Descendants of the fierce Polovtsians among us: who they are, and how can they be recognized today

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

The Polovtsi are one of the most mysterious steppe peoples, which went down in Russian history thanks to the raids on the principalities and the repeated attempts of the rulers of the Russian lands, if not to defeat the steppe inhabitants, then at least to come to an agreement with them. The Cumans themselves were defeated by the Mongols and settled over a large part of Europe and Asia. Now there is no people who could directly trace their genealogy to the Polovtsians. And yet they certainly have descendants.

In the steppe (Deshti-Kipchak - Kipchak, or Polovtsian steppe) lived not only the Polovtsians, but also other peoples, who are sometimes united with the Polovtsians, sometimes they are considered independent: for example, the Cumans and Kuns. Most likely, the Polovtsians were not a "monolithic" ethnic group, but were divided into tribes. Arab historians of the early Middle Ages distinguish 11 tribes, Russian chronicles also indicate that different Polovtsian tribes lived west and east of the Dnieper, east of the Volga, near the Seversky Donets.

Many Russian princes were the descendants of the Polovtsians - their fathers often married noble Polovtsian girls. Not so long ago, a dispute broke out about how Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky actually looked. According to the reconstruction of Mikhail Gerasimov, in his appearance, Mongoloid features were combined with Caucasoid ones. However, some modern researchers, for example, Vladimir Zvyagin, believe that there were no Mongoloid features in the appearance of the prince at all.

What did the Polovtsians themselves look like?

There is no consensus among researchers on this score. In the sources of the XI-XII centuries, the Polovtsians are often called "yellow". The Russian word also probably comes from the word "sexual", that is, yellow, straw.

Some historians believe that among the ancestors of the Polovtsians were the "dinlins" described by the Chinese: people who lived in southern Siberia and were blond. But the authoritative researcher of the Polovtsi Svetlana Pletneva, who has repeatedly worked with materials from the mounds, does not agree with the hypothesis about the "fair hair" of the Polovtsian ethnic group. “Yellow” can be the self-name of a part of a nationality, in order to distinguish itself, to oppose the rest (in the same period, there were, for example, “black” Bulgarians).

According to Pletneva, the bulk of the Polovtsians were brown-eyed and dark-haired - these are Turks with an admixture of Mongoloid. It is quite possible that among them there were people of different types of appearance - the Polovtsians willingly took as wives and concubines of Slavs, however, not of princely families. The princes never gave their daughters and sisters to the steppe dwellers. In the Polovtsian nomad camps there were also Rusichs who were captured in the battle, as well as slaves.

Hungarian king of the Cumans and the "Cuman Hungarians"

Part of Hungary's history is directly related to the Cumans. Several Polovtsian families settled on its territory already in 1091. In 1238, pressed by the Mongols, the Polovtsians under the leadership of Khan Kotyan settled there with the permission of King Bela IV, who needed allies. In Hungary, as in some other European countries, the Polovtsians were called "Cumans". The lands on which they began to live were named Kunság (Kunsag, Kumania). In total, up to 40 thousand people arrived at the new place of residence.

Khan Kotyan even gave his daughter to Bela's son Istvan. He and Polovtsian Irzhebet (Ershebet) had a boy Laszlo. For his origin he was nicknamed "Kun".

According to his images, he did not look at all like a Caucasian without an admixture of Mongoloid features. Rather, these portraits remind us of the reconstruction of the external appearance of the steppe inhabitants familiar from history textbooks.

Laszlo's personal guard consisted of his fellow tribesmen, he appreciated the customs and traditions of his mother's people. Despite the fact that he was officially a Christian, he and other Cumans even prayed in Cuman (Cuman).

The Cuman Polovtsians gradually assimilated. For some time, up to the end of the 14th century, they wore national clothes, lived in yurts, but gradually adopted the culture of the Hungarians. The Kuman language was supplanted by Hungarian, communal lands were transferred to the property of the nobility, who also wanted to look "more Hungarian". The Kunsag region was subordinated to the Ottoman Empire in the 16th century. As a result of the wars, up to half of the Kipchak Polovtsians perished. A century later, the language completely disappeared.

Now the distant descendants of the steppe people do not differ in any way from the rest of the inhabitants of Hungary - they are Caucasians.

Polovtsi in Bulgaria

Polovtsians have been arriving in Bulgaria for several centuries. In the XII century, the territory was under the rule of Byzantium, the Polovtsian settlers were engaged in cattle breeding there, trying to enter the service.

In the 13th century, the number of steppe dwellers who moved to Bulgaria increased. Some of them came from Hungary after the death of Khan Kotyan. But in Bulgaria they quickly mixed with the locals, adopted Christianity and lost their special ethnic features. Possibly, Polovtsian blood is now flowing in a certain number of Bulgarians. Unfortunately, it is still difficult to accurately identify the genetic characteristics of the Polovtsians, because there are plenty of Turkic features in the Bulgarian ethnos due to its origin. Bulgarians also have a Caucasian appearance.

Polovtsian blood in Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Uzbeks and Tatars

Many Cumans did not migrate - they mixed with the Tatar-Mongols. The Arab historian Al-Omari (Shihabuddin al-Umari) wrote that, having joined the Golden Horde, the Polovtsians switched to the position of subjects. The Tatar-Mongols who settled on the territory of the Polovtsian steppe gradually mixed with the Polovtsians. Al-Omari concludes that after several generations the Tatars began to look like the Polovtsians: “as if from the same clan (with them),” because they began to live on their lands.

Later, these peoples settled in different territories and took part in the ethnogenesis of many modern nations, including Kazakhs, Bashkirs, Kirghiz and other Turkic-speaking peoples. The types of appearance of each of these (and those listed in the title of the section) nations are different, but each has a share of Polovtsian blood.

The Polovtsi are also among the ancestors of the Crimean Tatars. The steppe dialect of the Crimean Tatar language belongs to the Kypchak group of Turkic languages, and the Kypchak is a descendant of the Polovtsian. The Polovtsians mixed with the descendants of the Huns, Pechenegs, and Khazars. Now the majority of Crimean Tatars are Caucasians (80%), Crimean steppe Tatars have Caucasian-Mongoloid appearance.

Another mysterious ancient people who settled all over the world are the gypsies. About, what is hidden inside the camp, or how do Polish gypsies live?, can be found in one of our previous reviews.