Mongol Society & Politics Nomadic Empire

Mongol Society & Politics Nomadic Empire

Before starting about the Mongols, we need to know the term “Nomadic Empires”....

Sources related to the Mongols

The steppe dwellers usually produced no literature, so our knowledge of nomadic societies comes mainly from chronicles, travelogues and documents produced by city-based litterateurs. The imperial success of the Mongols, however, attracted many literati. These individuals came from a variety of backgrounds – Buddhist, Confucian, Christian, Turkish and Muslim....

Research on Mongols

Excellent research on Mongol languages, their society and culture was carried out by scholars such as Boris Yakovlevich Vladimirtsov. The most valuable research on the Mongols was done by Russian scholars starting in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as the Tsarist regime consolidated its control over Central Asia. This work was produced within a colonial milieu and was largely survey notes produced by travellers, soldiers, merchants and ancient scholars. The transcontinental span of the Mongol empire also meant that the sources available to scholars were written in a vast number of languages. The most crucial are the sources in Chinese, Mongolian, Persian and Arabic, but vital materials are also available in Italian, Latin, French and Russian. Often the same text was produced in two languages with differing contents. For example, the Mongolian and Chinese versions of the earliest narrative on Genghis Khan, titled Mongqol-un niuèa tobèa’an (The Secret History of the Mongols) are quite different and the Italian and Latin versions of Marco Polo’s travels to the Mongol court do not match....

Social and Political Background

In the early decades of the thirteenth century, the great empires of the Euro – Asian continent realised the dangers posed to them by the arrival of a new political power in the steppes of Central Asia: Genghis Khan had united the Mongol people....

Conclusion

Although the social and political organisations of the nomadic and agrarian economies were very different, the two societies were hardly foreign to each other. The scant resources of the steppe lands drove Mongols and other Central Asian nomads to trade and barter with their sedentary neighbours in China. This was mutually beneficial to both parties: China’s agricultural produce and iron utensils were exchanged for horses, furs and game trapped in the steppe. This relationship would alter when the Mongols were in disarray. The Chinese would then confidently assert their influence in the steppe. These frontier wars were more debilitating to settled societies. They dislocated agriculture and plundered cities. China suffered extensively from nomad intrusion and different regimes – even as early as the eighth century BCE – built fortifications to protect their subjects. Starting from the third century BCE, these fortifications started to be integrated into a common defensive outwork known today as the ‘Great Wall of China’ a dramatic visual testament to the disturbance and fear perpetrated by nomadic raids on the agrarian societies of north China...

FAQs On Mongol Society & Politics Nomadic Empire Class 11

What do you mean by the term “Nomadic Empire”?...