PROCESSES OF DISINTEGRATION AND THE CRISIS OF CIVILIZATION IN THE TURKIC WORLD (16-th – 19-th centuries)

Abstract

Scantily explored problem of crisis and disintegration in the Turkic world of late medieval period is studied in the article. It is necessary to indicate the climatic, economic, geopolitical and other factors of the disintegration of cultural and civilizational space of the Turks to the new time. As a part of the Muslim East, the Turkic world of Eurasia lagged behind in civilization development compared the European countries. The characteristic features of Turkic history of late medieval period are the growth of internal military conflicts, frequent migrations, decline of the economy, increasing disintegration of the Turkic civilization system and isolation of previous connected ethnic communities. There was deep crisis and decline of Eurasian nomadism in a new era. It is determined that Russia and China pursued expansionist policies and supported ethnic separatism of Turkic peoples. Despite present attempts of some scholars to explain Russian colonialism through Frontier Thesis of F.Terner, the policy of Tsarism in the East had serious differences and was reactionary. So mass uprisings against tsarism broke out in the territory of Kazakhstan and other parts of Turkic Eurasia. The authors consider that at the same time the formation of separate ethnic groups and national languages in the late Turkic history partly reflected objective challenges and trends of Global history. In Kazakh historical memory one can see evidences in favor of common Turkic identity.