Crimean Goths
The Crimean Goths were Greuthungi-Gothic tribes or Western Germanic tribes who bore the name Gothi, a title applied to various Germanic tribes who remained in the lands around the Black Sea, especially in Crimea. They were the longest-lasting of the Gothic communities. Their existence is well attested through the ages, though the exact period when they ceased to exist as a distinct culture is unknown; as with the Goths in general, they may have become diffused among the surrounding peoples. In his Fourth Turkish letter, Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq (1522–1592) describes them as "a warlike people, who to this day inhabit many villages".[1]
However, in the 5th century, the Ostrogothic ruler Theodoric the Great failed to rouse Crimean Goths to support his 488–493 war in Italy.[2][3] Aside from textual reports of the existence of the Goths in Crimea, both first- and second-hand, from as early as 850,[4] numerous archaeological sites also exist, including the ruins of the former capital city of the Crimean Goths: Doros (present-day Mangup). Furthermore, numerous articles of jewellery, weaponry, shields, buttons, pins, and small personal artefacts on display in museums in Crimea and in the British Museum have led to a better understanding of Crimean Gothia.
Definition
In the report made by Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq in 1595 of the Crimean Goths, he claims to not be able to determine whether the Germanic peoples of Crimea were Goths or Saxons; certainly, the language cannot be directly linked to the well-attested Gothic language. Though most scholars agree the peoples must have been of Gothic origin,[5][6] some others have maintained that the so-called "Crimean Goths" were in fact West or even North Germanic tribes who settled in Crimea, culturally and linguistically influenced by the Ostrogoths.[7] For example, a group of Anglo-Saxons who fled the Norman Conquest did in fact get asylum with the Byzantine Empire and received land in Crimea (see New England), and given the suspiciously West Germanic character of "Crimean Gothic". In medieval times it was customary to refer to a wide range of Germanic tribes as "Goths", so the exact ethnic nature of the Germanic peoples in Crimea is a subject of debate. It appears conceivable that it is far more likely the "Crimean Gothic" language descended from Anglo-Saxons who arrived around 1100 instead of Goths from several hundred years before that.[8]
History
Early history
According to
The Ostrogoths became vassals of the Huns until the death of Attila, when they revolted and regained independence. Like the Huns, the Goths in Crimea never regained their lost glory.
According to Peter Heather and Michael Kulikowski, the Ostrogoths did not even exist until the 5th century, when they emerged from other Gothic and non-Gothic groups.[10][11] Other Gothic groups may have settled in Crimea.[12] It has also been speculated that the Crimean Goths were in fact Saxons escaping Christian persecution from the west, or North Germanic tribes who migrated southwards.[citation needed] Either way, the existence of Goths in Crimea was first attested from around the 3rd century, following which they were well reported.
During the late 5th and early 6th century, the Crimean Goths had to fight off hordes of Huns who were migrating back eastward after losing control of their European empire.[13] In the 5th century, Theodoric the Great tried to recruit Crimean Goths for his campaigns in Italy, but few showed interest in joining him.[3]
Byzantium
The Principality of Gothia or
Many Crimean Goths were Greek speakers and many non-Gothic Byzantine citizens were settled in the region called "Gothia" by the government in
16th century
By the 16th century, the existence of Goths in Crimea had become well-known to European scholars. Many travellers visited Crimea and wrote about the Goths. One romantic report appears in Joachimus Cureus' Gentis Silesiae Annales in which he claims that during a voyage in the Black Sea, his ship was forced ashore by storms. There, to his surprise, he found a man singing a song in which he used "German words". When he asked him where he was from, he answered "that his home was nearby and that his people were Goths".[15]
Several inscriptions from the early 9th century found in the area use the word "Goth" only as a personal name, not ethnonym. Meanwhile, some legends about a Gothic state in Crimea existed in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. In the 16th century, an Imperial envoy in Suleiman's court Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq reported having had a conversation with two Goths in Constantinople. He also left the Gothic-Latin dictionary with about a hundred Germanic words that share some traits in common with the ancient Gothic language.
Following the report by Busbecq, numerous European travellers went to visit Crimea, Torquatus visited Crimea in the mid-to late 16th century in which he reported the existence of Goths who spoke their own language, but used Greek, Tatar and Hungarian in dealing with outsiders.[15]
In 1690, Kampfer states:
The language spoke in the Peninsula Crimea, or Taurica Chersonesus, in Asia, still retains many German words, brought thither, as is suppos'd by a colony of Goths, who went to settle there about 850 years after the
Deluge. The late Mr. Busbeq, who had been Imperial Ambassador at the Ottoman Port, collected and publish'd a great number of these words in his fourth letter; and in my own travels through that Country I took notice of many more.[16]
Religion
The first report of the Crimean Goths appears in the Vita of
These are the only two reports which refer to the existence of a written form of Crimean Gothic, but also confirm their Christian faith.Gothic peoples originally practiced forms of
Language
The language of the Crimean Goths is poorly attested, with only 101 certain independent forms surviving, few of which are phrases, and a three-line song, which has never been conclusively translated. Possible loan words are still used in Crimean Tatar, though this too remains highly speculative.
In 2015, five Gothic graffiti inscriptions were found by Andrey Vinogradov, a Russian historian, on stone plates excavated in Mangup in 1938, and deciphered by him and Maksim Korobov. The reading of these inscription was made difficult because they were later overwritten by some Greek graffiti.[20][21]
Disappearance
There are numerous other sources referring to the existence of Goths in Crimea following
Though there are no further records of the language's existence since the late 18th century, communities of Germanic peoples with distinctly separate customs and physical features have been recorded living in Crimea, leading some to believe that the Gothic language may have survived as a haussprache (home language) until as late as 1945.[23]
According to the Soviet ethnologist V. E. Vozgrin, the Goths interbred with the Crimean Tatars and converted to Islam. In The Crimean Tatars: the diaspora experience and the forging of a nation by Brian Glyn Williams, he quotes Vozgrin as saying: "In all probability their descendants are the Tatars of a series of villages in the Crimea who are sharply delineated from the inhabitants of neighboring villages by their tall height and other features characteristic of the Scandinavians."
It is likely that the Goths had begun to speak Crimean Tatar and Crimean Greek from long before the arrival of Busbecq,[24] thus they may well have integrated into the wider population, as later visitors to Mangup were unable to discover "any trace" of Gothic peoples.[25]
Legacy
Almost no signs of the Crimean Goths exist today. It was claimed by the
See also
- Bastarnae
- Chernyakhov culture
- Crimea Germans
- Crimean Gothic
- Gothiscandza
- Gutasaga
- Haplogroup I-M438
- Herules
- History of Germans in Russia, Ukraine and the Soviet Union
- List of Germanic tribes
- Oium
- Ostrogoths
- Scandza
- Visigoths
- Wielbark culture
Notes
- ^ Here/Hari (army/noble) + mann/man + ric/rike (ruler))
References
- ^
de Busbecq, Ogier Ghiselin (1968) [1927]. "The Fourth Letter". In Foster, Edward Seymour (ed.). The Turkish Letters of Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Imperial Ambassador at Constantinople, 1554–1562. Oxford reprints. Translated by Foster, Edward Seymour (reprint ed.). Clarendon Press. pp. 201–202. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
When I asked him about the nature and habits of these people, he gave the sort of replies that I expected. He said that the tribe was warlike and at the present day occupied numerous villages. [...] Their chief towns were Mancup and Scivarin.
- ^
ISBN 9780520069831. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
Theodoric the Great wished the Crimean Goths to join his army on the march to Italy, but they declined with thanks.
- ^ a b Wolfram 1988, pp. 271–280
- ^ Vasiliev 1936, p. 114
- ^ Streitberg 1920, p. 17
- ^ Siebs 1922:170-72.
- ^ Schwarz 1951, p. 162
- ^ "The medieval 'New England': A forgotten Anglo-Saxon colony on the north-eastern Black Sea coast".
- passim
- ^ Heather 1998, pp. 52–55
- ^ Kulikowski 2006, p. 111
- ^ Heather & Matthews 1991, p. 92 n. 87
- ^ Wolfram 1988, p. 261
- doi:10.1163/2451-9537_cmrii_com_26278.)
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link - ^ a b Stearns 1971:7.
- ^ Kempfer, Kaempfer 1631:1716
- ^ loewe 1896:114.
- ^ Stearns 1971:16.
- ^ Schäferdiek & Gschwantler 2010, p. 350.
- ^ Nemalevich, Sergey (25 December 2015). "Молитвы на камнях Историк Андрей Виноградов рассказывает о первых надписях на крымско-готском языке" (in Russian). Meduza. Retrieved 26 December 2015.
- ^ А. Ю. Виноградов; М. И. Коробов (2016). "Готские граффити из мангупской базилики" (PDF) (in Russian). pp. 57–75. A slightly revised German translation was published as "Gotische Graffito-Inschriften aus der Bergkrim", Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und Literatur 145 (2016) 141–157. English abstract
- ^ Loewe (1869:200).
- ^ Schwarz (1953:163-4).
- ^ Stearns(1979:39–40).
- ^ pallas(1801:363–364).
- ^ Wolfram 2001, p. 12
- ^ Chris Bellamy, Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War, 2008, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Sources
- Bellamy, Chris (2008). Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
- Heather, Peter (1998). The Goths. Blackwell.
- Heather, Peter; Matthews, John (1991). Goths in the Fourth Century. Liverpool Univ. Press.
- Kulikowski, Michael (2006). Rome's Gothic Wars: From the Third Century to Alaric. Cambridge Univ. Press.
- Schäferdiek, Knut; Gschwantler, Otto (2010) [1975]. "Bekehrung und Bekehrungsgeschichte". Germanische Altertumskunde Online. pp. 350–409.
- Schwarz, Ernst (1951). Goten, Nordgermanen, Angelsachsen. Bern: A. Francke.
- Schwarz, Ernst (1953). "Die Krimgoten". Saeculum: Jahrbuch für Universalgeschichte. 4. Freiburg im Breisgau: Böhlau Verlag: 156–164.
- Shepard, Jonathan (1973). "The English and Byzantium: A Study of Their Role in the Byzantine Army in the Later Eleventh Century". Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought, and Religion. 29. New York: Fordham University Press: 53–92. JSTOR 27830955.
- Streitberg, Wilhelm (1920). Gotisches Elementarbuch (5th and 6th ed.). Heidelberg: Carl Winter's Universitätsbuchhandlung.
- Vasiliev, Aleksandr A. (1936). The Goths in the Crimea. Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America.
- Wolfram, Herwig (1988) [Originally published in German, 1980]. History of the Goths. Translated by Dunlap, Thomas J. Univ. of California Press.
- Wolfram, Herwig (2001). Die Goten und ihre Geschichte. C.H. Beck.