Conclusion 273
being forgotten is that information on individual nomadic tribal groups cannot
create a complete rendering of the manners and customs in the steppe empire.
Thus, the Oghuz are given as an example of a people that despised engaging
in agriculture. But the Oghuz had cities and settlements, as well as irrigation
agriculture. The account of Ibn Fadlan, who passed through steppe territories
ruled by the Oghuz in the early tenth century, depicts a nomadic community.
But would it have been the same if on his way to Volga Bulgaria Ibn Fadlan had
passed through the Oghuz urban centers along the lower reaches of the Syr
Darya? A similar duality can be seen among various nomadic ethnic groups.
On the Balkans, the Yuruks and the Vlachs (Tsintsars) included both nomads
and semi-nomads and a sedentary urban population, and the “citizens” were
by no means poor.19 This clarification is important in view of the presumption
that only the poorest parts of the nomadic society settled down and engaged
in agriculture.20 At times it was actually so, but not always. On the other hand,
proponents of this theory often argue that a true nomad is a poor nomad.21 In
other words, in order to be able to survive, the nomad had to take up farming
as well.
According to many historians, agriculture was more accessible to the
nomads in the western parts of the Eurasian Steppe (west of the Volga), where
the natural conditions were more suitable. At the same time, the nobility con-
tinued to lead a nomadic lifestyle. Khazaria usually serves as an example for
such an economy, based on the account of the Khazar ruler Joseph, according
to which he left his capital in spring and travelled through his subject territo-
ries, before returning back home in winter.22 More likely, the account referred
to a ritual that was typical not only for the nomadic societies, but also for
quite a few sedentary ones with a structure resembling that of an early state.23
According to N. Di Cosmo, agriculture, along with the notion of statehood, was
not the product of an external influence, but the result of the inner develop-
ment of the steppe societies.24 The agriculture of the stock-breeding nomads
times an extraordinary flexibility or adaptability as former nomads (or semi-nomads)
towards a sedentary way of life”.
19 See Kal’onski 2007.
20 Khazanov 1975, 150 and 1994, 83; Pletneva 1982, 38.
21 These words belong to Lattimore 1940, quoted from Kradin 2001a, 95.
22 Golden 1980, 105; Artamonov 1962, 398; Pletneva 1967, 47 and 147; Pletneva 1989, 24;
Pletneva 1999, 33 and 203; Noonan 1995–1997, 259.
23 See Kobishchanov 1995.
24 Di Cosmo 1994. See especially Di Cosmo 1999 and 2004, 167–190. E. Kychanov also asserts
that statehood among nomads was the result of their inner development. Unfortunately,