BİR MİTİN, BİR UMUDUN, BİR İHMALİN TARİHÇİLİĞİ: HUNLAR

Abdullah ÜSTÜN

BİR MİTİN, BİR UMUDUN, BİR İHMALİN TARİHÇİLİĞİ: HUNLAR

Articles > Article · 2017

Türk Dünyası İncelemeleri Dergisi, International Refereed University Journal, International, TR DİZİN (ULAKBİM), 2017, vol 17, pp 117-127

Summary

The History of the Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages is a rather developed area of study from the perspective of European-centrist or Europe-centred historiography that encompasses a wide range of activities from preparing translations of the literary sources, sometimes including different editions, into a variety of language, to examining those sources through various theories. This highly developed state of affairs in this field is firstly due to the extensive studies of the Roman Empire, while the contributions of Germanic and Slavic studies should also be acknowledged. However, it must be acknowledged that compared to the aforementioned fields, studies in to the Huns whom we encounter in a lot of events and contexts, from the Germanic tribes' turn towards western Europe to the spread of   Abdullah Üstün  118  the Slavic people through the Balkans and to the collapse of the Roman Empire in the west, are rather puny, with the notable exception of the efforts of the Hungarian academics. Studies on other Turkish groups that succeeded the Huns, or in the largest sense of the topic, studies on the Altaic peoples are in a similar situation as well. It is quite possible that the mythic references to the Huns or to their leader Attila in the European culture might be due to the fact that studies on the Huns have not been as developed, which gave an aura of mystery to the Huns, as their history remained shrouded in darkness. This paper shall attempt to shed light on the present situation in the historiography of the Huns, the background over which the said historiography stands, and some major issues in the historiography of the Huns, in the hopes that this will at least contribute to a general assessment. Such a line of inquiry, however, will naturally lead to some generalizations and cause certain categorizations. The author of this study humbly acknowledges that while both effects contribute to a better understanding of the topic at hand, they inevitably lead us astray from the "pure truth".  Keywords:  Historiography, Historiography of the Late antiquity, the steppe peoples, Huns.

View details