The Bulgars and the Steppe Empire in the Early Middle Ages

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88 chapter two


the Greeks) with Scythia,^5 i.e. with the nomads’ area! Besides that story
of Herodotus, there are other legends about the Amazons’ appearance
in Scythia as well,^6 but the steady image and notion about the power-
ful women in the Eurasian steppes is linked also to the heirs of the
Scythians in that same area, namely the Sarmatians. Their society was
often labeled by ancient writers as a “gynekokratia”, e.g. a society with/
under “women’s power”. It is hardly believable that such topoi and
images appeared by chance, because the Sarmatians came to the area
north of the Caucasus Mountains exactly from Central Asia, and after
the second century B.C. managed to subdue totally the Scythians in
the region west of the Caspian Sea.
This “women’s power” sometimes was transformed into real power
and it seems that such kind of moments in history gave reason to
the existence of the topos. The sixth century for instance knows such
cases: it was Boarix, the widow of Balakh and ruler of the Savirs, who,
according to Theophanes the Confessor, “started to rule over in the
Huns’ lands after the death of her husband”;^7 she was capable enough
to achieve success on both diplomatic and battle grounds. Some years
later, in 576 A.D., it was the Turk Anagai who raised to power Akaga
over the Utigurs and she, probably together with him as a Turks’
deputy, ran the region north of the Caucasus.^8 Svetlana Pletneva is
inclined to accept that something similar happened in the eighth cen-
tury in Khazaria—there, the mother of the late khagan Parsbit was
in fact the person who ruled over the Khazars although her grand-
son, Parsbit’s son indeed, had already been invested with the supreme
power and even launched a raid against the Caucasian Albanians.^9
Such behavior in “Pax Nomadica” follows the pattern of the women
rulers of Sauromatians, Saka tribes, and Massagetae during Antiquity;^10
because of this reason, for us it is not a surprise. As far as Bulgaria is
concerned, we should bear in mind Al. Fol’s claim that a big part of


(^5) Gerodot [Herodotus] 1972, 214 (Bk. IV).
(^6) See Pletneva 1998, 529, with literature cited in notes 2 and 3. For the appearance
of the topos ‘amazons’ and its ancient roots and nuances in meaning see, Fol 1991,
14–18. For some notions in Thracian milieu referring to the young woman as well as
color markers of her status in Bulgarian folklore see, Marazov 1985, 90–117; Marazov
2003, 13–51, esp. pp. 16–17, 24, 27, 34.
(^7) Chichurov 1980, 50.
(^8) Menander 1958, 228.
(^9) Pletneva 1998, 535.
(^10) There exist innumerable works in this field. For instance see, Tolstov 1948, 325–
331; Smirnov 1964.

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