24 chapter one
Th eophilos (829–842) in Byzantium, they were returned to Byzantium
aft er a successful campaign of the Byzantine fl eet somewhere at the
Danube estuary.^36 So, according to the Bulgar version, at least until
the 830s, the Other (the Byzantines in this particular case) was placed
either in the center (i.e. under the control of the central authority), or
along the borders, far from real and everyday contact with the Bulgar
population.^37
It was as late as the 830s–850s when a gradual change began, which
was related to the successful military campaigns of the Bulgars who
conquered quickly and this time settled permanently on a greater
part of the so-called Byzantine West. Th e control over the otherness/
foreignness already had to fi nd new directions and new forms since
the boundaries were in fact disappearing. Th is was how a dialogue
between the two cultures began and the formation of a special contact
zone on the territories of Western Th race and present-day Macedonia
facilitated this process. Its additional intensity became possible aft er
the acceptance of Christianity by the Bulgars (aft er 865 A.D.) when
new reference points were established for the notion of the Other (for
the Bulgars it was Byzantium). However, this period goes beyond the
scope of the study.^38
Another important contact zone in Europe in the early mediaeval
period, related to the boundaries and the possibilities of creating a
syncretic culture which restrained the most negative notions of the
Other, is beyond any doubt the Crimean Peninsula.^39 Aft er the 670s its
entire territory, with the exception of the town of Chersonesus and a
chain of settlements and monasteries along the southern coast of the
peninsula, was in the hands of the Khazar khagan and it remained so
until the eleventh century. Th e Crimean Peninsula is one of the places
(^36) Rashev 2001, 119.
(^37) Stepanov 2000, 144–166; cf. Browning 1988, 33–35. For the Byzantines in Bul-
garia until 864 A.D. in general see, Rashev 2004, 151–162—according to Rashev
(p. 155), the Byzantines who were settled in the central part of the state and in Pliska,
in particular, could have had “some infl uence for the penetration as well as popular-
ization of the Christian ideas and ethics” among the Bulgars.
(^38) For the changes in the notions of the ‘Other’ and in the self-knowledge of ‘Us’,
e.g. the main characteristics of the Bulgarian culture aft er the mass penetration of
Christianity in the country aft 39 er 864 A.D., see details in, Polyviannyi 2000, 30–56.
Baranov 1990, for the archeological aspects of the problem. Also see, Nekra-
sov 1995, 22–41; Noonan 1998–1999, 207–230; Sorochan 2003, 21–46. Th e book of
A. Aibabin, “Etnicheskaia istoriia rannevizantiiskogo Kryma” (Simferopol’, 1999) was
not available to me.