Who are the descendants of the Polovtsians. Polovtsi

Many historians studying the history of Russia often write about the internecine wars of the princes and their relations with the Polovtsy, a people with many ethnonyms: Kipchaks, Kipchaks, Polovtsians, Cumans. More often it is told about the cruelty of that time, but very rarely the question of the origin of the Polovtsians is raised.

It would be very interesting to find out and answer questions such as: where did they come from ?; how did they interact with other tribes ?; what kind of life did they lead ?; what was the reason for their resettlement to the West and is it connected with natural conditions ?; how did they coexist with the Russian princes ?; why did historians write so negatively about them ?; how did they scatter ?; are there any descendants of this interesting people among us? The works of orientalists, historians of Russia, ethnographers, on which we will rely, should certainly help us to answer these questions.

In the VIII century, practically during the existence of the Great Turkic Kaganate (Great El), a new ethnos, the Kypchaks, was formed in the Central and Eastern parts of modern Kazakhstan. The Kypchaks, who came from the homeland of all the Turks - from the western slopes of Altai - united the Karluks, Kyrgyz, and Kimaks under their rule. All of them received the ethnonym of their new masters. In the 11th century, the Kypchaks gradually moved towards the Syr Darya, where the Oguzes roam. Fleeing from the warlike Kypchaks, they migrate to the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region. Almost the entire territory of modern Kazakhstan becomes the domain of the Kipchaks' possessions, which is called the Kypchak Steppe (Desht-i-Kipchak).

The Kypchaks began to move to the West, practically for the same reason as the Huns once did, who began to suffer defeat from the Chinese and Xianbei only for the reason that a terrible drought began in the eastern steppe, disrupting the favorable development of the Hunnu state, created by the great Shanyu Mode ... The resettlement to the western steppes turned out to be not so easy, as there were constant clashes with the Oguzes and Pechenegs (Kangls). However, the resettlement of the Kipchaks was favorably influenced by the fact that the Khazar Kaganate, as such, no longer existed, because before that, the rise in the level of the Caspian had flooded many settlements of the Khazars who settled on the shores of the Caspian Sea, which clearly ruined their economy. The end of this state was the defeat of the cavalry. prince Svyatoslav Igorevich... The Kypchaks crossed the Volga and advanced to the mouth of the Danube. It was at this time that such ethnonyms as Cumans and Polovtsy appeared among the Kipchaks. The Byzantines called them Kumans. And Polovtsy, Kypchaks began to be called in Russia.

Let's consider the ethnonym "Polovtsy", because it is around this name of the ethnos (ethnonym) that there are so many disputes, since there are a lot of versions. We will highlight the main ones:

So the first version. The ethnonym "Polovtsy", according to nomads, came from "sex", that is, it is straw. Modern historians judge by this name that the Kipchaks were fair-haired, and maybe even blue-eyed. Probably, the Polovtsians were Caucasian and it was not for nothing that our Russian princes, who came to the Polovtsian kurens, often admired the beauty of the Polovtsian girls, calling them “red Polovtsian girls”. But there is one more statement according to which it can be said that the Kypchaks were a Europeoid ethnos. I appeal to Lev Gumilyov: “Our ancestors were friends with the Polovtsian khans, married“ red Polovtsian girls, (there are suggestions that Alexander Nevskiywas the son of a Polovtsian woman), accepted the baptized Polovtsians into their midst, and the descendants of the latter became Zaporozhye and suburban Cossacks, replacing the traditional Slavic suffix "ov" (Ivanov) with the Turkic "enko" (Ivanenko). "

The next version is also somewhat similar to the version above. The Kypchaks were the descendants of the Sary-Kypchaks, that is, the very Kypchaks that formed in Altai. And "sary" is translated from ancient Turkic as "yellow". In Old Russian, "floor" means "yellow". It can be from a horse suit. The Polovtsi could be called so because they rode sex horses. The versions, as you can see, diverge.

The first mention of the Polovtsians in the Russian chronicles comes down to 1055. Historians such as N. M. Karmzin, S. M. Soloviev, V.O. Klyuchevsky, N.I. Kostomarov considered the Kypchaks to be terrible terrible barbarians who badly battered Russia. But as Gumilyov said about Kostomarov, that: "It's more pleasant to blame your neighbor for your own troubles than to blame yourself".

Russian princes often fought among themselves with such cruelty that one could take them for yard dogs who did not share a piece of meat. Moreover, these bloody feuds took place very often and they were more terrible than some small attacks of nomads, for example, on the Pereyaslavl principality. And here, too, not everything is as simple as it seems. After all, the princes used the Polovtsians as mercenaries in wars among themselves. Then our historians began to talk about the fact that Russia allegedly endured the fight against the Polovtsian hordes and defended Europe like a shield from a formidable saber. In short, our compatriots had plenty of fantasies, but they never came to the heart of the matter.

It is interesting that Russia defended the Europeans from the "evil nomadic barbarians", and after that Lithuania, Poland, Swabian Germany, Hungary began to move to the East, that is, to Russia, to their "defenders". It was painful for us to defend the Europeans, and there was no protection whatsoever. Russia, despite its fragmentation, was much stronger than the Polovtsians and those opinions of the historians listed above are unfounded. So we did not protect anyone from the nomads and have never been a "shield of Europe", but rather were even a "shield from Europe".

Let's go back to the relations between Russia and the Polovtsy. We know that the two dynasties, the Olgovichi and the Monomashichi, have become irreconcilable enemies, and the chroniclers, in particular, are leaning towards the Monomashichi as heroes of the struggle against the steppe inhabitants. However, let's take an objective look at this problem. As we know, Vladimir Monomakh concluded with the Polovtsy "19 worlds", although you can not call him "the prince of the peacemaker". In 1095, he treacherously killed the Polovtsian khans, who agreed to end the war - Itlar and Kitana... Then the prince of Kiev demanded that the prince of Chernigov Oleg Svyatoslavich either he gave the son of Itlar, or he himself would have killed him. But Oleg, a future good friend of the Polovtsi, refused Vladimir.

Of course, Oleg had enough sins, but still, what could be more disgusting than betrayal? It was from this moment that the confrontation between these two dynasties began - the Olgovichs and the Monomachs.

Vladimir Monomakh was able to make a number of campaigns on the Polovtsian nomad camps and drove out part of the Kipchaks beyond the Don. This part began to serve the Georgian king. The Kypchaks have not lost their Turkic valor. They stopped the onslaught of the Seljuk Turks at Kawakaz. By the way, when the Seljuks captured the Polovtsian kurens, they took physically developed boys, and then sold them to the Egyptian sultan, who raised them to the elite fighters of the caliphate - the Mamluks. In addition to the descendants of the Kipchaks, the descendants of the Circassians, who were also Mamluks, served the Sultan in the Egyptian Caliphate. However, these were completely different units. Polovtsian Mamluks were named al-Bahr or bakhrit, and the Circassian Mamluks al-Burj... Later, these Mamluks, namely the Bakhrites (descendants of the Polovtsians), would seize power in Egypt under the leadership of Baybars and Kutuza, and then they will be able to repel the attacks of the Mongols of Kitbugi-noyon (state of the Hulaguids)

We return to those Polovtsians who were still able to stay in the North Caucasian steppes, in the northern Black Sea region. In the 1190s, the Polovtsian nobility partly adopted Christianity. In 1223, the commanders of the Mongol army in two tumens (20 thousand people), Jebe and Subadey, made a sudden raid to the rear of the Polovtsy, bypassing the Caucasian ridge. In this regard, the Polovtsy asked for help in Russia, and the princes decided to help them. It is interesting that, according to many historians who had a negative attitude towards the steppe people, if the Polovtsians are the eternal enemies of Russia, then how will they explain such a quick, almost allied, help from the Russian princes? However, as you know, the joint troops of the Russians and the Polovtsians were defeated, and not because of, say, the superiority of the enemy, which did not exist, but because of their disorganization (there were 80 thousand Russians and Polovtsians, and only 20 thousand Mongols. people). This was followed by the complete defeat of the Polovtsi from the Temnik. Batu... After that, the Kypchaks dispersed and practically ceased to be considered an ethnic group. Some of them dissolved in the Golden Horde, some adopted Christianity and later entered the Moscow principality, some, as we said, began to rule in Mamluk Egypt, and some went to Europe (Hungary, Bulgaria, Byzantium). This is where the history of the Kypchaks ends. It remains only to describe the social system and culture of this ethnos.

The Polovtsians had a military-democratic system, practically, like many other nomadic peoples. Their only problem was that they never submitted to centralized authority. Their smokers were separate, so if they gathered a common army, this rarely happened. Often several kurens united into a small horde, led by the khan. When some khans united, the kagan acted at the head.

Khan occupied the highest position in the horde, and the word "kan" was traditionally added to the names of the Polovtsy who held this position. After him came the aristocrats, who disposed of the community members. Then the chapters who headed the rank and file soldiers. The lowest social position was occupied by women - servants and prisoners - prisoners of war who performed the functions of slaves. As it was written above, the horde included a certain number of kurens, which consisted of aul families. To own the kuren was appointed koshevoy (Turkic "kosh", "koshu" - nomadic, nomadic).

“The main occupation of the Polovtsians was cattle breeding. The main food of ordinary nomads was meat, milk and millet, their favorite drink was koumiss. The Polovtsians sewed their clothes according to their own steppe patterns. Shirts, caftans and leather trousers served as everyday clothes for the Polovtsians. Household chores reportedly Plano Carpini and Rubruka, usually women were engaged. The position of women among the Polovtsians was quite high. Polovtsian norms of behavior were governed by "common law". Blood feud took an important place in the system of Polovtsian customs.

For the most part, if we exclude the aristocracy, which began to accept Christianity, then the Polovtsians professed tengrianism ... Just like the Türkuts, the Polovtsians revered wolf ... Of course, shamans called "bashams" also served in their society, who communicated with the spirits and treated the sick. In principle, they were no different from the shamans of other nomadic peoples. The Cumans had a developed funeral cult, as well as the cult of ancestors, which gradually grew into the cult of "hero-leaders." Over the ashes of their dead, they poured mounds and erected the famous Kipchak balbals ("stone women"), erected, as in the Türkic Kaganate, in honor of the soldiers who died in the struggle for their land. These are wonderful monuments of material culture, reflecting the rich spiritual world of their creators.

Polovtsi often fought, and military affairs were in the first place for them. In addition to excellent bows and sabers, they also had javelins and spears. Most of the troops were light cavalry, consisting of horse archers. Also, the army had heavily armed cavalry, whose soldiers wore lamellar shells, plate shells, chain mail, helmets. In their free time, the warriors hunted to hone their skills.

Again, Stepophobic historians argued that the Polovtsians did not build cities, however, the cities of Sharukan, Sugrov, Cheshuev, founded by the Polovtsy, are mentioned in their lands. In addition, Sharukan (now the city of Kharkov) was the capital of the Western Cumans. According to the travel historian Rubruk, the Polovtsians owned Tmutarakan for a long time (according to another version, at that time it belonged to Byzantium). Probably, they were paid tribute by the Greek Crimean colonies.

Our story about the Polovtsians ends, however, despite the fact that this article has insufficient data about this interesting ethnic group and therefore must be supplemented.

Alexander Belyaev, MGIMO Eurasian Integration Club (U).

List of references:

1. 1. Gumilyov L. N. "Ancient Russia and the Great Steppe". Moscow. 2010
2. 2. Gumilyov L. N. "Millennium around the Caspian Sea". Moscow. 2009 r.
3. 3. Karamzin N. M. "History of the Russian State". St. Petersburg. 2008 r.
4. 4. Popov A. I. "Kypchaks and Russia". Leningrad. 1949 g.
5. 5. M. Grushevsky "Sketch of the history of the Kiev land from the death of Yaroslav toXIV century ". Kiev. 1891 g.
6. 6. Pletneva S. A. "Polovtsy". Moscow. 1990
7. 7. P.V. Golubovsky « Pechenegs, Torks and Polovtsians before the invasion of the Tatars ”. Kiev. 1884 g.
8. 8. Plano Carpini J. "The history of the Mongols, whom we call Tatars." 2009 //
9. 9. Rubruk G. "Travel to the Eastern Countries". 2011 //

In the eighth century, in the works of multilingual authors, the name of the tribe appeared, which was called the Polovtsy in Russia, the Comans in Central Europe, and the Kipchaks in the East. Muslim historians and Russian chroniclers know the Kipchaks-Polovtsians as a numerous, strong tribe, whose name the entire Great Steppe began to be called. For the first time the ethnonym "Kipchak" was recorded on a stone from the Selenga (759). The Iranian aristocrat Ibn Khordadbek in the Book of Ways and Provinces, written 846 - 847, gives the name of the Karluks and Kipchaks. So, for the first time in Muslim sources, mentions of the two largest tribal unions appeared, perhaps the most significant for the subsequent ethnic history of the Kazakh steppes. In the 8-10th centuries. the predominance of Kimaks and Kipchaks, first in the Altai, in the Irtysh and East Kazakhstan, becomes a determining factor in this vast steppe region. The collapse of the Kimak state at the beginning of the 11th century. and the displacement of a part of the Kipchaks to the west in the Aral and Volga regions constituted the main content of the new phase of the Kimak-Kipchak settlement. During this period, five main groups of Kipchak tribes were finally formed:

- Altai-Siberian;
- Kazakh-Ural (including the so-called "Saksin", ie Itil-Yaik group);
- Podonskaya (including the Ciscaucasian subgroup);
- Dnieper (including the Crimean subgroup);
- Danube (including the Balkan subgroup);

In addition, separate groups of Kipchaks are also known in Fergana and East Turkestan, Kashgaria. The period under consideration, according to the thought of Academician M. Kozybaev, is the time of the separation of ethnic groups from the Turkic tribes. In relation to Kazakh history, this period is called the Oguz-Kipchak era. In the 10th century, from the many tribal unions of Slavs, Romano-Germans, Turks, etc., settling the Eurasian space, the process of separation of ethnic groups begins. So, the Russian people appear in the West. According to the above author, at this time the Kipchak people were formed in the Great Steppe. We know L. Gumilyov's statement that in the 11th century. the Turks, as a superethnos, come to their decline. It was at this moment that the Kipchaks entered the historical arena. Here is what Mashkhur Zhusip Kopeev writes about this in his chronicle: “In the West - Syrdarya, in the East - Irtysh, in the South - Semirechye, in the North - Volga. The space between these four rivers was called the Deshti Kipchak, where 92 Kipchak clans were settled. " The Kipchaks, having removed the combined ethnonym “Turk” from the stage of history, themselves turned into a super-ethnos, into the core of other Turkic tribes.

The famous Persian poet, traveler, preacher Nasiri Khosrov in 1045 was the first and for centuries to name the lands from Altai to Itil (Volga river) Deshti Kipchak “The Kipchak steppe”. Half a century passed, and the Black Sea steppes became the Polovtsian Field of the Russian chronicles, and at the beginning of the 14th century. Persian historian Hamdallah Kazvini explained that the Volga-Donetsk steppes, formerly called the Khazar steppe, have long become the Kipchak steppe. In the 12th century, the Kipchaks turned into a formidable force that thrilled the entire Arab, Persian, Slavic, Romano-Germanic world. In 1055, a wave of movements of new steppe tribes rolled to the borders of Russia. All of them are associated with the Kipchaks. But in new places this general ethnopolitical term "Kipchak" did not take root. In Russia, the name balls "yellow", "sexual" were translated into the Slavic name, and from here all the newcomers received the name Polovtsy, and the steppe began to be called the Polovtsian Field. Then they reached the Volga, Don, Dnieper and Dniester. In 1071 the Kipchaks, having reached Asia Minor, conquered the city of Anatoli, thereby laying the foundation for the Ottoman Turks. In just 30 years, the Kipchaks reached the Carpathians, Danube and the Balkan Mountains. Those who went beyond the Danube, the Hungarians called them by the name of the kuns, but at the same time their other name was called kuna.

It is interesting to note that about a quarter of a million Magyar Kipchaks now live in Hungary. According to Istvan Konyr Mandoku, one of the major researchers, for various socio-political and historical reasons, they moved from the middle reaches of the Irtysh, the vicinity of the Aral Sea and other areas of the 9-13th centuries. In particular, it is known that during the invasion of Genghis Khan and then Batu, under the leadership of Khan Kodan, some of the Kipchaks moved to Hungary. Today the Magyars (Hungarian Kipchaks) live in two zones. The eastern ones call themselves the Great Kipchaks, the western ones - the Small Kipchaks. The former include the clans Ulas, Toksaba, Zhalayyr, Kereyt, Naiman, Bayandur, Pechene, Konyruli (hence the name of the researcher Istvan Konyr, who refers himself to the descendants of the Great Kipchaks). Small Kipchaks include clans: shortan, tortuyl, taz, zhylanshyk, buryshuly, kuyr, etc. It is also important that this scientist specially focuses on the fact that the Kipchak is not the name of any one clan. Kipchak is the name of the peoples who became part of the state of Deshti Kipchak. The great poet Magzhan Zhumabaev in his work "Flame" writes that after the Huns, our ancestors, the Kipchaks, reached the Alpine and Balkan Mountains. As Mahmud Kashgari proves, the Kipchaks, Oguzes and other tribes that were part of this tribal union spoke a surprisingly pure Turkic language. Thus, it became a common language for all Turkic tribes that were part of the Kipchak Union.

In the literature, there are statements that the Kipchaks are the core of the future Kazakh ethnos (protokazakh). However, academician M. Kozybaev considers this understanding to be insufficiently deep. He is of the opinion that in the 11-12 centuries. the Kipchak people were formed. The basis for this, according to the author, can be a single settlement territory, the Turkic tribes developing together, a common language formed by a nomadic, semi-nomadic way of life, a single cultural and spiritual attitude to the world, military democracy, common military actions - all this gives rise to a common worldview and basic qualities people. According to historical sources, the names "Kipchak" and "Kazakh" appeared at the same time. So, some authors believe. Nevertheless, the problem of the origin of the Kazakh people has not yet been sufficiently studied; many aspects of the most complex ethnogenetic process in the vast territory of Kazakhstan are not clear. In science, there are different assumptions about the nature of the ethnonym "Kazakh" and about when the Kazakh nationality was formed. It is obvious that the fact of the addition of the Kazakh people is not an accidental or one-time act. Ethnic processes that determined the formation of the Kazakh nation go back to antiquity and the Middle Ages, the era of the birth of statehood on the territory of Kazakhstan. Undoubtedly, the genetic connection of the medieval population of Kazakhstan - from Turks, Turgeshes, Karluks, Oguzes, Karakhanids, Karakhytays to Kipchaks, Naimans, Cyreites, Usuns and others, who became ethnic components of the Kazakh people.

Polovtsy (Kipchaks, Kumans), the Russian name for the Turkic-speaking nomadic people of Mongoloid origin, who came in the 11th century from the Trans-Volga region to the Black Sea steppes. The main occupation of the Polovtsians was nomadic cattle breeding. By the 12th century, craft specialties began to stand out among them: blacksmith, furrier, shoemaker, saddlery, archer, tailor. The Polovtsi lived in yurts, and in winter they camped on the banks of the rivers. They believed in good and evil spirits, they erected monuments to the dead - stone statues. In the 11th century, the Polovtsians were at the stage of decomposition of the primitive system. Separate family clans were isolated from them, the heads of which were called beys. Families united into clans headed by beks. The clans united in hordes, led by soltans. Several hordes formed a tribe led by the khan. The Polovtsians had the right to blood feud. Predatory raids on the lands of neighboring peoples were an important element of social life. The Polovtsian army consisted of light and heavy cavalry and was distinguished by great mobility. Women often took part in the battles. In 1054, the Russians first encountered the Polovtsy, who repeatedly attacked the Russian lands, inflicting heavy defeats on the troops of the Kiev princes (in 1068, 1092, 1093, 1096). The Polovtsi made campaigns to Hungary (1070, 1091, 1094) and Byzantium (1087, 1095). In 1091, they helped the Byzantine emperor Alexei Komnenus defeat the Pechenegs in the Gebr River valley. At the beginning of the 12th century, the Kiev princes Svyatopolk Izyaslavich and Vladimir Monomakh managed to organize a series of victorious campaigns against the Polovtsy (1103, 1106, 1107, 1109, 1111, 1116), as a result of which only a small horde of Khan Sarchak remained to roam in the Don region. His brother the Youth with 40 thousand Polovtsians went to the Caucasus to the Georgian king David the Builder, who used them in the fight against the Seljuks. The Polovtsian campaign to the Volga-Kama Bulgaria in 1117 had no success. After the death of Vladimir Monomakh (1125), the Polovtsy again consolidated on the Don. Many Russian princes married noble Polovtsian women, settled Polovtsians within Russia and used them as a military force. In the 1170-1180s, the Polovtsian onslaught against Russia intensified. However, the campaigns of the troops of the Russian princes undermined their military power. In 1223, the Polovtsians were twice defeated by the Mongols - in the North Caucasus and in the battle on the Kalka River, where the Polovtsians were allies of the Russian princes. As a result of the Mongol-Tatar invasion, some of the Polovtsy became part of the Golden Horde, and some moved to Hungary. The struggle of the Russian people with the Polovtsians is reflected in the annals and in the "Lay of Igor's Host."

The Polovtsi are one of the most mysterious steppe peoples, which went down in Russian history thanks to the raids on the principalities and the repeated attempts of the rulers of the Russian lands, if not to defeat the steppe inhabitants, then at least to come to an agreement with them. The Cumans themselves were defeated by the Mongols and settled over a large part of Europe and Asia. Now there is no people who could directly trace their genealogy to the Polovtsians. And yet they certainly have descendants.

In the steppe (Deshti-Kipchak - Kipchak, or Polovtsian steppe) lived not only the Polovtsians, but also other peoples, who are sometimes united with the Polovtsians, sometimes they are considered independent: for example, the Cumans and Kuns. Most likely, the Polovtsians were not a "monolithic" ethnic group, but were divided into tribes. Arab historians of the early Middle Ages distinguish 11 tribes, Russian chronicles also indicate that different Polovtsian tribes lived west and east of the Dnieper, east of the Volga, near the Seversky Donets.

Many Russian princes were the descendants of the Polovtsians - their fathers often married noble Polovtsian girls. Not so long ago, a dispute broke out about how Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky actually looked. According to the reconstruction of Mikhail Gerasimov, in his appearance, Mongoloid features were combined with Caucasoid ones. However, some modern researchers, for example, Vladimir Zvyagin, believe that there were no Mongoloid features in the appearance of the prince at all.

What did the Polovtsians themselves look like?

There is no consensus among researchers on this score. In the sources of the XI-XII centuries, the Polovtsians are often called "yellow". The Russian word also probably comes from the word "sexual", that is, yellow, straw.

Some historians believe that among the ancestors of the Polovtsians were the "dinlins" described by the Chinese: people who lived in southern Siberia and were blond. But the authoritative researcher of the Polovtsi Svetlana Pletneva, who has repeatedly worked with materials from the mounds, does not agree with the hypothesis about the "fair hair" of the Polovtsian ethnic group. “Yellow” can be the self-name of a part of a nationality, in order to distinguish itself, to oppose the rest (in the same period there were, for example, “black” Bulgarians).

According to Pletneva, the bulk of the Polovtsians were brown-eyed and dark-haired - these are Turks with an admixture of Mongoloid. It is quite possible that among them there were people of different types of appearance - the Polovtsians willingly took as wives and concubines of Slavs, however, not of princely families. The princes never gave their daughters and sisters to the steppe dwellers. In the Polovtsian nomad camps there were also Rusichs who were captured in the battle, as well as slaves.

Hungarian king of the Cumans and the "Cuman Hungarians"

Part of Hungary's history is directly related to the Cumans. Several Polovtsian families settled on its territory already in 1091. In 1238, pressed by the Mongols, the Polovtsians under the leadership of Khan Kotyan settled there with the permission of King Bela IV, who needed allies.
In Hungary, as in some other European countries, the Polovtsians were called "Cumans". The lands on which they began to live were named Kunság (Kunsag, Kumania). In total, up to 40 thousand people arrived at the new place of residence.

Khan Kotyan even gave his daughter to Bela's son Istvan. He and the Polovtsian Irzhebet (Ershebet) had a boy Laszlo. For his origin he was nicknamed "Kun".

According to his images, he did not look like a Caucasian without an admixture of Mongoloid features. Rather, these portraits remind us of the reconstruction of the external appearance of the steppe inhabitants familiar from history textbooks.

Laszlo's personal guard consisted of his fellow tribesmen, he appreciated the customs and traditions of his mother's people. Despite the fact that he was officially a Christian, he and other Cumans even prayed in Cuman (Cuman).

The Cuman Polovtsians gradually assimilated. For some time, up to the end of the 14th century, they wore national clothes, lived in yurts, but gradually adopted the culture of the Hungarians. The Cuman language was supplanted by the Hungarian language, the communal lands became the property of the nobility, who also wanted to look "more Hungarian". The Kunsag region was subordinated to the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. As a result of the wars, up to half of the Kipchak Polovtsians perished. A century later, the language completely disappeared.

Now the distant descendants of the steppe people do not differ in any way from the rest of the inhabitants of Hungary - they are Caucasians.

Polovtsi in Bulgaria

Polovtsi have been arriving in Bulgaria for several centuries. In the XII century, the territory was under the rule of Byzantium, the Polovtsian settlers were engaged in cattle breeding there, trying to enter the service.

In the 13th century, the number of steppe dwellers who moved to Bulgaria increased. Some of them came from Hungary after the death of Khan Kotyan. But in Bulgaria they quickly mixed with the locals, adopted Christianity and lost their special ethnic features. Possibly, Polovtsian blood is now flowing in a certain number of Bulgarians. Unfortunately, it is still difficult to accurately identify the genetic characteristics of the Polovtsians, because there are plenty of Turkic features in the Bulgarian ethnos due to its origin. Bulgarians also have a Caucasian appearance.

Polovtsian blood in Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Uzbeks and Tatars

Many Cumans did not migrate - they mixed with the Tatar-Mongols. The Arab historian Al-Omari (Shihabuddin al-Umari) wrote that, having joined the Golden Horde, the Polovtsians switched to the position of subjects. The Tatar-Mongols who settled on the territory of the Polovtsian steppe gradually mixed with the Polovtsians. Al-Omari concludes that after several generations the Tatars began to look like the Polovtsians: “as if from the same clan (with them),” because they began to live on their lands.

Later, these peoples settled in different territories and took part in the ethnogenesis of many modern nations, including Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Kirghiz and other Turkic-speaking peoples. The types of appearance for each of these (and those listed in the title of the section) nations are different, but each has a share of Polovtsian blood.

The Polovtsi are also among the ancestors of the Crimean Tatars. The steppe dialect of the Crimean Tatar language belongs to the Kypchak group of Turkic languages, and the Kypchak is a descendant of the Polovtsian. The Cumans mixed with the descendants of the Huns, Pechenegs, and Khazars. Now the majority of Crimean Tatars are Caucasians (80%), Crimean steppe Tatars have Caucasian-Mongoloid appearance.

The Polovtsi are one of the most mysterious steppe peoples, which went down in Russian history thanks to the raids on the principalities and the repeated attempts of the rulers of the Russian lands, if not to defeat the steppe inhabitants, then at least to come to an agreement with them.

The Cumans themselves were defeated by the Mongols and settled over a large part of Europe and Asia. Now there is no people who could directly trace their genealogy to the Polovtsians. And yet they certainly have descendants.

Polovtsi. Nicholas Roerich

In the steppe (Deshti-Kipchak - Kipchak, or Polovtsian steppe) lived not only the Polovtsians, but also other peoples, who are sometimes united with the Polovtsians, sometimes they are considered independent: for example, the Cumans and Kuns. Most likely, the Polovtsians were not a "monolithic" ethnic group, but were divided into tribes. Arab historians of the early Middle Ages distinguish 11 tribes, Russian chronicles also indicate that different Polovtsian tribes lived west and east of the Dnieper, east of the Volga, near the Seversky Donets.

Many Russian princes were the descendants of the Polovtsians - their fathers often married noble Polovtsian girls. Not so long ago, a dispute broke out about how Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky actually looked.

It is known that the mother of the prince was a Polovtsian princess, so it is not surprising that, according to the reconstruction of Mikhail Gerasimov, in his appearance, Mongoloid features were combined with Caucasoid ones.

What Andrei Bogolyubsky looked like: reconstruction made by V.N. Zvyagin (left) and M.M. Gerasimov (right)

What did the Polovtsians themselves look like?

Khan Polovtsy (reconstruction)
There is no consensus among researchers on this score. In the sources of the XI-XII centuries, the Polovtsians are often called "yellow". The Russian word also probably comes from the word "sexual", that is, yellow, straw.

Some historians believe that among the ancestors of the Polovtsians were the "dinlins" described by the Chinese: people who lived in southern Siberia and were blond. But the authoritative researcher of the Polovtsi Svetlana Pletneva, who has repeatedly worked with materials from the mounds, does not agree with the hypothesis about the "fair hair" of the Polovtsian ethnic group. “Yellow” can be the self-name of a part of a nationality, in order to distinguish itself, to oppose the rest (in the same period, there were, for example, “black” Bulgarians).

Polovtsian camp

According to Pletneva, the bulk of the Polovtsians were brown-eyed and dark-haired - these are Turks with an admixture of Mongoloid. It is quite possible that among them there were people of different types of appearance - the Polovtsians willingly took as wives and concubines of Slavs, however, not of princely families. The princes never gave their daughters and sisters to the steppe dwellers.

In the Polovtsian nomad camps there were also Rusichs who were captured in the battle, as well as slaves.