JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES

October-December 2009 JOURNAL OF EURASIAN STUDIES Volume I., Issue 4.
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authority of the three Mongol Hordes to a post-Mongol dispensation that was dominated by Tatar tribes
and Cossack riders who entrenched themselves subsequently in a settler-dominated Russian fort area.
So, the basic idea of the steppe is a region that was filled with grasslands, barbaric raiders and horsemen
and distanced from the locus of imperial power. It is only recently that the steppe, a continental
landmass on the south of Russia that overlaps with Mongolian and Chinese borderlands, has received
fair treatment as an interactive space. While it is still very difficult to pinpoint writings that deal with the
steppe as a social phenomenon, one can still cite a few works that questioned earlier formats. Here, we
are concerned with both Soviet and post-Soviet approaches, the former expressing a predictable set of
opinions and the latter questioning that set of opinions. The study, now awaiting publication, takes into
account the old and new formats of borderlands’ history of the Russian empire and examines the
perceptions about the steppe not merely as an imperial fringe but also as a zone of competition among
tribal chieftains of the Middle and Small Hordes, the khan of Kokand and others with fragmented
loyalty to the Golden Horde. 37
The underlying assumption of this study is the following — even as we take note of the colonial
connotation of the Eurasian steppe, we ought to remember that it is the inter-tribal relations of Eastern
and south Eastern Siberia that actually determined the nature of that Asiatic space of Russia. For instance
we have the Buryat Mongols in the Lake Baikal area sharing space with the Tungus tribes as well as with
the Yenisei Kyrgyz of the Krasnoyarsk region. So the eastern reaches of the Siberian khanate
(concentrated on the Irtysh River) that include the Tatars as well as the non-Tatars, i.e. the Tomsk and
Tobolsk Tatars and the Mongols and Tungus groups of Buryatia, Irkutsk gubernia (governor generalate)
and Trans Baikal actually denote the steppe space of Asiatic Russia.
Russia’s Asiatic kaleidoscope leads us to further enquiries about what has been termed as ‘Inner
Asia’. The reconceptualization of Inner Asia as a new arena for inter-ethnic communication is the subject
matter of my ongoing project in the Institute. 38 In this, I try to review the new literature about Inner Asia
as an interactive space reflected through musings about a Mongol commonwealth, a spiritual Buddhist
space and an Asiatic locale representing the ideals of pan-Mongolism and Buryat nationalism.
Conclusions—disclaimers
Indian scholarship on Central Asia tends to be Moscow-centric. However, there is growing interest
about the extent to which China also has a stake in the region — an interest that is indicated by the
trilateral alliances in which China has taken the lead role. Over time, scholars have discussed more
openly global and regional formulas of development stretching from the Caucasus in the west to Korea
in the East. The Silk Road is a metaphor for development that connects Europe and Asia and an ongoing
37 Suchandana Chatterjee, The steppe in history: Essays on a Eurasian fringe, Delhi: Manohar, (forthcoming).
38 See in Institute’s website www.makaias.gov.in
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