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Summary

Kradin, Nikolay N. Imperiia Hunnu [The Hsiung-nu Empire]. Moscow, 2001

This study was supported by Giants of Soros Foundation # Z16000/542 and # H2B741, RGNF # 93-06-10313, RFFI # 97-06-96759 and # 99-06-99512, and the Russian Federal Program «Integration»» M422-06.

Introduction

The Hsiung-nu history is one of the most interesting pages of the history of the Eurasia steppe's people in the ancient epoch. On the boundary between III and II centuries ВС. the Hsiung-nu have established the first steppe empire which has consolidated many ethnoses of the Inner Asia. Over a period of 250 years, a dramatic confrontation between Hsiung-nu and southern neighbour — Chinese dynasty Han. At the end of the first century AD, the Hsiung-nu era in the Inner Asia was over but from this point a new stage of their history — the Hun invasion to the West and their devastating conquests in the Old World begins.

Basic sources on the Hsiung-nu history [Лидай 1958] are data of the which was made into basic languages [Бичурин 1950/1851; Groot 1921; Watsin 1961; Материалы 1968, 1973], as well as materials of archaeological excavations on the territories of Mongolia, Russia and China [Доржсурэн 1961; Unehara 1960; Rudenko 1969; Коновалов 1976; Давыдова 1995; 1996; Миняев 1998 etc.]. At present, there are several great papers [Egami 1948; Бернштам 1951; Гумилев 1960; Ma Чаншоу 1962; Давыдова 1985; Сухбаатар 1980 etc.], in which different aspects of the history and culture of the Hsiung-nu society are elucidated. However, many questions remain as before unsolved and debatable. This book will consider some of these problems.

1. Formation of the Hsiung-nu empire

To a problem of origin of the nomadic empires, a great number of different special and popular studies has been devoted. Joseph Fletcher, referring to the works of the Chinese historian Ch'i-ch'ing Hsiao, believes that all theories explaining the reason of formation of the nomadic empires and their invasions to China and other agricultural countries can be reduced to the following seven ones: (1) greedy and predatory nature of inhabitants of steppe region; (2) climatic changes; (3) overpopulation of steppe; (4) unwillingness of farmers to trade with nomads; (5) necessity of additional livelihood sources; (6) need in a creation of supertribal unification of nomads; (7) psychology of nomads; aspiration of nomads to feel themselves to be equal to farmers, on the one hand, and a faith of nomads in divine predestination given Heaven Tenggeri, to them by to subjugate the whole World [Fletcher 1986: 32–33].

In the majority of the factors listed there are their own rational aspects. However, an importance of some of them has been overestimated. So, the present paleogeographical data don't conform a strict correlation of global periods of the steppe drying (hunidification with periods of decline) prosperity of nomadic empires [Иванов, Васильев 1995 table 24, 25]. A thesis of 'class struggle' of nomads proved to be erroneous [Марков 1976; Khazanov 1984/1994; Крадин 1992]. A role of demography is not entirely known because an increase of the livestock went on move fast than that of population. An increase of livestock has led to destruction of grasses and crisis of the ecosystem. The nomadic life can, naturally, contribute to development of some military characteristics. But the number of farmers was many times over and they had ecologically complex economy, reliable fortresses and more powerful handicraft-metallurgical base.