Linguist and Turkologist Timur Kozyrev has debunked the theory of pseudo-historians that Kazakhs did not live in northern Kazakhstan until the 17th century. According to him, the Siberian Tatars who lived in this territory were the ancestors of the Kazakhs. The scholar stated this in the Qalam History podcast. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Kursiv Media.
Kozyrev noted that in Kazakhstani history there is still an opinion that Kazakhs came to northern Kazakhstan only in the 17th century, driving out the Siberian Tatars who inhabited these lands. However, the Siberian Tatars were in fact "rular", that is, the direct ancestors of those Kazakhs who still live in this territory today.
"They were there in the 16th and 15th centuries, and much earlier. But what is the matter then? The matter is that until the end of the 16th century they were part of the Siberian Khanate. But the Siberian Khanate of that time was not a national state, but a feudal polity. Later they moved to the Kazakh Khanate and became Kazakhs in a political sense," the Turkologist emphasized.
He added that already in the 17th century the borders of the Kazakh Khanate finally stabilized and within them the formation of modern ethnic groups began.
Earlier, Kursiv wrote that the army of Emir Timur (Tamerlane) included the ancestors of modern Kazakhs.