Turks Through Russian Eyes

In the foreword, the author writes that the history of Turkish-Russian relations is far older than the often-quoted 90 years (the Moscow treaty) or 500 years (the Ottoman-Russian contacts). When the Slavs came onto the stage of history they lived alongside the Avars, the Khazars, and then the Pechenegs, the Kipchaks and the Volga Bulgars, and fought many wars. The annals (letopis) that the Russians wrote in monasteries after adopting Christianity are the first records, and they depict the Turkic tribes negatively: the author finds this natural, because it is the portrait of the «other», that is, the enemy.

The author counts the 2.5 centuries of Golden Horde rule over Russia as the most negative period in Russian views of the Turks, and says Russian school textbooks almost ignore it. Although the Ottoman-Russian wars lasted less than 50 years in total, they shaped the image of the Turks among later generations. By depicting the Turkic peoples as «barbarians», the Russians tried to justify their expansion: in their view, they were bringing «civilization» to those lands.

On sources, the author says Russian chronicles, envoys' reports, memoirs of statesmen, soldiers' memoirs, consular and intelligence reports, literary works and writings of Russian intellectuals were used. The book also gives a short history of Turkish-Russian relations. The author admits that it is impossible to see all sources, that there are hundreds of thousands of Russian sources on the Turks, and says several important sources were chosen from each period.

Chapter one begins with the Avars. The chronicle describes how the Avars oppressed the Slavs, and the saying «they died like the Avars, leaving neither offspring nor heirs». That Slav tribes such as the Polyane paid tribute to the Khazars, giving one sword per household, is shown by a chronicle quotation. The unification of the Eastern Slavs by the Normans (Varangians) and the birth of the name «Rus» are explained, and the author writes that relations with Turkic tribes make up much of the history of Kievan Rus.

The Pechenegs are those who killed the first Russian prince in Russian history: Prince Svyatoslav was attacked in 973 on his return from a Balkan campaign, and the Pecheneg ruler Kürya covered his skull in gold and made it a drinking cup. The Pechenegs moved away from the Russian border after 1036, and the author recalls Akdes Nimet Kurat's view that the reason was the arrival of the Uzes. Pushkin's «Ruslan and Lyudmila» describes the Pecheneg campaign against Kiev. The Uzes are settled on the Russian border as «Torks», Berendeys and «Black Hoods».

The Kipchaks launched 50 large campaigns on Russian lands between 1061 and 1210 and became one of the causes of the fall of Kievan Rus. The chronicles call them «base, godless» and explain their raids as God's punishment. Prince Igor's campaign of 1185 ended in defeat, Igor was taken prisoner, and this campaign became the subject of the best-known Russian epic, «The Tale of Igor's Campaign». At the end of the section comes the story of 986, when the Volga Bulgars proposed that Prince Vladimir adopt Islam and Vladimir refused, saying «in Rus we cannot live without drink and merriment».

• Sources: direct quotations from Russian chronicles (Voskresenskaya, Ipatiev, Laurentian)
• Combining historical events with literary texts such as Pushkin and «The Tale of Igor's Campaign»
• Extensive references to Russian and Turkish researchers in footnotes at the end of each page
• Short sections divided by topic (Pechenegs, Kipchaks, the religious factor)
• A bibliography (p. 201) and an index (p. 215) at the end make the cited sources easy to reach