Book Review: Porsin A.A. The History of the Golden Horde at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century in the “Zubdat al-Fikra” by Rukn al-Din Beibars al-Mansuri

Abstract

Research objectives: A.A. Porsin’s monograph “The History of the Golden Horde at the end of the thirteenth and beginning of the fourteenth century in the ‘Zubdat al-Fikra’ by Rukn al-Din Beibars al-Mansuri” not only concerns the problems of the Golden Horde’s history, but also a set of important issues of the history of Dašt-i Qipčaq and Khwarazm during the pre-Mongol period. This review focuses specifically on these aspects of the book, primarily on the historical reconstruction undertaken by A.A. Porsin regarding both several Turkic tribal groups in the service in Khwarazm and the intertribal conflict that, from his point of view, took place in Khwarazm before and during the Mongol invasion. The authors of the review cannot agree with the Porsin’s conclusions regarding seve­ral issues and consider this section vulnerable to criticism, primarily in terms of research methodology. Research materials: The authors of this review sought to use the maximum number of available written source which allowed for a critical analysis of the reconstruction created by A.A. Porsin. Firstly, these are the works of Arabic and Persian authors used by the author of the monograph himself (al-Nasavi, Juwayni, Juzjani, Rashid al-Din), as well as a number of monuments of later Arab-Persian historiography. In addition, they used the linguistic data of the Turkic and Mongolian languages. Research results and novelty: Based on several of the most striking examples, the authors of the review criticized Porsin’s argument for the monograph: Porsin pays insufficient attention to the analysis of sources and the logic of his argument, like the whole concept, consists of a chain of hypotheses and conjectures arising from each other. The authors of the review managed to prove, in their opinion, the artificiality and, in general, the far-fetched nature of the whole picture of tribal relations within the Khwarazmian state on the eve of the Mongol invasion which Porsin reconstructed. A detailed analysis of Porsin’s argument regarding the origin of Terken Khatun and a number of historical personalities associated with the history of Khwarazm shows the weakness or even fallacy of his hypotheses. In general, we cannot recognize this section of the monograph as having been successful.

Keywords

• historiography
• arabic and persian sources
• khwarazm
• turkic tribes
• terken khatun