Deer myths and legends. Two legends about the white deer, or common symbolism in the history of different peoples selected Evenk legend about the white deer

In the depths of the gray centuries on the Donskoy expanse
The Lord gave the steppe for the Cossacks in the Wild Field.
And forever as a sign of goodwill
He sent his sons a White Deer

So that people are never in words or in deeds,
They did not dare to harm the beast.
This is how the ancestors lived for many years in peace,
Honoring the Divine Covenant, with a cool herd

According to the laws of free birds, without enmity and anger.
But one day guests appeared at the borders.
- Who are those who have trodden paths?
- We are fugitive slaves from the northern lands.

There boyar oppression grows stronger from year to year,
The fierce king drinks the blood of the people like water.
Executions, clanking of shackles, a terrible picture ...
The lives of men cost less than cattle.

Oh, there is no more life for us,
So, we went to distant lands for freedom.
Where the mighty Don-father rolls full of water,
Let us finally know the taste of happiness and freedom.

We fall at the feet of the donuts - Have pity, kind people,
Give the poor fugitives land on Prisuda.
Do not drive, Cossacks, there is no turning back.
After all, Don, by the river, has enough room for many. -

But get out of the habit of the slave stigma, brothers.
With Don, the issue is dumb, there is nothing to be afraid of.
There are no slave chains, hard labor, prison.
Live in the middle of the steppes, remember God.

Day after day, over time, the years flew by.
The Don stream did not weaken, the waters did not shallow.
The night was drawing to a close, the stars in the sky were cold
To the ataman porch on a mare in soap

Yes, galloped up, not a Cossack, not a cheerful Donetsk,
And the frowning leader of the fugitive new settlers.
- Listen, dad, there is business, announce the alarm.
I have bad news. I'm asking for help. -

At the call to the Maidan people gathered.
The new chieftain came out and bowed at once.
- Having left their lands, together with the Cossacks
We live, but the hotel also receives news.

And now our native land is cruelly conquered,
Hordes from the east went to war against him.
All who are young and strong from their home
They are taken into their full of enemy adversaries.

They beat children, old people, burn temples, icons ...
And the blood flows like a river, and flows down to the Don.
They are tearing down ancient crosses in cities and villages.
Help us brothers, declare a flash.

In this righteous fight against the enemy by right
You are gaining military glory for yourself.
Donets thought for a long time and decided: "Lubo!"
And the stallions laughed, the trumpets began to play.

Fight on the far side for blown glory
And in a war alien to them, they fall on the grass.
Well, at home, howling, and howling, widows, and guys.
Without fathers, and without husbands, life is not squeezed.

On Prisuda pestilence and gladness, on black nights
Farmsteads look at the steppe with dead eyes.
Even if the howling hero came with a disability
They treated us to a swan ... There was nothing more.

Who-s from hunger forgot God's command
And with an arrow he overwhelmed the White Deer.
Just sat down to fry the flesh, everything went dark,
And the Lord said from heaven - An evil deed came out.

Don was given to the Cossacks and the Don steppes,
So that you live in this splendor for centuries.
You left your native land against God's will,
They found mortal glory there on the battlefield.

And when the smoothness shook your settlements,
Fearing, they destroyed My Deer.
Here, over the steppe, over the river, I made a decision:
Peace to the fallen soldiers! There is no forgiveness for the living! -

The black lie threw up its wings like hands,
And the darkness fell on the ground, and the sounds died down.
There is no lightning shine, pulled by decay,
The Cossacks fell on their faces in sacred horror.

Suddenly there was a children's squeak, followed by another, ... the tenth ...
A bitter cry made its way up into the chambers of God.
And the Almighty heard in a thin child's cry,
That the innocent were punished for their Cossack sins.

The Lord raised his face in tears of bright sorrow,
And from tears in heaven, the stars shone.
The flaming crown of the sun dispelled the darkness at once
And the Creator decided to forgive his children for leprosy.

Another revelation of God to you:
A lot of blood is destined to shed in vain in battles.
Yes, and the servants of Satan will be different
Push you into circles of war, and torture you with temptation,

Confused on the right track and the time will come
Almost the entire Don tribe will be knocked out by the enemies.
But there will be no forgiveness to the Cossacks,
New Deer will not come here yet.

So that the judgment day of other days is not hidden in ash,
I will give you a coat of arms, and in it is a Deer wounded by an arrow.
Let the Cossacks of new generations remember -
This sign contains both sins and the pledge of salvation.

Where my beast was killed, the valley was filled with ore,
Today the lake will boil with black water.
And when at the appointed hour the waters become dry,
This will be a sign for you - all souls are forgiven.

March 2011

FERRY PRONZEN ARROW - ancient coat of arms of the Don Cossacks. General A. I. Rigelman in "The Narrative of the Don Cossacks" writes: "From the beginning, this Army or the government thereof had and still has a small seal depicting a deer struck by an arrow and with an inscription around it: Military seal, a deer struck by an arrow. It was used and is still used according to the Army. Is there any small command that should be sent, then from the Chancellery, for the seal thereof, the clerk on half a sheet, that is, a quarter written, sends an command without fixing that it is accepted as an Army command. " Therefore, one seal was enough without the signature of the clerk or chieftain. Revived in 1918 the Republic of the Great Don Host used the same image for its coat of arms, but it was called differently: "Helen is pierced by an arrow." In the frame of a simple heraldic shield, on a blue field, a white deer was depicted, pierced by a black arrow, in a standing position, with antlers in three and four branches.

The idea of \u200b\u200bthe coat of arms is connected with legends of deep antiquity. The legend of a mysterious deer leaving the hunters was known in Podonye (Tanaid) already in the first centuries of our era and was attributed by historians to the Cimmerians, Huns and Goths. It was recorded by Procopius of Caesarea (War with the Goths), Jordan (Getika), Sozomon (History of the Church) and some other ancient authors. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the Iranian concept of "saka" - "deer" was included in our original name Kos-saka. Kos-saka in the Scythian language means "white deer".

From 1709, a new phase began in Don’s relations with the tsars, which had changed little before the revolution. The Don Cossacks were in the position of the people, subdued and resigned, but not assimilated by the general orders of the empire. The land of the Don Cossacks received the status of a colony with some remnants of autonomous self-government.

The ancient Don coat of arms "Helen is pierced by an arrow" by the order of Peter I was canceled and, as if in mockery, a new one was introduced - "a naked Cossack on a barrel". He should probably have reminded the Cossacks, stripped naked, that the tsar could at any moment order them to blow up a barrel of gunpowder under him. From that time on, the life of Don, against his will, joined the mainstream of Russian history. The memory of the former independence was preserved only in legends.

Borgoyakov M.I.

As you know, in the III century. BC. on the territory of Mongolia and southern Transbaikalia, a military alliance of the Xiongnu was formed, the core of which was made up of twenty-four tribes. Most researchers believe that the Huns basically represented the union of the Turkic tribes, possibly with the inclusion of also ethnic groups of Monogol-Tungus and Ket origin. A.P. Dulzon believed that the dominant group of Huns, adjacent to the Chinese, spoke the Yenisei (Ket) language.

The number of tribes that formed the basis of the Xiongnu union in the steppes of Mongolia and southern Transbaikalia corresponds to the number of his grandchildren mentioned in the Turkic legend about Oguz Khan (24), each of whom became the head of a tribe named after him.

Perhaps this legend reflects the Hunnic period in the history of the Turkic tribes.

There is an assumption that the bull was the totem animal of the Shanyu clan of the Huns. The ancestor of another group of Huns was, apparently, considered a deer or a wolf, as indicated by fragmentary information from ancient authors and later legends about the origin of the Türko-Monogol clans.

According to the historian Priscus, this "ferocious clan" settled on the far shore of Lake Maoti (that is, on the shore of the present Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov). Jordan has the following legend about the Huns: "Hunters from this tribe, once, as usual, looking for game on the banks of the inner Meotida, noticed that suddenly a deer appeared in front of them, entered the lake and, then, stepping forward, then, pausing, appeared Following him, the hunters on foot crossed the Maotian lake, which until then was considered as inaccessible as the sea. As soon as the Scythian land appeared in front of them, knowing nothing, the deer disappeared. Not knowing at all that, besides Meotida, there is also another world, and enraptured by the Scythian land, they, being quick-witted, decided that this path, never previously guided, was shown to them by divine permission. They return to their own, inform them about what happened, praise Scythia and convince the whole tribe to go there along the path, which they learned, following the instructions of the deer. All the Scythians, taken away at the time of their entry, they sacrificed to victory, the rest, subjugated, subjugated to themselves. "

From this legend, it follows that the deer, who showed the way to the Huns, was in their minds a totemic ancestor animal and his image was associated with the named lake. E.Ch. Skrzhinskaya writes that the plot about a deer (sometimes a bull or a cow), following which the Hunnic hunters crossed the Maotian swamp or the Cimmerian Bosporus, was widespread and repeated among a number of writers of the U-U1 centuries. (Eunapius, Sozomenus, Procopius, Agathius, Jordan). “I also found such news,” the latter wrote, “that the Cimmerian Bosporus, shallow from the silt demolished by Tanais, allowed them to cross on foot from Asia to Europe ...”. E.Ch. Skrzhinskaya notes that the ancient authors, well aware of the fantastic nature of the legend about the deer, in passing remarks expressed a skeptical attitude towards this invention.

Further, we point out that at the decisive moment of the battle on the Catalaunian fields, known in history as the "Battle of the Nations", the Hunnic leader Attila addressed his soldiers with an inspiring speech: "... Finally, why did fortune confirm the Huns as the victors of so many tribes ... Who finally, opened the way for our ancestors to the Meotids, which had been closed and secret for so many centuries? Who then forced the armed to retreat before the unarmed? .. ".

E.Ch. Skrzhinskaya notes that the words of Attila indicate that the Hunnic leader had in mind the deeply revered progenitor of the Huns - a totem animal (a deer, a bull, and maybe a wolf), which, according to legend, showed the way to Europe, unknown to them for many centuries.

Hunnic legends (or myths), naturally, could not disappear without a trace. They continued to live in the myths of many peoples of Eurasia, including the Turks. In the same legend about Oguz Khan, which has become widespread among the Turkic peoples, a wolf acts as a guide. According to this legend, at dawn a ray similar to the sun penetrated into the tent of Oguz Kagan. From that ray a large gray-wooled, gray-maned wolf appeared and said: "Now move with the army, Oguz-kagan. Bring the people and the beks here, I will show you the way." Following the path indicated by the wolf westward, Oguz Kagan defeats his enemies.

The plot of the "wolf-leader" is very close to the legend about the origin of the Samnite (ancient Italian) tribe of Girpin (girpus wolf). The Girpins came to the territory they had conquered, led by a wolf ("the wolf, having approached him, became his companion and leader").

Such a close coincidence of plots can hardly be explained by typological similarity. The story of the wolf-leader from the legend about Oguz is apparently very ancient and existed in the era of the Scythians and Huns.

V.A. Gordlevsky notes that the legends about the wolf, traditional for the Turkic-Mongol tribes, could have been brought to Europe by nomads from Asia. They also influenced the medieval European epic. Al. Veselovsky, analyzing the legends about Attila, found in them two epic currents: a more tenacious one - the Hunno-Getic, refracted in the perception of the Magyars, the "heirs of the Huns", and a newer - Italian (Latin-Christian). For the Huns, Getae and Magyars, Attila is a hero born as a result of a supernatural conception - from light ... (Compare: in the legend about Oguz, the gray-maned wolf arises from a ray similar to the sun). On the other hand, according to legend, the birth of the Oguz Kagan is associated with a bull. There is a clear intertwining (mixing) of two ancient subjects.

It should also be noted that the Hunnic legend about the deer to a certain extent echoes the Kyrgyz legend about the Horned Mother Deer, the progenitor of the Buga clan, recorded by Ch. Valikhanov (19th century). This ancient plot was used by Ch. Aitmatov in the story "The White Steamer". Let us outline its content (according to A. Alimzhanov).

Kara-Murza and Asan (heroes of the legend), hunting for deer in the Ala-Myshyk mountains, saw a beautiful girl and a boy with antlers in a herd of marals. They killed the boy and grabbed the girl, who with a yell threw herself on the corpse of her brother and sobbed inconsolably for a long time. The legend says that, cursed by the horned girl, Asan and Kara-Murza had no offspring. The leader Mirza-Kul, to whom a beautiful girl was brought, gave her in marriage to his grandson Yaman-Kul. According to legend, this ancestor, named Muyuzbaibiche (Horned Mother), became famous for her extraordinary wisdom. It is said that she subsequently lost the horns that adorned her. Having somehow washed her head, she ordered the maid to pour the water into a place that was not touched by a man's foot. Out of curiosity, or not finding a suitable place, the servant drank this water and from this conceived a son, calling him after birth by the name Jelden (from the wind) ... According to Ch. Valikhanov, the Kirghiz of his day continued to sacredly honor the memory of the Horned Mother in the difficult moments of their life made sacrifices to her, turning to her with prayer. She is considered the patroness of Lake Issyk-Kul, and her spirit hovers over the Issyk-Kul valley.

In the religious beliefs of many peoples of Eurasia, an important place was occupied by the image of a bull (or a cow, a deer). It is known from Turkic mythology, for example, that the legendary forefather of the Turkic Oguz tribes was Oguz-Kagan (Bull-Kagan), born of Ai-Kagan from a bull. Og "uz or beech (in various phonetic variants) was a cult animal - a totem, whose name became an ethnonym.

The most convincing, from our point of view, explanation of the etymology of the collective ethnic name Oguz is given by A.N. Kononov, considering it to be the initial basis of Og "(ok) clan, tribe + aff. Plural - (y) h. This basis is in direct connection of the clan with the Old Türkic word about "g mother, and the words og" ul offspring, son, and "ogush" - a kindred ascend to the same basis. The roots of this concept ("ancestor", "clan") seem to go deep antiquity.

Pugu (another name for the bull. - MB) as one of the generations of the Tele tribe is mentioned in the history of the Tang dynasty (VII-VIII centuries AD). It is noted that the customs of this tribe are basically the same as those of the Tugu. This ethnonym has survived among the modern Kirghiz (Bugu), it also exists among the Khakass (Pug "a): there was an ulus Pug" alar aaly, that is, "ulus of the Pug" a "clan. Representatives of this clan traced their origins to the Pug tribe ( boogue). In the past, the Khakass had masculine names Pug "a, Khara Pug" a, etc. In the Yenisei runic inscription (No. 50 by S.E. Malov) Bug "a occurs as a proper name:" Bug "a er aty" Heroic name Bug. The same name appears in the Uyghur monuments of the XII-XIV centuries. and in Khakass folklore. The bull cult was known to the ancestors of the Western Buryats. So, for example, the Lena Buryats consider themselves the descendants of the mythical sons of the bull, the first ancestor of Bukh-Noyon, Ekhirit and Bulagat. Buryat mythology says that "touching the sky with its wide spreading horns, the divine bull descended to the ground, gave birth to two twin heroes on the shore of Lake Baikal, the ancestors of the Buryat people, Ekhirit and Bulagat, and then met his eternal enemy - the Black bull Taiji Khan After a hard fight, the defeated Black Bull left with a roar. Bukha-Noyon lay down to rest in this place and became petrified forever. "

Archaeological data indicate that the cult of the bull among various tribes and peoples dates back to ancient times. According to M.D. Khlobystina, in Khakassia, the central images of Okunev art (II millennium BC) are the woman-mother and her totem husband is a bull. The role of the bull as a leading totem in the early stages of the development of cattle-breeding societies was determined by the real economic situation of the Early Bronze Age, when it was cattle that formed the basis of the economy, the backbone of the herd. This situation developed back in the Chalcolithic era, when, apparently, the idea of \u200b\u200bvenerating the bull was established. According to the author, the iconographic images of women in combination with the figures of bulls indicate the connection of these images with the cult of fertility, with the idea of \u200b\u200bsuccessful procreation. The image of Okunev stelae-megalists is invariably repeated - a woman's face crowned with bull's horns. In the minds of the people of the Okunev culture, the bull was associated, on the one hand, with the image of the Sun, and on the other, with the concepts of "water", "river" and "fertility", which played an exceptional role in the life of ancient peoples, especially nomadic ones. "There is almost not a single tribe, - writes MI Shakhnovich, whose water would not be considered the mother of all living things, the healing, cleansing power of fertility." "No water - no life" - they used to say in the old days. Therefore, in the minds of ancient man, the image of a bull was associated with the source of water, giving life. In some cases, the concepts of "bull" and "river" were combined in the perception of the ancients - the bull lived in water, in a river. Echoes of this performance can be found in the Khakass epic. In the poem "Khan-Kichegey", the hero of the same name fights with a bull-monster that lived in a large river: The great black (big) river swelled,

Excited, overflowed the coast.

At the moment that of the Black Great River

The black bull came out.

Horns of the Black Bull -

Horns - sword, horns - spear.

To the Black Ridge (he),

Mooing and roaring, goes ...

One of the ancient Kyrgyz legends tells that "the Kyrgyz (tszilitszis) trace their origins from the time when Forty girls of the land of Han entered into a marriage with men mustache ... (The people) mustache also got its name from the name of the river and lives east of Tszilitszisa, north of the Tsian-He River (Kem, that is, Yenisei) ... all (mustache) wash in the river to honor the spirits of the river, because, according to legend, their ancestor came out of there "Obviously, their ancestor the bull (or cow, deer) was also considered, and the idea of \u200b\u200bit was also associated with the water element.

The traditional connection of the bull with water bodies is clearly manifested in the religions of the peoples of the East. It is known that the Khakases (Kachintsy) and some other Turkic peoples at a certain time made a sacrifice to the river: they usually threw a black bull into the water to appease the "spirits" or "master" of the river.

Thus, the name of a bull (cow or deer) gradually turns into an ethnonym, and then into a toponym (hydronym). This happens, apparently, even in the pre-Hunnic period, when the bull (or deer) was a totem animal, which gave the name of the tribe, which was reflected in the Hunnic mythology recorded by ancient authors.

Based on the data of some written sources, as well as on the mythological plots and rituals prevailing in the folklore of various Turkic-Mongolian peoples, one can to some extent reconstruct the religious ideas of the Huns and reveal their relationship with the distant ancestors of some modern Turkic-speaking peoples.

Bibliography

A.P. Dulzon. Huns and Kets (On the question of ethnogenesis according to linguistic data). - "Bulletin of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Series of social sciences", 1968, issue 3, pp. 137-142

Rashid ad-din. Collection of chronicles, vol. 1, book 1, M.-L., 1952, pp. 85-86; A. N. Kononov. Pedigree of the Turkmen. The composition of Abu-l-ghazi. M.-L., 1958, pp. 50-51.

A. Bernshtam. Socio-economic system of the Orkhon-Yenisei Turks of the 6th-8th centuries M.-L., 1946, pp. 83-84.

Jordan. About the origin and deeds of the Getae. Introductory article, translation and commentary by E.Ch. Skrzhinskaya. M., 1960, pp. 90-91. In the same place.

Ibid, pp. 271-272 (comments).

Ibid, p. 106.

A.M. Shcherbak. Oguz-name. Muhabbat-name. M., 1969, p. 37.46; A.N. Kononov. Pedigree of the Turkmen, pp. 82-84.

V.I. Abaev. Scytho-European isoglosses. At the crossroads of East and West. M., 1965, p. 95.

V.A. Gordlevsky. What is a "barefoot wolf"? - "Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Department of Literature and Language", vol. VI, 1947, p. 330.

For various versions of the etymology of the ethnonym og "uz, see: AN Kononov. Genealogy of the Turkmens, pp. 82-84.

For various versions of the etymology of the ethnonym og "uz, see: A. N. Kononov, The Genealogy of the Turkmen, p. 84.

N.V. Küner. Chinese news about the peoples of South Siberia, Central Asia and the Far East. M., 1961, p. 40.

E.P. Okladnikov. Deer golden horns. M.-L., 1964, pp. 118-119.

M.D. Khlobystin. The most ancient South Siberian myths in the monuments of Okunev art. - In collection: "Primitive art". Novosibirsk, 1971, pp. 170-171.

M.I.Shakhnovich. Primitive mythology and philosophy. L., 1971, p. 168-169.

See collection: "Altyn Aryg" "(in khak.yaz.). Abakan, 1958, pp. 196-197.

E.I.Kychanov. Information in "Yuan-shi" about the resettlement of the Kyrgyz in the XIII century. - "Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences of the Kirghiz SSR. Series of social sciences", vol. V, issue. 1. Frunze, 1963, pp. 59-60

See: B. Andrianov. The bull and the snake (At the origins of the cult of fertility). - "Science and Religion", 1972, 1.

By 370 it became clear that the Alans had lost the war with the Huns, but they were very far from the complete defeat and conquest of the Alans. Mobile horse detachments of the Huns controlled the steppes of the North Caucasus from the Caspian Sea to the Azov Sea. But the foothill fortresses of the Alans were not taken, the floodplain of the Don was not captured, which was generally beyond the power of the nomads based on the watershed steppes. The lower reaches of the Don were defended by the Eruls, the ethnos, apparently, not Scandinavian, but local, but conquered by Germanarich and subsequently Germanized. In Italy, which they conquered under the leadership of Odoacer in 476, this ethnic group is known as Heruli. The Eruls were distinguished by extreme mobility and arrogance. They supplied light infantry to their neighbors. There is no information about their collision with the Huns. This indicates that the Huns did not try to force the lower Don. They found another way.

According to Jordan's report, in 371, the Hunnic horsemen saw a female deer grazing there on the Taman Peninsula and chased her. The deer, squeezed to the seashore, entered the water and, "now stepping forward, now pausing," crossed into the Crimea. The hunters followed her and established the place of the underwater shallow, along which the ford went. They summoned their comrades-in-arms here, crossed the strait and "tribes like a hurricane ... took by surprise the tribes sitting on the coast of this very Scythia", that is, the Northern Crimea. The rest is easy to imagine. The Huns passed through the steppes to Perekop and went to the rear of the Goths, who, being allies of the Alans, concentrated their troops on the Don, defending its high right bank from a possible invasion of the Huns. No one could prevent the Huns from turning around on the Azov plain.

The author of the 5th century Eunapius wrote: “The defeated Scythians (Goths) were exterminated by the Huns, and most of them perished. Some were caught and beaten together with their wives and children, and there was no limit of cruelty when beating them; others gathered together and fled. " Of course, this was not without exaggeration. Many Ostrogoths stayed with the Huns and fought on their side in the Catalaunian field, and then against them on the Nedao River. But something else is more important: the state of Germanarich was not a union of tribes, but a "patchwork empire". Having defeated the Ostrogoths, the Huns made it possible for the tribes conquered by the Goths to free themselves and, presumably, to settle accounts with the invaders.

M.I. Artamonov believes that the “Chernyakhov culture of the burial fields” by its nature should be attributed to the Goths. It existed for only two centuries - III and IV. Even if this culture was not ethnically monolithic, i.e. included Goths, Sarmatians and, possibly, Slavs (Antes), then the fact remains its disappearance in the IV century, which coincides with the Hunnic invasion. The arguments of M.I. Artamonov are convincing, but only one doubt remains: the Chernyakhov culture is located in the forest-steppe; the Huns are the steppe people. Didn't the local Slavic, Lithuanian and Finno-Ugric tribes help them? The Hellenic cities of the former Bosporus kingdom, including Panticapaeum (Kerch), also suffered from the invasion of the Huns. This area retained a shadow of independence under Roman sovereignty, but in the 4th century it was abandoned by the Romans to their fate. During the era of Augustus and Tiberius, the southern coast cities were valuable as trade centers, and the Greeks brought wine and luxury goods. But in the 3rd century, the Goths forced the Bosporians to provide them with ships for pirate raids on Asia Minor and Greece. After this betrayal, the Romans lost sympathy for the Bosporus. And when the Huns came from the North Caucasus, they destroyed all the cities of the former Bosporus kingdom. Why did the Hellenic fortresses surrender, if the Huns did not know how to besiege and take cities? Why did the Bosporos even agree to an honorable surrender? After all, the Huns were quite obedient to their leader Balamber and, therefore, disciplined. And the Greeks had ships, and the sea was close by ... A little energy, and you could fight back or be saved!

This is what the phase of obscuration is in the process of ethnogenesis. In this phase, it is easier to die than to resist. And if there was an energetic Greek who proposed a way of salvation, then the fate of Stilicho and Aetius would have met him, for such is the effect of the statistical laws of ethnogenesis. As a result of the pogrom perpetrated by the Huns on the Hellenic cities of the former Bosporus kingdom, the Eastern Roman Empire, which became Byzantium, was among the enemies of the Huns.

Having passed Perekop, the Huns encountered not obscurantists, but ethnic groups that were in a phase of ascent. They even had too much energy, but there was no dominant that would direct this energy in a given direction. Germanarich was already 110 years old, and due to his decrepitude, he could not quickly find ways out and apply to the changed situation. The Visigoths were weary of his power, for they made their kings simply "judges", depriving them of titles and power. The Gepids also tried with all their might to achieve independence, but the Veneds (Slavs) were the worst of all. Wolverine Sunilda Germanarikh ordered to be torn apart by wild horses for betraying his spouse. Then her brothers Sar and Ammius stabbed him. Although Germanarich did not die and did not recover, he began to manage affairs like a sick old man, that is, very badly.

Even before that, Hermanarich subdued the "contemptuous" Veneti, who were numerous and tried to resist at first. He also subjugated the Aestians (the Lithuanian tribe of Aists), thus acquiring more subjects who hated the Ostrogoths. Since the Huns, unlike the Goths, were looking not for enemies, but for friends, then all the offended tribes and peoples came into contact with them. In 375, Germanarich, seeing the inevitability of death, thrust a sword into himself, and the Ostrogoths partly obeyed the Huns, and partly went to the Visigoths, who firmly decided not to surrender. They were ruled by a clan of Balts (brave), who had long competed with the royal family of Amals (noble ones), and this is partly why they made a decision that, as it later turned out, led to ethnic divergence - the division of one ethnic group into two mutually hostile ones.

The Huns, meanwhile, continued to march west. The Visigoths were waiting for them on the Dniester. A detachment of Huns crossed the Dniester where there were no guards, attacked the Visigoths from the rear and caused them to panic. Most of ready rushed to run to the Danube and there asked for asylum from the emperor Valens. In 376, with the permission of the imperial authorities, they crossed the Danube and were baptized according to the Arian rite. A smaller, pagan part of the Visigoths, led by Atanarikh, fortified themselves with serifs in a dense forest (Gilee) between the Prut and Danube. But, realizing the hopelessness of further resistance to the Huns, Atanarikh reached an agreement with Emperor Theodosius and in 378–380. transferred his army to the service of the empire on the rights of federates - allies with an autonomous command.

The fate of the Ostrogoths was different. After the death of Germanarich, the Goths tried to regain their independence. The successor of Hermanarich Vinitarius "with bitterness endured submission to the Huns." At the end of the 4th century, he tried to “use force, moved troops into the borders of the ants. In the first battle he was defeated, but later he began to act more decisively and crucified their king of God with his sons and with seventy elders. " How to understand such strange self-righteousness? Apparently, Eunapius's story about the ferocity of the Huns is an exaggeration. Otherwise, how could a large army get from the Ostrogoths, after the Visigoths left in 376 and took away part of the Ostrogoths, and the Gepids, although a Gothic tribe, separated from the Ostrogoths at their first weakening.

The Antes were "numerous and strong." The war with them was difficult and ultimately disastrous. It was like a challenge to the Huns by eliminating their ally. In response, a year after the execution of God, the Hunnic king Balamber, calling for the help of those Ostrogoths who remained faithful to him, attacked Vinitaria and, after several setbacks, defeated and killed him in a battle on the Erak River (Lower Dnieper). After that, a long peace came to the steppe.

At the beginning of the 5th century, the Huns advanced westward, but without military clashes. At first glance, this is surprising, but let's look at the course of events and at the historical geography of the ethnic groups of Pannonia. In Dacia, the Gothic tribe of Gepids strengthened, the leader of which Ardarich was a personal friend of Attila. The Ostrogoths, who left with the Visigoths to the Roman borders, did not get along with them. In 378 the generals Alatey and Safrakh took their Ostrogoths to Pannonia and settled on the banks of the Danube. In 400, the Huns appeared on this river. The rebellious Gothic federate Gaina, having lost a clash with the population of Constantinople, fled across the Danube, was captured by the Huns and beheaded. Around the same time, the son of the Roman commander Gaudentius, Aetius, being a hostage to the Huns, also made friends with his peer Attila and his uncle Rugila, who later became the king of the Huns. So, the Huns occupied Pannonia without war, with the support of many tribes, among which were probably the Antes and Rugi. This is what the "destructive invasion of the Hunnic hordes" looked like ?!

But the Huns also had enemies. More precisely, they were the enemies of the tribes allied with the Huns. These were the Suevi - the enemies of the Gepids, the Vandals - the enemies of the Rugs, the Burgundians and the worst enemies of the Huns themselves - the Alans. These ethnic groups left their homeland, fearing the Huns. In 405, they broke into Italy. Their leader Radagais made a vow to sacrifice to the gods all the captured senators, but he himself was surrounded by the troops of Stilicho, betrayed and executed. Only this campaign can be considered a consequence of the Hunnic pressure on the ethnoses of Europe. But the Great Migration of Peoples, according to the generally accepted opinion, began in 169-170. from the Marcomanian war, the transition is ready "from Skandza", but not from the appearance of the Huns in the Trans-Volga steppes.

The main headquarters of the Hunnic leaders at the beginning of the 5th century was in the steppes of the Black Sea region. Byzantine embassies were sent there until 412. Nevertheless, the resettlement of the Huns to the banks of the Danube proceeded steadily; The Hungarian Pashta (steppe) reminded them of the Trans-Volga homeland, which the Huns had abandoned by the 5th century, since the climatic shift from a secular drought to increased moisture in the steppe zone caused the expansion of the Siberian forest and forest-steppe to the south. The strip of dry steppes has narrowed, which means that the Hunnic area has also narrowed.

Extensive pastoral nomadism requires large areas with a sparse population. Horses and sheep, accustomed to steppe grasses, cannot live on wet forest food, much less get food from under the deep snow. Consequently, hayfields are necessary, and the Huns did not know this craft. Therefore, they moved to the conquered territories, where it was possible to use the labor of the conquered aborigines. But those had to either be kept at bay, for which the small Huns did not have the strength, or to compensate for them with war booty. European passionate barbarians knew that they could receive compensation only in the Roman Empire. But without proper organization, their invasions were at first unsuccessful, then semi-successful: the Romans let the Burgundians into the Rhone Valley, the Vandals, Suevi and Alans - into Spain, the Visigoths - into Aquitaine, the Franks - into Gaul, but the rest of the barbarians also wanted to snatch their share of the Roman pie. and an intelligent ruler, as you know, takes into account the wishes of the masses. Rugila was a smart and careful ruler. When the Huns reached the Rhine in 430, he tried to establish diplomatic contacts with Rome and even gave the empire his troops to suppress the Bagaud in Gaul. But he died in 434, and power passed to Attila and Bleda - the children of his brother Mundzuk.

The king is ready Filimer ... found among his tribe several women-sorcerers ... Considering them suspicious, he drove them far from his army and, thus putting them to flight, forced them to wander in the desert. When unclean spirits saw them, wandering through barren spaces, in their arms they mingled with them and produced that fierce tribe that first lived among the swamps - small, disgusting and lean, understandable as a kind of people only in the sense that revealed a semblance of human speech.
It was these Huns, created from such a root, that approached the borders of the Goths. This fierce family ... settled on the distant shore of Lake Maotida (ancient authors called the Sea of \u200b\u200bAzov Meotida. Jordan thinks that the homeland of the Huns lay on its eastern shores near the Kerch Strait.), Knew no other business, except for hunting that he, having increased to the size of the tribe, began to disturb the peace of neighboring tribes with deceit and robbery.
Hunters from this tribe, once, as usual, looking for game on the banks of the inner Meotida, noticed that suddenly a deer appeared in front of them, entered the lake and, then stepping forward, then pausing, seemed to show the way. Following him, the hunters on foot crossed the Maotian Lake, which until then was considered impassable like the sea. As soon as the Scythian land appeared in front of them, who knew nothing, the deer disappeared. I believe that they did this because of hatred of the Scythians, the very spirits from which the Huns originate.
Not knowing at all that besides Meotida there is another world, and adored by the Scythian land, they, being quick-witted, decided that this path, never previously guided, was shown to them by divine permission. They return to their own people, inform them of what happened, praise Scythia and convince the whole tribe to go there along the path they learned, following the instructions of the deer.
They sacrificed all the Scythians who were taken away when they entered (Europe) to victory, and subjugated the rest, subjugated to themselves ... Maybe they defeated them not so much by war as by instilling the greatest horror with their terrible appearance ... their image frightened its blackness, resembling not a face, but, if I may say so, an ugly lump with holes instead of eyes. Their fierce appearance betrays the cruelty of their spirit: they even commit atrocities against their offspring from their first birthday. For male children, they cut their cheeks with an iron, so that, before accepting milk supply, they try the wound test. Therefore, they grow old beardless, and in youth they are deprived of beauty, since the face, furrowed with iron, due to scars, loses its timely decoration with hair.
They are small in stature, but they are quick in their agility of movements and are extremely prone to riding; they are broad in shoulders, dexterous in archery and are always proudly erect due to the strength of the neck. In human form, they live in bestial savagery. Jordan about Attila
He was a husband, born to shock the peoples, the horror of all countries, who, no one knows by what lot, inspired everyone in awe, widely known everywhere for his terrible idea. He was proud of his gait, gazed here and there, and with his body movements revealed his highly ascended power. A lover of war, he himself was moderate on hand, very strong in common sense, available to those who ask and merciful to those whom he once trusted.
By appearance stunted, with a broad chest, with a large head and small eyes, with a sparse beard touched by gray hair, with a flattened nose, with a disgusting skin color, he showed all the signs of his origin. Procopius of Caesarea on the plundering of Rome by vandals in 455.
Geyserich, having loaded his ships with gold, silver and other things from the imperial property, returned to Carthage. He left no copper or any other metal in the palace. He also robbed the Temple of Jupiter Capitoline, removing half of the roof from it. It was a wonderful and splendid roof, of the finest copper and all thickly gilded. Jordan about Geyserich
... He was short and lame because of a fall from a horse, secretive, a little talkative, despising luxury, stormy in anger, greedy for wealth, extremely far-sighted when it was necessary to anger the tribes, ready to sow seeds of discord and arouse hatred. Questions
1. Where, according to the historian Jordan, was the border between Europe and Asia?
2. Jordan, according to a long tradition, calls the inhabitants of the northern Black Sea region Scythians. When did the real Scythians live and what do you know about them?
3. Why do you think Jordan is the origin of the Huns from the Goths? Where is the homeland of the Goths and where did they live in the 4th century?
4. What in Jordan's message looks like the truth, what is exaggeration, and what is just fiction?
5. What feelings does the reader (and probably the author) evoke in the portrait of Attila, created by Jordan?
6. What can you learn about the economic life of the Vandals from the message of Procopius of Caesarea?
7. Why did the vandals begin to remove the roof from the Temple of Jupiter Capitoline and why did not they complete this work?
8. Are there any common features in the appearance of people as distant in their origin as Atgpila and Geyserich? If so, how can this be explained?

Hunnic-Turkic story about the ancestor-deer (bull)