Turkomania and the Turkomans

The reduction of Khiva marks a new era in the history of the Russian advance. The last semblance of organised opposition to the movement had disappeared, and the Tsar saw himself the unquestioned suzerain of the great Khanates. Westwards, his base was planted securely on the Caspian, where the port of Krasnovodsk, founded in 1869 by General Stolietoff, ¹ was connected with the Russian colonies in the Mangishlāk peninsula by a chain of strong places. The Amū Daryā, that ancient boundary of nations, marked the limits of the new empire in the west. But the vast tract between sea and river was still unsubdued, and Russia’s boundary marched with that of no organised state. Here lay the habitat of the Turkomans, a race with whom no peace or truce was possible, and the story of their subjection forms the final chapter in the history of the heart of Asia. The haunt of these untamed tribes may be described as a triangle, with Khiva as its apex ; its sides the Caspian and the Amū Daryā ; and its base formed by a line drawn from the city of Balkh in Afghanistân to the south-eastern corner of the Caspian Sea. The area thus enclosed is not far short of 240,000 square miles, more than twice as great as that of the United Kingdom. The north portion is a trackless waste ; but it is by no means a desert of the Sahara type, made familiar to us by so many records of African travel. Variety is its most salient characteristic. In some parts so firm is the surface that a horse’s hoof rings on it as on a macadamised road. In others, again, the loose sand forms ridges like petrified waves. ¹ After the spring rains the expanse of dull white is carpeted, as if by miracle, with gorgeous lilies, tulips, and other bulbous plants, long grass and tufts of reed. Water is, indeed, required to clothe the arid sand with perennial verdure, and render it a breeding-ground for countless flocks and herds. It is found at depths rarely exceeding thirty feet below the surface, and wells are of frequent recurrence. ² The only rivers of importance are the Murghāb and the Tajand, which rise in the mountains of Afghanistān and lose themselves in the sand ; but streams innumerable descend their flanks. In times beyond the range of history the western portion of the Turkoman Desert was watered by the Amū Daryā, which discharged itself into the Caspian at the head of the Bay of Michaelovsk. Owing to some convulsion of nature, or to interference with its course by an attempt to employ it for irrigation, the bed of the mighty stream shifted and now discharges into the Sea of Aral. Vegetation is scanty, except during the brief spring-time. The soil is covered, in some parts, with the camel’s thorn, a forbidding plant which can be masticated only by the “ship of the desert.” The perennial flora are completed by the stunted tamarisk, a root like the stem of a rose called takh, and a shrub termed saxaul (hctloxylon ammodendron). The latter is full of knots, and has a grain most difficult to cut or split, but it is precious as fuel, and still more valuable as a means of binding the billowy sands. These steppes contain few traces of animal life. Herds of beautiful wild asses are sometimes seen in the distance, and a species of antelope is oftener met with. ¹ Wells are beset with a variety of birds, which fly down to their depths in search of water. But the stillness of the waste is intense, and the boundless horizon is seen through the clear pure air shimmering with the heat or broken only by a mirage. The climate of the Turkoman Desert is one of extremes. In December and January the cold is intense. Moser, who traversed the Kārakūm in the depth of winter, encountered a temperature of 15 degrees below freezing-point, with squalls, snow, and glacial cold. ² In the summer months the heat is equally trying, and it is sometimes accompanied by sand-storms which render respiration almost impossible. But the Turkomans are not confined to regions so inhospitable. They have long been established in the south-east of the Caspian, a tract watered by the rivers Gargan and Atrak, which is swampy towards the embouchure, but farther inland is broken by valleys as rich and full of charm as any on the flanks of the Pyrenees. ³ The streams descending from the Kopet Dāgh, a mountain range which separates Persia from the Turkoman Desert, has produced a fertile belt of fifteen to twenty-five miles wide, extending from Kizil Arvat to Giaour, a distance of 187 miles. This is the Akkal oasis. Where the Murghāb enters the desert it forms the great Merv oasis, a land which, even in its decadence, is one of the most fertile in the world. This ancient seat of empire, which fell into Turkoman hands after its invasion in 1784 by the forces of the Amīr Murād of Bokhārā, has other advantages precious to a predatory race. It is within striking distance of Northern Persia, and is separated from Herāt by a low range of rolling hills which offer no obstacle to an invading horde. ¹ Such is the land which, from time immemorial, has been the haunt of one of the most interesting races in the world. Like the Red Indians, with whom they have many characteristics in common, they have succumbed to the ruthless force of Western civilisation ; and a study of their traditions and usages possesses the greater interest because both will soon disappear under the process of Russification to which Central Asia is being subjected. In the opinion of a well-known living authority, ² the Turkomans belong to a branch of the Turkish race inhabiting the Altaï Mountains and the upper regions of the Yenesei and Irtish in Mid-Siberia. Long before the Christian era the pressure of population led them to migrate southwards and eastwards, and, following in all probability the old course of the Oxus, their hordes spread over the great steppes extending from the Caspian to the Hindu Kush. The appellation by which the race has for centuries been known is considered by Vambéry to be derived from “Turk,” a proper name which the nomads always employ when speaking of themselves, and “men,” a suffix equivalent to the English “ship ” or “dom.” That the Turkomans were identical with the Parthians, who were so long a thorn in the side of the Roman Empire, admits of little doubt, and the supposition derived from identity of racial character finds corroboration in the fact that the Dahæ, ¹ a famous Parthian tribe, dwelt in ancient days in the region between the Balkans and the river Atrak, which is still called Dehistān. But the strangers from the icy north were not long contented to roam over steppes which were well-nigh as hospitable as those of Siberia. They smelt booty in the richly watered slopes of the Kopet Dāgh and the populous cities of Northern Persia. The era of the Sâmânides (a.d. 218–639) was one of constant struggles between these unwelcome immigrants and the settled Iranians of Northern Persia, and history repeated itself in the ruin and desolation which befell the latter. Towards the end of the Middle Ages the northern portion of the old empire of Darius was given up to Turkoman tribes bent on war and pillage. At this date we find them divided into many tribes. The most famous were the Salors, who possessed some at least of the traits of the noble savage of fiction. They dwelt at the edge of the hills on the oasis formed by the Murghāb and Tajand. In the twelfth century the Sultan Sanjar, the greatest of the Seljūkides, was defeated by the Kara and Alieli Turkomans at Andakhūy and May mena, where both are still to be found. The Balkan Mountains in the sixteenth century looked down on Ersari encampments, and at an earlier date the peninsula of Mangishlāk was roamed over by various tribes. For centuries unnumbered the Turkomans were free from foreign influence, and maintained the primitive ferocity and power for aggression unleavened by intercourse with civilisation. They found their master in rare exceptions to the long succession of debauchees who filled the throne of Persia. In the seventeenth century Shāh ‘Abbās the Great (1585–1626) drove them from the rich valleys of the Kopet Dāgh and planted colonies of 15,000 Kurds along the crest, in the not altogether vain hope that these scourges of Asia Minor would hold their neighbours in check. Nādir Shāh, infamous for the bloodshed attending his capture of Delhi, was himself a Turkoman, and proved more than a match for his kinsmen. In 1796 Āghā Mohammad, the first sovereign of the reigning dynasty, who was also of Turkoman origin, took effectual measures to protect his frontier, and, had his brief career not been brought to a close by the assassin’s dagger, he would doubtless have tamed these fierce children of the desert. His successor, Fath ‘Alī Shāh, attempted the process, and in 1813 the Turkoman tribes appealed to the Tsar of Russia for assistance against him. Alexander i., however, was then engaged in rolling back the tide of Napoleon’s invasion, and was powerless to help them, thus exciting an intense irritation. We obtain a glimpse of the position occupied by the Turkoman tribes in 1831 in the pages of Burnes. ¹ At that date the Tekkes were second to no tribe in numbers, though they had not reached the commanding position which they attained at the eve of the Russian conquest. This section of the Turkoman race is found at the dawn of their history occupying the Isthmus of Mangishlāk, on the north-eastern coast of the Caspian. Driven thence in 1718 by the Kalmaks, they dislodged the Yamuds from Kizil Arvat, and the Kurds and Alielis from the strip of fertile land at the basis of the Kopet Dāgh, known as the Akkal oasis. Their name, which in our tongue signifies “Mountain Goat,” is said to be derived from the agility with which they urged their horses over the ravines on the mountain side. The Tekkes proclaimed their allegiance to the Khān of Khiva, and each village paid a tribute of a camel, but they were forced to recognise the supremacy of Nādir Shāh. Until the commencement of the present century they were confined to the limits of the oasis ; but population began to press too heavily on the means of subsistence, which, in Central Asia, is synonymous with water. The cultivation spread to such an extent that the arīks, or small irrigation canals, proved unequal to its necessities. Hence, about 1830, 10,000 families migrated eastwards and established themselves on the banks of the Tajand. Here they built a fort, called after their chief, Oraz Khān Kal‘a. The total number of Tekke tents or kibitkas ¹ is put by Burnes at 40,000. The Sea Of Sand In The Kara-Kum Desert https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203641705/a1bea995-d2ca-4507-82f4-7e6333957ed9/content/figu_21_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> The Sea Of Sand In The Kara-Kum Desert https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203641705/a1bea995-d2ca-4507-82f4-7e6333957ed9/content/figu_22_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>