New Barbaric Waves

The Gothic period in Ukraine lasted from AD 200 to AD 370. The Goths came to southern Ukraine from the west and created in the so-called State of Hermanric (named after their chief). They adopted Christianity from the Roman Empire in the 3d century AD. The Goths were defeated by the Huns around AD 370. Hermanric, shocked by the defeat, committed suicide.

The Huns came from Central Asia. They were a mixture of various Turkic-speaking people with large Mongol elements. The Hunsheld the territory constituting present-day Ukraine and most of present-day Moldova until their defeat in Western Europe in the mid-5^th century. After AD 453 when their leader Attila died (apparently of a stroke during sexual intercourse with his new young wife) the Huns union disintegrated.

The next nomadic wave to break into southern Ukraine consisted again of an Asiatic, Mongol- and Turkic-speaking, and relatively primitive people, the Avars. Their invasion dated AD 558, and their state lasted about a century in Ukraine.[10] At the height of their power, the Avars ruled the entire area from Eastern Ukraine to the Danubian plain (in present-day Hungary), where they had their capital and where they remained after they had lost control over Ukraine. Avar armies waged long wars against Germans and Byzantines.

After the Avars other nomadic tribes from Asia – Magyars and Bulgarians– came to southern Ukraine (the steppe area). With time they moved to central and southern Europe and founded such states there as Hungary and Bulgaria.

In the 7^th century AD a new force emerged on the lower Volga: the Turkic-speaking Khazar state. The Khazars accepted Judaism, controlled large territory and took tribute from the Polianians that lived in central Ukraine and some other East Slavic tribes. Although Khazars were a semi-nomadic people they promoted the building of towns such as their capital of Itil’ and others. Their state was notable for international commerce and tolerance. Pagans, Moslems, Christians, and Jews mingled in Khazaria, where all enjoyed considerable freedom and autonomy to live under their own laws. They fought bitter wars against the Arabs and served as a barrier against the spread of Islam into Europe.

In the second half of the 9^th century warlike nomadic tribes of Turkic origin, called Pechenegs, came to southern Ukraine and pushed out the Magyars. The Pechenegs had been the major threat of the East Slavs until the mid-11^th century when they were replaced by another nomadic tribal union the Polovtsians. Polovtsians remained the main enemy of the East Slavs until the mid-13^th century when they were destroyed by the Mongol-Tatars.

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