ALMATY, Kazakhstan, April 6 (UPI) -- The legendary conqueror Genghis Khan, who died in 1227, was a Kazakh, a historian from Kazakhstan said Wednesday.
Kalibek Daniyarov, author of "Who was Genghis Khan by birth?" told the Centrasia Web site it is myth Khan was a Mongol.
No head of the Mongolian state was ever titled "khan," Daniyarov said, and no tribes forming the modern Mongolian nation participated in Genghis's campaigns.
Genghis Khan was born near the present-day Mongolia-Russia border sometime in the mid-12th century. Genghis's father, Yesugei, was the chief of the Kazakh clan of Kiyad or Kiyat. The word "kiyady" or "kiyat" translated into the verb "cuts" from the Kazakh language.
The names of Genghis's father, grandfather and fellow fighters were Kazakh, and Genghis himself originally was named Temujin, which can be connected with a Kazakh word meaning "blacksmith," he said.
"It is necessary to consider Genghis Khan the founder of the Kazakh nation," Daniyarov continued.
Genghis Khan, or Universal Ruler, conquered most of Asia and Eastern Europe during the early 13th century, and the area of modern Kazakhstan was incorporated into his empire.
