the ‘outside’ other 57
it came to identifi cation, equality of rights, power and the search for
ways to create a ‘Bulgar image’. Th e Bulgars are strangely consistent in
this respect, much more than the Turks and the Uighurs for example;
for the former the Byzantine Empire is not just an image of the Other
among all, but the Image, with capital ‘I’! In fact this Image helps the
Bulgars to defi ne themselves as an opposite image, idea, and experi-
ence, especially in the fi rst half of the ninth century.^163 And it is so
because the Byzantines were the only ones claiming to be masters of
the present-day Balkan Peninsula, or the western part of the Empire
(known also, as mentioned above, as “Dysis”, i.e. ‘West’), while there
were lots of potential claimants of the imperial legacy in the steppes of
Central Asia including the Karluks, the Basmils, and the Qïrghïz tribes.
Th e victories over them were strictly marked on the stelae from the
time of the two Turkic khaganates and the Uighur one. Of course, the
main antagonist for them was again the sedentary world, in general,
and China, in particular.
Th erefore, at Madara, the most sacred topos of pagan Bulgaria, the
Byzantine otherness was permitted only with a view to the cultural
memory of the Bulgars who visualized themselves through the opposi-
tion “we, the Bulgars—they, the Byzantines”. However, this concerns
only the language of the Other and not its signs. Th e function of all
these signs is again signifi cative and diff erentiating at the same time.
Th ey really helped consolidate the (Bulgars’) cultural memory, which
is particularly important for the intensifi cation of the processes of self-
identifi cation.
Th e creation of the notion of the sly and perfi dious Byzantine or
Chinese was supported by the fact that both sedentary civilizations
used the reliable system of sowing the seeds of discord among the
“barbarians” (“divide et impera”—in Rome and the Byzantine Empire,
in particular; “to subdue the barbarians using their own hands”—in
China).^164 For China especially, it was, according to A. Johnston, one of
(^163) Cf. Said 1999, 6—the image of the Orient used by Western Europe to determine
itself through viewing the ‘oriental’ as a counter-image.
(^164) For the Chinese system see, Maliavkin 1980, 103–126. Also see, Popova 1999,
183: “T’ai-tsung said laughing ‘[.. .] Th e old [people used to say]: With the help of the
barbarians win [against] the barbarians’ ”. So these were indeed the roots of the Middle
Kingdom’s power, in emperor’s opinion. For Byzantium see, Prokopii [Procopius]
1983, 49: Justinian I (527–565) “instigated all the barbarians one against the other”;
Agafi i Mirineiskii [Agathias] 1996, 188: at the end of his life the emperor [Justinian
I] “preferred rather to confront the enemies” one with another; and at 204–206: for