Turkestan and the rise of Eurasian empires : a study of politics and invented traditions /
Turkestan and the Rise of Eurasian Empires studies how fifteenth and sixteenth century chroniclers grappled with the Turkestani or Turco-Mongol origin stories of their patrons in the newly forming states of the Ottomans, Safavids, Shibanids, Moghuls, and Mughals.
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| Format: | eBook |
| Language: | English |
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New York, NY, United States of America :
Oxford University Press,
[2018]
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| Online Access: | Connect to the full text of this electronic book |
| Summary: | Turkestan and the Rise of Eurasian Empires studies how fifteenth and sixteenth century chroniclers grappled with the Turkestani or Turco-Mongol origin stories of their patrons in the newly forming states of the Ottomans, Safavids, Shibanids, Moghuls, and Mughals. It has long been known that the origins of the early modern dynasties of the Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, Mongols, and Shibanids in the sixteenth century go back to "Turco-Mongol" or "Turcophone" war bands. However, too often has this connection been taken at face value, usually along the lines of ethnolinguistic continuity. The connection between a mythologized "Turkestani" or "Turco-Mongol" origin and these dynasties was not simply and objectively present as fact. Rather, much creative energy was unleashed by courtiers and leaders from Bosnia to Bihar (with Bukhara and Badakhshan along the way) in order to manipulate, invent, and in some cases disavow the ancestry of the founders of these dynasties. Essentially, one can even say that Turco-Mongol progenitors did not beget the Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal, Mongol, and Shibanid states. Quite the contrary, one can say that historians writing in these empires were the ancestors of the "Turco-Mongol" lineage of their founders. Using one or more specimens of Persian historiography, in a series of five case studies, each focusing on one of these nascent polities, the book intends to show how "Turkestan," "Central Asia," and "Turco-Mongol" functioned as literary tropes in the political discourse of the time |
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| Physical Description: | 1 online resource |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 0190693576 9780190693572 9780190693596 0190693592 |