in the book, vasary put forward the three most common theories about the brother's ethnic identities and he seemed to favor the theory that the brothers where vlachs who had some cuman/kipchak ancestry as evidenced by one of the brothers having the turkic name "asen" (and that some sort of ethnic connection was one of the reasons the brothers found ready support from the kipchaks/cumans north of the danube) and that the vlachs, if i remember right, where to a degree ethnically integrated with the bulgars.
anyways its one of the more fascinating locations/periods of european history, where europen and asiatic steppe cultures where constantly in flux.
on a semi related note, ive been wondering how the kipchak/cumans became heavily armored cavalry as mamelukes when they had no tradition of it on the crimean steppes??? was this a tradition handed down from the ayyubids/fatimids and the kipchak/cumans where trained to adapt to it or did the kipchaks actually have a tradition of havily armored cavalry that im not aware of? sorry if this is a dumb question, ive been on a quest lately to find good historical reading material on the mamelukes (mainly the bahri dynasty, it seems the circassian burj dynasty was an era of decline for the mamelukes) but havent had much luck.
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