A Taxation in Old Turkic States. Part 2

Limited source base determines different views of researchers on fiscal practices in political formations created and headed by the tribes of the Early Turkic group. The present paper continues an attempt to summarize different evidences of any taxation in the Türkic Qaghanates and their regional successors in Eurasian steppes and adjacent territories with a settled agricultural population. A special attention should be paid to the possessions of the Western Türkic dynasties with settled agricultural population on the territory of Central Asia and Afghanistan. It is possible to identify the certain patterns given the accumulated experience of comparative studies of nomadic societies. First, there is no evidence that the nomadic population, which belonged to the dominant tribal group, was exploited in any way. Secondly, from the subordinate nomadic and forest hunting tribes all the collections were subjected to taxation of natural products without any regularity and depending solely on the discretion of the representatives of the dominant tribe were directly at their head. Thirdly, the fiscal levies for the conquered sedentary agricultural people were carried out according to the practices prevailing earlier in a particular locality. The agents of the central (qaghanal) government were appointed over such subordinate peoples to exist on a par with the local dynastic rulers. They did not directly influence their domestic policies and, apparently, had only to control the timeliness of payments, among other obligations that their citizenship status implied

Agriculture · Archaeology · Central government · Development economics · Economics · Economy · Geography · Local government · Natural resource · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · Tribe · Ancient Near East History · Demography · Eurasian Exchange Networks · Islamic Studies and History · Law