The nomadic nations of Central Asia of the Middle ages in historical research of russian scientists of the second half of XIX — early XX century archeology and etno-kultural history

Abstract

The article is devoted to the main trends in the study of nomadic peoples of Central Asia mostly in the early middle ages in the Russian historical science in the second half of XIX — early XX centuries. In the period under review, considerable work has been done on translation into Russian language of various Persian, Chinese, Arab and Byzantine sources concerning the history of the Central Asian region. Through focused research in Mongolia, in the Altai, Tuva, Khakassia was discovered dozens of new monuments of runic writing and also identified hundreds of funeral and memorial sites of nomads. Moreover, in the second half of the XIX century for the first time was able to make a decipherment of the Turkic runes that opened up a fundamentally new page in the history of national and world nomad studies. The result of the accumulation of a wide source base, drawing on written, archaeological and ethnographic data, scientists were able to consider cultural-historical processes in Central Asia in the middle ages, and to reconstruct the features of the socio-political organization and Outlook of the Uighurs, Kyrgyz, Turks and other nomadic. The greatest contribution to the study of the history of the nomadic peoples of the Central Asian region has made a N. I. Bichurin, V. V. Radlov, P. M. Melioransky, N. F. Katanov, N. Potanin, D. M. Pozdneev, M. N. Suvorov, V. V. Bartold, whose works have not lost their importance up to the present time.