Pages: 300-319

The most important interaction of states, peoples, cultures of the Balkans and Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages is a story of common and particular features in development of Orthodox society as civilisation. The world saw a complex combination of similar components playing diverse roles in cultural genesis. There was a case when the ancient stem was practically suppressed by Slavic and Turkic inoculations, and there was still another case when Turkic and Byzantine ones took well on the barbarian wilding of Slavic appearance. These two systematic elements were not only to relate the two ethno-cultural areas, but also make them to appear, even in their own opinion, “not quite Europe and not quite Asia”. At the same time, the outer integrity concealed hierarchical differences in internal ties, which conditioned different possibilities for social transformations in Balkan and East-European countries in the new and contemporary period.