The end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries brought to light exceedingly important discoveries by archeologists on the continent of Asia. For the first time Asia appeared to the students of the distant past as a land where complex events had occurred which were related to the beginnings of the human race and where cultures, frequently high cultures, had come into being, displaced each other, and left profound imprints on world history.

The countries in which these discoveries were made are lands related to the general concept of the Far and Near East: India, Mesopotamia, Palestine, in the west; and China, Japan, parts of Korea, Indochina, and the Malayan Archipelago in the east.

All that lay deeper within Asia, to the north and east of China and India, however, in one way or another remained outside the image of world history during its earliest stages as viewed by the majority of scholars and people in general.

History, it would seem, had actually halted before the high barriers of the mountain ranges, these grandiose mountainous structures and the lands which partitioned off the world of the high agricultural cultures of the Near and Far East as known to European scholarship. Actually, however, beyond these frontiers there existed a world of history which, although unknown, was just as great.

Even a desultory glance at a physical map of the continent of Asia allows a graphic view of this frontier, allows us to sense and realize its grandiose dimensions, hence to conceive its very real effect on the course of the historical development of those who during antiquity lived here behind these natural and historical barriers in the very depths of the continent.

No barbarians survived so long and became so famous as those who are conventionally known as the Indo-Europeans. No discovery has created such a mirage as the possibility that so many languages of Europe and Asia are derived from a common origin and that we must look for the original people and their home in antiquity. For more than a century, this pursuit has withstood the challenges of science and prejudice alike. The truth may defy us, but the lure of it is still there. This gift of the comparative philologist is yet to be accepted by the archeologist, and the task of the historian is unenviable. While the original home of the Indo-Europeans remains to be finally settled, the charm of Chinese links with them has not ceased to attract. Perhaps Inner Asia holds the key.

The earliest linguistic remains of the Indo-Europeans in this area date from about the third quarter of the first millenium A.D. This consists of a literature, largely of Indic origin, Buddhistic in content, mostly translations or adaptations of religio-philosophical works, and a few commercial documents. They are written in a variety of the Indian syllabic script known as Brāhmī, remains of which have been recovered in various states of preservation from the ruins in the region of the modern cities of Kucha, Karashahr and Turfan. This linguistic relic, which is demonstrably Indo-European, strangely enough bears close affinity with the Western languages of the so-called “centum” group, rather than with the Indic and Iranian, the so-called “satem,” languages of the geographically contiguous areas.

Pre- and early history

At our present level of knowledge, we cannot define with certainty the boundaries between pre- and early history. This is due, on the one hand, to the fact that systematic excavations in Tibet and bordering regions have not yet been possible, nor are they to be expected in the near future. On the other hand we have access to the ancient Chinese historical works which contain historical and ethnographical data on the “barbarian peoples,” information which we must certainly use in spite of the fact that it is frequently adulterated with contemporary interpolations. In such sources one must also distinguish between the data which refer to those peoples who directly bordered the Chinese upland and had trade or military relations with the Chinese, and the data on those peoples who are merely mentioned from hearsay but had no direct contact with the Chinese and concerning whom certain “barbarian clichés” existed which, of course, have no historical value. Frequent mention is made for instance of the immorality of women who belonged to the various foreign peoples, information which simply shows that they had different sexual mores from those acceptable in China. Among the Tibetans and related peoples this would refer to the social institution of polyandry.

When we turn to the few available archeological finds, it is evident that their value is rather meager, consisting as they do of objects which have been found on the earth's surface or were unearthed by a slight scratching of the soil and that quite by chance.

Below a line running approximately from Kiev through Riazan to Kazan, lie the south Russian steppes. The region north of this line gives way to a transitional forest-steppe (lesostep') zone before becoming the densely wooded tracts of the Russian and Siberian forests. The latter, in turn, become the taiga and tundra zones in the far north. The great contrast in physical setting is reflected in the economic activities that evolved in these regions. The steppe, in historical times, was largely populated by pastoral nomads of Iranian and Altaic speech. The early population of the eastern Russian forests, our area of concern, consisted primarily of fishing and hunting peoples who spoke Uralic languages. The forest-steppe region became the contact zone between the southern nomads and the northern hunters and trappers. The former, when they entered the contact zone, made certain adaptations in their life-style, becoming semi-nomadic with ever greater emphasis placed on sedentary pursuits. Those Uralic elements that entered the forest-steppe zone, in turn, were drawn increasingly to the steppe and its mode of existence, becoming in time stereotypical, equestrian nomads.

The medieval history of the Russian forest belt is largely concerned with three important movements of peoples. The first is the steady expansion of the Eastern Slavic population from the western periphery of the Eurasian forests to the East. This movement was particularly successful in the forest zone and brought the Volga—Oka mesopotamia into their possession. It also led to the absorption and or conquest of the Finnic peoples of Northern and Central Russia.

No people of Inner Asia, not even the Mongols, have acquired in European historiography a notoriety similar to that of the Huns, whose name has become synonymous with that of cruel, destructive invaders. Just as the name of the Germanic Vandals has given us the term “vandalism,” the name Hun has been used pejoratively to stigmatize any ferocious, savage enemy. Their greatest ruler, Attila, “the scourge of God,” has become the legendary embodiment of a cruel, merciless leader of barbarians.

There are several reasons why the Huns caught the Western imagination. Firstly, not since Scythian times had any Inner Asian people seriously challenged the equilibrium of the Western World. The Germanic menace to Rome, serious though it was, presented nothing unusual or unexpected – it was part and parcel of Roman political life; the limits of conflict and the patterns of resolution were clearly established. The Huns presented a challenge of a different type: they did not fit into any conventional political category; their very looks, their mode of waging war set them apart from humanity as known to Europe. Secondly, they appeared on the European scene at a time when both the eastern and the western parts of the Roman Empire had to contend with serious internal disorders which weakened their military preparedness. Thirdly, the status quo of the period was disturbed not only by their direct action but even more by their being instrumental in setting into motion the great upheaval of peoples commonly known as the Völkerwanderung.

From the end of the 7th century B.C. to the 4th century B.C. the Central-Eurasian steppes were inhabited by two large groups of kin Iranian-speaking tribes – the Scythians and Sarmatians. While these two groups were ethnically close and their ways of life were very similar, each of them had their own historical destinies and characteristics, in economic and social development, as well as in culture. The periods of their greatest development and greatest significance in world history do not coincide.

The basic sources for the study of both these tribes are the testimonies of the Greek and Roman authors who were interested in different aspects of the life of barbarians, archeological and ancient epigraphical data. Written sources describing the Scythians are more numerous, but they contain only fragmentary and often contradictory evidence. The archeological materials dating back to the Scythians and Sarmatians are now enormous; thousands of burial sites have been examined, helping us to formulate and to resolve a number of questions about the Scythian and Sarmatian tribes, their material and spiritual culture. Along with this it must be said that the available written and archeological sources still do not enable us to give any definitive answer to certain important questions about both Scythian and Sarmatian history and archeology. These questions are still being discussed and are explained in different ways by different scholars.

However, the study of the Scythians and Sarmatians in the Soviet era has made very considerable advances, particularly through the accumulation of new archeological sources in the post-war period.

The written sources

Although our sources concerning the Avars are rather poor and their historical interpretation is not beyond dispute, the clearest picture that can be drawn of the European destinies of the Avars must rely, above all, on the testimony of Greek and Latin and – to a smaller extent – on the evidence provided by Oriental (Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Arabic) and Slavic sources. In spite of the fact that these sources view the Avars from the outside and represent a one-sided, Byzantine, Langobard or Frank point of view, they still constitute the most solid base for an approach to Avar history. There are no Avar records of any importance, and one must make do with such sources that are available. A survey of Avar history best begins with a conspectus of the main data culled from the available written sources.

As early as the 6th century B.C. a shaman-like wonderpriest called Abaris is known in the Hellenic tradition. It is however very questionable whether that name – supposedly a personal name of steppe origin – may be directly connected with the ethnic name of the Avars. The palimpsest of the Vatican, deciphered lately, seems to suggest the ethnonym “Aparnoi” which occurs in some manuscripts of Strabo may be a corrupted reading; and should not be considered a reference to the Avars. It is Priscus, chronicler of the great Eurasian migrations of about A.D. 463, who among the known Greek and Latin authors is the first to mention with certainty the name of the Avar people.

Unless they coincide with clearly defined physical boundaries – as is the case, for instance, with Australia – the borders of a cultural area can rarely be established with ease and accuracy. To some extent the problem lies with the highly subjective and often purely emotional criteria by which a civilization is defined. Thus, for example, as these lines are written, many nations would place themselves within a larger community which they call the “free world,” while no attempt is made to define what freedom may mean to human beings with a cultural background different from their own. If there is a “free world” then, presumably, there must exist, in the minds of those who use the term, another world, “not free,” and the differentiation is contingent on an emotionally charged interpretation of the ill-defined term of “freedom.” It is a well-known rule of logic that classifications made on the basis of a single attribute are artificial and of limited use. So there must be a cluster of attributes by which a human group is defined, and these must be specific and essential, if they are to serve a useful purpose. Yet what is essential to one observer is not to another. Some would opt for language, others for race, religion, or shared destiny in the past or the present. It is also quite common to find that individuals tend to identify their own community by criteria which may be different from those used for the same purpose by outsiders.

In the 540s there appeared on the Chinese horizon a people previously barely known which, within a few years, not only changed the balance of power in Mongolia – the traditional basis of great, nomad empires – but also introduced into the scene of Inner Asian and world history an ethnic and linguistic entity which in earlier times could not be identified or isolated from other groups showing the same cultural characteristics. It bore the name Türk, an appellation left in legacy to most later peoples speaking a Turkic-language. It stands to reason that the Türks of Mongolia were not the products of spontaneous generation and that one must, by necessity, reckon with other Turks living there or elsewhere in centuries preceding the foundation of the empire bearing their name. Yet, such considerations notwithstanding, it should not be lost from sight that the Türks are the first people to whom we can attribute with certainty a Turkic text written in a Turkic language, and that their name – so widely used ever since their rise to power – cannot be traced with absolute certainty before the sixth century A.D.

Early mentions of Türks

It could be that the first mention of the name Türk was made in the middle of the first century A.D. Pomponius Mela (I,116) refers to the Turcae in the forests north of the Azov Sea, and Pliny the Elder in his Natural History (VI, 19) gives a list of peoples living in the same area among whom figure the Tyrcae.

The second of the great nomad empires of Mongolia lasted from 744 to 840, and its capital was Karabalghasun on the High Orkhon River. For some years before its foundation, the Uighur leader, known to the Chinese as Ku-li p'ei-lo, had been consolidating the power of his own clan, the Yaghlakar, among the various Uighur tribes; and in 742, he led a coalition of Uighur, Karluk and Basmil forces in a successful attempt to drive the last important ruler of the Eastern Türks from the Mongolian steppes. This set the scene for further expansion of Ku-li p'ei-lo's power, and the Chinese historian tersely remarks that in 744 “he attacked and defeated the Basmil and took upon himself the title of Kutlugh bilgä Kö1 kaghan.” Shortly after this, the Karluk also became victims of the Uighur kaghan, and an easterly group of them was brought under subjection.

The empire's founder died in 747 and leadership devolved upon his son, Bilgä köl kaghan, called Mo-yen-ch'o in the Chinese sources. He was a brutal and ambitious man who carried forward his father's achievements by strengthening the monarchy and extending his people's domination over the Karluk and Basmil. He also added a further dimension to the historical importance of the Uighurs by ordering his eldest son to render to the great neighbouring T'ang empire in China invaluable military service against the An Lu-shan rebellion (755–63) which, despite its failure to overthrow the T'ang, dealt the dynasty a blow so heavy that it never fully recovered.

The Chinese written tradition traces the beginnings of the Hsiung-nu back to times immemorial. It is reported that the Hsiung-nu had been known in remote antiquity under a number of different names such as Hun-chu, Hsien-yün, Jung, Ti, etc. In modern times even the name Kuei-fang of the Shang period is added to the list. From a strictly historical point of view, however, all these identifications must remain conjectural in status. The present state of our historical knowledge does not permit us to give any reliable account of the Hsiung-nu much beyond the 3rd century B.C.; and the only other name with which the Hsiung-nu can be safely identified in early Chinese sources is Hu. In other words, the Hsiung-nu made their earliest formal appearance on the stage of Inner Asian history when Chinese history was just about to turn a new page – at the end of the Warring States period.

Interestingly enough, from early Chinese sources we know how China defended herself against the Hsiung-nu before we actually encounter the Hsiung-nu's armed incursions into China. In the late Warring States period three major states, Ch'in, Chao, and Yen, were all southern neighbors of the Hsiung-nu, and each as a defense against the nomads built a wall along its northern border. Of the three, Ch'in was the first to do so, probably no later than in 324 B.C.; but its entire walled defense system - in Lung-hsi (Kansu), Pei-ti (parts of Kansu and Ninghsia), and the Shang Commandery (parts of Shensi and Suiyuan) – was not completed until around 270 B.C. Next came the northern border wall of Chao, stretching from Yün-chung (in Suiyuan) through Yen-men to Tai (both in Shansi), which was built around 300.

The rich grasslands and abundant rivers of the Ponto-Caspian steppes, a continuation of the great Inner Asian plains, constituted a natural gravitation-point for the nomad migrating or ejected from the Asian hinterland. Given these favorable conditions, the long-distance nomadism common to Inner Asia tended to be muted and not infrequently transformed into a semi-nomadic system with increasing emphasis on permanent winter camps. Urban life and the practice of agriculture and other settled pursuits were more in evidence amongst the nomads here. A nomadic life-style, as we know from the Khazar and Hungarian models, became more and more the perquisite of the aristocracy, a badge of social distinction. Those tribal groupings that adopted the semi-nomadic model tended to be more stable and better able to withstand the vagaries of steppe life.

In times of turbulence the tribal and ethnic composition of these steppes became a richly hued mosaic, the colors and textures of which are only partially reflected in our sources. The latter largely stem from and were written in the languages of the surrounding sedentary societies. They are frequently incomplete, on occasion ill-informed and universally tend to view the nomad through the prisms of their own cultures.

The Ponto-Caspian steppes after Attila

The movement of the Huns toward Europe undoubtedly introduced new ethnic elements into the Ponto-Caspian steppes. These included Turkic speakers who later became the dominant ethno-linguistic grouping in this region. We have, however, scraps of evidence that appear to indicate that Turkic nomads were present here even before the Huns crossed the Volga.

It has been suggested, with some justice, that a limes system separating steppe from sown, barbarian from cultivated, urban society, spanned Eurasia. This system of fortifications and natural barriers, however, was not impenetrable. When the societies sheltered by these walls were strong, incursions from the nomadic world beyond were repulsed or contained. When their defences proved inadequate, sedentary societies either had to tame the “barbarian” by converting him to their culture or be completely transformed themselves. Western Central Asia, an Eastern Iranian area increasingly coming under the cultural influence of neighboring, kindred Sassanid Iran before the advent of Islam and the recipient of cultural currents emanating from the Mediterranean, India and China, was one of those zones through which the steppe-dweller could enter sedentary society. Conversely, its mercantile urban centers also served as a gateway through which the cultural and material achievements of settled society could penetrate the steppe. In the period under discussion, Western Central Asia, having recently accommodated itself to the political and cultural buffetings administered to it by expanding Arab power, was about to enter into another period of intense and intimate contact with the nomadic, Turkic societies to its north and north-east. In this instance, it would serve as the transmission zone for the cultural fruits of one nomadic society to another. Its role in this process was not passive, for the Islamic culture which entered the steppe zone had been influenced and reworked by the Eastern Iranians.