ISSN: 2158-7051 ==================== INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN STUDIES ==================== ISSUE NO. 7 ( 2018/2 ) |
NOMADIC CULTURES IN THE MEGA-STRUCTURE OF THE EURASIAN WORLD, By Ayse Dietrich* and Richard Dietrich**, Published by: Academic
Studies Press, LRC Publishing House, Brighton, MA. Evgenij N.
Chernykh, translated by Irina Savinetskaya and Peter N. Hommel. Year of
Publication: 2017. Subject Area: Eurasian History. Book Type: Research. Total
Number of Pages: 696. ISBN: 9781618115522, $149.00, Hardcover.
Nomadic Cultures in the Mega-Structure of the Eurasian World by Evgenij N. Chernykh is a comprehensive work that examines the
history of Eurasian nomadic peoples and their influence on world history and
culture. Translated from the original Russian, it consists of an introduction,
forty chapters organized into five parts, five appendixes, two extensive bibliographies
– one for sources written before 1500, and one for modern sources - and an
index.
The book begins with “Part I: The Steppe Belt in the Mega-Structure
of the Eurasian World”, which contains three chapters. This section provides a
detailed description of the geo-ecology of the Eurasian steppe zone, as well as
an introduction to the impact of the region’s geo-ecology on human existence.
The discussion of how Eurasia’s landforms and climatic regions have affected
human migration and settlement is particularly detailed and extremely well
illustrated.
The second section, “Part II. The
Archaeology of Nomadic Cultures” is comprised of sixteen chapters that cover
the period from the Bronze Age through the period of the Scythians and ends
with the collapse of the Sarmatians in the 4th century CE. This
section begins with a discussion of the use of archaeology to reconstruct the
history of Eurasia in pre-literate periods, and highlights archaeologists’
heavy reliance on excavations of burial structures which are often the only
remaining structures of past cultures in this region. However, the author
provides a cautionary note against what he terms the “Mongolian Syndrome”. He
points out that while the Mongol conquests of the 13th century are
extremely well documented in numerous written sources from China to Western
Europe, they left very little archaeological evidence
of their presence – no major urban sites nor elaborate burials. Chernykh argues
that if the Mongol conquests had occurred during an earlier period when there
were no written sources, archaeologists would have little physical evidence of
their existence or the role they played in events across Eurasia. As a result,
gaps in historic or prehistoric archaeological sequences may not be indicative
of a lack human occupation in that period, but rather occupation by a group or
groups that left little physical evidence behind.
The remaining chapters cover the development metallurgy and the
spread of metal working from ancient Anatolia and the Near East across Eurasia.
They trace the various cultures that have been identified through tool and
pottery remains and their diffusion into new regions. After a discussion of the
development of metal working in China, the author moves on the spread of iron working
across Eurasia and its impact. The section ends with the history of the
Scythians, examined both from the descriptions found in Herodotus and other
Greek sources and the archaeological record.
The next section, “Part III.
Nomadic Culture in Historical Context” is comprised of eleven chapters. The
first two examine the rise of Islam and the following Arab conquests, and the
conflicts between Muslims and Catholic Christians, focusing primarily on the
Crusades. The remainder of this section is devoted to the history of what the
author describes as three “waves from the east” – the Huns, the Turks and the
Mongols. Chernykh presents a relatively concise of the Huns and their
interaction with Rome in one chapter, but a considerably more detailed history
of the “Huns” / Xiongnu in the east in the following chapter. The author not
only analyses the relations between the Chinese and the Xiongnu, but also
presents what archaeological excavations have revealed about the culture of the
Xiongnu. The following two chapters are dedicated to the second wave, the
Turks. One chapter is dedicated to the Eastern and Western Turkic Khanates,
while the other discusses later Turkic powers in Eurasia – the Bulgars,
Khazars, Oghuz and Cumans. The next four chapters cover the history of the
Mongols, the third wave from the east. The first of these four chapters
examines the history of the Mongols in China and Tibet, the next the Mongols in
the Islamic lands, the third the Mongols and the Christian lands, and the
fourth investigates the collapse of the Mongol Empire. This section ends with a
chapter that examines the similarities and differences of the three waves of
invasion, the issues with the written sources from these periods, and
archaeological issues related to Mongol history.
“Part IV. Rus’, Russia and the Nomadic World” is the title of the
next section which contains seven chapters. The first two parts examine the
early history of Kievan Rus’ and the existence of the neighboring Turkic
nomadic tribal unions – the Avars, Khazars, Pechenegs and Cumans - threatening
the southern border of the first Eastern Slavic state. Then comes
the period of the Mongol yoke which lasted more than two centuries bringing an
end to the Kievan state and, in turn, weakening the Horde. The chapter
continues with the period of Ivan the Terrible who contributed to the collapse
of the Rurik Dynasty, and then introduces the Time of Troubles period, a political
crisis in Russia that began right after the end of the Rurik Dynasty. This part
also includes the issues of the colonization of Northern Eurasia and the Kazakh
steppes by the Russians; the conquest of the Kazan Khanate; the Crimean
campaigns; the conquest of Kazakh Khanate; the subjugation of the Bukhara,
Khiva and Kokand Khanates; and finally, the history of the Soviet Union’s
relationship with the pastoral world of Eurasia.
The fifth and final section, “Part V. In place of an Epilogue: Difficult questions and complex
problems”, is, as its title suggests, an extended discussion in three chapters
of issues related to intellectual approaches to Eurasian history, the influence
of ideology and culture on historical interpretation, and historical
development.
The following five appendixes are an eclectic collection of
articles on the radiocarbon dating in western Eurasia; Genghis Khan and the
Taoist monk Ch’ang Ch’un; the excavation of the mass grave of the defenders of
Yaroslavl killed during Batu Khan’s siege in 1328; a Giray from Crimea who
claimed to be the last descendant of Genghis Khan; and the account of the
journey Lt. Chokan Valikhanov, an Kazakh officer in the imperial Russian army,
made from Verny (north of Lake Issyk Kul) to Kashgar in 1858.
While there are a number of other excellent books devoted to the
history of central Eurasia, among them The Empire of the Steppes: A History
of Central Asia (originally published in 1939) by René Grousset, Empires
of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the
Present (2009) by Christopher I. Beckwith, and By Steppe, Desert and
Ocean: The Birth of Eurasia (2015) by Barry Cunliffe, Chernykh’s work has a
number of qualities that make it a valuable addition to the histories of
Eurasia. To begin, Chernykh has attempted to present a comprehensive picture of
the history and culture of central Eurasia beginning from the earliest human
settlement down to the present. The lengthy sections on the geo-ecology of
central Eurasia make it very clear to the reader how the climate, landforms and
ecology have helped to shape the history and culture of this region. In addition,
the author has also shown how the history of this region and its cultures are
linked to the better known civilizations that surround it – Mesopotamia, the
Middle East, Europe and China. In presenting this ambitious account, Chernykh
has necessarily presented the history of these peripheral regions in a somewhat
summary fashion, but this does not detract from the points he is making. Another
very positive aspect of this work are the
illustrations. Every chapter is more extensively illustrated than any other
history of Eurasia with color photographs, drawings, maps and charts that make
the complex information in that chapter extremely clear. Finally, because it is
a translation of a work originally written in Russian and which relies heavily
on Russian-language secondary sources, this book makes a vast body of Russian
scholarship and Russian approaches to the history of Eurasia available to
readers and researchers who do not read Russian. For those who do know Russian,
the bibliography contains an extensive list of Russian works related to the
history, culture and geo-ecology of Eurasia. In short, for anyone, student or
scholar, with an interest in the history of Eurasia and its place in world
history this is a valuable work that can be highly recommended.
*Ayse Dietrich - Professor, Part-time, at Middle East Technical University, Department of History. Editor and the founder of the International Journal of Russian Studies e-mail: editor@ijors.net, dayse@metu.edu.tr, dietrichayse@yahoo.com
**Richard Dietrich - Lecturer, Middle East Technical University, Department of History e-mail: drichard@metu.edu.tr
© 2010, IJORS - INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN STUDIES