UYG'URS, Uighurs (self-name), people in China (7505 thousand people, Xinjiang - Uyghur Autonomous Region). They also live in Kazakhstan (185 thousand people), Kyrgyzstan (37 thousand people), Uzbekistan (36 thousand people), Russia (3 thousand people), Afghanistan (2 thousand people), etc. The total number is 7, 77 million people. They speak Uighur, or New Uighur, the language of the Turkic group of the Altai family. Dialects: northwestern, or central, with dialects (Turfan, Kuchar, Aksu, Yarkand, Kashgar, Ili, Urumchi, Karashar, etc.), eastern (Lobnor) and southern with dialects (Khotan, Keri, etc.). Russian, Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz and Chinese languages are widespread depending on the place of residence of one or another group of Uighurs. Since the end of the 1st millennium, writing based on Sogdian graphics. Writing in China is based on Arabic graphics, within the former USSR - on the basis of Russian graphics. Uyghur believers are Sunni Muslims.
The nomadic tribes (ancestors of the Uigurs) who lived in ancient times in the Mongolian steppes are mentioned in sources from the 3rd century. The ethnonym Uighurs is preserved in the Orkhon runic inscriptions of the 8th century. In the middle of the 8th century, the Uighurs, who lived in the valleys of the Selenga, Orkhon and Tola rivers, formed a state. After its defeat in 840 by the Yenisei Kyrgyz, the Uighurs moved to the west - to East Turkestan and the western part of Gansu, where they created independent states with centers in the Turfan oasis and in Gansu. Here the Uighurs gradually assimilated the local, predominantly Iranian- and Tokharo-speaking population, passing on their language and culture to them and, in turn, adopting the traditions of oasis agriculture and some types of crafts. During this period, among the Uighurs, whose religion was shamanism, Manichaeism spread, then Buddhism and Christianity (Nestorianism). The Uighur state in Gansu was destroyed by the Tanguts in the 11th century, and the East Turkestan state became a vassal of the Karakitays in the 12th century, became part of the Jagatai (Chagatai) ulus in the 14th century, and then - to Mogolistan. In the 14th-17th centuries, Islam spread among the Uighurs, displacing other religions. By this time, the formation of the modern Uyghur ethnos with the New Uyghur language dates back. The long domination of the conquerors, political and administrative disunity and a number of other reasons led to the fact that the ethnonym Uighurs almost ceased to be used. The Uighurs began to be called by their place of residence - Kashgarlyk (Kashgarians), Khotanlyk (Khotans), etc., or by occupation - Taranchi (farmer). However, the Uighurs retained their ethnic identity and their language. In the 17-18 centuries, the state of the Uighurs existed in East Turkestan, which by 1760 was captured by the Manchu rulers of China. In 1955, the Uighur Autonomous Region was formed in China.
The main occupations of the Uighurs are irrigated arable farming, which has reached a high level (cereals, oilseeds, various industrial crops, vegetables), gardening. In some areas (among the Lobnor people, in the mountainous regions of Khotan and Khami), they are mainly engaged in cattle breeding (sheep, horses, camels, cows). Ancillary occupations - fishing, hunting, gathering. Crafts - weaving, making carpets, ceramics, copper utensils, etc. Part of the Uighurs is employed in industry. The linear layout of the settlement predominates. The traditional dwelling of the Uighurs is made of adobe or mud-brick, with a flat daubed roof. There is a covered terrace (aivan) in front of the entrance to the house. They sleep on a heated couch (like a kan), niches in the walls serve to store beds and dishes, clothes are stored in chests. A fireplace-type hearth is located in the wall. Men's clothing - shirt, trousers, dressing gown, hat, skullcap, leather shoes with stockings; female - a long dress of the Central Asian type, a sleeveless jacket. In winter, everyone wears fur coats. Women's silver jewelry, especially earrings, are distinguished by grace; skullcaps are covered with rich embroidery. The main food is flour: cakes, noodles with seasoning from vegetables and meat (lagman), pies and dumplings with a variety of vegetable and meat fillings. Of the meat food, kevap is famous - lamb shish kebab. Tea is widespread everywhere, in the eastern oases - with milk, butter and salt. Watermelons, melons, fresh and dried fruits occupy a prominent place in the diet.
Marriage is patrilocal. The family is small, but patronymic ties are exceptionally strong. Preserved wedding and other ceremonies. The wedding is accompanied by songs, dances, jokes. It takes place simultaneously in two houses, and everything necessary (from food to fuel) is delivered to the bride's house by the groom's relatives. Before entering the husband's house, the young are circled around the fire. Traditional evenings of rest (mashrab), arranged separately by men and women of the same age. Traditional beliefs - the cult of spirits, shamanism. The Uighurs created a rich and original culture (monumental religious architecture, musical works), which influenced the culture of many countries of the East. Song and dance folklore is diverse.
A.M. Reshetov
According to the 2002 census, the number of Uyghurs living in Russia is 3,000 people.
The Uighurs are the indigenous people of Turkic East Turkistan. This is a formed medieval nation, which has its own language, culture and traditions. The Central Asian peoples call the Uighurs Kashgarians, the Chinese - chantou, the Mongols - khotons. For a long time, the country that the Uighur tribes formed was called Uygurstan or Uyghuristan, Mogulia, Kashgaria, Lesser Bukharia and Eastern Tataria.
Where live
In China, the Uighurs are the second largest Turkic Muslim people. They inhabit the main territories of the northwest of the PRC, the border regions of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. There is a large Uighur diaspora in Turkey. There are such communities in the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Canada, Sweden, Russia, Australia and Japan. Uyghur communities form traditional self-organizations that make up one or more blocks in a city called mallya. At the head are the foremen zhigit-beshi, whom the people themselves choose. Usually such communities are members of Uyghur public organizations united in the World Uyghur Congress.
population
About 11 million Uighurs live in the People's Republic of China. 7,000 people - in the southeast of China in the province of Hunan. About 5,000 people live outside China, most of them inhabiting the countries of Central Asia adjacent to China, where there are more than 300,000 of them: 248,000 in Kazakhstan, 50,000 in Kyrgyzstan, 20,000 in Uzbekistan and about 3,000 in Turkmenistan.
Name
There are several versions of the origin of the ethnonym "Uigur":
- according to the Turkic philologist Mahmud Kashgari, Alexander of Macedon called the horsemen opposing him in Central Asia “hudkhurand”, which translates as “like a falcon, from which not a single beast can escape”. Over time, this word was reduced to "hudhur", which later turned into "Uighur";
- the historian Abulgazi in his chronicle “The Genealogical Tree of the Turks” deduced this ethnonym from the Turkic roots and wrote that the legendary hero and progenitor of the Oghuz tribes Oguz Khan called the tribes with the word “Uighur”. Translated from Turkic, it means "a supporter who has joined, following."
Story
Historically, the Uighur ethnos was formed from territorially distant groups of the population, which were often of different ethnic origin. All of them lived in the territories of the East Turkestan region. And today the Uighur ethnic group is divided into a large number of ethnographic groups:
- Lobnorians
- dolans
- Turfans
- Khotanese
- Kashgarians
- Aksu people
- comulians
- Yarkand people
- Chuguchaks
- Atushians
- uchurfans
- Kuldzha people
- halfurtsy
- machines
- abdaly
- Korlintsy
- Kuchartsy
Each group has its own culture. The main part of the ethnic groups was formed as ethno-territorial groups, due to the large distance between the oasis ancient settlements, which were divided among themselves by parts of the Takla-Makan desert unsuitable for human life. Some were formed as a result of tribal division.
Chinese geneticists conducted studies that showed that the Uighurs are 60% Caucasian and 40% Mongoloid. According to them, the mixing occurred about 126 generations ago (2520 years ago). Later, they conducted another scientific work, which showed 30% belonging to the Caucasoid race. Detailed studies have revealed that the Uyghur people are made up of many components in varying proportions. The percentage of Caucasoid and Mongoloid races differs depending on the place of residence of the Uighurs. Genetically, Uighurs are more similar to East Asians.
Appearance
The Uighurs sew clothes mainly from cotton fabrics. Festive clothes are made of silk, cloth and velvet. The Lop Nors wear clothes made of kendyr. In winter, they wear robes lined with duck skins. Taglyks used to produce fabrics and clothing from wool.
As underwear, men wear long open shirts with wide long sleeves and very wide harem pants that gather at the waist with a drawstring. Turfans put on a short shirt to the waist (kalta hantai) under their shirt. The top dress is a chapan robe of various colors and a short jacket hamcha quilted on wadding. Chapan is sewn on a lining and covered with cotton fabric, striped or dark in color. There are fasteners at the throat and on the chest, sometimes buttons are sewn on a cord folded in half. Such a lace is sewn along the entire width of the side. On the other side of the robe, it ends with a loop.
In winter, Uighur men wear cotton-lined trousers, wide leather trousers lined with fur, and sheepskin coats. When riding, the floors of a fur coat or dressing gown are tucked into pants. In winter, a robe, shirt and jacket are tied with a belt made from a rolled scarf. Sometimes a knife in a sheath, a pipe with a pouch or a handkerchief were hung from the left side to the belt. Leather shoes, morocco or soft leather ichigi of red or green color are worn on the feet. If it was necessary to go outside, they put on galoshes (kepish). Many wore leather, very high heeled boots with a tongue in front that covered the knee. Stockings made of mats were put on their feet, in cold weather they were replaced with woolen stockings (paypak).
The headdress of the Uighurs is a skullcap (boryuk, or dopa). Ancient embroidered skullcaps consisted of a wide part of a cylindrical shape, with a conical or round top. Along the edge, the skullcap was trimmed with a strip of embroidered fabric. Today, square small skullcaps are increasingly worn. Warm caps cuffs are made with a fur band and on a fur lining from an otter and a lamb.
Women's national dress consists of a long tunic-shaped dress with a straight cut on a yoke, with straight armholes for sleeves and a stand-up collar. Sleeves are sewn long and wide, sometimes with cuffs. A sleeveless jacket is put on top of the dress, which is sheathed with a border in the area of \u200b\u200bthe sides and collar. The harem pants are wide at the bottom and intercepted at the ankle, sometimes decorated with colored ribbon or embroidery at the bottom. The dress has a zipper in the front. Previously, girls wore dresses with a slit in the shoulder area, and the sides and collars were sheathed along the slit with colored braid, tied with ribbons or fastened with buttons. Married women from Khotan and Kurl who have children decorated their dresses in the chest area with ribbon stripes.
Women's outerwear differs from men's in the absence of a belt and brighter colors. In addition to a quilted short jacket, women wear sleeveless jackets and jackets of a Manchu cut, which are distinguished by a neckline and a wide right hem. Winter clothes are no different from men's. The poor often wore one fur coat for two. For small children, overalls are sewn in which a shirt, stockings and trousers are connected together.
Women braid their hair. Previously, girls made a straight parting, left bangs on their foreheads and braided five braids. Women were allowed to wear two braids only after the birth of a child or after a special ceremony of braiding hair. In Turfan, such a hairstyle was allowed after the birth of three children. Black silk laces with tassels are woven into the ends of the braids. Sometimes, silk laces and black tassels, decorated with silver jewelry pendants, are woven instead. Girls and women wear skullcaps on their heads, which differ from men's ones in richer embroidery with beads and beads. In the cold season, they wear fur hats with a wider band than men's. A large white coverlet made of mat or muslin descends onto the back from under the cap. On the front side, from under the cap, there is a white scarf made of transparent muslin, often bordered with tassels and embroidered along the edges. Women from wealthy families wore hats with a fur band.
Lop Nor women put a white veil over their hats and tie it below the chin. In the 19th century, Uighur women still wore hats made of duck and swan skins with the feathers facing out.
Clothes are decorated with buttons trimmed with silver or gold, very often embroidery is done on clothes in the area of the collar, piping and yoke of the dress. Of the jewelry, women wear rings with semi-precious or precious stones, bracelets and earrings made of precious metals. Coral and glass beads are popular.
Language
The Uyghur language belongs to the Turkic language group, the modern language of the Uyghurs is called New Uyghur and is considered the successor of the Uyghur-Karakhanid language.
New Uighur is divided into many dialects and the following dialects:
- lobnor
- central
- Khotanese
The Uighurs have changed several scripts throughout their history. The ancestors of the Uyghurs, around the 6th century, created the ancient Uyghur script on the basis of Sogdian. The Uighur script was widely spread among the eastern peoples: Manchus, Mongols and Turks, and later became one of the official scripts of the Mongol Empire of the Timurid state. Some groups of Uyghurs used this type of writing until the 16th century.
From the 10th century, after part of the indigenous population of East Turkestan converted to Islam, Arabic writing spread among the Uighurs, which finally supplanted the ancient Uyghur writing in the 16th century. The Uighurs of East Turkistan still use the Arabic script to this day. In Central Asia, the Uyghurs use the Cyrillic alphabet, which was introduced during the Soviet era.
Religion
The ancient Uighurs professed Buddhism, Tengrism and Manichaeism. In the 10th century, during the period of Karakhanid rule, part of the Uighurs converted to Islam. Today, the majority of believing Uighurs are Sunni Muslims of the Hanafi madhhab.
A life
The Uighurs have long been engaged in agriculture, trade, various crafts, transhumance and pasture animal husbandry. The Lop Nor Uighurs are engaged in hunting and fishing.
dwelling
Uighur dwellings are built from knocked down clay with straw or mud bricks. In places where the Uighurs live, where there are forests, the frame of the houses is made of wood and stuffed with clay. They put up walls without a foundation or make it out of cobblestone. The roof is flat, mounted on beams located transversely and longitudinally. On top of them, a flooring of thin poles is laid, which is covered with reed mats. A reed spreads from above and is covered with a layer of earth 10 cm thick, coated with clay. In the south, flat roofs are used to dry corn, vegetables and fruits.
Windows in dwellings used to be in the form of holes that were made in the center of the ceiling. They were covered with wooden shutters. Now windows are made in the walls and a patterned lattice of wood is inserted into them, which is sealed with paper. All doors and windows of the house overlook the courtyard, the outer walls are blank. Outbuildings and a barnyard adjoin the dwelling. The dwelling is fenced along with the buildings with a high clay wall or a hedge in places of residence where there is water. The main room in the house is the winter room, in front of it is the summer room. The houses of the Uighurs are made in the form of a rectangle, which is divided into several rooms by transverse partitions with doors. The floors in the houses are earthen, rammed tightly with clay. The main part of the room is occupied by a couch, the height of which is about half a meter, it stretches along the walls. Houses are heated by lighting a fire in the middle of the room. Smoke exits through a hole in the roof.
Rarely there are houses of a complex plan with a large central room. For the rich, outbuildings are located in a special courtyard, for the poor, they are often united by one roof, one wall, or a common entrance from the side of the street. The rich have a separate kitchen, a guest room and a special summer room. There are 20-25 rooms in the houses of wealthy Uighurs.
Food
Dishes of the Uighur cuisine are very diverse and each has its own symbolism. Cold dishes are divided into 2 types: from fried and boiled vegetables, dishes from raw vegetables. Salads are seasoned with oil, vinegar and spices. From vegetables they eat radishes, cucumbers, tomatoes, carrots, cabbage, radishes, peppers, from legumes - sprouted beans and beans.
Gul tawak occupies a special place in the cuisine; it is prepared from vegetables, meat and spices. The ingredients are laid out in the form of a flower. From the first courses, broths, soups with vegetables and rice are popular. There are two types of noodle soups: fried and brothy. The Uyghurs call such dishes food of the tired and food-rest. They are seasoned with fresh herbs and roots. A very popular and favorite dish among this people is lagman. It consists of long noodles and specially prepared gravy. Lagman is called a dish of love. Depending on the season, lagman is divided into 4 types, which differ in the ingredients of the gravy.
Manty is steamed in special devices with grills. Dough for manti can be unleavened, yeasty or sour. The filling is also different: pumpkin with onions, meat, clover, figs, quince, vegetables, green onions. The Uighurs prepare choshchurya dumplings, which are served to the newlyweds on the second day of the wedding as a symbol of well-being and having many children.
Often, especially on holidays, Uighurs cook pilaf, season it with raisins and garlic. Chefs are specially invited for the holidays ashpaz. One of the most revered ancient dishes of the Uighurs is samsa. These are pies stuffed with minced meat, onions, vegetables, pumpkins and fruits. They are cooked in a special cone-shaped oven in which bread is baked. Meat bread “gosh-nan”, pasties “porya” and roll bread “olukh nan” are popular among the Uighurs.
You need to have special skill to prepare the dish opkya-esip - stuffed lungs. When the Uighurs slaughter a calf, lamb or ram, they try not to hit the lungs with the knife. They are stuffed with a mixture of milk, butter, eggs and dough, for this the lungs are inflated and only then the filling is poured into them through a sieve. The hole is tightly bandaged and the lungs are lowered into boiling water.
Bread is baked from wheat and corn flour in the form of flat cakes. In Uyghur cuisine, there are more than 40 types of bread preparation. Rich puff pastries and pancakes are baked in a cauldron. On holidays, various types of cookies are baked in the cauldron.
Tea plays a very important role in the diet of the Uighurs. They drink it with salt, milk, season with cream, butter and sour cream. The drink is poured into large bowls. With fatty dressings, tea is drunk mainly for breakfast, after a hearty meal they drink black tea with sweets. Ferghana Uighurs love green tea.
culture
The culture of the Uighurs is unique and rich. These are monumental religious architecture, literary and musical works, fine arts, especially miniature painting. The key work in the music of the people is the "Twelve Uighur Mukams", which was declared by UNESCO as part of the intangible heritage of mankind.
This people has a huge number of songs and instrumental folk music. The Uighurs made various musical instruments, of which there are about 62. Some of them are:
- dutar
- gijak
- tambir
- ravap
- satar
A popular Uighur dance is sanam. It is danced at weddings and festive evenings. Dances can be performed with singing and musical accompaniment. Sama is also popular - a group dance for the New Year (Novruz). For dances, the Uighurs use the dap hand drum as an accompaniment.
The literature of the Uighur people has been very rich since ancient times. It contains poetry, folklore, prose, religious literature, consisting of translations of Buddhist and Manichaean texts. A large part of the literary monuments of the Uighurs are works of the common heritage of the Turkic-speaking peoples of East Turkestan and Central Asia.
Uighur architecture is divided into pre-Islamic and Islamic. It is worth noting the following monuments of Uighur architecture: Togluk-Timur Mausoleum, Appak Khoja Mausoleum and the largest mosque in China, Id Kah.
Traditions
The Uighurs have preserved many traditions to this day. There are still men's unions ottuz ogul, which translates as "30 guys" or "30 horsemen". Men of a certain age enter into an alliance, they are headed by elected leaders. The purpose of such male unions is mutual support and assistance to all members of the union.
Another tradition of myashryap is an old custom, which is otherwise called an evening of rest. It starts at the end of autumn and lasts until spring. Circles gather men from men's unions who have common interests, live in the same village or district. At the beginning of such a meeting, the participants choose a head who has the right to appoint a musician, a cook and a dancer, as well as a judge who punishes the backsliding members of the Myashryap. Folk songs and dances are sung at meetings. Men talk, discover something new and useful. For them, meat is also a circle of friends who are always ready to help. Sometimes people from the union are closer to each other than relatives. After the events of 1997 in Ghulja, the Chinese government banned the meat dish, but the Uyghurs still do not give up their customs.
The Uyghurs of East Turkestan have a tradition of everyday wearing cold weapons - the national pchak knife. For centuries, the pchak has been a symbol of a man and a traditional cold weapon of the Uighurs. Even for baby boys, pchak is placed in the cradle under the pillow. These knives have been made by families of artisans for generations. The most famous area for making pchaks is the Uighur ancient city of Yangihisar. Here, almost the entire population is engaged in this craft.
The Uighurs have a tradition according to which the only or youngest son remains in the family, and his older brothers, who have married, are separated from the family. Marriages are usually concluded only between fellow believers. It is highly condemned and disapproved of the marriage of a girl to a non-Christian. Important in choosing a bride or groom is the will of the parents. The act of marriage must be confirmed by a clergyman - imam or ahun. After the imam reads a surah from the Koran, the newlyweds should eat a cake soaked in water with salt, tea and milk.
A woman must give birth to her first child in her mother's house. 20-30 days before the birth, the wife's mother comes to her husband's house and asks permission to take her daughter to her. Accompany her relatives and relatives with gifts. When a child is born, the woman's mother takes care of everything. It is believed that 40 days after birth, the mother and newborn are especially susceptible to the action of evil spirits and must be protected. All 40 days to the woman in labor is limited access. After 12 days, the child is given a name. Relatives of the husband and the mullah are invited. Women come to the house of a woman for up to 40 days with gifts and cooked dishes as a token of help to a young mother.
On the 40th day, the ritual of bathing the baby is performed. All women who take part must say their wishes to the child. After bathing, the baby's nails and hair are cut for the first time. The woman's next children must be born in her husband's house.
The Uyghurs (Uyg. ئۇيغۇر, Uyghurlar; Chinese 维吾尔, Wéiwú "ěr) are the indigenous people of East Turkestan, now the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China. They are Sunni Muslims by religion. The Uyghur language belongs to the Turkic language group of the Altaic language family. In Gorny In Altai, the largest number of Uighurs live in the Altai County of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
self-name
The Uighurs are one of the ancient Turkic-speaking peoples. During the time of the third Uyghur Khaganate, a common name for all was adopted - the Uighurs. Abulgazi (1603-1663) in the annals "The Genealogical Tree of the Turks" derives the ethnonym "Uigur" from the Turkic word "to unite, unite". According to M. Kashgari, the self-name "Uigur" dates back to the time of Alexander the Great. He called the horsemen opposing him in Central Asia "hudkhurand", "like a falcon, from which not a single animal can escape when hunting." "Khudhurand" eventually abbreviated to "Khudhur", and the last word turned into "Uighur". The Uighurs include the following ethnographic groups: Turpanlyk, Kashkarlyk, Kumuluk, Khotanlyk, Aksulyk, Yarkyantlyk, Dolan, Lolyk, Chochyalyk, Uchurpanlyk, Guljuluk, Atushluk, Kucharlyk, Korlalyk, Machin, Half-Urlyk, Abdal.
Settlement and population
The total population is approximately 10 million people. Of these, more than 9 million live in East Turkestan / XUAR, as well as in large cities in eastern China. A small enclave of about 7,000 Uighurs also exists in Hunan Province, in the southeast of China, where they have been living for several centuries.
Uighurs in Urumqi
The Uighur community, abroad, with a total number of about 500 thousand, is represented in many countries, but the main part lives in the republics of Central Asia, the number of the Central Asian community is approximately ~ 350 thousand. Of these, in the Republic of Kazakhstan ~ 250 thousand, in the Kyrgyz Republic ~ 60 thousand, in Uzbekistan ~ 50 thousand, in Turkmenistan ~ 3 thousand.
A large Uyghur diaspora exists in the Republic of Turkey, numbering about 40 thousand, as well as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia ~ 30 thousand. There are also Uyghur communities in Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Sweden, Canada, USA, Japan, Australia. Uyghur enclaves can be found in such cities of the world as Sydney, Beijing, Shanghai, Mecca, Almaty, Bishkek, Munich. Uighur communities are characterized by traditional self-organization in the form of malls, headed by elected foremen zhigit-beshi. Usually, all communities are members of Uyghur public organizations, the unifying organization of which, in turn, is the World Uyghur Congress.
Story
The process of folding the Uighur ethnos was complex and lengthy. Their ancestors - the nomadic tribes of East Turkestan played a significant role in the power of the Xiongnu (III century BC - IV centuries AD).
Mosque in traditional Uyghur architecture style
In written sources, the ancestors of the Uighurs are mentioned from the 3rd century BC. n. e. (including in the Orkhon inscriptions of the 8th century). In the III-IV centuries. The Uighurs were part of an association, which in Chinese dynastic chronicles was called gaogyu (lit. "high carts"). In the 5th century in Chinese sources, a new name for this union appears - the body (the tag "cart workers"). A significant group of Tele tribes migrated westward to the steppes of Kazakhstan and Southeast Europe. Those who remained in the Central Asian steppes were subjugated by the Turks and became part of their state. The main lands of the body were then in Dzungaria and Semirechye. But in 605, after the treacherous beating of several hundred Tele leaders by the Western Turkic Churyn-Kagan, the leader of the Uighurs took the tribes to the Khangai Mountains, where they created a separate group, called by Chinese historiographers "nine tribes" (Tokuz-Oghuz). Since 630, after the fall of the first Turkic Khaganate, the Tokuz-Oguzes act as a significant political force, the leadership within which was established by ten Uyghur tribes headed by the Yaglakar clan. In the V-VIII centuries. The Uighurs were part of the Rouran Khaganate and then the Turkic Khaganate. The process of ethnic consolidation of the Uighurs ended in the 8th century. after the collapse of the Turkic Khaganate and the formation of the Uighur early feudal state (Uighur Khaganate) on the river. Orkhon. The Khaganate was headed by Khagans from the Uighur clan Yaglakar (Chinese: Yao-luo-ko; 745-795). It was at this point that Manichaeism was recognized as the official religion. In 795, the Ediz tribe (795-840) came to power, which also adopted the name Yaglakar.
Gumilyov considers this episode to be the coming to power of the Manichaean theocracy: ... in 795, the adopted son of one of the nobles Kutlug was enthroned, on the condition of limiting power. “The nobles, officials and others reported:“ You, heavenly king, sit carelessly on a precious throne, and an assistant should receive someone with the ability to control the measure from the sea and the mountain: ... laws and commands must be given: one must hope for heavenly mercy and favor " In other words, the executive and judicial powers were taken away from the khan, and politics was taken under the control of the heavenly mercy”, that is, the Manicheans. The union of tribes turned into a theocracy.
In 840, power in the Khaganate returned to the Yaglakar tribe for 7 years. In the 840s, due to complex internal political and economic reasons, as well as the external invasion of the ancient Kyrgyz, the state of the Uighurs collapsed.
National Uighur knives
Part of the Uighurs moved to East Turkestan and the western part of Gansu, where three independent states were created - with centers in Gansu near the modern city of Zhangye, in the Turfan oasis and Kashgar.
The Karakhanid state in Kashgar and the Uyghur state of the Turfan Idkuts Kochov Turfan existed for more than 400 years.
Here, the Uyghurs gradually assimilated the local, predominantly Iranian-Itocharian-speaking population, passing on their language and culture to them, and, in turn, adopting the traditions of oasis agriculture and some types of crafts. During this period, among the Uighurs of Turfan, Komul, whose religion was Manichaeism and shamanism, Buddhism spread, then Christianity (Nestorianism). In the same historical period, starting from the 10th century, Islam spread among the Uighurs of Kashgar, Yarkend, Khotan, by the 16th century. displacing other religions throughout East Turkestan.
With the adoption of Islam, the Arabic script was replaced by the Old Uighur script.
By this time, the formation of the modern Uyghur ethnos with the New Uyghur language dates back. Political and administrative disunity in the period of the 15th-16th centuries. as well as a number of other reasons led to the fact that the ethnonym "Uigur" began to be little used, and was soon supplanted by religious self-consciousness. The Uighurs called themselves first of all "Muslims", and also by the region of origin - Kashkarlyk (Kashgarian), Khotanlyk (Khotanese), etc., or by occupation - Taranchi (farmer). In the XVII-XVIII centuries. in East Turkestan there was a state of the Uighurs, which in 1760 was captured by the Manchu rulers of China. National oppression and brutal exploitation caused numerous uprisings of the Uighurs against the Manchu-Qing, and later the Kuomintang enslavers. In 1921, at the congress of representatives of the Uyghurs in Tashkent, the ancient self-name "Uyghur" was restored as a national one.
With the destruction of the last Uyghur statehood in 1949, and with the formation of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in 1955, the PRC authorities are pursuing a targeted policy of assimilation of the Uyghurs, primarily through the mass resettlement of ethnic Han Chinese in the XUAR and artificial birth control of the indigenous Uyghur population. In general, achievements in the field of education and health, cultural development, are complicated by the demographic, ethnic and religious policies of the Chinese government. A big problem is the growth of Islamic extremism among the Uighurs and the cruelty of repression by the state.
Kazakh Uighurs protest
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The Uighurs are China's best-known national minority outside of China. Along with the Kurds and Tuaregs, they are among the three largest nations that do not have their own state.
The Uyghurs are considered a minority only on the scale of a billion Chinese - more than ten million citizens of the Uyghur nationality now live in the PRC. For comparison, this is twice as many as all the Tatars living in Russia, the largest non-Slavic national minority.
The vast majority of China's Uyghurs - more than eight million - inhabit their historical homeland, now officially called Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR) China. Xinjiang, which means "new frontier" in Chinese, is a huge quadrangle in China's far northwest, between Mongolia, the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Tibet. Two thousand kilometers from east to west, a little less from north to south. Crossed by high mountain ranges, arid plains and deserts with oases, along which the famous "Silk Road" ran in ancient times.
The ethnos of the Uighurs is largely generated by the Great Silk Road from China to the Mediterranean, the main economic artery of ancient Eurasia. Therefore, among the ancestors of modern Uighurs is a historical cocktail of disappeared Turkic and Mongolian peoples, mixed with the ancient population of the Takla-Makan oases, one of the largest sandy deserts in the world.
Modern Xinjiang is one sixth of the entire territory of China, in which three Frances will fit. XUAR borders on Kazakhstan (1718 km), Kyrgyzstan (1000 km), Tajikistan (450 km), Russia (55 km), Mongolia (1400 km), as well as Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. The total length of the state border of the XUAR of the PRC is over 5,600 kilometers. Every third Chinese border guard serves here.
Xinjiang - this area is also called Dzungaria and East Turkestan - has long been inhabited by many tribes and nationalities, mainly Turkic-speaking Uighurs, as well as other peoples practicing Islam - Dungans (descendants of Chinese Muslims), Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Tajiks, Uzbeks.
Dzungaria was the last nomadic empire in the world, which was crushed by the Chinese Qing Empire in a bloody, decades-long war in the 18th century. The troops of the Peking emperor slaughtered almost 90% of the Dzhungars (Western Mongols), the uncut ones fled west to the Volga, where they became Russian Kalmyks. By the beginning of the 19th century, the borders of the Chinese Qing Empire covered both modern Xinjiang and modern Kyrgyzstan and the southern part of modern Kazakhstan to Lake Balkhash.
East Turkestan is already the Russian name for the homeland of the Uighurs, which arose in the 19th century. It became eastern because there was Western Turkestan - a region of settlement of Turkic-speaking peoples, which fell into the sphere of influence of Russia. Now this includes the former Central Asian republics of the USSR.
Uighurs invented by Russians
An amazing historical fact, but It was Russia that gave the modern ethnic name to the Uighurs - In 1921, a congress (kurultai) of representatives of the Uighur intelligentsia was held in Tashkent. There, at the suggestion of Sergey Efimovich Malov, an orientalist professor from Kazan, the ancient name "Uigur" was restored as an ethnonym-self-name of the settled Turkic-speaking population of East Turkestan. Prior to this, the inhabitants of the Uyghur oases called themselves according to their place of residence - "Kashgarians", "Ilis", "Turfans", "Taranches". But to oppose the Chinese, they collectively called themselves "yarlik" - literally "compatriots" or "locals".
For the first time, the Chinese captured the territory of modern XUAR two thousand years ago in the era of the Han Empire, when the ancient Chinese tried to establish diplomatic contacts with the Roman Emperor Titus Flavius. In the first century AD, Chinese garrisons and the first settlers appeared here to control the "Great Silk Road". In fact, today the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China only continues the traditions of the Han Empire in this region - the coincidence is even more surprising if we remember that both the PRC and the Han dynasty were founded by the leaders of the victorious peasant uprisings, Mao Zedong and Liu Bang.
The last two thousand years of the history of Xinjiang represent a continuous series of victories and defeats of the local statehood in the fight against the claims of the Chinese emperors - from the descendants of Liu Bang to the "descendants" of Mao.In the first millennium of our era, there were three Uighur Khaganates, large early feudal states. The so-called "Third Uighur Khaganate", a contemporary of the legendary Rurik, stretched from the steppes of Kazakhstan to Korea.The Uighurs then practiced Manichaeism, an unusual religion that grew out of a mixture of early Christianity and Zoroastrianism.
The convenient geographical location of the Uighurs contributed both to the development of a fairly high culture, where Chinese and Mediterranean influences were mixed, and to the spread of new religions. The Uyghurs were successively Buddhists, Manichaeans, and during the first three or four centuries of the second millennium AD they converted to Islam.
The Russians first got acquainted with the Uyghurs during the Mongol invasion - the orders of Batu and his heirs, labels and paizi, that came to Russia, were written precisely in the “Uyghur letter”. The Uighur alphabet, by order of Genghis Khan, was officially adopted in the Mongol Empire from the first years of its inception. In science, this Uyghur alphabet is now called “Old Uyghur” - it arose on the Great Silk Road at the beginning of the first millennium of our era, taking as a basis the alphabet of ancient Sogdiana, which, in turn, through the Aramaic letter ascended to the first Phoenician alphabet in the history of mankind ...
War with China as a national identity
After the Manchus crushed the Dzungar Khanate in the 18th century, almost destroying the Western Mongols-Oirats who professed Buddhism, Xinjiang province, created on the remains of the deceased khanate, remained one of the most restless in the Qing Empire. Here, uprisings and rebellions of the local Muslim, i.e., flared up with regularity. Uighur population - in 1816, in 1825, in 1830, 1847 and 1857.
To pacify the rebellious province, the Peking authorities kept Manchu and Chinese garrisons here and encouraged the resettlement of people from the central provinces of China to Xinjiang. Special military settlements were created from the Sibo and Solon tribes related to the Manchus, whom the Qing authorities resettled from the Far East to Central Asia.
Despite all these measures, in 1864 an anti-Peking uprising of the Uighurs and Dungans (Muslim Chinese) broke out here. For more than ten years, almost the entire territory of Xinjiang was an independent Islamic state of Yettishar, separated from China, headed by Yakub Bek, who united several rebel khanates and sultanates. The new khan, who received the title of "Defender of the Faith", was a Tajik by nationality, a former military leader in the Kokand and Khiva khanates. This fact clearly emphasizes the close family ties of the Uighurs with Central (Central) Asia.
Tajik Yakub Bek created a powerful enough army in anti-Chinese Xinjiang to oppose the troops of the Chinese emperor, relying on mountains and deserts. But another empire, advancing from the north, Russia, just in those years conquering the Central Asian khanates and emirates, was not at all eager to have an aggressive Muslim state on its new Asian borders. After all, Yakub Bek, in an effort to find allies against China, frankly focused in foreign policy on Turkey and the British Empire, then trying to gain a foothold in Afghanistan from the Indian colonies.
As part of this “great game” of Russia and Britain for Central Asia, it was decided in St. Petersburg that for the calm of Western Turkestan, which had already become Russian, it would be better to return East Turkestan to the nominal power of the distant and then relatively weak Beijing. The main problem for the Chinese armies in the return of Xinjiang was communications, or rather the supply of troops during a thousand-kilometer campaign in desert and mountainous terrain. Russia solved this problem for Beijing - the first governor of Russian Turkestan, the Russian German Kaufman, conducted a whole special operation to supply grain to the advancing troops of the Chinese General Zuo Zongtang. The Chinese bought this grain from the Russians at the most speculative prices, paying over 10 million silver rubles for it.
Having thus solved the problems with logistics, the troops of the Chinese emperor began to massacre the Uighur and Dungan rebels along with their families. The remnants of the rebels fled to the territory controlled by Russia. Here The placement and treatment of these refugees was handled by Dr. Vasily Frunze, the father of Mikhail Frunze, the same one who, four decades later, during our civil war, would return all of Western Turkestan to Russia.
All Uighur classical literature originated from this national liberation struggle against China. Thus, Nazym Bilal, a poet and writer, the most famous Uighur literary classic, not only participated in anti-Chinese uprisings himself, but devoted most of his works to this struggle. Almost all the heroes and heroines of the Uighur literature of that time are struggling with Chinese expansion.
Chronic victims of geopolitics
As early as the 20th century, Uyghur states that broke away from China would emerge twice on the territory of Xinjiang. In the course of anti-Chinese uprisings in 1932, the Emirate of Khotan appeared, and the following year, the whole East Turkestan Islamic Republic, headed by the Uyghur Khoja Niyaz, who adopted the quite modern title of "president". Prior to these events, President Niyaz managed to take part in the Russian civil war on the side of the Bolsheviks, being an activist of the Revolutionary Union of Kashgar-Dzhungar Workers.
The beginning of the Uyghur uprising was an attempt by a Chinese officer of the local garrison to marry a Uyghur girl. A fact that clearly underlines the degree of hatred and alienation of politically active Uighurs from China. The newly independent state had a chance of success as long as the USSR remained hostile to the nationalist Kuomintang ruling in China. But in the second half of the 1930s, the Soviet communists and Chinese nationalists had a common dangerous enemy - samurai Japan, which began active expansion on the Asian continent. Fearing its excessive strengthening, the USSR supported official China, including helping the Chinese regain control over Xinjiang.
Here, Soviet troops, including aviation, had already directly participated in the battles upon the return of the new Chinese governor Shen Shicai to Xinjiang. At the same time, the Soviet units were disguised as White Guards who had previously fled to China - graduates of the NKVD border schools were sent to Xinjiang, where, by order of the people's commissar, they were required to wear pre-revolutionary shoulder straps and call each other "Your Honor".
The new Chinese governor-general of Xinjiang in the late 1930s was more oriented toward the Stalinist USSR than toward the central government of Kuomintang China. In 1939, he even secretly asked the Soviet consul to accept him as a member of the CPSU (b) - it is noteworthy that the party card was issued to the Chinese governor and secretly transferred to the capital of Xinjiang. By that time, the Soviet Union controlled key facilities for the extraction of raw materials on the territory of East Turkestan, it was then that Soviet specialists discovered uranium deposits here for the first time.
But after the start of the war with Nazi Germany, General Sheng Shicai too hastily concluded that the days of the USSR were numbered. He fired Soviet advisers and began shooting Uyghur and Chinese communists. Among the executed was the younger brother of Mao Zedong, the future ruler of red China.
In the summer of 1944, Governor Sheng finally realized that he had made the wrong choice and hurriedly fled from his post to central China. By that time, the cessation of trade with the USSR caused a real economic crisis in Xinjiang and prompted new Uyghur uprisings. In the autumn of 1944, the East Turkestan Revolutionary Republic arose. It is interesting that this next anti-Chinese uprising was led by Uighurs, Kazakhs, Kalmyks and Tatars.(The diaspora of Kazan Tatars has always played a key role in the brisk Russia-USSR trade with Xinjiang).
Uighur Akhmedzhan Kasymov, a man with a demonstrative biography, becomes the President of the East Turkestan Republic - he graduated from school in the Soviet Alma-Ata, received a pedagogical education at the Soviet University of Tashkent, and defended his doctoral dissertation on the history of the Uyghurs at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Languages already as a full-time employee of the Comintern. The Soviet major general of the NKVD Ivan Polinov became the commander-in-chief of the army of the new Uyghur republic, and the former White Guard general who served in Dutov's army, the Cossack-Old Believer Varsonofy Mozharov, was appointed chief of staff.
In September 1945, under pressure from Soviet diplomats and the military successes of the Xinjiang rebels, the Chinese central government recognized the "autonomy" of the Uighurs. In Moscow at that time, in the Stalinist Politburo, the proposal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Kazakh SSR (a large Uighur diaspora has long lived in Kazakhstan) to create a Communist Party of Xinjiang was very seriously considered. As the Kazakh communists wrote, “in order to consolidate the political and economic gains of the Muslims who rebelled against the Chinese in the northern districts of Xinjiang, and to further develop the national liberation movement of the non-Chinese masses in this province.”
But the factor of big Russian-Chinese politics again intervened in the fate of the Uighur statehood. In 1949, it became finally clear that the Chinese Communists were winning in the protracted civil war that had actually lasted in China since 1911. And in Moscow, they considered that an alliance with a big red China was much more important than the complicated relations with the Uyghurs.
As a result, the government of the East Turkestan Revolutionary Republic, flying from Xinjiang on a Soviet plane to Beijing for negotiations with Mao, did not fly anywhere. According to the official version, the plane crashed somewhere between Irkutsk and Chita. The armed forces of the Uighur Republic, created with the help of the USSR, officially became the 5th Corps of the Communist People's Liberation Army of China. For many years, until the quarrel between Khrushchev and Mao Zedong, this corps was commanded by a Chinese lieutenant general from the Russian Old Believers Fotiy Ivanovich Leskin.
As we can see, the Uyghur separatists, who over the past two centuries had many chances for success in their anti-Chinese struggle, were simply chronically unlucky to be victims of geopolitical combinations and compromises of big planetary players, primarily Moscow and Beijing. In other scenarios, we could see a very large Turkic Islamic state in the very center of the Asian continent, just north of Tibet.
The Uighurs are an Eastern Turkish people mentioned in Chinese chronicles from the 4th century after the birth of Christ. According to some scholars, the Uyghurs called themselves the former Turkish peoples, and the name "Uyghurs" is identical with the name of the Finnish Ugric peoples, or Yugrs: when moving west, the Turks mixed with the Finns and gave their name to several Finnish peoples. But this theory cannot be considered proven.
In the Middle Ages, the Uighurs were divided into two branches: one roamed in, in the basin, the other settled in East Turkestan, where it was influenced by Chinese culture and religious teachings that spread from () and Western Asia (Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, Nestorianism, later Islam). In the Chinese chronicles, the northern Uighurs are referred to under the names gao-gyu, hoi-hu, and hoi-he.
In the 8th century, after the collapse of the state of the Oghuz Turks, the Uighurs reached a leading position in and formed a strong state that lasted for about a hundred years (744-840). They own the foundation of the city of Karakoram, the ruins of which still exist today and are much larger than the ruins of the city of the same name, built in the 13th century. Among the ruins, a monument of the beginning of the 9th century with inscriptions (Chinese and Turkish), discovered by Yadrintsev in 1889, has been preserved. It can be seen from the inscriptions that the northern Uighurs, like their southern compatriots, were influenced by Western religious teachings, and that even then, along with the ancient Turkish alphabet, the alphabet of Syrian origin was used, which later received the name Uyghur.
Like other nomadic rulers of Mongolia, the Uighur khans were constantly at war with the Chinese. In 840 they were defeated by those who lived in the Upper basin and fled south to East Turkestan and Tangout. There is only speculation about their fate over the next centuries.
In the era of the appearance of the Mongols (beginning of the 13th century), only one Uighur possession is mentioned, in Eastern Turkestan, with the cities of Bishbalyk (ruins near Guchen) and Kara-Khoja (ruins 30 kilometers east of Turfan). The owner bore the title of Idikut, was a vassal of the Kara-Chinese Gurkhans, separated from them at the beginning of the 13th century, and in 1209 voluntarily submitted to Genghis Khan.
The Uighur culture had a significant influence on the Mongols. In all the states founded by the Mongols, the Uighurs still in the 14th century and partly in the 15th century retained an influential position, as officials of the Mongolian chanceries and educators of the Mongolian princes and other noble youths. The Mongolian and Manchurian alphabets are derived from the Uighur alphabet.
The Uighurs were part Buddhist, part Nestorian and were considered the most bitter enemies of Islam. In the middle of the 13th century, one of the Idikuts was executed for his intention to kill all the Muslims in Bishbalik in one day.
Idikut possession is mentioned as early as the second half of the 13th century, but to a lesser extent. Only the city of Kara-Khoja and its district remained under the rule of the Idikut. The eastern part (Khami) went to, the western (Bishbalyk) - to the Jagatai state, which later included Turfan. Islam gradually (since the 15th century) supplanted the last remnants of Buddhism and Nestorianism; the Uighur alphabet was supplanted by the Arabic one.
Currently, the name "Uighurs" exists among many Turkish peoples, as the name of a separate genus. As a popular name, it is used only by two peoples, on the border of Tibet - the Kara-Uyghurs and the Saryg-Uyghurs. The former speak Mongolian, the latter have retained the Turkish language. The archaeological discoveries made in recent years, the scientific development of which has just begun, will contribute to clarifying the history of the Uyghurs and their culture. In addition to the ruins of buildings, a number of Uighur manuscripts were found, part of Buddhist religious texts (sometimes Sanskrit texts with Uyghur transcription), part of business documents.
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