134 CHAPTER 2
was directed against the Magyars) and they were “affected only very slightly
by the Pecheneg attacks. The majority of the Saltovo monuments safely sur-
vived the arrival of the Pechenegs in Eastern Europe and there are no traces
of attacks (fires or destructions)”. According to this scholar, the high military
potential of the Alano-Bulgar population, as well as the military support of the
central Khazar government all contributed to this.31
Constantine Porphyrogenitus stresses that the Pechenegs were divided up
into eight tribes.32 They did not succeed in creating a unified, centralized state.
The Pecheneg tribes were lead by separate rulers that were independent from
one another and belonged to different families where power was hereditary.33
Their actions did not always—in fact, not even often—have the same foreign
policy biases. The Pechenegs themselves were a heterogeneous community,
which most likely originated from the mixture of Eastern-Iranian and Turkic
tribes in the Middle Asia area, before their migration towards Eastern Europe.34
Constantine Porphyrogenitus writes that during the tenth century the
Pechenegs inhabited the steppes on both sides of the Dnieper River.35 The
anonymous Persian chronicle from the tenth century, Hudud al-ʿAlam, men-
tions Turkic and Khazar Pechenegs, whom M. Artamonov places to the west
and east of the Dnieper, in accordance with the account of the Byzantine
emperor.36 Since the Eastern source specifies that in the south the Khazar
Pechenegs bordered with the Alans, it is possible that they may have inhabited
a part of the North Caucasus steppes.37 In connection with this, S. Pletneva’s
point of view is interesting: she presumes, based on found traces of the (prob-
ably) Pecheneg population in Samkerts (Tmutarakan) and in Sarkel, that there
31 Tortika 2006a, 145, 153–158, and 505.
32 Constantine Porphyrogenitus. De Administrando Imperio, ch. 37, in Litavrin and
Novosel’tsev 1989, 155–157.
33 Khazanov 1994, 178–179; see also Pritsak 1981b, no. 10, 11–16; Golden 1982, 64–66.
34 Pletneva 1982, 24; Pritsak 1981b, no. 10, 6–8; Armarchuk 2000, 115). Constantine
Porphyrogenitus especially notes three of the Pecheneg subdivisions (the most manly
and noble ones), which bore the name Kangar (Constantine Porphyrogenitus. De
Administrando Imperio, ch. 37, in Litavrin and Novosel’tsev 1989, 159). Namely, these
Kangars are considered to be the successors not only of the population that left behind
the Dzhetyasar culture on the lower reaches of the Syr Darya, but also of the ancient
Kangju (see Vainberg 1990, 100–101 and 283–285).
35 Constantine Porphyrogenitus. De Administrando Imperio, ch. 37, in Litavrin and
Novosel’tsev 1989, 157.
36 Artamonov 1962, 352.
37 Bubenok 1997, 84. Pritsak 1981b, no. 10, 11 places the “Turkic” Pechenegs upstream of the
Severski Donets, and the “Khazar” ones—in the region of Kuban’.