An Empire within an Empire? Ethnic and Religious Realities in the Lands of Nogai (c. 1270-1300)

Uzelac, Aleksandar (2018) An Empire within an Empire? Ethnic and Religious Realities in the Lands of Nogai (c. 1270-1300). Chronica: Annual of the Institute of History, University of Szeged, 18. pp. 271-283. ISSN 1588-2039

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Abstract

The paper focuses on the internal conditions of the lands of Nogai, stretching at the height of his power from the basin of the Lower Dnieper in the east to the western fringes of the Wallachian plains. The Muslim, Latin, Byzantine, and Slavic contemporaries provide enough data for the critical assessment of the ethnic, religious, and demographic realities in Nogai’s Ulus. His territories included the heterogeneous urban communities in the Danube Delta and the northern Black Sea coast, and also the vast steppe areas inhabited by the descendants of Cumans, Alans and other pre-Mongol populations. Mongol newcomers were insignificant in numbers. Although Nogai formally converted to Islam, the presence of Catholic and Orthodox missionaries, Muslims, as well as a small Buddhist community, are documented in his lands. Nogai’s Ulus represented a heterogeneous multi-ethnic and multi-confessional space, united by his charisma and power, as well as Chinggisid ideology

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