because Tatars were compelled to fight as vanguards before the main body of Mongol cavalry and the ethnonym Tatars would then be transferred to all Mongols. However, Bartold, Ushnitsky, Klyashtorny, Theobald, and Pow notice that even ethnic Mongols were often called Tatars, especially in unofficial sources either authored by foreigners (e.g. Turks, Chinese, Jurchens, Javanese) or by ethnic Mongols themselves (e.g. general Muqali or even Khan Ögedei). Pow proposes that the Mongolic-speaking tribes used the endonym Tatar during the first 30 to 40 years of the Mongol Empire's expansion, before self-identifying as Mongols, originally a dynastic-state label taken after the 12th-century Great Mongol State (大蒙古國); meanwhile, the old endonym Tatar fell out of favor and would be used to as a derogatory term for rebellious Mongolic-speaking tribes; Pow further speculates that the name-change was motivated by insecurities: either because the enemies held in contempt the name Tatar, or because the subjects used the endonym Tatar for Mongolic-speaking elites, or because rivalries among Genghis Khan's descendants necessitated the delineation of "in" and "out" groups. Legacy Turkic-speaking peoples of Dasht-i-Kipchak, as a sign of political allegiance, adopted the endonym of their Mongolic-speaking conquerors, before ultimately subsuming the latter culturally and linguistically. Notes References History of Mongolia Mongol peoples Former confederations Former monarchies