The Cuman Studies as a Scientific Discipline

Abstract

As for the Cumans, they were discovered only in the 18th-19th centuries, when Oriental studies, archaeology and ethnography developed and made it possible to study their history. Firstly, the Cumans could not be identified among the Eastern European Nomadic peoples such as the Pechenegs, Oguz/Uz. The study of the material in Codex Cumanicus, the oriental elements in the Song of Igor’s Campaign, and other sources brought new results in Turkology and a new field of study came into being: Cumanology including the history, language and archaeology of the Cumans/Kipchaks. There were historians, archaeologists, linguists, Salvists, Byzantinists, Turkologists, Arabists among the founder fathers (P. Golubovskiy, J. Marquart, D. Rasovsky, S. Pletneva, O. Pritsak, P. Golden etc.) . The peculiarities of this field of research are discussed in this article.