For most students in medieval studies, Eastern Europe is marginal and
East European topics simply exotica. A peculiar form of Orientalism may
thus be responsible for the exclusion of the Avars, Bulgars, Khazars,
and Cumans from the medieval history of the European continent. This
collection of studies is an attempt to stimulate research in a
comparative mode and to open up a broader discussion about such key
themes as material culture, ethnicity, historical memory, or conversion
in the context of social and political developments in early medieval
Europe. Another goal of this volume is to introduce a number of new
approaches to the study of what is known as “medieval nomads.” Without
explicitly rejecting the model of raid vs. trade famously introduced by
Anatoly Khazanov, many contributions in this volume shift the emphasis
on internal developments that have received until now little or no
attention.
Preface
Florin Curta, Introduction
1. Tivadar Vida, Conflict and coexistence: the local population of the
Carpathian Basin under Avar rule (sixth to seventh century)
2. Peter Stadler, Avar chronology revisited, and the question of ethnicity in the Avar qaganate
3. Péter Somogyi, New remarks on the flow of Byzantine coins in Avaria
and Walachia during the second half of the seventh century
4. Uwe Fiedler, Bulgars in the Lower Danube region. A survey of the
archaeological evidence and of the state of current research
5. Orsolya Heinrich-Tamaska, Avar-age metalworking technologies in the Carpathian Basin (sixth to eighth century)
6. Bartlomiej Szymon Szmoniewski, Two worlds, one hoard: what do metal finds from the forest-steppe belt speak about?
7. Florin Curta, The earliest Avar-age stirrups, or the “stirrup controversy” revisited
8. Valeri Iotov, A note on the “Hungarian sabers” of medieval Bulgaria
9. Veselina Vachkova, Danube Bulgaria and Khazaria as part of the Byzantine oikoumene
10. Tsvetelin Stepanov, From ‘steppe’ to Christian empire and back: Bulgaria between 800 and 1100
11. Dimitri Korobeinikov, A broken mirror: the Kipçak world in the thirteenth century
12. Victor Spinei, The Cuman bishopric – genesis and evolution
13. Florin Curta, The history and archaeology of the “other Europe”. A bibliography