The Khazar Economy: Economic Integration or Disintegration? 179
The methods for providing the necessary products for a nomadic society
determine several types of development for the nomadic states. With the first
one, the sedentary society or state retain their autonomy, their dependence
consisting only in the payment of taxes. In other cases the farmers and nomads
share a state and a common territory, but do not live in the same settlements.
The nomads begin to gradually settle down and cities are built, becoming
administrative, commercial and craft centers. It is possible for the nomadic
society to continue the sedentarization process and eventually to become
urban-agricultural, but this can also lead to the decline in significance of agri-
culture and handicrafts, to urban decay and the disintegration of the state
itself.42 The sedentary societies’ subordination, expressed in tribute-payment,
is most common in nomadic states. The nobility of the agricultural societies is
preserved, but its interests are often opposite to those of the nomadic nobility.
This way, there are two privileged strata in the state. This is often seen as one
of the reasons for the instability of nomadic states. Their further development
leads to a greater integration of the agricultural and stock-breeding population
and to the merging of the two privileged strata.43
With the second type of development, which sometimes evolves from the
first one, some of the nomads and farmers (usually the nobility) gradually inte-
grate, forming a single socio-political and sometimes economic system. The
nomads and farmers live in the same ecological zones. And with the third type
of development, a single political and socio-economic system is built, based on
division of labor between the stock-breeders and farmers. The nomadic state
can also develop through inner settlement without the conquest or subjuga-
tion of an agricultural population. Such a change can also be caused by a reli-
gious movement.44
42 Khazanov 1994, 231–232. The theory that the development of the steppe (“nomadic”)
society is highly dependent on relations with the so-called external (sedentary) world
is accepted by many historians. See for instance Barfield 2001a and 2001b; Kradin 1994;
Kradin 2001b; Kradin 2001a, 29–40 and 95–137; Kradin and Skrynnikova 2006, 29–55 and
119–125.
43 Khazanov 1975, 163–164 and 190–191.
44 Khazanov 1994, 232–233. According to Kradin and Skrynnikova 2006, 54–55, a distinction
should be made between the classic “nomadic empires” and the quite similar agricul-
tural and stock-breeding empires, in whose history stock-breeding played a major role.
Examples of such empires include the Arab Caliphate, the Seljuk state, Danube and Volga
Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. He defines three models of nomadic empires that
reflect the relations between the agricutural and the nomadic societies. In the first one,
the nomads exploit the farmers through occasional raids or by taking “gifts”. The second
type implies that the farmers are dependent on the nomads and pay them taxes. And with