In early medieval sources, "Huns" refer to a variety of peoples who lived in fairly remote regions - in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Central Europe. The reasons for such naming remain debatable, and equally debatable are questions about the ethnicity of these peoples and the genetic connections between them. 1 The purpose of this article is to analyze sources on the history of political relations between the European Huns and the East Caucasian Huns. Turning to this topic, in turn, allows us to shed some light on the question of the possibility of ethnogenetic links between these two peoples.
Key words: rosmosoks, Huns, East Caucasian Huns (honk'), Attila, Theophilus, Heran, Ernach.
The Eastern Caucasian Huns are invariably referred to by early medieval Armenian authors as the ethnonym honk', equivalent to the term "Hun" in Greek and Latin-language sources of the Nipp). The most reliable early examples of such naming date back to the fourth century. What is especially valuable is that Armenian sources, referring to these people as "Huns", as a rule, do not confuse them with Savirs, Khazars, or other ethnic groups, whose names in the Byzantine historiographic tradition are often given in the form of double ethnonyms-Huns-Savirs, Huns-Akatsirs, etc.
Western sources also record the ethnonym " Hun " since the fourth century, but their reports are usually associated not with the Caucasian, but with the European Huns. According to Ammianus Marcellinus, around 371, the Huns, advancing from the east, defeated the Don Alans, and then defeated the Goths-Greitungs [Ammiani Marcellini..., 1873, 31.3. 1-3] (Ostrogoths; ca. 373). Soon the Huns migrated even further to the west, defeated the Visigoths, and then settled in Pannonia. The power they created in this region lasted until the end of the 60s of the fifth century. It reached the peak of its power during the reign of Attila (434-454), who subjugated many tribes of the North Caucasus and harassed not only the Western Roma ...
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