Summary

Summary

One of the most actively developing subjects of contemporary historical studies is the research of statehood formation in various regions of Europe. Study of its ancient roots, various types of early states may shed light on origins of historical and cultural peculiarity, which worked at ground zero of European peoples’ history, including that on the territory of Russia and Ukraine. At the turn of Antiquity and Middle Ages Eastern Europe saw the rise of one of the largest potestary formations known as the Ostrogothic kingdom of Ermanaric. For archaeologists this time in the south of Eastern Europe is marked with a phenomenon of Chernyakhov culture, which crossed the border separating barbarity from civilization.

Historiography of Goths in Eastern Europe is very extensive and diverse. However, up to date there are no monographic studies containing an integral analysis of Ostrogothic potestarity in IV^ century AD. Meanwhile, history of Ermanaric’s kingdom appeals not only to classicists but also to mediaevalists studying the origins of West-European statehood as if with ‘clean sheet’ and generally without regard to the heritage of the Black-Sea period in the history of Goths. The age of Ermanaric is just as well important for those who study the history of Russia, since it was exactly that time, when Eastern Europe saw the rise of the largest ethnopolitical formation before Kievan Rus’.

In Russian historiography this subject was ill-starred until the recent time due to several reasons quite far removed from the science. The official Soviet science of 1930—70s could mention Goths and Ermanaric only with latent understatement of scale and role of his kingdom. The level of historical development of Ostrogoths in IV^th century AD was estimated as being not higher than a primitive alliance of tribes’. Depending on beliefs and sometimes nationalistic, political, personal, etc. favours, narrative sources let the scholars draw directly opposed conclusions about the Ostrogothic kingdom and its role in political and cultural life of the south of Eastern Europe.

Situation in the Gothic studies started to change cardinally in 1980—90s, first of all — owing to the change of ideological directives and the progress in studying of Chernyakhov culture. By the end of XX^th century a weighty contribution in development of the Gothic studies has been made by European scholars, such as R. Hachmann, H. Wolfram, V. Bierbrauer, R Heather, J. Tejral, A. Kokowski, M. Maczynska, etc. It seems that for today’s generation of scholars the above-mentioned publications toghether with a fundam-etal book of Austrian scholar H. Wolfram drew a certain line in study of Goths. But the phenomenon of the Ermanaric’s lingdom still remains largely unexplored. It appears that it requires a different approach and, first of all, a higher level of historical analysis of the whole body of sources and historiographic heritage accumulated within two centuries.