Fayaz Sharipovich Khuzin,
the Institute of History, Tatarstan Academy of Sciences,
Entrance 5, Kremlin, 420015,Kazan, Russia,
khuzinfayaz@mail.ru
The reviewed monograph by the outstanding Russian archeologist Y.A.Zeleneev explores the material culture of the settled (both urban and rural) and nomadic population of the Volga region which is viewed in terms of the ethnopolitical processes taking place in a new environment of the Golden Horde. In the author’s opinion they were Volga Bulgars with their rich towns, highly developed economic and cultural centres, pagan Finno-Ugric tribes, whose economic life was based on primitive agriculture and fisheries, nomadic cattlemen Dasht-i-Kipchak as well as part of the Russian Orthodox whose traces are found in almost all urban areas of the Golden Horde, who took part in the complicated process of “syncretic imperial culture” development and emergence of a new “ethnic appearance” of the Mongol-Tatar state.
The reviewer highly appreciates Y.A.Zeleneev’s research on the archeology of the Golden Horde and regards his new monograph a major contribution to the studies of topical issues related to the development of the ethnicity of the Volga region peoples and the role played by the state of Juchids.
Key words: the Golden Horde, the Lower Volga towns and the nomadic steppe, settled population of the Middle Volga, interaction of cultures, ethno-cultural processes.