[gothic-l] The Second Great Gothic Kingdom in the East

[george knysh]

This is not a Ukrainian or Russian history list, but
since some issues pertinent to these were raised here,
in connection with Gothic history, perhaps a few
explanatory comments will not be out of order. As
mentioned earlier, I have found the following item (by
 Bertil Haggman) in the archive of the OldNorsenet
List for 7
> September 1996: cf.
> http://www.hum.gu.se/arkiv/ONN/1996/ONN.01/0624.html

I will briefly comment between the lines.
>
>(BH) "At the beginning of the 3rd century after the
> Gothic hordes had emigrated from the areas of
> the lower Vistula to those of the Black Sea,
> where they settled, the Foundation of the First
> Great Gothic Kingdom in the east took place,
> the most famous ruler of which was Ermanarik.
> This kingdom was destroyed in battles against
> the Huns between 370 and 380.*
>
>
> After that some Goths emigrated westward and
> other remained in the east. They were to
> initiate The Foundation of the Second Great
> Gothic Kingdom in the east after the fall
> of the empire of the Huns. The tribes of the
> Varangians and the Kolbjazi (Sw. kylfings)
> were the foremost representatives of this
> new kingdom.

*****GK: There is a hiatus of some 450 years between
the destruction of Vithimir/Vinithar by the Huns and
Alans and the appearance of the "Varangians" and
Kylfings in the East. The latter were primarily
Scandinavians active in the North of the latter Rus'.
The former were discussed as follows in the Rus'
Primary Chronicle (ca. 1100 AD): The "Varangian Sea",
in the eyes of the Kyivan chronicler, was a body of
water which began west of Ladoga (Aldeigjuborg) and
went ALL THE WAY TO CONSTANTINOPLE. In modern parlance
this means that for Nestor and Sylvester (the early
chroniclers responsible for this passage) the
"Varangian Sea" was the Baltic + the North Sea + the
Western Atlantic + the Mediterranean. And the
"Varangians" were all the peoples whom they imagined
as living along this "Sea". The "Varangians" included:
the Swedes, the "Normans" [these could simply be the
"Norse"/repetitive/ or the Norwegians, or the actual
Normans GK], the Goths [these are certainly the
Gotlanders GK], the Rus' [acc. to the chroniclers'
dynastic views: interestingly here the "Rus'" could be
the Danes, otherwise not mentioned, and because of
Rurik GK], the Angles [more probably the English than
those of Scandinavia, or both GK], the Galicians
[probably NW Spain, but some think "Gaul" GK], the
Wallachs [this is what the chroniclers called the
Italians GK], the Romans, the Germans, the
Carolingians (! sic), the Venetians, the Franks, "and
others". A pretty vast company...******

 (BH)The Slavic neighbours and
 subjects called their Gothic masters by a
 common name: the Rus "The Red-Blond People".

*****GK: This folk etymology has been universally
(well 99.99% (:=)) rejected. There are three main
"solutions" still discussed: (1) from the Finnic
Ruotsi; (2) from the river system south of Kyiv (Ros',
Rostavytsia, Ros'ka etc.; (3) from an ancient Indic
and Iranic term meaning "prince" "exalted" "brilliant"
 applied to aristocracies. It would have been borrowed
by the Norse war bands struggling with the Khazar
Kaganate (along with the title "Kagan"). There were
"Rus" here before the Norse according to this version,
such as e.g. the Alanic or Scytho-Sarmatian
"Rosomoni".

BTW as an afterthought. B.H. mentioned in one of his
posts that the Roxolani were Slavs. They weren't. They
were Sarmatians. Most of them had joined the Yazigians
in Hungary prior to the arrival of the Goths on the
Black Sea.********

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