The book of the outstanding domestic historian, geographer, and philosopher Lev Nikolaevich Gumilev is dedicated to the little-studied period of the 6th to 8th centuries, when the ancient state — the Great Turkic Khaganate — was born and flourished in the vastness of Eurasia. The focus of the work is on the people and nature of the Great Steppe. It examines the peculiar material culture of the ancient Turks and, more importantly, the forms of their social existence and social institutions: the el, the feudal system, hierarchy of ranks, military discipline, diplomacy, as well as the presence of a clearly developed worldview, contrasted with the ideological systems of neighboring countries. The work is based on the principle of historical criticism and analysis, i.e., on the description of studied events in their connection and sequence. The author tries to answer the questions of world history: why did the Turks arise and what happened to them, how did they leave their name as a legacy to many peoples who are sometimes not their descendants? According to Gumilev, the name "Turk" did not disappear and, moreover, spread across half of Asia due to the Arabs, who began to call all warlike nomads north of Sogdiana Turks. Subsequently, this term transformed and became the name of a language family. A detailed analysis of the ethnic, political, and religious aspects of the life of the ancient Turks is combined with a vivid figurative style of presentation.
The author of the preface to L.N. Gumilev's book "Ancient Turks" is Doctor of Geographical Sciences, Professor S.B. Lavrov. The book is equipped with a synoptic table, a genealogical table, an onomastic table, a bibliography, an index of names and titled nicknames, an index of authors of cited works, an index of toponyms, and an index of ethnonyms.
The book is addressed to historians, geographers, philosophers, ethnologists, and a wide range of interested readers.
