Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185-1365 [Hardcover]

István Vásáry (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0521837561 | ISBN-13: 978-0521837569 | Publication Date: April 25, 2005

The Cumans and the Tatars were nomadic warriors of the Eurasian steppe who exerted an enduring impact on the medieval Balkans. With this work, István Vásáry presents an extensive examination of their history from 1185 to 1365. The basic instrument of Cuman and Tatar political success was their military force, over which none of the Balkan warring factions could claim victory. As a consequence, groups of the Cumans and the Tatars settled and mingled with the local population in various regions of the Balkans. The Cumans were the founders of three successive Bulgarian dynasties (Asenids, Terterids and Shishmanids) and the Wallachian dynasty (Basarabids). They also played an active role in Byzantium, Hungary and Serbia, with Cuman immigrants being integrated into each country's elite. This book also demonstrates how the prevailing political anarchy in the Balkans in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries made it ripe for the Ottoman conquest.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Vasary's written English is impressive" - the International History Review Paul Stephenson, University of Wisconsin at Madison

"Istvan Vasary's admirable book attempts to shed new light on the relatively neglected topic of the impact of the Eurasian nomadic tribes, the Cummans and the Tartars, on the Balkan region from the twelfth through the fourteenth centuries. The book's strength lies in its ambitious attempt to connect the histories of several Balkan lands to each other and link them to the activities of the invading steppe nomads in the area...an important contribution to the history of the medieval Balkans and should be welcomed by both specialists and non-specialists alike."
Michael Pesenson, Slavic and East European Journal

Book Description

The Cumans and the Tatars were nomadic warriors of the Eurasian steppe who exerted an enduring impact on the medieval Balkans. With this work, István Vásáry presents an extensive examination of their history from 1185 to 1365.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 246 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press (April 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521837561
• ISBN-13: 978-0521837569
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,774,603 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fine introduction to a forgotten aspect of Balkan history, April 7, 2010

By 

Christopher Culver - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185-1365 (Hardcover)

Istvan Vasary's CUMANS AND TATARS: Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans 1185-1365 is a fascinating account of what Kipchak Turkic tribes contributed to the history of southeastern Europe. Though the Cumans are almost forgotten now, and the Tatars are remembered vaguely as a wave of barbarians some time in the past, Vasary's book reveals that these two peoples were deeply bound in the political developments of Byzantium, the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary and the fledgling principalities of Romania.

Vasary opens with a presentation of who the Cumans and Tatars were, tracing their migrations out of Central Asia and the demographic pressures that pushed them westward. The first big episode in Vasary's history is the rebellion of Peter and Asen against Byzantium. He points out that although this led to the foundation of the Second Bulgarian Empire, Peter and Asen were Vlakhs (Romanian speakers) with probably Cuman ancestry. The decisive factor in their victories were the Cuman soldiers who would descend from their pastures north of the Danube, and breaking their campaigns in the summer to return to their flocks. When the Latins occupied Byzantium, it was often these Cumans who harassed them while the Greeks awaited their chance at rebuilding. When the Tatars arrive, major upsets occur to Cumans and more longterm locals alike, which Vasary covers at length.

What has always intrigued me about the early Turkic presence in the Balkans is how little it seems to have contributed to the local languages. Cuman and Tatar loanwords are quite rare, for all the tens of thousands of Turkic speakers present in the area. While Vasary's book is mainly a political history instead of a social one, he does give the reader a good idea of the interaction between peoples in daily life, and he refers to a great deal of outside literature on the subject. As a sometime resident of Romania, I also enjoyed Vasary's final chapter on how the Vlakhs moved into a formerly Cuman state, either enjoying Hungarian support or opposing those neighbours (needless to say, Vasary rejects the rubbish Dacian Continuity Theory).

All in all, CUMANS AND TATARS has really expanded my knowledge of the late medieval Balkans and cleared up a number of questions I had. My only real complaints about the book is that Vasary's chronicle can get very repetitive, and there is an abundance of typos. Tighter editing would have been a great improvement.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Balkanalysis.com official review: Tatars and Cumans, June 6, 2005

By 

Balkanalysis.com Reviewer (Balkanalysis.com) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185-1365 (Hardcover)

In terms of Balkan history, they could be called the Turks before the Turks - those hard-living nomad warriors from beyond the Ukrainian steppes who descended on horseback in their multitudes, pillaging as they went and changing the course of history in the process. In Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1183-1365 (released very recently, on 24 April) we are treated to a fascinating and unmatched account of two Turkic peoples who played a large part in the political and military developments of their day - in the process contributing considerably to the creation of today's Balkan Peninsula.

Drawing both on primary sources from the period in question and the latest scholarly investigations, author István Vásáry makes a persuasive case for how these enigmatic tribes who would later all but disappear from history actually played a major role not only in medieval military affairs, but also in establishing viable political entities in what are now Bulgaria and Romania. The Cumans and Tatars not only made their presence felt as troops under their own command, or as mercenaries in foreign armies, but were also assimilated by the societies with which they came into contact, in some cases inhabiting the uppermost reaches of government and society. They married into the nobility of all adjacent societies, including even that of the Latins who held Constantinople from 1204-1261.

An important point that Cumans and Tatars establishes is that while the Ottomans tend to get all the credit (or, all the blame) for wresting control of the Balkans, there were other Turkic peoples who had established a strong presence there far before they had ever dreamed of an empire in Europe.

At the same time, Vásáry makes a convincing case that the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans was neither accidental nor particularly tragic, in comparison with the prevailing anarchy of the time - a situation partially caused by the unpredictable military depravations of the transient Cuman and Tatar tribes that swept down from the steppes with unsettling (for the local inhabitants) regularity. In his retelling, the Pax Ottomanica finally brought a long period of peace and stability to a region that had been sorely lacking in these qualities for centuries.

And so in the end, the fate of the Balkans was somewhat a matter of pick your poison- the invasion of Turkic peoples from the northeast (Ukraine) or from the southeast (Anatolia). Had the former tribes been as ideologically motivated and driven to urbanization by geographical concerns as were the latter, then perhaps they and not the Ottomans would have established an empire in Europe. That they didn't does not mean that the Tatars and Cumans and their legacy should be ignored.