„Jupiter byl silnější než Baal, ale Wotan mocnější než Jupiter. A tak se zrodil náš svět”

Abstract

The Fall of Roman Empire and the role of the barbarians in the course of this episode played a crucial role in the development of the historical imagination of Western civilization. Victory of Germanic leader Arminius over three Roman legions led by Publius Quinctilius Varus in the battle of Teutoburg forest was interpreted as a demonstration of the racial superiority of Nordic barbarians over the decadent and corrupted Mediterranean Roman civilization. The belief in a special historical mission of Nordic Germanic tribes and their indispensable contribution to the rise of the mediaeval Western society had flourished in the time of Reformation and Romanticism and reflected the political aspirations of some nations of the Northern Europe. Modern archaeology and anthropology have deconstructed the myth of historical and racial Germanic superiority as an outcome of Romantic essentialisation of diffused ethnic identities of various populations in late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages.