History of the western steppe
This article summarizes the History of the western steppe, which is the western third of the Eurasian steppe, that is, the grasslands of Ukraine and southern Russia. It is intended as a summary and an index to the more-detailed linked articles. It is a companion to History of the central steppe and History of the eastern steppe. All dates are approximate since there are few exact starting and ending dates. This summary article does not list the uncertainties, which are many. For these, see the linked articles. Geography. The area is approximately triangular. The  line between forest and steppe began near the mouth of the Danube on the Black Sea and ran northeast toward Kazan and then turned south along the western side of the Ural Mountains. This was not a sharp line but rather a broad band of often deciduous forest-steppe. Its nature and location is hard to establish since most of it has now been cleared for agriculture. The southern boundary runs northeast and then east-southeast along the shore of the Black Sea, continues in the same direction along the north side of the Caucasus Mountains, meets the Caspian Sea  and follows its western shore north. Between the north end of the Caspian to the Urals is open grassland that connects the area to the central steppe. The Sea of Azov projects northeast, turning the Black Sea-Caspian Steppe into a kind of peninsula. The western part is sometimes called the Kuban region from the Kuban River that drains the Caucasus northwest. The Crimean peninsula extends into the Black Sea and was a link from the steppe to the Byzantine and Turkish empires. In the far west, the Hungarian plain is an island of grassland separated from the main steppe  by the mountains of Transylvania. Most of the area is suitable for agriculture except for the semi-desert west and north of the Caspian. North-south trade routes were along the Volga River and Dnieper River. Between them the Don River was a minor route. General observations. For unknown reasons, almost all movements on the steppe have been from east to west. For unknown reasons, from about 500 AD the original Iranian languages were replaced by Turkic languages. Unlike the central and eastern steppe, the western steppe has now been converted to agriculture. Steppe history must be reconstructed from scattered  reports from neighboring literate societies, with some help from archeology. The numerous peoples mentioned were usually some clan or tribe that gained control over its neighbors and became politically significant. A few may have been ethnically homogenous and a few movements may have been genuine folk migrations. In most cases we do not know. Boundaries fluctuated and are not well-documented. Before recorded history. According to the most common theory the Indo-European languages originated on the western steppe. Before perhaps 1000 BC Iranian languages were established all over the western and central steppe. The origin of steppe pastoral nomadism  is poorly understood. Horse-borne raiding is first reported with the Cimerians about 700 BC. Archeologists have identified a Tripolye culture (c. 4000 BC) at the western edge of the steppe, a Sredny Stog culture at about the same time on the Dnieper, a Yamna culture (c. 3000 BC, Indo-European?), a Srubna culture (c. 1500 BC) linked eastward to the possibly Indo-Iranian Andronovo culture, and others. The plow conquers the steppe (c. 1500-1900). Parts of the Golden Horde broke off as follows: 1438: Khanate of Kazan on the upper Volga, 1449: Khanate of Crimea on the Black  Sea, 1466: Astrakhan Khanate on the lower Volga. Russia regained its independence around 1480. The Golden Horde was abolished and the steppe peoples became the Nogai Horde. Those north of Crimea were nominally subject to the Crimean Khan who in turn was a vassal or ally of the Ottoman Empire. By the Mongol period the forest and forest-steppe south of the Oka River was largely depopulated. The area was kept clear of peasants by Nogai slave raids which extended as far northwest as Belarus. The captives were sold through Crimea to the Ottoman Empire. From around 1525 Russia began  expanding south, filling the area with tax-paying peasants, until it annexed Crimea in 1783. In the same period peasant agriculture expanded east from the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. During the Khmelnitsky Uprising (1648) Polish power on the steppe was broken. When things settled down the steppe was partitioned between Russia and Poland along the Dnieper. The Polish steppe was annexed by Russia in 1772–1795. Some areas in the southwest were taken from Turkey. In the nineteenth century the steppe between the Caspian and Black Sea was colonized. By 1900 steppe nomadism had almost completely disappeared in the western steppe, although  it continued further east.