Curta Florin, Kovalev Roman (eds.) The Other Europe in the Middle Ages. Avars, Bulgars, Khazars and Cumans

Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2008. — 492 p. — (East Central and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages, 450–1450 (2)). — ISBN 978-90-04-16389-8.Most papers in this book were originally presented in three special sessions at the 40th and 42nd editions of the International Congress on Medieval Studies held at Kalamazoo in 2005 and 2007, respectively. The aim of these sessions was to provide a fresh perspective on Eastern Europe during the early Middle Ages, one that would draw strongly on the experience of researchers from that region working on Avars, Bulgars, and Khazars. To that end, the session organizer drew on the knowledge and expertise of a number of specialists from Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Austria, and Poland, in addition to Germany and the United States.Papers at the Kalamazoo Congress drew attention to the interaction between societies in the early medieval Eastern and Western Europe. One pointer to that was dress, as revealed by both archaeological excavations and examination of manuscript illuminations. Burial assemblages in western Hungary, but also in northeastern Bulgaria produced a number of artifacts for which good analogies exist only in Merovingian and Carolingian-era assemblages. Avar or Bulgar dress was a combination of elements of various origins, which was viewed as exotic enough to be marked as special in ninth- and tenth-century manuscript illuminations. Constructing the image of the Other was no doubt based more on preconceived ideas than on actual experience with the ways of life and customs of the Other(s). But the Kalamazoo papers suggested that something more important may have taken place in the early Middle Ages: dress depended upon the social and political context, and Avar and Bulgar envoys to different courts employed different ways of dressing to convey different messages about their identity, as well as that of their rulers. The exotic appearance of what was otherwise called the nomadic component of Avar and Bulgar culture served not only for a self-definition towards outsiders, but also as a source of self-identification and (re-)invention of traditions. Mid-eleventh-century anonymous apocrypha written in Byzantine Bulgaria in Old Church Slavonic propagated a bright vision of the Bulgarian past, portraying the reigns of Boris, Symeon, and Peter as the glorious days long gone. Moreover, Boris appears as Michael Qagan, a ruler with a Christian baptismal name, but with a pre-Christian title operating as a symbol of a non-Byzantine form of group identity.Several original papers resulting from this multinational collaboration were presented for inclusion into this volume: Tivadar Vida, Orsolya Heinrich-Tamaska, Peter Stadler, and Tsvetelin Stepanov. In order to fill some lacunae, but also to draw attention to some of the most important topics of current research on the other Europe, additional articles were commissioned from Pйter Somogyi, Uwe Fiedler, Bartłomiej Szymon Szmoniewski, Valeri Iotov, Veselina Vachkova, Dimitri Korobeinikov, and Victor Spinei.Preface
Introduction
Florin Curta Conflict and coexistence: the local population of the Carpathian Basin under Avar rule (sixth to seventh century). Tivadar Vida
Avar chronology revisited, and the question of ethnicity in the Avar qaganate. Peter Stadler
New remarks on the flow of Byzantine coins in Avaria and Walachia during the second half of the seventh century. Péter Somogyi
Bulgars in the Lower Danube region. A survey of the archaeological evidence and of the state of current research. Uwe Fiedler
Avar-age metalworking technologies in the Carpathian Basin (sixth to eighth century). Orsolya Heinrich-Tamaska
Two worlds, one hoard: what do metal finds from the forest-steppe belt speak about? Bartłomiej Szymon Szmoniewski
The earliest Avar-age stirrups, or the stirrup controversy revisited. Florin Curta
A note on the Hungarian sabers of medieval Bulgaria. Valeri Iotov
Danube Bulgaria and Khazaria as part of the Byzantine oikoumene. Veselina Vachkova
From ‘steppe’ to Christian empire and back: Bulgaria between 800 and 1100. Tsvetelin Stepanov
A broken mirror: the Kıpçak world in the thirteenth century. Dimitri Korobeinikov
The Cuman bishopric – genesis and evolution. Victor Spinei
References
List of contributors
Index