IMC 2026: Sessions

Session 715: Chinggisid Temporalities, III: Elites and Identities

Tuesday 7 July 2026, 14:15-15:45

Organiser:	Rong Fan, Institut für Orient- und Asienwissenschaften, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
Moderator/Chair:	Sara Mirahmadi, Institut für Iranistik, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien
Paper 715-a	It Is Always the Hero and His Friends: Envisioning the Origins through Qazaqlïq in the Steppes (Language: English) Simon Berger, Centre de Recherche sur le Monde Iranien (CeRMI), Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INaLCO), Paris Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Language and Literature - Other
Paper 715-b	Who Was Oghuz Khan?: The Shaping of a Turkic Legend within a Mongol-Period Context (Language: English) Hayrettin İhsan Erkoç, Tarih Bölümü, Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Üniversitesi Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Language and Literature - Other, Religious Life
Abstract	Taking the IMC 2026 theme 'Temporalities', these sessions explore Chinggisid Afro-Eurasia through a lens of time, in all its permutations. This session interrogates shifting elements of Turko-Mongol elite identities. Berger explores the centrality of qazaqliq small band heroic narratives to steppe origin narratives. Erkoç interrogates how the shapeshifting figure of Oghuz Khan can illuminate events and circumstances in the Mongol Empire through the 13th century. Jones assesses the interplay between the Turkic term ‘oghul’ and Mongolian ‘ke’ün’ in Chinggisid titulature to expose shifting categorization of elites across the Chinggisid territories.