26 chapter one
Th e role of Crimea being an important contact center-boundary
and a possibility for acquaintance with the Other is confi rmed also
by the fact that the dethroned basileus Justinian II (685–695; 705–
711) was sent into exile there aft er 695 A.D. Apparently, at that time
the so-called Chersonesus’ Taurica was considered a no man’s land
by the Byzantines (cf. the Byzantine notion about the Danube River
as the northern/western border of the oikoumene, the space arranged
according to the regulations of the Byzantine Christian and imperial
‘order’).^42 Consequently, the Crimean Peninsula was considered an
appropriate place to send a punished Byzantine citizen^43 (cf. the earlier
banishment of Ovid in Tomi, present-day Constanţa in Romania, i.e.
again on the border with the nomads-barbarians Scythians and Sarma-
tians). Th e ambivalence of this borderland was also confi rmed later on,
during the mission of St. Constantine-Cyril, the so-called Philosopher,
to the Khazars (860–861).^44 Th ere, he had to lead a dispute with the
representatives of the other monotheistic religions and to convince
the Khazar khagan in the advantages of Christianity. Why did this
dispute happen near the border and, at the same time, on no man’s
land and not for example in the Khagan’s capital Itil at the Volga estu-
ary? Were the authors assuming that the meeting actually happened in
Samandar and did they have good reasons for this assumption? Did
any utilitarian reason (the easier access of the Byzantine ships to the
ports of the peninsula?) predetermine the choice, or was there a deeper
meaning and symbolism, such as a search for a place defi ned (border,
uncertainty, etc.?) as being neutral and, for that reason, considered
appropriate for a contest with the other religions? Th ese are questions
that have to be asked regardless of the fact that the answers are not
clear and simple.
During the fl ourishing of the nomadic confederations the border-
lands were uninhabited as a rule and thus the places for an acquain-
tance with the Other were reduced mostly to the trade points along the
(^42) Tapkova-Zaimova 1976, 14; Vachkova 2004, 135–150.
(^43) Th e pope-martyr St Martin (the seventh century) was sent in exile to Crimea
and died there. According to Ukhanova 2000, 124, in the period between seventh and
ninth century in Byzantium, Chersonesus was “thought as a place for exile”.
(^44) Obolenski 2001, 101; also see, Zuckerman 1995, 237–270; Kovalev 2005, argues
that Judaism in Khazaria was accepted between December 3rd 837 A.D. and Novem-
ber 22nd 838 A.D., so the dispute with St Cyril is an anachronism and was a later
addition in the text. With this statement, indeed, he agrees with an idea presented
earlier by O. Pritsak (see Pritsak 1988, 298), which follows that same direction.