The Origin of the Ulus Emirs, Revisited

Uli Schamiloglu

The Origin of the Ulus Emirs, Revisited

(66th Annual Meeting of the PIAC Göttingen, 2024)

In 1984 I published an article entitled “The Qaraçı Beys of the Later Golden Horde: Notes on the Organization of the Mongol World Empire” in Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi arguing that there was a recurring pattern of state organization to be in found the states of the Mongol World Empire in the 13th-14th centuries based on the regular present of 4 non-Chinggisid figures who formed a collective body which administered the affairs of the state and approved the edicts (yarlıq) issued by the Chinggisid khan. My attention to this problem was first drawn by an article an article by Edward L. Keenan, Jr. (Harvard University) entitled “Muscovy and Kazan: Some Introductory Remarks on the Patterns of Steppe Diplomacy” published in Slavic Review (1967). Later, while an M.A. student at Columbia University, I came across sources for the earlier Chinggisid states which convinced me that—contrary to Keenan’s assertion that these individuals were magnates—this appeared to be a widespread form of state organization in the earlier period as well. I ended up studying this institution for the Golden Horde in the 13th-14th in greater depth in my doctoral dissertation entitled “Tribal Politics and Social Organization in the Golden Horde” (1986). While the superficial article from 1984 has been cited widely, the unpublished Ph.D. dissertation has not been cited as often. (It was actually published in Russian translation in 2019 in Kazan and the English original will finally appear later this year.) More recently, to my surprise, in 2006 Christopher Atwood published an article entitled “Ulus Emirs, Keshig Elders, Signatures, and Marriages Partners: The Evolution of a Classic Mongol Institution” offering a different argument regarding the evolution of this institution. While I disagree with this interpretation (based on the more detailed research in my doctoral dissertation), Atwood’s interpretation has gained wide currency in recent scholarship on the Mongol World Empire, including the Golden Horde. In this contribution I hope to discuss Atwood’s contribution, the problem of the evolution of the institution of the ulus emirs, and its implications for future research on the Golden Horde and the Mongol World Empire as a whole.