The Ideology Of The Ninth And Tenth Centuries 21
(probably in Middle Asia) or as a consequence of their historical development
and the contacts made during their migrations towards Europe. When consid-
ering the problem of a nation’s origin, it is common to search for some hypo-
thetical land of origin. But in truth, the land of origin of the Bulgars, Khazars
and Alans will hardly ever be precisely located.
The situation is quite different when trying to specify the cultural commu-
nity to which a given people belong. In this respect, the ideas associated with
state government, mythology, traditions, artifacts of material culture and burial
practices, though common among different peoples and different regions, are
a reliable guide. Generally speaking, the Bulgars, Khazars and Alans are steppe
people. During the period in question, the steppe people belonged to three
large language groups: the Iranian, Turkic and Ugric one. Linguistic differences
do not necessarily imply differences in the field of spiritual culture and in the
political state model. That is why it is difficult, in the absence of sufficient and
convincing evidence, to determine the linguistic affiliation of many of the
tribes, mentioned in the sources, who inhabited Eastern Europe at the time
after the Hunnic invasion (the fourth century). After the end of the fourth cen-
tury AD, a gradual Turkicization of the steppe population began, with this pro-
cess being far from over in the tenth century. Moreover, it should be borne in
mind that “the countries in Pax Nomadica were a priori multiethnic and mul-
tilingual. In such unions, the language of the ruling family (tribe) is imposed
naturally, and is periodically replaced by another during a change of those
in power. The presence of such a supratribal language, such a lingua franca,
for a certain period of time, however, does not signify a linguistic unification
in this type of communities”.15 When it comes to the cultural community of
the steppe peoples, it must be borne in mind that to them this community
was “specific for every age, i.e. it varied in time, but very scarcely in space. All
the numerous cultures that have been distinguished by archaeologists are
local or local-temporal variations of the vast and complex nomadic (eques-
trian) cultural community in every age, covering the entire Eurasian Steppe.
Characteristically, the demise of individual variations of this community does
not change or violate its development as a whole”.16
15 Stepanov 2000, 113; see also Stepanov 2003c, 17 and 27; on this topic, see also Pritsak 1981a,
- According to Gumilev 1997, 64, it is not possible to find out what exactly was the lan-
guage of the Bulgars and Khazars during the fifth and the sixth centuries. The prevalence
of the Turkic language in the steppes took place in the eleventh century.
16 Pletneva 1982, 152.