For the first time in Russian science, an attempt was made to identify and analyze the main stages in the development of historiography regarding the Ostrogothic
queen Amalasuintha. The author, using the problematic and chronological approaches, defines the distinctive features of the studies devoted to the ruler. The first part of the work is an analysis of works devoted to Theodoric the Great, in which little attention is paid to Amalasuintha. However, all these works have certain common features: they all pointed to the dependence of the queen's actions on the praetorian prefect Cassiodorus, she has something distinctly “Roman” about her. Besides, their authors constantly resort to comparing Amalasuintha with her father Theodoric and co-ruler Theodahad. Further, the author analyzes
studies that consider her an independent sovereign. Their appearance is associated with changes in historical science that occurred in the second half of the 20th century. Influencing the “discovering” of Amalasuintha was the recognition of late Antiquity as a special phenomenon. The emergence and spread of gender and ethnic history at the turn of the 20th—21st centuries contributed to the greatest extent to the publication of not only spot studies, but also the first monographs fully devoted to the personality and reign of the Ostrogothic queen.
For citation:
Kazakova A.A. Discovering Amalasuintha: (Ostgothothic queen in the light of foreign historiography), Ivanovo State University Bulletin, Series: Humanities,
2023, iss. 3, pp. 107—115.