Kazaklyk as a Social Phenomenon

Abstract

In the current historiography of nomadism, the possibility of shaping political institutions in nomadic societies as a result of internal development is largely discounted. What is usually stressed is the static character of social organization of nomads, which is taken to be enveloped in the fluid kin or tribal enclosure. However, the sum of ethnographic, comparative historical, and linguistic data that are available allows us to isolate a particular social phenomenon in nomadic societies, which may be tentatively termed with the Turkic word kazaklyk. It refers to the existence of certain marginal elements excluded from the dominant system of social relations that is based on kin/tribal institutions. The author argues that they manifest a different, more progressive, form of social organization which develops along alternative lines.