Chapter II “Kingdom of Ermanaric in European and American historiography” comprises the analysis of reach historiographic heritage concerning this kingdom. Within two centuries scholars have collected and analyzed virtually the whole corpus of written evidence about Goths (P.F. Suhm, K. Zeuss, Th. Mommsen, K. Müllenhoff, W. Tomaschek, Th. Grienberger, J. Marquait, W. Streitberg, etc.). Studying of this problem showed a basic range of issues connected with territorial and chronological framework of the Osthrogothic state and its polyethnicity. In the first third of XX^th century the German concept of the Gothic history found its logical end in numerous works of L. Schmidt. In 1930—40s studying of the concerned problematics was heavily influenced by national-socialist ideas, which became an ideological basis for justification of the German aggression to the East (F. Altheim, H. Jankuhn, K. Gloger, etc.). The last paragraph of the chapter includes the historiographic analysis of studying of Ermanaric’s empire’ in West-European and American science in the 2^nd half of XX—early XXI^st centuries: ethnological studies of R. Wenskus about Tradition-skern, N. Wagner’s monographs about Jordanes’ Getica, works of R. Hachmann, which were of great methodological importance for studying of sources about Gothic ethnogenesis, G. Schramm’s studies of Ermanaric’s ‘empire’ as a predecessor of Kievan Rus’. The modern level of West-European Gothic studies is reflected in numerous publications by H. Wolfram. In terms of coverage and insight in the most difficult issues of the Gothic history his final work is unprecedented. Works of a German archaeologist V. Bierbrauer made an important contribution in understanding of those complex ethnocultural processes, which occurred in Central and East European Barbaricum in IV—V^th centuries AD.

In the 2^nd half of XX^th century the Gothic issues were also studied by scholars from Scandinavian countries: a Swedish linguist and historian J. Svennung, a Finnish explorer I. Korkkanen, a Danish scholar A.S. Christensen, etc. Since the middle of the century monographic works concerning the Gothic problematics have been appearing in UK and US: these are works by C. Brady, E.A. Thompson, D.T. Barnes, H. Bradley, R Heather, J. Matthews, O.J. Maenchen-Helfen, etc. We also have to note a considerable contribution made by Polish scholars, especially M. Maczynska and A. Ko-kowski. At the same time, an evident drawback of West-European studies of East European Goths is a poor use of archaeological sources, which serve as more objective evidence of ethnopolitical situation in the south of East Europe than traditional narrative texts.