ABSTRACT
The Cumans were a pastoral-nomadic steppe confederation of largely Turkic-speaking tribes, often of complex origins. They appear under a variety of names (Cuman/Coman/Polovtsy, Qïpchaq, Qanglï) in a variety of sources. Their lands extended from the South Siberian and Kazakhstan steppes to the lands north of the Black Sea. They never formed a state, but had intense, often hostile relations with the Khwarazmshah state, the Rus’ state, Georgia, the Seljuk realms, Byzantium, the Balkans lands and Hungary. In the Mongol era, they appear as slave soldiers in the Mamluk state, whose rulers stemmed from the same people, in China as servitors of the Chinggisid Yuan dynasty and in India. Several late medieval Bulgarian ruling houses were of Cuman origin.
