Avars. Khazars

This point of view is held mainly by scientists of the “Eurasian” school to illustrate their conceptual constructions. However, written sources and archeology say that the historical fate of the Sunnu ended at the beginning of the century. e. somewhere on the territory Central Asia. The entire first century AD. e. - This is an era of continuous decline of the once powerful tribal association. Hunger, lack of food and internal strife led to the fact that in the middle of the 1st century. The Xiongnu power, covering Southern Siberia, Mongolian Altai and Manchuria, collapsed. Part of the Xiongnu migrated to the west, to a certain country “Kangju” (presumably on the territory of Kyrgyzstan). Here, one of their detachments of 3,000 soldiers, led by the Shanyu Zhi-Zhi, was defeated by the Chinese and completely destroyed (1,518 people were killed and over 1,200 were captured). Other Xiongnu hordes migrated to the area during the 1st century. were subordinated to the Xianbi tribal union. It is characteristic that the sources do not report anything about the further advance of the Huns to the west. Only their leaders, the Chanui, flee “to no one knows where,” while the bulk of the tribe remains in place. Thus, the largest horde of the Xiongnu, numbering 100,000 tents, after its defeat in 91 “took the name Xianbi,” that is, joined this tribal association. No archaeological sites of the Xiongnu have been found west of Central Asia. Thus, the kinship of the Huns and the Xiongnu/Hyung-nu is based by Eurasians solely on some similarity in their names. Therefore, those researchers are right who believe that “their identification (with the Hyung Nu people. -S. Ts.), uncritically accepted by many scientists... is in fact unfounded and contradicts the data of linguistics, anthropology and archeology...” [A collection of the most ancient written information about the Slavs. Compiled by: L. A. Gindin, S. A. Ivanov, G. G. Litavrin. In 2 volumes. M., 1994. T. I, 87-88].

The question of the ethnic and linguistic affiliation of the Huns remains controversial to this day. I am of the opinion that the European Huns of the 4th-5th centuries. should be identified with the Xiongnu tribe, which was already mentioned in the middle of the 2nd century. wrote Ptolemy, placing it in the territory “between the Bastarnae and Roxolani,” that is, significantly west of the Don, probably somewhere between the Dniester and the Middle Dnieper. Apparently, these Huns belonged to the Finno-Ugric language family. In the languages of some Ural peoples, the word “gun” or “hun” means “husband”, “man”[Kuzmin A.G. Odoacer and Theodoric. In the book: Pages of the past. M., 1991, p. 525]. But the Xiongnu horde was, of course, heterogeneous in its ethnic composition. Most likely by the middle of the 4th century. The Huns subjugated the Ugric and Bulgar tribes of the Don and Volga regions. This tribal association received the name “Huns” in Europe.

The invasion of the Huns into the Northern Black Sea region and Crimea was like a falling stone that caused a mountain avalanche. The Huns' military advantage was ensured by their tactics. At the beginning of the battle, avoiding hand-to-hand combat, they circled around the enemy and showered him with arrows until the enemy battle formations did not fall into complete confusion - and then with a decisive blow from the masses of cavalry gathered into a fist, the Huns completed the rout; V hand-to-hand combat they wielded swords “without any thought for themselves,” as Ammianus Marcellinus notes. Their swift invasion took not only the Romans by surprise, but also the tribes of the Northern Black Sea region. In this regard, contemporaries unanimously write about a “sudden onslaught”, a “sudden storm” and liken the Hun invasion to a “snow hurricane in the mountains”.

In 371, the Huns broke into the possessions of the Gothic king Ermanaric. A number of early medieval authors, including Jordan and Procopius of Caesarea, cite in this regard a funny incident that helped the Huns penetrate into Crimea. One day the Hun youth were hunting deer on the banks of Maeotis ( Sea of Azov) and pressed one female to the water itself. Suddenly she rushed into the water and forded the sea, dragging the hunters with her. On the other side, that is, already in the Crimea, she disappeared, but the Huns were not upset: after all, now they learned something that they had not suspected before, namely, that you can get to the Crimea, to the Ostrogoths, bypassing the well-guarded Perekop Isthmus. Returning to their relatives, the hunters reported their discovery, and the Huns as a whole horde invaded Taurida along the path shown to them by the animals. The story of the deer, unless, of course, it is a legend, could only have happened in one place - in the Sivash Bay, through which the Arabat Spit stretches from north to south - a narrow and long spit, in the north very close to the seashore. This once again confirms that the Ostrogoths attacked the Huns of Ptolemy, and not the Huns who came from beyond the Volga, who in this case should have appeared in the Crimea from the direction of Taman.

The Kingdom of the Ostrogoths was turned into a pile of ruins by the Huns, the population was subjected to massacres, and the elderly Ermanaric himself committed suicide in despair. Most of the Ostrogoths retreated west, to the Dniester; those who remained recognized the power of the Huns, and only a small part of the Ostrogoths, fortified on the Kerch Peninsula, managed to maintain their independence (their descendants were known as the Trapezite Goths * even in the 16th century; Trebizond in ancient times was called Mount Chatyrdag in the southern Crimea; Jordan also knows Crimean city of Trebizond, destroyed by the Huns).

Meanwhile, the Huns attacked the Visigoths, causing them a real massacre. “The defeated Scythians (Visigoths. -S. Ts.) were exterminated by the Huns and most of them died,” writes Eunapius, a contemporary of these events, “and there was no limit to the cruelty of their beating.” In 376, tens of thousands of Visigothic families fleeing the invasion appeared on the banks of the Danube, begging the Roman authorities to allow them to cross and settle in Thrace. The Ostrogoths followed them, hearing the stomping and neighing of the Hun horses behind them. Emperor Valens agreed to accept the Visigoths, intending to use them for border service on the Danube defensive line. However, crossing such a huge number of people took a long time; the supply of supplies was not organized properly, and famine broke out among the Visigoths. Roman officials, instead of helping the “barbarians,” used the situation for personal enrichment. For a piece of bread, they forced the Visigoths to give them their wives and children as slaves. It got to the point that any slave was sold for ten pounds of beef or a loaf of bread. Ammianus Marcellinus even writes that the Romans “out of their gluttony, having collected dogs from wherever they could, gave them one for each slave,” and Jordanes claims that hungry Visigoths sometimes sold their children into slavery for “dead meat - dogs and other unclean animals "

Driven to despair, the Visigoths rebelled, devastated Thrace, and the Romans had to pacify them by force of arms. But the Ostrogoths came to the aid of the defeated Visigoths, crossing the Danube without imperial permission or invitation. On August 9, 378, on the plain near Adrianople, the Roman legions were trampled by Gothic cavalry; The decisive role in the victory belonged to the Ostrogoths and their allies the Alans, who “like lightning” fell on the enemy. Emperor Valens fell in battle and even his body was not found. According to Jordan, he took refuge in some estate near Adrianople, and the Goths, not knowing about it, burned the house with him. His successor, Emperor Theodosius I, with great difficulty saved the situation by granting the Goths the rights of federates (allies of the empire receiving regular salaries). Meanwhile, the Hunnic horde entered Pannonia, dragging along the Alans, Ugrians, Bulgars and other nomadic tribes southern steppes. These events were the beginning of the Great Migration.

III.

The terrible devastation of the Northern Black Sea region carried out by the Huns was not slow to affect the destroyers themselves, among whom famine broke out. Having suspended the offensive to the west, the Hunnic horde at the end of the 4th century crossed the Caucasus and flooded Western Asia, ravaging and plundering cities and leading the population into slavery in large numbers. The countryside of Syria and Cappadocia was completely depopulated. Antioch was besieged; Jerusalem and Tire were preparing to repel the invasion; Arabia, Phenicia, Palestine and Egypt, according to a writer of the 5th century. Jerome, “were captivated by fear.” The Huns retreated only after the Shah of Iran moved large forces against them.

It took the Huns several more decades to firmly establish themselves in the Black Sea steppes. In the first quarter of the 5th century. they finally appeared in Pannonia, which was freed thanks to the departure of the Alans and Vandals to Gaul. In 434, the Hunnic leader Rugila besieged Constantinople, saved this time, as Byzantine legend tells, only through intervention heavenly powers. In the same year, Rugila died and power in the horde was inherited by his nephews - Attila and Bleda. The latter was soon killed by his co-ruler, who was destined to turn his name and the name of his people into household names.

The Huns terrified the civilized world: after them the Goths and Vandals seemed like Athenian warriors. They disgusted even the barbarians themselves. The Goths said that one of their kings exiled sorceresses deep into Scythia, who met wandering demons there. From their intercourse, the disgusting tribe of the Huns was born, offspring, according to Jordan, born in the swamps - “short, skinny, terrible in appearance, having nothing in common with the human race except the gift of speech,” whose face is an ugly piece of raw meat with two holes instead of eyes. Ammianus Marcellinus describes them with the feeling of a natural scientist confronted with unknown monstrous creatures. Having talked about the repulsive appearance of the Huns, about their squat bodies, excessively large heads, flattened noses, chins cut with scars, supposedly to prevent them from growing beard 1 , he concluded: “I would rather say that they are two-legged animals, rather than men, or the stone pillars, rudely hewn in the image of a man, which adorn the parapets of bridges.”

Reading the stories of contemporaries about the morals of these nomads, one might think that the Hunnic horde was more of a wolf pack than a community of people. If the Gauls, according to the stories of Roman writers, were afraid of one thing: that the sky would fall on their heads, then the Huns seemed to fear only that roofs would fall on them. They didn’t even have wagons, and they spent their lives on the backs of their horses, to which they were glued. Jerome argued that according to the belief of the Huns, any of them who touched the ground considered themselves already dead. On horseback they corrected all sorts of affairs, sold and bought, discussed general tribal issues, and slept on horseback, leaning over the lean necks of their horses, “awkward, but strong.” Clothes made of canvas or fur decayed on their bodies, and only then were replaced with new ones. They did not know fire, and when they wanted to eat, they put a piece of raw meat under their saddle and thus softened it. They robbed with senseless cruelty.

Medieval image of Attila

However, today the Huns do not seem so savages to us. We know that Attila's court was the center of European diplomacy and they were entertained there not only by the antics of jesters, but also by the conversations of “philosophers”; The educated Hun elite used writing - it is unknown whether it was their own or borrowed. It was to the Huns that the famous physician Eudoxius, a native of Gaul, fled in 448, caught in relations with bagauds 2 . One of the Roman diplomats at Attila's court met there with a fellow emigrant who praised the social order of the Huns to him and did not even think about returning to his homeland. (It should be noted that the main socio-economic benefit in the Hunnic empire was the absence of taxes: robberies and indemnities more than covered the costs and needs of Attila’s court). When besieging cities, the Huns successfully used complex military engineering structures and battering machines.

With the appearance of Attila, barbarism, hitherto almost nameless and faceless, acquires a name and a face. From his distant steppe camp he threatened an empire already divided, and Rome and Constantinople were draining their coffers to satisfy his demands. Envoys of the empire approached the Khan's wooden palace, very skillfully built from logs and planks and decorated with carvings, as humiliated petitioners, where they underwent long ordeals before being allowed inside, beyond the line of fences and palisades. Appearing before Attila, they saw a large-headed man with gray hair, stocky, broad-chested, snub-nosed, beardless, almost black-faced; his small eyes usually burned with anger. During the feast, the ruler of the Huns ate and drank from wooden utensils, while his guests were served food on gold and silver dishes. In the middle of the feast, he remained motionless, and only when the youngest of his sons entered the hall, the gaze of the “Scourge of God” softened and, affectionately grabbing the child by the cheek, he drew him to him.

It is here, in Attila’s steppe camp, that we hear the first Slavic word that has flown to us from the abyss of time. And it means an intoxicating drink. Priscus, one of the participants in the Byzantine embassy of 448 to Attila, says that on the way to the Huns’ camp the embassy stopped to rest in “villages”, the inhabitants of which gave the ambassadors a drink instead of wine, called in the native language “medos”, that is, Slavic honey . Unfortunately, Priscus says nothing about the ethnicity of the hospitable and hospitable inhabitants of the “villages,” but this passage from his work can be compared with the later news of Procopius of Caesarea that Roman troops crossed the Danube to set fire to Slavic villages and ravage their fields . Therefore, the ethnicity of their Transdanubian neighbors was not a secret to the Byzantines.

Another Slavic word was brought to us by Jordan. He says that after the death of Attila, his corpse was exposed in the middle of the steppe in a tent, and the horsemen, riding around him, organized something like a festivities, mourning him in funeral chants in which the deeds of the deceased were extolled. “After he was mourned with such sobs,” writes Jordan, “they arrange a great feast at the top of his mound, which they themselves call strava, and, combining alternately the opposite, they express funeral grief mixed with joy, and at night the corpse, secretly hidden in the ground, surrounded by covers - the first of gold, the second of silver, the third of strong iron... And in order for such riches to be preserved from human curiosity, they, rewarding with infamy, destroyed those intended for this deed, and instant death followed with the buried for those who buried."

Jordan is only partly right in attributing the murder of the organizers of Attila’s grave to the desire of the Huns to hide the burial place of their leader. More precisely, before us is the ancient custom of killing the leader’s servants to accompany him to afterlife. For example, Menander, under 576, reports that on the day of the burial of the ruler of the Western Turkic Khaganate, Dizabul, the horses of the deceased and four prisoners were killed, who were, as it were, sent to the afterlife to the deceased to tell him about the funeral feast performed in his honor. As part of the funeral ritual for the nobility, this custom was also recorded among the Rus at the beginning of the 10th century.

Despite the fact that the description of Attila’s funeral has ethnographic parallels in the funeral rites of not only nomads, but also many peoples of antiquity in general, the term “strava” in the sense of “funeral feast, wake” is known only in Slavic languages. So, in Polish and Czech it means “food”. Perhaps the Huns borrowed it from the Slavs along with some features that enriched their own funeral rites [Code, I, p. 162-169].

Aware of the weakness of both parts of the divided Roman Empire, Attila behaved like a true ruler of the world. With a knife at his throat, he demanded that the Western and Eastern emperors fulfill all their demands and even their whims. One day he ordered the Byzantine emperor Theodosius to give him a rich heiress, whom one of his warriors had coveted: the frightened girl fled to death, but Theodosius, in order to prevent war, was forced to find a replacement for her. Another time, Attila demanded from the Western Roman emperor Valentinian the sacred vessels saved by the bishop of the city of Sirmium during the plunder of that city by the Huns. The emperor replied that such an act would be sacrilege on his part and, trying to satisfy the greed of the Hun leader, offered to pay double their cost. “My cups - or war!” - Attila answered. In the end, he wanted to receive a fabulous tribute from Theodosius, and from Valentinian his sister Honoria and half the empire as a dowry. Having been met with a refusal of his claims from both, and being, in addition, enraged by the attempt of one of the members of Priscus’s embassy to poison him, he decided to attack both of his enemies at once. Two Hun envoys appeared one day before Theodosius and Valentinian to tell them on behalf of their master: “Attila, my master and yours, orders you to prepare the palace, for he will come.”

And he really came in the terrible year 451. Shocked contemporaries claim that his arrival was heralded by comets, lunar eclipse and bloody clouds, in the midst of which ghosts armed with flaming spears fought. People believed that the end of the world was coming. They saw Attila in the form of an apocalyptic beast: some chroniclers gave him the head of a donkey, others a pig's snout, others deprived him of the gift of speech and forced him to emit a dull roar. They can be understood: it was no longer an invasion, but a flood, Germany and Gaul disappeared in a whirlpool of human masses, horse and foot. "Who are you? - St. Loup shouts to Attila from the heights of the walls of Troyes. “Who are you, who scatters nations like chaff and breaks crowns with the hoof of your horse?” - “I am Attila, the Scourge of God!” - sounds in response. “Oh,” the bishop answers, “blessed be your coming, Scourge of the God I serve, and it is not I who will stop you.”

In addition to the Huns, Attila brought with him the Bulgars, Alans, Ostrogoths, Gepids, Heruls, part of the Frankish, Burgundian and Thuringian tribes; modern sources are silent about the Slavs, but there is no doubt that they were present as auxiliary units in this multi-tribal horde. According to Jordan, the Huns held power over the entire barbarian world.

Aetius

And yet this time the Hesperia survived. The commander Aetius, the last of the great Romans, opposed the Hunnic horde with a coalition of Germanic tribes - the dying civilization had to be defended by barbarians. Famous Battle peoples occurred in June 451 on the vast Catalaunian fields in Gaul, near modern Troyes (150 km east of Paris). Its description by contemporaries is reminiscent of Ragnarok - the last grandiose slaughter of the gods in German mythology: 165 thousand killed, streams swollen with blood, Attila mad with rage, circling around a giant fire of saddles, into which he intended to throw himself if the enemy broke into the Hun camp. .. The opponents failed to break each other, but a few days later Attila, without resuming the battle, led the horde back to Pannonia. The sun of ancient civilization slowed down its bloody decline.

The next year, Attila devastated Northern Italy and, burdened with booty, returned to the Danube steppes. He was preparing to strike at Byzantium, but in 453 he suddenly died, the day after his wedding with the German beauty Ildiko, whom rumor accused of poisoning the “Scourge of God” and the “orphan of Europe.” However, Ildiko was hardly a new Judith. Most likely, as Jordan testifies, Attila died in his sleep from suffocation caused by his frequent nosebleeds. After his death, the Hunnic Empire quickly disintegrated. Soon, having been defeated by the Goths on the Nedao River, the Huns left Pannonia back to the southern Dnieper region and the North Caucasus.

The Hunnic “devastation of the world” played an important role in the history of the Slavic ethnic group. Unlike the Scythian, Sarmatian and Gothic invasions, the invasion of the Huns was extremely large-scale and led to the destruction of the entire previous ethno-political situation in the barbarian world. The departure of the Goths and Sarmatians to the west, and then the collapse of Attila’s empire, allowed the Slavs in the 5th century. begin widespread colonization of the Northern Danube, the lower reaches of the Dniester and the middle reaches of the Dnieper.

2.2. Great Migration (Alan period: 200-800 AD)

In the first centuries new era, when the western border of Sarmatia was the Vistula River, and the eastern border reached the Indus and Ganges (according to Ammianus Marcellinus), the emergence of a new statehood began in the lower reaches of the Volga and Don.

The fact that a new political association has formed here is evidenced by the change of ethnonym: from the 1st century. n. e. residents of the Don region began to bear the name “Alans” instead of the old “Sarmatians”. Subsequently, all Sarmatians were called Alans, which clearly shows the key role in political life Great Scythia, which has always been played by the Volga-Don region.

Regarding the Alans, there is no doubt that they were Sarmatians who created new state entities. At the beginning of the century e. in the Volga-Don region the same Prokhorov culture continued to exist as in the previous Sarmatian time - archaeological continuity was preserved. Sources firmly consider the Alans and Sarmatians, as well as the Alans and Scythians, to be one and the same people.

Thus, describing the wars of the Alans against the Roman Empire in 68-69. n. e., a contemporary of the events, Josephus Flavius wrote: “THE ALAN TRIBE IS PART OF THE SCYTHIANS LIVING AROUND TANAIS AND LAKE MEOTIDA” 88. According to Josephus, one of the Alan-Sarmatian armies in 68 AD. e. invaded Roman possessions in Moesia (the territory of modern Bulgaria), and another simultaneously broke through Derbent into Transcaucasia and Iran, and the Alans completely captured this region. Active and successful military actions of the Sarmatian Alans in Transcaucasia, testifying to the power of their state, are also known from sources in the 30s and 130s. n. e.

In this region, the Alans pursued an independent policy and entered into disputes with such “superpowers” as Parthia and Rome. On the other hand, the western group of Sarmatian Alans at the same time held back the onslaught of Rome in the Danube-Dniester region.

According to Tacitus, in the same 68-69 years. the Iazygian Sarmatians, who ruled the tribes on the border of Moesia, offered their cavalry to one of the rival parties in the Roman Empire; however, the Romans refused help, fearing the strengthening of Sarmatian influence 89 . From this evidence (as from many others) it follows that the Sarmatians dominated the Danube region north of the Roman possessions and were strong enough to hold back the onslaught of Rome and interfere in its internal affairs.

It is well known that the Sarmatians assisted the uprising of the Danube Dacians against the Roman Empire (beginning of the 2nd century AD); in essence, it was a war of the consolidated Mediterranean against Great Scythia-Sarmatia, and not just against its small Transdanubian region. The preponderance of forces was in favor of Rome: Emperor Trajan conquered Dacia and erected a famous column in honor of the victory, on which horsemen in scaly armor - the Sarmatians - were depicted among the enemies of Rome.

However, the Romans managed to hold out beyond the Danube for no more than one hundred and fifty years. First centuries AD e. were a time of stable prosperity for Sarmatia: the country successfully defended its borders, prospered and reached a high cultural level, especially noticeable in the cities of the Azov-Black Sea region. Everything changed at the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries, from which the new “Alan” era should begin.

Aggression against Great Alania: Goths and Huns

In the 180s n. e., moving from the South Baltic Pomerania, the territory of Ukraine was invaded Goths. They defeated the western Sarmatian groups and occupied lands in the east up to the Don River. The Alan state itself repulsed the blow and retained independence in the region of the Lower Volga region, Don, Kuban and the North Caucasus.

There has been a lot of speculation around the mysterious Goths in historiography. Since the first historian of the 6th century AD. e. Jordanes claimed that the Goths had arrived on three ships from Skandza Island, found that they are very similar to the Scandinavians. More recently it was argued that Scandinavian people are ready almost completely populated the territory of modern Ukraine.

But there are no traces left of this “Scandinavian people in the steppes of Ukraine,” even linguistic ones. Due to the lack of facts, they tried to pass off the names of two units of the Black Sea Goths as “German-speaking”, grevtungs And Tervingi...

But on this score evidence from an authoritative source has been preserved: the Byzantine emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus reported that Tervuniya in Slavic language means "strong place", for this country has many fortifications! 90 (More precisely, “Tervingi” are Slavs, “Dervinks” or “Ancients”. The etymology is clear, especially since “Tervingi” are characterized as “Forest Goths”. Our researchers have always been confused by suffix endings like “-ngi”, which sound “ in a Western way." In fact, the Russian “-nki, - niks” naturally turns into the “Western” “-ngi”. An example of this is not only “Dervinks” = “Tervings”, but also “Vikins” (residents of Viks, Visei, Veseys) = "Vikings".

Of course, the voiced consonant “g” gives Slavic ethnonyms and toponyms a “foreign” sonority, so beloved by us, but the origins are archaic, folk and simple.

And secondly, most importantly, the author defends the theory of the absolute identity of the Scythians - Russians. This is right. But we must not forget that the same “Scandinavians” and “Western Rus”, from whom the author for some reason disowns, not recognizing their participation in the ethnogenesis of Russians, are still the same Russian-speaking Scythians-Indo-Europeans who left the Northern Black Sea region for the North and West, settled Northern and Central Europe, and then, without changing their ethnocultural, linguistic and anthropological characteristics, that is, remaining Scythian Rus, they returned to Eastern Europe and closed the ring: the northern Rus closed with the southern, southeastern.

And the fact that the Scythian Rus came from Scandinavia should not confuse us - there were no “Deutsch-speaking”, “English-speaking” tribes and nationalities in Scandinavia until the 13th-14th centuries. n. e., Scandinavia is the ancestral land of the Rus, and the Scandinavian Rus themselves have always considered Great Scythia their homeland. Again, and again! We must overcome the complex of Germanophilia and Germanomania imposed on us! There were no “Germans” of the modern “German” type in Tacitus’s “Germany”. Central and Northern Europe were inhabited by the Rus and the Slavs, who were isolated from their superethnos when mixed with relict autochthons.

This is extremely important to understand; the Slavs are secondary relative to the Rus-Aryans. That is why, among the linguistic array of the Slavs, we see the Slavic Finno-Ugric peoples, the Balkan-Caucasians, and the Celts. The Goths, without a doubt, were one of the powerful clans of the Rus-Scythians - the largest settlement to the west and north from the ethnocultural-linguistic core of the Rus-Indo-Europeans.

The young “German people”, formed by the 18th-19th centuries. and having found its own language only in the middle. XIX century, in her imperialist aspirations, she composed a German-centric “history” and, without hesitation, included among her ancestors all the clans and tribes of the Rus and Slavs who decided the destinies of Eurasia. This “history” is the fruit of someone else’s compilation and usurpation, True History. The essence of the machinations of Romano-Germanic pseudo-historians became clear a long time ago. And we shouldn’t waste time discussing with apologists of Deutsche-centrism and political strategists. Our task is to identify our roots, create a clear picture of the ethnogenesis of the Russian people and cut off everything superfluous, unnecessary and not ours. We don't need someone else's. But we shouldn’t give away ours either.

And the Scandinavian Rus, the Vandal Rus, the Gothic Rus are ours, blood, ancestral, primordial, Russian, no less than the Scythian Rus... from which the above come. The Rus are a state-forming people. It was they, or rather, we who created all the significant states of Eurasia and gave it princely and royal dynasties- from the Rurikovichs to the Merovingians (Merovinians) — Note. Yu. D. Petukhova.)

Archaeological research has shown that there can be no talk of any “Swedes in Ukraine”. During the period when the Gothic state existed in the Black Sea steppes, a new culture really developed here - Chernyakhovskaya (III-IV centuries AD).

However, the bearers of this culture retained the previous, Sarmatian, anthropological type (almost no different from the type of modern inhabitants Southern Russia) and burial rite; Nothing actually “Scandinavian” could be found. The conclusion is clear: the bulk of the population who left this culture were, as before, Sarmatians 91.

This is not surprising if we remember that Jordan talked about the “migration of the Goths” on only three ships. Not enough to populate Ukraine... But, as it turned out, it was quite enough to found a new dynasty. Obviously, the ruling elite of the Gothic state was indeed of Scandinavian origin, as follows from the very name “Goths” (= Swedes) and from the historical tradition that traces them to the “island of Scandza.” (There were no Swedes. The Swedes as a people appeared by the 17th century.

The Scandinavians were Russians, the Old Norse language was inflected, Slavic. The Suevi-Svei were Rus. By the way, even Normanists admit that the ethnonym “Svey” is from the Slavic “our own”. And therefore, if anyone could “come out of Skandza”, then only the Rus, the Slavs - the descendants of those Rus-Scythians who had previously settled Scandinavia - taking into account, of course, the boreal ethnic inclusion of Rus of a more ancient origin - the first, pre-classical settlements from the Northern Black Sea region . — Note Yu. D. Petukhova.)

The beginning of the expansion of the real Goths-Scandinavians dates back to the 1st century. n. e. It was at this time on the southern coast of the Baltic, inhabited by the Wends, that a new Wielbar-Ciezel culture arose with elements indicating Scandinavian influence 92 . This is quite comparable with Jordan’s story about how the Goths landed troops in the South Baltic Pomerania, defeated the local Wends and Rugs and founded their own state. (We must not forget that the Russians Kievan Rus they took Kyiv in battle, and Ivan the Terrible took Novgorod in battle... in the era of fragmentation, the Rus beat the Rus, these were internecine wars.

And when the Antes fought with the Goths, it was civil strife, a war between different clans of the Rus. While learning about our history, we should not idealize it. Sometimes the Rus fought with the Rus, the Russians with the Russians, so that the earth shook and the surrounding wild pre-ethnic groups and ethnic groups composed tales about “battles of gods with titans,” etc. - Note Yu. D. Petukhova.)

In the II century. n. e. the spread of the Wielbar-Tsetzel culture to the southeast is clearly visible, which can be associated with the expansion of the Goths. Of course, by the 3rd century. n. e., when the wave of invasion reached the Dnieper, there was little actually “Gothic” left in it. In essence, the elite of the Gothic state in the Black Sea region was not so much “Gothic” as “Wendish”.

In fact, in the III-IV centuries. n. e. Western Sarmatia came under control Venedov, that is, entered the sphere of political influence Slavic(Vendish) Germany. How far did the Gothic-Wendish influence extend to the east? Jordan reports that during the reign of King Germanaric (mid-4th century AD), the state of the Goths became extremely stronger, and the peoples “Merens”, “Mordens”, “Tiudans”, “Rogi”, “Kolds”, “ Vasinabronki”... - Merya, Mordovians, Chud, Ugrians, all. They occupied vast lands from the Eastern Baltic to the Upper Volga and Kama basin to the Urals 93.

If we take into account that the Goths subjugated the entire territory of modern Ukraine, so that Tanais in the lower reaches of the Don became a border city in the east, then their power in the 4th century occupied most of the East European Plain, except for its steppe southeast from the Don to the Caucasus and the Volga. The Urals, which remained behind the Rus-Alans. It is customary to question such a huge size of the “Empire of Germanarich”: they say, the “northern barbarians” could not have had such large states.

But if the “barbarians” did not have large and strong states, how would they, I wonder, manage to defeat the huge Roman Empire? Something is not visible that small and weak states defeated large and strong ones, rather the opposite, and there is no reason to doubt that in ancient times it was different... The creation of a huge state of the Goths on the East European Plain had negative consequences for Great Scythia. The Alans were unable to hold on to their empire and the power vacuum was immediately filled.

Events in the west must be compared with the catastrophic deterioration of the situation in the east. Already in the first centuries AD. e. the southern Siberian center of Great Scythia was defeated and subjugated by “unknown” peoples. Great Empire Eurasia was falling apart. Only the Volga-Don Alans, located in its very center, still maintained independence until the final collapse occurred in 370. The end of the Alan state came simultaneously with the end of the Gothic state. They were replaced by the Hun Empire, which dominated Eastern Europe from the Volga to the Danube for almost eighty years (from 370 to 450), invading France and threatening Rome.

There are as many myths about the Huns as there are about the Goths. The most common legend links their origins to a Central Asian Mongoloid tribe Xiongnu, defeated in the 2nd century. n. e. another Mongoloid tribe, Xianbi; The supposedly defeated Xiongnu galloped north to Siberia, where for some reason they became incredibly stronger and conquered almost all of Europe 94 .

The Huns' march on Rome almost from the Chinese border looks even more fabulous. Nevertheless, these tales are repeated and replicated. Some people really want to imagine the territory of Russia as a passage yard through which all and sundry passed. Yes, it seems, that’s what they write: supposedly the lower reaches of the Volga-Don were in the past a “corridor” through which barbarian invasions fell on Europe one after another!

It was not easy to go through this “corridor”. And it cost a lot of blood. How did the Huns manage to break through the defenses and crush the Alan state? Sources clearly indicate: the Huns’ aggression did not come from the east, but from the north. Near the Jordan, the Huns are a local, Black Sea people; supposedly they are the descendants of certain women expelled by the king of the Goths “for witchcraft.” It follows from this that the Huns were originally part of the Gothic state.

It is known that the Huns were in the Northern Black Sea region already in the 160-180s. n. e. (they are mentioned by Dionysius Periegetes and Ptolemy - in the Dnieper region, to the west roxalanov). This excludes the possibility of traveling from the Chinese border, because there is simply no time left for it... If the Huns ended up on the Dnieper in the middle of the 2nd century. n. e. which side was it on? struck against the Alan-Sarmatians of the Volga, Don and Azov region, a blow that resulted in the fall of the Bosporan kingdom (end of the 4th century AD)? Certainly not from the east...

Obviously, the Huns were originally participants in the Gothic movement from the shores of the Baltic to the shores of the Black Sea. This movement included many peoples of Central Europe, and the Huns seem to have been the most western of them. In fact, in ancient times one of the tribes of Friesland was called “Huns”; all the names of the leaders of the Huns are European, of the Celtic type.

Historical-epic tradition Western Europe always considered the Huns to be “our own”, unlike the Slavs. Thus, the monument of the German epic, “The Saga of Thidrek of Berne,” describes the Huns quite friendly, Attila is depicted as a positive hero and is called a native of Friesland; at the same time Russians in this saga they act as the main opponents of the Huns and “Germans” 95. The Huns appear to be just as “positive” in the “Song of the Nibelungs”...

Real facts indicate that the HUNS CAME TO THE BLACK SEA REGION NOT FROM THE EAST, BUT FROM THE WEST. But why then do all sources note the “Mongoloid” appearance of the Huns and call their hordes after the names of Ugric tribes? If we remember that the Gothic state was part of the 2nd-4th centuries. n. e. included almost the entire East European Plain, then this is understandable.

Obviously, the Huns (as part of the Gothic political community) inherited dominion over the northern forest periphery, inhabited mainly by Finno-Ugric people (“Merens”, “Mordens”, “horns”, mentioned by Jordan as subordinates of King Germanarich). It was the Finno-Ugric peoples of the Upper Volga region and the Urals, organized by the Huns into a state, who formed the very “horde” that attacked the Alans and the Black Sea Goths, crushing their cities.

The Hun-Goth-Alan wars should be considered intra-system, in a sense, “civil”. The invasion of the Huns into the southern Russian steppes was a powerful pressure periphery empire on her center, usually manifesting itself in moments of acute crisis. The consequences were most catastrophic.

Here is what contemporaries report about how the Huns treated their opponents: “The DEFEATED SCYTHIANS WERE EXTERIORTED BY THE HUNNS AND MOST OF THEM DIE. SOME WERE CAUGHT AND BEATEN TOGETHER WITH THEIR WIVES AND CHILDREN, AND THERE WAS NO LIMIT TO THE CRUELTY IN THEIR BEATING; OTHERS, GATHERED TOGETHER, TOOK OUT TO FLEE" 96 .

Archeology fully confirms this message. The Scythian cities of Crimea were suddenly abandoned by residents who did not have time to take the necessary things. The cities were completely destroyed; some died forever, others were restored only after several centuries. The Ural Ugrians - indeed “barbarians” - did not need cities.

As a result of the 80-year Gothic-Hunnic wars, a significant part of the steppe population was “swept out” to the west. Rome, or rather Byzantium, turned out to be an involuntary victim of the events in the southern Russian steppes. The “barbarian invasion of Rome” is quite well known from sources; True, not everyone knows that the Alans appear in them not only under their own name, but also under the name “Goths” (since they were the “simple Goths”), and under the general name “Scythians”.

Representatives of the “civilized Mediterranean” in the IV-VI centuries. n. e. They understood perfectly well that the so-called barbarian Goths who put an end to the Roman Empire were, in fact, a very large but united people. Thus, a contemporary of the events, Procopius of Caesarea (VI century), directly wrote that the Goths are none other than the former Scythian-Sarmatians, only under new names: “In the past there were many Gothic tribes, and there are many of them now, but the largest and the most important of these were the GOTHES, VANDALS, VIZYGOTHES, and GEPIDS.

IN THE PREVIOUS TIMES, TRUTH, THEY WERE CALLED SAUROMATES AND MELANCHLENES. Some called these tribes GETHI. All these peoples, as was said, DIFFER FROM EACH OTHER ONLY IN NAMES, BUT IN EVERYTHING REST THEY ARE SIMILAR. THEY ARE ALL WHITE IN BODY, HAVE BROWN HAIR, LONG AND GOOD IN LOOKING; THEY HAVE THE SAME LAWS AND THEY PROFESS THE SAME FAITH. They are all Arians and SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE, the so-called Gothic; and, as it seems to me, in ancient times they were of the same tribe, but later they began to be called differently” 97.

The numerous “Gothic” people in the description of Procopius (mid-6th century AD) are, of course, the same numerous Alan people, which was described shortly before by Ammianus Marcellinus (late 4th century AD). It's obvious that Gothic language, common to all the “barbarians” who attacked Rome, had nothing to do with the modern Germanic group 98 . After all, this language was spoken by the people formerly called Scythians and Sauromatians. The language of the Sauromatian Goths could not belong to the Iranian group either: after all, in Europe, across which a wave of invasion swept back and forth, there were no “Iranian” traces left. And Procopius, and other authors, emphasized that the Goths were very numerous and remained so already in the early Middle Ages.

The Greco-Romans perceived the Huns in exactly the same way. As the same Procopius wrote, Attila invaded the territory of the Roman Empire with an army of “Massagetae and other Scythians”... 99 The ethnic composition of the Hunnic army was no different from the composition of the Gothic army; the only difference was in the state-political organization.

We have more accurate information regarding the “Hunnic” language than regarding the “Gothic” language. The Byzantine ambassador Priscus (mid-5th century AD) recorded a couple of words that Attila’s warriors used: “honey”, “kvass” (the “Huns” had such drinks), “strava” (a funeral meal among the Slavs)… One conclusion follows from this: Gothic language = Hunnic language = Slavic language, Goths and Huns = Slavs, Slavs = Scythians = Sarmatians = Alans...

Why historians adhering to the pro-Western tradition did not want and do not want to make this conclusion is quite clear. It should also not be surprising that this Russophobic tradition put forward an absurd thesis: “Gothic” tribes in IV-Vbb. allegedly completely left the steppes of Southern Russia and settled in Europe (where they “dissolved in the local population”...). There was supposedly no continuity with the subsequent medieval period.

The Gothic-Alan invasion wave went far and reached France, Spain and North Africa. But it does not follow from this that the Alans completely abandoned the southern Russian steppes. Armies were sent to the west, and not everyone returned home... But most of the people, as always happens, remained in their homeland.

And not only remained, but preserved the memory of the past. Moscow sources of the XV-XVI centuries. mention, as a matter of course, the wars of the Roman Emperor Theodosius (380s AD) with Russians. Thus, the official historical and genealogical directory of the Moscow kings, “The Book of Degrees” (XVI century), reports: “Even more anciently, Tsar Theodosius the Great had a war with the Russians”... Coming from official church circles, “Teaching of Metropolitan Photius to Grand Duke Vasily Dmitrievich,” written at the beginning of the 15th century, also contains the statement that Theodosius “had a fight with the Russians before their baptism”... 100 There is no doubt that these messages refer to the invasion of the Balkans by the Gothic-Alan army at the end of the 4th century AD . e. This means that truly national Russian historiography directly identified the Goths and Alans with Russians.

***

88 Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, VII, 7, 4 // VDI, 1947, No. 4, p. 277.
89 Tacitus, History, III, 5. Tacitus. Essays. L.: Nauka, 1969. T. 2, p. 97.
90 Konstantin Porphyrogenitus. About managing an empire. M., 1991, p. 490.
91 Sedov V. Scythian-Sarmatian elements in the funeral rite of the Chernyakhov culture // VDIS of Eastern Europe, p. 99, 107; Alekseeva T. Slavs and Germans in the light of anthropological data // VI, 1974, No. 3, p. 65.
92 Shchukin M. B. Wandering Goths // Knowledge is power, 1995, No. 8, p. 58-59.
93 Sedov V.V. Ethnogeography of Eastern Europe in the middle of the 1st millennium AD. e. according to archeology and Jordan. M.: Nauka, 1978, p. 9-15.
94 For novels about the “passionate” Huns, see the works of L. N. Gumilyov.
95 Kuzmin A.G. Comments. In the collection: Where did the Russian land come from. M.: Young Guard, 1986, book. 1, p. 542, 547.
96 See: Latyshev V.V. News of ancient writers, Greek and Latin, about Scythia and the Caucasus. T. 1. St. Petersburg, 1893, p. 726.
97 War with the Vandals, book. 1, II (2-6). See: Procopius of Caesarea. War with the Persians. War against vandals. Secret history. M.: Nauka, 1993, p. 178.
98 All attempts to “find” Gothic written monuments led nowhere. But the Goths IV-Vbb., Christians, undoubtedly had writing. The fact is that they were looking for the Germanic language, but it did not exist on the territory of the Roman Empire at that time...
99 Procopius of Caesarea. War with Vandals, book. 1, IV, 24., p. 187.
100 Kloss B. Nikonovsky arch and Russian chronicles of the XVI-XVII centuries. M.: Nauka, 1980, p. 186-187.

Yuri Dmitrievich Petukhov; Nina Ivanovna Vasilyeva

The Huns are usually seen as the Turkic people Xiongnu or Huing-nu, mentioned in Chinese chronicles several centuries BC. Under the onslaught of the Han Empire, the Huns allegedly gradually migrated from Inner Asia to the west, incorporating conquered peoples - Ugrians, Mongols, Turkic and Iranian tribes - into their horde. Around 370 they crossed the Volga, defeated the Alans and then attacked the Ostrogoths.

This point of view is held mainly by scientists of the “Eurasian” school to illustrate their conceptual constructions. However, written sources and archeology say that the historical fate of the Sunnu ended at the beginning of the century. e. somewhere in Central Asia. The entire first century AD. e. - this is an era of continuous decline of the once powerful tribal association. Hunger, lack of food and internal strife led to the fact that in the middle of the 1st century. The Xiongnu power, covering Southern Siberia, Mongolian Altai and Manchuria, collapsed. Part of the Xiongnu migrated to the west, to a certain country “Kangju” (presumably on the territory of Kyrgyzstan). Here, one of their detachments of 3,000 soldiers, led by the Shanyu Zhi-Zhi, was defeated by the Chinese and completely destroyed (1,518 people were killed and over 1,200 were captured). Other Xiongnu hordes migrated to the area during the 1st century. were subordinated to the Xianbi tribal union. It is characteristic that the sources do not report anything about the further advance of the Huns to the west. Only their leaders, the Chanui, flee “to no one knows where,” while the bulk of the tribe remains in place. Thus, the largest horde of the Xiongnu, numbering 100,000 tents, after its defeat in 91 “took the name Xianbi,” that is, joined this tribal association. No archaeological sites of the Xiongnu have been found west of Central Asia. Thus, the kinship of the Huns and the Xiongnu/Hyung-nu is based by Eurasians solely on some similarity in their names. Therefore, those researchers are right who believe that “their identification (with the Hyung-nu people. - S. Ts.), uncritically accepted by many scientists... is in fact not justified and contradicts the data of linguistics, anthropology and archeology...” [Code of the most ancient written news about the Slavs. Compiled by: L. A. Gindin, S. A. Ivanov, G. G. Litavrin. In 2 vols. M., 1994. T. I, 87-88].

The question of the ethnic and linguistic affiliation of the Huns remains controversial to this day. I am of the opinion that the European Huns of the 4th-5th centuries. should be identified with the Xiongnu tribe, which was already mentioned in the middle of the 2nd century. wrote Ptolemy, placing it in the territory “between the Bastarnae and Roxolani,” that is, significantly west of the Don, probably somewhere between the Dniester and the Middle Dnieper. Apparently, these Huns belonged to the Finno-Ugric language family. In the languages of some Ural peoples, the word “gun” or “hun” means “husband”, “man” [Kuzmin A.G. Odoacer and Theodoric. In the book: Pages of the past. M., 1991, p. 525]. But the Xiongnu horde was, of course, heterogeneous in its ethnic composition. Most likely by the middle of the 4th century. The Huns subjugated the Ugric and Bulgar tribes of the Don and Volga regions. This tribal association received the name “Huns” in Europe.

Invasion of the Huns Northern Black Sea region and Crimea was like a falling stone that caused a mountain avalanche. The Huns' military advantage was ensured by their tactics. At the beginning of the battle, avoiding hand-to-hand combat, they circled around the enemy and showered him with arrows until the enemy battle formations fell into complete confusion - and then the Huns completed the rout with a decisive blow from the mounted masses gathered into a fist; in hand-to-hand combat they wielded swords, “without any thought for themselves,” as Ammianus Marcellinus notes. Their swift invasion took not only the Romans, but also the tribes by surprise Northern Black Sea region. In this regard, contemporaries unanimously write about a “sudden onslaught”, a “sudden storm” and liken the Hun invasion to a “snow hurricane in the mountains”.

In 371, the Huns broke into the possessions of the Gothic king Ermanaric. A number of early medieval authors, including Jordan and Procopius of Caesarea, cite in this regard a funny incident that helped the Huns penetrate into Crimea. One day, Hun youth were hunting deer on the shores of Maeotida (Sea of Azov) and pressed one female to the water itself. Suddenly she rushed into the water and forded the sea, dragging the hunters with her. On the other side, that is, already in the Crimea, she disappeared, but the Huns were not upset: after all, now they learned something that they had not suspected before, namely, that you can get to the Crimea, to the Ostrogoths, bypassing the well-guarded Perekop Isthmus. Returning to their relatives, the hunters reported their discovery, and the Huns as a whole horde invaded Taurida along the path shown to them by the animals. The story of the deer, unless it is, of course, a legend, could only have happened in one place - in the Sivash Bay, through which the Arabat Spit stretches from north to south - a narrow and long spit, in the north very close to the seashore. This once again confirms that the Ostrogoths attacked the Huns of Ptolemy, and not the Huns who came from beyond the Volga, who in this case should have appeared in the Crimea from the direction of Taman.

* In ancient times, Mount Chatyrdag in southern Crimea was called Trebizond; Jordan also knows the Crimean city of Trebizond, destroyed by the Huns.

It is here, in Attila’s steppe camp, that we hear the first Slavic word that has flown to us from the abyss of time. And it means - oh, Rus', it’s you! - intoxicating drink. Priscus, one of the participants in the Byzantine embassy of 448 to Attila, says that on the way to the Huns’ camp the embassy stopped to rest in “villages”, the inhabitants of which gave the ambassadors a drink instead of wine, called in the native language “medos”, that is, Slavic honey . Unfortunately, Priscus says nothing about the ethnicity of the hospitable and hospitable inhabitants of the “villages,” but this passage from his work can be compared with the later news of Procopius of Caesarea that Roman troops crossed the Danube to set fire to Slavic villages and ravage their fields . Therefore, the ethnicity of their Transdanubian neighbors was not a secret to the Byzantines.

Jordan is only partly right in attributing the murder of the organizers of Attila’s grave to the desire of the Huns to hide the burial place of their leader. More precisely, before us is the ancient custom of killing the leader’s servants to accompany him to the afterlife. For example, Menander, under 576, reports that on the day of the ruler’s burial Western Turkic Kaganate of Dizabul killed the horses of the deceased and four prisoners, who were sent to the afterlife to tell him about the funeral feast performed in his honor. As part of the funeral ritual for the nobility, this custom was also recorded among the Rus at the beginning of the 10th century.

Despite the fact that the description of Attila’s funeral has ethnographic parallels in the funeral rites of not only nomads, but also many peoples of antiquity in general, the term “strava” in the sense of “funeral feast, funeral” is known only in Slavic languages. So, in Polish and Czech it means “food”. Perhaps the Huns borrowed it from the Slavs along with some features that enriched their own funeral rites [Code, I, p. 162-169].

Medieval images of Attila

And he really came in the terrible year 451. Shocked contemporaries claim that his arrival was heralded by comets, a lunar eclipse and bloody clouds, among which ghosts armed with flaming spears fought. People believed that the end of the world was coming. They saw Attila in the form of an apocalyptic beast: some chroniclers gave him the head of a donkey, others a pig's snout, others deprived him of the gift of speech and forced him to emit a dull roar. They can be understood: it was no longer an invasion, but a flood, Germany and Gaul disappeared in a whirlpool of human masses, horse and foot. "Who are you? - St. Loup shouts to Attila from the heights of the walls of Troyes. “Who are you, who scatters nations like chaff and breaks crowns with the hoof of your horse?” - “I am Attila, the Scourge of God!” - sounds in response. “Oh,” the bishop answers, “blessed be your coming, Scourge of the God I serve, and it is not I who will stop you.”

Aetius

And yet this time the Hesperia survived. The commander Aetius, the last of the great Romans, opposed the Hunnic horde with a coalition of Germanic tribes - the dying civilization had to be defended by barbarians. The famous Battle of the Nations took place in June 451 on the vast Catalaunian fields in Gaul, near modern Troyes (150 km east of Paris). Its description by contemporaries is reminiscent of Ragnarok - the last grandiose slaughter of the gods in German mythology: 165 thousand killed, streams swollen with blood, Attila, mad with rage, circling around a giant fire of saddles, into which he intended to throw himself if the enemy broke into the Hunnic camp. .. The opponents failed to break each other, but a few days later Attila, without resuming the battle, led the horde back to Pannonia. The sun of ancient civilization slowed down its bloody decline.

Battle of the Catalaunian Fields. Medieval miniature

The following year Attila devastated Northern Italy and, burdened with booty, returned again to the Danube steppes. He was preparing to strike at Byzantium, but in 453 he suddenly died, the day after his wedding with the German beauty Ildiko, whom rumor accused of poisoning the “Scourge of God” and the “orphan of Europe.” However, Ildiko was hardly a new Judith. Most likely, as Jordan testifies, Attila died in his sleep from suffocation caused by his frequent nosebleeds. After his death, the Hunnic Empire quickly disintegrated. Soon, having been defeated by the Goths on the Nedao River, the Huns left Pannonia back to the southern Dnieper region and to the lower reaches of the Dniester and the middle reaches of the Dnieper.

Huns- a Turkic-speaking people, a union of tribes formed in the 2nd-4th centuries by mixing different tribes of the Great Eurasian Steppe, the Volga region and the Urals. In Chinese sources they are referred to as Xiongnu or Xiongnu. A tribal group of the Altai type (Turkic, Mongolian, Tungus-Manchu languages), which invaded in the 70s of the 4th century. n. e. to Eastern Europe as a result of a long advance west of the borders of China. The Huns created a huge state from the Volga to the Rhine. Under the commander and ruler Attila, they tried to conquer the entire Romanesque west (mid-5th century). The center of the Huns' settlement territory was in Pannonia, where the Avars later settled, and then the Hungarians. Member of the Hunnic monarchy in the mid-5th century. included, in addition to the Hunnic (Altai) tribes themselves, many others, including Germans, Alans, Slavs, Finno-Ugrians and other peoples.

Brief history

According to one version, a large association of the Huns (known from Chinese sources as the “Xiongnu” or “Xiongnu”) at the end of the 3rd century BC. e. formed on the territory of Northern China, from the 2nd century AD. e. appeared in the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region. The “Hunnu,” according to Chinese chronicles, began their slow march to the west somewhere at the turn of the era. Archaeological evidence has also been found that along the way they founded their nomadic states either in Northern Mongolia or even further to the west. This information is highly controversial and hypothetical, without archaeological confirmation. No traces of the “Xiongnu” have been found west of Northern Kazakhstan. Moreover, in the 4th-5th centuries AD. e. People from the Xiongnu tribal union headed the royal dynasties in Northern China. In the 70s of the 4th century, the Huns conquered the Alans in the North Caucasus, and then defeated the state of Germanaric, which served as an impetus for the Great Migration of Peoples. The Huns subjugated most of the Ostrogoths (they lived in the lower reaches of the Dnieper) and forced the Visigoths (who lived in the lower reaches of the Dniester) to retreat to Thrace (in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula, between the Aegean, Black and Marmara seas). Then, having passed through the Caucasus in 395, they devastated Syria and Cappadocia (in Asia Minor) and around the same time, settling in Pannonia (a Roman province on the right bank of the Danube, now the territory of Hungary) and Austria, they raided the Eastern Roman Empire from there (in relation to the Western Roman Empire until the middle of the 5th century, the Huns acted as allies in the fight against the Germanic tribes). They imposed tribute on the conquered tribes and forced them to participate in their military campaigns.

The Hunnic union of tribes (in addition to the Bulgars, it already included the Ostrogoths, Heruls, Gepids, Scythians, Sarmatians, as well as some other Germanic and non-Germanic tribes) reached its greatest territorial expansion and power under Attila (ruled 434-453). In 451, the Huns invaded Gaul and were defeated by the Romans and their allies the Visigoths on the Catalaunian fields. After the death of Attila, the Gepids, who had conquered them, took advantage of the discord that arose among the Huns and led the uprising of the Germanic tribes against the Huns. In 455, at the Battle of the Nedao River in Pannonia, the Huns were defeated and went to the Black Sea region: the powerful alliance collapsed. Attempts by the Huns to break into the Balkan Peninsula in 469 failed. Gradually, the Huns disappeared as a people, although their name was still used for a long time as a general name for the nomads of the Black Sea region. According to the testimony of the same Jordan, the tribes that were part of the “Hunnic” union shamelessly occupied both the Western and Eastern parts of the Roman Empire, settling in Thrace, Illyria, Dalmatia, Pannonia, Gaul and even on the Apennine Peninsula. The last Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was the son of Attila's secretary, Orestes. The first barbarian king of Rome, who overthrew him from the throne, according to Jordan, the “King of the Torquilings” Odoacer, to whom historians for some reason attribute German origin, was the son of Attila’s best military leader, Skira, Edecon. Theodoric, the son of Attila's associate, the Ostrogothic king Theodomir, who defeated Odoacer with the help of the Byzantine emperor Zeno, became the first Christian king of the Gothic-Roman kingdom.

Lifestyle

The Huns did not have permanent dwellings; they roamed with their livestock and did not build huts. They roamed the steppes and entered the forest-steppe. They did not engage in farming at all. They transported all their property, as well as children and the elderly, in wagons on wheels. Because of the best pastures, they entered into a fight with their near and distant neighbors, forming a wedge and emitting a menacing howling cry.

Strangely, completely opposite evidence is contained in the “History of the Goths” by Priscus Panius, who visited the capital of Attila, and described wooden houses with beautiful carvings in which the “Hunnic” nobles lived, and the huts of the local inhabitants - the Scythians, in which the embassy had to spend the night on the road. The evidence of Priscus is the complete opposite of Ammianus’s fiction that the “Huns” are afraid of houses, like cursed tombs, and only under open air feel comfortable. The same Priscus describes that the army of the “Huns” lived in tents.

The Huns invented a powerful long-range bow that reached a length of more than one and a half meters. It was made composite, and for greater strength and elasticity it was reinforced with overlays made of bone and animal horns. Arrows were used not only with bone tips, but with iron and bronze ones. They also made whistle arrows, attaching drilled bone balls to them, which emitted a terrifying whistle in flight. The bow was placed in a special case and attached to the belt on the left, and the arrows were in a quiver behind the warrior’s back on the right. The “Hun bow”, or Scythian bow (scytycus arcus) - according to the testimony of the Romans, the most modern and effective weapon of antiquity - was considered a very valuable military booty by the Romans. Flavius Aetius, a Roman general who spent 20 years as a hostage among the Huns, introduced the Scythian bow into service in the Roman army.

The dead were often burned, believing that the soul of the deceased would fly to heaven faster if the worn-out body was destroyed by fire. With the deceased they threw his weapons into the fire - a sword, a quiver of arrows, a bow and horse harness.

The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, “godfather of the Huns,” describes them this way:

...all of them are distinguished by dense and strong arms and legs, thick heads and generally such monstrous and scary looking, that they can be mistaken for two-legged animals or likened to piles that are roughly hewn out when building bridges.

“The Huns never hide behind any buildings, having an aversion to them as tombs... Roaming through the mountains and forests, from the cradle they learn to endure cold, hunger and thirst; and in a foreign land they do not enter homes unless absolutely necessary; They don't even consider it safe to sleep under the roof.

... but, as if attached to their hardy, but ugly-looking horses and sometimes sitting on them like women, they perform all their usual tasks; On them, each of this tribe spends the night and day... eats and drinks and, bending over the narrow neck of his cattle, plunges into a deep, sensitive sleep...

In contrast to Ammianus, the ambassador to the Hun king Attila Priscus of Panius describes the Huns as follows:

Having crossed some rivers, we arrived at a huge village, in which, as they said, were the mansions of Attila, more prominent than in all other places, built of logs and well-planed boards and surrounded by a wooden fence that surrounded them for no reason of safety. , but for beauty. Behind the royal mansions stood the mansions of Onogesius, also surrounded by a wooden fence; but it was not decorated with towers like Attila's. Inside the fence there were many buildings, some of which were made of beautifully fitted boards covered with carvings, while others were made of hewn and scraped logs straight, inserted into wooden circles...

Since their squad consists of various barbarian peoples, the warriors, in addition to their barbarian language, adopt from each other the Hunnic, Gothic, and Italic speech. Italian - from frequent communication with Rome

Having overcome a certain path together with the barbarians, we, by order of the Scythians assigned to us, went to another path, and in the meantime Attila stopped in some city to marry the daughter of Eski, although he already had many wives: Scythian law allows polygamy.

Each of those present, with Scythian courtesy, stood up and handed us a full cup, then, hugging and kissing the drinker, accepted the cup back.

Huns and ancient Slavs

Procopius of Caesarea in the 6th century, describing the Slavs and Antes, reports that “essentially they are not bad people and not at all evil, but they retain Hunnic morals in all their purity.” Most historians interpret this evidence in favor of the fact that some of the Slavs were subjugated by the Huns and were part of Attila's empire. The once widespread opinion (expressed, in particular, by Yur. Venelin) that the Huns were one of the Slavic tribes is unanimously rejected by modern historians as erroneous.

Of the Russian writers, Attila was declared a Slavic prince by Slavophile authors - A. F. Veltman (1800-1870), in the book “Attila and Rus' of the 6th and 5th centuries,” A. S. Khomyakov (1804-1860) in unfinished "Semiramis", P. J. Safarik (1795-1861) in the multi-volume work “Slavic Antiquities”, A. D. Nechvolodov “The Tale of the Russian Land”, I. E. Zabelin (1820-1908), D. I. Ilovaisky (1832-1920), Yu. I. Venelin (1802-1839), N. V. Savelyev-Rostislavich.

The emergence and disappearance of the Huns

Origin and name of the people

The origin of the Huns is known thanks to the Chinese, who called the “Xiongnu” (or “Xiongnu”) a people who roamed the steppes of Transbaikalia and Mongolia 7 centuries before Attila. The latest reports about the Huns concern not Attila or even his sons, but a distant descendant of Mundo, who served at the court of Emperor Justinian.

Version about the Turkic origin of the Huns

According to the hypothesis of Joseph de Guignes, the Huns could be Turkic or proto-Turkic in origin. This version was supported by O. Maenchen-Helfen in his linguistic research. The English scientist Peter Heather considers the Huns to be the so-called. "the first group of Turks" to invade Europe. Turkish researcher Kemal Jemal confirms this version with the facts of the similarity of names in the Turkic and Hunnic languages, this is also confirmed by the similarity of the Hunnic and Turkic tribal management systems. This version is also supported by the Hungarian researcher Gyula Nemeth. Uyghur researcher Turgun Almaz finds a connection between the Huns and modern Uyghurs in China

This point of view is held mainly by scientists of the “Eurasian” school to illustrate their conceptual constructions. However, written sources and archeology say that the historical fate of the Sunnu ended at the beginning of the century. e. somewhere in Central Asia. The entire first century AD. e. - this is an era of continuous decline of the once powerful tribal association. Hunger, lack of food and internal strife led to the fact that in the middle of the 1st century. The Xiongnu power, covering Southern Siberia, Mongolian Altai and Manchuria, collapsed. Part of the Xiongnu migrated to the west, to a certain country “Kangju” (presumably on the territory of Kyrgyzstan). Here, one of their detachments of 3,000 soldiers, led by the Shanyu Zhi-Zhi, was defeated by the Chinese and completely destroyed (1,518 people were killed and over 1,200 were captured). Other Xiongnu hordes migrated to the area during the 1st century. were subordinated to the Xianbi tribal union. It is characteristic that the sources do not report anything about the further advance of the Huns to the west. Only their leaders, the Chanui, flee “to no one knows where,” while the bulk of the tribe remains in place. Thus, the largest horde of the Xiongnu, numbering 100,000 tents, after its defeat in 91 “took the name Xianbi,” that is, joined this tribal association. No archaeological sites of the Xiongnu have been found west of Central Asia. Thus, the kinship of the Huns and the Xiongnu/Hyung-nu is based by Eurasians solely on some similarity in their names. Therefore, those researchers are right who believe that “their identification (with the Hyung-nu people. - S. Ts.), uncritically accepted by many scientists... is in fact not justified and contradicts the data of linguistics, anthropology and archeology...” [Code of the most ancient written news about the Slavs. Compiled by: L. A. Gindin, S. A. Ivanov, G. G. Litavrin. In 2 vols. M., 1994. T. I, 87-88].

The question of the ethnic and linguistic affiliation of the Huns remains controversial to this day. I am of the opinion that the European Huns of the 4th-5th centuries. should be identified with the Xiongnu tribe, which was already mentioned in the middle of the 2nd century. wrote Ptolemy, placing it in the territory “between the Bastarnae and Roxolani,” that is, significantly west of the Don, probably somewhere between the Dniester and the Middle Dnieper. Apparently, these Huns belonged to the Finno-Ugric language family. In the languages of some Ural peoples, the word “gun” or “hun” means “husband”, “man” [Kuzmin A.G. Odoacer and Theodoric. In the book: Pages of the past. M., 1991, p. 525]. But the Xiongnu horde was, of course, heterogeneous in its ethnic composition. Most likely by the middle of the 4th century. The Huns subjugated the Ugric and Bulgar tribes of the Don and Volga regions. This tribal association received the name “Huns” in Europe.

The invasion of the Huns into the Northern Black Sea region and Crimea was like a falling stone that caused a mountain avalanche. The Huns' military advantage was ensured by their tactics. At the beginning of the battle, avoiding hand-to-hand combat, they circled around the enemy and showered him with arrows until the enemy battle formations fell into complete confusion - and then the Huns completed the rout with a decisive blow from the mounted masses gathered into a fist; in hand-to-hand combat they wielded swords, “without any thought for themselves,” as Ammianus Marcellinus notes. Their swift invasion took not only the Romans by surprise, but also the tribes of the Northern Black Sea region. In this regard, contemporaries unanimously write about a “sudden onslaught”, a “sudden storm” and liken the Hun invasion to a “snow hurricane in the mountains”.

In 371, the Huns broke into the possessions of the Gothic king Ermanaric. A number of early medieval authors, including Jordan and Procopius of Caesarea, cite in this regard a funny incident that helped the Huns penetrate into Crimea. One day, Hun youth were hunting deer on the shores of Maeotida (Sea of Azov) and pressed one female to the water itself. Suddenly she rushed into the water and forded the sea, dragging the hunters with her. On the other side, that is, already in the Crimea, she disappeared, but the Huns were not upset: after all, now they learned something that they had not suspected before, namely, that you can get to the Crimea, to the Ostrogoths, bypassing the well-guarded Perekop Isthmus. Returning to their relatives, the hunters reported their discovery, and the Huns as a whole horde invaded Taurida along the path shown to them by the animals. The story of the deer, unless it is, of course, a legend, could only have happened in one place - in the Sivash Bay, through which the Arabat Spit stretches from north to south - a narrow and long spit, in the north very close to the seashore. This once again confirms that the Ostrogoths attacked the Huns of Ptolemy, and not the Huns who came from beyond the Volga, who in this case should have appeared in the Crimea from the direction of Taman.

* In ancient times, Mount Chatyrdag in southern Crimea was called Trebizond; Jordan also knows the Crimean city of Trebizond, destroyed by the Huns.

Battle between Huns and Goths

Meanwhile, the Huns attacked the Visigoths, causing them a real massacre. “The defeated Scythians (Visigoths - S. Ts.) were exterminated by the Huns and most of them died,” writes Evnapius, a contemporary of these events, “and there was no limit to the cruelty of their beating.” In 376, tens of thousands of Visigothic families fleeing the invasion appeared on the banks of the Danube, begging the Roman authorities to allow them to cross and settle in Thrace. The Ostrogoths followed them, hearing the stomping and neighing of the Hun horses behind them. Emperor Valens agreed to accept the Visigoths, intending to use them for border service on the Danube defensive line. However, crossing such a huge number of people took a long time; the supply of supplies was not organized properly, and famine broke out among the Visigoths. Roman officials, instead of helping the “barbarians,” used the situation for personal enrichment. For a piece of bread, they forced the Visigoths to give them their wives and children as slaves. It got to the point that any slave was sold for ten pounds of beef or a loaf of bread. Ammianus Marcellinus even writes that the Romans “out of their gluttony, having collected dogs from wherever they could, gave them one for each slave,” and Jordanes claims that hungry Visigoths sometimes sold their children into slavery for “dead meat - dogs and other unclean animals "

Driven to despair, the Visigoths rebelled, devastated Thrace, and the Romans had to pacify them by force of arms. But the Ostrogoths came to the aid of the defeated Visigoths, crossing the Danube without imperial permission or invitation. On August 9, 378, on the plain near Adrianople, the Roman legions were trampled by Gothic cavalry; The decisive role in the victory belonged to the Ostrogoths and their allies the Alans, who “like lightning” fell on the enemy. Emperor Valens fell in battle and even his body was not found. According to Jordan, he took refuge in some estate near Adrianople, and the Goths, not knowing about it, burned the house with him. His successor, Emperor Theodosius I, with great difficulty saved the situation by granting the Goths the rights of federates (allies of the empire receiving regular salaries). Meanwhile, the Hunnic horde entered Pannonia, dragging along the Alans, Ugrians, Bulgars and other nomadic tribes of the southern steppes. These events were the beginning of the Great Migration.

Jordan is only partly right in attributing the murder of the organizers of Attila’s grave to the desire of the Huns to hide the burial place of their leader. More precisely, before us is the ancient custom of killing the leader’s servants to accompany him to the afterlife. For example, Menander, under 576, reports that on the day of the burial of the ruler of the Western Turkic Khaganate, Dizabul, the horses of the deceased and four prisoners were killed, who were, as it were, sent to the afterlife to the deceased to tell him about the funeral feast performed in his honor. As part of the funeral ritual for the nobility, this custom was also recorded among the Rus at the beginning of the 10th century.

Despite the fact that the description of Attila’s funeral has ethnographic parallels in the funeral rites of not only nomads, but also many peoples of antiquity in general, the term “strava” in the sense of “funeral feast, funeral” is known only in Slavic languages. So, in Polish and Czech it means “food”. Perhaps the Huns borrowed it from the Slavs along with some features that enriched their own funeral rites [Code, I, p. 162-169].

Medieval images of Attila

Aetius

And yet this time the Hesperia survived. The commander Aetius, the last of the great Romans, opposed the Hunnic horde with a coalition of Germanic tribes - the dying civilization had to be defended by barbarians. The famous Battle of the Nations took place in June 451 on the vast Catalaunian fields in Gaul, near modern Troyes (150 km east of Paris). Its description by contemporaries is reminiscent of Ragnarok - the last grandiose slaughter of the gods in German mythology: 165 thousand killed, streams swollen with blood, Attila, mad with rage, circling around a giant fire of saddles, into which he intended to throw himself if the enemy broke into the Hunnic camp. .. The opponents failed to break each other, but a few days later Attila, without resuming the battle, led the horde back to Pannonia. The sun of ancient civilization slowed down its bloody decline.

Battle of the Catalaunian Fields. Medieval miniature

Avars. Khazars

2.2. Great Migration (Alan period: 200-800 AD)

Aggression against Great Alania: Goths and Huns

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