CHAPTER ONETHE ‘OUTSIDE’ OTHERI.1. Th e Other is ‘locked behind walls’, or about the role of the initial
visual demarcationOne of the most intriguing problems of the history of the Eurasian
steppe lands is the reason driving the nomads to large-scale migra-
tions and military campaigns against sedentary agricultural civiliza-
tions living to the south. Various opinions were expressed on the
matter^1 and they can be summarized in the following way: 1) various
climatic changes of global nature (А. Toynbee, G. Grum-Grzhimaylo,
L. Gumilev); 2) the military and predatory nature of nomadic societ-
ies; 3) the demographic growth in the steppes; 4) the development
of productive forces and the ensuing class struggle or, alternatively,
the weakening of the agricultural civilizations as a result of feudal
fragmentation (various concepts following the Marxist model and its
methodology); 5) the need to complement the extensive stock breed-
ing economy by military campaigns against the more stable, sedentary,
and agricultural societies; 6) the unwillingness of sedentary societies
to trade with the nomads (the absence of any markets for the sale of
surplus of livestock); 7) the personal, charismatic qualities of the lead-
ers of the steppe communities; 8) irrational impulses towards ethnic
integration (L. Gumilev’s “passionarism”).
Several explanations contain rational elements, but none of them,
taken separately, could account for all known historical cases and
allow a synthetic approach to the history of nomadic migrations. Th e
only common denominator for all known historical cases is interest,
to put it in the most neutral way, which nomads had in sedentary
societies. Th e stability of the steppe societies was directly depending
upon the abilities of the aristocratic elites to organize the transfer of
(^1) For the summary of all these hypotheses see, Kradin 2001, 23; Khazanov 1994b,
37–39, passim.