Who are the Uighurs, should be understood by everyone who is interested in the indigenous Asian peoples. Initially, they came from East Turkestan, now it is the so-called Xinjiang Uygur region in China. The Uyghurs are a Turkic-speaking people who mainly live in this region, by religion they are Sunni Muslims.
Origin of the people
We will tell you in detail about who the Uighurs are in this article. The process of forming this people was not easy and very lengthy in time. Their direct ancestors were tribes from East Turkestan, who played a key role in the Hunnu state, an ancient nomadic people who lived in the northern steppes of modern China.
Judging by written sources, who are the Uyghurs, the first time to find out in the III century AD. At that time, they were part of a large association, which in Chinese dynastic chronicles is called gaoju.
After a couple of centuries, a new name for this union - the body - begins to appear in Chinese sources. A large number of these tribes migrated west, settling in Southeastern Europe and the Kazakh steppes. Those that remained in Central Asia were conquered by the Turks as a result.
Hangai mountains
In those days, the body settled in the territory of the Seven Rivers and the Jungra. In 605, the leader of the Uyghurs led his tribes to the Khangai mountains after several hundred leaders of the body were destroyed by the Turkic Churyn-kagan. After the Uighurs moved to the Khangai Mountains, they created a separate group, which Chinese historiographers call the "nine tribes." The state was based on establishing diplomatic relations with its neighbors.
In 630, the fall of the Turkic Kaganate occurred. Then the Uighurs came in the form of a powerful and significant political force, leadership was established for ten tribes, which were headed by the yaglakar. Until the VIII century, they were part of the Turkic Kaganate.
Ethnic Consolidation
It became possible to talk about who the Uighurs were after the final completion of the process of ethnic consolidation. This happened approximately in the VIII century, when the Turkic Kaganate finally disintegrated. Then the Uyghur early feudal state was formed, better known as the Uyghur Kaganate. It appeared on the Orkhon River.
The kaganate was led by representatives of the Yaglakar clan. In those days, Manichaeism was considered the official religion. This is a religious teaching named after its founder Manisa with the addition of the definition of "living." The teaching was based on Christian and Gnostic ideas, based on a specific interpretation of the events described in the Bible. Over time, many borrowings from other religions arose in Manichaeism, for example, from Buddhism and Zoroastrianism.
At the same time, Manichaeism was not directly connected with Eastern and Western teachings, which were characterized by dualistic doctrine. The Manichean doctrine itself was characterized by the idea of the universal character of the real, so-called true religion. Manichaeism was organically embedded in all kinds of cultural contexts, but most modern scholars do not consider Manichaeism to be a true world religion.
Manichaean Theocracy
In 795, the Ediz tribe rose to power, which eventually took the name Yaglakar. The ethnical historian Lev Gumilyov, who deeply studied Asian nationalities, was interested in the Uyghurs, whose photos are in this article, considered this episode the beginning of the coming to power of the Manichaean theocracy.
In his book Millennium Around the Caspian Sea, Gumilev noted that in 795 the place on the throne was taken by the son of one of the most influential nobles by the name of Kutlug under conditions of limited power. The Khan was deprived of judicial and executive power; politics was effectively under the control of the Manichaeans. As a result, the union of tribes turned into a theocracy.
In 840, power in the kaganate returned to the Yaglakar tribe for seven years, but as a result of complex economic and domestic political processes, as well as the external influence of the ancient Kyrgyz, the Uyghur state disintegrated. Detachments of the Kyrgyz pursued the defeated Uighurs, rushing into the interior of East Turkestan.
As a result, part of the Uyghurs moved to East Turkestan, as well as to the western part of Gansu, where two independent states were officially created at once. This is the Uyghur idykutism (medieval feudal Turkic state) in the Turpan oasis and the Kansui principality, which was formed on the territory of the modern Chinese province of Gansu.
In Inner Mongolia
Initially, about five hundred Uighurs migrated to the Shiwein tribe in the middle reaches of the Amur River in Inner Mongolia. In 847, the Kyrgyz went on a campaign on the Amur, attacking the Shivei and Uyghur tribes, while the Chinese attacked the Chi tribes at the same time. After this invasion, the Uigurs partially went to East Turkestan.
In the Karakhanid state, the Uighurs began to assimilate the local population, which was predominantly Iranian, transferring to it their own culture and language. At the same time, Uighurs adopted the traditions of oasis farming from Iranians, as well as some types of crafts. The main religion of the people to which our article is devoted was Buddhism, over time, Christianity began to spread actively.
Since the 10th century, Islam has spread among the Uyghurs; in the 16th century, it completely crowded out all other religions in East Turkestan. When the Uighurs adopted Islam, they lost their national letter, which was supplanted by Arabic graphics.
Modern ethnos
At the same time, the modern ethnic group of the Uigurs with the New Uigur language began to take shape. The decisive large ethnic component that became part of the modern Uyghur ethnos was the Mogul. This is what Turkized Mongols called themselves, who settled in East Turkestan around the 15th century. A number of other reasons led to the fact that the very concept of "Uyghurs" began to be used very rarely, largely due to political and administrative fragmentation, and soon it was finally supplanted by religious identity.
Uighurs primarily called themselves Muslims, and by occupation they were mainly farmers. In the XVII-XVIII centuries, the Uyghur state was formed in East Turkestan, which in 1760 was captured by the Chinese rulers from Manchuria. National oppression and brutal exploitation began, which led to the constant uprisings of the people to whom this article is devoted, against the Qing empire, and later against the Kuomintang empire.
Resettlement in Semirechye
The resettlement of the Uigurs and Dungans in Semirechye took place in the 19th century. Now it is the territory of modern Kazakhstan. It was completed by 1884. The Uighurs and Dungans in Semirechye were located nearby with Russians, Kazakhs and Ukrainians.
After their appearance, the number of sedentary inhabitants increased significantly. Agriculture prevailed in the Uyghurs and Dungans. Only wealthy families were engaged in cattle breeding, while the majority raised cattle solely in order to provide their own livestock with their own livestock. Cattle were used not only as draft power, but also as a source for dairy products. But there was practically no small cattle. Most of the land they managed to obtain required artificial irrigation for efficient use.
Destruction of statehood
In 1921, at the congress of Uyghur representatives in Tashkent, a final decision was made on the appropriation of the self-name "Uyghurs", which was restored as a national one.
The fate of the Uyghurs in China was not easy. In 1949, their statehood was finally destroyed, and in 1955 the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region was formed under the protectorate of the Chinese authorities.
China began to pursue a policy aimed at assimilating them by moving the Uyghurs and Dungans to the autonomous region by artificially reducing the birth rate of indigenous people. All achievements in the fields of health care, education, and culture were virtually leveled by the religious, demographic, and ethnic policies pursued by the Chinese government. A serious problem was the growth of Islamic extremism among the Uighurs, as well as the brutal repressions that were used by the state.
Resettlement of the people
The Chinese government pursued a targeted state policy that was directed against Han migration.
Ethnoareal was strongly eroded by migrants, as a result, up to eighty percent of Uyghurs lived in southwestern prefectures, and quite large enclaves were formed in Turfan, Kumul, Chuguchak, Urumqi, Ili.
