Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas
Im Auftrag des Osteuropa-Instituts Regensburg
herausgegeben von Martin Schulze Wessel und Dietmar Neutatz
Ausgabe: 60 (2012) H. 2, S. 261-262
Verfasst von: Matthew P. Romaniello
Tsvetelin Stepanov: The Bulgars and the Steppe Empire in the Early Middle Ages: The Problem of the Others. Translated from Bulgarian by Tatiana Stefanova and Tsvetelin Stepanov. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2010. XIII, 154 S., 29 Abb., 3 Ktn. = East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, 8. ISBN: 978-90-04-18001-7.
Stepanov has written an engaging synthesis of a broad swath of people and geography. It analyzes the common cultural features of the “Steppe Empires” – the Bulgars, Khazars, Turks, and Uighurs – from the sixth to tenth centuries, a golden age of their influence and power. Stepanov focuses these societies through the lens of alterity – considering both the difference between nomadic and settled civilizations as well as differences within nomadic communities. His theoretical approach allows him in turn to consider a considerable array of topics – religion, women, “freedom,” and geographic delineations.
This is an unique approach for a study of the early Steppe, and maximizes the limited extant evidence. Stepanov’s interest is in recasting this archaeological and textual evidence as a history from an “inside” perspective of the nomads. As a result, Stepanov largely transposes the identity of the “civilized” onto the Steppe communities (his “Empires”), who partially define their “civilization” in response to their rejection of their own “barbaric” northern neighbors. As Stepanov writes, the north “was regarded as a direction of refrain, especially by the Bulgars, Khazars, and Uighurs” (p. 39).
The text itself is thematic, and each brief topic spans several centuries and both ends of the continent. This is the advantage of casting the book as a study of alterity, because the idea of “us versus them” highlights the common cultural features of the nomads as seen in opposition to the settled empires of the south. Each of the four groups established some sort of relations with their southern neighbors, engaged with trade that crossed this border (mostly involving Sogdian merchants), and participated in similar processes in order to adopt new “world religions.” Internally, each reified a division with women and spiritual leaders, revealing that the common identity of a Steppe nomad excluded the same groups as well. In a book revolving around an analysis of difference, the commonalities are far more apparent. At the same time, by framing the entire text as a comparison of “insiders” and “outsiders,” Stepanov creates an ideal of a Steppe nomad who is a man, preferably a warrior, and one motivated by politics. A Bulgar or Uighur warrior, therefore, has more in common with each other than with their wives or daughters (who are clearly identified as “outsiders” by Stepanov). As a result, his methodology diminishes the importance of ethno-linguistic difference, which is not addressed in the text at all.
Despite the apparent divide between the Steppe and the southern empires, the borders between them were far more porous than resilient. New customs and traditions were readily adopted by the nomads. Among the many examples of this cultural assimilation, Stepanov relates the anecdote of the Uighurs adopting the Chinese practice of tea-drinking, even as they continued to mock the Chinese as weak opponents. After 757, the Uighurs often sent weak and feeble horses to China in exchange for silk, and “according to the notions of a noble Uighur, forcing someone to buy a weak horse meant that you made him declare his weakness and lack of dignity” (p. 60). These types of exchanges demonstrate that despite the ‘open’ border in which goods and customs could be transferred, cultural understandings had not penetrated as extensively. Such evidence would be enriched not necessarily through a lens of alterity as much as a consideration of the work of cultural anthropologists such as Sidney Mintz or Marshall Sahlins who have rigorously evaluated cross-cultural exchanges between ‘civilized’ and ‘barbaric’ peoples. However, Stepanov suggests that the failure of cultural transmissions was proof of the success of creating an “Other” to the south. As he argues, the frontier was not a space of interaction producing new identities, but rather a line “distinctively marked [by] the rejection of (or at least an attempt at reducing) contacts between nomadic and sedentary societies” (p. 14).
Considering the limited resources available for the subject, and the intriguing topics and evidence included in the text, Stepanov’s book is worthy of notice for revealing new information about a little studied topic important for understanding the history of Eurasia. The author should be highly commended for seeing his Bulgarian text (originally published in 2005) translated into English to make the material available to a wider audience. There is much here for thought, but questions still remain about the role of difference among the Eurasian nomads.
Zitierweise: Matthew P. Romaniello über: Tsvetelin Stepanov: The Bulgars and the Steppe Empire in the Early Middle Ages: The Problem of the Others. Translated from Bulgarian by Tatiana Stefanova and Tsvetelin Stepanov. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2010. XIII. = East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450, 8. ISBN: 978-90-04-18001-7, http://www.dokumente.ios-regensburg.de/JGO/Rez/Romaniello_Stepanov_Bulgars_and_the_Steppe_Empire.html (Datum des Seitenbesuchs)
© 2012 by Osteuropa-Institut Regensburg and Matthew P. Romaniello. All rights reserved. This work may be copied and redistributed for non-commercial educational purposes, if permission is granted by the author and usage right holders. For permission please contact redaktion@osteuropa-institut.de
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