, showing the area of main Pecheneg settlement, c.1015.]]
The
Pechenegs or
Patzinaks (, , , , , ,
pechenegi or печенези,
pechenezi; , ) 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
Dīwānu Lughati t-Turk (), the name
Beçenek is given two meanings. The first is "a Turkish nation living around the country of
the Rum", where
Rum was the Turkish word for the
Eastern Roman Empire or
Byzantine 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" ( and ). According to Kashgari, Pechenegs are one of
Üçok tribes of the Oghuz.
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, 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).
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 caused great destruction in many provinces 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 from the lands where
Pechenegs were then mainly living) to the aid of the Christians.
Alliance with Byzantium
slaughter the "skyths" of
Sviatoslav I of Kiev]]
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 vise 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.
Late 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). 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, 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 other nomadic
Turkic peoples—the
Cumans and
Polovtsy (Kipchaks).
(orange)]]
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 the Kingdom of Hungary. With time Pechenegs lost their national identity and were fully assimilated mostly with Magyars, Bulgarians, and Gagauz, serving the Kingdom of Hungary and the Byzantine Empire.
In the 12th century, according to Byzantine historian John Kinnamos, the Pechenegs fought as mercenaries for the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Comnenus in southern Italy against the Norman king of Sicily William the Bad. A group was present at the battle of Andria in 1155.
In 15th-century Hungary, some people adopted the surname Besenyö, which is Hungarian for Pecheneg. They were most numerous in the county of Tolna. One of the earliest introductions of Islam into Eastern Europe was through the work of an early 11th century Muslim prisoner who was captured by the Byzantines during their war against Muslims. The Muslim prisoner was brought into the territory of the Pechenegs where he taught and converted individuals to Islam. Abu Hamid al Garnathi in the late 12th century referred to Hungarian Pechenegs who were probably Muslims living disguised as Christians. Others survived within the ranks of the pastoral nomadic tribes of the Balkan Highlands as Yörüks, eventually adopting Islam.
Pechenegs' leaders
Kurya (khan) ~970's
Metiga ~980's
Kuchug ~990's
See also
Oghuz
Kipchaks
Kankalis
Petržalka (Slovakia)
Chepni another "Üçok" tribe.
Further reading
Golubovsky Peter V. (1884)
Pechenegs, Torks and Cumans before the invasion of the Tatars. History of the South Russian steppes IX-XIII centuries (Печенеги, Торки и Половцы до нашествия татар. История южно-русских степей IX—XIII вв.) at
Runivers.ru in
DjVu format
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
External links
www.patzinakia.ro
The Primary Chronicle
Of the Pechenegs, and how many advantages
Category:Kievan Rus'
Category:Eurasian nomads
*
Category:History of the Turkic people
Category:Moldova in the Early Middle Ages
Category:Romania in the Early Middle Ages
Category:Late Byzantine-era tribes in the Balkans
