Medieval nomadism
[ 1 ] Ośrodek Badań nad Kulturą Późnego Antyku i Wczesnego Średniowiecza we Wrocławiu, Instytut Archeologii i Etnologii Polskiej Akademii Nauk | [ P ] pracownik
2021
rozdział w monografii naukowej
angielski
EN A resistant historiographic stereotype is to treat nomads like natural disasters that strike and wreak havoc, only to retreat suddenly and disappear from the sight of civilized Europeans for many centuries. Nomads are even used to “explain” the backwardness of certain regions of the European continent, when no other scapegoat is available. Nomads are blamed for the decline and fall of the western part of the Roman Empire, as well as for the separation of Rus’ from the rest of the European continent. Despite the “literary turn” in historiography, such tropes have not disappeared. Instead, they seem to have morphed into new themes. The nomads are currently viewed not only as the trigger of the “Great Migration” or of the timor Tartarorum of the High Middle Ages, but also as architects of extensive continental links, responsible for launching “small-scale globalizations” of large parts of Eurasia. Despite a more positive spin, the new stereotypes are also drawing on obsessions with single causes for all phenomena, in this case, the so-called Silk Road. Without denying the importance of that communication artery, one should keep in mind that many of its variants purposefully avoided the lands inhabited by nomads. Moreover, communication within Eurasia developed best at times of political unification, which only happened twice in the time span considered in this book—during the Ashina Turkic Empire of the late 6th and 7th centuries and, again, during the Pax Mongolica, ca. 1250 to ca. 1350. Moreover, the obsessive preoccupation with the Silk Road downplays other arteries of communication, especially those connecting the northern to the southern parts of Eurasia, in which nomadic people played a significant role. In fact, such connections had a much greater role in the development of Europe than the Silk Road variants running through the steppes.
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