The Pechenegs () or Patzinaks, ; , , , , , , , , ; , were a semi-nomadic Turkic people from Central Asia who spoke the Pecheneg language. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Pechenegs controlled much of the steppes of southeast Europe and the Crimean Peninsula. In the 9th century, the Pechenegs began a period of wars against Rus', and for more than two centuries launched raids into the lands of Rus', which sometimes escalated into full-scale wars.
Ethnonym
The Pechenegs were mentioned as Bjnak, Bjanak or Bajanak in medieval Arabic and Persian texts, as Be-ča-nag in Classical Tibetan documents, and as Pačanak-i in works written in Georgian. Anna Komnene and other Byzantine authors referred to them as Patzinakoi or Patzinakitai. In medieval Latin texts, the Pechenegs were referred to as Pizenaci, Bisseni or Bessi. East Slavic peoples use the terms Pečenegi or Pečenezi (plural of Pečeneg), while the Poles mention them as Pieczyngowie or Piecinigi. The Hungarian word for Pecheneg is besenyő; the Romanian term is Pecenegi.
According to Max Vasmer and some other researchers the ethnonym Pecheneg may have derived from the Old Turkic word for "brother-in-law, relative" (eg. ), implying that it initially referred to an "in-law related clan or tribe". Peter Golden considers this derivation by no means certain.
In Mahmud Kashgari's 11th-century work Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, the Pechenegs were described as "a Turkic nation living around the country of the Rum" (Rum was the Turkic word for the Eastern Roman Empire or Anatolia) and "a branch of Oghuz Turks"; he subsequently described the Oghuz as being formed of 22 branches, of which the Pecheneg were the 19th.
Pechenegs are mentioned as one of 24 ancient tribes of Oghuzes by 14th-century statesman and historian of Ilkhanate-ruled Iran Rashid-al-Din Hamadani in his work Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh ("Compendium of Chronicles") with the meaning of the ethnonym as "the one who shows eagerness". The 17th-century khan of Khiva and historian Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur mentions the Pechenegs as bechene among 24 ancient tribes of Turkmens (or Oghuzes) in his book Shajara-i Tarākima (Genealogy of the Turkmen) and provides for its meaning as "the one who makes".
Three of the eight Pecheneg "provinces" or clans were collectively known as Kangars. According to Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, the Kangars received this denomination because "they are more valiant and noble than the rest" of the people "and that is what the title Kangar signifies".Constantine Porphyrogenitus: De Administrando Imperio (ch. 37), p. 171. Because no Turkic word with a similar meaning is known, Ármin Vámbéry connected the ethnonym to the Kyrgyz words kangir ("agile"), kangirmak ("to go out riding") and kani-kara ("black-blooded"), while Carlile Aylmer Macartney associated it with the Chagatai word gang ("chariot"), semantically related to the Turkic Gaoche.Golden, Peter B., "Ethnogenesis in the Tribal Zone: The Shaping of the Türks". From: Studies on the Peoples and Cultures of the Eurasian Steppes, ed. C. Hriban, Florilegium magistrorum historiae archaeologicaeque Antiquitatis et Medii Aevi, IX (Bucharest-Brăla, 2011):17-63 / ISBN 978-973-27-2152-0
Omeljan Pritsak proposed that the name had initially been a composite term (Kängär As, mentioned in Old Turkic texts) deriving from the Tocharian word for stone (kank) and the ethnonym As, suggesting that they were Tocharian-speaking or at least formed a confederation consisting of Tocharian, Eastern Iranian and Bulgaric Turkic elements. Their connection with Eastern Iranian elements is hinted at in the remark of al-Biruni regarding a people that "are of the race of al-Lān and that of al-Ās and their language is a mixture of the languages of Khwarazmians and the Badjanak.".
However, Golden objected that *Aoruša would have yielded Ors/Urs and Pritsak's opinion on the Kengeres-Kangars' ethnonym and mixed Tocharian-Iranian origin remained "highly hypothetical".
If the latter assumption is valid, the Kangars' ethnonym suggests that (East) Iranian elements contributed to the formation of the Pecheneg people but Spinei concedes that Pechenegs were of "a predominantly Turkic character... beyond any doubt".Victor Spinei, "Romanians and the Turkic Nomads North of the Danube Delta from the Tenth to the Mid-Thirteenth Century", / Brill 2009, p.181 This may be mirrored in the Old Rus translation of Josephus Flavius (ed. Meshcherskiy, 454) which adds "the Yas, as is known, descended from the Pecheneg tribe." Based on their fragmentary linguistic remains, scholars view them as Common Turkic-speakers, most probably Kipchak (Németh, followed by Ligeti)Németh, "Die Inschriften," 16, pp. 50-1; Ligeti, "A magyar nyelv," p.362, 506; and Györffy, "A Besenyők nyelve," p.170-91. Cited in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (New Edition), Vol.VIII, Leiden 1994, p.289 or Oguz (Baskakov).Баскаков, Н. А. Тюркские языки, Москва 1960, с. 126-131. Hammer-Purgstall classifies the Chinese Kangju and Byzantine Kangar as purely Turkic name variants of the Kangly;Hammer-Purgstall, Joseph, Freiherr von, Geschichte der Goldenen horde in Kiptschak, das ist: der Mongolen in Russland, 1840. digital page n70 or 6/mode/2up. however, Wang Pu's institutional historical work Tang Huiyao apparently distinguishes the Kang(ju) from the Kangheli (aka Kangly).Tang Huiyao, "Vol. 72" quote: "康國馬。康居國也。是大宛馬種。形容極大。武德中。康國獻四千匹。今時官馬。猶是其種。……康曷利馬。印宅。" rough translation: "Horses of the Kang nation, which is the Kangju nation. They are a stock of Dayuan horses. In the middle of the Wude era [622 - 626 CE], the Kang nation tributed 4,000 horses. Nowadays, the officials' horses are [probably] of that stock. [...] Kangheli's horses; tamga [resembles] [character] 宅" Menges saw in Kang-ar-as the plural-suffix -as, and Klyashtorny the Turkic numerus collectivus -ar-, -er-.K. H. Menges, Altaic elements, s. 101-104. (cited PDF)S.G. Klyaštornij, Drevnetyurkskie Runiçeskie Pamyatniki Kak Istoçnik Po Istorii Sredney Azii, Moscow 1964, p.163-167 (cited PDF)
Language
Mahmud al-Kashgari, an 11th-century man of letters who specialized in Turkic dialects, argued that the language spoken by the Pechenegs was a variant of the Cuman and Oghuz idioms. He suggested that foreign influences on the Pechenegs gave rise to phonetic differences between their tongue and the idiom spoken by other Turkic peoples. Anna Komnene likewise stated that the Pechenegs and the Cumans shared a common language. Although the Pecheneg language itself died out centuries ago, the names of the Pecheneg "provinces" recorded by Constantine Porphyrogenitus prove that the Pechenegs spoke a Turkic language. The Pechenegs are thought to have belonged to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic family, but their language is poorly documented and therefore difficult to further classify.Баскаков, Н. А. Тюркские языки, Москва 1960, с. 126-131.
Composition
Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos lists eight Pecheneg tribal groupings, four on each side of the Dnieper river, reflecting the bipartite left-right Turkic organization. These eight tribes were, in turn, divided into 40 sub-tribes, probably clans. Constantine VII also records the names of eight former tribal leaders who had been leading the Pechenegs when they were expelled by the Khazars and Oghuzes. Golden, following Németh and Ligeti, proposes that each tribal name consists of two parts: the first part being an equine coat color, the other the tribal ruler's title.
The Erdim, Čur, and Yula tribes formed the Qangar/Kenger (Greek: Καγγαρ) and were deemed "more valiant and noble than the rest".
+Tribal Compositions Transcribed tribal name Reconstructed tribal name Meaning Location Transcribed leader's name Reconstructed leader's name Ιαβδι-ερτί(μ) *Yavdı-Erdim Tribe of the Erdem with brilliant, shining horses Dniepr's west bank Βαϊτζαν *Bay-ča Κουαρτζι-τζούρ *Küerči-Čur Tribe of the Čur with bluish horses Dniepr's east bank Κούελ *Küğel Χαβουξιν-γυλά *Qabuqšın-Yula or *Khabuži/Kapuži-Jula Tribe of the Yula with bark-colored horses Dniepr's west bank Κουρκοῡται *Qorqutai Συρου-κουλπέη *Suru-Kül-Bey Tribe of the Kül-Bey with grayish horses Dniepr's east bank Ιπαόν *Ipa / *Iba (?), Χαρα-βοη *Qara-Bay Tribe of the Bey with black horses Dniepr's west bank Καϊδούμ *Qaydum Βορο-ταλμάτ *Boru-Tolmač Tribe of the Tolmač with grayish horses Dniepr's east bank Κώσταν *Qosta Γιαζι-χοπὸν *Yazı-Qap(ğ)an Tribe of the Qap(ğ)an with dark-brown horses Dniepr's west bank Γιαζή *Yazı Βουλα-τζοπόν *Bula-Čopan Tribe of the Čopan with piebald horses Dniepr's east bank Βατᾱν *Bata / *Bota
Notes
History
Origins and area According to Omeljan Pritsak, the Pechenegs are descendants of the ancient Kangars who originate from Tashkent. The Orkhon inscriptions listed the Kangars among the subject peoples of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate. Pritsak says that the Pechenegs' homeland was located between the Aral Sea and the middle course of the Syr Darya along the important trade routes connecting Central Asia with Eastern Europe, and associates them with Kangars.
According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus writing in c. 950, the Pecheneg realm, or Patzinakia stretched west as far as the Siret River (or possibly the Eastern Carpathian Mountains), and was four days' journey from "Tourkias" (i.e. Hungary).
Paul Pelliot originated the proposal that the Book of Suia 7th-century Chinese workpreserved the earliest record on the Pechenegs. The book mentioned a people named Bĕirù, who had settled near the Ēnqū and Alan peoples (identified as Onogurs and Alans, respectively), to the east of Fulin (or the Eastern Roman Empire). Victor Spinei emphasizes that the Pechenegs' association with the Bĕirù is "uncertain". He proposes that an 8th-century Uyghur envoy's report, which survives in Tibetan translation, contains the first certain reference to the Pechenegs. The report recorded an armed conflict between the Be-ča-nag and the Hor (Uyghurs or Oghuz Turks) peoples in the region of the Syr Darya.
Ibn Khordadbeh (c. 820 – 912 CE), Mahmud al-Kashgari (11th century), Muhammad al-Idrisi (1100–1165), and many other Muslim scholars agree that the Pechenegs belonged to the Turkic peoples. The Russian Primary Chronicle stated that the "Torkmens, Pechenegs, Torks, and Polovcians" descended from "the godless sons of Ishmael, who had been sent as a chastisement to the Christians".Russian Primary Chronicle (year 6604/1096), p. 184)
Westward migration
The Turkic Khaganate collapsed in 744, which gave rise to a series of intertribal confrontations in the Eurasian steppes. The Karluks attacked the Oghuz Turks, forcing them to launch a westward migration towards the Pechenegs' lands. The Uyghur envoy's report testifies that the Oghuz and Pecheneg waged war against each other in the 8th century, most probably for the control of trade routes. The Oghuz allied with the Karluks and Kimaks and defeated the Pechenegs and their allies in a battle near the Aral Sea before 850, according to the 10th-century scholar Al-Masudi. Most Pechenegs then migrated towards the Volga River, but some groups were forced to join the Oghuz. The latter formed the 19th tribe of the Oghuz tribal federation in the 11th century.
The Pechenegs who left their homeland settled between the Ural and the Volga rivers. According to Gardizi and other Muslim scholars who based their works on 9th-century sources, the Pechenegs' new territory was quite large, with a 30-day-walk extension, and were bordered by the Cumans, Khazars, Oghuz Turks and Slavs.