Abstract:
The Khitan people, who have now disappeared for a long time, were an important group during the medieval period in East and Central Asia. Despite having established the Liao Dynasty and the Qara Khitai states, their language and script were forgotten following the Mongol conquests and they were largely assimilated by the Mongols. As a matter of fact, Yelü Chucai was perhaps the most famous Khitan of his time, and in modern times, studies on Yelü Chucai surpass those on Abaoji, the founder of the Liao dynasty. He has been presented as a great intellectual by his Chinese, Mongol and Khitan contemporaries as well as modern historians. However, this article aims to demonstrate that there was nothing extraordinary about a Khitan being on par with his Han Chinese, Persian or Central Asian counterparts intellectually by the time of Chucai, and his success was a culmination of over a century of Khitan tradition in both Khitan and Chinese. This study introduces and examines the development of the written tradition in the Khitan language and aims to demonstrate that Yelü Chucai was not an exception, but rather the norm by the time of Jinggis Qaghan, who called him “urtuq saqal”. The approach to Khitan literature was divided along historical period lines rather than linguistic lines. The Khitan words and titles have been written in Latin letters, since it was not possible to write them in either Khitan scripts. Keywords: Khitans, Khitan Intellectuals
