The Rise of the Golden Empire of Jurchen

Vitaliy Medvedev

The Jurchens are a Tungus-Manchurian people whose history and culture could be compared to a gold nugget, a treasure still shining today from ancient times. The founder of the Empire called the Golden Empire (in Chinese, Jin) was Aguda. He proclaimed the Empire in 1115; it existed for 120 years. That was a period of flourishing, the peak of economic and cultural development, the apotheosis of consolidation of numerous peoples who inhabited those lands. A lot of known written sources, in particular “The History of the Jin Empire” dating back to 1345, provide information about this. Nevertheless, modern books on history pay much less attention to the Jurchens than, say, to their western neighbors, the Tatar-Mongolians and the Empire of Genghis Khan, which was formed in the 13 th century...

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