Huns summary. The history of the Huns from beginning to end. The Huns in European sources

The Huns are an ancient nomadic tribe that invaded Eastern Europe in late antiquity (370s).

The Huns were Asians by origin, and their language, according to most scientists, belonged to the Turkic group.

Also, most researchers recognized that the Huns were descendants of the Central Asian Xiongnu, known from their wars with the Chinese Empire.

Huns in Europe

The invasion of the Huns radically changed the history of European civilization. It was the beginning of the so-called Great Migration - a process in which “barbarian” European tribes, primarily the Germans, settled in different places of the continent and invaded the Roman Empire.

As a result, the once integral empire was divided into several geographical parts, separated by barbarian settlements, which in some cases formed their own states.

On the other hand, many Germanic tribes wanted to become Roman citizens, so the government allowed them to settle in the outlying areas of the empire, in exchange for which they pledged to protect the borders from other barbarian tribes.

Nevertheless, the Huns managed to subjugate a number of European peoples, who with great difficulty were able to free themselves from their rule. More precisely, the state of the Huns weakened and collapsed after the death of Attila, the most powerful and famous Hun ruler, and this allowed the Germans to gain freedom.

The Alans and Germanic tribes were the first to suffer from the onslaught of the Huns:

• Ostrogoths;
• Burgundy;
• Heruli.

Asian nomads organized real “races of peoples for survival.” The final result of this process, in particular, was the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the consolidation of the Slavs and Germans throughout Europe.

Origin of the Huns

While most scholars recognize the Huns as an ancient Turkic tribe, some researchers tend to connect them with the Mongol and Manchu peoples. Linguistic data testify to the Turkic origin of the Huns, but the material culture is too different from the traditional Turkic one.

For example, all ancient Turks were characterized by round housing “ib”, which later became the prototype of the yurt; The Huns lived in dugouts with an L-shaped bed.

Rulers

The first known Hunnic ruler is Balamber. It was he who subdued the Ostrogoths in the 4th century and forced the Visigoths to retreat to Thrace. The same king devastated Syria and Cappadocia (then Roman provinces), and then settled in Pannonia (the territory of present-day Hungary) and Austria. Information about Balamber is legendary.

The next famous ruler is Rugila. Under him, the Huns concluded a truce with the Eastern Roman Empire, but Rugila threatened to break it if Emperor Theodosius II did not hand over to him the fugitives pursued by the Huns. Rugila did not have time to put his threat into action because he died in time.

After him, his nephews Bleda and Attila began to rule the nomads. The first died in 445 for an unknown reason during a hunt, and from that moment Attila became the sole ruler of the Huns. This ruler, in the words of one Roman author, was “born to shake the world.”

For the imperial authorities, Attila was a real “scourge of God”; his image was used to intimidate the masses who inhabited the remote provinces of both Roman empires (Eastern and Western) and were thinking about winning independence.

In the 6th – 8th centuries, a certain “kingdom of the Huns (Savir)” existed on the territory of Dagestan. Its capital was the city of Varachan, but most of the inhabitants of the state continued to maintain a nomadic way of life. The ruler of the state bore the Turkic title Elteber. In the 7th century, the next ruler of Alp-Ilitver, having received an embassy from Christian Caucasian Albania, himself deigned to convert to Christianity.

After the 8th century, there is no reliable information about the fate of the Dagestan “kingdom of the Huns”.

Lifestyle

The Huns were absolute nomads. The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus reports that they never built any buildings for themselves and even in conquered cities they tried not to enter houses; According to their beliefs, it was unsafe to sleep indoors. They spent most of the day on horses, often even spending the night on them.

However, the Roman ambassador to the Huns, Priscus, wrote that Attila and some of his military leaders had huge and richly decorated palaces. The Huns practiced polygamy. The basis of their social system was a large patriarchal family.

It is reported that the Huns were well acquainted with cooking, but their nomadic life taught them to be unpretentious in food. Apparently, the Huns knew how to cook food, but refused to do so due to lack of time.

Religion

The Huns were pagans. They recognized the common Turkic Tengri as the supreme god. The Huns had amulets with images of fantastic animals (primarily dragons), and had temples and silver idols. According to Movses Kalankatvatsi (Armenian historian of the 7th century), the Huns deified the sun, moon, fire and water, worshiped the “gods of the roads,” as well as sacred trees.

They sacrificed horses to trees and gods; however, the Huns did not practice human sacrifice, unlike their supposed Xiongnu ancestors. Perception of the Huns The Huns inspired real horror in the European population, even the “barbarian” ones. Because of their Mongoloid characteristics, they seemed to the noble Romans not like people, but like some kind of monsters, tightly attached to their ugly horses.

The Germanic tribes were outraged by the onslaught of the nomadic Huns, who were not even familiar with agriculture and flaunted their savagery and lack of education.

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. Part of the Hunnic monarchy in the middle of the 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 found 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 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 of 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, as if they were cursed tombs, and only feel comfortable in the open air. 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 a monstrous and terrible appearance 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

The Huns are a people leading a nomadic lifestyle and descended from the nomadic tribes of Central Asia (Mongolia, Northern China). In the second half of the fourth century, the Hun tribes became the catalyst for the great migration of peoples.

History: rise and fall

Religious beliefs of the Huns

The Huns' way of life and warfare

In the autumn of 376, the peoples who settled the territories from the Middle Danube Plain to the Black Sea coast began to move. Throughout the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, alarming rumors spread about certain wild and cruel barbarians who eat raw meat and destroy everything in their path. Soon, envoys from their yesterday's enemies, the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, came to the Romans with a request to settle on the territory of the empire.

The main reason for this concern was the Hun hordes that broke into Europe. At that time no one knew who they were or where they came from. One of the Roman historians, Ammianus Marcellinus, believed that they came from the Maeotian swamp, that is, from the Sea of ​​​​Azov. Modern researchers associate them with the Xiongnu people, who inhabited the steppes north of China from 220 BC to the 2nd century AD. These were the first tribes to create a vast nomadic empire in Central Asia. Subsequently, some of them reached Europe, mixing along the way with Turkic, Eastern Sarmatian and Ugric tribes, which formed a new Hunnic ethnic group.

Their invasion is considered one of the main factors that marked the beginning of the great migration, more precisely, its second wave. The long journey that led to such catastrophic consequences was apparently prompted by the impoverishment of pastures, which is a constant problem for nomads and the reason for their permanent movement. This was also the reason for their constant conflicts with China, as a result of which the Great Wall of China was built. However, in the 1st century BC, China took advantage of the weakening of the Hunnic power due to civil strife, and inflicted a crushing defeat on them, which summed up centuries of conflicts.

The Hunnic power collapsed, and its scattered parts scattered across Asia and Europe. Some of the most desperate, or, in Gumilyov’s words, passionaries, moved to the West, where they passed through Kazakhstan in the 50s of the 2nd century AD and reached the banks of the Volga. After 360, perhaps again due to a general cooling, they crossed the Volga and continued their journey to the West, where they defeated the Alans and Ostrogoths. This is how Ammianus Marcellinus described it: “The Huns, having passed through the lands of the Alans, who border on the Greuthungs and are usually called Tanaites, carried out terrible destruction and devastation on them, and concluded an alliance with the survivors and annexed them to themselves. With their assistance, they boldly broke through with a surprise attack into the vast and fertile lands of Ermanaric, the king of the Ostrogoths.” They were followed by the Goths, who, under the pressure of the nomads, divided into the Visigoths and Ostrogoths. The Huns firmly settled in the territories of the Northern Black Sea region, coming close to the Roman borders.

The Huns are a name known to every schoolchild. Conquerors who literally swept away settlements on their way, crushing peoples and territories.

It is not known exactly where they came from, because history speaks loudly of the Huns only where they left a bloody trail. As soon as their military power waned, their traces were lost again.

The Huns appeared in the 370s. They passed through the North Caucasus, conquering the Alans. Each conquered tribe paid tribute to the conquerors, and was also obliged to participate in military campaigns, increasing the army and power of the Huns.

At this time they were led by Balamber. They walked to the Dnieper and Dniester, reached Syria, which was a Roman province, some of the Huns settled in Pannonia and modern Austria. From there, the Huns regularly attacked the provinces of the Eastern Roman Empire.

Too many heterogeneous tribes and peoples joined the army of the Huns. Among them were the Bulgars and Ostrogoths, Sarmatians and Herpides, both Germanic and non-Germanic peoples.

In the 430s, the Huns continued to attack Thrace, which was also part of the Roman Empire. In the end, Emperor Theodosius II agreed to pay tribute, but during the negotiations the leader of the Huns, Rugila, died.

The time has come for Attila. Attila ruled alone from 445. For the Eastern Roman rulers, he became a real scourge of God. He starved out about 60 cities, including Greek and Roman. They all paid huge tribute.

But Attila turned out to be one of those rulers who holds the people together only by the force of his own personality. After his death in 453, the Huns ceased to be a single force that terrified Europe and Asia.

Some tribes wanted freedom. Already in 454, the Huns were pushed back to the Black Sea region, and soon they quietly and ingloriously simply disappeared among other tribes.

There are, however, references to the fact that in Dagestan there was a tribe of Khons, that is, Huns, from the 6th century. The ruler of these Transcaucasian Huns in 682 adopted Christianity along with all the nobility, finally crowding out the barbaric past of the Hunnic tribes from memory. After the 7th century there is no mention of the Huns in general or of the Huns in the Caucasus.

It was an impressive march of a huge horse horde. The Huns captured other people's nomads, and the tribes that had previously grazed cattle there either died or were shunned, receding to the cold north or desert south. And the horde drove some ahead of them, and they themselves unceremoniously dealt with those who lived even further from them at sunset.

But don’t thicken the scarlet paint too much. Of course, sometimes the victors were merciless, because even in relatively calm times, nomads, and not only nomads, could not imagine a world without elements of the struggle of all against all.

However, there was not only struggle, but also coexistence; most tribes and peoples had known each other for a long time.

So the Huns left some in their previous places, but they made it clear whose places these were now and how they should behave so that this land would not become a premature grave for them. And they took someone with them: also, of course, outlining their priorities.

Scientists have long debated who the Huns were: Mongols, Turks, and maybe Iranians! But the reason for such differences of opinion is most likely that there was no one in this stream. However, the prevailing opinion is that the original Hun-nu were Mongols, and then powerful Turkic and Indo-European strata were added. This is how the late Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus saw the Huns.

Veltman saw the Huns as ancient Eastern Slavs; Later writers brought this idea to the point of absurdity, in particular Ivan Bilyk, who called the great Hun king Attila Prince Gatilo.

But by now, the debate is practically over. Serious researchers have finally recognized the Huns as a Turkic people who came out of the East. Their ancestors were the nomadic tribes of the Xiongnu who lived north of China, to protect against which the Chinese built their famous Great Wall. But Attila’s history of the Hun is, practically speaking, ends. The first unifier of the Xiongnu power was Shanyu, that is, the supreme ruler named Mode.

His father, Shanyu Tuman, tried to kill his son, but failed; Admired by Mode's courage, Tuman placed ten thousand warriors under his command.

The prince immediately set about training his army, and taught it in a very original way. The first and main rule was: all warriors immediately shoot arrows where Mode shot his arrow.

To test the discipline of his soldiers, one day the prince shot his own magnificent horse. Some of the warriors hesitated; their heads were immediately cut off.

Another time, Mode shot an arrow at his beautiful young wife. Again, some archers failed to follow his example and paid with their heads. Finally, the momentous day arrived.

During the big hunt, Mode shot at his father: all the guards, automatically, repeated his actions, and Shanyu Tuman died, completely riddled with arrows. This happened in 209 BC. e.

Thus, in the eerie but effective spirit of ancient barbarism, Mode made his way to power, and then created the unified state of the Xiongnu.

There are other things they tell about this chanyu. One day, the ruler of the warlike neighboring people of Donghu, under the threat of war, demanded that Mode give him, the ruler, his best horse and his beloved wife. Mode did not object: Why spare one horse and one woman for the neighbors?

But when the Donghu wanted to get a narrow strip of Hunnic land, completely barren and, in fact, of no use to anyone, the Shanyu said: Land is the foundation of the state, how can you give it away?

Without waiting for the Donghu attack, Mode himself went to them - and won.

The Huns were a group of nomadic people who first emerged from the east of the Volga River and were first referred to as the Turkic-speaking Xiongnu. Initially being near the Caspian Sea in 91 AD. e. The Huns migrated to the southeastern Caucasus region around 150 AD. e. and to Europe 370 n. e. where they established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Priscus mentions that the Huns had their own language. They formed a unified empire under Attila the Hun, who died in 453, and their empire collapsed the following year. Their descendants or successors with similar names are recorded, bordering populations to the south, east and west, as occupying parts of Eastern Europe and Central Asia from about the 4th century to the 6th century. Beginning with Joseph de Guine in the 18th century, historians have linked the Huns, who appeared on the frontiers of Europe in the 4th century, with Hiognu, who migrated from Mongolia some three hundred years earlier. Due to conflict with Han China, the Northern Hiongnu branch retreated in a northwest direction, their descendants may have migrated across Eurasia, and hence they may have a certain degree of cultural and genetic continuity with the Huns. The Huns did not have permanent dwellings; they roamed with their livestock and did not build huts.

Sources: znayuvse.ru, otvet.mail.ru, uighur.narod.ru, www.superotvet.ru, istoriagagauz.com

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