ВЕЛИКОЕ ПЕРЕСЕЛЕНИЕ НАРОДОВ: ИСТОРИЧЕСКИЙ ОПЫТ МИГРАЦИЙ ПЕРЕХОДНОЙ ЭПОХИ

Abstract

The subject of the article is a new approach to the understanding of the Great Migration of Peoples as a historical stage in the transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. It raises the question of migration processes, which for the first time in history became the part of an interaction of a civilization and the barbaric world. The attention is drawn to the eschatological perception of the consequences of migrations in the written tradition, and to the formation of the “Great Migration of Peoples” concept in the European historiographical tradition. The article outlines the criteria, factors and causes of mass movements of tribes in 2nd–7th centuries, the direction of the main migration flows. Also the author for the first time raises the question of the relationship between European and Asian models of the Great Migration. The analysis identified three stages of the Great Migration: German, Hun and Slavic. The stages differed in the ethnic composition, type of mobility and nature of the consequences. It is concluded that at the German stage (3d –4th centuries) the movement of migrants took place in the form of the separate squads movement, the professional and business migration, the resettlement of small and then large tribes. At the Hun stage the special world of nomadic migration movements (4th–5th centuries) stimulated the new mass outcome of the tribes of Barbaricum. The Slavic stage of migration (6th –7th centuries) is first-ever included in the context of the Great Migration paradigm. The study of the experience of European migrations of the 2nd–7th centuries helps to understand the processes of interaction of the GrecoRoman Mediterranean civilization and the barbaric world.