ИСТИНА

The paper focuses on the means, ways and ends of inclusion of the nomadic and sedentary Turks into Byzantine society. The Byzantines extensively employed barbarian captives of war, mercenaries, political and economic immigrants as a source of manpower. The main tool and the first stage of naturalization of aliens was their baptism. Both instances of voluntary and forceful Christianization are known from the sources. The author draws up a typology of different models and modes of adaptation of different categories of barbarians originating from the Balkans and Anatolia, discusses the motivation of Turkic voluntary immigrants, examines the specific mechanisms of rejection of unwanted immigrants The paper discusses also the most typical destinies of barbarian newcomers in their Byzantine new life.