The Monotheisation of Pontic-Caspian Eurasia

Offers a comparative study of the effects of monotheism on ethnicity and state-formation in Western Eurasia The stories of medieval conversions have been told many times and frequently focus on the story of the individual ruler's conversion; the process is usually set in Europe and couched in terms of Christianisation. Yet similar processes occurred further east, as dynasties such as the Sāmānids or Almusids chose Islam in central Asia, or the Khazar Āsǐnà dynasty chose Judaism. Each dynast had his reasons of political expediency for making his choice which was later mythologised. For all of these dynasties, however, the process of adopting one brand of monotheism or another involved widespread constitutional change, which sealed the security, legitimacy and wealth of the ruling dynasty in perpetuity. Focusing on Pontic-Caspian Eurasia during the eighth to thirteenth centuries, this book explores the growth, development and consequences of monotheism. It compares the bottom-up and top-down conversions of the Khazars, Volga Bulgars, Magyars and Rus' (and the refusal of monotheism by the Pečenegs and Cuman-Qıpčaqs), demonstrating that these were rarely individual affairs, but usually collective, generations-long processes of domination and resistance. Rejecting the arbitrary (and Western-centric) distinctions between the so-called Occidental and Oriental worlds and between the Late Antique and Medieval periods, the book demystifies understandings of ethnogenesis and state-formation across Central-Eastern Europe and Western Eurasia and reveals how what we today call the 'Migration Age' continued up to the Mongolian invasions and perhaps beyond. Alex M. Feldman is a professor at the College of International Studies of Madrid.