European Kingdoms

Pechenegs / Patzinaks (Indo-Iranian-Turkics)

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The nomadic Pechenegs were one of many blended Turkic groups on the Pontic-Caspian steppe in the wake of the collapse of Hunnic power. Bulgars and many other large groupings had arrived on the steppe between the fourth and fifth centuries AD, collecting smaller groups along the way to bolster their numbers and create a vast melting pot of tribal and ethnic influences.

This gradual intermixing also served to dilute specific origin and, in time, form a more generalised set of tribes out of an initial population of Indo-Iranian Scythian and Sarmatian remnants. By the sixth century there appear to have been a number of Indo-European-Turkic tribal groupings in this region of Europe, particularly in its eastern zones.

The Pechenegs were one such group, although their earliest appearance is uncertain. It came after the fall of the Bulgars and their outwards migration or subjugation by the Khazars. They seem to have originated to the east of the Aral Sea near the midstream point of the Syr Darya in Central Asia. The area around Tashkent provided a tribal centre, with their ruling class (the kangar) being of Indo-Iranian origin.

With the collapse of the Samanids in the ninth century AD the region became a battleground for vying factions of Turkic tribes, and it was the Turkic-speaking Oghuz who settled Turkmenistan and who today form much of its population. In doing so they defeated and ejected the Pechenegs (or at least the ruling elite), sending them fleeing westwards to settle between the Ural mountain and the Volga.

It is here that they become tied up with early Magyar history, before the latter reached Pannonia to form the kingdom of Hungary. The Magyars occupied territory in the neighbourhood of the Khazars in a region called Levedia (named after their most senior chief). One of their main enemies were the Pechenegs with whom they fought and lost a war. Defeat resulted in outward migration, leaving the Pechenegs in command of Levedia and a large Turko-Bulgar population.

(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Journal of World History 4(3), 513-540: The Outlines of Hungarian Prehistory, Denis Sinor, from A honfoglaló magyarság kialakulása, Gy Németh (Budapest 1930), from The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, David W Anthony, from The Pechenegs: Nomads in the Political and Cultural Landscape of Medieval Europe, Aleksander Paroń (Translated by Thomas Anessi, Brill, 2021), from An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples, Peter B Golden (1992), and from External Links: Indo-European Chronology - Countries and Peoples, and The Alans (Marres Education), and Turkic History, and The Outlines of Hungarian Prehistory, and Pechenegs (Internet Encyclopaedia of Ukraine).)

c.886 - 889

The most important single source on Hungarian prehistory is De Administrando Imperio of Eastern Roman Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. This tenth century work makes free and critical use of earlier sources and of information which has been provided by Magyar settlers of what is soon to become the kingdom of Hungary.

The Pechenegs, mounted, are shown slaughtering the 'skyths' of Svyatoslav I, during the dangerous early years of the Rus when their power was limited - Svyatoslav himself was killed by Pechenegs

It relates that the early Magyars, referred to at this stage as Sabartoi asphaloi, live in the neighbourhood of the Khazars in a region called Levedia (named after their most senior chief). They are closely allied to the Khazars with whom they live together for three years, and whose king gives his daughter to their chief, Lebedias.

According to Constantine, Levedia is adjacent to the land of the Khazars and has a river called Khidmas or Khingilous. Levedia cannot be located by these names, but is generally believed to be to the north of the Black Sea.

In a war which is waged against the recently-arrived Pechenegs, the Magyars are defeated. They subsequently divide into two parts, with one migrating towards Persia (ie. it heads southwards, probably towards the Caucasus) and the other towards the west to a place called Etelköz. Here, on Khazar advice, they decide to elect a new ruler.

As was often the case with Central Asian states which had been created by horse-borne warriors on the sweeping steppelands, the Göktürk khaganate swiftly incorporated a vast stretch of territory in its westwards expansion, whilst being hemmed in by the powerful Chinese dynasties to the south-east and Siberia's uninviting tundra to the north (click or tap on map to view full sized)

894 - 895

The Eastern Romans have arranged for the Magyars to attack the Volga Bulgars in an increasingly active struggle for control and influence on the steppe. In return the Volga Bulgars arrange to have the Pechenegs lead another attack against the Magyars.

With no room for manoeuvre, the Magyars are forced to take flight and again they migrate westwards, passing close to Kyiv of the Rus as they do so.

At the end of 895 they invade the Carpathian basin, advancing towards the Danube. In doing so they sweep away Avar control of the region and lay the foundations of a Hungarian state which maintains approximately the same territory thereafter.

Once established on the Pannonian plain, the Magyars plagued Europe's established kingdoms for several decades before being forced through defeat in battle at Lechfield in 955 to concentrate on establishing their own medieval kingdom in what would become Hungary

968

The Pechenegs invade Rus territory for the first time, besieging Kyiv with a large army. According to tradition they are tricked into raising the siege by local forces who then assure them that Prince Svyatoslav himself has just arrived to finish the job. The Pechenegs withdraw in good order without having fought anybody.

982 & 1094

References to Vnnd.r and N.nd.r. in 982 and 1094 respectively remark upon a Christian 'nation' of Rum which is located between the lands of the 'Madjgharî' and the MIRV (M.rdât). The Pechenegs lie to the east (around the north-west corner of the Black Sea coast), while above them and leading north-eastwards are the Kievan Rus and the Volga Bulgars respectively. The references are Arabic, hence their obliqueness when written in English.

The Madjgharî are the Magyars, former Asiatic horsemen who now control the Pannonian and Dacian lands which will soon form the kingdom of Hungary. Rum is Rome, although the people are not specifically being labelled as Romans - they are simply more civilised than their neighbours in terms of being settled farmers with an element of presumed sophistication.

The River Kam (Kama) joins the mighty Volga just below the site of Kazan, founded as a border post by the Volga Bulgars to keep a watchful eye on the neighbouring Volga Finnic tribe of the Mari and the Bjarmian Udmurts

The MIRV are Moravians, living to the north, but seemingly not yet having fully migrated far enough to settle next to the more westerly Bohemians, although their territory has already been annexed to Bohemia. The Vnnd.r are tentatively linked to the Venedi.

Their location between the Moravians and Magyars places them in modern northern Romania and western Ukraine, probably close to the thirteenth century city of Lviv in the former region of Galicia.

1019

Sviatopolk returns to Kyiv with a force of Pechenegs and Yaroslav meets him on the banks of the River Alta. A long and bloody battle ensues in which, towards evening, Yaroslav is victorious. Sviatopolk flees westwards but dies a miserable death, possibly due to injuries inflicted or some form of mental disturbance.

1036

While Yaroslav is in Novgorod to oversee the installation of his son, Vladimir, as prince there, the Pechenegs attack Kyiv in large numbers. Yaroslav hurries south with his army and confronts the enemy at the spot on which the metropolitan church of St Sophia later stands.

The death of Yaroslav 'the Wise' in 1054 saw the end of the descent of Rurikid power via agnatic seniority. His division of the succession weakened Kyiv by creating what soon turned out to be rival principalities for each of his sons (click or tap on map to view full sized)

The battle is hard-fought but Kyiv gains the upper hand and the Pecheneg forces are scattered with great casualties being suffered. Having been militarily dominant for well over a century, tribal cohesion is largely reduced and the majority of the Turko-Bulgar population is absorbed into other groups.

1040s - 1050s

A degree of Pecheneg nobility does survive the disaster of 1036. In the early 1040s they are continually confronted by the Torks, who themselves have been forced to migrate by the Cumans.

The Pechenegs lose control of the entire left-bank steppe in the late 1050s, and later the right bank after which their remnant seems to migrate westwards into Danubian Eastern Roman territory or across the Carpathians into Hungary.

1091

The Eastern Romans are saved from the Pecheneg threat by the unexpected arrival and support of the Cumans, which enables Emperor Alexius I Comnenus to rout the Pechenegs at the Battle of Levounion.

The (First) Bulgarian empire had controlled a great swathe of the Balkans during its existence, but its termination in 971 resulted in only its western territories remaining independent (within the dashed line), governed by the cometopuli (click or tap on map to view full sized)

1122

Another defeat removes the reduced Pechenegs from the historical record. Their remaining population is absorbed into the ranks of the Cumans and Danubian Bulgars. Some of them enter into the service of Rus princes (documented for the years 1097-1169) and most of those later migrate to Hungary where they manage to remain autonomous until the fourteenth century.