20 chapter one
Th e walls were also able to arouse the curiosity of the “northern
barbarians” and it did not take long. It was through this curiosity that
a true awareness of the Others began to develop, as well as the gradual
adoption of them and some of their typical cultural and social fea-
tures. Th is process was most intensive on the territory of the Western
Turkic khaganate, especially in the Semirechie region, where the other-
ness of the Sogdians (Eastern Iranians) was rather quickly adopted
and dissolved into the own, i.e., in the Turkic. Th e process of actual
forming a contact zone^22 and as a result of it—of a syncretic culture,
was supported to a considerable extent by the Sogdians themselves.
According to S. Kliashtornyi, both in the Semirechie and Eastern
Turkistan in general, the Sogdian aristocrats, e.g. the dihqâns, were
ready to accept Turkic names and titles that defi ned their social status
not only in relation to the local aristocracy but also in relation to the
lowest strata of the local population.^23 Also in relation to their general
entry in the structure and the culture of the khaganate, the absolute
boundaries of the otherness (understood as incomprehensible foreign-
ness) quickly disappeared or were, at least, diluted since the dominat-
ing aspects of the otherness (the ethno-linguistic—our/other language;
the religious—own/foreign religious systems, stereotypes in behavior
and ethical norms; the everyday life in the cities/life in the steppe and,
respectively, a higher technological level in the city/a primitive techno-
logical level in the steppe) began to lose their fi rmness.^24
Why cannot then these walls be automatically related to the creation
of a ‘nomadic’ identity in this period? Th e Bulgars, some of whom
were still nomads in the seventh century, made walls and earthen ram-
parts as early as the end of the same century when they settled down
in Southeastern Europe; the walls were meant to serve as a protec-
tion both against Byzantium and the “barbarians” to the northeast and
northwest. Similarly, in 750–751 A.D., the Uighurs built up a defensive
(and delineating at the same time) line against the Qïrghïz people,
their northern neighbors. Seventeen rectangular and quadrangular for-
tresses with towers and ditches fi lled with water, which served as gar-
risons and centers of sedentarism, were situated along this defensive
(^22) For some aspects of the contact zone in certain regions of Eurasia see, Agadzha-
nov 1995, 7–22; Arutiunova-Fidanian 1995, 42–61; Nekrasov 1995, 22–41; Vostoch-
naia Evropa v drevnosti i srednevekov’e 1999; Arutiunova-Fidanian 1998, 3–4. 23
Kliashtornyi 1964. Also see, Krippes 1991, 67–80.
(^24) Details see in, von Gabain 1983, 613–624.