I recently watched a documentary about Attila the Hun on Swedish TV. The documentary is really French, produced by Pernel Media for a number of English-language channels. The version I´ve seen was 50 minutes long, and it´s not entirely clear what the English title might be. Perhaps "In the Footsteps of Attila the Hun".
I´m not a world leading expert on the Huns, but at least on one point, I think the documentary-makers pulled a fast one. They actually claim that the Norse god Odin is based on Attila, and that the Huns somehow reached Scandinavia?! Naah, unless you chose to believe some ancient tall tale á la Snorri Sturluson...
Otherwise, the documentary seems to be scholarly, with a number of "talking heads" from various academic institutions and museums. Somewhat unexpectedly, they don´t really tell the full story of Attila in the usual chronological fashion, instead concentrating on the archeological, linguistic and genetic evidence. It´s actually quite intriguing.
Apparently, the name "Attila" isn´t known from any Asiatic language. It´s actually a Goth (Germanic) word, meaning "Little Father", presumably a term of deference to the great leader. But why would an Asiatic conqueror be widely known by a Gothic name? Perhaps Attila was of mixed race? The Huns had Goth vassals, but in the documentary, Asiatics and Whites are depicted as equal. The Huns were a multi-racial band of marauding brothers, not an example of henious Asian oppression of the fair Goths.
Further, the documentary claims that DNA tests show that the "Hun elite" came from northern Mongolia and Lake Baykal, so presumably they were Asians and related in some way to the Xiongnu (Hsiung-nu), after all. (Otherwise, it´s interesting to note that Indo-Europeans also roamed the same area in ancient times, see the "Celtic" mummies in Xinjiang!) There are also archeological sites in Kazakhstan that are related to the Huns. Their golden artifacts are a perfect match.
Attila and the Huns have a *very* bad reputation in European historiography, except in Hungary (Hun-gary) where nationalists to this day claim descent from the Huns and regard their leader as a Hungarian hero. Several modern monuments celebrating the scourge of God are shown in the documentary. Apparently, the theory in vogue is that the Magyars (the ancestors of modern-day Hungarians) were somehow related to the Huns, or indeed *were* the Huns at a later stage of development. I´m not sure what Viktor Orbán thinks of all this, I mean, there seems to be a contradiction between claiming to be "the defender of Europe against the barbarians" and celebrating descent from one of the barbarian tribes!
After Attila´s death, his vast "empire" (or whatever is the correct term) soon split and was dissolved, but that´s normal steppe politicking, and the moment Russia breaks up around the year 2500, well, here we go again, with new Attilas...
Hopefully more Germanic ones, this time.
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