In The Byzantine Turks, 1204–1461 Rustam Shukurov offers an account of the Turkic minority in Late Byzantium including the Nicaean, Palaiologan, and Grand Komnenian empires. The demography of the Byzantine Turks and the legal and cultural aspects of their entrance into Greek society are discussed in detail. Greek and Turkish bilingualism of Byzantine Turks and Tourkophonia among Greeks were distinctive features of Byzantine society of the time. Basing his arguments upon linguistic, social, and cultural evidence found in a wide range of Greek, Latin, and Oriental sources, Rustam Shukurov convincingly demonstrates how Oriental influences on Byzantine life led to crucial transformations in Byzantine mentality, culture, and political life. The study is supplemented with an etymological lexicon of Oriental names and words in Byzantine Greek.

From the table of contents: (38 contributions) A. Kh. Aliyeva, Evolution of the Travel Notes Genre ("Seyahatname") in Tatar Literature V. M. Alpatov, Words of Kinship in Japanese Z. Anayban, Epic Legends and Archival Materials as Sources for Historical Study of the Role of Woman in Traditional Nomadic Societies of Southern Siberia T. A. Anikeeva, Kinship in the Epic Genres of Turkish Folklore A. A. Arslanova, History of Political Relations between the Ulus of Djochi and the Uluses of the Khulaguyids I. Baski, On the Ethnic Names of the Cumans of Hungary G. F. Blagova, Relationship Terms in the Structure of Proto-Turkic Anthroponymic System E. V. Boikova, Mongolian Family in Perception of Foreigners (pre-revolutionary period) Ch. F. Carlson, Finno-Ugric and Turkic Parallel Kinship Systems P. P. Dambueva, On the Category of Voice in the Present Day Buryat Language A. V. Dybo, Indoeuropeans and Altaians through the Linguistic Reconstruction R. Finch, The Suffix /-ko/ in Japanese F. A. Ganiev, Types of Affixes in Turkic Languages M. I. Gol'man, B. Ya. Vladimirtsov about the Mongolian obok (kin) of the 11th-12th Centuries.

This volume is a collection of ten articles published between 2009 and 2016 by Mark Dickens on the Assyrian Church of the East in Central Asia, along with a new article on Mar Yahbalaha III, the only Turkic patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East. Most articles deal with the textual evidence for Syriac Christianity in Central Asia, including six on Christian manuscript fragments from Turfan (China) and two on gravestone inscriptions from Semirechye (Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan). As the volume title indicates, these articles remind us of the centuries-long presence of the Assyrian Church of the East at the centre of the Asian continent, now all but forgotten due to the general scarcity of sources from which this history can be reconstructed.

As early as AD 781, the writer of the Xi'an Fu inscription described the spread of Syriac Christianity (called Jingjiao in Chinese) to China as a wind blowing eastward. The discovery of the Xi'an Fu Stele, the Dunhuang Jingjiao Manuscripts, the numerous Syriac tombstones and fragments in Central Asia and many parts of China has unearthed a buried history of Syriac Christianity from the Tang Dynasty to the time of the Mongol Empire. The papers in this volume cover a wide range of topics from manuscripts and inscription, to the historical, liturgical and theological perspectives of Syriac Christianity in this geographic realm. Li Tang is Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Biblical Studies and Ecclesiastical History, University of Salzburg.. Dietmar W. Winkler is Professor of Patristic Studies and Ecclesiastical History at the University of Salzburg and Director of the Center for the Study of Eastern Christianity (ZECO) of the University of Salzburg. (Series: Orientalia - Patristica - Oecumenica, Vol. 9) [Subject: Religious Studies, History, Syriac Christianity, Chinese Studies]Ã?Â?

In this book Jukka Korpela offers an analysis of the trade in kidnapped Finns and Karelians into slavery in Eastern Europe. Blond slaves from the north of Europe were rare luxury items in Black Sea and Caspian markets, and the high prices they commanded stimulated and sustained a long-distance trade based on kidnapping in special robbery missions and war expeditions. Captives were sold into the Volga slave trade and transported through market webs further south. This business differed and was separate from the large-scale raids carried out on Crimeans for enslavement in Eastern Europe, or the mass kidnappings characteristic of Mediterranean slavery. The trade in Finns and Karelians provides new perspectives on the formation of the Russian state as well as the economic networks of official and unofficial markets in Eastern Europe.