In the following paper I propose to myself to write a monograph upon the Avars, from the time they are first mentioned by Western historians to their final disappearance from history. The detail, and I hope the completeness, with which I have ventured to treat the subject, which are alone of value in ethnographic studies now-a-days, are especially valuable in the case of the Avars, whose place in history was so marked and yet so enigmatic, and who caused such potent changes in the ethnographic map of Europe.