Utigurs

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The Utigurs were a late antique equestrian people north of the Black Sea , documented in the middle of the 6th century.

They are first mentioned in late antique sources in the 1840s, often referred to as " Huns ". However, this says nothing about their ethnic origin, since the term “Hun” (like “ Skythe ” before ) was often only a stylistic device used by late antique historians to designate peoples in the Pontic steppe area north of the Black Sea. The Utigurs had previously lived further east near the Don River.

After the Kutrigurs , who are probably related to the Utigurs, repeatedly advanced into Eastern Roman territory and crossed the Danube under their leader Zabergan in 558/59, the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I succeeded in 559 with Sandilch, a leader of the Utigurs, to make an alliance. The Utigurs attacked the Kutrigurs and both groups appear to have weakened greatly in the ensuing battles. The Avars , who had also only appeared in Ostrom's field of vision a few years earlier, took advantage of this situation to subdue most of the remaining utigurs and kutrigurs in 560. Around 575, however, at least a part of the Utigurs lived under Turkish rule near the Crimea . Under the leadership of the Turks, the Utigur prince Angai (os) (probably on behalf of the Turkish ruler Turxanthos ) conquered the eastern Roman city of Bosporos on the Kerch Strait a little later .

literature

  • Walter Pohl : The Avars. A steppe people in Central Europe 567–822 AD 2nd, updated edition. Beck, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-406-48969-9 .
  • Alexander Sarantis: Justinian's Balkan Wars. Campaigning, Diplomacy and Development in Illyricum, Thace and the Northern World AD 527-65. Francis Cairns, Prenton 2016.

Remarks

  1. ^ Cf. Walter Pohl: The Avars. Munich 2002, p. 21ff.
  2. ↑ Alexander Sarantis: Justinian's Balkan Wars. Campaigning, Diplomacy and Development in Illyricum, Thace and the Northern World AD 527-65. Prenton 2016, pp. 346-348.
  3. ↑ Walter Pohl: The Avars. Munich 2002, p. 21.
  4. ↑ Walter Pohl: The Avars. Munich 2002, p. 39f. and p. 67.