Conclusion 281
did not differ significantly, ethnically or culturally, from the steppe nomads
themselves. They had no intention of subjugating China.
The stone inscriptions left by the Turks and the Uyghurs stress their desire
to rule over “their own” in a space, delineated by a square. “Their own” were
the peoples, spread in the four directions or four corners of the square. China
was not seen as part of this world and remained “alien” to it.51 This “own” space
is marked in Khazaria by the Khazar ruler Joseph as the authority over the
descendants of Togarmah. According to L. Gumilev, the ethnic integrity and
stability of Khazaria was due to the fact that its people belonged to the “West
Eurasian super-ethnos”. Only the Jews were excluded from it.52
The khaganates’ “own” subject communities engaged in various economic
practices. The sedentary population from the neighboring regions around the
steppe zone, as well as from the steppe agricultural oases, was similar in origins
and culture to the “steppe nomads”. In this sense, any boundaries that could be
drawn in the steppes cannot be based on economy. Farmers and nomads can
form a sustainable community even if they have different ethnic backgrounds
and some of them are newcomers (or conquerors), when they belong to the
same cultural-ideological whole. A good example of this is Khwarezm.53
Therefore, of essential significance for the establishment and existence of
the steppe empires is not the opposition in the north-south direction (which
is a major direction, but with regard to the so-called “outside” other, as Ts.
Stepanov puts it), but in the east-west direction (along which subordinate agri-
cultural societies can be referred to as the “the friendly other”).54 The establish-
ment of the Bulgarian, Avar and Magyar state is the result of such an opposition
(the Bulgars of Asparukh were ousted by the Khazars, as were the Avars by the
Turks and the Magyars by the Pechenegs). The Khazar state was created west
of the Caspian Sea, on a territory that was peripheral to the Western Turkic
Khaganate, and the establishment itself probably did not lead to any military
conflicts between the Khazars and the Turks. With regard to the account of the
Khazar ruler Joseph, the war with Great Bulgaria from the mid-seventh century
could be seen as fundamental for the Khazar Empire.
The traits shared by all state entities in the steppe world, as well as in its
periphery, should be sought not in their economy, but in their ideology. For
it was the ideology that united in a whole the various communities, scattered
across the vast expanses of Eurasia, that differed in origins and economy. The
51 See Stepanov 2005a, 114–116.
52 Gumilev 1997, 82.
53 See Vainberg 1990, 164–169.
54 On this issue, see Stepanov 2005a, 33–44.