History of Kazakhstan - Early History

Early History

According to Tacitus, the Huns of Kushan were already in the Turan lowlands of Atyrau Province by 91AD. By the early 4th century AD, a Kushan noble called Malkar of Khi, had become leader of the Huns settled there. Malkar is accredited with first leading the Huns into the Volga Delta where they found the Alans. In alliance with Dulo the Alan king, Malkar went on to forge ten tribes into the first proto-Turkic tribal confederation. The Dulo clan's first proto-Turkic Empire spread its influence as far south as the sub-continent under the Kitolo and as far west as Central Europe under Attila's Dulo. Wresting control of Turkmenistan from the Sasanian Empire in the 5th century AD, Malkar's "Dulo" Confederation of Ten Tribes caused a migration of Khurasanis into Dagestan as the Caucasian Avars. As a result of this backfire, the Sabirs settled there were forced to attack the Alan strongholds of the Dulo Ten Tribe Confederation in the Kuban steppe. To strengthen their position, Malkar's Confederation of Ten Tribes now under the leadership of Ernakh entered into an alliance with Byzantium at Phanagoria in the 460s AD. However, in the 550s AD, the Caucasian Avars pushed further conquering Phanagoria and forcing Sarosios of the Alans to petition Byzantium for land. Within a few years, the Dulo "Ten Tribe" Confederation in Atyrau Province allied themselves to the Ashinas forming the Western part of the Gokturk Empire and were able to snatch Phanagoria back from the Avars renaming the Sabirs as Khazars under the rule of Kaghan Kazarig. By exposing the Avars' close ties to Persia, once again the Ten Tribes of the Dulo clan entered into alliance with Byzantium. The earliest well-documented state in the region was the Turkic Kaganate, or Gokturk, Köktürk state, established by the Ashina clan, which came into existence in the 6th century AD. However, the Dulo clans Ten Tribes soon seceded from the Gokturks to become the Western Turkic Kaghanate which thrived until 630s AD when they became the Khazars. At this point however, Dulo Kaghan Kubrat, refused to accept Khazar rule and was cut-off to establish the short-lived state of Old Great Bolgary disintegrating upon his death with the majority migrating west where they carried out the first Hungarian conquest in 677. Kotrag settled in the northern Volga region to establish Bolgary, and Batbayan's Balkars who settled down with the Circassians north of the Caucasus. The Kara-Khazars in the Atyrau Province eventually sided with the Oghuz and revolted against the Aq-Khazar state to establish the Yabghu Oghuz State of the Kara dynasty which produced the southern Seljuks. The Kara tatars thrived until their dynasty was taken over by Temujin.

The Qarluqs, a confederation of Turkic tribes, established a state in what is now eastern Kazakhstan in 766. In the 8th and 9th centuries, portions of southern Kazakhstan were conquered by Arabs, who introduced Islam. The Oghuz Turks controlled western Kazakhstan from the 9th through the 11th centuries; the Kimak and Kipchak peoples, also of Turkic origin, controlled the east at roughly the same time. In turn the Cumans controlled western Kazakhstan roughly from the 1100s until the 1220s. The large central desert of Kazakhstan is still called Dashti-Kipchak, or the Kipchak Steppe. The capital (Astana) was home of a lot of Huns and Saka.

In the 9th century, the Qarluq confederation formed the Qarakhanid state, which then conquered Transoxiana, the area north and east of the Oxus River (the present-day Amu Darya). Beginning in the early 11th century, the Qarakhanids fought constantly among themselves and with the Seljuk Turks to the south. The Qarakhanids, who had converted to Islam, were conquered in the 1130s by the Kara-Khitan, a Mongolic people who moved west from Northern China. In the mid-12th century, an independent state of Khorazm along the Oxus River broke away from the weakening Karakitai, but the bulk of the Kara-Khitan lasted until the Mongol invasion of Genghis Khan in 1219–1221.

After the Mongol capture of the Kara-Khitan, Kazakhstan fell under the control of a succession of rulers of the Mongolian Golden Horde, the western branch of the Mongol Empire. The horde, or jüz, is the precursor of the present-day clan. By the early 15th century, the ruling structure had split into several large groups known as khanates, including the Nogai Horde and the Uzbek Khanate.