The Budini (Ancient Greek: Βουδίνοι; Boudínoi) was a group of people (a tribe) described by Herodotus and several later classical authors.
Described as nomads living near settled Gelonians, Herodotus located them east of the Tanais river (which is usually assumed to correspond with modern Don River) beyond the Sarmatians.Herodotus, The Histories, iv.
21.
Pliny the Elder mentions the Budini together with the Geloni and other peoples living around the rivers which drain into the Black Sea from the north.Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, book 4, XII, 88; Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, trans.
John Bostock, book 4, chapter 26 During the European Scythian campaign of Darius I, in which the Persian king invaded the Scythian lands of Eastern Europe, the Budini were allies of the Scythians.
During the campaign, he captured and burnt down one of the Budini's large fortified cities.
The Budini are also mentioned by Classical authors in connection with reindeer.
Both Aristotle and Theophrastus have short accounts – probably based on the same source – of an ox-sized deer species, named , living in the land of the Budines in Scythia, which was able to change the colour of its fur to obtain camouflage.
The latter is probably a misunderstanding of the seasonal change in reindeer fur colour.Georg Sarauw, "Das Rentier in Europa zu den Zeiten Alexanders und Cæsars" [The reindeer in Europe to the times of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar], In Jungersen, H. F. E. and Warming, E..
Mindeskrift i Anledning af Hundredeaaret for Japetus Steenstrups Fødsel (Copenhagen 1914), pp.
1–33.
Herodotus' description
Herodotus gives the following account: Historicity, origin and location
The definitive origin or the ethnic composition of Budini - if they indeed existed as a singular entity Herodotus and later authors had described - remains unknown.
The general consensus is that the Budini correspond to .Patrushev, V. (1995): Uralic Nations of Russia: Historic Development and Present Condition.
pp.
97–116.
Slavic Origin
Boris Rybakov was the first to suggest that Budini correspond to , a view now held by the majority of historians.
He considered the latter to be ethnically proto-Slavic, and, together with Boris Grakov, further theorised that, considering the probable, relatively large, population numbers of the Budini, which he inferred from the archeological evidence, the Budini must have inhabited a relatively large territory, likely stretching from Voronezh forest steppe to Poltava forest steppe.
However, he also did not rule out a possible relation with proto-Balts.Борис Александрович Рыбаков (Borys Aleksandrowicz Rybakow), Геродотова Скифия.
Историко-географический анализ (tł. Herodotowa Scytia. Analiza historyczno-geograficzna), Wydawnictwo «Наука», 1979, (<abbr>ros.</abbr>) He also suggested the Budini had cults dedicated to Lada, a goddess of Balto-Slavic mythology.
On the other hand, , who also argued that they were proto-Slavic, determined their location at the time of Herodotus to be between the middle Dnepr and the upper reaches of Don river stretching further up to the limits of the Volga river basin.
Zbigniew Gołąb argued that they were a confederation of people who spoke the Proto-Slavic language, from which Greeks inferred their name which was an exonym meaning "tribesmen" in their native language.
Several historians and scholars such as Lubor Niederle and Pavel Jozef Šafárik believe that the Budini were a Slavic people, and that the etymology stems from the Slavic word for 'water' which is "Voda".
Same as Water in English, Votic in Finnish, Vatten in Swedish.James Hastings, "Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics" (1921), p. 588.
Finnic Origin
The 1911 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica surmises that the Budini were Finnic peoples, of the Permian branch now represented by the Udmurts and Komis.
Estonian amateur historian and nationalist Edgar V. Saks identifies Budini as the Finnic Votic people,Edgar V. Saks, Eesti viikingid (Tallinn 2005), p. 16. a theory Urmas Sutrop described as "pseudoscientific".Sutrop, Urmas (2004).
Erelt, M, ed.
"Liivimaa kroonika Ykescola ~ Ykescole ja Üksküla.
Tõnu Karma 80. sünnipäevaks" (PDF).
Emakeele Seltsi aastaraamat (in Estonian).
Tallinn: Emakeele Selts: 89.
Other theories see in them the ancestors of the Finns,Henryk Łowmiański, Studies on the History of Slavdom, Poland and Rus in Middle Ages , Poznań 1986, p. 25 or the ancestors of Mordvins or Permians.Péter Hajdú, Finno-Ugrian Languages and Peoples, London 1970, s.
70 See also
Gelonians
Gelonus
- a prominent archeological site in what is now north-eastern Ukraine.
The remains of this 5th century BC settlement are usually associated with Budini.
References
Sources
