title: The Turkic and Other Muslim Peoples of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Balkans
abstract: The Mongol conquests initiated by Chingis Khan in the thirteenth century attached Central Asia to a succession of Mongol khanates, stretching at their height from China to central Europe, but the ruling Mongols soon adapted to the dominant Turkic and Persian cultures. Resistance to Russian rule among the Muslim peoples of the empire was concentrated intellectually within the more open Tatar communities of the Volga region and the Crimea. The only regional power in a position to dominate Central 