Kumyks
Kumyks are a Turkic ethnic group living in Dagestan, Chechnya and North Ossetia. They are the largest Turkic people in the North Caucasus.
They traditionally populate the Kumyk Plateau, lands bordering the Caspian Sea, areas in North Ossetia, Chechnya and along the banks of the Terek River. They speak the Kumyk language, which until the 1930s had been the lingua franca of the Northern Caucasus.
Territories where Kumyks have traditionally lived, and where their historical state entities used to exist, are called Kumykia. All of the lands populated by Kumyks were once part of the independent Tarki Shamkhalate.
Population and present settlement area
Kumyks comprise 14% of the population of the Republic of Dagestan, the third-largest population of Chechnya, and the fifth-largest population of North Ossetia, all of which are parts of the Russian Federation.Kumyks are the second largest Turkic-speaking ethnic group after Azerbaijanis in the Caucasus, the largest Turkic people of the North Caucasus and the third largest ethnic group of Dagestan.
According to the Russian national census of 2010 there were more than 500,000 Kumyks in Russia.
Russian Federation
In terms of administrative division in their native lands, Kumyks today are mostly divided between a few administrative regions of Russia, such as Republic of Dagestan, Republic of North-Ossetia, Chechen Republic.Turkey and the Middle East
In the 19th century, during and following the Caucasian War, numbers of Kumyks were subject to or willingly resettled to the Ottoman Empire as a result of Russian deportation campaigns in the region.In the 1910s–1920s, during the Russian Revolution, another emigration wave to Turkey took place. Among the muhajirs of that period were many prominent Kumyk nobility.
Kumyks also used to move to Syria and Jordan, where a few Kumyk families still live. The Syrian village of Dar-Ful was established in 1878-1880 by Kumyk emigrants.
There is no official state census of ethnic minorities in Turkey, but according to the studies of 1994–1996, there were more than 20 settlements with Kumyk population.
Ethnonym
The majority of researchers derive the name "Kumyk" from a Turkic ethnonym Kimak, or from another name for Kipchaks — Cuman.According to P. Uslar, in the 19th century the names "Kumyk" and "Kumuk" pertained to the Turkic speaking population of the Northern Caucasian lowlands. In Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia, the name Kumyk, or originally Kumuk pertained to the Kumyks only. Y. Fyodorov wrote, based on sources from the 8–19 cc., that "Gumik — Kumyk — Kumuk" is originally a Dagestani toponym from the Middle Ages.
In various Russian, European, Ottoman and Persian sources Kumyks were also called Dagestan Tatars, Circassian and Caucasus Tatars.
Origin
There is no universal opinion regarding the origin of the Kumyks. Some scholars propose that the population of the Kumyk plains of the 8th-10th centuries were directly ancestral to modern Kumyks. A view close to that is that the Kumyks appeared in Dagestan along with the Khazars in the 8th century and stayed afterwards. Whereas others believe that the Kumyks appeared in Dagestan in the 12th-13th centuries along with Kipchaks.Kumyk verbal tradition carried through ages some proverbs and sayings coming from the times of the Khazar Kaghanate.
S. Tokarev wrote that:
A modern interpretation was proposed that "from the Turkified Lezgins, Kumyks also emerged".
However, professor of Caucasus studies L. Lavrov doubted the "Turkification" hypothesis of Kumyk origin:
Another prominent Russian Orientalist, V. Minorsky, proposed his adjustment to the views mentioned, stating that:
The final stages of the Kumyk ethnogenesis stretched from the 12th-17th centuries.
Some of the Turkic peoples who assimilated into the Kumyk nation were those of Tumens from the Tumen Khanate, which emerged in the 15th century as a fragment of the dissolved Golden Horde; those of Bothe Bogans, Sople and pre-Cuman Turks, who populated the Botheragan-Madjar region in the 7th century, which encompassed the vast North Caucasian plains.
History
Kumyks historically were related to the states of the Caucasian Huns, Cuman-Kipchaks, and the Golden Horde.The beginning of the Kumyk nation is often considered to be in the Khazar Kaganate era.
Until the 19th century, the Kumyks were a largely feudal, decentralized entity of strategical geographic and political importance for Russia, Persia and the Ottomans, headed by a leader called the Shamkhal. The Kumyk polity known as the Shamkhalate of Tarki was mentioned as early as the 14th century by Timurid historians.
Other Kumyk states included the Endirey Principality, Utamish Sultanate, Tumen Possession, Braguny Principality, Mekhtuly Khanate, Kaytag Uzminate and others.
Expansion of the Russian state, Ottoman Empire, and Persia
In the 16th century, Kumyk rulers tried to balance their relationships with their three neighbouring states, and as a result the Shamkhalate established itself as a considerable regional power. The two empires and yet-to-be one Russian state considered the Caspian area as their influence domain.Shamkhal Chopan became a subject of the Ottoman Empire in the late 16th century, and participated in the 1578–1590 Ottoman-Persian War.
The 1560s marked the start of the numerous campaigns of the Imperial Russian Army against Kumyks, provoked by the requests of the Georgians and Kabardians. Commander Cheremisinov seized and plundered the capital of Tarki in 1560. The Tumen Khanate, allied with the Shamkhalate also resisted the invasion, but was conquered by Russia in 1588. The Russians established the Terki stronghold in its former capital. Tumen ruler Soltaney fled to the protection of Sultan-Mahmud of Endirey, recognized today as a pan-Caucasian hero. In 1594, the other campaign of Khvorostinin in Dagestan was organised, during which Russian forces and Terek Cossacks seized Tarki again, but were blocked by the Kumyk forces and forced to retreat to Terki, which resulted in a stampede.
In 1604–1605, Ivan Buturlin conducted one more campaign against the Kyumks, often known as the Schevkal campaign. This also failed and resulted in a significant loss for Russia at the Battle of Karaman. The united forces of the Dagestani peoples under the banners of the Kumyk Shamkhalian, Prince Soltan-Mahmud of Endirey prevailed, and according to the prominent Russian historian Nikolay Karamzin, stopped Russian expansion for the next 118 years until the rule of Peter I.
In 1649 and 1650, Nogai leader Choban-murza sought the protection of their allies in the Shamkhalate. Russia, at war with the Nogais, sent 8,000 men in order to force the nomadic tribe to return to Russian territory. Surkhay-Shawkhal III attacked and routed Russian troops at the Battle of Germenchik. Kumyk military success continued from 1651 to 1653, when the Kumyks, this time in an alliance with Safavid forces, destroyed the Russian fortress at the Sunzha River. Shah Abbas II intended to strengthen the Persian hold on the Kumyk lands, which didn't match with Surkhay's plans. In an alliance with Kaytag Uzmi Rustem, Surkhay III confronted Persians but was forced to withdraw. Nevertheless, the high losses disrupted the Shah's intentions of building fortresses in the Kumyk lands.
Resistance to Peter I
In the 18th century, Russian Emperor Peter I organised the Persian campaign of the 1722–1723. The Endirey principality was the first to oppose the Russian forces, and despite their defeat, caused great losses which shocked the Emperor. Kumyks of the Utamish Soltanate also fiercely resisted during the Battle at the River Inchge. Peter I stated afterwards:The Tarki Shamkhalate initially took a pro-Russian stance, but after a new Russian fortress had been built they confronted Russia again. However, this time the Shamkhalate could not unite the neighboring local peoples and remained alone in their struggle. Russian historian Sergey Solovyov wrote:
Caucasian War
Russian 19th century general Gregory Phillipson, known for his important actions in subjugating the Adyghe and Abaza ethnic groups at the left flank of the Caucasian front in Circassia, wrote:Kumyks were one of the major forces in the late 18th century Sheikh Mansur's insurgence. Kumyk prince Chepalow, in alliance with Mansur made several attempts to attack the Russian stronghold of Kizlyar. In the final battle, Mansur led the Kumyk forces himself. Despite the formal acceptance of the Russian sovereignty over the Shamkhals at the beginning of the Caucasian war, there were numerous revolts in Kumykia. In 1825 the village of Aksay was destroyed and 300 men from the settlement were gathered for their participation in the insurgence against Russian Empire led by the Chechen leader Taymiyev Biybolat, and murdered when Ochar-Haji, one of the Kumyks, killed two Russian generals on the spot. In the same year the people of Endirey joined forces with mountain communities against the Russians.
In total, there were at least five revolts in Shamkhalate and on the Kumyk plateau : the Anti-Russian revolt, resulting in the defeat of Northern Kumyks and the then-disestablished Mekhtula Khanate, the Shamkhalate Revolt of 1823, participation in Beybulat Taymiyev's revolt, the Shamkhalate Revolt of 1831, the revolt at the Kumyk plains in 1831 and the Shamkhalate Revolt of 1843.
There were also preparations for an insurgency on the Kumyk plains in 1844 and for a general Kumyk insurgency in 1855, which had been planned as a joined action with the advance of Imam Shamil, but the advance didn't progress enough into the Kumyk lands. In the insurgency in Dagestan in 1877–1878, one of the major centres of conflict was the Kumyk village of Bashly.
Despite the devastation brought by the Imperial Army for their attempts to rise against Russia, the Kumyk plains were also exposed to plundering forays from the neighboring tribes. For instance, in 1830, one Chechen leader, Avko, gathered forces in a call to allegedly join the troops of the leader of the Caucasian resistance, Gazi-Muhammad, but at the last moment declared the true reason "to use the opportunity to attack the city of Endirey and plunder Kumyks' cattle". However, the troops disbanded in disappointment. Gazi-Muhammad himself tried to make Kumyks resettle higher in the mountains from the plains and join his resistance by destroying Kumyk settlements, as stated in the Russian military archives:
During the Caucasian War, Kumyks found themselves between a rock and a hard place, not always supported by the insurgents on one hand, and being a target of retaliation from Russians on the other. The same archives also described that:
Kumyks during the War gave the Caucasus many common heroes. Imam of Dagestan and Chechnya Shamil was of Kumyk descent, as well as his companion and the second pretender to the Imam's position Tashaw-Hadji. Also, Kumyks were the leaders of the earlier Dagestani revolts, such as Soltan Ahmed-Khan of the Avars, and Umalat-bek of Boynak, companion of the imam Gazi-Muhammad Razibek of Kazanish, trusted companion of the Imam Shamil — Idris of Endirey.