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They also had conquered a big part of the
Crimea, where after all they survived for the longest time -
as far as till the end of the 16th century in Crimea lived the
remnants of the population speaking the Gothic language.
In the
4th century started stubborn and bloody wars between the Goths and
the Antes. By then the Goths had divided into Eastern Goths,
or Ostrogoths, who lived right in the Crimea and in the north
to the Black Sea, and the Western Goths, or Visigoths, who had
wandered from their original settlements along the Dnieper as
far as to the Apennines and Pyreneans. Those were the
Ostrogoths to fight the Antes; around the middle of the 4th
century their tribal union, which comprised not only the Goths,
but also the Alani and Thracians, was quite a force. The ruler
of the Ostrogoths, King Ermanaric, subordinated the Antes on
the middle Dnieper, and Sclavenians. The territories of the
latter have been described in various ways and with a big
uncertainty, but in general they are regarded for a complex of
the tribes living in the south-easternmost areas to the
Dnieper, as far as along the Sava. There are also the
diametrically opposite theories, according to which the
Sclavenians, under the Gothic pressure, were driven to the
north and settled around the lake Ilmen. According to this
theory from them originated the Ilmen Slavs, and the very name
of Sclavenians became the collective for all the Slavs (hence
the Latin Sclavini and the Greek sklavenoi).
Ermanaric
achieved a lot by sword, but he too died from the sword, and
from his own one - he committed suicide after the Huns
destroyed his realm in 375. The Huns' invasion of Europe took
a whole century. Negative and often catastrophic in its
results it introduced incredible confusion, reshuffling, and
annihilation of many tribes, as well as endless wars, like
those between the Ostrogoths and the Antes. As they moved
westward driven by the invasion of the Huns, the Ostrogoths
ruthlessly destroyed the Antes living along the Southern Bug.
The captive Antes King Boz (or Boks) was crucified together
with his sons and 70 Antes noblemen. This happened after 385.
Later the Huns eventually conquered the Ostrogoths, and it was
not until the Huns' realm disappeared from the historic scene
in the 5th century, that the impressive, one may say -
brilliant, career of the Ostrogoths started. In 493 they
established their state in Italy, but 60 years later not a
trace of it was left.
The
disappearance of the Huns from Europe let also the Antes to
recreate their strength. The expeditions into the Balkan
Peninsula became its external demonstration. Alongside the
military expeditions also the settlement developed; in various
ways and times, mostly between the 5th and 7th centuries the
ancestors of the modern Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbs, Croats,
and Slovenes settled in the Balkans. Since the middle of the
6th century a new danger menaced East Europe. This menace was
brought by the Turkic Avars from the Central Asia. After an
obliterating passage through the Black Sea steppes the Avars
had settled in the Pannonian Plains; there emerged the centre
of their tribal union, which after all was as far from the
real integration as any one before. Nevertheless the Avar
khanate (or khaganate) survived over 250 years and it was not
until the beginning of the 9th century that Charlemagne erased
it from the face of the earth. The Antes got crushing blows
from the Avars at the early stage of their development. By the
7th century their name disappeared from the sources and
yielded to the name of different etymology: Ros or Rus.
Further development of the East Slavic tribes included into
the frames of this name had already progressed towards the
state forms. Several decades after the fall of the Avar
khanate the Old Russian state emerged in the lands of the
Antes.
It is
characteristic of the formation of the pre-state structures of
East Europe that those processes developed even when the Avars
were in power. However they were permanently busy with
pillaging expeditions to the Byzantine provinces. With time
fighting Byzantium became more and more difficult. The Franks
fought the Avars, and the conquered peoples rebelled. Towards
the end of the 8th century in the Balkans, beyond the Danube,
emerged Bulgarian state. It was a great contribution to the
possibility of free development of the eastern tribes, and
some non-Slavonic tribes had also got their chances. This was
demonstrated in the formation of two more state structures of
the 7th century - the Khazars and the Volga (or Kama) Bulgars.
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