128 conclusion
(indeed through searching for possibilities for moral discreditation of
the sedentary Other) and, on the other hand, of symbolism as well
as hierarchy, i.e. from the anthropological and religious prism. Here
it was the Bulgars who were quite ‘precise’ in their notions toward
Byzantium after the eighth century, and the Turks from the Second
khaganate—towards China.
While getting to know the foreign culture of the sedentary Other
the nomads and semi-nomads used to underline all those features,
which were different from their own culture and style of living, a pro-
cess whereby they in fact managed to build their own identity. Thus,
through distancing from the Others, they indeed tried to strengthen
their own distinctions from the sedentary civilizations for construct-
ing of one’s identity should be understood as a process of interdepen-
dence; it was/is carried out ‘between us and the others, outsiders and
insiders’.^2 At that time, among the nomads there appeared an interest
for proximity and better understanding of the sedentary civilizations’
Otherness and because of this reason, the sedentarists’ images had not
always been constructed following the principles of total antithesis and
total denial.
Still, the sedentary Other had been a priori represented as a threat-
ening stranger, based upon a negative discrepancy, because the own
identity was focused upon the opposition against the Other who was
living to the South.
The notions of the Inside Other were more conservative. It was more
probably due to the fact that they were definitely dependent on the pil-
lar of this kind of societies, namely the clan, and this dependence was
indeed quite strong. It is clearly seen in the role of the women, who
preserved their almost constant character. Also, they can be noticed in
(^2) Minow 1990, 355. According to Barfield 1989, 131, the steppe and China are
“mirror images of each other”, which is another corroboration of the above-men-
tioned thesis. For a similar ‘mirror’ argues D. Polyviannyi when discussing Bulgaria
and Byzantium. It seems that the nomads made a comparison between their own
culture (as values, special signs, etc.) and that of the foreign sedentary civilization
and, at the same time, they usually confronted them. This was indeed a stereotypical
manner in reacting to the Other/Otherness in the pre-modern time—Other and its
Otherness became a mirror image of Mine and Own. In such a paradoxical—to some
degree—prism one can see not only that knowledge that was ‘taken’ from the old
written sources (with their clichés and stereotypes), but also the real knowledge of
the Other that came to the nomads thanks to the hastening of the processes of mutual
understanding and trade contacts between steppe Eurasia and the sedentary civiliza-
tions during the Early Middles Ages.