The Rulers of European Nomads and Early Mediaeval Byzantine Historiography

Abstract:

The dynamics of socio-political evolution of nomadic societies depends on many internal and external factors, leadership being a special one amongst them. There was interrelation between the power of nomadic empires and their significant rulers. The investigation of ethno-symbolic content of leadership makes possible to present rulers of nomadic empires in three aspects: (a) as military and political rulers, or heads of “states'; (b) as representatives of collective ethnical images; (c) as multifunctional cultural symbols.

Keywords: Byzantine narrative tradition; ethnical image; historical mythology; leadership; symbolical perception; great migration of peoples

Document Type: Research article