Die Awaren: Ein Steppenvolk in Mitteleuropa 567-822 n. Chr.

by Walter Pohl

The Avars arrived in Europe from the Central Asian steppes in the mid-sixth century CE and dominated much of Central and Eastern Europe for almost 250 years. Fierce warriors and canny power brokers, the Avars were more influential and durable than Attila’s Huns, yet have remained hidden in history. Walter Pohl’s epic narrative, translated into English for the first time, restores them to their rightful place in the story of early medieval Europe.

The Avars offers a comprehensive overview of their history, tracing the Avars from the construction of their steppe empire in the center of Europe; their wars and alliances with the Byzantines, Slavs, Lombards, and others; and their apex as the first so-called barbarian power to besiege Constantinople (in 626); to their fall under the Frankish armies of Charlemagne and subsequent disappearance as a distinct cultural group. Pohl uncovers the secrets of their society, synthesizing the rich archaeological record recovered from more than 60,000 graves of the period, as well as accounts of the Avars by Byzantine and other chroniclers.

In recovering the story of the fascinating encounter between Eurasian nomads who established an empire in the heart of Europe and the post-Roman Christian cultures of Europe, this book provides a new perspective on the origins of medieval Europe itself.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

533 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Walter Pohl is an Austrian historian. His area of expertise is the history of the Migration Period and the Early Middle Ages.

Pohl is director of the Institut für Mittelalterforschung (Institute for Middle Ages Research) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences as well as a university professor of history of the Middle Ages and historical subsidiary sciences at the historical-culture-scientific faculty at the University of Vienna. In the year 2004 he was awarded the Wittgenstein-Preis. Since the summer 2002 he is an Austrian representative in the Committee for the Humanities of the European Science Foundation (ESF) as well as delegates in the general assembly of the ESF.

Reviews

[Adam McPhee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very cool. Lot of info I'm still trying to wrap my head around.

Mostly just wanted to read about Charlemagne's war on the Avars––the horse pestilence that wiped out both sides horses and the mysterious Avar ring fortifications and the vast treasure the Franks took him with them all have a huge appeal to me, yet they often get skipped in histories.

Unfortunately, to get there I had to go through like 2-3 centuries of Avar history. Some of it is quite exciting, especially their campaigns against the Byzantines, but the archaeology stuff bored me to tears. (Though 60,000 known Avar compared to 3-6 Avar names or titles is a wild discrepancy). I should've just skipped to the end but there was some cool stuff in there. Oh and the stuff on ethnic identity formation especially in comparison with the Slavs is fascinating.

Also really neat that the Avars vanished from history not because of Charlemagne's decisive war, but essentially because of how their land changed: they ran out of steppe when their homeland was reforested, so no more horses. No more horses, no more steppe-prestige, so everyone starts identifying as a Slav or whatever instead.

Did a thread on the book here.

[Ozymandias · Rating 5 out of 5]

An Oft-Forgotten People Remembered
This is a great book on a civilization that is generally forgotten. The Avars were the people who occupied the far side of the Danube after the Huns and before the Bulgars. They were Rome’s biggest European threat for a century from the end of Justinian’s reign to the famous siege of Constantinople in 626. They arrived quickly, they fell quickly, and then they pretty much vanished from world history. People claim descent from the Bulgars and Slavs, but nobody claims descent from the Avars. Nobody claims descent from the Huns either (apart from notorious idiot Kaiser Bill) but their depredations fell during the dramatic fall of Western Rome. The Avars (despite the aforementioned siege) fall in a part of history that all too few people care about. Eastern Europe in general tends to disappear from people’s minds as soon as Western Rome falls.

This book was a German work that first appeared in 1988 and is only now getting translated into English (I actually used a section of the German original for my thesis, so this is cool). Books on ethnogenesis and particularly the Völkerwanderung (migration of Germanic peoples) are rather more popular in Germany and most of the best works on Rome’s barbarian neighbors are translations. As might be expected, the creation of Avar and Slavic identity receives a lot of focus here. While Völkerwanderung topics obviously show up here, the influences come more from studies of steppe nomads. The Avars originated in tribes of the Asian steppes until they were driven out by the new Turkish federation. This connection to the Turkish empire and various successor states is a constant theme and the organization and nature of a steppe empire takes up most of the analysis. While Pohl denies fervently that there is such a thing as a universal steppe empire structure, they do share certain commonalities that are visible in the Byzantine sources. This provides a surprisingly firm basis for discussion of Avar decision-making despite the fact that we only know even the name of a single khagan.

Another German element is the focus on Öffentlichkeit — the study of public communication and the way that it is understood by different cultures. Essentially, Öffentlichkeit looks at the pronouncements and demonstrative actions of key individuals (in this case the khagan) and tries to figure out what statement this was supposed to communicate and to whom. Some of the expectations of communication are rather different and seem contradictory or divorced from Roman expectations of communication. For example, steppe nomads saw accepting gifts as placing one in an inferior social position unless countered by gifts of greater value. Yet the khagans wanted (indeed needed) regular gifts from Rome in order to maintain their status through gift-giving. So they adopted a variety of methods: firstly they treated the gifts as booty taken through force (which wasn’t far wrong as they often did that as well). Secondly, they demanded rare and specific gifts (here I’m reminded of Chinese notions of tribute) and then ostentatiously rejected them (while quietly keeping the regular tribute). It must have confused the hell out of the Romans, but there is a certain amount of sense to it.

One of the cool things about the Avars is that they bordered an incredible range of peoples. I thought I had a pretty basic understanding of Avar history from reading the Byzantine histories, but that’s actually only a very narrow vision of their story (even if generally the most central). Avars bordered on three different history-writing peoples: the Byzantines, the Franks, and the Chinese. I had somehow forgotten Charlemagne’s conquest of the Ring and I knew nothing of their Far Eastern past! The interesting thing is that all of these sources have very different utility. The Byzantine sources are the most detailed and outline what we know about the Avar’s main focus, Chinese/Turkish sources tell us about the inner workings of steppe empires and Avar origins, and the Frankish sources basically fill in some of the gaps. Lest that last one sound too unhelpful, while Frankish sources for most of this period consist of one or two sentence per year chronicles any major Avar attack is sure to be mentioned and as the Franks were the main power on the Avar west this really is useful in telling us what the Avars were doing when things were quiet on the east. If they weren’t busy on one front they were almost certainly busy on the other.

A book on this rather broad topic with this variety of sources is going to have difficulty avoiding sprawl. But it does a very good job keeping the narrative clear and embedded in understandable chronological parameters. Each chapter advances us chronologically from the formation of the Avar empire to its first arrival in Roman territory to its regular aggressive campaigns to legitimize the dynasty that ultimately went too far and led to a disastrous siege that was followed by subject peoples replacing them and the Avar development of a sedentary civilization in the Carpathian Basin that was ultimately conquered by the Franks. Only the chapter on Avar society is divorced from chronology, and that seems the sensible way to do it. I appreciated some of the elements more common to German scholarship that rarely filter into the Anglophone kind. For example, each chapter has numbered subheadings that provide very clear divisions between topics. Organization is always a strength in German scholarship. This makes it a lot easier to know what the topic is at any given moment and also easier to put down before it eats up all your time.

Given the fact that this book first appeared in German I feel I should say something about the translation: it’s first rate. I would never have suspected it wasn’t written in English originally were it not for the fact that I knew already and the occasional reference to German terms where an English writer would probably have just left off. Even with the latter though, most of the times it mentions terms that have become a part of modern language it is English of which it speaks. When it speaks of German terminology it’s only because it is pointing out careful distinctions that can’t be conveyed in English (for example, English has no way to distinguish between Römer – citizens of the Roman state – and Romanen – people of Roman culture living under barbarian rule). The translation is so good that I’m a little unclear about how it was done. Did Pohl translate it himself? One of the few areas where I noticed a distinct Germanic sentence structure came in his introduction at the beginning. He thanks a Will Sayers for translating, but that name appears nowhere else in the book. Either way it has been very well done.

If this sounds interesting but you’re worried about picking up a 600-page book on any topic, have no fear: about 1/3 of the book is bibliography. The actual number of readable pages is only 402. Which is perfectly manageable. The price is a rather more obvious impediment, and only you can say whether it would be worth getting, but for my part I am certain this will prove a useful reference for me going forwards. It was easy to read and stuffed full of valuable information that helped me to understand the period.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

A welcome translated and updated version of a work that dates back to the 80s. The Avars aren't as well recorded as some other people in history but this is probably the definitive work on them available in English. Their vital role in the westward expansion of Slavic peoples is also thoroughly explored.

[Shrike58 · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, why even read about the Avars? In as much as they had a brief efflorescence as a parasite on the Byzantine Empire before collapsing into a shadow existence, only to be finally rubbed out by Charlemagne, and leaving no real cultural traces behind. For me, a lot of that has to deal with my own curiosity about the deep history of my ethnic background, being mostly of Croatian and Hungarian descent. However, the author makes the case that, as an equestrian empire, the Avars were actually quite successful in terms of staying power, lasting some 250 years as an organization, if not a nation. Part of the issue here is that historians during the time of peak nationalism had no real sense of what to do with the Avar Khanate, as they were not the progenitors of a modern European state, though, from the perspective of demography, it's arguable that they were the enablers of the Western nations of Slavdom.

As for why the Avars so quickly evaporated once Charlemagne kicked in the door, even though his policy was to keep them as a tributary principality, Pohl suggests that they were hanging by a thread, as reforestation and disease might have been leading to a dwindling horse stock, the foundation of Avar power. This is not to mention that the answer to the question of what happens to a disgruntled Avar is that they become a Bulgarian, meaning that there was a ready home for dissidents. Reading between the lines, Pohl also gives one the thought that, for all the pretentions of the Avars to having a manifest destiny, even their contemporaries saw them as cheap knock-offs of the Huns, and not really worthy of respect; particularly since the Avar elite could not manage the trick of learning the organizational techniques that the Magyars and Bulgars did and eventually founding nations.

While not the lightest read, particularly since we mostly know of the Avars from their graves and what their enemies wrote about them, this is a very worthwhile book that provides a lot of food for thought.

[Seb McCormick · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best history of the Pannonian Avars available in English. Thoroughly researched and surprisingly easy to read, it provides an overview of the Avar people from their first appearance in Byzantine records to their disappearance.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent history of a forgotten people. The Avars came very close to sending the world on a devastatingly different trajectory with the Siege of Constantinople in 626. If they had succeeded in breaking through, then all the texts and learning that later sparked the Renaissance would have gone up in flames, and Europe would have been wide open to the Islamic conquest - a conquest that would sweep over the continent without inheriting the intellectual treasury of the classical world. That timeline spells the end of Western Civilisation and the modern world before it even had a chance to begin.