European tradition of the perception of the Northern black sea coast and its inhabitants in antiquity and the middle ages

Abstract

The topic of the publication is devoted to the process of forming the image of the Northern Black Sea region in European society in the times of antiquity and the Middle Ages. The Northern Black Sea region had its own peculiarities of mental, verbal and artistic perception.

It is revealed that many works are devoted to the perception of the region by representatives of other cultures, among which L. Wolff work dedicated to the study of transformations of mentally-geographical landmarks of Western Europeans should be noted. Wolff tried to prove that numerous traveler-diplomats, writers, adventurers, merchants, and scholars have laid the foundations for the image of the region and as a «civilized» West looked at the «backward» Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region. The Age of Enlightenment was merely a statement of the millennial genesis of this figurative perception. The roots of this process date back to ancient times.

The research is based on an analysis of the works of antique, medieval and early modern authors, which have a clear positioning in relation to the Northern Black Sea region. The study of the genesis of perception of the Northern Black Sea region by representatives of «civilized» cultures is the main goal of this publication.

It was defined that both «antique» and «medieval» European threat and trouble came from the east, while the closest «eastern» region to the Europe was the Northern Black Sea region. Like the Scythians and Sarmatians in ancient times, and the Huns during the Great Migration of Peoples, and the destruction of the Roman Empire, the Mongol invasion, the Tatar-Nogai raids firmly established in the minds of Europeans the image of this land as a «hellish» place.

It is noted that the ancient «sivilis» clearly contrasted itself with the Black Sea «barbarus» and considered it dangerous. Subsequently, after the establishment of Christianity in the Roman Empire, along with the civilization criterion religious was added. Now, the «sivilis», which was associated with «christianitas» (Christianity), contrasted itself with the «barbarus», which consolidated «religia pagana» (paganism).