The Uzbeks are a Turkic ethnic group native to the wider Central Asian region, being among the largest Turkic ethnic group in the area. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, next to Kazakh and Karakalpak minorities, and are also minority groups in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Russia, and China. Uzbek diaspora communities also exist in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United States, Ukraine, and other countries.
Tashkent or Toshkent is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of 3 million. It is located in northeastern Uzbekistan, near the border with Kazakhstan.
Uzbek, formerly known as Turki, is a Karluk Turkic language spoken by Uzbeks. It is the official and national language of Uzbekistan and formally succeeded Chagatai, an earlier Karluk language also known as "Turki", as the literary language of Uzbekistan in the 1920s.
The Golden Horde, self-designated as Ulug Ulus, was originally a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the division of the Mongol Empire after 1259, it became a functionally separate khanate. It is also known as the Kipchak Khanate or as the Ulus of Jochi, and it replaced the earlier, less organized Cuman–Kipchak confederation.
Turkestan, also spelled Turkistan, is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the regions of Transoxiana and Xinjiang. Turkestan is primarily inhabited by Turkic peoples, including Uzbeks, Oghuz Turks, Kazakhs, Khazars, Kyrgyz, and Uyghurs. The region hosts Russian and Tajik-Persian minorities. Turkestan is subdivided into Afghan Turkestan, Russian Turkestan, and the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. Today, "Turkestan" mainly refers to Xinjiang, where Turkic peoples constitute about half of the population.
Chagatai, also known as Turki, Eastern Turkic, or Chagatai Turkic, is an extinct Turkic language that was once widely spoken across Central Asia. It remained the shared literary language in the region until the early 20th century. It was used across a wide geographic area including western or Russian Turkestan, eastern or Chinese Turkestan, the Crimea, the Volga region, etc. Literary Chagatai is the predecessor of the modern Karluk branch of Turkic languages, which includes Uzbek and Uyghur. Turkmen, which is not within the Karluk branch but in the Oghuz branch of Turkic languages, was nonetheless heavily influenced by Chagatai for centuries.
Bashkir or Bashkort is a Turkic language belonging to the Kipchak branch. It is co-official with Russian in Bashkortostan. It is spoken by 1.09 million native speakers in Russia, as well as in Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Estonia and other neighboring post-Soviet states, and among the Bashkir diaspora. It has three dialect groups: Southern, Eastern and Northwestern.
The Timurid Empire was a late medieval, culturally Persianate Turco-Mongol empire that dominated Greater Iran in the early 15th century, comprising modern-day Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, much of Central Asia, the South Caucasus, as well as parts of contemporary Pakistan, North India and Turkey. The empire was culturally hybrid, combining Turko-Mongolian and Persianate influences, with the last members of the dynasty being "regarded as ideal Perso-Islamic rulers".
Nogai also known as Noğay, Noghay, Nogay, or Nogai Tatar, is a Turkic language spoken in Southeastern European Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. It is the ancestral language of the Nogais. As a member of the Kipchak branch, it is closely related to Kazakh, Karakalpak and Crimean Tatar. In 2014 the first Nogai novel was published, written in the Latin alphabet.
'Ali-Shir Nava'i, also known as Nizām-al-Din ʿAli-Shir Herawī was a Timurid poet, writer, statesman, linguist, Hanafi Maturidi mystic and painter who was the greatest representative of Chagatai literature.
Vasily Vasilievich Radlov or Friedrich Wilhelm Radloff was a German-Russian linguist, ethnographer, and archaeologist, often considered to be the founder of Turkology, the scientific study of Turkic peoples. According to Turkologist Johan Vandewalle, Radlov knew all of the Turkic languages and dialects as well as German, French, Russian, Greek, Latin, Manchu, Mongolian, Chinese, Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew.
Sergey Yefimovich Malov was a Russian and Soviet Turkologist who made important contributions to the documentation of archaic and contemporary Turkic languages, classification of the Turkic alphabets, and the deciphering of the Turkic Orkhon script.
Yuri Alexeyevich Zuev or Zuyev was a Russian-born Kazakh sinologist and turkologist.
Alexander Nikolaevich Samoylovich was a Russian Orientalist-Turkologist who served as a member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1929), Rector of the Leningrad Oriental Institute (1922–1925), academic secretary of the Humanities Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1929–1933), and director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1934–1937). He was arrested by the NKVD in October 1937, and was executed on 13 February 1938.
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Baskakov was a Soviet Turkologist, linguist, and ethnologist. He created a systematization model of the Turkic language family, and studied Turkic-Russian contacts in the 10-11th centuries CE. During 64 years of scientific work (1930-1994), Baskakov published almost 640 works including 32 books. The main area of Baskakov's scientific interests was linguistics, but he also studied folklore and ethnography of the Turkic peoples, and also was a musician and composer.
Jalair, also Djalair, Yyalair, Jalayir, is one of the Darliqin Mongol tribes according to Rashid-al-Din Hamadani's Jami' al-tawarikh. They lived along the Shilka River in modern Zabaykalsky Krai of Russia. After the Mongol conquest in the 13th century many Jalairs spread over Central Asia and the Middle East. Jalairs are one of the founding tribes of Mongolia's largest ethnic group Khalkha. Smaller clans named Jalayir are also found in Inner Mongolia in China. The Jalayirs who stayed in Central Asia under the rules of Genghis Khan's older sons' descendants eventually adopted Turkic language. They are found among the Kazakhs of the Great jüz; also they are found among the Uzbeks, Karakalpaks, and the Kyrgyz. The Jalairs who went to Iran and Iraq found the Jalairid Sultanate in 1330, and expanded into Turkey. The state was subjugated by the Kara Koyunlu in 1432.
Timur or Tamerlane was a Turco-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in and around modern-day Afghanistan, Iran, and Central Asia, becoming the first ruler of the Timurid dynasty. An undefeated commander, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest military leaders and tacticians in history, as well as one of the most brutal and deadly. Timur is also considered a great patron of art and architecture as he interacted with intellectuals such as Ibn Khaldun, Hafez, and Hafiz-i Abru and his reign introduced the Timurid Renaissance.
Jochi, the eldest son of Genghis Khan, had several sons. When he died, they inherited their father's dominions as fiefs under the rule of their brothers, Batu Khan, as supreme khan and Orda Khan, who, although the elder of the two, agreed that Batu enjoyed primacy as the Khan of the Golden Horde.
The Timurid conquests and invasions started in the seventh decade of the 14th century with Timur's control over Chagatai Khanate and ended at the start of the 15th century with the death of Timur. Due to the sheer scale of Timur's wars, and the fact that he was generally undefeated in battle, he has been regarded as one of the most successful military commanders of all time. These wars resulted in the supremacy of Timur over Central Asia, Persia, the Caucasus, the Levant, and parts of South Asia and Eastern Europe, and also the formation of the short-lived Timurid Empire. Scholars estimate that his military campaigns caused the deaths of 17 million people, amounting to about 5% of the world population at the time.
Uzbek literature refers to the literature produced and developed in the Republic of Uzbekistan with additional literary works contributed by the Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan people of Central Asia. Influenced by Russian and Turkish literature, Uzbek is predominantly written in the Uzbek language with its roots in Chagatai language, one of the widely accessible languages in the region from 14th to 20th century. In Uzbek literature, Chagatai plays an important role as a reference point.
