History and Politics

Steppe Empires to the Russian Empire

25 practice questions, each with the answer and an explanation.

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Random questions from this topic, one at a time. You see the answer and the explanation straight after each one.

All 25 questions

  1. Which famous find from a burial mound near Almaty, discovered in 1969, is a Saka warrior dressed in a suit covered with gold plaques and dated to about the fourth or third century BC?
  2. The Saka nomads who lived in the Kazakh steppe in the first millennium BC are believed to have spoken a language of which family?
  3. Which people founded the first Turkic Khaganate in 552 after defeating the Rouran, ruling the steppe from Mongolia to the Aral region?
  4. Which scholar from the region of Farab near Otrar, called the Second Teacher after Aristotle, wrote on logic, music and political philosophy in the tenth century?
  5. Which mausoleum in the city of Turkistan, begun by Timur around 1389 and left unfinished, honours a twelfth-century Sufi poet and was listed by UNESCO in 2003?
  6. Which event of about 1218, involving a Mongol trade caravan, led Genghis Khan to invade the Khwarazmian Empire?
  7. Which ulus, inherited by Genghis Khan's eldest son Jochi, covered the Kazakh steppe and later became the Golden Horde?
  8. Which two sultans, descendants of Genghis Khan, led their followers away from Abu'l-Khayr's Uzbek horde and founded the Kazakh Khanate around 1465?
  9. What does the word Kazakh mean in the Turkic languages, according to the most common explanation?
  10. Which khan, who ruled from about 1511 to 1518, enlarged the Kazakh Khanate and is credited with a code of laws called the Bright Road?
  11. Which khan, who ruled from the late 1600s to 1718, is credited with the law code known as Jeti Zhargy, or the Seven Charters?
  12. Which of the three traditional Kazakh hordes, or zhuz, roamed the western part of Kazakhstan, between the Ural River and the Aral Sea?
  13. What is the name of the Kazakh disaster of 1723, when the Dzungars drove tens of thousands of families from their pastures?
  14. Which military leader, with the batyr Bogenbay, won a victory over the Dzungars at Anyrakay in 1730 and later became khan of the Middle Zhuz?
  15. Which khan of the Junior Zhuz asked for Russian protection in 1731, in order to gain help against the Dzungars?
  16. Which khan led the uprising of 1837 to 1847 against the Russian empire's expansion in the Kazakh steppe?
  17. Which poet and thinker from the Semey region, who lived from 1845 to 1904, wrote the Book of Words and is regarded as the founder of modern Kazakh literature?
  18. Which Kazakh scholar and officer travelled to Kashgar in 1858 and 1859 and wrote about the peoples of Central Asia?
  19. Which educator, who lived from 1841 to 1889, opened the first Russian-Kazakh schools and wrote a Kazakh reader?
  20. Which Russian fort, founded in 1854 in the foothills of the Trans-Ili Alatau, grew into the city of Almaty?
  21. Which uprising of 1916, sparked by an order to conscript Central Asians for labour at the front, led many Kazakhs to flee to China?
  22. Which autonomous government was formed in 1917 by Kazakh intellectuals led by Alikhan Bokeikhanov and lasted until 1920?
  23. Which Turkic nomads, called Polovtsy or Cumans in Russian chronicles, dominated the western steppe from the eleventh to the thirteenth century?
  24. Which network of trade routes linking China with the Mediterranean passed through the oasis cities of southern Kazakhstan, such as Otrar, Sygnak and Turkistan?
  25. Which khan, who ruled from 1598 to 1628 from Turkistan, issued the law code known as the Old Road?

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