30 chapter oneIt is the ‘domestic’ inscriptions that provide a good opportunity for
interpretation of the concepts of the “steppe empire” regarding the
naming of the Outside Other. Indeed, the naming, as is generally con-
sidered, contains a powerful (self-)identifying supply of energy and
potential. Th e Turkic Orkhon inscriptions provide numerous exam-
ples in this respect. In them, the subjects of the Middle Kingdom were
called “Tabgach”.
It is even more interesting to note the names the Bulgars called the
Byzantines. On all stone inscriptions the latter are represented by the
name “Greeks”; the Bulgars continued to use the same name even aft er
they accepted Christianity in 860s.^57 In fact the Byzantines were also
named “Greeks” (Graeci) in the written sources from early mediaeval
Western Europe. Until the thirteenth century at least, the Byzantines
reacted in a very negative way to this name and it oft en caused dip-
lomatic and political embroilments in relations between Byzantium
and various western European rulers, especially the emperors and the
Papacy. It seems that the “new people” from the so-called barbarian
kingdoms and especially the Carolingians refused to recognize the
Roman identity of the subjects of the former Eastern Roman Empire.
It was the way they intentionally stressed the groundless claims of the
Byzantine basileus to the ‘Roman Augustus/Emperor’ title. It seems
quite logical aft er the late sixth century with view to the fact that the
Greek language replaced Latin in the Byzantine Empire and the Greek
lifestyle and habits began to dominate over the Latin ones. However,
the refusal of those people who established their polities on the ter-
ritories of the former Roman Empire to recognize the Roman identity
of the Byzantines had a further aim and it was related to their own
identity and its gradual establishment as a counterpoint to the Byz-
antine one. Th e Bulgar ‘kanasybigi’ Omurtag declared this in a very
explicit way in one of his inscriptions (the so-called Chatalar inscrip-
tion, which was found near the present-day village of Tsar Krum, Shu-
men region in Bulgaria): “Khanasybigi Omurtag is by God’s will an
archon of the land where he was born” (ital. mine, Ts. St.).^58 It was no
longer the land of the others (i.e. the Byzantines) although present-day
important factors in constructing imperial identities among Bulgars, Ancient Turks,
and Uighurs, see Stepanov 2005, 151–157.(^57) See Beshevliev 1992, N N 1, 3, 13, 57.
(^58) Beshevliev 1992, N 57. For the naming “Greeks” see, Tapkova-Zaimova 1984,
51–58; Litavrin 1986, 103–104.