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The modern account The migration movement may be divided into two phases; the first phase, between AD 300 and 500, largely seen from the Mediterranean perspective, put Germanic peoples in control of most areas of the former Western Roman Empire. (See also: Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Burgundians, Alans, Langobards, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Suebi, Alamanni). The first to formally enter Roman territory were the Visigoths who ended the Late Roman Empire. They were first called by the Roman Empire to defend its boundaries in exchange for fees, but they later occupied it. They were soon followed by the Ostrogoths led by Theodoric the Great. The second phase, between AD 500 and 700, saw Slavic tribes settling in Eastern Europe and gradually making it predominantly Slavic. The Bulgars, who were present in Europe since the second century, in the seventh century expanded their kingdom to the Balkan territory of the Byzantine Empire. During the eighth to tenth centuries, not usually counted as part of the Migrations Period but still within the Early Middle Ages, new waves of migration, first of the Magyars and later of the Turkic peoples, as well as Viking expansion from Scandinavia threatened the newly established order of the Frankish Empire in Central Europe. Völkerwanderung The German term Völkerwanderung ("migration of nations"), is occasionally used as an alternative label for the Migration Period in English-language historiography.. However, the term Völkerwanderung is also strongly associated with a certain romantic historical style which has strong roots in the German-speaking world of the 19th century, perhaps associated with the same cultural process which included the music of Wagner and the writings of Nietzsche and Goethe. The Völkerwanderung, the forceful expansion of the Germanic tribes into France, England, Northern Italy and Iberia, is seen an indication of the energy and dynamism. This analysis became associated with nineteenth century German Romantic nationalism and the eastern expansion of Germany (Drang nach Osten, the urge to move East). Such an analysis may have contributed to the Nazi folk ideology of Lebensraum, or "living space", the theory that the Germans had a mission to expand their population beyond the national borders of Germany. If Germans and Slavic peoples use the term "migration" (Völkerwanderung in German, Stěhování národů in Chech, etc.), in cultures that are heirs to Latin language (French, Italians, Spanish, etc.), these migrations are often called "invasions" (e.g. the Italian term "Invasioni Barbariche" meaning "barbarian invasions"). The term "barbarian invasion" is still in use in some English works; barbarian historically had the neutral meaning of "foreigner", but it also has a pejorative meaning of "uncivilzed" and "cruel", making it problematic as a neutral historical descriptor. Migration period In reaction to the above, twentieth-century English-language historiography largely abandoned the German term, replacing it with "Migration Period", as in the series Studies in Historical Archaeoethnology or Gyula László's The Art of the Migration Period. The "invasions" of pre-Romantic-generation historians have given way, too: scholars today hold that a great deal of the migration did not represent hostile invasion, but rather tribes taking the opportunity to enter and settle lands already thinly populated and weakly held by a divided Roman state whose economy was shrinking. Timeline Notes See also | ||||||||||
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