Интервью по телевидению. Но при этом, в отличие от других прославленных имен в национальной науке, его биография, наугад повторяемая многажды в газетах и журналах, на самом деле неизвестна

As was noted above, Clauson surmised that Turk. oq “arrow,” came to denote “sub-tribe” because of the “use of arrows for various ritual and ceremonial purposes” (Clauson, 1972: 76), a not implausible deduction based on the origin tale of the On Oq. Osman Turan (1945: 307-310) surveyed the symbolic use of the arrow for a variety of activities: summons (often to military campaigns), messages (sometimes of a threatening nature) and indications of dependence among the various Inner Asian peoples. These practices, he avers, go back to ancient times and continued well into the Islamic era (including the Seljukids, see 3.a). Similar customs were known among the Mongols (see 3.b. below). Although arrows may have been used by the Türks as a symbol of or accompanying an invitation or summons, the Old Turkic inscriptions make no mention of their employment in this sense. Moreover, oq does not appear to be related to the verb oqı- “to call out loud,…to summon,…to read out loud” (Clauson, 1972:79), as Turan implies.⁶³

The bow and arrow were important symbols in the Seljuk state with roots in the Oğuz tribal past. The tuğra of Toğrul Beg (d.1063), a grandson of Seljük and one of the founders of Seljukid might in the Middle East, was in the form of a bow and arrow (Spuler, 1951: 353; Turan, 1965: 78, 85; Cuisenier, 1972: 930-931; Çaycı, 2008: 198-205, who also notes [p.204] that the arrow, sometimes combined with the bow, was a symbol used in the Činggisid Golden Horde, see also Turan, 1945:311). Turan (1945:313, 316) highlights its role in military organization, stratification and tribal organization flowing therefrom. From this also sprang the Ottoman ṭuğra (“an ornamental arrangement, or monogram, of the name and title of the Sultan, constituting the great seal of the Ottoman Empire; the imperial cypher” (Redhouse, 1974: 1241). In older Oğuz, tuğrağ is first noted by Kâšġarî as meaning “the king’s seal and signature.” This, he writes, was a specifically Oğuz term and comments that “[t]he Turks (meaning here the Qarakhanids, pbg) do not know this word and I do not know its origin” (Kâšġari (1982-1985, I: 346).⁶⁴ Elsewhere, under the verb tuğrağlan- he cites tuğrağ as “a horse that the king gives his troops to ride on the day of a parade and that is returned to him after they dismount”⁶⁵ and as a “document, when the signature is affixed,” again noted as Oğuz (Kâšġari, 1982-1985, II: 98). This particular symbolic usage of the “arrow” (and bow) may have been unique to the Oğuz, as Kâšġarî states and ultimately became the Seljuk Sultan’s monogram or signature, a visible sign of his power. In Kâšġarî’s time, it would appear that the arrow, outside of the Oğuz politico-cultural sphere, did not have wider socio-political implications nor did it denote a military or socio-political group. If it did, these instances are unrecorded. Oq was also the homonym of words that were clearly devoid of the socio-political content with which oq was invested in the specific instance of On Oq. In post-Kâšġarî Middle Qıpčaq, it continued to have the same range of meanings as noted by Kâšġarî (see Toparlı, Vural and Karaatlı, 2003: 204), again without socio-military organizational connotations.

An ongoing association of arrows as symbols of authority in Oğuz traditions can be seen in the Oğuz Xan tales. The latter, preserved in variants of the Oğuznâma, a cycle of tales about the deeds of Oğuz Xan, the eponymous ancestor of the Oğuz Turks and about the origins of the various Turkic peoples. How far back these tales go is uncertain. The thirteenth century seems to have been an important moment in their crystallization (Tezcan, 2007: 621-622). During the Činggisid Mongol era, the tales of Činggis Xan were conflated with those about Oğuz Xan (Bartol’d, 1963-1977, V: 435). The Mamlûk historian Abu Bakr al-Dawâdârî (d. 1332) mentions a work entitled Ulu Xan Ata Bitikči (which he translates as “Book About the Great Ruler-Father,” i.e. Ulu Xan Ata Bitik), written in Uyğur to which “Turks” (non-Oğuz here), Mongols and Qıpčaqs were much devoted and the Oğuznâma to which the Oğuz were devoted and which had been passed down from generation to generation (Rašîd ad-Dîn, 1987: 9⁶⁶). The power and charisma of the Činggisid traditions may have spurred the growth of a competing cycle of tales about the ancestor of the Oğuz.

The oldest surviving elements of the Oğuznâma are found in the Jâmiʻ at-Tawârîχ of Rašîd ad-Dîn Faḍlallâh (d. 1318), the great historian of Činggisid Iran. A crucial foundational tale gives a special significance to arrows. Having returned to his home territory, his core camping grounds (yurt, Clauson, 1972: 958), Oğuz Xan sent off his six sons to hunt. They came back bringing with them a golden bow and three golden arrows that they had found. They presented them to their father who broke the bow into three parts and gave each of the three eldest sons a piece of the bow and each of the three younger sons one of the golden arrows. The tribes that would descend from the three older sons, he ordained, would be the Boz Oq, a term Rašîd ad-Dîn etymologized as deriving from Oğuz Turkic boz-⁶⁷ (“the opposite of to make, to demolish” [yapmanın aksi, yıkmak], Tietze, 2002, I: 377) explaining that the bow had to be broken in order to be distributed to the three older sons. The three sons to whom the three golden arrows had been given would be the progenitors of the Üč Oq (lit. “Three Arrows,” sih tîr as Rašîd ad-Dîn, 1994, I: 56, notes). While there is little doubt that Üč Oq does, indeed, mean “Three Arrows” and is not a folk etymology, the boz in Boz Oq probably denotes “gray” (Clauson, 1972: 388-389, Tenišev et al. 2001:605-606), although its symbolic significance here is not clear. The word boz (“gray”) is used in connection with a later Oğuz nomadic subdivision, e.g. the sixteenth-seventeenth-century Boz Ulus of eastern Anatolia, deriving from nomadic groups that had been part of the Aq Qoyunlu and other eastern Turkish confederations, which the Ottoman government ultimately sedentarized (see Gündüz, 2007: 39ff., Gündüz, 2009: 73-86). The existence of a Boz Orda (if boz بُوز is not a corruption of يُوز yüz “one hundred”) noted only in Ötämiš Ḥâjjî’s Čingiz-nâme, a Čingissid ulus associated with the J̌očid house of Šiban, alongside the kindred J̌očid ulusud of the Aq Orda and Kök Orda (the White and Blue yurts of Šiban’s brothers Batu and Orda Eǰen, respectively, the former denoting the west and the latter the east) remains under discussion (Judin, 1992: 24-38, ms, 38b, 92,121). Boz/buz is also found in the names of a number of Turkic subgroupings (Lezina, Superanskaja, 1994, I: 124, 130). It is highly unlikely that the boz in this socio-political name denoted “broken.”

Rašîd ad-Dîn elaborates further in his account that the Boz Oq, the older sons, would command the forces on the right. They were given the bow (or rather pieces of it) because it is a symbol of rule (bi-masâbat-i pâdišâh) and the imperial seat and the right of succession (taχt-i pâdišâhî wa râh-i qâ’îm-maqâmî) would belong to them. The arrows given to the younger sons, who would command the forces of the left, denoted the rank of ambassador (bi-manzilat-i ilči, Rašîd ad-Dîn, 1994, I: 54-56, for the Turkic version, see Bang, Rachmati, 1932: 702/703-704/705). The parallels with the tale of the formation of the On Oq were noted long ago (cf. Marquart, 1914: 38). Sümer (1981:24-25) suggests that the Syr Darya Oğuz were part of the On Oq and dates their division into the Boz Oq and Üč Oq to the time of their Syr Darya habitat. He also suggests that their distinct form of Turkic (Oğuz) differed significantly from “Eastern Turkic” and may be adduced as evidence that they had left the eastern zone of Turkic well before the 8^th - 9^th centuries. To bring the Oğuz westward this early, however, he has to revise and reinterpret our early notices on the Oğuz, e.g. the notice of Ibn al-Athîr (1965-1966, XI: 178), which clearly describes them as migrating from the “borderlands of the most distant parts of the Turks to Mâ warâ’-nahr (Transoxiana) in the days of al-Mahdî” (r.775-785), i.e. after the collapse of the On Oq and in the aftermath of the overthrow of the Ašina Basmıl successors of the Ašina Eastern Türk Qağans in 744. The evidence points, rather, to their arrival in the Syr Darya zone, from which they soon expelled the Pečenegs, in the 770s (see Golden, 1972: 48-58). Nonetheless, Oğuz Turkic was distinct from that of their Türkî and Qıpčaq neighbors. Indeed, Kâšġarî leaves no doubt that “between the Khâqâni Turks” (i.e. the Qarakhanids) and the “Turkmân-Oğuz …there is an absolute and consistent dialectal cleavage” (Kâšġarî 1982-1985, I: 75-76).

The Oğuz Xan tales reported by Rašîd ad-Dîn and others after him that note the Boz Oq – Üč Oq division of the Oğuz (attested among Oğuz groupings in the 13^th and later centuries in Syria, Anatolia and elsewhere, see Sümer, 1981:165-166, 173, 177, 202) present it as one of great antiquity. It is still recorded by Abu’l-Ġâzî Bahadur Xan (1603-1663) in his Šäjärä-yi Tärâkimä (Ebulgazi Bahadur Han, 1996: 147-149 [Old Turkmen text]/243-244) who basically repeats Rašîd ad-Dîn’s account. It also appears in the Dede Qorqud tales, but now the division is more often presented as İč Oğuz (“Inner Oğuz”) and Taš Oğuz (“Outer Oğuz,” Dankoff, 1982:21-25).⁶⁸ Kâšġarî, however, who gives us the first listing of the Oğuz tribes knows nothing of the Boz Oq – Üč Oq division – unlikely, it would seem, if such a division had existed in his time.

Are we to conclude that the oq in On Oq, used in the sense of a socio-political and subsequently tribal entity, came out of the Oğuz tradition? This seems highly unlikely if for no other reason (pace Marquart and Sümer) that the Oğuz had not yet come to the lands of the Western Türk realm and would only do so after that polity had collapsed.

3.b. Oğur~Oğuz “Tribe”

Németh (1991: 77-78), in his discussion of the Chinese accounts suggested that the word for “arrow” was used to designate a “tribe” (törzs) and other, specifically military, subdivisions, citing Mongol and Manchu practices as evidence, cf. Mong. sumun “arrow” and “a troop consisting of some 100-200 people” (cf. Lessing, 1995: 737: “missile, arrow, bullet,” “District (administrative unit) a subdivision of an aimaγ consisting of 150 soldiers with familiars,” “military unit, squadron, company”) and Manchu niru “arrow” and “troop” (Norman, 1978: 216: “A large arrow for shooting game and people,” “a banner company of a hundred men,” Cincius, 1975, I: 600 “rota, sotnja,” 648 “strela”). The inference is that this is a longstanding, widespread steppe political tradition. However, this dual meaning of “arrow” denoting both the implement and a military unit is only found in Manchu and not in the other Manchu-Tungusic languages, which only have “arrow,” cf. Evenk. n’ur “strela,” Solon niru~nu̇r~nu̇ru̇ “strela,” Neg. n’oj “strela” etc. (Cincius, 1975, I: 648⁶⁹). Indeed, the Mongol and Manchu data, as used by Németh, is anachronistic. These terms, in this military-political sense, appeared later. Mongol sumun, is attested only in the sense of “arrow” in the Secret History, which has much to say about clan, tribal and military matters. Sumun, most probably, developed the meaning of a “military subdivision,” when Mongols were incorporated into the Manchu banner system.⁷⁰ Arrows could be used for a variety of symbolic and credentialing functions in Mongol society. They were given to envoys and messengers as a sign of bona fides. They were broken (or thrust into the ground) on the occasion of making promises, solemn oaths etc. (Serruys, 1958: 279-294), but they were not used to denote clans or tribes. The Manchu niru as a military formation grew out of Jurchen hunting units deployed in the aba (“battue,” < Mong. aba “chase, hunt, battue,” cf. Turk av “hunt”⁷¹) that served as both a system of hunting and military training. The evolution of the niru into a distinct military unit, the underpinning of the Manchu banner system, appears to date to around the last decade of the 16^th century (Elliot, 2001:56-61).

Németh (1991:77) also noted one example in which “arrow” does, indeed, appear to denote a social or kinship group: Persian tîra can mean both “arrow” and “sub-tribe.” This term is known to the nomadic peoples, Iranian and Turkic, of Modern Iran (Tapper, 1997: 13, 14, 17, Barth, 1986:50 – among the Iranian Baṣerî it means “descent group”), presumably deriving from Pers. tîr “arrow” (Steingass, 1970: 340-341, only notes tîra as meaning “obscure, dark; turbid, muddy; sad;” cf. also Osm. tîre with these same meanings, Redhouse, 1974: 618, but Rubinčik et al. 1983: note Pers. tîra as “rod, plemja; semejstvo” etc.). From Persian it entered Čağatay Turkic tirä (تِيرا) “šuʻbe, âl, qabîle, ‘aṣabe, il, ṭavâ’îf, uruğ, tîre” (Buχârî, 1298/1981: 131) and Turkmen: tire “clan, tribe” (Frank and Touch-Werner, 1999: 537, Baskakov, 1968: 634 “rod, rodovoj, plemja, plemennoj” etc.) and Qašqâ’î (Oberling, 1974: 22-23, meaning “clan,” below a ṭâ’ifa “tribe” [< Arabic], but above a bölük “section” [< Turkic, Clauson, 1972:339]⁷²). It is not used in this precise meaning in standard Azeri Turkic (Musayev, 1996: 522 tirä “division, bloc”). It also entered Qazaq dialects within the Türkmen orbit, cf. Qazaq tire “branch of a family, clan, tribe” (rudıŋ bir tarmağı, Žamıqaeva, Maχranov, 2007: 637). The similar sounding Qaračay tiyre “patronimičeskij kvartal v karačaevskom sele…okruga,” (Tenišev and Sujunčev, eds., 1989: 633) and Tatar and Baškir tirä “okresnost’, okruga” (Osmanov et al. 1966: 541; Axmerov et al. 1958: 528) are from Turkic tegre “all around… surroundings,” which appears in Cuman as teyre (Clauson, 1972:485; Toparlı, Vural, Karaatlı, 2003: 273, 275, Qıpčaq: tigre) and is not connected.

It is unclear if tîra is a calque of Turkic oq or vice-versa as it is regularly found among Iranian nomadic groups such as the Xamsa and Baχtiyârî confederations (among the latter it denotes “migrations unit” composed of “kindred encampments,” Digard, Windfuhr, Ittig. 1988). As was suggested above (1.c) Turkic oq may have taken on additional meanings calqued from Persian. However, it should also be borne in mind that Iran experienced centuries of interaction with Turko-Mongolian peoples, in particular Oğuz Turkic peoples, dating back to the arrival of the Seljuks in the mid-eleventh century. These linguistic influences continued with the influx of more Turkic (in particular Oğuz) tribes during the Činggisid Mongol era and thereafter.⁷³ Ample evidence of this may be seen in the history of the post-Činggisid ruling houses of Iran, in particular dynasties such as the Ṣafavîds (1501-1722, 1729-1736), Afšars (1836-1796) and Qajars (1796-1925), the latter two deriving from Oğuz tribes that had settled in Iran. The Ṣafavîds stemmed from a probably Persian or Kurdish family of Ṣûfî pîrs that had become Turkic-speaking, having been closely associated and intermarried with Oğuz Turkic tribal groupings (what became the Qızılbaš, see Sümer, 1992; Tapper, 1997: 39-47).

The fluidity in nomadic social formations, composition and nomenclature noted by Reid and Tapper (Reid, 1983:1-3, 8-11; Tapper, 1997: 10-18, 46-47) from the time of the arrival of the Seljuks into the Ṣafavid era was the aftermath of the large-scale movements of tribes, which fragmented as they entered the sedentary world. The Seljuks, like the Mongols later, broke up and scattered their nomadic tribal followers (themselves a far from homogeneous group), especially in Anatolia, to prevent tribal resistance to the central government towards which the tribesmen were largely hostile. Some settled, or rather nomadized (and eventually sedentarized) in one region while other groups advanced further westward. The various tribes left toponymic vestiges of their movements and settlements (see Köprülü, 1972: 84-95, Sümer, 1981). While maintaining the idiom of kinship, putative or clearly fictive at the macro level, for politico-social organization, the realities of what were “tribe” and tribe-like social organizations were often in flux. Adding to the complication was the use of many of the earlier ethnonyms, which now functioned as the names of clans or other sub-groups, themselves subject to change (Lindner, 1982: 689-711; Golden, 1992:304-306; Golden, 2000:21-41).

In Ṣafavid Iran, we find a pairing of tîras with oqs (understood here as “family group,” Reid, 1983: 88). Tîras are described as “migrational communities,” beneath which were obas (Reid, 1983:8). The oba, in that era, was a “camp group…a cluster of families and smaller camp units” centered “around an already existing entity” with a name and a “legendary genealogy.” They were not, strictly speaking, kinship groups as they did not have consanguineous ties to the “entity” with which they were associated. (Reid, 1983: 8, following Cuisenier, 1972: 931). Originally, Turkic oba denoted “a small social unit, possibly ‘clan’ but prob[ably] even smaller, ‘extended family’” etc. The term evolved then to mean “the dwelling place of such a unit; small encampment or large tent” (Clauson, 1972: 5-6, Kanar, 2011: 525: “oymağın yerleşik olduğu yer, göçebe çadırı, kır,⁷⁴ çardak.” See also Cuisenier, 1972: 930-931; Tenišev et al. 2001: 323: “rod, plemja” which the latter connect with Mong. obuq/omaq/oboġ/owoq “plemja, klan,” as do Starostin, Dybo, Mudrak, 2003, II: 1059). Kâšǧarî (1982-1985, I: 122), writing in the 1070s, defines oba in Arabic as qabîla “tribe” and notes it as an Oǧuz dialect word. “Tribe” is currently a much-contested term in modern anthropological literature.⁷⁵ The post-Činggisid obas (and tîras) in Iran were constantly growing and splitting, often forming alliances with groups with whom there was no claim of blood kinship. Hence this mix of Iranian, Arabic and Turkic words to designate various subdivisions is not surprising. Overall, the employment of the Persian word tîra to denote some kind of kinship grouping, clan, tribe or tribal subdivision, among the Turkic peoples of Iran would appear to be of relatively recent vintage in Turkic and limited to the Iranian or Persianate sphere. The one Qazaq example stems from a dialect in propinquity to and influenced by Türkmen and in turn Persian. The presence of the term in Čağatay is easily explained by the strong impact of Persian on that language. Persian/Tajik remained the dominant language of the urban centers (e.g. Bukhara, Samarqand) of the Uzbek khanates in which Čağatay functioned, alongside of Persian, as a court and literary language.

In sum, one is hard-pressed to find in the pre-Činggisid period the word “arrow” being used to denote a socio-political grouping or form of organization among the Inner Asian Turkic peoples. On Oq and the fleeting reference to the Türks as oqsız seem to be the exceptions. In the Činggisid-era and beyond, oq appears to bear some socio-political-organizational content only in the Oğuz world and groups near it that were influenced by Persianate civilization.

4.The Oğuric Tribes

Priscus (an “unofficial” participant in the East Roman embassy to Attila in 449, of which he left an account, he died sometime after 472, Blockley, 1981, I: 48-70; Kazhdan et al. 1991, III: 1721) reports the arrival, ca. 460, in the Pontic steppe zone and as a consequence into the Byzantine orbit of the Σαράγουροι: *Šara/Šarı Oğurs (“Yellow” or “White” Oğurs), Οὔρωγοι: *Oğurs⁷⁶ and Ὀνόγουροι: On Oğurs (more conventionally written Onoğurs, “Ten Oğurs” see Priscus in Blockley, 1983, II: 344/345,⁷⁷ on these forms and variants in other accounts, see Moravcsik, 1958, II: 219-220, 227-228, 230, 267-268⁷⁸). These Oğuric tribes had been driven into the Pontic steppes, according to Priscus, from the east (most probably Kazakhstan, see Genning, Xalikov, 1964: 142-147; Czeglédy, 1983: 97-103) by the Sabirs in a chain of migrations initiated by the Asian Avars, who themselves were being pressed by “tribes who lived by the shore of the Ocean.” They, in turn, were fleeing ocean mists and – with a nod to Herodotus – a flock of man-eating griffins. They defeated the Ἀκατίροι/Ἀκάτζιροι (see Moravcsik, 1958, II: 58-59 for variant readings), a people that had been under Hunnic rule and made their presence known by sending an embassy to Constantinople.

Their location in the Caspian-Pontic steppes is confirmed by a notice in the Syriac compilation (ca. 568/9) known under the name of “Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor” (Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor, 2011:65 on the dating of the work as a whole), which gives a listing of “Hunnic” peoples beyond the “Caspian Gates.” These included the Bulğars (Bûrgârê), the Alans, the Hepthalites (cited in two forms, Abdel and Eftalît⁷⁹), the Onoğurs (Ûngûr), Oğurs (Ûġâr), Sabirs (Sâber) Quturğurs (Kûrtargar), Avars (Âbâr), Kâser [KSR] (Qasars? Ἀκατίροι/Ἀκάτζιροι?), Dîrmar, Šara/Šarı Oğurs (Sarûrgûr) and others (Dickens, 2008: 19-30; Marquart, 1961:355-356, Pigulëvskaja, 2000: 283, 286, Kmoskó, 2004: 48, 99, Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor, 2011: 447-450). It is widely accepted that this list dates to ca. 555. The Onoğurs, among others, are also recorded in the mid-sixth century Getica (551) compiled from earlier accounts by the part-Gothic, Latin-writing Jordanes (d. 552?), who notes among the “Hunnic” nomads of the Pontic steppes the Hunuguri who trade in rodent hides (Jordanes, 1960: 136).

The Syriac compilation includes the Kûrtargar, a people relatively well known to contemporary East Roman historians (Procopius, writing also in the mid-sixth century, Agathias, ca. 532 - ca.580 and Menander, writing in the late sixth century) as the Κουτρίγουροι (var. Κουτούργουροι, Κουτράγουροι, Κοτρίγουροι, Procopius, 1978: 88/89 et passim; Agathias, 1967: 177-179, 185, 195, Menander, 1985: 42/43-44/45, 50-51, 136/137-140/141, see also Moravcsik, 1958, II:171-172) and their kinsmen, the Οὐτίγουροι (var. Οὐττίγουροι, Οὐτίγοροι, Οὐτούργουροι, Procopius,1978: 84/85-88/89 et passim, Agathias, 1967: 178, 194-195, see Moravcsik, 1958, II: 238-239) not mentioned by the Syriac compiler. The Οὐτίγουροι/ Οὐτούργουροι are the Otur Oğur “Thirty Oğurs” and the Κουτρίγουροι/ Κουτούργουροι are the Qutur Oğur, a metathesized form of Toqur Oğur “Nine Oğurs” (Németh, 1991: 132). The Κότραγοι mentioned in the late eighth-early ninth century accounts of the Patriarch (806-815)/historian Nicephorus (Nicephorus, 1990: 86/87) and Theophanes, (1883/1980, I: 356-357) whose History was completed by 815, drew on the same sources used by Nicephorus, but is independent of the latter’s work⁸⁰) and the Κοτζαγηροί, noted by Theophylactus Simocattes (writing, probably, in the late 620s, Whitby, 1988: 39-50), may be the same people as the Qutur Oğur (Moravcsik, 1958, II: 164, 155, see general discussion of these peoples in Ziemann, 2007: 95-103).