In the 18th century, French scholar Joseph de Guignes became the first to propose a link between the Huns and the Xiongnu people. This connection remains one of history's most debated questions nearly two hundred years later. The Xiongnu lived in northern China from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD before retreating northwestward after their defeat by the Han dynasty. Their descendants may have migrated through the Eurasian Steppe and consequently share some degree of cultural and genetic continuity with the Huns who appeared on European borders around 370 AD. Modern scholarship is divided on whether these groups are truly related or if the name Hun was simply used by outsiders to describe steppe warriors regardless of ethnicity. Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen challenged traditional approaches by emphasizing archaeological research over written sources alone. He argued that it is futile to speculate about blood relationships between the Xiongnu, Hephthalites, and Attila's Huns since all were prestigious ruling groups using similar names for prestige reasons. Recent supporters like Hyun Jin Kim believe there is fundamental political and cultural continuity between the Xiongnu and European Huns. Etienne de la Vaissière argues ancient Chinese and Indian sources used Xiongnu and Hun to translate each other. Walter Pohl cautions that no great confederation of steppe warriors was ethnically homogenous. The name Hun described prestigious ruling groups rather than a specific ethnic group.
Migration And Empire Building
By 370 AD, the Huns had arrived on the Volga River causing the westward movement of Goths and Alans. This migration triggered a chain reaction across Eastern Europe as several central and eastern European peoples established kingdoms under Hunnic hegemony or fleeing from it. By 430, they had established a vast but short-lived empire on the Danubian frontier of the Roman Empire in Europe. The Huns conquered the Alans, most of the Greuthungi or Eastern Goths, and then most of the Thervingi or Western Goths with many fleeing into the Roman Empire. In 395 the Huns began their first large-scale attack on the Eastern Roman Empire by pillaging Cappadocia and threatening Antioch. They entered parts of Syria and passed through the province of Euphratesia while simultaneously invading the Sasanian Empire. Uldin became the first Hun identified by name in contemporary sources when he headed a group fighting against Radagaisus in defense of Italy around 400, 401. He defeated Gothic rebels who troubled the East Romans around the Danube and beheaded the Goth Gainas. The East Romans tried to buy off Uldin's subordinates after his demands were too high resulting in many desertions. In 433 some parts of Pannonia were ceded to them by Flavius Aetius, the magister militum of the Western Roman Empire. By the 420s, the Huns were based on the Great Hungarian Plain, the only large grassland near the Roman Empire capable of supporting large numbers of horses.