(Redirected from Petchenegs)'Pechenegs' or 'Patzinaks' (
Armenian: ''Badzinag'',
Bulgarian/
Russian: ''Pechenegi'' (Печенеги),
Greek: ''Patzinaki/Petsenegi'' (Πατζινάκοι/Πετσενέγοι) or less commonly ''Πατζινακίται'',
Hungarian: ''Besenyő'',
Latin: ''Расinасае'', Old Turkish (assumed): ''
★ Beçenek'',
Turkish: ''Peçenekler'') were a
semi-nomadic Turkic people of the
Central Asian steppes speaking the
Pecheneg language which belonged to the
Turkic language family.
Origins and area
In
Mahmud Kashgari's 11th-century work ''
Divânü Lugâti't-Türk'', the name ''Beçenek'' is given two meanings. The first is "a Turkish nation living around the country of
the Rum", where "Rum" was used by the Turks to denote the
Eastern Roman Empire. Kashgari's second definition of ''Beçenek'' is "a branch of
Oghuz Turks"; he subsequently described the Oghuz as being formed of 22 branches, of which the 19th branch was named ''Beçenek''.
Max Vasmer derives this name from the Turkic word for "brother-in-law, relative" ("Bacanak" in modern Turkish).
Whatever the truth of this, the Pechenegs emerge in the historical records only in the
8th and
9th centuries, inhabiting the region between the lower
Volga, the
Don, and the
Ural Mountains. By the 9th and 10th centuries AD they controlled much of the steppes of southwestern
Eurasia and the
Crimean Peninsula. Although an important factor in the region at the time, like most nomadic tribes their concept of statecraft failed to go beyond random attacks on neighbours and spells as mercenaries for other powers.
According to
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, writing in c. 950, Patzinakia, the Pecheneg realm, stretched west as far as the
Siret River (or even the Eastern
Carpathian Mountains), and was four days distant from "Tourkias" (i.e.
Hungary).
: ''The whole of Patzinakia is divided into eight provinces with the same number of great princes. The provinces are these: the name of the first province is Irtim; of the second, Tzour; of the third, Gyla; of the fourth, Koulpei; of the fifth, Charaboi; of the sixth, Talmat; of the seventh, Chopon; of the eighth, Tzopon. At the time at which the Pechenegs were expelled from their country, their princes were, in the province of Irtim, Baitzas; in Tzour, Konel; in Gyla, Kourkoutai; in Koulpei, Ipaos; in Charaboi, Kaidoum; in the province of Talmat, Kostas; in Chopon, Giazis; in the province of Tzopon, Batas."''
''(Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, c. 950, translation by R.J.H. Jenkins)''
In Armenian sources
In the Armenian chronicles of
Matthew of Edessa ''Pechenegs'' are mentioned a couple of times. The first mention is in chapter 75, where it says that in the year 499 (according to the old Armenian calendar — years 1050–51 according to the
Gregorian calendar) the ''Badzinag'' nation made a great destruction in many states of
Rome, i.e. the
Byzantine territories. The second is in chapter 103, which is about the
Battle of Manzikert. In that chapter it is told that the allies of
Rome, ''Padzunak'' and ''Uz'' (some branches of the
Oghuz Turks) tribes which changed their sides at the peak of the battle and began fighting against the
Byzantine forces, (side by side with the
Seljuk Turks). In the 132nd chapter a war between
Rome and the ''Padzinags'' is described and after the defeat of the Roman (Byzantine) Army, an unsuccessful siege of
Constantinople by the ''Padzinags'' is mentioned. In that chapter, the ''Patzinags'' are described as an "all archer army". In chapter 299, the Armenian prince, ''Vasil'', who was in the Roman Army, sent a platoon of ''Padzinags'' (they had settled in the city of Misis, around modern
Adana, which is far away form the lands where ''Pechenegs'' were then mainly living) to the aid of the Christians.
Alliance with Byzantium
In the 9th century, the
Byzantines became allied with the Pechenegs, using them to fend off other, more dangerous tribes such as
the Rus and the
Magyars. This was an old Roman ploy (''divide and rule'') continued by their Byzantine successors — playing off one enemy tribe against another.
The Uzes, another
Turkic steppe people, eventually expelled the Pechenegs from their homeland; in the process, they also seized most of their livestock and other goods. An alliance of the
Oghuz,
Kimeks and
Karluks was also pressing the Pechenegs, but another group, the
Samanids, defeated that alliance. Driven further west by the
Khazars and
Cumans by
889, the Pechenegs in turn drove the Magyars west of the
Dnieper River by
892.
In
894, the
Bulgarians went to war against
Byzantium. Early in
895, Emperor
Leo VI the Wise invoked the help of the Magyars, who sent an army under a commander named Levente into
Bulgaria. Levente conducted a brilliant campaign and invaded deep into Bulgaria, while the
Byzantine army entered Bulgaria from the south. Caught in a vice of Magyar and Byzantine forces,
Tsar Simeon I realised he could not fight a war on two fronts, and quickly concluded an armistice with the Byzantine Empire.
Tsar Simeon also employed the Pechenegs to help fend off the Magyars. The Pechenegs were so successful that they drove out the Magyars remaining in
Etelköz and the
Pontic steppes, forcing them westward up the lower
Danube,
Transdanubia and towards the
Pannonian plain, where they later founded a
Hungarian state.
History and decline
From the 9th century AD, the Pechenegs started an uneasy relationship with
Kievan Rus. For more than two centuries they launched random raids into the lands of Rus, which sometimes escalated into full-scale wars (like the
920 war on the Pechenegs by
Igor of Kiev reported in the
Primary Chronicle), but there were also temporary military alliances (e.g.
943 Byzantine campaign by Igor).
[1] In
968, the Pechenegs
attacked and then besieged the city of Kiev.
Part of them joined the Prince of Kiev
Sviatoslav I in his Byzantine campaign of
970–
971, though eventually the Pechenegs ambushed and killed the Kievan prince in
972, and according to the Primary Chronicle, the Pecheneg
Khan Kurya made a
chalice from his skull — a traditional
steppe nomad custom. The fortunes of the Rus-versus-Pecheneg confrontation swung during the reign of
Vladimir I of Kiev (
990–
995), who founded the town of
Pereyaslav upon the site of his victory over the Pechenegs
[2], but were followed by the defeat of the Pechenegs during the reign of
Yaroslav I the Wise (
1037). Shortly afterwards, the decimated Pechenegs were replaced in the
Pontic steppe by another nomadic
Turkic people — the
Cumans or
Polovtsy.
After centuries of fighting involving all their neighbours — the Byzantine Empire,
Bulgaria,
Kievan Rus, Khazaria and the Magyars, the Pechenegs were annihilated as an independent force at the
Battle of Levounion by a combined Byzantine and
Cuman army under Byzantine Emperor
Alexios I Komnenos in
1091. Attacked again in
1094 by the
Cumans, many Pechenegs were slain or absorbed. They were again defeated by the Byzantines at the
Battle of Beroia in
1122, on the territory of modern day Bulgaria. For some time, significant communities of Pechenegs still remained in
Hungary, but finally the Pechenegs ceased to be a distinct people and were assimilated into their neighbors -
Bulgarians,
Magyars and
Gagauz. Others, survived within the ranks of the pastoral nomadic tribes of the Balkan Highlands as
Yuruks or
Sarakatsani adopting the
Christian creed respectively the
Islam.
Further reading
★ Pálóczi-Horváth, A. (1989). ''Pechenegs, Cumans, Iasians: Steppe peoples in medieval Hungary''. Hereditas. Budapest: Kultúra [distributor]. ISBN 963132740X
★ Pritsak, O. (1976). ''The Pečenegs: a case of social and economic transformation''. Lisse, Netherlands: The Peter de Ridder Press.
Notes
1. Ibn Haukal describes the Pechenegs as the long-standing allies of the Rus, whom they invariably accompanied during the 10th-century Caspian expeditions.
2. The chronicler explains the town's name, derived from the Slavic word for "retake", by the fact that Vladimir "retook" the military glory from the Pechenegs.
External links
★
www.patzinakia.ro
★
The Primary Chronicle
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