Doorstep
The Türgesch (also Türgiş or Türgeš ) were a Turkish tribal confederation in Central Asia that existed in late antiquity from around 700 to the middle of the 8th century.
Around 700, the Türgesch first succeeded in expanding their power at the expense of the weakened Second Kaganat of the Kök Turks and expanding their influence in the west of the Kaganat. But around 710 they were subject to the Kök Turks under Qapagan and first had to submit to the Turk Kaganat. A few years later, however, their new leader Suluk was able to restore their independence.
The Türgesch quickly gained power under Suluk, took control of the On-Ok and in fact inherited the western part of the Turk Kaganat. They ruled the Siebenstromland , the area between Issyk-Kul in the south and Lake Balkhash in the north with the main towns of Suyab and Balasagun . In research, their rulership is sometimes referred to as the Türgesch-Kaganat . Her two main cities were Taras and Sujab .
Door shells came under considerable pressure during this period due to the Arab expansion that reached Central Asia in the early 8th century. Suluk entered into an alliance with the powerful Kingdom of Tibet , which at that time, like the Empire of China, pursued political and economic interests in Central Asia. However, the alliance did not last long, and the Tibetans soon came to terms with the Arabs to take action against the Chinese.
The Türgesch was able to assert itself militarily against the Arabs several times and sometimes inflict heavy losses on them. Suluk placed himself at the head of the resistance and also gave support to the Sogdian local lords (see Ghurak and Dēwāštič ); at the same time he worked with the Tibetans to curb Chinese influence.
In 737, however, Suluk was defeated in the (temporary) alliance of Arabs and Chinese, the power of the Türgesch was broken. Suluk was murdered, the remnants of the Türgesch were lost to the Karluken rulership after a defeat in 766 .
literature
- Christopher Beckwith: The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia. Princeton 1987, p. 108 ff.
- Mark Dickens: Türgesh. In: The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity . Volume 2 (2018), p. 1532. (Literature)
- Hamilton Alexander Rosskeen Gibb : The Arab Conquests in Central Asia. London 1923, p. 59 ff. ( Digitized version )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kazakhstan 2016 Data - Facts - Background. ( botschaft-kaz.de PDF of the Kazakh embassy in Germany), p. 34.