The volume extends the mainly European focus of the series 'Historiography and ldentity' to probe into a more global perspective, exploring the historiographical cultures of a number of Eurasian ...macro-regions: China, Japan, Iran, South Arabia, Syria, Byzantium, Lotharingia, and Spain. The broader, Eurasian perspective can contribute to a deeper understanding of the very different ways in which works of historiography could communicate, promote, and negotiate 'visions of community' and concepts of belonging.
Der Band erweitert den Schwerpunkt der Reihe 'Historiography and ldentity' auf eine globale Perspektive. Im Fokus stehen historiographische Kulturen in verschiedenen Makroregionen Eurasiens: China, Japan', Iran, Südarabien, Syrien, Byzanz, Lotharingien und Spanien. Diese breitere, eurasische Perspektive kann zu einem tieferen Verständnis der sehr unterschiedlichen Wege beitragen, auf denen in historiographischen Werken „Visionen von Gemeinschaft" und Konzepte von Zugehörigkeit kommuniziert, verbreitet und verhandelt wurden.
In the often controversial debates about early medieval ethnicity and identities, Romanness has received little attention. But it should, because it is a particularly interesting case of the ...transformations of identity. What did it mean to be Roman after Rome? Early medieval Roman identities could be civic, regional, imperial, religious, cultural, legal or military; by self‐identification or by outside ascription; they could constitute one facet in a complex web of affiliations, or a stubbornly maintained point of reference for the survival of a community. The ‘Byzantine’ empire, the city of Rome, the Catholic church, an educated elite or a regional population could provide foci of post‐Roman Romanness in the west. Romans could be counted as one gens among others, or still measured by their imperial pretences. These ambivalences about Roman identity are not simply a result of the fall of the western empire. Numerous recent studies have dealt with the significance of Romanness in antiquity, and have shown that this was a paradoxical construction from the start, creating a wide variety of ways to be Roman. At times, Romanness was also ethnicized, although usually its political, legal and cultural definitions were in the forefront. The present contribution sketches some ways in which the classical multiplicity of romanitas affected its early medieval development.
AVARS AND SLAVS Pohl, Walter
The Avars,
12/2018
Book Chapter
The 580s marked the massive emergence of the Avars as a military power that could challenge Byzantine control over most of the Balkan Peninsula. Yet repeated raids on Roman provinces also ...demonstrated that Slavs could continue to act as independent players who had maintained their offensive capacity. Relations between the Avar khaganate and decentralized Slavic groups were quite varied, from brutal submission of Slavs or Avar support of their expansion to temporary alliances and independent Slavic raids. A complementary social and political structure established itself in the lands along the Danube, much to the detriment of the Roman side. Slavic
Avar history in Europe began with an embassy sent to Constantinople from the steppes north of the Caucasus in the winter of 557/58. The emperor Justinian, who had successfully governed the Roman ...Empire for more than thirty years, gave them a friendly reception. They arrived in a situation in which the Balkan provinces had come under pressure from a number of barbarian peoples living beyond the northern frontiers, so that the Avars were regarded as a valuable ally. This chapter discusses where they had come from and under which circumstances; and it recounts the story of their advance in eastern
The period between 559 and 602 is the only one for which a fairly continuous narrative of Avar history is possible, thanks to, most of all, the works of Menander and Theophylact. What we know (or can ...assume) about the seventh and eighth centuries will be outlined in chapters 7 and 8. The present chapter is devoted to ways of life and organization in the Avar Empire. Again, much of the information offered in written sources about the structures of Avar rule comes in accounts about the sixth century. Therefore, I have placed this chapter here, at a juncture not
The Avar Empire in Europe took considerable time to build. The ambitious new power needed about ten years of wars and negotiations to find a secure basis to establish its empire: the lands along the ...middle Danube in the Carpathian Basin. It would take another fifteen years until this process of consolidation was concluded with the conquest of the city of Sirmium in 582. Only then could the Avars start to launch major attacks on the Byzantine Empire, which were to have devastating effects in the course of the 580s.
The Avar entry into the Carpathian Basin in 567 becomes
The 580s had brought a number of devastating Avar attacks that the Byzantines, engaged in the Persian war, were hardly able to control. The wars went on in the 590s on an almost yearly basis, but ...victory and defeat were now more evenly distributed. Again, Theophylact’s often detailed narrative provides us with some valuable information on the ways in which the Avars organized their raids into the Balkan provinces.
“At this time the Avars, who fought against the Romans, were turned away more by gold than by iron.” This laconic assessment of Maurice’s rule was penned in distant Spain in
Life under Avar rule in the eighth century was, in many respects, different from that in previous periods. The difference emerges most clearly in two types of sources, to which the first two ...subchapters are devoted: first, the extensive and rather homogeneous archaeological evidence; and second, the Avar titles of rank that only emerge in late eighth-century Frankish historiography. A narrative of events only becomes possible in the latter parts of the century, which will be addressed in the closing sections of this chapter. Only the history of the fall of the khaganate in the 790s allows some glimpses of
