On the issue of interaction of the first Turkic Khaganate and china in the light of T. Barfield's conception of «The bipolar world»

The paper deals with the problems of interaction of nomadic population of Central Asia and China. We bring to light the conception of «bipolar world»of T. Barfield which is a generalized description of nomads' relations and China from the end of III century BC till XVII c. AD. The author both recognizes all merits of T. Barfield in systematization of nomads and the Celestial Empire coexistence and, at the same time shows some shortcomings of the theory in respect to a specific historical material. For example, it is noted that in the endogenous factors played the main role in the Turkic Empire formation and the bipolar system appeared only 20 years after khaganate proclamation. At the same time the flourishing of military and political power of Turkic peoples was a result of the division of the Celestial Empire into several reigns or crises of Sui and Tan but not of China centralization and increasing of its resources. In the result it is concluded that «the bipolar system» of T. Barfield can only be one of models of nomads and China interactions and has different alternatives.