Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military in the Pre-Ottoman Balkans, 1185-1365 by István VásáryReview by: Martyn RadyThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 87, No. 4 (October 2009), pp. 756-757Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40650864 .

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756 SEER, 87, 4, OCTOBER 2OO9 the course for Russian history until 1991' (p. 297). The way in which the extraction of agricultural surpluses became increasingly coercive acted, for Trotskii, as a brake on the development of market relations. This volume traces the expansion of trade routes as a consequence of territorial aggrandis- ement. Novgorod, for example, was enriched by its location for north-south and east- west trade. Denis Shaw charts the growth of towns, seeing them as backward in comparison with Western European equivalents in terms of commercial development, but also emphasizing their administrative, religious and, in some cases, military-defensive functions.

This volume has a wealth of information and variety of perspectives. It is easy to use with an excellent index and useful figures, tables and maps. It is pleasing that the contribution of Soviet scholarship is noted, especially the Soviet-era practice of cthe detailed study of sources and their publication in high quality scholarly editions' (p. 12). One hopes that this will also act as an exemplar for further scholarship into the pre-Petrine period. Politics and History Ian D. Thatcher Brunei University

Vásáry, István. Cumans and Tatars: Oriental Military in the Pre- Ottoman Balkans, 1185-1365. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 2005. xvi + 230 pp. Maps. Notes. Appendices. Abbreviations. Bibliography. Index. £56.00: $104.00.

The extent to which the nomads of the steppe guided the political develop- ment of Eastern Europe is part of an old and controversial debate. On the one hand there is Muscovy's debt to Tatar institutions of fiscal governance; on the other, the contribution to 'state-formation' made in the first millennium by the Avars, Onogur-Hungarians and Onogur-Bulgars. The present work examines the role of the Cumans and, to a lesser extent, the Tatars in the making of the late medieval Balkans. The author points to the role of the Cumans in the forging of the Second Bulgarian Empire, although conceding that Vlachs (to the extent that they can be unravelled at all in the existing sources from the Cumans) must have played an equally important part. All of this is familiar enough territory and the present account does not take us much further than Robert Lee Wolffs seminal 'Second Bulgarian Empire; origin and history to 1204' (Speculum, 1949, pp. 167-206). Hereafter, however, Vásáry's account breaks down into a discussion of the part played by Cumans and Tatars as auxiliaries and allies in the struggle between Hungary, Byzantium, Serbia and Bulgaria. Vásáry demonstrates convincingly that the nomads might intervene decisively in favour of one or more of the competing sides. Likewise, he shows that a number of the ruling houses of the region either rested on or were infiltrated by Cuman and Tatar elements: thus, the Asenids, Terterids and Sismanids of Bulgaria, and Basarab and his heirs in Wallachia. In Hun^arv and Bvzantium. Cumans and Tatars were similarlv absorbed into the political and military elite. Nevertheless, in respect Wallachia, it was surely the retreat of Cumania after the

of Moldavia and thirteenth century

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reviews 757 that allowed the principalities the space in which to take root as much as any supposed contribution by the nomads to their original foundation.

In places, Vásáry overplays his hand. His original, measured description of the Asenids as of Vlach descent but bearing Cuman names slyly alters and by tne end 01 nis account me /'senias are tnorougmy i urKic. ror its part, vasary s account of the Vlach entry into Europe relies in part upon an outdated his- toriography. It is not enough to say that, because Vlachs are not mentioned in the Hungarian kingdom before 1200, they were not yet arrived, for we have virtually no evidence of anything in Hungary until the explosion of records there in the thirteenth century. Likewise, the notion of a Romanian descälecat ('dismounting') into Moldavia in the fourteenth century has long been dis- proven by the archaeological evidence. Yet, in another sense, Vásáry does not go far enough. The idea that Cumans only settled in Hungary in any number in the 1 230s may be countered by references in Byzantine and Western sources that point to a significant Cuman contribution to Hungarian military power in the twelfth century. Moreover, the earliest extant Hungarian chronicle, written around 1200, posits a joint Hungarian-Cuman polity, bound by oaths, wherein the Cumans played the part of the ruler's valiant knights. It may well be, therefore, that studies of the medieval Balkan principalities should acknowledge the often critical role played in their development by the Cumans and Tatars of the steppe, but so perhaps also should studies of medieval Hungary. UCL SSEES Martyn Rady

Hughes, Lindsey. The Romanovs: Ruling Russia, i6ij-igiy. Continuum, London, 2008. xviii + 308 pp. Family trees. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £20.00: $27.95.

This book is one of the last two projects that Lindsey Hughes was working on immediately prior to her untimely death in April 2007. Having already written numerous internationally recognized works dealing with Romanov rulers, their wives, families and favourites - in particular, her magisterial Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (New Haven, CT, 1998) - she was eminently well suited to tackle a wider analysis of the dynasty. As she notes in her Introduction (pp. 2-3), the Romanovs are not usually given full or equitable treatment, either in popular or scholarly accounts. Either the focus has been primarily on the cbig names' (Peter I, Catherine II, Alexander I or Nicholas II) or else a ideological approach is taken to the events of 19 17 in stressing the 'doomed' nature of the dynasty. Instead, Hughes presents a 'study of rulers and rulership' (p. 4), moving beyond a straightforward biographical study of each ruler to examine the varying methods, forms and symbols of being a ruler of Russia across three centuries.

As its title suggests, the main focus of the book is the ruling family of the Russian empire from their acquisition of the royal title, with the election of Michael in 1613 during the aftermath of the traumatic Times of Troubles, to their loss of power with the abdication of Nicholas II in 19 17. The ten main

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