The chapter 8, “National Liberation Movement As Argument to Claim the Power”, devoted to another factor of legitimating of pretenders’ claims: using the national liberation movement as argument to ascend the throne. Of course, such argument could be used only during the period of foreign dominance. And if one group of pretenders came to power relying only on national liberation movement, another used more sophisticated means of legitimating their claims for power. So, descendants of former infl uent clergymen used religious factor (which was described in details in the forth chapter) in the new way: religion became the factor of unifi cation for fi ght against conquerors, and religious leaders, thus, became national ones! Some rulers appointed by foreign authorities were able to understand that their states were ready to fi ght against suzerains and, refusing factor of foreign support, relied on national factor to save and increase own power.
The part IV, “Impostors in the Turko-Mongol States”, is about pretenders who tried to obtain the throne posing themselves as legal claimants. As in other states and epochs, peaks of impostures were in times of troubles when real claimants were eliminated in very short terms and this facts were not known to the most part of people.
In the chapter 9, “Types of Impostors”, dif erent categories of pretenders are described: ones posed themselves as real members of ruling families, others pretended to be fi ctitious princes; specific group of impostors was presented by princes whose origin was not clear and they were recognized as legal heirs by one part of subjects and as usurpers by another one. Besides that some cases of impostures couldn’t be attributed to one of above mentioned types (for example, adopted or legitimized sons, persons who pretended not to be members of royal families but subjects of foreign suzerains, etc.).
In the chapter 10, “Limits of Claims for Power”, author analyzed the “scale of ambitions” of specific impostors. So, pretenders for the throne of regional level had chance to obtain and save power for some time, as for claimants for supreme power, practically all of them were disclosed and killed or executed. In this connection it’s interesting to mention rather specific group of impostors who quite didn’t attempt to reach the regional or supreme power: some carpet-baggers posed themselves as rulers (who, in fact was already dead) or descendants of khans to get protection or to improve own well-being.
The part V, “Usurpers and Impostors of History”, devoted to historiography phenomenon: some rulers became usurpers and impostors in historians’ opinion. The cases of such accusations hurled by medieval historians are examined in the chapter 11, “Usurpers and Impostors in the Medieval Historiography”, and the same accusation from the scientists of the 19th – beginning of the 21th cent. – in the chapter 12, “Usurpers and Impostors in the Modern Historiography”.
The research is based on the wide range of historical sources (chronicles, of cial documents, memoirs of contemporaries, etc.) as well as on research works since 18th to the beginning of the 21th cent.