38 chapter one
(in the region of the present-day Debelt, Sozopol, Nessebar, Pomorie,
etc. in Bulgaria, in particular) and inhabited by a Christian population.
One should keep in mind that in the second half of the eighth century
Constantine V sent to Th race Christian populations from the eastern
parts of the empire, Syrians mainly, and also people professing the
Paulician heresy consisting mostly of Armenians.^82
Th is way, in contrast to Turks, Uighurs and to certain extent Kha-
zars, the Bulgars conquered and organized in their own way the ter-
ritories of the sedentary foreign civilization in the greater part of
Southeastern Europe. Maybe this was one of the main reasons that
they (the only ones among the four above-mentioned ethnic groups)
accepted the religion of their primary enemy. It was the Bulgars who
most courageously and successfully broke up the barriers set by the
sedentary civilizations in front of the “northern barbarians” and thus
shortened the cultural distance between them. It was at that moment
when true acquaintance with and acceptance of elements of the Byz-
antine otherness began, related already to the somewhat compulsory
and permanent settlement of the Bulgars.
Th is general review reveals that while in the sixth-seventh cen-
tury the above-mentioned ‘early’ states were nomadic (regarding the
value system, traditions, lifestyle, etc.), in the eighth-ninth century the
boundaries began to blur. Urban lifestyle, combining the acceptance
of the otherness of the sedentarists with the own traditions, began to
form among the former nomads and especially among the Bulgars and
the Khazars as well as some Turks in the Western khaganate and part
of the Uighurs. Th e ‘propaganda’ of the world religions in the ‘Steppe
Empire’ also grew more intense.^83 All this leads to a better acquaintance
with the Outside Other. Th e contradictions did not disappear, but there
Th race were ‘beyond the Danube’, was indeed too a brief (not more than quarter of a
century) to allow for a real contact zone. We need evidence and artifacts at our dis-
posal if we want to make such a claim. And until now such evidence is quite scarce. 82
See evidence in, Th eophanes 1960, 269–270, and Nicephoros Patriarch 1960, 301.
Before the ninth century it is diffi cult to talk about a contact zone in the region to the
north of Odessos (today Varna in Bulgaria) and spanning to the estuary of the Danube
River, because the four other—except Odessos—towns in this area, e.g. Dionyssopolis,
Kalatis, Tomi, and Istros, together with several smaller forts and villages along the
Black Sea coastal line, were already in ruins aft er the devastating raids in the region
in the fi rst half of the seventh century. Th at is why the new villages were in fact built
away from the coastal line—details see in, Rashev 1997, 33–37. 83
Details see in, Khazanov 1994, 11–33.