili Valley was settled by the Great Zhüz and the Zünghar (Junggar)
Basin by the Kerey, Nayman, and Waq tribes of Middle Zhüz. The Qing dynasty granted the Kazakhs in Xinjiang
titles as teizhi (from Mongolian TAIJI) and collected tribute from them. As Russia subdued and settled Kazakhstan from 1730 to 1864, more Kazakhs migrated into the less crowded Xinjiang pastures. The Kazakhs, having greater mobility, better weapons, and better Russian-language skills than did the XINJIANG MONGOLS, dominated
border trading and smuggling. By 1862 Kerey Kazakhs of the Middle Zhüz first
appeared in western Mongolia’s Khowd frontier. The Qing court granted them provisional recognition there
in 1882. Legal disputes continued as the Kazakh population advanced at the expense of the indigenous ALTAI
URIYANGKHAI.
During the 20th century Kazakhs began moving into pastures in Barköl, Gansu, and even Qinghai on the
Tibetan plateau. The Kazakhs generally kept the upper hand in frequent clashes with the original Oirat Mongolian inhabitants. In 1949 the new Chinese Communist administration began fixing separate settlements for the
Kazakhs and the Mongol nomads. The Kazakhs’ higher birthrate continues to increase their share of the population even in Mongol autonomous units.
KAZAKHS OF MONGOLIA
In July 1912 a Kerey Kazakh leader, Sükirbay, on behalf of 400 families requested that the Kazakhs be allowed to
stay in newly independent Mongolia. This request was granted and land set aside for a Kazakh banner in modern BAYAN-ÖLGII PROVINCE. Other Kazakh bands, however, continued to ignore the border between Mongolia and
Xinjiang, now under the Republic of China, roughly defined in 1913. Even the recognized Kazakhs had tense
relations with the local western Mongols, who accused them of horse theft and raiding.
After Mongolia’s 1921 REVOLUTION the Kazakhs were organized into two banners. In 1940 Mongolia’s maximum
leader, MARSHAL CHOIBALSANG, (r. 1936–52), after visiting KHOWD PROVINCE, created a new province, Bayan-Ölgii, in
predominantly Kazakh areas. The provincial administrative council consisted of seven members, five Kazakh and two
Altai Uriyangkhai. The new province facilitated Mongolia’s interventions as a Soviet proxy among northern Xinjiang’s
Kazakhs from 1942 to 1946. Kazakhs also form the majority in Khowd Sum just north of KHOWD CITY.
In the postwar period the population of Kazakhs in Mongolia rose from 36,700 (4.3 percent in 1956 to
120,500 (5.9 percent) in 1989. Kazakh (in the Cyrillic script) was used in all grades of general schooling and for
some official purposes in Bayan-Ölgii as well. Distinguished Kazakhs in Mongolia included the Kazakh-language poet B. Aqtan (1897–1976), the Turcologist B. Bazylhan (b. 1932), and the union leader and political
reformer Q. Zardyhan (b. 1940). Kazakhs were also recruited for the coal mines of Nalaikh (near ULAANBAATAR). Compared to the overall population, Kazakhs in 1989 were slightly overrepresented in both white-collar
and working-class positions; collective herders were only 26.4 percent of the nationality’s population. Mongolia’s
Kazakh nomads are famous, however, for their custom of FALCONRY with golden eagles.
In 1991, during the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, Bayan-Ölgii’s unemployment rate hit 18.9 percent,
and large numbers of Mongolian Kazakhs responded to the newly independent Kazakhstan’s call for migration
back to the homeland. The population of Bayan-Ölgii dropped from 101,000 in 1991 to 75,700 by 1993. By
2001 Kazakhstan figures showed 63,900 Mongolian Kazakhs had crossed the border from Mongolia at least
once, and 5,000 had become Kazakhstan citizens. The Mongolian Kazakhs, however, generally did not fit well
into Kazakhstan’s sedentary and Russified lifestyle. Large numbers eventually returned to Bayan-Ölgii,
whose population had rebounded to 94,600 by 2000. Grade school education in Bayan-Ölgii continues to be
conducted in Kazakh, with most textbooks supplied from Kazakhstan.
Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol empire
Christopher P. Atwood
