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Abstract

The history of the Eurasian steppes is often narrated through a sequence of great empires that emerge from political fragmentation, consolidate authority across vast territories, and eventually collapse. Steppe empires such as the Xiongnu, the Türk Qaghanate, and the Mongol Empire are therefore treated as formative moments in the history of the region, credited with reshaping its political, cultural, and demographic landscape. The periods between them, however, are often cast as transitional or insignificant. One of the most prominent of these intervals lies between the fall of the Xiongnu and the rise of the Türk Qaghanate. At the center of this period stands the Rou-ran Qaghanate. The Rou-ran dominated the Mongolian Plateau from the late fourth to the mid-sixth centuries and ruled a vast territory extending from parts of present-day Kazakhstan and southern Siberia to the oasis states of the Tarim Basin. Despite the scale of their power and territorial reach, the Rou-ran remain marginal in historical narratives of the region. In this talk, I make a historiographical intervention by situating the Rou-ran as a constitutive phase in the formation of steppe imperial traditions. I argue that they formed a crucial link in a longer history of institutional transmission and transformation across Inner Asia. To make this case, I examine how the Rou-ran’s political organization, administrative and institutional structures, cultural practices, and diplomatic networks shaped the broader Inner Asian landscape. I draw on Chinese official histories and argue that the Rou-ran’s marginalization in the historiography is a product of narratives of legitimacy, succession, and imperial inheritance through which Inner Asian political history has been reconstructed. Recovering their place in that history requires us to rethink where we locate the generative moments of Eurasian statecraft.