Guide to Kazak Rugs
First time published in Oriental
Rug Notes. This short extract of the original
article is republished by courtesy of the author J. Barry
O'Connell.
Qazax
(Kazakh, Kazak, Kasak, Gazakh). The most used spelling today is Qazax but
rug people use Kazak so I generally do as well.
Part of this project is a constant refinement based on adding in new
information. Now as I try to define Kazak I have to turn to the geography
and history of the region. When I speak of Kazak rugs I am referring to
rugs from the old Kazak Khanate. Qazax is a city of about twenty thousand
people in Northwest Azerbaijan at 41.10°N, 45.35°E.
In the Caucasus people live in valleys mountain peaks are the dividers.
Kazak was an important city because it controlled a series of valleys that
extend from modern Azerbaijan into Armenia and Georgia.
The people of this region are Azeri Turks, Armenians, Albanians, and
Northern Caucasian. There are also Greeks, Russians, and Georgians, in the
area but they do not appear to have made a significant number of rugs.
There are few people I respect more than Murray Eiland Jr. The scope of
his work and the measure of his contribution to the field is hard to
describe. Never the less there are few people that I disagree with as much
as Murray. One area in particular is on the subject of Kazaks and the
Kazaks of the Caucasus. In Eiland, and Eiland, Oriental Rugs page
270 Murray suggests that there are no Kazaks in the Caucasus. He very
rightly points out that the ethnic groups are Armenian, Azeri Turks and a
few other smaller groups. I will conceded that Murray is correct but he is
missing one key point. A Kazak is a descendent of one who left the Mongol
horde (ordu). So in the Caucasus there are many people who are descendents
of people who at some point split from the authority of the Chingizid
rulers.
Take for instance the Bordjalu region of the Kazak region in the
Caucasus. The region takes it names from the Bordjalu Khanate which takes
it name from the Bordjalu tribe. The Bordjalu tribe are the descendents of
the 10,000 men Cingis Qan (Ghengis Khan) gave to his close friend and ally
Boro'cu. At some point the tribe left the authority of the Mongol Il and
at that point they were Kazak.
This is not to say however that Kazaks wove the rugs that we call
Kazak. The rugs we see are mostly post 1830 when most of the weavers of
Kazak rugs were Armenians. Still the designs thay drew upon in many cases
were from the Kazaks who had lived in that area prior to the Russian
capture of Erevan.
Read more
at Oriental Rug Notes.
Kazak rugs
at Jozan Educational Gallery.
