The Göktürks (; ), also known as Türks, Celestial Turks or Blue Turks, were a Turkic people in medieval Inner Asia. The Göktürks, under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan (d. 552) and his sons, succeeded the Rouran Khaganate as the main power in the region and established the First Turkic Khaganate, one of several nomadic dynasties that would shape the future geolocation, culture, and dominant beliefs of Turkic peoples.
Etymology Origin
As an ethnonym, the etymology of Turk is unknown. It is generally believed that the name Türk may have come from the Old Turkic migration-term(Bŭlgarska akademii︠a︡ na naukite. Otdelenie za ezikoznanie/ izkustvoznanie/ literatura, Linguistique balkanique, Vol. 27–28, 1984, p. 17 , which means 'created, born'.Faruk Sümer, Oghuzes (Turkmens): History, Tribal organization, Sagas, Turkish World Research Foundation, 1992, p. 16)
As a word in Turkic languages, Turk may mean "strong, strength, ripe" or "flourishing, in full strength". It may also mean ripe as for a fruit or "in the prime of life, young, and vigorous" for a person.
The name Gök-türk emerged from the modern Turkish reading of the word Kök as Gök with assumption of equivalence to "sky" in modern Turkish (Gök). The actual meaning of Kök in Kök-türk is debated due to single attestation, with differing opinions as "big, great" or "blue" as a reference to Ashina, the endonym of the ruling clan of the historical ethnic group which was attested in Old Turkic as Kultegin's Memorial Complex, Türik Bitig Orkhon inscriptions , or .Tonyukuk's Memorial Complex, Türik Bitig Bain Tsokto inscriptions
They were known in Middle Chinese historical sources as the Tūjué (; reconstructed in Middle Chinese as *dwət-kuɑt > tɦut-kyat). The ethnonym was also recorded in various other East Asian languages, Rouran To̤ro̤x/Türǖg, Manchu Tule/Turuhe, Korean 돌궐/Dolgwol, and Old Tibetan Drugu.
In Indo-Iranian languages Turks were recorded under various forms. In Sogdian *Türkit ~ Türküt, tr'wkt, trwkt, turkt > trwkc, trukč; Khotanese Saka Ttūrka/Ttrūka, Middle Persian 𐭲𐭥𐭫𐭪𐭠𐭭 Türkān~Türk.
Definition According to Chinese sources, Tūjué meant "combat helmet" (), reportedly because the shape of the Altai Mountains, where they lived, was similar to a combat helmet.Linghu Defen et al., Book of Zhou, Vol. 50. Wei Zheng et al., Book of Sui, Vol. 84. Li Yanshou (李延寿), History of the Northern Dynasties, Vol. 99. Róna-Tas (1991) pointed to a Khotanese-Saka word, tturakä 'lid', semantically stretchable to 'helmet', as a possible source for this folk etymology, yet Golden thinks this connection requires more data.
Göktürk is sometimes interpreted as either "Celestial Turk" or "Blue Turk" (i.e., because sky blue is associated with celestial realms). This is consistent with "the cult of heavenly ordained rule" which was a recurrent element of Altaic political culture and as such may have been imbibed by the Göktürks from their predecessors in Mongolia.Wink 64. "Blue" is traditionally associated with the East as it used in the cardinal system of central Asia, thus meaning "Turks of the East". The name of the ruling Ashina clan may derive from the Khotanese Saka term for "deep blue", āššɪna.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, the word Türk meant "strong" in Old Turkic; though Gerhard Doerfer supports this theory, Gerard Clauson points out that "the word Türk is never used in the generalized sense of 'strong'" and that the noun Türk originally meant "'the culminating point of maturity' (of a fruit, human being, etc.), but more often used as an [adjective] meaning (of a fruit) 'just fully ripe'; (of a human being) 'in the prime of life, young, and vigorous'". Hakan Aydemir (2022) also contends that Türk originally did not mean "strong, powerful" but "gathered; united, allied, confederated" and was derived from Pre-Proto-Turkic verb *türü 'heap up, collect, gather, assemble'.
The name as used by the Göktürks only applied to themselves (i.e. the Göktürk khanates), their subjects, and splinter groups. The Göktürks did not consider other Turkic speaking groups such as the Uyghurs, Tiele, and Kyrgyz to be Türks. In the Orkhon inscriptions, the Toquz Oghuz and the Yenisei Kyrgyz are not referred to as Türks. Similarly, the Uyghurs called themselves Uyghurs and used Türk exclusively for the Göktürks, whom they portrayed as enemy aliens in their royal inscriptions. Chinese historiographers transcribed the Khazars' name as and , whose element suggests that the Khazars might have kept the Göktürk tradition alive. When tribal leaders built their khanates, ruling over assorted tribes and tribal unions, the collected people identified themselves politically with the leadership. Turk became the designation for all subjects of the Turk empires. Nonetheless, subordinate tribes and tribal unions retained their original names, identities, and social structures. Memory of the Göktürks and the Ashina had faded by the turn of the millennium. The Karakhanids, Qocho Uyghurs, and Seljuks did not claim descent from the Göktürks.Lee, Joo-Yup; Kuang, Shuntu (18 October 2017). "A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples". Inner Asia. Brill. 19 (2): p. 203 of 197–239.Sui-Tang China and Its Turko-Mongol Neighbors, Page 34
History
Origins
The Göktürk rulers originated from the Ashina clan, who were first attested to in 439. The Book of Sui reports that on 18 October 439, the Tuoba ruler Emperor Taiwu of Northern Wei overthrew Juqu Mujian of the Northern Liang in eastern Gansu,Wei Shou, Book of Wei, Vol. 4-I. Sima Guang, Zizhi Tongjian, Vol. 123. 永和七年 (太延五年) 九月丙戌 Academia Sinica whence 500 Ashina families fled northwest to the Rouran Khaganate in the vicinity of Gaochang.
According to the Book of Zhou and History of the Northern Dynasties, the Ashina clan was a component of the Xiongnu confederation, specifically, the northern Xiongnu tribesNew Book of Tang, vol. 215 upper. "突厥阿史那氏, 蓋古匈奴北部也." "The Ashina family of the Turk probably were the northern tribes of the ancient Xiongnu." translated by Xu (2005)Xu Elina-Qian, Historical Development of the Pre-Dynastic Khitan, University of Helsinki, 2005 or southern Xiongnu "who settled along the northern Chinese frontier", according to Edwin G. Pulleyblank. However, this view is contested. Göktürks were also posited as having originated from an obscure Suo state (索國) (MC: *sâk) which was situated north of the Xiongnu and had been founded by the SakasHarmatta, János, (1999), "A türkök eredetmondája", Magyar Nyelv, vol. 95(4): p. 391 of 385–396. cited in Golden (2018), "The Ethnogonic Tales of the Türks", p. 300 or Xianbei.Vásáry, István (2007) Eski İç Asya Tarihi p. 99-100, cited Golden (2018), "The Ethnogonic Tales of the Türks", p. 300 According to the Book of Sui and the Tongdian, they were "mixed Hu (barbarians)" (雜胡) from Pingliang (平涼), now in Gansu, Northwest China.杜佑, 《通典》, 北京: 中華書局出版, (Du You, Tongdian, Vol.197), 辺防13 北狄4 突厥上, 1988, , p. 5401. Pointing to the Ashina's association with the northern tribes of the Xiongnu, some researchers (e.g. Duan, Lung, etc.) proposed that Göktürks belonged in particular to the Tiele confederation, likewise Xiongnu-associated, by ancestral lineage. However, Lee and Kuang (2017) state that Chinese sources do not describe the Ashina-led Göktürks as descending from the Dingling or belonging to the Tiele confederation.Lee, Joo-Yup; Kuang, Shuntu (18 October 2017). "A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples". Inner Asia. Brill. 19 (2): p. 201 of 197–239.
Chinese sources linked the Hu on their northern borders to the Xiongnu just as Graeco-Roman historiographers called the Pannonian Avars, Huns and Hungarians, "Scythians". Such archaizing was a common literary topos, implying similar geographic origins and nomadic lifestyle but not direct filiation.
As part of the heterogeneous Rouran Khaganate, the Turks lived for generations north of the Altai Mountains, where they 'engaged in metal working for the Rouran'.Sima Guang, Zizhi Tongjian, Vol. 159. According to Denis Sinor, the rise to power of the Ashina clan represented an 'internal revolution' in the Rouran Khaganate rather than an external conquest.
According to Charles Holcombe, the early Turk population was rather heterogeneous and many of the names of Turk rulers, including the two founding members, are not even Turkic. This is supported by evidence from the Orkhon inscriptions, which include several non-Turkic lexemes, possibly representing Uralic or Yeniseian words.Vovin, Alexander. "Did the Xiongnu speak a Yeniseian language?". Central Asiatic Journal 44/1 (2000), pp. 87–104. Peter Benjamin Golden points out that the khaghans of the Turkic Khaganate, the Ashina, who were of an undetermined ethnic origin, adopted Iranian and Tokharian (or non-Altaic) titles. German Turkologist W.-E. Scharlipp points out that many common terms in Turkic are Iranian in origin. Whatever language the Ashina may have spoken originally, they and those they ruled would all speak Turkic, in a variety of dialects, and create, in a broadly defined sense, a common culture.Lev Gumilyov, (1967), Drevnie Turki (Ancient Turks), p. 22-25
Expansion
The Göktürks reached their peak in the late 6th century and began to invade the Sui dynasty of China. However, the war ended due to the division of Turkic nobles and their civil war for the title of khagan. With the support of Emperor Wen of Sui, Yami Qaghan won the competition. However, the Göktürk empire was divided into eastern and western empires. Weakened by the civil war, Yami Qaghan declared allegiance to the Sui dynasty. When the Sui began to decline, Shibi Khagan began to assault its territory and even surrounded Emperor Yang of Sui at the Siege of Yanmen (615 AD) with 100,000 cavalry troops. After the collapse of the Sui dynasty, the Göktürks intervened in the ensuing Chinese civil wars, providing support to the northeastern rebel Liu Heita against the rising Tang in 622 and 623. Liu enjoyed a long string of success but was finally routed by Li Shimin and other Tang generals and executed. The Tang dynasty was then established.
Conquest by the Tang
Although the Göktürk Khaganate had once provided support to the Tang dynasty in the early period of the civil war during the collapse of the Sui dynasty, the conflicts between the Göktürks and the Tang broke out whilst the Tang were gradually reunifying China proper. The Göktürks began to attack and raid the northern border of the Tang Empire and once marched their main force of 100,000 soldiers to Chang'an, the capital of the Tang. Emperor Taizong of Tang, in spite of the limited resources at his disposal, managed to turn them back. Later, Taizong sent his troops to Mongolia and defeated the main force of Göktürk army in Battle of Yinshan four years later and captured Illig Qaghan in 630 AD. With the submission of the Turkic tribes, the Tang conquered the Mongolian Plateau. From then on, the Eastern Turks were subjugated to China.