the ‘outside’ other 23
a certain extent.^33 However, it is beyond any doubt that living in the
peripheral zone of the old sedentary civilization had an impact on the
Turks’ better acquaintance with Chinese otherness. Th is conclusion is
hard to support with solid proofs of material (i.e. visible) nature. It is
rather implicitly embodied in certain passages of the above-mentioned
Orkhon inscriptions and in ‘Tang shu’.
Th e situation with the periphery-dialogue- otherness-boundary of the
Uighurs seems somewhat clearer. In 762/763 A.D. khagan I-ti-chien
(usually transcribed in the literature as Mou-yü), aft er spending three
months in the city of Lo-yang (one of the Chinese capital cities) and
accepting Manichaeism, returned back and proclaimed Manichaeism
a state religion.^34 However, he was converted to the new religion not
by the Chinese, but by Sogdians living in the capital of the Middle
Kingdom, a fact to which special attention will be paid later on. At
this point it is enough to mention that penetrating into Ordubaliq, the
Uighur capital, the otherness of Manichaeism was going to bring many
changes among the aristocratic elite of the khaganate.^35
Th e situation related to the Bulgars diff ers in this respect. Th ey not
only separated themselves by earthen ramparts from the Other, but did
not admit them easily to their country either. Th e exceptions increased
in number aft er the fi rst decade of the ninth century when several out-
standing Byzantine military commanders came to serve to khan Krum
(803–814) and lived at his court in Pliska. Such military commanders
were also employed by Omurtag (814–831) and Malamir (831–836).
However, there they were also under the careful scrutiny and control
of the aristocratic elite (Other here was regarded also as foreign and
threatening due to his Christian nature). On the other hand, the Byz-
antines taken captive in the campaigns of 813–814 A.D. in Eastern
Th race settled down far from the state center, in “Bulgaria beyond the
Danube River” (i.e. to the north of the Danube), probably along the
borders with the Khazars and it does not seem likely that they were
able to exercise essential infl uence on the Bulgars. Th e more impor-
tant thing is that as early as the late 830s, during the reign of Emperor
(^33) For the diffi culties with the Turkic lands reclaimed by the Chinese aft er 630 A.D.
as well as diff erent ideas among the Chinese court elite with regard to the subdued
Turkic population which was not able to fi t easily into the sedentary civilization of
China see, Popova 1999, 190–202. 34
Mackerras 1990, 329–330; Barfi eld 1989, 159; Christian 1998, 267.
(^35) More see in, Barfi eld 1989, 157–159.