Göktürk Khaganate

The Göktürk Khaganate was the first great Turkic empire of the Eurasian steppe and the first state to use the name 'Türk' as a political designation, giving its name to the broad family of Turkic peoples and languages.

It was founded in 552 CE when Bumin, leader of the Ashina clan, rose against and overthrew the Rouran Khaganate that had previously dominated the eastern steppe, proclaiming himself Il Qaghan. Together with his brother Istämi, who governed the western wing as yabghu, the new khaganate expanded with extraordinary speed across Inner Asia, defeating rivals and extending its authority from Manchuria in the east to the borders of the Sasanian and Byzantine worlds in the west, becoming the first truly transcontinental steppe empire. The Göktürks dominated the lucrative Silk Road trade and confederated numerous Turkic and other steppe peoples under their rule, employing the Sogdians, a Central Asian mercantile people, as administrators and diplomats, with Sogdian serving as an early official language. The empire was structured as a dual khaganate, with eastern and western wings, an arrangement that lent it reach but also bred division. After a succession crisis it formally split into Eastern and Western Turkic Khaganates around 603. The Eastern Khaganate was conquered by the resurgent Tang dynasty of China in 630, and the Western Khaganate fell to the Tang by 657-659, ending the first Turkic empire. In 682, however, the Göktürks reasserted their independence under Ilterish Qaghan, founding the Second Turkic Khaganate, which again dominated the Mongolian plateau and produced the Orkhon inscriptions, the oldest known texts written in a Turkic language, recording the deeds of rulers such as Bilge Qaghan and his brother Kül Tigin. This second khaganate was finally overthrown in 744 by a coalition of subject peoples, the Uyghurs, Basmyls, and Karluks, who established the succeeding Uyghur Khaganate.

Key figures