Balasagun

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Ruins of the city of Balasagun as seen from the Burana tower

Balasagun ( Turkish : Balagasun - Balassagun , Balasaghun , Karabalsagun ; Chinese  八 剌 沙 衮 , Pinyin bālàshāgǔn ,بلاساغون, DMG Balāsāḡūn ) was a city in Tschüital in the north of today's Kyrgyzstan .

location

Burana tower

The exact location of the submerged city is controversial, but the most popular opinion is that the city is east of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek . It is often assumed that the city was located near the Burana Tower , named after the neighboring village of Burana .

history

The city was founded by the Sogdians of Iranian origin and was first mentioned in written sources dating from around 942. Shortly thereafter, the Turkish Qarakhanids conquered the city ​​and made it the capital of their empire. After the division of the empire in the middle of the 11th century, Balasagun was only the capital of the Eastern Empire. The Qarakhanid rulers were so weakened in 1134 that the Kara Kitai could easily take the city and make it their capital. The rulership of the city changed again in 1211 when the son of the former leader of the Mongolian Naimans came to power. He was in a dispute with Genghis Khan and gambled away the sympathy of the city population through his leadership. The Mongols of Genghis Khan could easily take over the city around 1217. After that, the city began to decline, about the subsequent development of which no sources are known.

Culture

In the 10th century the city was shaped by the Muslim-Iranian culture of the Sogdians. With the conquest by the Qarakhanids, Turkish influences were added. Mahmud al-Kāschgharī , a famous Turkish scholar and lexicographer of the 11th century, is said to have been born in Balasagun. With the Kara Kitai, the city culture was also shaped by Mongolian and Chinese influences. At that time there was great religious tolerance in the city. In addition to the Muslim majority, Christians and Buddhists also lived there. The city benefited economically from its location on one arm of the Silk Road . In 2014, Balasagun was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list as part of the serial World Heritage Site Silk Road: the road network of the Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article BALĀSĀḠŪN in Encyclopædia Iranica (English)
  2. ↑ a b Ralph Kauz: The foundation of the Mongolian world empire - Central Asia . In: Angela Schottenhammer, Peter Feldbauer (ed.): Die Welt 1000–1250 . Mandelbaum Verlag, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-85476-322-2 , p. 121-124 .

Coordinates: 42 ° 44 ′ 51 ″  N , 75 ° 14 ′ 54 ″  E