This question emerges from Benjamin Constant's judgment on the Huns as a people mainly interested in warfare. A student challenged the judgment as founded only on stereotypes. It seems to me that the question can be extended. New archeological findings have in some cases confirmed what was until now considered as nationalistic slander (ie. the Romans' judgments on the carthaginian religion).
This might seem to others as a shameless self-promotion, but please take a look at this article of mine. I ask the same question about many of the barbarian tribes raiding the Balkans. You might find it useful, especially the bibliography. I will be very happy to see many people answering this question.
http://haemus.mk/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/11-Jaric-2012.pdf
Indeed, always, an important part of ancient representation of peripherical peoples is based on cultural, ethnical and ideological stereotypes.The main challenge for researchers when analyse ancient historiography is to find a balance between the discoursive content and the real background. Were Celts so violent? Persians so ostentatious? Germans so primitive? These ideas are founded in real information, but obviously simplified and generalized for justifing imperialist actions or exemplifying certain vices and values. One of the most interesting faces of the theme is how modern thinkers have assumed and adapted them to their own discourses, as you notice in the case of Benjamin Constant.
Specifically for ancient historiography are essential François Hartog ("Le miroir d'Hérodote"), Edith Hall ("Inventing the barbarian") and Yves Dauge ("Le barbare"). More recently, Iain Ferris ("Enemies of Rome"), Benjamin Isaac ("The invention of racism in classical antiquity"), Erich Gruen ("Rethinking the Other in Antiquity") or Greg Woolf ("Tales of the Barbarians"), among many other. About the relationship between ancient and modern stereotypes, I recommend you Hartog's "Anciens, Modernes, Sauvages".
Of course when the populations left no written material of their own or was nomadic the balance is more difficult to find. A comparison between different national traditions can be useful of course, especially for the Celts. But whereas the simplicity of the Scyths or the Germans could be valued as opposed Roman perception of their own corruption (see Tacitus) the perception of the Huns as confirms Jelina's article I just read (and I thank her for it) is less mixed.
Dear All,
I am sure partiality and double standard are not modern inventions. I think ancient people who were psychically and from point of view of intelligence like us might have had some interest on the value of fame and they used it if not in written but in oral form as a “prehistoric marketing”. Ancient stereotypes might have had their actual political, economic or pedagogic values.
Besides, according to our national myths I am a descendant of the Huns and also my true ancestors were thought to be interested in warfare and cruelty. However, I personally use but my sweeping net.
The whole ticklish question of stereotyping the Jews apparently starts with New Testament stereotyping and continues into nazi characterological typing and beyond. See Lillian C. Freudmann, "Antisemitism in the New Testament" (University Press of America, 1993). This is a perfect thread to raise the problem, because those stereotypes should be combated.
My suggestion for reading the book The Meeting of East and West an Inquiry Concerning World Understanding by F.S.C. Northrop. Also, The Aztec Image in Western Thought, both are useful.
My doctoral thesis examined the literary image of northerners' religiosity in Greek and Latin textual sphere, and at least based on that study (as well as what is an emerging consensus among the scholars) I would venture to say that descriptions of foreign groups in ancient literature stem from a rather complex interplay between world-views and literary upbringing (i.e. inherited literary tropes).
To simplify: our literary attestations have largely been produced in order to advance widely disparate authorial strategies by members of the learned elite - for audiences largely comprising of the same. Ancient 'ethnography' was nothing like its modern namesake, and was not intended to convey new, verifiable information on foreign groups - instead the authorial strategies of classicism, rhetorical persuasion, shared cultural belongingness, and triumphalism all take part in a register that is essentially literary and polemic in nature and 'ethnographical' only in form.
I have passed on your article for my students to read, because it makes use of key Byzantine sources (e.g. Straegikon of Maurice). Many thanks! Frank Trombley
For the avoidance of doubt, my previous comment was intended for Jelena Jaric!
Dear Prof. Trombley,
thank you very much. If some of your students are into for discussion or need anything else, please feel free to give them my [email protected]. I will be happy to help anyway that I can.
Thanks Andras! But do the Hungarians question the vision of the Huns centered on warfare only and consider it as unfair, or accept it as a positive value as during the inraids of the Ottomans in the 16th-17th c?
Considering that the study of "ancient" populations usually implies lack of or partial sources, the historiographic problem seems to be how to evaluate "conclusions" or even "partiality" relatively to literature, sources and methodology. If only archeological sources are available, the "conclusions" necessarily depend to a great extent on argument. If the literature provides conflicting "conclusions", reevaluation of sources and methodologies become fundamental.
I am not in the field of "ancient" societies, but these same problems are recurrent even in the understanding of, for ex., 19th century slavery in Brazil. The "conclusions" of each historian or line of analysis are usually arrived at by giving greater weight to a type of source or to a pet problem. The historiographic adventure is interesting because any source, any previous study and any methodology should always be reexamined from the writer's perspective. This is obviously an impossible program, specially today, but one that we should keep in mind.
Dear Fiona,
The Hungarians do not care for the Huns these days but about 100 years ago they (we) were proud of this mythic mistake. I think many Hungarians have got no vision on the Huns. As to the proved tradition in warfare there are many historical sources like Muratori (1738) „ab Ungerorum nos defendas jaculis” (jaculis = arrows).
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Muratori, Ludovico Antonio: Antiquitates Italicae medii aevi. Tomus primus, 1738. 21
22. 21. Confessor Christi, pie Dei famule, / O Geminiane, exorando supplica, / Ut hoc flagellum, quod meremur miseri, / Coelorum regis evadamus gratiâ. / (22) Nam doctus eras Attilae temporibus / Portas pandendo liberare subditos. / Nunc te rogamus, licet servi pessimi, / Ab Ungerorum nos defendas jaculis. / Patroni summi exorate jugiter / Servis puris implorantes Dominum.
Some other data can you find in German and in Latin here:
Der Brief des Remigius von Auxerre um 900 über die Ungarn / Konrad Josef Heilig. 1933 In: Historisches Jahrbuch des Ungarischen Graf-Klebelsberg-Institus, Bd. 3 (1933), S. 7-30
http://www.mgh-bibliothek.de/dokumente/z/zsn2a003767.pdf
The positive value of our bellicose traditions was the experience and efficiency of the Hungarian light cavalry in the 15th-17th centuries against the Ottomans.
Going back to the stereotypes we are called barbarians even these days by the politicians of many neighbouring countries because they got too big cuts from the territory of the historical Hungary after I WW.
Dear Antti,
It would be interesting to know on the stereotypes on Huns in Finland.
Dear Fiona, Both modern and ancient writers had their biases, as does everyone else today. It is only after spending time among people that one can begin to comprehend their worldview. Even then, we always analyze other worldviews from our own biases. I spent several years living among the nomadic Bedouin of Arabia, and discovered some interesting parts to their worldview... they considered the nomadic lifestyle to be superior to our western life. After all, their way of life has survived thousands of years and still exists. They graze their sheep over the ruins of Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Turks, British, etc. and they expect to graze their sheep over Europe and America one day. They believe their way of life is sustainable, and ours is not. So, were the Huns mainly interested in warfare, or did their worldview encourage them to see themselves as superior, and thus entitled to take what-ever, where-ever they pleased when the opportunity existed?
¿"the judgment as founded only on stereotypes"? Yes and no. Any judgment of any time take care about the stereotypes. Because those are part of the cultural meaning constructed around a group. Spanish conquest warfare in XVI century against native people of Americas, has not only medieval stereotypes about the natives, but also today we have modern stereotypes about the spaniards and the natives. A remarkable text about that is The Conquest of America (Tzvetan Todorov, 1982), and L´Europe en proces (Josep Fontana, 1992). Briefly, in an intersubjective mirror (the others) we dont´t see only our own beliefs, but also the other´s mirrors. I hope you found not very methaphysical this point of view.
Dear András,
current stereotypes held by people at large, I take? A good question... Let me offer this observation: a friend of mine recently defended her thesis on the nature of the nomadic power in the context of the Hunnic realm, and judging by what I overheard in conversations after the ritual was over, people seem to affix at them only a very general image of nomadic invaders. Pretty much what can be expected on the basis of the few mentions the Huns receive in the basic school curricula. No clear differentiation who in fact "destroyed Rome", Huns, Vandals, or Goths... I have not encountered any references in common conversation to the essentialist notion of Huns/Hungarians sharing anything besides their first three letters, though one or two persons have ventured their impression regarding the Huns as a phenotypically "Asiatic", coherent population group.