Crimean Goths

The Crimean Goths were descendants of that part of the Ostrogoths, who had settled AD on the Black Sea on the Crimean Peninsula in the year 257; there they were allies of Rome. Your cities, the so-called Gotenburgen were mostly carved directly into the rock. They made Dori their capital. The remains of Dori are known by the Tatar name Mangup Kale and located south of the present-day Ukrainian city of Bakhchisaray.

Origins

In conjunction with the Sarmatians Goths had advanced in the years 255-257 to the Crimea and undertook raids against towns on the Black Sea coasts. Already 256 had expired gothic - bora American ships from the ports of the Cimmerian Bosporus. The Crimean Goths were Christianized early and were in close contact with Byzantium. In the year 404, the Crimean Goths turned to the bishop of Constantinople Opel and asked for a successor to the bishop already employed by him.

Migration Period

Theodoric the Great is said to have asked the Crimean Goths, to go with him to Italy, however, what these rejected. In the year 548 they asked Konstantin Opel again for a successor to a deceased bishop and demanded the same military aid against their Hunnish neighbors.

A group of Crimean Goths was designated in the late antique sources as Tetraxiten. Procopius of Caesarea reported that the utigurischen Huns, who retired after the end of Attila Empire 454/455 AD to the east, on the western shore of the Cimmerian Bosporus on Tetraxiten met ( Crimean Goths ). The Tetraxiten prevented them from reaching the eastern shore. However, the two peoples eventually entered into a covenant and left the Cimmerian Bosporus, to jointly northeast of the Black Sea, at the foot of the Caucasus to settle. Thus, it seems likely that the Tetraxitischen Goths, are identical with the people of Eudosen that were described by pseudo - Arrian as inhabitants of the north-eastern Black Sea zone. The migration of Germanic groups from the south west of the Crimea to the Cimmerian Bosporus is archaeologically supported by the object of some Germanic cemeteries (Aj - Todor, Ĉatyr -Dag ) in the middle of the 5th century. The last news about the Tetraxiten dates from the year 551, when they supported the utigurischen Huns against kutrigurische Huns. At that time the Utiguren plundered support from 2000 krimgotischen warriors on behalf of the Eastern Empire the land of Kutrigurs after this turn ( called by the Gepids ) had ravaged Eastern Roman territory. After the middle of the 6th century, the Goths tetraxitischen likely to have gradually dissolved in other Caucasian peoples. The Eudosen who lived to 480 on the Caucasian coast, apparently spoke gothic. However, it is likely that it was not in this group in truth Goths, but rather Euten the Cimbrian peninsula that probably came with the Heruli the Black Sea.

For a long time existed Gothic principalities in the Crimea, but the population mingled here soon especially with Sarmatian groups. Finds Germanic character who parallels in the Danube - Balkan region and in Ostrogothic Italy, are detectable in the city and the Bosphorus on the Taman peninsula between the 5th and 7th centuries. According to Heiko control can, however, from about the late 6th century already not clearly Gothic finds more evidence in the Black Sea region. The famous Gothic finds in the Crimea focus on two areas in the southern part of the peninsula. One is north of the Crimean mountains, a second south of that along the Black Sea coast. Cemeteries with typical gothic grave finds in the area of Byzantine fortresses as Chersonese, Eski- Kermen and Mangup indicate the Foederatenstatus the Crimean Goths. The Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I caused them long to build walls to block access to their settlement areas. On the eastern side of the Cimmerian Bosporus as the burial place of Djurso at Novorossiysk contains graves with typical East Germanic elements. The same burial customs in the 6th and 7th centuries more and more Byzantine but also caucasian. Since the 8th century no longer tetraxitischen traces can be detected in Djurso

End of Gothia

The mixing with the neighboring peoples sat down for an extensive submission of rebellious Crimean Goths continued by the Khazars in the middle of the 8th century. From the language of the Crimean Goths only a few residues are obtained with partly unsecured tradition. Despite significant differences to the Gothic of Ulfilas Bible is no doubt that the two languages ​​are related. The number seven is, in Krimgotischen about Sevene, while it is called in the Bible Sibun Gothic. In contrast, the word hundred different because it hunt in the Bible but in the Gothic Krimgotischen called sade and thus is identical to the Indo-Iranian language. There is no further east germanic word for a comparison. Since the 13th century was to Mangup the Principality of Theodoro, which was also called Gothia. With the conquest of the capital in 1475 by the Ottomans, the political autonomy of Crimea finally ended. In the 18th century, the language seems krimgotische (see also: Gothic language ) to be finally extinct. There was no connection or even mixing between the last Crimean Goths and the first Black Sea Germans, had been claimed as such by the National Socialists to justify conquest plans.

Adolf Hitler moved to the attack on the Soviet Union into consideration to annex the Crimea following the Crimean Goths as " Gotengau " to settle with ethnic Germans from South Tyrol and rename Simferopol in " Gothenburg " and Sevastopol in " Theodoric port ".