The forum in the previous issue of Ab Imperio, “Imperial Legacies as a Resource for Nation-Building: The Case of Chinggis Khan,” demonstrated that interest in the figure of Chinggis Khan and the state he established has been increasing. To a large extent, this is related to the coming 800th anniversary of the Great Khuriltai, which in many respects determined the history of the Old World. Scholarly research in this field has been growning, old works are being republished, and conferences are being held in various countries around the world. The subject is attracting the attention of many journalists and others who engage in the writing of popular history.^[1] The 9th Congress of Mongolian Studies will be held in Ulaanbaator in August of this year, and the main focus will be “Mongolian Statehood: Its Past and Present.” It seems that the historical distance of eight centuries has not made the great Mongolian state a history, or at least “just history.” Politicians and historians alike approach the phenomenon of Chinggis Khan with the yardstick of the present-day situation: while the former search for the secret of miraculous mass (“national”) mobilization, the latter apply to the ancient polity the same categories they would use in describing any contemporary state. In this article, we would like to take stock of the explanatory models used by historians in describing the Mongol “empire” in order to see how our analytical language modernizes (and in some sense revitalizes) that ancient historical phenomenon.

AD IMPERIUM

The first important question is how and why a transcontinental empire could arise from a small nomadic people. A great variety of opinions have been expressed on this issue. They can be reduced to the following causal explanations: 1) various climatic changes (drought according to Arnold Toynbee and Grigory Grumm-Grzhimailo, and increased precipitation according to Lev Gumilev); 2) the bellicose and adventurous nature of nomads; 3) overpopulation of the steppe; 4) growth of productive forces and class struggle, and a weakening of agricultural societies due to feudal disunity (Marxist concepts); 5) the need to replenish their extensive livestock economy by raiding more stable agricultural societies; 6) reluctance of settled populations to trade with nomads (livestock surpluses that could not be sold anywhere); 7) the personal qualities of steppe society leaders; and 8) impulses of ethnic integration (passionarnost’ in Gumilev’s terminology).
Most of the factors on this list are based on rational arguments built on empirical evidence from different regions and in a different (quite recent) epoch. The significance of some of them may turn out to be exaggerated. Contemporary paleogeographic data do not confirm a strict correlation between periods of drought or increased rainfall on the steppe and the rise and decline of nomadic empires.^[2] The role of demographic factors is not entirely clear, because the growth of total livestock occurred faster than increases in population and, as a rule, caused crisis in the ecosystem. It is beyond any doubt that the nomadic way of life can contribute to the development of some bellicose qualities. But nomads were typically outnumbered by farmers, who had an ecologically more complex economy, reliable fortresses, and a more powerful artesian and metallurgical basis.
What led the Mongols and other nomads toward conquest and the formation of confederations of nomads? An outstanding American anthropologist, Owen Lattimore, who himself lived for a long time among Mongolian pastoralists, wrote that the specifics of nomadic societies cannot be correctly understood only on the basis of their internal development. Nomads can easily survive using only the products of their own livestock herds, but real nomads will always remain poor.^[3] Nomads needed the protein-rich foodstuffs produced by farmers, and they needed handicrafts, silk, weapons, and refined decorations for their leaders, wives, and concubines. All of this could be obtained either by peaceful trade with agriculturalists or by war. Both means pointed toward uniting and creating a super-tribal society.
But it is far from true that the nomadic need to establish contacts with settled and urban societies led to the creation of nomadic empires. Anatoly Khazanov showed convincingly that large nomadic societies (in reference to their early stages of development) were established due to the asymmetry in relations between nomads and settled environments.^[4] Thomas Barfield, rejecting interpretations of diffusion and of nomadic borrowing from agriculturalists, demonstrated that the level of centralization of steppe society was directly connected with the level of political integration of settled agricultural society.^[5] A complex hierarchical organization of power in the form of nomadic empires developed only after the coming of the “axial age,” when powerful agricultural world-empires were formed, and in regions that were sufficiently large for nomadic pastoralism, and where nomads had long and active contacts with more organized urban societies. The specifics of political organization in nomadic societies were largely determined by the peculiarities of regional ecology and the size of neighboring agricultural civilizations. It is not by chance that a number of publications are devoted to two different variants of adaptation by nomads to the outside world – Inner Asian (“steppe”) and Middle East (“desert”),^[6] and the distinctions of the steppe political genesis in Eastern Europe and in the east of the Eurasian continent have been persuasively demonstrated.^[7]
The synchronicity of growth and decline processes in the central Chinese plain and in the steppe, as observed by Barfield, seem to be the most important. The Han empire and the Hsiung-nu polity each appeared during a single decade. The Turkish Haganate arose just as China was united under the powerful Sui dynasty, subsequently the T’ang dynasty. In a similar way, according to Thomas Barfield, both the steppe and China had periods of anarchy within a limited time span, one after the other. When China had discord and economic crisis, the distant exploitation of nomads stopped and imperial confederations were split into separate tribes until peace and order were restored. This gives support to the general idea, expressed by Anatoly Khazanov, that the history of nomads cannot be considered separately from the history of neighboring agricultural civilizations.
The most developed thesis was expressed in terms of the world-system approach in the work of Christopher Chase-Dann and Thomas Hall. According to this methodology, in the pre-industrial period nomads as a rule occupied the semi-periphery that united different regional economies (local civilizations, world-empires) into a joint territory. The political structure of each region within its semi-periphery was in direct proportion to the size of the core. Consequently, the nomads of North Africa and Middle East, in order to trade with oases or to attack them, joined into tribal confederations or chiefdoms. Meanwhile, the nomads of the Eastern European steppe, on the outskirts of ancient states such as Byzantine and Rus’, set up quasi-imperial, state-like structures. In Inner Asia, the nomadic empire became a similar means of adaptation.^[8]
Thomas Hall shares Barfield’s opinion that there were synchronous cycles of rjse and decline in agricultural civilizations and nomadic empires. From this point of view, Hall, following Barfield, suggests that we should understand the Mongol Empire not as the peak of nomadic history governed by historical regularities, but as a unique case in which Chinggis Khan’s personality and power went beyond the limits of the traditional Hsiung-nu-Turkic model of imperial confederation.^[9] Thomas Barfield also draws attention to the role of contingency in world history. He notes that there were many accidental events in the life of the founder of the Mongol empire: if they had not taken place, the development of a number of human civilizations may have been notably different. Some scholars may interpret the lack of substantive causal interpretations as a weakness. But Barfield was right in saying that we are often inclined to exaggerate the role of objective tendencies and underestimate accidental factors.^[10] Thus the explanation of the stunning success of the Mongols in the twelfth century oscillates between the fairly new “scientific” models (e.g., Wallerstein’s core-periphery scheme) and the belief in the unique role of the historical personality, as old as the tradition of history-writing itself.

A PROFILE OF THE “NOMADIC EMPIRE”

How we should describe the polity established by the confederation of nomadic tribes led by Chinggis Khan is another serious problem. Scholars usually do not think about the appropriateness of the term “empire” as applied in reference to the medieval Mongols and the polity set up by Chinggis Khan, as this term was coined in Ancient Rome and was subsequently used in Western Europe rather exclusively, at least until the advent of modern colonialism. Nor is it clear how classifying the Mongol state as an empire influences our conceptualization of this state formation. We will argue that the Mongol Ulus should be classified as an empire, and will provide an explanation for how this definition helps comprehend specific organization of political space in the Mongol Ulus and how that empire grew out of the family and tribal ties of the Mongols.
In the historiography, “empire” is typically conceived as a form of statehood that has, as a rule, two main elements: 1) large territories and 2) the presence of dependent territories or colonies. Romila Thapar suggested, with reference to Eisenstadt’s works, that an empire can be viewed as a society consisting of a core (a highly developed expansionist state) and a periphery (the territories under the core’s influence). Social entities of completely different levels of complexity, ranging from local groups to the state itself, may constitute provinces. On the basis of the level of interaction among these subsystems, Thapar identified “early” and “late” empires. She suggests that in early empires, the core and the periphery did not constitute a strongly interrelated or united system and were different with respect to environment, economics, and levels of social and political development. The Roman Empire, the State of the Incas, and the Carolingian kingdom, for example, can be considered as classic examples of early empires. Late empires are characterized by a less differentiated infrastructure. Their provincial subsystems are limited in function and act as a form of raw material appendages with respect to the developed agrarian, industrial, and mercantile institutions of the core. The British, German, and Russian Empires at the beginning of the 20th century can be regarded as examples of this kind of empire.^[11]
Another type of early empire is the “barbarian” empire, which is mainly distinguished by the fact that its core was militarily complex, but less developed in socio-economic and political terms than the territories it exploited or conquered, and was in fact viewed by them as peripheral and provincial. All the empires founded by nomads were “barbarian,” but not all “barbarian” empires were founded by nomads. Therefore a nomadic empire can be determined as a variant of a barbarian empire. In this case a nomadic empire may be defined as a nomadic society organized according to the principle of military hierarchy and occupying a comparatively large territory, while exploiting neighboring territories, as a rule, by means of outward forms of exploitation (robbery, war, and contribution, extortion of gifts, non-equivalent trade, tribute, and so forth).
Let us turn away from general schemas (which are speculative and based on apriori deductions) and look into the everyday practices of complex nomadic societies. This involves a broad anthropological perspective alongside inquires into the economic and political aspects of social relations. The following characteristics of nomadic empires can be identified empirically:

1) a multistage hierarchy of social organization penetrated at all levels by tribal and super-tribal genealogical connections;
2) dual (on the wings) and triadic (on the wings and center) principles of administrative division within the empire;
3) a military hierarchy that characterizes the public organization of the core, mostly according to the decimal principle;
4) the yam system – the use of messengers as a specific way of linking administrative structures;
5) a specific system of power inheritance (empire as the property of the entire khan’s kin, an institution of co-government, khuriltai);
6) a specific character of relationships with the agricultural world.

It is also necessary to distinguish classic nomadic empires from, 1) the similar mixed agricultural and pastoral empires that had significant nomadic elements (the Arabic Caliphate, the Seljuk state, the Danube and Volga Bulgars, and the Ottoman empire), and 2) smaller quasi-imperial nomadic state-like formations (European Huns, Avars, Hungarians, Prazovic Bulgaria, Qara Khitai, and the Tatar Khanates after the collapse of the Golden Horde).
We can isolate three models of nomadic empires modus operandi:

1) the coexistence of nomads and crop growers, in which nomads obtain the surplus product by way of distant exploitation: raids, extortion of gifts – in essence, organized, non-equivalent trade (Hsiung-nu, Hsien-pi, Turks, Uighurs);
2) the dependence of agriculturalists on nomads, with exploitation in the form of tribute (Golden Horde, Yuan dynasty);
3) conquered agricultural societies into which nomads migrate. In this last type, robbery and tribute are replaced by a regular taxation of crop growers and townsmen (Northern Wei, the late Scythian kingdom, Danube and Volga Bulgaria, Seljuk Empire).^[12]

The stability of nomadic empires, including that of the Mongols, depended directly on the khan’s ability to organize external sources of important products. As a result, political connections between the tribes and government bodies of the steppe society were not purely autocratic. The super-tribal power persisted due to the fact that, on the one hand, membership in the imperial confederation ensured the tribes of political independence from neighbors and numerous other important advantages, and, on the other hand, the ruler of the nomadic empire and its environment secured for his tribe a certain inner autonomy within the empire.
The nomads could get necessary products of agriculture and trade in different ways:

1) by raiding and robbing (the Hsien-pi of the second and third centuries and the Mongols of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with respect to China, the Pechenegs with respect to Rus’, the Crimean Khanate with respect to Russia);
2) subordinating agricultural societies and collecting of tribute (Scythia and the Skolots, the Khazar empire and the Slavs, the Golden Horde and Rus’), and also controlling the transcontinental silk trade;
3) conquering settled city-states, stationing garrisons on their territory, adopting the sedentary lifestyle, and taxing peasants in favor of new elites (T’o-pa, Khitan and Jurchen in China, Mongols in China and Iran);
4) setting up peaceful exchange and trade relations with neighboring settled town-societies, participation in intermediary trade and as mercenaries in political conflicts between agricultural civilizations (in many societies in certain periods of their history);
5) alternatively raiding and collecting tribute with respect to a settled society (Hsiung-nu, Turks, Uighurs).

THE GIFT OF POWER

The institutions of prestige goods and economics served as mechanisms that connected the headquarters of the steppe empire to its tribes. By manipulating gifts and giving them out to comrades-in-arms and tribal chiefs, the rulers of nomadic empires increased their political influence and prestige. At the same time, rulers bound those who received gifts by the commitment of giving in return. Those tribal chiefs who received gifts, could, on the one hand, satisfy their personal needs, and, on the other hand, increase their tribal status by giving out gifts to fellow tribesmen or by organizing ceremonial festivals. In addition to receiving a gift from the ruler, the tribal chief received a part of his supernatural charisma, which in turn contributed to the increase of his own prestige.
The distribution of gifts is well documented in written sources. In particular they are repeatedly mentioned in Jami’ al-Tawarikh by Rashid ad-Din and in the works of European travelers who visited the core of the Mongol Empire: “This Prince Temudjin takes off the clothes (he is wearing) and gives them out, gets off the horse that he rides and gives (it) out. He is the man who could take care of the province, of the troops and maintain ulus.”^[13] Not only was Chinggis Khan involved in numerous distributions of gifts but so were his nearest descendants, who ruled the Empire before its break-up into the independent Uluses of Ogedei, Guyuk, Mongke, and the Hulaguids.^[14]
The integration of tribes into the imperial confederation was carried out not only by way of the symbolic exchange of gifts between the chiefs of different ranks and the khan. The inclusion of various livestock groups into genealogical kinships, collective events, and ceremonies (seasonal gatherings of chiefs, holidays, religious ceremonies, great hunts, the building of monumental funeral structures) were also done for this purpose. In the later period, pominki (gifts to the rulers of steppe society) were one of the most important elements of Russian – Nogai relationships. Not only did the Nogai leaders once address the Russian tsar to justify their extortions by saying: “I would give out your Tsar’s gifts with my own hands to my brothers and nephews and children” as “they all ask me for money while I have no money and I have nothing to give them.”^[15]
The entire history of foreign political relationships between Muscovy and the Crimean Khanate, is, in essence, the history of permanent racketeering in relation to the Khanate’s neighbors, extortion from Russia and Lithuania of rich gifts and other privileges.^[16] Khoroshkevich considers that the northern neighbors were the main source of “material benefits to give out to princes, ulans, and ordinary military servants. Gifts were considered as the main form of expected incomes.”^[17] The Tatars constantly tried to manipulate an increase of the rate, explaining that the opposite side gave more. The Khans justified their irrepressible appetites by saying that if they did not keep asking for gifts and giving them out to their mirzas, the latter would bother them: “In this way the Crimean yurt (polity) has become the nest of predators who could not be suppressed by diplomatic means. Every time the khan was reproached for raids and attacks he readily replied that the attack was not sanctioned by him, that he could not stop his people, and that it was Moscow’s fault as it did not give enough gifts to princes, mirzas and ulans.”^[18]
At the same time it is wrong to look at the gifts extorted by the Mongols from a merely rational point of view. Yuri Krivosheev, who was the first to take up the subject of gift relationships between the Golden Horde khans and Russian princes,^[19] was correct in noting Plano Carpini’s misunderstanding of the nature of these relationships. Carpini accused the Mongols of being greedy and stingy: “Both the princes and other people, both noble and common, coax many gifts out of them, and if they do not get them, then they depreciate the envoys, moreover, they take no account of them, and if the envoys are sent by distinguished people then they do not wish to receive a modest gift and say instead: ‘You are coming from a distinguished person and are giving so little?’”^[20] This evaluation of the nomads can be explained by the preconceived attitude of the Pope’s envoy toward the Mongols. It is even more surprising due to the fact that the Mongol khans frequently demonstrated their generosity to their subjects and their contempt for wealth. It is enough to refer to the textbook example shown by Rashid ad-Din, when in 1258 Hulagu tried to make the captured Caliph eat the gold from the Bagdad treasuries. When the latter objected, saying that gold is inedible, the khan exclaimed angrily: “Why did you save it then instead of giving it to your warriors!”^[21]
Research by anthropologists, beginning with that of Marcel Mauss, showed that in pre-industrial societies, gift exchange was a universal means of establishing relationships between individuals. According to Mauss, gift exchange can be explained by anthropomorphism – the subjectivization of the outer world that is inherent in the archaic consciousness of primitive man. He saw a magical force in the gift, which, on the one hand, passed an element of the soul of the donor along with the gift (his luck, magical abilities, etc.) and, on the other hand, in case the gift was not compensated, could harm the owner of the initial gift.^[22]
Symbolic gift exchange (both on a horizontal level between equals and on a vertical level between the senior and his inferiors) allowed the transformation of material resources into relationships of psychological dependence and prestige, which in turn made it possible to obtain new resources, and, by giving them out, to increase prestige even more. Thus the rise of public status was carried out through the mechanisms of prestige economics: on the one hand, by arranging mass festivals where the riches were either given away demonstratively or destroyed, or, on the other hand, by developing exchange relations and building a network of dependent persons and debtors who could not make a return gift.
Discoveries made by substantivist anthropologists pushed historians toward new interpretations as well. Scholars have made especially important advancements in medieval European history. Medieval western European society was also based on the relationships of prestige economics, similar to the chiefdoms and archaic states of Africa and Pacifica. Generosity and justice were considered to be the most important virtues of a king. According to the vassals’ understanding, generosity was expressed by giving land, titles, and rich donations, and organizing sumptuous feasts and tournaments. The common people acknowledged the generosity in the arrangement of festivals and shows as well as through giving out plentiful alms. These qualities are extolled in the verses of court troubadours. In ballads about King Arthur and his knights, generosity is extolled as one of their major qualities. By giving away material values, the medieval ruler was maintaining his prestige and influence over his subjects. At the same time, in receiving a gift from the suzerain, a vassal considered that he had received a share of the sacred power of the master. The gift became an object of special reverence, an amulet. It contained a small amount of the magical power of the master. Even during hard times the vassal kept it, as it had the greatest value.

AKIN TO POLITICS

The Feudal Society by Marc Bloch has become a classic in the field. Numerous books and articles by different scholars, including Russian authors, have paid considerable attention to the issues of prestige economics in Western European feudal society.^[23] But historical anthropology also opens up considerable opportunities for the study of other regions and periods.
Nomadic empires were organized into what could be characterized as “imperial confederations.” Yet the very characteristic of these polities largely depends on the observer’s perspective: these confederations had an autocratic and state-like appearance from the outside (they were set up for obtaining external goods from outside the steppe), but still remained collectivist and tribal inside. The kin (obok) was of great significance and it was determined by the character of blood and kinship relations, expressed by the term uruk. The group of people designated by this term can be both part a kinship group (obok), or separate from it, forming a new kin, in which context uruk and obok act as synonyms. As part of a kinship group, uruk means lineage, and it is in this context that it is most often mentioned in the Secret History of the Mongols. It was necessary to be a blood relative in order to have the right to participate in kin sacrifice on the place of placental burials (ihesyin gazar). The making of rituals of the kin’s cult, open only to the kinship members, is one of the kin’s functions.^[24]
In Secret History one can trace the connection between the ideas of obok and irgen. This connection is expressed by the fact that kinship becomes the basis for a different social structure, which receives its name from the kin. This new ethnic commonality is marked in that source by the terms irgen, ulus, and ulus irgen, which act as synonyms. The use of two words from different languages (Turkic – ulus, and Tungus-Manchurian – irgen) with similar meaning is explained by the linguistic multi-competence of the Mongolian ethnos that was in formation (ethnogenesis) during the period under consideration. In the Mongolian source, the term irgen refers to Tatars in general as well as separate groups of Tatars; the Mongols and the Kiyats, who were part of the Mongols; forest peoples in general and the Tumats, who were part of them; and the Ungirats and Olkhonuts (the latter derived from the first).
All this is a witness to the fact that, in this case, we are dealing with a typological phenomenon that is characteristic of other peoples as well. For example, in Byzantine sources the term ethnos referred to the general mass of the Huns as well as its parts – the Avars and the Sabirs. Herodotus called all the Scythians and some peoples living in Scythia ethnoses. The social organism that was marked by the Mongolian terms irgen and ulus did not represent a state formation. Both terms were identical to the term ethnos, meaning “nation, people, or tribe.”
The study of the terms irgen and ulus – used both in an ethnic sense (Mongolian people = the Mongols) and a political sense (the chiefdom of the Mongols) – shows the coincidence of political and ethnic consciousness, and supports the inseparable nature of social consciousness and the pre-state-ethnic character in Mongolian society. The proof of the combined ethnic classification and political consciousness is not only in the poly-semantic character of the terms (nation, people, tribe), but in their partial coincidence with the meaning of the term, obok.
The hierarchy of taxis can be presented in the following way: uruk (lineage) – obok (kin or clan) – irgen ulus (tribe, chiefdom). By this, one ethnonym could be used with each of the taxis, which signified the level of social organization and, in this way, could be turned into a term designating a polity, as the aggregate of the kin was trasnforming from mere ethnic language and cultural commonality into a consolidated social and political organization – a tribe as an ethno-social commonality, the name of which was given by the ruling kin. Uruk, acting as a lineage on the level of a conic clan, could in its turn be equal to a kin, and the kin may become the basis for a different social unit that receives its name from the kin. In the sources this new ethnic commonality is named by the terms irgen, ulus, or ulus irgen.
The terms irgen and ulus referred to large ethno-social alliances, with the stress on people rather than formal institutions. These terms fixed the social-political commonality of heterogeneous space, whose name was derived from the name of the ruling class. The borders of unions marked as irgen ulus were defined not by the borders of the territories, though the latter were well defined, but rather by the circle of people heading its separate parts. Personal membership in this commonality was fixed in genealogy. The genealogy’s functions are a proof that it could be fictitious rather than factual. Inside of one conic clan, the relations of domination–subordination were marked by the place of the leaders of ethno-social unions in the genealogical table, with a special importance inside the clan attached to its elder and younger representatives, who stood out terminologically (elder – bekhi, younger – otchigin). The double principle of the ruling elite was conditioned by the simultaneous relevance of two systems of kinship in Mongolian medieval society: patrilinear, characterized by primogeniture (the eldest of the conic clan in the male line had the right to inherit power), and matrilinear, in which the youngest in the clan preserved the right to the kin’s territory – its sacral center (= locus of throne). In its turn, this led to competition for power, most distinctly revealed in the conflict between Khubilai and Arig-Buga.
We can say that the creation of this Mongolian commonality, which became the core of the Mongol Empire, occurred during the lifetime of Khabul-Khan. His activities contributed to the actualization of the political consciousness (meaning the ethnic Mongols), and he became the first bearer of the title khan. If in Secret History this commonality is called “all the Mongols” (mong. Qamuy mongyol), then according to the Chinese historiographer Li Sin-chuan, the designation of the territory of the Mongols dwelling in the South-West sounds a little different:

“Since the beginning of (years of ruling) Shao-sing (1131-1162) (they) started revolts. The commander-in-chief Tzung-bi fought (against them) during a number of years, (but) could not punish them in the end; only by dividing the troops he retained significant strategic points and, vice versa, bribed them with generous (gifts). Their owner was also illegally called “the first emperor-head of the kin” (tsu-yuan huang-di). During Chin’s Lyian (they) caused harm on the borders. (As we can see), they appeared a long time ago. <here omit>. Now the Tatars call themselves the Great Mongolian state, and therefore border officials call them (in short) meng-ta.”^[25]

In this abstract we can single out a few important facts. First is the appearance of “the first emperor-progenitor,” which according to the Secret History corresponds in time to the election of the first ruler of all the Mongols – Khabul Khan. Secondly, in the quoted text, the phrase “here omit” has been inserted. In an explanatory note, N. Munkuyev wrote: “Wang Guo-Wei omitted the phrase that mentions the attack of the Mongols on the Chin state: ‘When the Mongols (meng-zhen) invaded the state of Chin, (they) called themselves the great Mongolian state (da meng-gu guo). Therefore border officials called them Mongolia (Meng-gu)’ (Li Sin-chuan. Tza-tzi, collection 2, chapter 19, p. 591).”^[26] Designating the territory of Three Rivers – the Onon, Kerulen, and Tola populated by the Mongols as da menggu-guo – and emphasizing the title of its head, undoubtedly, marked the appearance of a new type of commonality – that of a polity – and strengthened its role on the political arena of the region. As we can see, the emerging would-be empire was driven by and structured along the clan hierarchies. At the same time, the structural elements of domination and the core-periphery system of resource exchange, which have been identified by contemporary scholars as signs of “empireness,” were built into the Mongol commonality from the very beginning by the demographic principles of authority distribution. In a sense, “imperialism” as a system of power relations preceded the empire and, furthermore, could have existed without any active expansionist ambitions.

DECIPHERING THE CODE OF SELF-REPRESENTATION, AND ITS LIMITATIONS

THE “STRUCTURE”

The Mongols themselves did not leave a clear self-description of their polity. The question of the “Yeke Mongol Ulus” has always been a subject around which much of the research in Mongolian studies related to ethno- and political-genesis and the search for national identity has crossed. Both in the historical literature and, as a result, in the public consciousness, the notion of “the great Mongolian state” has been fixed so firmly that ambiguity about its meaning is nearly absent. This translation or interpretation has been generated by the historiography of the late tradition. There is no explicit presentation of this issue – the Yeke Mongol Ulus – in the original text of Secret History. We suppose that the meaning of the expression Yeke Mongol ulus is archetypical and has a rather different, strictly geographical (territorial) meaning. It is well-known that the medieval Mongols settled two distinct territories. The first lived on the Argun and Amur rivers and were designated as Usutu Monggol (the water Mongols), the second (Onon – Kerulen – Tola) as da menggu guo, that is Great Mongolia (the Yeke Mongol Ulus), which, in our view, marked the territory of the secondary colonization and was connected with the necessity of identifying a separate population of Mongols from the North-East. This population had a distinct hierarchical structure and a common ritual system (we must not forget that the ritual constructs the borders of the commonality and confirms them).^[27]
In the identification practices of Great Mongolia, in addition to the designation Great (yeke) in the naming of their country, the differentiation of the Mongols of this territory from the prima motherland utilized another identification marker – meng-da. Moreover, we should emphasize that the term meng-da was a symbol not only of external identification but also of self-identification, as it was a necessary instrument of foreign policy in the region. The occurrence of the new term was not only an instrument of political activity, it also established an internal state of heterogeneity in the population of the territory. It testified to the appearance of a new reality – a commonality that was in the state of simultaneous existence with ambivalent relations: union (anda-kuda, bogol) and hostility (blood vengeance). Relations often had a hostile character, caused by the fight for predominant supremacy in this territory. During the period of serious political competition, the name of the group that also represented the territory was accepted and increasingly acknowledged as being the manifest character and meaning of Mongol.
In the study of the problems of identification, and ethnic identification in particular, a common name, a common myth of origin, and an association with a definite territory are of particular significance. Various foundations of (self-)identification generate various, most often hierarchic, identification levels that are in complex interrelations and sometimes intertwine, creating a tangled labyrinth of connections that scholars need to decipher. Research into different levels of identification can be based on the analysis of an accepted and generally used self-designation, in this case – the Mongols.
This analysis of eponyms and ethnonyms allows us to speak about the dual organization of Mongolian society (and the ruling elite) and the coexistence of two exogamic mutual nuptial kins (Borte-Chino and Ghoa-Maral), which through further growth generated two branch kinship groups. As mentioned above, the simultaneous functioning of both maternal and paternal lineage was a characteristic feature of medieval Mongolian society for a rather long period during the empire’s formation. We also find that translation of the Mongol name was carried out according to the female lineage. As the patrilinear system of kinship became predominant, there was a need to bind the genealogical tree of Borto-Chinoe to the descendants of the male lineage. Reconstructing the relationship of Chinggis-Khan to the clan of the wolf was carried out through the mythology of a yellow dog in whose image a “celestial” man was living and with whom Alan-Ghoa had her three youngest sons.
The names of the forefathers Borto-Chine and Ghoa-Maral could be manifestations of dualism in forming Mongolian ulus expressed by a different code: the Tayichi’uds and the Mongols before the final Mongolization of the former. The analysis is not only explicit but also implicit, as the evidence suggests that these basic ethnonyms were designations of military alliances between the bears (Mongols) and the wolves (Tayichi’uds). Constant military clashes over riches (livestock primarily) and territorial control caused an increase in the role of military alliances in the lives of the nomads. Constant reconstruction and subsequent changes to the names of communities resulted from short-term military alliances that arose on a volunteer basis (the joining of successful fighting men) and not only through conquest of neighbors. This was a rather traditional way of polity formation – which came to be seen as “imperial” when it was reproduced on a much larger scale.
The text Jami’ al-Tawarikh is a wonderful example of medieval identification practices:

“Chapter One is about those who are called Mongol-Darlekin. They are branches and tribes that originated from the remnants of Mongolian tribes, the Nukuz and Kiyats, that once moved to Ergune-kun, (where) they increased in numbers. They were (even) before the times of Dobun-Bayan and Alan-Ghoa.
Chapter Two is about those who are called Mongol-Nirun. They are those tribes that originated from the kin of Alan-Ghoa after the death of her husband, Dobun-Bayan.
Alan-Ghoa belonged to the tribe of Kuralas, one of the branches of the Mongol-darlekins. (Alan-Ghoa), according to the opinion and assertion of the Mongols, after the death of (her) husband, became pregnant from a beam of light and gave birth to three sons; and those who belong to the kin of these sons are called Nirun. The meaning of (the word) nirun is loins. The indication of these pure loins is that they (the sons) originated from (supernatural) light.
Those tribes that belong to the kin of Alan Ghoa and her sons are divided into three parts in the following division:
The first part includes those who originated from the kin of Alan Ghoa till the sixth generation that included Kabul Khan. All these people from (the number) of sons, nephews and their kin (urug), are independently called Niruns. In the same way brothers of Kabul Khan and their kin are called Niruns.
Those who are called Kiyats, though they are Niruns also, belong to the second part. They are the generation (taife) whose kin originated from the sixth generation of Alan Ghoa, from Kabul Khan’s generation.
The third part is those who are called Kiyat-Borjigin, though they originated from the tribe of Nirun-Kiyat, and as a pure kin of Alan-Ghoa were born from her direct descendant in (the sixth) generation, Kabul Khan. Their origin is as follows: they were born from the grandson of Kabul Khan, Yesugei-Bakhadur, father of Chinggis Khan.”^[28]

This text reflects the issue of both types of kinship: matrilineal, where the significance of belonging to the descendants of Alan-Ghoa is emphasized once again (Niruns are the most pure Mongols), and patrilineal, through the singling out of Kabul Khan, whose genealogical kinship is formed by the right of the eldest sons to inherit power, beginning with Bodonchar (the youngest son of Alan-Ghoa).
A second fact is worthy of our attention. On the one hand, all the descendants of Alan-Ghoa are called Niruns, and, on the other hand, Kabul Khan and his first line of descendants are also called in this way. The third important fact from this extract is the fixing of the ethnonym Kiyats after the descendants of Kabul Khan. And the final fact worthy of mention is actualization of the double ethnonym, Kiyat-Borjigin, which can be considered a signal of alliance between two sides, indicating the significance of the first, and based on a different identification code, that of Mongols-Tayichi’uds.
Thus we can single out basic elements of this identification practice. The first element was the underlining of ethnic boundaries of the Mongols in general, but indicating they were also Darlekins. The second element is the singling out a different ruling elite (not the descendants of Borto-Chino in the male lineage) through matrilineal kinship (Nirun). In turn, the marker of the ruling kinship, Kiyat, fixed after Chinggis Khan and his descendants, was retranslated through the eldest sons. If Kabul Khan is called the forefather of the Kiyat tribe, then his sons and grandsons become the forefathers of its subdivisions, and the second part appears in addition to the primary Kiyat as Kiyat-Yurki, Kiyat-Kuralas, Kiyat-Borjigin, etc. We can probably say that the significance of the union formed under the rule of Kabul Khan was the singling out, by special marking, of its important kinship group through the use of a glorious name from the past, Kiyan.
On the whole, the ethno-political self-consciousness of the Mongols was under constant pressure due to changing circumstances, and revisions of group borders of communities, and, accordingly, those who were members in them. During those periods of unstable public life that lead toward the formation of hierarchical identities, ethnocentric ideas assume primary significance. Everything is based on genealogy and if there is none to rely on, it must be constructed. The marking of borders (cultural, geographical, political) was carried out within the limits of traditional power and political culture, and the specific political situation promoted revitalization of the genealogy and its establishment as a real political force. This plasticity and conditional inclusiveness of the external boundaries of the group ensured its rapid expansion under favorable circumstances, at the expense of tribes and peoples admitted into the initial Mongol communality.
Limiting access to power was one of the main objectives in the formation of a hierarchy of identities. Reconstruction of ethnic configurations as an agent of political practice in the Mongol Ulus allowed the expression of duality through different codes: Tayichi’ud – Nukuz – Chino – Borjigin – Borte-Chino, and Mongol – Kiyat – Ghoa-Maral. Chinggis Khan’s establishment of the Mongolian Empire and his designation of the ruling elite by the double ethnonym “Kiyat-Borjigin” signified an important stage of interrelationships within the region. In this regard, it is worth noting that Temujin’s election, and its necessary repetition, becomes clear in the context of opposition between the Mongols and Tayichi’uds.
If the first enthronement represented the election of a khan (a leader in war), then the second one (1206) was related to the need to extend the structure of authority over a considerably broader community. It is remarkable, and it is important to underline, that repetitive enthronement is connected not only with the victory over the Naimans and Merkits, but also with the defeat of the coalition ruled by the Tayichi’uds and led by Jamukha: “When Naimans and Merkits were defeated, Jamukha was deprived of his people for being with them”^[29] (ulus-iyan abda’asu^[30]). The completion of the subjugation of all “peoples living in yurts” is marked by the defeat of the Tayichi’uds. The Tayichi’uds represented an irgen community (synonymous to the above mentioned ulus), as can be seen from the following passage:

“148. Chinggis Khan defeated the Tayichi’uds, the people of Tayichi’ud bone – Auchu-Batur, Khoton-Orchen and Khuduudar – he scattered (their remains) in the wind as ashes, destroying the descendants of their descendants, and took their people [ulus irgen] and wintered in the Khubakha territory.”^[31]

Following the defeat of the ruling elite of the Tayichi’uds and the tribe of Tayichi’uds (tayici’utai yasutu, who were also tayici’ud-i uruq-un uruq-a), the ethnic group Tayichi’uds, indicated by the terms yasu and uruq, and its identity were completely destroyed. The contents of this paragraph allow us to suppose that the tribe of Tayichi’uds, consisting of kinships groups that were ethnically heterogeneous, represented a super-ethnic commonality or polity. It represents the final page in the history of the independent existence of the Tayichi’uds and their struggle for power with the Mongols.
After the execution of Jamukha in 1206 on the upper Onon River, a Mongol congress was held and Chinggis was proclaimed khan and carried out the restructuring of the Mongolian Ulus. It is worth paying attention to the fact that all peoples assembled under the aegis of Chinggis Khan, including newly conquered peoples who lived in yurts, in the Mongolian source are called Mongoljin Ulus instead of Mongol Ulus, meaning not only Mongols but also nomadic peoples who entered the Mongolian Ulus and were included in the process of Mongolization. It appears that the need to repeat the act of enthronement was conditioned by the need to legitimize authority through the appropriation (Mongolization) of a sacral center – Khorkhonakh Jubur in Onon – where Khutulu was once elected khan.
Though the possibility of creating an accurate historical picture is difficult, we can identify some of the main tendencies of ethno- and political genesis among the early Mongols, taking into account that the same name often serves as a gens (urug, obog, yasun) ethnic (obog, irgen, ulus) marker, or a marker of power and polity. While the former terms differ in degrees of homogeneity, the latter are not only heterogeneous by themselves but are also used in similar contexts, which, undoubtedly makes interpretation difficult. It is possible that alongside the common meaning of the name Mongol (as well as Borjigin), another meaning arose, a social one, when used to describe a fighting group under the leadership of a military leader (the first, possibly reconstructed, was Khabul Khan), which lead to the broadening of boundaries of commonality, and accordingly, to a new use of the term. It started to be used as a marker of ethnic identification that designated alliances between ethnic groups (inclusion of warriors/nukers/bogols in the commonality and re-use of the term bogol, from marking subordinate associates to marking a structure of connected social public groups).
Strengthening the heterogeneity of an alliance and enlarging it generated the formation of a new ethnic consciousness when groups that entered the alliance took its name and simultaneously preserved their own. Broadening the borders of commonality and strengthening the power of an alliance through marking by the ethnonym Mongol established a new level, that of power, and designated a polity, a confederation of groups at different levels (kins/clans, tribes, alliances). Broadening the use of the term “Mongol” began to alter not only the meaning of ethnophore (ethnophania) and to designate larger dynastic political units and the territories they occupied, but led to the terminological separation from the polity of the ruling elite, which possessed its own ethnical coloring. This, accordingly, actualized the terms that designated the elite (Kiyat-Borjigin),^[32] in opposition to the groups that did not belong to the Golden clan. The ethnic meaning of the terms Kiyat (Mongol) and Borjigin (Tayichi’ud) were combined with a social meaning, suggesting that they formed a stratum of military aristocracy that came to power in a military alliance. Social and political structures also changed (institutional elements, social and cultural environments) the imperial ideology and created new value orientations; polyethnicity was deepened and assimilation processes strengthened. Mythological constructs become phenomenological reality, which impacted the social, cultural, and political processes of the Mongol Empire.
The social structure of society defined the character of the political organization as it consisted of taxis, which were hierarchically differentiated as roles for each social unit were determined. Blood-kin relations were the basic criteria of dynastic and political organization – both vertical and horizontal – which determined relations between different ethno-social unions at each level. The power and authority in traditional societies, including Mongolian, did not manifest themselves in the pure form in which they exist in developed, modern societies. Social stratification, based on the uneven distribution of rights and privileges, power, prestige, influence, duties, and property, and characterized by systematic interaction of various elements and levels, is one of the mechanisms through which the organization of society is structured. We undertook the identification of mechanisms of social stratification in Mongolian society through an analysis of the terms.
These are first of all well-known terms of blood relationships: father-son, elder brother-younger brother. Relations of supremacy and subjection were marked through the leaders of groups by these terms in cases where they were not regulated by genealogy; that is, they belonged to various blood-relation groups.
If the terms father-son, elder brother-younger brother emphasize the subordination of one community to another (elder-younger), then the term anda marks equal relations as underlined in the Secret History, where this term means relations of pairs: Kereit Van Khan with Yesugei-bagatur or Chinggis Khan with Jamukha. This term is also used for marking another kind of relation, anda kuda, of matrimonial character, in which as a rule partners are equal.
Chinggis Khan’s conquest of neighboring groups and his access to power changed their political status and required that the mechanisms of power legitimization be replaced. A new term bogol^[33] was applied similarly to the terms father-son, elder brother-younger brother, and anda-kuda, and served as a mechanism of social and political integration, fixing changes that took place in the process of conquest and that required including new structures and recoding old ones. Bogol participates in modeling new structures that ensure the preservation and integration of public organizations, the formation of a new level of public relationships such as super tribal and super local social and political structures that strive for universal adaptation.
The constant flexibility of communalities that are marked by the terms ulus, irgen, and obog is one way of fixing borders and organizing relationships: one (elder-ruler) pledges to execute his duties before the subordinate, ensuring his happiness, the other (younger-bogol) serves his master during peace time and maintains his territory in the battlefield during war time. The term bogol marked both members of a different tribe and tribal kinship groups genealogically related to Chinggis Khan, who entered the confederation of tribes under his rule and it marked their subordination only to Chinggis Khan and his kin, rather than their personal or group bondage.
The term kharachu^[34] was another that marked all those who did not belong to Chinggis Khan’s kinship in traditional Mongolian political culture. In the epoch of the Mongol Empire, it outlined the borders of the social group that was comprised of the elite of conquered peoples that served the “Golden kin” of Chinggis Khan. Hierarchically, they were situated between khagan and members of the community and were not common people. The Kharachu were represented by the ruling elite of the Mongol Empire. They could serve as heads of military subdivisions (tumens, thousands, hundreds, tens) and have high titles (bokho, emir, taishi), but they were characterized as non-Chinggisids. It is possible that in the traditional political culture of the Mongols, this division of Chinggisid/non-Chinggisid, was preeminent and the most significant to be determined by origin (celestial/common). It is worth noting that during the period of the Mongol Empire, the marking of Mongols of even the lowest status with the term kharachu was not usual. It is obvious that the use of the term kharachu for marking the common people of Mongolian origin was a phenomenon of a much later period.
Social stratification in Mongol society did not suggest a strict hierarchical structure. Belonging to an ethno-social group that occupied a subordinate position did not prevent a person from rising up the hierarchical ladder and achieving high individual status (emir, ruler of the province, etc.) through individual social mobility. But in a traditional society, individual mobility was limited. Even officials who reached high positions within the hierarchy were marked by special terms that demonstrated their membership in groups that were not included in the supreme ruling elite of Chinggisids. The hierarchy supported the integrity of the system by defining place and roles for its separate parts, and the terms of supremacy or subordination were one part of the power mechanisms in the political institution through which the power was executed.
Analysis of the use of such terms of social organization as bogol and kharachu, traditionally translated as slaves and common people, allows us to reconsider the mechanisms that structured the core of the Mongol Empire. In the largest sense, they show the designation of relationships of domination and subordination within the empire and demonstrate the priority of access to the power of Chinggis Khan’s kin, rather than indicating social strata within Mongolian society. A study of these terms in their historical context (on the basis of original historical sources) shows that they were used in the Secret History not only for marking socially economic-dependent strata, but for recoding interrelationship of kin, tribes and leaders with the ruling kin of Chinggis Khan.
The mechanisms expressed by the terms anda, father-son, and elder brother-younger brother, and the position of the leader of the conic clan, were characteristic of the social and political organization of the Mongols of this period and testify to the fact that these were powers institutions first of all and not political organizations. Relations between ethno-social organisms were regulated by the terms of blood kinship that marked social organization. Even bogol is equated with the category of a young brother in the Secret History. The overlapping and sometimes interchangeable hierarchies of kin, ethnic/tribal descent, and social status constituted the social structure of the expanding Mongol Ulus, thus preserving its complex heterogeneous “imperial” character.

“CULTURE”

The question of the principles of Mongolian social regulation during the period of Chinggis Khan’s empire and the character of the orders that determined them is an important issue that requires attention. Most often the answer to this question is the assertion that the Mongols since the time of Chinggis Khan were guided according to the statute-book called Yasa. We can suppose that the elders in conic clans were keepers of knowledge concerning norms of behavior. Chinggis Khan, for example, said before his death that “those who want to know yasa, rules, law and biliks should best go to Chagatai.”^[35] Thus it is still an open question if everything that Chinggis Khan reformed was written into the statute-book during his lifetime or if we have to thank his Near East descendants. In China the text of the Yasa was unknown. We would like to note the most important facts.

1. The rights issued from the will of the ruler and in this case we can speak about the archetype of traditional consciousness in which Chinggis Khan as a cultural hero is the creator of everything including the laws.
2. This is not a statute-book elaborated by professionals on the basis of the state practice that existed at that time. It is worth noting that designation of some statute-book by the term yasa was inherent not only to Mongols. Tatars also have this term.
3. We cannot speak about fixed court practice in the person of Shigi-Khutukhu. We think that scholars will still have to decide what the position of dzargu dzargulugsan, which was determined by Chinggis Khan for Shigi-Khutukhu, may mean. Moreover we see him in the head of the detachment in the war, and court cases were judged by khan himself. For example, Ugedei made the decision about Dokholkhu execution.
4. All the quoted remained abstracts from Yasa deal with personal issues (killing, military discipline, religious taboo, robbery, and family and property affairs including cases dealing with the management of the household by women in the absence of a man-warrior) and have a character of customary law as they were written down as uttered by Chinggis Khan on certain occasions. In essence, these famous abstracts do not contain the laws that determined the basic principles for social life. The number of texts that could serve as legal norms to guide the Mongols in their activity was much wider and had a relation to the common law: bilik (bilig), jasak (= yasa), jarlik, yosun, toru. Only the last term can also mean sacred law. One of the most important problems in the formation of the Mongolian Empire was that of legal proceedings where three forms are singled out: the Khagan court, the khuriltai court, and the court of specially appointed persons – judges (the latter are characteristic for the conquered agricultural territories), this penitentiary system had not only the character of a well-balanced court organization but, as Ryazanovsky wrote, more so of “administrative reprisals.” All these factors allow us to declare Mongolian society a potestary (pre-state) one.^[36]

The corporative owning of the power that was connected with the formation of a privileged ruling elite of Kiyat-Borjigin (to which Chinggis Khan belonged and which subsequently became known as the Golden lineage) was a characteristic feature of Mongolian society. In connection with Chinggis Khan’s distribution of duties among his relatives and nukers in 1206, the Mongolian Ulus was for the first time divided into two wings (ji’ur) or hands (gar) – right/left. We should note that power was divided into secular and military (the latter was connected with the singling out of military units – tumens consisting of the population of the right and left hand in each of the wing). Chinggis Khan relates himself with the center, which is expressed in the Mongolian word qol (Secret History, § 226). This division of the Mongolian Ulus corresponded to the secular (civil) and military structure. But, as we have already mentioned, the kin territory was of great significance (sacred center) and situated in the left wing and its owner (otchigin). Therefore the Secret History indicated the existence of one more center, expressed by Mongolian term tub and related with Tolui and “throne” (§ 213).
The distribution of power in the wings was determined by the sacred essence of power, according to which the ruler was able to ensure order (Mongol Ulus or the ruling Golden lineage). Traditional consciousness allowed for the combination of ritual, power, and military functions in one person. The right to power became legitimate if the candidates for the throne had the ability to practice rituals and in this way they could act as guarantors of the integrity and well-being of the collective body. Chinggis Khan carried out both sacred and profane power functions (charismatic type of power). After his death when traditional mechanisms should be restored the problem of power re-distribution always appeared – further division of provinces into wings. As two principles were actual – ultima (the youngest) and primogeniture (the eldest) – then the Mongolian society of the 13th century was characterized by the overproduction of the elite, which made the fight for power even harsher. In the same way, two tendencies were always confronting each other: the power of the eldest or the power of khagan, which was connected as a rule with the left wing – the sacred center of the Mongolian world. But inside the left wing, as it has already been mentioned above, there could be competition between khagan (the eldest in the left wing) and otchigin. The study of the system of wings allows us to determine the complicated structure of nomadic power relations, though the kin principle remained the main one. A constant redistribution of power functions is connected with the changes in the structure of power between lineages even in the limits of one kin – the ruling kin of Kiyat-Borjigin.^[37] There were also other power institutions: the decimal system, groups of fighting men, khuriltai, and the court and legal practice of the Mongolian empire.
How can we estimate the character of a society of this kind? Can we even use the word “state” when speaking about the Mongols? We should note that there is no unanimity in this question among different scholars, and it is a controversial issue not only for Mongolian studies, but for nomad studies as a whole. While some scholars in the field of nomad studies would classify medieval Mongolian society as pre-state, and others treat only the Mongolian uluses of the 11-13th centuries as pre-state societies, for most scholars, the statehood of the early Mongolian uluses and Chinggis Khan’s empire is beyond any doubt.^[38]
We assume that this problem should be approached from two angles: first, the possibility of existence or absence of political system of the Mongols themselves, that is, the Mongolian political system itself, and second, the political system of the Mongol Empire. The second suggests the presence of features of the state (administrative and territorial divisions, a tax system, a bureaucratic system for the execution of state and government functions), that have xenocratic forms as they should be directed on the exploitation of the population of more complicated societies compared to the nomads.
In their relations with conquered urban societies in Inner Asia, the nomads could use two various models: 1) destroying towns and crop growers and turning arable land into pastures for cattle; 2) complicating their own governing bodies, placing the ruling elite in the cities, creating a bureaucratic system, and introducting written language and office-work according to the Chinese model. As it was impossible to govern conquered territories with the traditional institutions of nomadic society, the governing bodies needed radical modernization. In an aphoristic way, this idea is expressed in the famous phrase of Yeh-lu Ch’u-ts’ai, when he told to Ugedei that the nomads could conquer the Chinese Empire but could never govern it from horseback.^[39]The Khitans were the first to understand this and in the middle of the 10th century they set up a so-called double system of government, one for the nomads and another for the conquered Chinese. This principle was borrowed from them by the Jurchens, but as the latter were not nomads they were predisposed to acculturation and were quickly assimilated by Chinese population.
From our point of view, it would be more correct to label the societies of nomads of this kind as “supercomplex chiefdoms.”^[40] These were characterized by a high rate of centralization, social stratification, inchoate forms of urban and monumental construction, and sometimes even written language. These chiefdoms had a complicated system of titles for the chiefs and officials; they had diplomatic correspondence with neighboring countries, and concluded dynasty marriages with the rulers of agricultural states and other nomadic empires. From the point of view of neighboring settled urban civilizations, the nomadic societies were perceived as independent subjects of international political relations.
Could supercomplex chiefdoms be set up by settled agricultural societies? The populations of complex chiefdoms measured in the tens of thousands of people, and ethnically they were typically homogeneous. But the populations of multiethnic supercomplex chiefdoms included hundreds of thousands of people (the nomadic empires of Inner Asia had up to 1-1.5 million). The territory of supercomplex nomad chiefdoms was several times larger than the area necessary for simple and complex chiefdoms of crop-growers (the nomads were characterized by a population density agriculturalists have in pre-hierarchical societies and chiefdoms). At the same time the activity of the population on the territory that can be compared to any nomadic empire by its size could hardly be regulated by pre-state modes.
Governing a large territory of this kind of nomadic society was facilitated by the specifics of the steppe landscape and the presence of saddle animals. On the other hand, the overall armament of nomads was partially conditioned by their disperse settlement, mobility, economic autarchy, and military way of life during a rather long historical period. A number of other factors prevented establishing a steady supervision over pastoral tribes and certain nomads by the highest levels of power. All this allows us to suppose that supercomplex chiefdoms, while not a characteristic form of political organization only for nomads, were the most popular among them.
For the sake of convenience and due to established historiographic tradition, we may call these polities “empires.” However, as we attempted to demonstrate in this article, the genesis, social structure, and political system of the Mongol Ulus had little to do with those of other historical empires, and the label itself cannot tell us much about the specificity of the Mongol empire. A good deal of its “empireness” resulted from the peculiar tribal past of the Ulus, and also from the logic of the situation in which any expansionist polity finds itself trying to stabilize its borders and manage the conquered population.

EPILOGUE

In conclusion, a few words about the reasons for the downfall of the Mongol empire are in order. Scholars have provided several explanations for the collapse and disintegration of nomadic empires, including the Mongolian one: 1) natural phenomena (drying out of the steppe, short-term climatic stresses and epidemics); 2) external political factors (invasions of enemies, protracted wars, cessation of external incomes, crises of neighboring agricultural civilizations); 3) inner reasons (demographical explosion, loss of inner unity and separatism, gigantic sizes and weakness of administrative structure, class fight, internecine between the khans and civil wars, mediocre political rulers).
Contemporary data do not support all of these explanations. As mentioned above, the paleogeographic data of the last decade testifies to the absence of a direct connection between global climatic cycles with the decline and rise of steppe empires. The thesis about class struggle among nomads has been proven wrong, as they did not have classes as such. But most of the above reasons influenced the fate of this or that steppe politity. Frankly speaking, comparative analysis shows that it was not rare that several circumstances rather one impacted the downfall of nomadic empires. As a rule, misfortunes never come singly. Internecine conflict could be accompanied by both local ecological disasters (Hsiung-nu, Uighurs) and enemy invasions (Jou-jan, Uighurs).
At the same time, several factors potentially promoted the structural instability of nomadic empires:

1) external sources of income that combined economically independent tribes into a united imperial confederation;
2) the mobility and armament of the nomads, which made the supreme power of empires balance in search of consensus among different political groups;
3) the specific province and tanistrial^[41] (in Ancient Russian: lestvitsa – top/crown of a tree) system of power inheritance, according to which each of the representatives of the ruling (Golden) lineage from the main wives had the right for promotion of administrative status including the right for the throne according the age line;
4) polygamy among the elite (Chinggis Khan, for example, had about 500 wives and concubines, Jochi had 114 sons, Khubilai – about 50 sons; one member of the Golden lineage had 100 sons and the nickname “commander of a hundred soldiers”). Even if we can theoretically admit that “the average” khan had, for example, five sons, then even by the same rates of birth he should have no less than 25 grandsons and 125 great-grandsons. According to this progression, in 60-70 years the competition for inheritance, as a rule, should have led to bloody internecine quarrels, and, finally, to civil war, which ended in the massacre of the greater part of the rivals or disintegration of ulus. This law-governed nature, noticed as early as in the epoch of the Mongol uluses blossoming by Ibn Khaldun, in recent years has acquired solid mathematical grounds.^[42] But even without referring to science, if we thoroughly study the facts from the history of medieval Mongols, we can be easily convinced that it was a history of a fight for power among various groups of Chinggis Khan’s descendants.

In the end, the fate of steppe empires often depended on how the ruler solved these problems, and on how he directed the energy of his numerous relatives and associates outside their own society. But such polities could not last forever. Most nomadic empires existed no more than 100-150 years. However, all empires have fallen at some point; retrospectively then, the Mongol empire was no different, if only in this respect.