The History of Kazakhstan: Every Year (Well, Almost)

Although there are various views regarding the exact formation of the Kazakh ethnos, historians generally distinguish between the political foundation of the Kazakh Khanate and the much longer ethnogenesis of the Kazakh people. The emergence of the Kazakh Khanate under Kerei and Janibek Khans in the 1460s did not create a new people from nothing, but rather united a number of already closely related Turkic and Turco-Mongol tribes that had shared a common language, nomadic economy, material culture, and historical experience across the eastern Dasht-i Qipchaq, Semirechye, and the Syr Darya region. The word "Kazakh" itself had existed before the establishment of the Kazakh Khanate. In medieval Turkic sources, the term qazaq referred to a free, independent, or wandering person who lived outside the authority of an established ruler. During the political crisis within Abu'l-Khayr Khan's Uzbek Ulus, Kerei and Janibek, together with many tribes dissatisfied with his rule, migrated into Moghulistan. Contemporary and later sources increasingly referred to these groups as "Kazakh Uzbeks" and eventually simply as "Kazakhs." Thus, the ethnonym gradually transformed from a social and political designation into the name of an ethnic and later national community. Long before the appearance of the Kazakh Khanate, the ancestors of modern Kazakhs had already inhabited the Eurasian Steppe. Their ethnogenesis was the result of many centuries of interaction between ancient steppe populations including the Saka, Wusun, Kangju, Huns, early Turkic peoples, Karluks, Kipchaks, Naimans, Kereits, Argyns, Jalayirs, and numerous other tribes. Rather than replacing previous populations, successive migrations and political unions contributed to the gradual formation of a predominantly Kipchak-speaking nomadic population with a shared cultural identity. The Mongol conquest of the 13th century profoundly reshaped the political map of Central Asia but did not erase the existing Turkic population. Within a few generations, the ruling descendants of Chinggis Khan became linguistically and culturally Turkified. In the Ulus of Jochi, commonly known as the Golden Horde, the overwhelming majority of the population spoke Kipchak Turkic dialects, while Islam gradually became the dominant religion. The Chinggisid dynasty remained politically significant, but culturally the state increasingly reflected the traditions of the Turkic steppe rather than those of Mongolia. Following the fragmentation of the Golden Horde, several successor states emerged, including the Uzbek Ulus of Abu'l-Khayr, the Nogai Horde, the Siberian Khanate, and the Kazakh Khanate. Although these states shared many tribes, their political development diverged. The migration led by Kerei and Janibek represented not merely a dynastic dispute but the beginning of an independent political tradition that would consolidate the tribes known collectively as the Kazakhs. One of the distinctive characteristics of the Kazakh ethnogenesis is that it developed almost entirely within the Eurasian steppe rather than through the conquest of densely populated agricultural civilizations. Unlike several neighbouring peoples whose identities became closely associated with a particular dynasty or urban centre, the Kazakh identity emerged from a federation of nomadic tribes united by common ancestry, language, customary law, and allegiance to the Chinggisid khans. This process produced one of the largest continuous nomadic societies in world history. The internal division into the Senior, Middle, and Junior Zhuzes was not the origin of the Kazakh people but rather a political and territorial organization that developed after the ethnos had already begun to consolidate. Despite regional differences, the zhuzes shared a common Kipchak language, Islamic faith, customary law known as *Adat*, and recognized the authority of the same Chinggisid ruling tradition. Modern genetic, linguistic, and historical research further supports the continuity of the Kazakh ethnos. While individual tribes possessed diverse origins, centuries of interaction created a remarkably homogeneous Kipchak-speaking population whose identity became firmly established by the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Foreign observers increasingly distinguished the Kazakhs from neighbouring Uzbeks, Nogais, Oirats, and other peoples, recognizing them as a separate political and ethnic community. For these reasons, historians distinguish between the history of the Kazakh ethnos and the history of the Kazakh state. While the Kazakh people formed over many centuries, the Kazakh Khanate as an independent political entity traditionally begins with Kerei and Janibek around 1465–1466. Thus, the Khanate marks the political unification of an already established ethnos rather than the origin of the Kazakh people. huwonoki@gmail.com