THE RELATIONS OF THE TURKS WITH THE EASTERN SLAVS, ETHNOPOLİTİCAL PROCESSES

In the mid-10th century, a significant Oghuz community was visible in the lands north of the Black Sea. Russian historians recorded them as Tork, and Byzantine sources as Uz. For the first time in Russian chronicles, Torks and Kipchaks are mentioned, whom they called Polovtsy (fair-haired). It is not known why the Russians, excluding the Pechenegs and Kipchaks, called Uz only Torkom. The Kipchak raids led to the arrival of the Torks in the north of the Black Sea. The Kipchaks continued to put pressure on the Oguzes in the north of the Black Sea region, as a result of which a significant part of them descended to the Danube, and from there to the Balkans. The Oguzes, who crossed the Danube in 1064-1065, split into many branches and carried out a large-scale invasion of the Balkans, plundering the regions of Thrace, Macedonia and Thessaloniki. However, a sudden cold caused an epidemic among them. This epidemic weakened the Oghuz people, who were essentially scattered and attacked by their former Pecheneg relatives and local residents, resulting in many casualties and loss of power and importance. Over time, the Torci, who had forgotten their old traditions, language and religion and assimilated among the Russians and other Slavic peoples, became one of the elements that shaped the ethnogenesis of these peoples.