Barbarian politogenesis of postroman Europe: models and results

The political present of the Europe in its geographical understanding is to a decisive extent determined by the historical retrospective and traditions, which mainly originate from the border of antiquity and the Middle Ages. The formation of the complex of European ethnic and regional identities, for the most part, took place in the second half of the 1 st millennium AD. e., and finally it took shape in modern times. That is why the initial stage of the “birth of Europe” is closely related to the problems of post-Roman influence or direct Roman tradition, as well as the regional characteristics of the barbarian social organisms themselves, which at times were extremely variable. The basic division into Western Romanesque and Eastern Romanesque models of early political genesis (according to G.S. Lebedev) undoubtedly needs multiple clarifications. Based on the explanatory and heuristic potential of the concept of S. Rokkan and S. Lipset, primarily the conceptual map of Europe, extrapolated to earlier eras, the article attempts to detail the geopolitical map of the Dark Ages and the early Middle Ages in general, the correlation of the six geographical clusters identified with the processes politogenesis in post-Roman Europe. The focus is on the role of the imperial legacy (unique in each cluster) in the formation of the early barbarian kingdoms and their destinies. The methodological basis for the analysis of early political genesis is the concept of the dominance of the military factor in the creation and transformation of social and political-administrative structures of barbarian kingdoms and early medieval states (C. Tilly, F. Stanton, C.W. Hollister, C. Petit-Dyutailly, etc.). It is also noted that the “Frankish model”, supplemented by the less viable Eastgothic, Visigothic and Burgundian, clearly opposes the North and East European models of the early Middle Ages finale. The key importance in the article is given to the definition of the boundaries of the regions and the qualitative differences of the Roman heritage within them, as well as to the peculiarities of the barbarian systems of socio-political self-organization. The main task is to clarify and detail the picture of “two Europes”, defined by the line of the Roman border and having a decisive influence on the political events of our time and the foreseeable future. 

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