The Pechenegs () or Patzinaks, were a semi-nomadic Turkic people from Central Asia who spoke the Pecheneg language. In the 9th and 10th centuries, the Pechenegs controlled much of the steppes of southeast Europe and the Crimean Peninsula. In the 9th century, the Pechenegs began a period of wars against Rus', and for more than two centuries launched raids into the lands of Rus', which sometimes escalated into full-scale wars.
Ethnonym The Pechenegs were mentioned as Bjnak, Bjanak or Bajanak in medieval Arabic and Persian texts, as Be-ča-nag in Classical Tibetan documents, and as Pačanak-i in works written in Georgian. Anna Komnene and other Byzantine authors referred to them as Patzinakoi or Patzinakitai. In medieval Latin texts, the Pechenegs were referred to as Pizenaci, Bisseni or Bessi. East Slavic peoples use the terms Pečenegi or Pečenezi (plural of Pečeneg), while the Poles mention them as Pieczyngowie or Piecinigi. The Hungarian word for Pecheneg is besenyő; the Romanian term is Pecenegi. According to Max Vasmer and some other researchers the ethnonym Pecheneg may have derived from the Old Turkic word for "brother-in-law, relative" (eg. Turkish: bacanak), implying that it initially referred to an "in-law related clan or tribe". Peter Golden considers this derivation by no means certain. In Mahmud Kashgari's 11th-century work Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, the Pechenegs were described as "a Turkic nation living around the country of the Rum" (Rum was the Turkic word for the Eastern Roman Empire or Anatolia) and "a branch of Oghuz Turks"; he subsequently described the Oghuz as being formed of 22 branches, of which the Pecheneg were the 19th. Pechenegs are mentioned as one of 24 ancient tribes of Oghuzes by 14th-century statesman and historian of Ilkhanate-ruled Iran Rashid-al-Din Hamadani in his work Jāmiʿ al-Tawārīkh ("Compendium of Chronicles") with the meaning of the ethnonym as "the one who shows eagerness". The 17th-century khan of Khiva and historian Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur mentions the Pechenegs as bechene among 24 ancient tribes of Turkmens (or Oghuzes) in his book Shajara-i Tarākima (Genealogy of the Turkmen) and provides for its meaning as "the one who makes". Three of the eight Pecheneg "provinces" or clans were collectively known as Kangars. According to Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, the Kangars received this denomination because "they are more valiant and noble than the rest" of the people "and that is what the title Kangar signifies". Because no Turkic word with a similar meaning is known, Ármin Vámbéry connected the ethnonym to the Kyrgyz words kangir ("agile"), kangirmak ("to go out riding") and kani-kara ("black-blooded"), while Carlile Aylmer Macartney associated it with the Chagatai word gang ("chariot"), semantically related to the Turkic Gaoche. Omeljan Pritsak proposed that the name had initially been a composite term (Kängär As, mentioned in Old Turkic texts) deriving from the Tocharian word for stone (kank) and the ethnonym As, suggesting that they were Tocharian-speaking or at least formed a confederation consisting of Tocharian, Eastern Iranian and Bulgaric Turkic elements. Their connection with Eastern Iranian elements is hinted at in the remark of al-Biruni regarding a people that "are of the race of al-Lān and that of al-Ās and their language is a mixture of the languages of Khwarazmians and the Badjanak.". However, Golden objected that *Aoruša would have yielded Ors/Urs and Pritsak's opinion on the Kengeres-Kangars' ethnonym and mixed Tocharian-Iranian origin remained "highly hypothetical". If the latter assumption is valid, the Kangars' ethnonym suggests that (East) Iranian elements contributed to the formation of the Pecheneg people but Spinei concedes that Pechenegs were of "a predominantly Turkic character... beyond any doubt". This may be mirrored in the Old Rus translation of Josephus Flavius (ed. Meshcherskiy, 454) which adds "the Yas, as is known, descended from the Pecheneg tribe." Based on their fragmentary linguistic remains, scholars view them as Common Turkic-speakers, most probably Kipchak (Németh, followed by Ligeti) or Oguz (Baskakov). Hammer-Purgstall classifies the Chinese Kangju and Byzantine Kangar as purely Turkic name variants of the Kangly; however, Wang Pu's institutional historical work Tang Huiyao apparently distinguishes the Kang(ju) from the Kangheli (aka Kangly). Menges saw in Kang-ar-as the plural-suffix -as, and Klyashtorny the Turkic numerus collectivus -ar-, -er-.
Language
Mahmud al-Kashgari, an 11th-century man of letters who specialized in Turkic dialects, argued that the language spoken by the Pechenegs was a variant of the Cuman and Oghuz idioms. He suggested that foreign influences on the Pechenegs gave rise to phonetic differences between their tongue and the idiom spoken by other Turkic peoples. Anna Komnene likewise stated that the Pechenegs and the Cumans shared a common language. Although the Pecheneg language itself died out centuries ago, the names of the Pecheneg "provinces" recorded by Constantine Porphyrogenitus prove that the Pechenegs spoke a Turkic language. The Pechenegs are thought to have belonged to the Oghuz branch of the Turkic family, but their language is poorly documented and therefore difficult to further classify.
Composition Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos lists eight Pecheneg tribal groupings, four on each side of the Dnieper river, reflecting the bipartite left-right Turkic organization. These eight tribes were, in turn, divided into 40 sub-tribes, probably clans. Constantine VII also records the names of eight former tribal leaders who had been leading the Pechenegs when they were expelled by the Khazars and Oghuzes. Golden, following Németh and Ligeti, proposes that each tribal name consists of two parts: the first part being an equine coat color, the other the tribal ruler's title. The Erdim, Čur, and Yula tribes formed the Qangar/Kenger (Greek: Καγγαρ) and were deemed "more valiant and noble than the rest".
Notes
History
Origins and area According to Omeljan Pritsak, the Pechenegs are descendants of the ancient Kangars who originate from Tashkent. The Orkhon inscriptions listed the Kangars among the subject peoples of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate. Pritsak says that the Pechenegs' homeland was located between the Aral Sea and the middle course of the Syr Darya along the important trade routes connecting Central Asia with Eastern Europe, and associates them with Kangars.
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