Who are the Pechenegs. Who are the Pechenegs, the struggle of Kievan Rus with their raids. Modern descendants of the Pechenegs

The Pechenegs are tribes that lived in the 8th-9th centuries. in the Volga steppes. They occupied a particularly large territory in the 9th century between the Volga and Danube rivers, representing a serious enemy for Russia.

Who are the Pechenegs, what kind of nomadic people are they? According to the chronicles and, above all, according to Nestor's Tale of Bygone Years, we learn that the Pechenegs were mainly engaged in cattle breeding, as they led a nomadic lifestyle. They lived in a tribal system, at the head of the clans were leaders who were chosen by the clan or tribe. At the head of all the tribes was a khan, or kagan. The power of the khans was not elective, but hereditary.

Russia and the Pechenegs

The history of the Pechenegs is closely connected with Russia. The vast expanses of Russia have always attracted these nomadic tribes. The Pechenegs were a serious danger to Russia for almost 120 years - from 915, when they first invaded Russia, until 1068, when they were decisively rebuffed by Yaroslav the Wise.

Chronology of the struggle of Russia with the Pechenegs

915 The first appearance of the Pechenegs on the territory of Russia during the reign of Prince Igor. He managed to sign a peace treaty with them.
920 Igor's war with the Pechenegs, as the tribes became a danger to Russia. A period of constant military clashes began, which was characterized by varying success on both sides.
968 In the reign of Princess Olga and Svyatoslav, they even reached the walls of Kyiv. Olga heroically led the defense of the city until Svyatoslav's squad arrived, which was at that time in the south of the country.
1036 Prince Yaroslav the Wise delivered a decisive blow to the Pechenegs. In honor of the victory, the famous St. Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv was erected. The victory over the Pechenegs glorified the name of the prince in the history of Ancient Russia.

However, the history of the Pechenegs does not end there. For more than three centuries they have been used as a military force. So, Yaroslav the Wise settled many of them in the south of the country, where they began to defend the borders of the state. The emperors of Byzantium made part of the Pechenegs their allies in the fight against Russia and Danube Bulgaria. And only in the 14th century the Pechenegs ceased to exist as a separate people, mixing with numerous peoples of different states: Russia. Byzantium, Western countries.

Such a fatal joke was played with the Pechenegs by history, with the once formidable and strong nomadic people.

It is believed that the Pechenegs came from Kangyui (Khorezm). This people was a mixture of Caucasoid and Mongoloid races. The Pecheneg language belonged to the Turkic group of languages. There were two branches of tribes, each of which consisted of 40 genera. One of the branches - the western one - was located in the basin of the Dnieper and Volga rivers, and the other - the eastern one - was adjacent to Russia and Bulgaria. The Pechenegs were engaged in cattle breeding, led a nomadic lifestyle. The head of the tribe was Grand Duke, kind - lesser prince. The choice of princes by tribal or tribal assembly. Basically, power was transferred by kinship.

History of the Pecheneg tribes

It is known that initially the Pechenegs wandered around Central Asia. At that time, Torks, Polovtsy and Pechenegs belonged to the same people. Records of this can be found both in Russian and Arabic, Byzantine and even some Western chroniclers. The Pechenegs made regular invasions of the scattered peoples of Europe, capturing captives who were either sold into slavery or returned to their homeland for ransom. Some of the captives became part of the people. Then the Pechenegs began to move from Asia to Europe. Having occupied the Volga basin to the Urals in the 8th-9th century, they were forced to flee from their territories under the onslaught of hostile Oghuz and Khazar tribes. In the 9th century, they managed to drive the nomadic Hungarians from the lowlands of the Volga and occupy this territory.

The Pechenegs attacked Kievan Rus in 915, 920 and 968, and in 944 and 971 they participated in campaigns against Byzantium and Bulgaria under the leadership of the Kievan princes. The Pechenegs betrayed the Russian squad by killing Svyatoslav Igorevich in 972 at the suggestion of the Byzantines. Since then, more than half a century of confrontation between Russia and the Pechenegs began. And only in 1036 Yaroslav the Wise managed to defeat the Pechenegs near Kiev, completing a series of endless raids on Russian lands.

Taking advantage of the situation, the Torks attacked the weakened army of the Pechenegs, driving them from the occupied lands. They had to migrate to the Balkans. In 11, the Pechenegs were allowed to settle on the southern borders of Kievan Rus for its protection. The Byzantines, tirelessly trying to win over the Pechenegs to their side in the struggle against Russia, settled the tribes in Hungary. The final assimilation of the Pechenegs took place at the turn of the 13th-14th centuries, when the Pechenegs, having mixed with the Torks, Hungarians, Russians, Byzantines and Mongols, finally lost their identity and ceased to exist as a single people.

Pechenegs(Old Slavic pєchenѣzi, other Greek Πατζινάκοι) - a union of Turkic-speaking nomadic tribes, presumably formed in the VIII-IX centuries. The Pecheneg language belonged to the Oguz subgroup of the Turkic language group.

They are mentioned in Byzantine, Arabic, Old Russian and Western European sources.

Exodus from Asia (Khazar period)

According to many scientists, the Pechenegs were part of the Kangly people. Part of the Pechenegs called themselves Kangars. At the end of the 9th century, those of them that bore the name "patzynak" (Pechenegs), as a result climate change(drought) in the steppe zone of Eurasia, as well as under pressure from neighboring tribes Kimaks and Oghuz crossed the Volga and ended up in the Eastern European steppes, where they previously roamed ugry. Under them, this land was called Levedia, and under the Pechenegs, it received the name padzinakia(Greek Πατζινακία).

Around 882, the Pechenegs reached the Crimea. At the same time, the Pechenegs come into conflict with the princes of Kyiv Askold (875 - this clash is described in later chronicles and is disputed by historians), Igor (915, 920). After the collapse of the Khazar Khaganate (965), power over the steppes west of the Volga passed to the Pecheneg hordes. During this period, the Pechenegs occupied the territories between Kievan Rus, Hungary, Danube Bulgaria, Alania, the territory of modern Mordovia and the Oguzes inhabiting Western Kazakhstan. The hegemony of the Pechenegs led to the decline of the sedentary culture, since the agricultural settlements of the Transnistrian Slavs (Tivertsy: Ekimoutskoe settlement) and the Don Alans (Mayatskoe settlement) were devastated and destroyed.

The nature of the relationship between Russia and nomads

From the very beginning, the Pechenegs and Rus became rivals and enemies. They belonged to different civilizations, there was an abyss of religious differences between them. In addition, both of them were distinguished by a warlike disposition. And if Russia over time acquired the features of a real state that provides for itself, which means it can not attack its neighbors for the purpose of profit, then its southern neighbors have remained nomads by nature, leading a semi-wild lifestyle.

Pechenegs are another wave splashed out by the Asian steppes. On the territory of Eastern Europe, this scenario has played out cyclically for several hundred years. At first these were Huns who by their migration marked the beginning of the Great Migration of Nations. Arriving in Europe, they terrified the more civilized peoples, but eventually disappeared. On their way in the future went Slavs and Magyars. However, they managed to survive, and even settle down and settle in a certain territory.

The Slavs, among other things, became a kind of "human shield" of Europe. It was they who constantly took the blow of new hordes. Pechenegs in this sense are just one of many. In the future, the Polovtsy will come to their place, and in the XIII century - the Mongols.

Relations with the steppes were determined not only by the two parties themselves, but also in Constantinople. Byzantine emperors sometimes tried to push neighbors. Various methods were used: gold, threats, assurances of friendship.

History of the Pechenegs associated with Russia

By the XI century, pressed by the Polovtsians, the Pechenegs roamed 13 tribes between the Danube and the Dnieper. Some of them professed the so-called Nestorianism. Bruno of Querfurt preached the Catholic faith among them with the help of Vladimir. Al-Bakri reports that around 1009 the Pechenegs converted to Islam.

Around 1010, a strife arose among the Pechenegs. The Pechenegs of Prince Tirakh converted to Islam, while the two western tribes of Prince Kegen (Belemarnids and Pahumanids, totaling 20,000 people) crossed the Danube into Byzantine territory under the scepter of Constantine Monomakh in Dobruja and adopted Byzantine-style Christianity.

The Byzantine emperor planned to make border guards out of them. However, in 1048, huge masses of Pechenegs (up to 80,000 people), led by Tirakh, crossed the Danube on ice and invaded the Balkan possessions of Byzantium.

The Pechenegs took part in the internecine war between Yaroslav the Wise and Svyatopolk the Accursed on the side of the latter. In 1016 they participated in the battle of Lyubech, in 1019 in the battle of Alta (both times unsuccessfully).

The last documented Russian-Pecheneg conflict is the siege of Kyiv in 1036, when the nomads besieging the city were finally defeated by Grand Duke Yaroslav the Wise, who arrived in time with the army. Yaroslav used a formation dissected along the front, placing Kievans and Novgorodians on the flanks. After that, the Pechenegs ceased to play an independent role, but acted as a significant part of the new tribal union of the Berendeys, also called black hoods. The memory of the Pechenegs was alive much later: for example, in literary work the Turkic hero Chelubey, who started the battle of Kulikovo with a duel, is called "Pecheneg".

The battle near Kiev in 1036 was the final one in the history of the Russo-Pecheneg wars.

Subsequently, the main part of the Pechenegs went to the steppes of the North-Western Black Sea region, and in 1046–1047, under the leadership of Khan Tirakh, they crossed the Danube ice and fell on Bulgaria, which at that time was a Byzantine province. Byzantium periodically waged a fierce war with them, then showered them with gifts. Further, the Pechenegs, unable to withstand the onslaught of the Torks, Polovtsy and Guzes, as well as the war with Byzantium, partly entered the Byzantine service as federates, partly were accepted by the Hungarian king to carry out border service, and for the same purpose were partly accepted by the Russian princes.

The other part, immediately after their defeat near Kiev, went to the southeast, where they assimilated among other nomadic peoples.

In 1048 the Western Pechenegs settled in Moesia. In 1071, the Pechenegs played an unclear role in the defeat of the Byzantine army near Manzikert. In 1091, the Byzantine-Polovtsian army inflicted a crushing defeat on the Pechenegs near the walls of Constantinople.

The Arab-Sicilian geographer of the 12th century, Abu Hamid al Garnati, writes in his essay about in large numbers Pechenegs south of Kyiv and in the city itself (“and there are thousands of Maghrebians in it”).

Descendants of the Pechenegs

In 1036, Prince Yaroslav the Wise (the son of the Baptist of Russia, Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich (from the Rurik family) and the Polotsk princess Rogneda Rogvolodovna) defeated the western unification of the Pechenegs. At the end of the 11th century, under pressure from the Polovtsy, they moved to the Balkan Peninsula or to Great Hungary. In accordance with the scientific hypothesis, one part of the Pechenegs formed the basis of the Gagauz and Karakalpak peoples. The other part joined the association of yurmata. The Kirghiz have a large clan Bechen (Bichine), genealogically descending from the Pechenegs.

Nevertheless, the memory of the steppes was alive among the people for a long time. So, already in 1380, in the battle on the Kulikovo field, the hero Chelubey, who began the battle with his own duel, was called the Pecheneg by the chronicler.

Foundations and occupations

The Pechenegs are a community of tribes, in the 10th century there were eight of them, in the 11th - thirteen. Each tribe had a khan, who was chosen, as a rule, from one clan. As a military force, the Pechenegs were a powerful formation. In battle formation, they used the same wedge, which consisted of separate detachments, carts were installed between the detachments, and a reserve stood behind the carts.

However, the researchers write that the main occupation for the Pechenegs was nomadic pastoralism. They lived in tribal order. But they were not averse to making war as mercenaries.

Appearance

According to the evidence of available ancient sources, at the time of the appearance of the Pechenegs in the Black Sea region in their appearance dominated by European traits. They are characterized as dark-haired, who shaved their beards (according to the description in the travel notes of the Arab author Ahmad ibn Fadlan), had short stature, narrow faces, small eyes.

Lifestyle

The steppes, as one would expect, were mainly engaged in cattle breeding and wandered along with their animals. Fortunately, there were all conditions for this, since the tribal union was located in a vast area. The internal structure was like this. There were two big groups. The first settled between the Dnieper and the Volga, while the second roamed between Russia and Bulgaria. In each of them there were forty genera. The approximate center of the possessions of the tribe was the Dnieper, which divided the steppes into western and eastern.

The head of the tribe was chosen at a general meeting. Despite the tradition of counting votes, fathers were mostly inherited by children.

Pechenegs in art

The siege of Kyiv by the Pechenegs is reflected in the poem by A. S. Pushkin "Ruslan and Lyudmila":

In the distance, lifting black dust;

The marching carts are coming,

Bonfires are burning on the hills.

Trouble: the Pechenegs rebelled!

In Sergei Yesenin's poem "Walking Field" there are lines:

Am I sleeping and dreaming

What with spears from all sides,

Are we surrounded by Pechenegs?

In Russian, Ukrainian legends and epics, the name Pechenegs is found, which is usually associated with stories of robbery, raids on peaceful settlements. Well, in short, the Pechenegs did not leave a good memory of themselves. But what were they really like, where did they come from and how did they disappear?

Who named from the Pechenegs?

The name "Pechenegs" in its sound is definitely of Slavic origin: something like basking on the stove. And here we must remember the Middle Ages, when there was a county of Pest in Hungary, between the Tisza and the Danube. The capital of Pest was the city of Buda Pest - a familiar name, isn't it. The name Pest itself is slightly distorted by German phonetics, but in general it is a Slavic "oven". This is evidenced by the German name of the city of Pest, Ofen, which also means "furnace".

The name Pest comes from the special tower-like structures used to smelt iron from ore. They are still called blast furnaces, but they are called so not because they look like houses, but because they smoke forever.

Nevertheless, it is believed that the Pechenegs are a mixture of European tribes and Turkic tribes that roamed the steppes of Central Asia. It was the nomads who laid the foundation. The language of the Pechenegs is also of Turkic origin.

Pecheneg migrations

It is not known exactly when the Pechenegs moved from Asia to Europe. In the VIII-IX centuries they inhabited the space between the Urals and the Volga, but left from there to the west under the pressure of the Oghuz, Kipchaks and Khazars. The Pechenegs defeated the Hungarians in the 9th century, who also roamed then in the Black Sea steppes and occupied a vast territory from the lower Volga to the mouth of the Danube.

Apparently they got to Pest. Whether at the same time they really borrowed their name from Pest, or whether it was the civilians of those areas where the Pechenegs appeared, they called them that, for example, because they loved to sleep on stoves, it is not known (at least to me).

Foundations and occupations

However, the researchers write that the main occupation for the Pechenegs was nomadic cattle breeding. They lived in tribal order. But they were not averse to making war as mercenaries.

Kievan Rus was subjected to raids by the Pechenegs in 915, 920, 968. But already in 944 and 971, the Kiev princes Igor and Svyatoslav Igorevich went to Byzantium with detachments of the Pechenegs. The Byzantines saved up some money and in 972 Pecheneg detachments, led by Khan Kurei, defeated the squad of Svyatoslav Igorevich at the rapids on the Dnieper.

Sunset

For the next 50 years, Russia constantly and incessantly fought the Pechenegs. Russia tried to protect itself from them, for which fortifications and cities were built. Prince Vladimir built a fortified line along the Stugna River, Yaroslav the Wise did the same along the Rosa River (to the south). And in 1036, Yaroslav the Wise defeated the Pechenegs near Kiev and stopped the end of their raids on Russia.

On the other hand, the Pechenegs, sensing their weakening, moved the Torks, who displaced the Pechenegs to the West to the Danube, and further to the Balkan Peninsula. In the southern Russian steppes at that time, the Polovtsy were already in charge, displacing the Torks from there.

The history of the Pechenegs is invariably associated with military campaigns, or rather raids. It seems they have not created a powerful public education, did not go deep into morality and preferred to serve the interests of others. So in the XI-XII centuries, many Pechenegs were settled in the south of Kievan Rus to protect its borders. In the X-XI centuries, as it was written above, the Byzantine emperors used the Pechenegs as allies in the fight against Russia and Danube Bulgaria. In the X-XII centuries, the Pecheneg tribes penetrated Hungary, where local rulers settled them both along the borders and within their lands.

About the Pechenegs, Wikipedia reports that they were tribes of Turkic-speaking nomads, and references to them in the 8th and 9th centuries are often found in ancient Russian, Western European, Arabic and Byzantine chronicles. Scientists consider Khorezm to be their homeland, the Pecheneg language belongs to the Oguz subgroup of the Turkic languages. Pastoral tribes and other contemporaries of the Pechenegs, Torks and Polovtsy, roamed the territory of ancient Central Asia.

In contact with

Classmates

With this lifestyle, the Pechenegs did not build fortifications or settlements, but received income from military campaigns and attacks on their neighbors. They lived in a tribal system, the tribes were led by great princes, at the head of all the tribes was a khan, or kagan. The power of the kagans was inherited. Important Issues were decided in councils of elders and meetings with the participation of the entire adult population. In war conditions, a wedge consisting of detachments was used in combat formation, carts were placed between the detachments, and a reserve was behind the carts.

origin of name

The ancient Greeks and Slavs called them “patsinaki” (Πατζινάκοι) and “pєchenѣzi”, the Chinese “kangyui”, the Hungarians “besenyö”, the Arabs - “bejnak”, the Armenians - “badzinagi”. Perhaps, echoes of the name Beche are heard somewhere here - that was the name of the alleged leader who united the scattered tribes into a powerful union. There is also a hypothesis that the name "Pecheneg" comes from the word "padzhanak", that is, brother-in-law, and this indicates a probable relationship between the Pecheneg khans and the Russian princes.

Story

Pechenegs and Khazaria

Scientists agree that Pechenegs were originally part of ancient tribe kangly, which played an important role in the medieval states of Central Asia, especially in the State of Khorezmshahs. Regular robberies and ruin of their scattered neighbors made it possible to receive easy income from the capture of prisoners, who were then sold into slavery, or demanded a solid ransom for their return. A contemporary of these events, Archbishop Theophylact Orchid wrote: “Their raid is a lightning strike, their retreat is hard and easy at the same time: hard from the multitude of prey, easy from the speed of flight ... And most importantly, they devastate a foreign country, but do not have their own ... "

But at the end of the 9th century, strong Oguz and Khazar tribes forced the Pechenegs to leave the Eurasian territories. Having overcome the Volga, they settled in the steppes of Eastern Europe, calling them Padzinakia. The Pecheneg hordes reached the Crimea, first encountering the Slavs there, and entered into a protracted conflict with the Kievan princes. When the Khazar Khaganate fell in 965, power over all the lands west of the Volga passed to them. Huge expanses of steppes between Kievan Rus, Bulgaria, Hungary and Alania, on the one hand, and the territory of Western Kazakhstan, where the Oghuz tribes lived, on the other. The peaceful settlements of unarmed farmers were plundered and burned, the sedentary culture of entire peoples fell into decay.

Early struggle of Russia with the Pechenegs

In the X century for participation in the defense of Constantinople from the raids of the Kiev princes the Byzantines regularly paid gold to the Pecheneg khans. In 968, the Pechenegs, incited by them, made an attempt to besiege Kyiv, but were defeated. After that, for some time the steppe dwellers even served in the service of the Russian Grand Duke Svyatoslav, went with him on a campaign against Byzantium. But, having taken possession of new lands, they again became hostile to Kievan Rus, and the raids on the Slavs continued.

It was with the hands of the Pechenegs that the Byzantines managed to deal with the most dangerous of their enemies.. In 972, in the battle at the Dnieper rapids, the squad was completely exterminated Kiev prince Svyatoslav Igorevich, the prince himself died, and Khan Kurya ordered to make himself a drinking cup bound with gold from his skull. The losses from the attacks of the Pechenegs on Russia cannot be called insignificant. Here are the direct victims of barbarian raids, and the ruin of the border regions, and the destruction of ancient trade relations with the countries of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea.

In 992, Grand Duke Vladimir defeated the Pechenegs near the Trubezh River, but, four years later, he himself was defeated near Vasiliev. It was Prince Vladimir who first began to build on the rivers Stugna, Trubezha, Irpin, bordering on the steppe. walled cities equipped with a special warning system. The bright lights of their signal fires let Kiev know about the danger approaching the Russian lands. In addition, ramparts were piled up that prevented the nomads from grazing their herds, pushing them to the south.

By the 11th century, the Pechenegs, under the onslaught of the Polovtsians and Cumans, were already roaming between the Danube and Dnieper rivers. There is evidence that by 1010 a split arose in their ranks on religious grounds. The warriors of Prince Tirakh had already converted to Islam by this time, and the tribes of Prince Kegen crossed the Danube and adopted Christianity there. The Byzantine emperor intended to protect his borders with their forces. However, in 1048, the Pecheneg hordes under the command of Tirakh crossed the Danube and occupied the Balkan possessions of Byzantium.

The role of Yaroslav the Wise in the final victory over the Pechenegs

In the ranks of Svyatopolk the Accursed, who used the dirtiest methods of warfare, including the insidious murder of brothers, the nomads fought against the Kiev prince Yaroslav the Wise. Like the name of Svyatopolk, the word "Pechenegs" is used to this day as a synonym for inhuman, barbaric behavior. But their participation in the battle of Lyubech in 1016, and in 1019 in the battle of Alta did not bring success to Svyatopolk.

The last big campaign for the Pechenegs was the siege of Kyiv in 1036 years in the absence of Yaroslav the Wise, who visited Novgorod at that time. At the same time, the enemy troops were finally defeated by the retinue of the Grand Duke Yaroslav, who came to Kyiv in time to help the besieged. Yaroslav then brought success to the construction, dissected along the front: the Normans were located in the center of the troops, and the Kievans and Novgorodians were fortified from the flanks. Here, the tribes of Torks attacked the bloodless army of the Pechenegs, driving them out of the occupied lands. The vanquished had to retreat to the Balkans, where they completely lost their former independence, becoming part of the new Berendey tribe, the so-called. black hoods.

The defeated Pechenegs hid in the steppes of the North-Western Black Sea region. The Byzantine emperors either waged cruel wars with them, or pampered them with gifts, sending them to fight against the Seljuks. As a result, some of them entered the Byzantine service, someone was hired to guard the borders of the Hungarians and Russian principalities, while others completely disappeared among the nomadic neighbors.

Pechenegs and Russian statehood

For several decades, the struggle of Russia with the Pechenegs took a lot of effort and money, although, according to historians, for Old Russian state they were not so invincible. Under the leadership of Kyiv, border fortresses with permanent garrisons were built, and its role as an organizer of a nationwide rebuff to the nomads increased. This made it possible to concentrate huge military forces in the hands of the Grand Dukes, which provided powerful support for their power.

Even the very adoption of Christianity by Russia, to some extent, was due to the fact that they fought with the Pechenegs under the slogan of protecting the Orthodox faith from the "nasty." This move also helped to strengthen good-neighborly relations with Byzantium, and this protected the Russian rear in the fight against the steppes and prevented their conspiracies with unfriendly tribes.

What did the Pechenegs look like?

According to the testimony of ancient chroniclers, the Pechenegs, who first appeared in the Black Sea region, despite their Turkic roots, had Caucasoid features with a slight admixture of Mongoloidity, and a Kievan, if necessary, could easily get lost among them. Short brunettes shaved their beards, leaving a forelock and mustache, their faces were narrow, and their eyes were small. If we take into account that after successful raids, the captured local residents became concubines, and some of the male captives joined the ranks of the soldiers on the terms of universal equality, then these testimonies are completely understandable.

Archeology

The burials of the Pechenegs that exist today on the territory of the Belgorod and Volgograd regions and in Moldova look like low barrows. The deceased lies there with his head to the west, with him the remains of a horse, stirrups, sabers, arrowheads, jewelry, silver harness, gold coins of Byzantine coinage.

In the memory of the people, the name of the Pechenegs survived much longer than they themselves, already in the 15th century, in the “Tale of the Battle of Mamaev”, the Turkic warrior Chelubey, who began the Battle of Kulikovo with a duel with the monk Peresvet, will be called “Pecheneg”.

In accordance with the latest scientific data, the descendants of the Pechenegs are the Moldovan Gagauz, the Uzbek Karakalpaks and the Bashkir Yurmats. The Kyrgyz clan Bechen also claims to be descended from them.