Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The Macedonian epoch (867-1081)

The Byzantine Empire and Russia. The Patzinak problem 

Page 5

The Patzinak problem. In the eleventh century the Patzinaks of the Greek sources, or the Pechenegs of the Russian chronicles, exerted enormous influence upon the fate of the Empire for a considerable length of time. There was even a period, shortly before the First Crusade, when for the only time in their brief and barbarian historical existence the Patzinaks played a very significant part in world history.

The Byzantine Empire had known the Patzinaks for a long time. They had settled some time in the ninth century on the territory of modern Wallachia, north of the Lower Danube, and in the plains of what is now Southern Russia, so that their territory extended from the Lower Danube to the shores of the Dnieper, and sometimes even beyond this river. In the west the border line between their territory and the Bulgarian kingdom was definitely established, but in the east there was no district boundary because the Patzinaks were constantly forced to the west by other barbaric nomadic tribes, especially by the Uzes and the Cumans, or Polovtzi. The Patzinaks, the Uzes, and the Cumans were all tribes of Turkish origin, and therefore akin to the Seljuq Turks, who began to menace Byzantine possessions in Asia Minor in the eleventh century. The Cumanian dictionary or lexicon, which survives today, proves convincingly that the language of the Cumans or the Polovtzi is so closely related to other Turkish tongues that the difference between them is only that of dialects. For future historical developments this kinship between the Patzinaks and the Seljuq Turks was of very great importance.

The Byzantine rulers considered the Patzinaks as their most significant northern neighbors because they were the basic element in maintaining the equilibrium of the Empire's relations with the Russians, Magyars, and Bulgarians. Constantine Porphyrogenitus devoted much space to the Patzinaks in his work On the Administration of the Empire, written in the tenth century and dedicated to his son Romanus, who was to succeed him on the Byzantine throne. The royal writer advises his son first of all to maintain peaceful and friendly relations with the Patzinaks for the benefit of the Empire; for so long as the Patzinaks remain friendly to the Empire, neither the Russians, nor the Magyars, nor the Bulgarians will be able to attack Byzantine territory.

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