136 CHAPTER 2
the Pechenegs that inhabited the European steppes into two communities, but
refers to all of them, as opposed to the Turkic ones that remained in Asia.43
According to Al-Bakri and Gardizi, the Pechenegs shared borders with the
Cumans to the east, with the Khazars to the southwest, with the Slavs to the
west, and “all these peoples carry out invasions, attack the Pechenegs, take
them prisoner and sell them (into slavery)”.44 B. Zakhoder believes that there
appears to be a mixing of the accounts on the periods before and after the
Pecheneg migration, but it is also possible that the European and the Asian
Pechenegs are both being identified at the same time.45 The important thing
in this case is the information on the attacks on the Pechenegs and their sub-
sequent sale into slavery by the Khazars. Again according to Hudud al-ʿAlam,
the majority of the slaves that entered the Muslim countries from the direction
of Khazaria were Khazar Pechenegs.46 In this sense, the words of the Khazar
ruler Joseph—that the Pechenegs were subject to his power and paid him
tribute—seem completely plausible.47 Of course, they should not be taken
literally. It is possible that the Pecheneg tribes, whose pastures were located
west of the Don, near the Khazar (Bulgar and Bulgaro-Alanian) lands,
were subject to Khazar rule. Based on the information from Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, J. Howard-Johnston believes that the Khazars maintained
some kind of influence and control over the Pechenegs.48
In connection with this, the accounts about the Bulgars in the Northern
Black Sea region are of special importance. In the treaty, signed by the Rus’
Prince Igor and Byzantium in 944, Kievan Rus’ undertook the obligation not
to attack the Byzantine lands in the Crimea, as well as not to let the “Black
Bulgars” enter them. This is the only mention of the Black Bulgars in Povest’
Vremennykh Let.49 In fact, the written sources about them date from the tenth
century. They are also mentioned twice by Constantine Porphyrogenitus (who
wrote De Administrando Imperio, On the Governance of the Empire, between
948 and 952), who describes Black Bulgaria as a country which can fight the
Khazars.50
43 See also Romashov 2002–2003, 169 and 2004, 239–241.
44 Zakhoder 1967, 73.
45 Zakhoder 1967, 73.
46 Zakhoder 1967, 73.
47 Kokovtsov 1932.
48 Howard-Johnston 2007, 188–190.
49 Povest’ Vremennykh Let in Adrianova-Peretts 1950, 34.
50 Constantine Porphyrogenitus. De Administrando Imperio, chapter 12, in Litavrin and
Novosel’tsev 1989, 53.