The sources covering the history of the Noghay Horde are sufficiently numerous and diverse. Records of the 15th — 18th cc. originating from different countries and written in a number of languages shed light on all aspects of life of that nomadic empire. As the Noghays had regular contact with Russia, the records of Moscow archives became the principal source of information for the present study. Many of said records are being introduced into the sphere of scholarly analysis for the first time. Besides, Oriental and Western sources — together with Russian chronicles and other documents — are used here as well.
As a result of the effort of several scholarly generations, a sizeable bulk of data was accumulated, which is useful for analyzing the history of the Noghay Horde. However, it was only in a very few works on history that the Noghays figured as the central object of study. They were for the vast majority of authors a mere background detail necessary for their analysis of the main topic — the history of Russia, the Kazan or Crimean Khanates, etc. Those few books that do treat of the Noghays as such are often based on outdated concepts and very inadequate sources. The situation existing in historiography could, on the whole, be described as follows: the history of the Noghay Horde was known in outline, but remained as yet unwritten. The present book is an attempt to fill this gap.
The first part of the book ("The Emergence and Disintegration of the Noghay State") deals with the political history of the Noghay Horde.
In the early 1390s, after prolonged wanderings, the Q'fpchaq tribe (el) of the Mangh'its, headed by their leader (bek) Edigii, settled in the steppes of West Kazakhstan, in the basin of the Yayi'q and the Emba. The Mangh'its established there a nomadic domain of their own, the Yurt. Given the conditions of the disintegration of the Golden Horde, the main safeguard of the new Yurt's existence was de facto the ruler of the Horde and the leader of the Mangh'it el Edigti.
Their close and regular contact with the monarchs enabled the Mangh'it aristocrats — Edigü's descendants — to secure the highest governmental post of the beklerbek and even to usurp the election of candidates to the khan's throne. A pithy expression of that prerogative can be found in the decision passed by a congress of the Mangh'it nobility regarding the possible enthronement of one of the Uzbek princes in the 1470s: "From the days of yore to this day, every khan who was pronounced [khan] by the amirs of the Mangh'its gave the amirs of the Mangh'its liberty in the land". The acquisition by the Mangh'it Yurt of political significance in Dasht-i Q'ipchaq of the second half of the 15th c. is associated with the name of Edigti's grandson, the biy (= head of the Yurt) Musa. The sundry nomadic tribes that were under his rule acquired the common name of the "Noghays".
By the early 16th c., Noghay nomadic areas united to form an entirely independent political entity that had administration, army and territory of its own. Subsequent to Musa's death (ca. 1502), the early phase of the Noghay Horde history, during which the state was regarded as part of the Khanate of the left wing of the Ulus of Jochi, came to an end.
The two opening decades of the 16th c. were the time of a most dangerous upheaval for the Noghay Horde. Having inherited from Musa the influential and powerful Yurt, his brothers and sons came very close to losing their lands and subjects. The conflicts between the Noghay mirzas (noblemen), the simultaneous emergence of several biys put forward by fighting aristocratic factions, the Crimean and Kazakh invasions were the factors that brought the nomadic state to the brink of destruction. However, historical conditions became eventually more favorable to it. In the East, the Noghays succeeded in taking advantage of the unrest in the Kazakh Khanate that followed after the death of its powerful ruler Qasim. They mustered their forces and launched an offensive against the Eastern Dasht-i Q'ipchaq. The Kazakhs were soon driven as far as the Uzbek frontiers, and their former lands were one by one ceded to Noghay mirzas. In the West, after they had — several times and in a degrading manner — to pledge allegiance to the Crimea, Noghay leaders also proved able to change the situation in their favor. Simultaneously with the anti-Kazakh "reconquest", they overthrew the Crimean Yurt (1523) and substantially reduced the power of the Astrakhan Khanate which became subordinate. Noghay political influence became felt more and more in Kazan.
Mirza Mamay came to occupy the most prominent position in the Noghay Horde. However, he was not resolute enough to become a self-proclaimed ultimate ruler, or perhaps was unable to achieve this. He was primarily a military leader, a warlord. It was under his leadership that the Noghays achieved the decisive victories of the 1520s, which enabled them during the following decade to transform their state into a powerful and independent nomadic empire.
The 1530s — 40s became the time when the Noghay Horde reached the peak of its power and influence. Having defeated and intimidated their neighbors, Musa's descendants were finally able to make their land safe from foreign threat. Despite the unstable nature of unity within the ruling clan and the overthrow of the biy Sayyid Ahmad, the Noghay Horde of that time was still seen by the neighboring peoples as a dreadful and relatively cohesive force. The Noghays were also able to incorporate the Kazakh Khanate into the sphere of their hegemony, to consolidate and regularize their rule in Bashkiria. They competed on equal terms with Crimea for influence in Astrakhan and with Russia — though covertly — in Kazan. It was then that the Horde began to show certain signs of the incipient state machinery: the mirzas and the els under their administration were subdivided into "wings" (provinces) submitted now to the ultimate control of military governors; the biy, as regards his position and authority within the state (but not outside it), approached the status of the sovereign khan. The rule of the biy Shaykh Mamay (ca. 1540–49) was the highest peak in the development of Noghay political and social structure.
Under the biy Yusuf (1549–54), the Noghay Horde still remained strong and influential. The defeat that was inflicted by the Crimea in 1549 caused little damage to the Horde, though it was a painful lesson for the mirzas. It was not in the Khanate of the Girays that the main threat to the Noghay nomadic empire resided. The mighty Russian state pressed from the West. The Russian conquest of the Kazan Yurt (1552) upset the equilibrium of political forces established by that time in Eastern Europe. The state of Astrakhan was increasingly losing its independence coming under the influence of neighboring countries, until a Moscow-controlled puppet was enthroned there in 1554. The system of Late Jöchids' yurts eventually collapsed. Noghays participated neither in the Kazan nor in Astrakhan campaign of the czar's army — they were becoming watchers of history rather than its architects. The irresolution of the biy Yusuf was not the only reason for that; the strong right-wing opposition which formed by that time also contributed to such a state of affairs. The mirza Isma'il, the wing's head, started to look to Moscow in his politics. He was able to win over the Volga region mirzas, a numerous and authoritative faction of the Manghit nobility. Power was slipping out of Yusufs hands. Foreign rulers began to deal with Isma'il going over the biy's head. It seemed that Isma'il was now, to all intents and purposes, "number one" in the nomadic state. This situation had no peaceful outcome. The mid — 1550s saw the outbreak of the Second Unrest in the Noghay Horde.
These developments were a terrible shock to the Noghay Horde. The argument of the mirzas over economic and political orientation resulted in a protracted internal war that was aggravated by the great famine of the late 1550s. The biy Isma'il (1554–63) emerged victorious from that war. His victory was, however, a Pyrrhic one indeed: many subjects of the preceding biys (his brothers) left the Horde for the adjacent Yurts, enormous numbers of Noghays fell in battle, starved to death or were killed by the plague. Though internal conflict somewhat abated by the end of Isma'il's rule, it was a mere reduced likeness of the former strong Noghay empire — the Horde of the so-called Great Noghays — that he was able to hand down to his successors. The descendants of Shaykh Mamay behaved more and more independently. Another Noghay state — the Little Noghay Horde, or the Qazi Ulus — was shaping in the North-West Caucasus. Bands of the Noghay "qazaqs" roamed the steppes; they had no wish to join any of the Yurts. Some of them eventually settled in Russia and in Polish lands.
The relative stability under the biy Din Ahmad (1563–78) continued into the beginning years of the rule of Urns (1578–90), rekindling hope for the return of the Horde's erstwhile power and influence. The biys mustered many mirzas around them, trying to pursue a policy of independence. However, they overestimated their forces. Unlike the period of the late 15th — early 16th cc., when the Manghit Yurt had been surrounded by enemies engaged in mortal combat with the Noghays, now the Yurt's inhabitants had a real opportunity to emigrate in search of a better, safer life. They first moved to the Little Noghay Horde and the Uzbek Khanates, spreading then in Russia and the Crimea. The people started to leave the trans-Volga steppes. At the close of the century, successors of several biys started fighting for power over their depleting subjects. That was the third and the last Noghay Unrest.
As a result of internal conflict, Kalmyk invasions and other events, the Great Noghay Horde disintegrated during the first decades of the 17th c. The Noghays did not vanish off the face of the earth, though. On the contrary, they settled far and wide, spreadin