The name Pecheneg first appears in the history of the Chinese dynasty Sui (581-618; Sui-shu), compiled in 629-636, by the Bureau of Historiography under the editorship of Wei Cheng (d. 643). There is a list of different “branches” of the “Barbaric” Tie-le (Tele, Modern Chinese Pinyin Tiele 鐵勒 ) confederation. Among the four organizations to the east of Fu-lin (Byzantium) and to the west of the Caspian Sea, there appears (the second, geographically in the region of Tashkent) the name Pei-ju ( *pək-nji ^wok). Paul Pelliot identified that name with Pecheneg (Pachanag), and this equation has been accepted in the scholarly world. ¹

The next source in which one finds that name (in the form Be-cha-nag) is a Tibetan translation of a mid-eight century report by five Uighur diplomat-explorers about the “Western Lands”. ²

The generally accepted etymology of Pecheneg connects it with the Turkic appellativum pachanag < bacanag/bacanag “brother-in-law”. ³

According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus (ca. 948-952), the actual name of the ruling stratum of the Pechenegs, which included their three leading tribal confederations, was Kaggar Kangar. ⁴

That name, Kangar-, is first found in the work of the Armenian Lazar Parpeci of the last decades of the fifth century, ⁵ and in two Syriac martyrologies (Mir Aba, d. 552 : Kangaraye, and Mar Grigor, d. 542 : Hangaraye) of the second half of the sixth century which are translations from Middle Persian originals (< *xangarayi). ⁶ It refers there to the Caucasian settlement of the Kangars which was located near the Transcaucasian crossroads between the Lake Sewan and the Kura River, on the border of Albania (Arran) and Iberia (Georgia).

Scholars connect the name Kangar with the Tocharian A word *kank~ “stone”. The Kangars were originally the rulers over the “stony” city of Tashkent and its environment. ⁷

The Chinese of the Han Dynasty (209 B.C. - 220 A.D.) — after they started to explore the outside world (the “Western Lands”) at the end of the second century B.C., recorded the presence of several groups which, we might assume, were speakers of Tocharian. ⁸

Among them were : the Little Yueh-chih (Pin. Uezhi, Tokhars + Ases) in the western Chinese province Kan-su, the Great Yueh-chih (Pin. Uezhi, Tokhars + Ases) who made their career as the builders of the Central Asian and Indian Kushana-Empire, the Wu-sun (Usun, Türkic Uisyn) north of the T'ien-shan Mountains, the K'ang-chu (= our Kangars) (Pin. Kangju) in the Tashkent region, the Ta-yüan (< *Taxwar “Tochar”) (Pin. Dayuan 大宛, Fergana, Ch. for Ionians = Great Greeks) and some other groups in Bactria and Sogdiana.

It seems that these “Tocharian” peoples—not unlike the Iranians (cf., Iran versus Turan/An-Iran) ⁹—were comprised of two opposite and complementary groups, of which one were nomads and the Empire-builders (e.g., Yüeh-chih, Wu-sun), while the others were city~oasis dwellers (e.g., Kangars). What united them, aside from linguistic ties, was their common interest in international trade.

The so-called “migrations” of the Tocharians should rather be understood as an establishment of a system of trade colonies and settlements along the basic highways of commerce.

One may regard the Throana names in Asia Major: Tun-huang (Sogdian thrw“n), Turfan, and Uch-Turfan as a memory of their commercial activity. ¹⁰

It is in this region (Kucha, Turfan, Karashahr, Tun-huang) that the Tocharian texts (in two languages, A and B), and monuments of their (mainly Buddhist) art from ca. 500-700 A.D. were discovered by several scholarly expeditions at the beginning of our century. ¹¹

The “Kangars” of Tashkent were city-dwellers and traders, and one may assume that before the (later) “Pechenegs” of Tashkent entered into an alliance with the Turks and received their “political” name, they were known by their native name, Kangar.

In an Old Turkic runic inscription from 732 A.D. (Kül Tigin Inscription, IE 39-41) there appears the form k ²n_gr ²s ²/Kangaras ¹². It consists, in our view, of two elements: the first goes back, ultimately, to the aforementioned Tocharian A word *kank- “stone”, and the second has its origin in the Eastern Iranian tribal name *Aorsoi (= *avrs- > ars- > as). ¹³

Since in Turkic the first component, the Tocharian word kank-, was adopted as a front syllabic word, the vocalism of the second component was subjected to the rules of syllabic harmony. The name Kangaras should be interpreted as *Kangar As, and it means the “Stony As (people)”.

The designation *Kangar As suggests that by the eight century, the Kangars were already linked with the very active East Iranian Alan-As confederation.

The Pechenegs or Kangars originated in the area between the Aral Sea and the midstream of the river Syr-Daria, where their old center near present-day Tashkent, was located. ¹⁴ The Pechenegs were primarily intermediaries in the flow of transcontinental trade, while maintaining close relations with the then masters of the steppe the Turks/Turkut (see chap. 1), whose center was on the Orchon River in Mongolia. ¹⁵ In the Türkic Runic inscription of Kül-Tigin (732 A.D.) the confederation Kangaras is described as an ally of the Eastern (main line) Türküt and an enemy of the Western Türküt, at that time under the leadership of the Turgish unit. ¹⁸

In 744 the Türküt empire in Mongolia fell and the hegemony over the steppe passed to the Uighurs, whose collaborators the Karluks (Qarluq) forcibly evicted (as punishment for insubordination) ¹⁷ the tribal confederation of Oghuz (later known as Торци Torci in the Rus'ian chronicles) ¹⁸ from their habitat in northwestern Mongolia. The Oghuz resettled in the steppes near the Aral lake and the lower Syr-Darya, becoming neighbors of the Pechenegs. This situation determined the further course of Pecheneg history.

The Oghuz newcomers soon came to covet control over the trade routes from Central Asia to Bulgar on the Volga, Khazaria and Central Europe, which were then in the hands of the Pechenegs. A struggle over the routes developed between the two peoples, and the report of Uighur diplomats in Tibetan translation attests that already in the eight century the be-cha-nag were warring against the Hor, i.e. the Oghuz. ¹⁹ In the first half of the ninth century a coalition headed by the Oghuz (including also the Karluks and Kimaks) defeated the Pechenegs and their allies (the Chepni, Bashgird and Navkarda) in a battle near the Aral Sea, as mentioned by the Arab polymath Mas'udi (ca. 930). ²⁰ The defeat drove the Pechenegs from their native land and compelled them to search for a new home. According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus (ca. 948-952), they now settled in the territory between the Ural-Emba (Geeh) and Volga rivers. ²¹

As was not uncommon to the practice of the steppe, a portion of the Pechenegs stayed behind on their native territory and joined the confederation of the victorious Oghuz/Torks. During the 1060s, in the time of the Turkologist Mahmud of Kashgar, when the Oghuz confederation was led by the Qiniq (Seljuk) clan, the Oghuzian Pechenegs (tamga ) ranked nineteenth in the system of twenty-two clans. ²² They soon became Turkicized, and have been erroneously confused by present-day scholars with the original, non-Turkic Pechenegs.

The resettlement of the Pechenegs into the steppe proper compelled them to take up a nomadic existence, the bases of which were, in addition to trade, livestock raising and martial arts. The latter was necessary for the protection of trade routes [wherein the extortion of tribute for safety played an important role] and for raids of looting and pillage.

From that time we have the following contemporary report in Islamic sources, which was preserved in the works of later authors (Gardizi, ca. 1050, Marvazi, ca. 1120) ²⁴:

“The Pechenegs are a wandering people following the rainfalls and the pasturage. Their territory extends a distance of thirty days in either direction, and they are bordered on all sides by many peoples: to the north are the Hipchaks [= Qipchaq/Kumans], to the southwest the Khazar, to the east the [O]ghuz, and to the west the lands of the Saqlabs (bilad as-Saqaliba). These peoples all raid the Pecenegs, who likewise raid them... Between the Pecenegs and the Khazars there is a distance of ten days, the country being steppes and forest. There is no beaten track between the two territories, and they travel over the distance by means of the stars, landmarks or at random.”

In their new homeland the Pechenegs became neighbors of the Khazars. Year in and year out they fought with them, as attested in the Islamic traditions of the ninth century (the “Caspian Collection”, according to the terminology of B. N. Zahoder), ²⁵ and with the Khazars' vassals (and kin of their own), the Purdas/Burtas (Ibn Ruste, ca. 912). ²⁶ Around the 830s the Khazars and the Oghuz finally decided to liquidate the Pechenegs. Attacked from two sides, the Pechenegs were routed, and made to flee their lands, and their second homeland was again occupied by the Oghuz (Constantine Porphyrogenitus, ca. 948-952). ²⁷

The Pechenegs, however, fought their way across Khazar territory and unexpectedly attacked and defeated the future Hungarians, who, under the leadership of the Turkic clan, the Kabars, ²⁸ were then in the service of the Khazars in the “Lebedia”. ²⁹ They drove the future Hungarians from their habitat (“Lebedia”) which was composed of two parts : the basin of the upper Siverskyj Donets (the “Turkic Pechenegs” of the Hudud al-'Alam, the anonymous Persian geography of 982) ³⁰, and the present-day Kuban' region (the Khazar Pechenegs” in the same source). ³¹

We can assume that the Pechenegs now came to rule the trade routes connecting the Donets River with the Frankish-state, since information about them immediately found its way into Carolingian historiography. The Lotharingian monk Regino (d. 915) in ca. 889 wrote ³²: “gens Ungarium ferocissima et omni belua cradelior, retro ante seculis ideo inaudita, quia nec nominata, a Scythicis regnis et a paludibus quas Thanais sua refusione in immensum porrigit, egressa est... Ex supradictis igitur locis gens memorata a finitimis sibi populis, qui Pecenaci vocantur, a propriis sedibus expulsa est...” This is the first mention of the Pechenegs to be found in European sources.

But the defeated future Hungarians (now led by the Onughur-Bulghar clan, the Arpads) fled first to Etelközü “Mesopotamia”, ³³ (33 - The literature concerning Atelküzü (Gr. Atelkouzou) is given by Gy. Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica ², ii (Berlin, 1958), p. 77, and Gy. Moravcsik in De Administrando Imperio, ii (London, 1962), p. 148.), i.e. the southern Right Bank Ukraine, through which flow the five big rivers Dnieper, Boh, Dniester, Prut and Seret. ³⁴ Three ³⁵ years later the Pechenegs advanced again and, acting as allies of the Danube Bulgarian Tsar Simeon ³⁶ they forced the future Hungarians to flee further west. We know that the latter thereafter became the scourge of Central and Western Europe until their defeat by Otto I at Augsburg in 955, after which they settled, in Pannonia.

The Pechenegs then took possession of the southern portion of present-day Ukraine, over which they ruled for over 150 years. The approximate borders of their realm were the Don River in the east and the Danube in the west.

The Pecheneg realm on the territory of the Ukraine comprised two wings: the higher-ranking right and the lower ranking left wing. The fact that the right, or western, wing was of higher rank is evidenced by the western orientation of Pecheneg graves ³⁷ and by the order in which Constantine Porphyrogenitus lists the names of the provinces of the realm. Both wings comprised four provinces (femas), each of which was in turn subdivided into five districts (meros), so that the entire realm had a total of forty districts. ³⁸

There was a hierarchy of rank among the provinces. The ruling stratum, the Kangars, lived in the highest ranking provinces, the first right wing and the first and second left wing.

“The Pechenegs”, writes Constantine, “are also called 'Kangar' though not all of them, but only the folk of the three provinces of Iabdierti and Kouartzitzour and Chabouxingyla, for they are more valiant and noble than the rest: and that is what the title “Kangar” signifies.” ³⁹

The subdivision into districts was probably based on the ability of given territories to supply a contingent of 10,000 mounted troops ⁴⁰. (40 = According to Byzantine author (Joannes Scylitzes-Georgius Cedrenus) two Pecheneg tribal units (= provinces) supplied 20,000 warriors, Georgius Cedrenus Joannis Scytitzae ope, ed. I. Bekker, ii (Bonn, 1839), pp. 582-584).

Although Constantine Porphyrogenitus gives the locations of only the right bank provinces, his data allow us to determine approximately the borders of the left bank provinces as well. Further clues can be found in his system of listing the left bank provinces and in the data he gives about the neighbors of the eastern wing.

The first right bank province, Iabdiertim (Iabdiertim; highest in rank) had the northernmost location. It bordered with tribal organizations tributary to Rus: (named from east to west) the Ulichians, Derevljanians and Poljanians. ⁴¹ According to archaeological data, the Pechenegs were concentrated in the region south of Kiev, between the rivers Stuhna and Ros ⁴².

The corresponding left bank province Kouartzitzour (Kouartzitzour; second in rank) lay between the Sejm and Orel rivers. ⁴³ Neighboring with it (at a distance of five days travel) was the realm of the Oghuz, perennial enemies of the Pechenegs. It is interesting to note that the Turkologist A. Scherbak discovered on the territory of this province (and in its vicinity) a large number of topographical names containing the element Chur. ⁴⁴

The third ranking province, of the right bank, was called Chabouxingyla (Chabouxingyla). It bordered with Hungary (four days travel away) and included the upper banks of the rivers Seret, Prut and Dniester. ⁴⁵

The fourth-ranking province, on the left bank, was Syroukalpei (Syroukalpei). It encompassed the banks of the Donets (Old Lebedia = “Turkic Pechenegs”) and extended up to the end of the Don. Bordering with it was Khazaria (five days travel away).

The right bank province Charaboi (Charaboi) was the fifth in rank. It bordered with Rus along the Dnieper River, the Rus'ian route “from the Varangians to the Greeks”. We can locate this province in the bend of the Dnieper. ⁴⁷

The corresponding left bank province, sixth by rank, was Borotalmat (Borotalmat). It neighbored with the realm of the Alans (six days travel away), ⁴⁸ and can be identified as the land of the “Khazar Pechenegs” of the Hudud al-Alam. ⁴⁸ This province controlled the Taurian Bosporus, i.e. the Kerch strait. ⁵⁰

On the right bank was the seventh-ranking province Giazichopon (Giazichopon). We can locate it in the area of the lower banks of the rivers Seret, Prut and Dniester. Separating it from the Danubian Bulgars was the Danube. ⁵¹

The eight province, Bou[i]latzopon (Bou[i]latzopon), of the left bank, neighbored with the Byzantine territories of the Crimean peninsula (Chersones/Korsun, the Gothic Climata), and included the territories south of the bend of the Dnieper as far as the Sea of Azov, as well as the banks of the rivers Samara, Konska and Molochna. ⁵²

The government of the Pechenegs in Eastern Europe can be described as a military democracy.58 All matters of great importance were decided by a general council (not unlike the Zaporogian Cossack “Black Councils” of later centuries); Byzantine sources (Joannes Scylitzes, d. after 1092) described them with the term komenton (< Lat. conventus), ⁵⁴ which was composed of ad hoc delegates. According to a letter of the missionary Bruno of Querfurt (ca. 1007), ⁵⁵ only one week's time was needed to convene the general council, which is proof of the great mobility of the Pechenegs.

As was the case in many nomadic (O.Pritsak's euphemism for Türkic) empires, the Pechenegs' realm was a double kingdom. ⁵⁶ The two wings of the realm were ruled over by separate rulers. As was mentioned above, the western, the right bank wing was higher in rank, and therefore its ruler bore the imperial title Kagan (attested by the Arab writer Ibn Sa'id, d. 1286; the corresponding data are preserved in the work by Abul-Fida of 1321) ⁵⁷  (57 - Reinaud-de Slane, Paris, 1840, p. 205).

The anonymous author (magister P.) of the Gesta Hungarorum (ca. 1200) found in his sources that in the tenth century the name of the Pechenegs ruling clan was Thonuzoba ⁵⁸ (58 - Scriptores Rerum Hungaricum, i, Budapest, 1937, pp. 116-117) This term can be explained as a Turkic translation of the name of the well known Iranian charismatic clan the “Boar's family” (*parsa-/varaz-) ⁵⁹: the Turkic translation being tonguz “boar,” and oba “tribe”.

Unfortunately only two other clan names appear, both in the same source (Anne Comnene, s.a., ca. 1050) and with the same suffix [-man]: Paguman and Belermen ⁶⁰.

The offices were hereditary, based on the well-known nomadic (O.Pritsak's euphemism for Türkic) system of succession. Regrettably, the existing sources do not specify how many central offices the Pechenegs had, nor how they were called and what was their function.

On the basis of some indirect information (the famous lists of the Pecheneg provinces and their princes in De Administrando Imperio) one may assume that among the Pecheneg offices there were those of chor/chur, jula, and chopan/zupan, known from other steppe (O.Pritsak's euphemism for Türkic) realms (see note 60). Constantine Porphyrogenitus writes about the system as follows :

“After their deaths their cousins succeeded to their rule. For law and ancient principle have prevailed among them, depriving them of authority to transmit their rank to their sons or their brothers, it being sufficient for those in power to rule for their own life-time only, and when they die, either their cousin or sons of their cousins must be appointed, so that the rank may not run exclusively in one branch of the family, but the collaterals also inherit and succeed to the honor.” ⁶¹

Constantine stresses that “no one from a stranger family intrudes and becomes a prince”. ⁶²

In the turbulent times of the middle of the eleventh century, after the Pecheneg were driven out of their Ukrainian habitat, a usurper Kegen (Kegenes) rose to power and forced the lawful kagan Tyrach (Turax) of the old dynasty to accept him as co-ruler. ⁶³

Archaeological data show that there was a great concentration of Pechenegs in Porossja (Ros region) where twenty-one of the forty-eight known excavation sites of Pecheneg artifacts are located. ⁶⁴ It was probably the main refugium (see below regarding the forest Pecenizec near the Rosava River) of the Pecheneg Kagan, and the gathering place of the General Council (komenton). In all likelihood it was “the city of tents” reached by Bruno of Querfurt (1007 after four days of travel by foot from the borders of the state of Volodimer, i.e. some 100-120 km south of the Stuhna River. ⁶⁵

The Pechenegs maintained diplomatic and trade relations mainly with the Byzantine Empire and the Kievan Rus.

The Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus left a very vivid description of Byzantine-Pecheneg diplomatic practices. He writes :

“I conceive, then, that it is always greatly to the advantage of the emperor of the Romans to be minded to keep the peace with the nation of the Pechenegs and to conclude conventions and treaties of friendship with them and to send every year to them from our side a diplomatic agent with presents befitting and suitable to that nation, and to take from their side sureties, that is, hostages, and a diplomatic agent, who shall be collected together under the charge of the competent minister in this city protected of God, and shall enjoy all imperial benefits and gifts suitable for the emperor to bestow.” ⁶⁶

Relations were conducted either via the Crimean city of Cherson (Korsun) or at the seashore, between the estuaries of the rivers Dnieper and Dniester.

“When an imperial agent goes over to Cherson on this service”, writes Constantine, “he must at once send to Patzinacia and demand of them hostages and an escort, and on their arrival he must leave the hostages under guard in the city of Cherson, and himself go off with the escort to Patzinacia and carry out his instructions. Now these Pechenegs, who are ravenous and keenly covetous of articles rare among them, are shameless in their demands for generous gifts, the hostages demanding this for themselves and that for their wives, and the escort something for their own trouble and some more for the wear and tear of their cattle. Then, when the imperial agent enters their country, they first ask for the emperor's gifts, and then again, when these have glutted the menfolk, they ask for the presents for their wives and parents. Also, all who come with him to escort him on his way back to Cherson demand payment from him for their trouble and the wear and tear of their cattle.” ⁶⁷

If the imperial agent was dispatched to the seashore between the estuaries of Dnieper and Dniester, without first going to Cherson, he arrived there “with ships of war”. Having found the representatives of the Pechenegs “the imperial agent sends a message to them by his man, himself remaining on board the ships of war, carrying along with him and guarding in the ships of war the imperial goods. And they [Pechenegs] come down to him, and when they come down the imperial agent gives them hostages of his men, and himself takes other hostages of these Pechenegs, and holds them in the ships of war, and then he makes agreement with them; and when the Pechenegs have taken their oaths to the imperial agent according to their 'zakana', ⁶⁸ (“law”, from Türkic jogen.djogen = reins, a common Slavic borrowing from Attila time, reference to Moravcsik and Vasmer's etymology notwithstanding) he presents them with the imperial gifts, and takes from among them as many 'friends' as he sees fit, and returns.” ⁶⁹

A similar system of securing agreements through the exchange of hostages (tali) was maintained between the Princes of the Kievan Rus and the Pechenegs, as can be seen in the data in the “Primary Chronicle” concerning the agreement of 944. ⁷⁰

Above, we have noted that the Pechenegs had a large army of mounted troops (warriors), probably comprising forty divisions of 10,000 troops each, totaling 400,000.

We can understand, therefore, why Constantine Porphyrogenitus in 948-952 urged his son to maintain good relations with the Pechenegs; for “so long as the emperor of the Romans is at peace with the Pechenegs, neither Rus” nor Turks (= Hungarians) can come upon the Roman dominions by force of arms, nor can they exact from the Romans large and inflated sums in money and goods as the price of peace, for they fear the strength of this nation which the emperor can turn against them while they are campaigning against the Romans”. ⁷¹

The Pechenegs were masters of the steppe warfare tactics of quick maneuvers by horsemen. They were especially famed for their skill in fighting from encampments, i.e. fortifications made with wagons. ⁷²

It has already been said that the Pecheneg populace was composed of two groups: the ruling stratum of the Kangars and the commoners. Slavery was not a Pecheneg practice as attested by Islamic authors, e.g. al-Bakri (d. 1094), who stresses the humaneness of the Pechenegs: the prisoners of war were given the choice either of returning home, or of marrying Pecheneg girls and becoming lawful members of the Pecheneg confederation. ⁸⁴

According to Constantine Porphyrogenitus the Pechenegs were “free men and, so to say, independent, and never perform any service without remuneration”. ⁸⁵

The size of the Pecheneg population can be estimated. In 1048, when - according to Joannes Scylitzes - the Pecheneg realm had only eleven right bank districts, they were said to number some 800,000 ⁸⁶ (86 - Georgius Cedrenus), i.e. one may compute a population of ca. 72,727 for each district.

Assuming that the basis for administrative division in the Pecheneg realm - as in other steppe empires - was the capability of the given territory to set up a tümen, or a unit of 10,000 soldiers, one may deduce that in a given district of ca. 72,727 population, since it had to set up one tümen (10,000 soldiers), every seventh person had to be conscripted ⁸⁷ (87 - G. Vernadsky computations).

It was stated above that the Pecheneg realm in the Ukraine, in ca. 948-952, consisted of forty districts. ⁸⁸ Thus, it is evident that their army must have consisted of forty tümens, or 400,000 men.

Since, as was shown above, soldiers comprised one-seventh of the total population, the entire population governed by the Pechenegs (inclusive of the sedentary population and the cities) in the tenth-eleventh centuries could have numbered some 2.8 to 3 million persons. ⁸⁹ (89 - I shall stress here that this figure has no absolute value, and should be regarded as a tentative estimation only.)

The Pecheneg realm of the tenth-eleventh centuries, like all nomadic paces (empires), was ethnically not homogenous. It was, rather, a poly-ethnic, multi-lingual and non-territorial professional community.

Elsewhere, this writer pointed out that in a nomadic Pax there were three basic elements, two of them being exchangeable: charismatic clan, i.e. the dynasty, and the territory, important from the point of view of economic strategy. The third permanent element was the idea of the specific Pax. ⁹⁰ In the steppe - as is generally the case with communities of traders - the language had a mainly functional role. Several “professional” non-written Linguae francae or a foreign “cultural” language had taken the place that a sole religious-cultural language held in contemporary sedentary civilization, e.g., Latin in Western Europe, Greek in Byzantium, Arabic in the Caliphate, Chinese in China.

This means that the designation “Pecheneg language”, the same as “Hunnic language”, involves an entirely different semantic content then, for instance, the concept “English language” does, and compares rather to the term “the Jewish language” (as distinct from Hebrew !). ⁹¹ (We should be indefinitely grateful to Prof. O. Pritsak for his valuable observations about Bechen mothers communicating with their infants in a Jewish-type temporary trade language, as opposed to normal English-lingual mothers.)

Therefore, one has to understand that the “Pecheneg language” meant the language used at a given historical period by the ruling strata, and as such could at any time, especially if a change of charismatic clan and/or territory were involved, be replaced by a different language.

Contrary to the Turks who in the tenth-twelfth centuries created a separate Turkic province of Islam, and in doing so assured for the Turkic language a charismatic status, the Pechenegs were never followers of one single world religion. Therefore, none of the languages used by their ruling strata was able to achieve the dignitas which is the pre­requisite for a creation of a national language (> culture).

Despite the scarcity of source evidence, it is possible to distinguish at least two languages used by the Pecheneg ruling strata. At the beginning of their career they seem to have spoken a type of Tocharian. By the end of the first millennium A.D., they were certainly Eastern Iranians linguistically, as is apparent from the data in a work by al-Biruni (ca. 1025) ⁹² and a passage in the recently (1958) published Old Russan translation of “The History of the Judaic War” by Joseph Flavius. It contains the following Old Ruslan gloss: “Yass language is known to be an offshoot of Bechen lineage, who live near Tan (river) and Meotian Sea”, “It is well known that the Jas(ic) [> Ossetian] language (or: “people”) is descended from the Pecheneg, who lived near [the city of] Tana[is] and the Azov Sea.” ⁹³

Without a “higher culture” codified in the form of a holy writ and other written monuments, and without a scholastic system to perpetuate the code of “national culture” from one generation to another, nomadic societies were easy prey to new, professionally attractive, languages; their separate customs and distinctive clothing were not strong enough to stem the tide of lingual assimilation. ⁹⁴

The Pechenegs' allies the “Upper As”, or the Xalis, were of Iranian origin, and so were the “River As” (of the Volga region), the Furdas/Burtas. ⁹⁵ The Ichgil (later the Szekler of Hungary), on the other hand, were linguistically Turks. ⁹⁶

Also important were Hunno-Bolgarian speaking elements (or the Hunnic cultural tradition, or both) which we may deduce from the use of the proto-Bolgarian language  (O.Pritsak's parrots the communist Russia and Bolgaria euphemism for Türkic Bulgarian) and alphabet (based on the Greek) by the Pecheneg elite. Attesting to this is the well-known Runic inscription of the Pecheneg leader Boila Zupan from the end of the ninth/beginning of the tenth century (the so-called treasure of Nagy-Szent-Miklos). ⁹⁷ It can be supposed that for this reason Mahmud al-Kashghari (eleventh century) ⁹⁸ and the Arab geographers of the tenth century connect the Pecheneg language with the (Altaic) Bolgarian. ⁹⁹

Many Runic inscriptions have been found in all the territories, from Asia Minor to the Balkans, inhabited at different times by the Pechenegs, but attempts to decipher them from the Turkic (most recently by A. M. Scherbak in 1959) have not yielded satisfactory results, mainly because of the brevity of the texts. ¹⁰⁰

The peoples of Central Asia took an interest in all the universal religions. Christianity, Buddhism and Manichaeism all found some adherents in that area, who lived side by side without religious strife. ¹⁰¹ By the time of their settlement in Eastern Europe the Pechenegs undoubtedly were familiar with all of the above faiths, but we have evidence that a kind of “Manichaeism” had been especially popular with them. ¹⁰² The Christian mission of Bruno of Querfurt (1007), aided by the Kievan Prince Volodimer the Great, had very little success. ¹⁰³ However, according to the Arab writer al-Bakri (d. 1094), around 400 years after the Hegira (1009-1010) Islamic missionaries managed in a short time to convert a large portion of the Pechenegs to Islam; until that time they had practiced the religion of “the Magi” (Zoroastrians). ¹⁰⁴

In the early 1040s the Pechenegs began feeling pressure from the Oghuz/Torks (Turks) from the east, who themselves were forced to migrate westward by the Polovcians (Qipchaq/Kumans). ¹⁰⁵ In the 1050-1060s the Pechenegs were driven first from the entire left bank, and later from the right bank as well. They began an exodus across the Danube into the territory of the Byzantine Empire, mainly into Bulgaria (e.g. in 1048) where they were settled as federates; by 1050 they had reached Adrianopole. ¹⁰⁶

In 1048, after the Pefenegs were left with only thirteen right bank districts, with a population of 800,000, ¹⁰⁷ the kagan Tyrach with his subjects was forced to quickly cross the Danube and move into Byzantine territory. ¹⁰⁸ But an anti-Byzantine trend soon became dominant among them and they entered an alliance with the Oghuz (Seljüks who, after 1071, had succeeded in conquering a greater part of Byzantium's territories in Asia Minor), and eventually with the enterprising Turkic pirate Caxa (Tzakhas). ¹⁰⁹ The Pechenegs now became a mortal threat to the empire of the Rhomaioi which was rescued only by the unexpected arrival of the Polovcians in Eastern Europe who, in 1091 (April 29), helped Alexius Comnenus to decisively rout the Pechenegs. ¹¹⁰ After a second defeat in 1122 ¹¹¹ the Pechenegs completely ceased to exist as an independent group, becoming diffused among the Bulgars and the Polovcians. At approximately that time, important Pecheneg settlements were established in Hungary. ¹¹²

The last mention of the Pechenegs in Rusian sources is found in 1169. ¹¹³ Following the disappearance of their state, a large segment of the Pechenegs became dominated by the Torks/Oghuz, ¹¹⁴ and later, from 1055 on, by the Polovcians (Kumans), ¹¹⁵ and became ethnically absorbed by these peoples.

In order to maintain the role of arbiter among its neighboring states, time and again the Pecheneg entered into alliances with Byzantium (914, 968, 972, ¹¹⁶ with Rus (944), and other states. Usually, such alliances were made on an ad hoc basis and were often directed against a previous ally. The Pechenegs first crossed the Danube in 914, ¹¹⁷ when coming to the aid of Byzantium in her struggle against the Bulgars (in 896 they were allies of Tsar Simeon against the future Hungarians). ¹¹⁸

In Rus they appeared first in 968 during the Bulgarian campaign of Svjatoslav, ¹¹⁹ at the invitation of Byzantium, Svjatoslav later decided to remain in Bulgaria because of its convenient, commercially gratifying location (the intersection of trade routes), and Byzantium probably hired the Pechenegs to fight Svjatoslav's Russians. ¹²⁰ In 972, in a battle at the Dnieper rapids, the Pecheneg kagan Kurya *Kura routed Svjatoslav's army returning from a campaign against Byzantium. Svjatoslav himself was killed, and the kagan, according to the old custom of the steppe “took his head, and from his skull made a chalice, cased it with metal, and drank from it”. ¹²¹

The account of the struggle between Jaropolk and Volodimer indicates that there was a pro-Pecheneg orientation in Rus as represented by the counselor of Jaropolk, Varjazko.”

The attacks of the Pechenegs on Rus began during the reign of Volodimer. In 988 and 992 they attacked Perejaslav, ¹²³ in 996 Vasyl'kiv ¹²⁴ and in 997 Belgorod. ¹²⁵ On the right bank the Pecheneg often crossed the Stuhna River, ¹²⁶ and on the left bank their raids reached not only Trubez, but also the Oster (Vostr) and the Sejm. ¹²⁷

To fight the Pechenegs Volodimer engaged their perennial enemies the Torks/Oghuz. ¹²⁸ It is evident from the Tork-Rusian joint campaign against the Volga Bulghars, allies of the Pechenegs (985), ¹²⁹ that the object of the struggle was the control of the trade routes.

In 988 Volodimer began building fortifications along the Stuhna, and on the left bank along the Desna, Oster, Trubej and Sula Rivers. It was at that time that the recruitment of the Torks (later known as the Chernye Klobuki “Black Hats”) ¹³⁰ as settlers of military garrisons along the fortifications was begun.

The Pecheneg threat to Rus passed after 1036, the year when they were decisively crushed by Jaroslav in a battle outside of Kiev. Partly in pious gratitude for his victory, Jaroslav erected the cathedral of St. Sofia on the battle field. ¹⁸¹ This building is just a part of a greater structure which can be viewed as the manifestation of Jaroslav's imperial aspirations. This “Rurikid” understood his victory in the same way as Charlemagne viewed his triumph over the Avars (A.D. 800) and Otto I his elimination of the Hungarian danger (955). Thus, Jaroslav of Kiev acted in the spirit of his own Translatio imperii.

A memory of the Pechenegs has been preserved in Ukrainian geographical names. Although these names have never been systematically studied (the way they have been in Hungary), ¹³³ there are at least eight which are deserving of our notice here. First I shall mention the name of two forests.

In Lithuanian-Rusian documents of the fifteenth century, a forest Pecenizec near the Rosava River (a tributary on the Ros”) is named where archaeological finds attributable to the Pechenegs have been excavated. The Pecheneg political center in the tenth-eleventh centuries was probably located in this area. ¹³⁴

The second forest, on the right bank of the Boh (Pivdennyj Boh) River, between its tributary Seln'ycja and the town of Zabokrych (Jabokrych), is mentioned as early as 1617. ¹³⁵

The previous center, of the ninth century Pecheneg state (in “Lebedia”) was probably located in the area of the present-day village Pechenihy in the Xarkiv oblast' (Kharkiv), where archaeologists have discovered remnants of a Pecheneg encampment, dated to the ninth century. ¹³⁶ This village was settled by a Slavic population only in 1622 and, in 1708 became the center of the Pecheneg “sotnja” (Hundred) of the Izjum “Polk” (regiment), and from the 1750s to 1765 it was the center of the Izjum “Hundred” of the Slobodskyj Regiment. ¹³⁷

Two other villages are traceable to the Pechenegs of the Desna region: Pechenjuhy in the Novgorod-Siverskyj district ¹³⁸ and Pecheniki in the Starodub district. ¹³⁹

One of the centers of the right-bank Pechenegs was the present-day city Pechenizyn (Pechenijyn) on the Prut River, near Kolomyja in the Galician Ponyzzja (first mentioned in a source in 1443). ¹⁴⁰ The grave mound Pechenihy in the Bibrka district ¹⁴¹ and the village Pechenija of the Peremyshljany district ¹⁴² are traceable probably to Pecheneg military settlements which the Galician Rurikides created for the defense of the capital city Zvenyhorod. ¹⁴³

 

 

Postscript: Indo-Iranism arguments

For a line-by-line critical review of the O.Pritsak's Bechen/Indo-Iranism arguments click here