Baktrians as Self, Parthians as Other? The entanglements of North-Eastern inbetweenness in the study of Hellenistic Central Asia

T he study of Hellenistic Central Asia is, in many ways, an engagement with various kinds of inbetweenness: spatial, temporal, cultural, disciplinary, and historiographical. One of the most persistent keywords to characterize this macroregion is that of a crossroads of sorts – a crossroads of cultures, religions, histories, civilizations, and ancient worlds at large. Immersed in exotic appeal, the crossroads motif is not only prevalent in popular narratives on Central Asia but also in scholarly discourse, although in more subtle and diverse ways. As Sv. Gorshenina analysed in her monumental book, the idea of Central Asia was ‘invented’, and its conceptual itinerary has been deeply entangled with shifting geopolitical interests that framed and shaped its history in distinct colonial and Orientalist ways throughout time. This remains profoundly relevant for the study of Hellenistic Central Asia, particularly the historiography of Baktria and Parthia, both in the past and in the present. Writings of their histories has been dominated by a complex legacy of meaning -making concepts and cultural ideas about Hellenism, nomadism, the North and the East – constructs laden with ideologies of inbetweenness. This paper reflects on the entanglements of ancient and modern perceptions of the North -East as a macroregion of inbetweenness and its impact on interpretive methods in the study of Hellenistic Central Asia.