Every once in a while we come across information that sheds some light on a particularly convoluted topic (which usually is a good opportunity to do some ranting – for those who do not care for rants, see you next time).

Sometimes, such information radically changes our previously held views, at other times it adds needed confirmation to what has long been suspected.  A fascinating example of the latter has come to our attention, courtesy of the University of Warsaw and the Polish Education Ministry.  But first for some brief background.

19th Century – First Half of the 20th Century

In this period, the discussion about Germans and Slavs on the territory of present Poland (specifically, in the Oder and Vistula area was a shouting match between the hyper nationalists of the German school who, in order to justify continued territorial claims in the East, concocted  theories that denied any room for the existence of Slavs in the same area (or indeed in Central Europe) before the 5th and maybe even 6th centuries.  There were many proponents of this view from:

• the seemingly dim Johann Kaspar Zeuss, best remembered in the words of a poem:

Was man nicht deutsch erklären kann,

Das sieht man gleich als keltisch an

(What can’t possibly be explained as Germanic, that is immediately seen as Celtic)

• the proto-Nazi Gustaf Kossina (member of the “Nordic Ring” society, loving teacher of such luminaries as SS-Obersturmbannführer Hans Schleiff), to

• the Noble prize winning Theodor Mommsen – in eigenen Worten:

 “the Czech skull is impervious to reason, but it is susceptible to blows“

and once more:

“In any event, much more will fall away from the German Nation than the children of Israel, when its current form is corrected [durchkorrigiert] to fit with Tacitus’ Germania.  Mr. Quatrefages had shown many years ago that only the central states [of Germany] are truly German and that the Prussian race is a mass of peoples made up of reprobate Slavs and all kinds of other waste of humanity.“

(to be clear, this was written by Mommsen to defend (!) Jews against Treitschke  In other words, Mommsen’s view was, “yes, Jews are, of course, not Germans but, come on, look at all the other crap that we have living here in Germany”)

And many, many others who sacrificed scientific objectivity for their exploration of inner demons, pursuit of careers and raw politics.

Mommsen’s “Durchkorrigierung” Begins

The fact that Mommsen was Danish and Kossina Polish should provide some exculpation for the Germans as well as a window into the twisted souls of some of these creatures (of course, if one were to go through Germany with a magnifying glass and see who actually has Scandinavian ancestors, many, many more Kossinas would first be found – many with names you would never have guessed were not Nordic).

Side Effects of Mommsen’s “Durchkorrigierung”

Since, with the exception of tiny Serbia, there were no independent (not counting the Romanov Empire’s prison of nations) Slavic nation-states throughout most of the 19th century (people should remember that when bemoaning the effects of World War I), any response to this kind of “science” had to be a private one.  And, indeed, many Czechs, Poles and others undertook to tackle this kind of behaviour financing their activities and publications often out of their own private funds given official indifference or even hostility.  It was an uphill battle for it was fought against the machinery of the state but, in the end, it was victorious.

Even if for only a little while.

21st Century 

Compared to the many works produced by scholars roughly through the mid-20th century, what strikes one today is the paucity of decent (forget good, how about merely decent!) scholarship regarding Slavs.  There literally has not been a single respectable book published in English-speaking academia in over 50 years.  The situation in the local Slavic publishing world is not much better.  What gives?  People too busy with their every day lives to write or read about this stuff?  Maybe.  But is that it?

The response to the question of the autochtonous nature of the Slavs in Central Europe once again seems to shed some light on what may be going on.

If in the 19th century German historiography had a political goal of incorporating Slavs into the German nation – as Germans; if during the (late) Nazi time, the goal became separation and subjugation of those who would not hop on board; nowadays, a new goal is on the horizon.

Puzzle Palace

Whereas before Slavic autochtonism was a stumbling block on the road to consolidation of the lands of the overstretched reformed Germany Empire, now Slavic authochtonism is a major problem for the plans laid out for Europe in general.  Since, as we see recently, the party line is that anyone can come to Europe and anyone can be a European, the idea of a “native” or indigenous population is not too popular an idea.

After all, if there are “natives” then, one might ask, whether it is the natives that have a right to their lands – a right, tentatively speaking, greater than anybody else.  Greater than others from within Europe and certainly greater than others from outside.

But in the age of globalization this presents a problem.  The economics and demographics of Europe in relation to the economics and demographics of nearly everywhere else other than Asia are such that a migration stream is all but inevitable as people are swept up by dreams of a better life somewhere else.

The elites have no mechanisms for dealing with the underlying structural problems in the origin countries except foreign aid…  [Now, if you thought that the various foreign aid programs have an uncanny resemblance to the kind of “stipends” that the Byzantines and Romans paid to their barbarians, you would not be the only one thinking that (you’ve got to wonder how much of what got paid to Gothic kunungs and Avar khagans ended up back in Constantinople’s bank vaults).]

All the Western elites can really try to do is to try to influence (one way or another) the future host populations.

And whereas no one cares about migrations to third world countries because whatever strife or misery such a migration may cause, the global impact of such upheavals is unlikely to create anything other than misery and violence in the given locality, e.g., the UAE or South Africa – Europe (and America, Japan) is different.

If the Europeans were to try to object to all of this, things could get proverbially ugly.  Europe has, ahem, a history.  And Europe has the technological capabilities to create a rather nasty “reactionary” regime.  In this respect, realistically, a regime that could halt or reverse some of these global trends would not be a democratic regime and such a regime could, for example, seek nuclear weapons, etc, etc, etc.

This is a problem (though, again, not just for Europe) because while the rich and powerful of this world do not determine the world’s course and had not planned any of this, neither do they want to be swept along with all of its currents – if they were there just for the ride, they would not be rich and powerful for long.  And, once someone has power, then, of course, that someone is unlikely to willingly want to surrender it.  So managing inevitable change (or at least inevitable to those that believe that the cure would be worse than the disease) becomes extremely relevant.

In this respect, Germany is the key to Europe and it has recently become clear Germany has been either successfully pacified…

(Proponents of the “pacification view” point to recent events such as the fact that the German football team will no longer be the Nationalmannschaft – just the Mannschaft.  No more national, in other words, in Germany (whether this suggests that some players on the team are, ahem, not German or whether using the word “Mann” is offensive to women folk, are the kinds of political mines that we will let the Germans, or what’s left of them, decide)).

… or at least co-opted to play a policeman role (at least on this matter).

But to be serious, these people are not evil – rather, they have that endearing combination of both being robustly filled with utter certitude as well as being entirely clueless]

And the pacification or co-optation of Germany means that Germany can now be used (or, again, can do so, reassessing its interests, willingly) to pacify or co-opt others.  After all, it is a model democracy and the most inclusive country on the continent (and there is that export-driven economy which is its Achilles heel).  Why not use it as a cudgel to help others fall in line?  All you have to appeal to is German sense of humanity and democracy (for some would be cudgelers) and to German nationalism (for other, unreformed, cudgelers).  After all, in the end, it does not matter why they will do what they will do.

This is why, once again, historical truth regarding Slavs (and others) becomes hostage to the day’s politics – this time on a global stage.

Dispeling and Deconstructing “National Myths”

And so, it is difficult not to notice that, beginning in the 1990s (or late 1980s even) the German juggernaut was being repurposed as a steamroller against the resurgence of ugly Slavic nationalism.  Foundations and institutes were established.  Scientific articles were written.  And donations and subsidies were handed out to understanding individuals and various “independent” organizations all over Central Europe.

Sometimes, the results of such deconstructive scholarship were quite amusing:

• as when one would be scholar of the topic tried to argue that a migration myth has always been an appealing myth to the Slavic nationalist.

Thereby wonderfully illustrating that all that took place in the ’90s was a dusting off of the various essays earlier written by the same crowd about the Germanen (who, if by this term we mean the Norse, in our view, really did – originally – come out of Scandinavia but did not then walk into empty lands);

To all prospective deconstructors: if you aim to deconstruct our national myths then, at least, have the common courtesy of deconstructing our national “myths” not those of other peoples.

• or when another thinker constructed a theory of Slavic identity as imposed from above and the Slavic “nation” basically being a collection of pre-existing populations;

Then had to quickly backpedal when he realized that this effectively legitimized the so-called Venetic Theory…

In all of this, history and truth cannot matter.  Europeans are being reeducated and Slavs were just accepted as full-fledged passengers on the Euro-tanic.

But we are being only half-serious when pointing the finger at the “globalists”. Facts are what they are and the globalists do not shape them they only ride with them as best as they can.  Moreover, the Germans, no doubt, think they have a very good reason to reeducate the East independent of any pan-European or globalist designs – the more accepting the Slavs are of “Others”, the fewer “Others” end up in Germany… The fewer riots in Germany, etc. After all, wasn’t Poland the dumping ground of, to quote one illustrious German Noble Prize winner, “all kinds of … waste of humanity“?

And this should help answer the question of why the nature of Slavic scholarship is – recently – of such very, very poor quality.

A Case in Point

Let’s just take a look at one modest example.

This Polish website:  www.mpov.uw.edu.pl is advertised as created by the “National Center for Science” (“national” for how much longer?) which on its page states:

“There is urgent [sic] need for a thorough new study of the cultural, social, ethnic, demographic and environmental transition observed in Central Europe during the Migration Period. A greatly improved recognition of these processes may be gained by taking a diachronic and interdisciplinary approach.  This is precisely the aim of our 5-year Project began in mid-2012 – to investigate in a comprehensive manner processes observed between the late 4th and early 7th century on the Odra and the Vistula. This region could be crucial for tracing the processes sweeping across Europe. From here the Germans – the Goths and the Vandals spilled out and played their part in the fall of the Western Roman Empire, setting up their first states over its ruins.”

One might ask, why is there an “urgent” need to study these processes of “transition” now?  What makes it urgent now?  Is it perhaps the fact that Europe is experiencing an unprecedented migration by non-Europeans – something that was entirely foreseeable for the last 50 years?

The website states its purpose in plain (albeit slightly broken) English:

“Input from our Project is expected to essentially alter views commonly accepted in archaeology, late Antiquity and early medieval history, palaeodemography and palaeobotany, especially, on the causes and course of settlement in Central Europe on the turn of Antiquity and Middle Ages, demographic and ethnic processes, the extent of colonisation, destruction and regeneration of the natural environment. We expect a significant impact on the public in and outside Poland, particularly, their sense of identity which has its roots in the Migration Period, the time of the first medieval states established over the ruins of the Roman Empire and its periphery.  The fictitious “proto-Slav past” of Poland will now be replaced with hard facts.  By broadcasting the research results, both in traditional form (conferences, publications and exhibitions) and especially, in an interactive form (e.g., presentations on the web, including social networking sites, and also, during themed picnics), and through mass media, we expect to promote interest, especially of the younger generation, in past changes in civilisation for a better understanding of the modern age.”

[note that the underlined language was highlighted by the authors of this quote]

This is not a conspiracy.  It’s a consensus.  It’s as open as possible.  They are basically saying that:

• ONE: the dispute about the proto-Slavic past is now over and Proto-Slavs re a “fiction”

Notice this itself is a curious claim – have there been new sources of information discovered?  Did someone find Cassiodorus’ Chronicle and we just missed it?;  if the dispute is, in fact, over then why does the Project have to “essentially alter views commonly accepted in archaeology, late Antiquity and early medieval history, palaeodemography and palaeobotany.”  These are not views of the “common people” after all.  (If you have a neighbor that is hard-core into palaeobotany, please let us know, we’ll get him on Oprah).

Why do the views of a scientific community have to be “essentially altered” if this is all so uncontroversial?

• TWO: the aim of the project is to change the sense of identity of the Poles (though we can only assume that similar projects are underway in other European and Slavic countries) especially young people.

Now, almost all of the team members of this illustrious Project team are Polish.  Although you get some curious cases such as Jan Schuster and others either have German names or some past German connection.  Nonetheless, some of that is to be expected given the geographic closeness of Poland and Germany and, in and of itself, would not raise many eyebrows.

But then we get to the Steering Committee.  After all, you just can’t have a serious vehicle for change if the vehicle is improperly steered.  So who are the political officers of this outfit and where do they hail from?

• Prof. dr hab. Karl-Ernst Behre
  • Niedersaechsisches Institut fuer historische Kuestenforschung
    Viktoriastrasse 26-28, D-26382 Wilhelmshaven

• Prof. dr hab. Claus von Carnap-Bornheim
  • Zentrum für Baltische und Skandinavische Archäologie
    Stiftung Schleswig-Holsteinnische Landesmuseen
    Schloss Gottorf D-24837 Schleswig but also
    Institut für Vor- und Frühgeschichte
    Christian-Albrecht Universität zu Kiel
    Johanna-Mestorf-Straße 2-6
    D-24098 Kiel

• Prof. Ulla Lund Hansen
  • Saxo-Instituttet
    København Universitet
    Njalsgade 80
    DK-2300 København

Thankfully, the natives (sorry, not natives, Slavs) are represented as well!

• Prof. dr hab. Andrzej Kokowski
  • Instytut Areologii
    Uniwersytet Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej
    Pl. Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej 4
    PL-20-031 Lublin

• Prof. dr hab. Piotr Kaczanowski
  • [DECEASED]

Needless to say the Polish Culture Ministry also has no funds to sponsor digs to test the Y-DNA of Roman and pre-Roman age populations on the territory of Poland.

Go figure.

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We are reminded to use a safety or trigger word before discussing unpleasant or difficult topics – to protect the fragile minds of our readers.  We do not think a word can have the desired protective “alert” effect.  So from now on we will use a “safety picture” – this one – which will signify an upcoming quasi-cerebral section (quasi because this is a blog not a textbook – readers with 90 plus IQs will not notice anything):

WARNING: head explosion danger ahead! Consult your physician, have cold compresses on standby and if proceeding at all, for God’s sakes read slowly!!!

Linguistics is an interesting discipline with much to say about language formation, history, etc.  However, we are moved to point out that linguistics is not, as some would have it, a science.  It is no more than the study of patterns, which patterns may or may not be there in reality.  It should then be obvious that the linguists’ “laws” or “rules” are nothing of the sort.  They are in fact merely observations that may, if they are well laid out, more often than not, inform our assessment of some unknown quantity.  Their usefulness should be appreciated for they come against the backdrop of pre-19th century beliefs in the essential randomness of language development.  But, at the same time, their predictions should never be stated with the hubris of absolute certainty, deserving instead, and depending on the scenario, a good mark to the extent they produce more likely than not results in the observable realm of language.  As regards, the languages of the past, however, we must not forget that the linguists’ predictions can almost never be actually tested (we say almost never because one can imagine scenarios where some new artifact hitherto unknown comes to light and proves or sinks the validity of some prediction).  Even physics admits the existence of essentially random events via the propositions of quantum dynamics and linguistics, if anything, should be humbler than physics and certainly humbler than its professors frequently make it out to be.

That is to state the obvious.  But another observation here is, we think, useful.  Linguists live in their own world and seek to establish their propositions for reasons of their own.  To achieve that they frequently borrow from historians and archeologists without analyzing what the “other-disciplinary crutch” they just borrowed actually rests on.  When historians and archeologists look for their own crutch by, in turn, relying on linguists statements (and they should all fess up because, loathe that they may be to admit it, they – being all academics – actually do borrow from across the intra disciplinary aisle) it may happen that both sides come to realize, too late, that there is, in fact, no crutch there at all.

As we have seen already, historians have asserted that linguistics may help us determine the location of the “homeland” of the Slavs.  These ingenious folks took a look at certain words and, seeing as some of them were described by their colleagues the linguists as Germanic, classified them too as such and proceeded in turn to appropriate areas where such words may have relevance for the Germanic tribes and conversely exclude from those areas the Slavs.  This logic has its evident problems such as, for example, assuming the assumption as to the nature of a given word is correct, one must further assume no existence in the remote past of a similar Slavic word that then was not replaced by a Germanic one for a variety of reasons.  Nonetheless, as no one can be expected to prove a negative we are willing to let such considerations be put aside initially.  There is however another problem here.  The linguists themselves are interested only in linguistics and they look to the historians to help them with their own assumptions.  This raises what is a classic “chicken and the egg” problem.

Sometimes, the linguists can own the entire chicken/egg problem themselves even without resorting to other disciplines.  To give one recent example from the otherwise very interesting “The Germanic loanwords in Proto-Slavic” book by Saskia Pronk-Tiethoff:

“In view of the probable location of the Proto-Slavic and the Proto-Germanic homelands, it is highly unlikely that the contacts between the Slavic and Germanic tribes started before the time the Proto-Slavs began to spread into central Europe and onto the Balkans, and before the time the Goths had moved into the Pontic area.  It can therefore be excluded that any Slavic loanwords were borrowed into Proto-Germanic, for when the first contacts came about, Proto-Germanic as a linguistic unity had ceased to exist.  If it is possible to prove or put a convincing case for Proto-Slavic loanwords in Germanic, these must therefore be words that were either borrowed into Gothic or into West Germanic (or possibly even into Northwest Germanic); if an alleged loan-word is attested in all branches of Germanic, the word is hardly likely to stem from Slavic.”*

In other words, if you want to determine the homeland of the Slavs, you cannot use linguistics to do that.  Why?  Because linguistics cannot answer what was borrowed from what without relying on assumptions about the location of such a “homeland.”

So… take a word a version of which appears in all Germanic languages.  Say, buk for our notorious beech tree.

This word is Germanic in origin.

Why?

Because it cannot have come from Slavic.

Why?

Because it is in all Germanic languages and therefore must have been in Proto-Germanic.

So what?

Well, Slavs did not live close enough to Germans when there was in existence one proto-Germanic language so Slavic > Germanic cannot have occurred.

How do we know that?

Because Slavs do not have their own word for a beech tree.

But don’t they have buk?

No, silly – we’ve already explained that this is a Germanic word (see above).

End of story.

So what does this actually look like? Like this:

[S-T at 4.1.4 discussing “Proto-Slavic” homeland: “Proto-Slavic inherited the word[s] for beech… which was borrowed from Germanic – see 5.2” below and, therefore, according to her, the proto-Slavic homeland must have been to the East of the beech line – so now we know where the proto-Slavic homeland was]

[S-T at 5.2 discussing “beech”: “The word could have been borrowed by the Slavs in connection with the writing on slabs of beechwood… Alternatively, the borrowing might be connected to the spread of the Slavs from their original homeland to the west [as we know this location was established at 4.1.4 above]”; S-T then talks here about the Kaliningrad/Elbe-Odessa line and concludes regarding buk: “origin: Germanic” – stating that the only thing that is yet unknown is which Germanic language the borrowing was made from]

This kind of an issue is more easily determinable (assuming you are willing to scratch your head for a moment) but S-T’s other gymnastics actually require some effort to look behind the curtain.  She says, for example, that Slavic did not have its own marine vocabulary citing Schenker’s work.  If you actually trouble yourself, however, and shell out some cash or visit a library, you will note that Schenker does make this claim but… (perhaps this should be obvious?) cites precisely no one for the proposition (it seems that the claim can be traced back to Meillet and we will deal with that in due time).

* This is merely a flavor of the problem.  One may also ask why the word could not have been Proto-Indo European? (Supposedly, amongst other reasons because we know that there are no beech trees in the East and we know that the PIEs migrated from the East.  But did they? We get into the same quandary here).

One too may ask why a Slavic word could not have spread to all Germanic languages after contact was made (In whatever century – even if only in 5th/6th)?

Now, there are other reasons why buk may be Germanic but they are irrelevant to the above illustration which could have been done with any number of other words.

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Einhard, the biographer of Charlemagne, is one of the principal sources of knowledge about the life and times of Karl der Grosse (Vita Karoli Magni).  He knew Charlemagne and his court intimately (he may have also gotten to know intimately Charlemagne’s daughter).

So the question arises what information was conveyed by him about the Slavs?  Well, not much.

Some of it is in Chapter 12, some in Chapter 14 and a few mentions in Chapter 15.  The  first story told is that of Charlamagne’s campaign against the Welatabi “on behalf of” the Obotrites.  (Perhaps this was the time of King Majik mentioned as the ruler of all Slavs in the Muslim writings that we saw earlier?).  Then there is mention in passing that the Danes had earlier subjugated the Obotrites.  Then we learn that the Saale (Solawa/Solava…) separates the Sorbs from the Thuringians.  Finally, there is some interesting anthropological information on the Slavs and their main tribes.

Chapter 12 of Vita Karoli Magni

English:

“After the insurrection [of duke Tasillo of the Bavarians who confronted Charlemagne at the River Lech in 787], [the king] declared war against the Slavs, whom we normally refer to as the Wilzi, but who are properly called Welatabi in their own language.  In that war the Saxons fought as auxiliaries alongside the other peoples who were ordered to march in the king’s army, but the obedience [of the Saxons] was insincere and lacking in complete commitment.  That war came about because they [the Slavs] were constatntly harassing and attacking the Abotrites, who had once allied themselves with the Franks.  They [the Slavs] were not inclined to listen to the commands [of Charlemagne].”

“A certain gulf [i.e., the Baltic] with an unknown length and a width no more than a hundred miles wide and in many places [much] narrower runs from the western ocean towards the east. Many peoples live around this sea.  In fact, the Danes and the Swedes, whom we call Northmen, live along the northern shore [of the sea].  The Slavs, Estonians and other peoples live along the southern shore.  The Welatabi were the most prominent of these peoples and it was against them that the  king now took up war.  He beat them and brought them under his control in the one and only campaign he personally waged [against them], that from that point on they never thought of refusing to obey his commands.”

St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 547 Parchment from Cloister of St. Gall · about 1200 – This is on page 656

Latin:

“His motibus ita conpositis, Sclavis, qui nostra consuetudine Wilzi, proprie vero, id est sua locutione, Welatabi dicuntur, bellum inlatum est. In quo et Saxones velut auxiliares inter ceteras nationes, quae regis signa iussae sequebantur, quamquam ficta et minus devota oboedientia, militabant. Causa belli erat, quod Abodritos, qui cum Francis olim foederati erant, adsidua incursione lacessebant nec iussionibus coerceri poterant.”

“Sinus quidam ab occidentali oceano orientem versus porrigitur, longitudinis quidem inconpertae, latitudinis vero quae nusquam centum milia passuum excedat, cum in multis locis contractior inveniatur. Hunc multae circumsedent nationes; Dani siquidem ac Sueones, ques Nordmannos vocamus, et septentrionale litus et omnes in eo insulas tenent. At litus australe Sclavi et Aisti et aliae diversae incolunt nationes; inter quos vel praecipui sunt, quibus tunc a rege bellum inferebatur, Welatabi. Quos ille una tantum et quam per se gesserat expeditione ita contudit ac domuit, ut ulterius imperata facere minime rennuendum iudicarent.”

Chapter 14 of Vita Karoli Magni

English:

“Charlemagne’s final war was the one taken up against the Northmen who are called Danes.  First they had operated as pirates, but then they raided the coasts of Gaul and Germany with larger fleets.  Their king, Godefrid, was s filled with vain ambition, that he vowed to take control of all Germany.  Indeed, he already thought of Frisia and Saxony as his one provinces and had first brought the Abotrites, who were his neighbors, under his power and made them pay tribute to him.  He even bragged that he would soon come to Aachen, where the King [Charlamagne] held court, with a vast army.  Some stock was put in his boast, although it was idle, for it was believed that he was about to start something like this, but was suddenly stopped by death.  For he was murdered by one of his own attendants and, thus, both his life and the war he had begun came to a sudden end.”

page 657

Latin:

“Post quod et Saxonicum suae prolixitati convenientem finem accepit. Boemanicum quoque et Linonicum, quae postea exorta sunt, diu durare non potuerunt. Quorum utrumque ductu Karoli iunioris celeri fine conpletum est. Ultimum contra Nordmannos, qui Dani vocantur, primo pyraticam exercentes, deinde maiori classe litora Galliae atque Germaniae vastantes, bellum susceptum est. Quorum rex Godofridus adeo vana spe inflatus erat, ut sibi totius Germaniae promitteret potestatem. Frisiam quoque atque Saxoniam haud aliter atque suas provincias aestimabat. Iam Abodritos, vicinos suos, in suam ditionem redegerat, iam eos sibi vectigales fecerat. Iactabat etiam se brevi Aquasgrani, ubi regis comitatus erat, cum maximis copiis adventurum. Nec dictis eius, quamvis vanissimis, omnino fides abnuebatur, quin potius putaretur tale aliquid inchoaturus, nisi festinata fuisset morte praeventus. Nam a proprio satellite interfectus et suae vitae et belli a se inchoati finem acceleravit.”

Chapter 15 of Vita Karoli Magni

English:

“Previously the so-called eastern Franks had occupied no more than part of Gaul bounded by the Rhine, the Loire, the [Atlantic] ocean, and the Balearic sea and that part of Germany bounded by Saxony, the Danube, Rhine and Saal (the river that divides the Thuringians and the Sorbs).”

page 657 giveth

Latin:

“Nam cum prius non amplius quam ea pars Galliae, quae inter Rhenum et Ligerem oceanumque ac mare Balearicum iacet, et pars Germaniae, quae inter Saxoniam et Danubium Rhenumque ac Salam fluvium, qui Thuringos et Sorabos dividit, posita a Francis qui Orientales dicuntur incolitur…”

English:

“… Then he subordinated and made tributary all the rough and uncivilized peoples inhabiting Germany between the Rhine and Vistula rivers, the ocean and the Danube.  They almost all speak a similar language, but are very different from each other in customs and appearance.  Among these peoples the Welatabi, Sorbs, Obotrites and Bohemians are of special importance, and he came into armed conflict with all of them.  Other peoples [living there], who far outnumbered them, simply surrendered.”

page 657 keeps on giving

Latin:

“…deinde omnes barbaras ac feras nationes, quae inter Rhenum ac Visulam fluvios oceanumque ac Danubium positae, lingua quidem poene similes, moribus vero atque habitu valde dissimiles, Germaniam incolunt, ita perdomuit, ut eas tributarias efficeret; inter quas fere praecipuae sunt Welatabi, Sorabi, Abodriti, Boemani – cum his namque bello conflixit -; ceteras, quarum multo maior est numerus, in deditionem suscepit.”

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Jordanes has been criticized by so many people as to approach the level of critique applied previously only to Tacitus’ writings.  Jordanes’ most recent batch of critics reaches to Herr Doktor Professor Mommsen and has continued unabated thence.

Mommsense

Mommsen was a giant (Avar?) in his field, recognized as such even by other giants themselves (e.g., Mark Twain).  We will not delve into his interpretations of Getica here for that is not the time but we do bring him up because he is representative of a certain attitude that has, shall we say, infected, the topics we are studying here.  With that said, let us briefly look at Mommsen’s persona before looking closer at the words and arguments of his spiritual Nachfolger as relates to Jordanes and the Venethi.

Mommsen was, of course, like all methodical German (though he was Danish) scientists of the time, an unbiased, scientific, source on all things ancient and this, very much in contradistinction to the various Czech and other Slavic hysterio-nationalists.  His unbiased views were best expressed by the master himself in the Vienna Neue freie Presse on October 31, 1897, when he called the Czechs ‘‘apostles of barbarism’’ who would swamp German cultural achievements in ‘‘the abyss of their Unkultur.’’

At this opportunity, he also provided some useful advice – to be taken up by future Viennese – by noting that the German response to the Czechs had to be tough, because ‘‘the Czech skull is impervious to reason, but it is susceptible to blows.’’ It is unclear, whether Mommsen reached this conclusion relying purely on his formidable deductive powers or whether actual experimentation was conducted.

Be that as it may, this incident reveals Mommsen as proudly belonging not merely to the “wie es eigentlich gewesen” school of history writing but also to the “wie es mit dir geshehen wird, wenn du eben nicht…” school of futurology.  

His multiple talents unquestioned, let us leave Mommsen to his proper due and look at some of the Mommsense that cannot be laid on the shoulders of the master but rather has to be placed with his current disciples.

Theodor Moominsen – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1902) – facing the demons of his own Unkultur

At the beginning, we note that there seems to be an inverse relationship (and a logarithmic one at that) between time passed from the drafting of Getica and the number of brave academicians willing to assert that they know better wie es eigentlich gewesen ist than the people who lived in those days.  We understand, of course, that to exist, even if for only the alloted fifteen minutes and, even if only in academia, one has to publish.

And we most certainly ascribe these (in our view) biases to the world of academia and most certainly not to the fact that some publishers of this kind of stuff may or may not be German (or, err… Austrian) with names like the Oesterreichische Akademie der Wissenschafen, Franz Steiner Verlag, etc, etc, etc.  Certainly no one has shown that any such publication houses or their authors are or have ever taken any monies from or were given any tax-breaks by the German (and related) government(s) (though, let’s be honest, if they have, so what, really?).

On the other hand, matters being discussed here being important, it would seem prudent to take greater care with facts, sources and, especially, interpretations.   In discussing, any of this it is important most of all to honestly say what we do know and what we do not know.  We do know what Jordanes wrote.  The list of what we do not know is far longer.

On the Detraction of Jordanes

Up front let us note something.  It is certainly true, as some would have it that the fact that the Venethi are found where later the people now called the Slavs are found does not mean that the latter are the descendants of the former (note, again, we do not care about linguistic descendants here – just real ones). However, given that we all agree they do occupy the same space just at different points in time, it then seems to us that the burden of establishing that they are not the same people should shift to the proponents of the allochtonous theories.  It is incumbent on these folks to show both:

1) what happened to the Venethi – where did they go, these “populous tribes”? and also

2) where did the Slavs come from to replace them (these also so populous tribes)?

While many attempts have been made to establish the second point, the academic literature is completely silent on the very first question (though, of course, Jordanes does provide hints).

Now let us examine the claims against Jordanes.

We are told that Jordanes is generally “unreliable.”  This is quite a claim given that Jordanes posits to be related to the Amal house of Theodoric and having his own grandfather (and possibly father) serve this Gothic house.  Indeed an Ostrogoth (or Alan in some tellings) such as Jordanes telling this story adds credibility to his claims.  For one thing he would have had inside knowledge and understanding (certainly compared to Procopius) both as a result of his ethnos and, more specifically, as a result of his family’s connections.  But also, as an Ostrogoth – whose people  had conquered the Venethi (and plenty of others it seems) – Jordanes would have had no reason to sugarcoat anything related to the Venethi or to try to establish an “ancient past” for them – his entire attitude towards them seems to be quite neutral and unbiased.  Short of having an actual Slav or Antae come forth and tell us the story, any reasonable person will have to agree that Jordanes is the best one could wish for.

We are told that Jordanes’ Getica is based on the Cassiodorus longer Chronicle.  In his preface, Jordanes, however, mentions only a book belonging to a certain Senator as being a source of much of Getica. The word Cassiodorus does not appear in the Getica at all.  Therefore, discussing the faults and abilities of Cassiodorus in the context of Getica is mere speculation.  This speculation comes from Mommsen and is based on the reference to “written records” of the Goths.  The fact that Ablabius (note the name – think Laba/Elbe) is cited as being one of the Gothic authors seems to not have mattered to Mommsen.

We are told, on the other hand, that it be likely that certain passages of Getica are simply Gothic oral tradition or have been just made up.  But for this there is also no proof other than speculation.  In fact, we know written sources were involved and we know some were oral and we also know that Jordanes filled in some blanks – we know all this because he comes out and says so – and not after water torture but right up front.  The question of which passage is attributable to which source, however, is the kind of thinking that people in the real world do not spend time on, for they know that any answer must necessarily be composed of high quantities of hot air.

We are told that, as to the Venethi, Jordanes used two different sources (at least).  Whether that should matter or not (isn’t more better, at least sometimes?) is here beside the point.  The current point is that the only evidence of this is that the “same” river (pol) Wisla is referred to as Vistula, then Viscla, then Vistula again in the same paragraph (elsewhere it’s Visclae).   This, however, assumes that Vistla/Viscla and Vistula in fact were the same river in the Romans’ minds.  But were they?  (Pliny says only that Visculus sive Vistla) Further, were they the same in Jordanes’ mind?  (One also ought to ask about the minds of the scriveners since we only have late copies of the Getica).  If so, then he seems to have been rather sloppy.  If not, then regardless of the names, what does that tell us?  There is, however, no easy and clear line here to concluding that Jordanes used more than one source for this passage.  (See below regarding maps – we are not discussing that here since a coup d’grace this early on would not be as delicious as it ought to be).

We are told, recently, that somehow Jordanes wrote in opposition to Procopius.  The discussion of the Venethi seems to have become wrapped into this interpretation.   But there is nothing to suggest that Jordanes’ stature (and the stature of his sponsor we can only guess at) was anywhere near that of Procopius – or that Procopius who was a senator would even have noticed .  The Venethi, Slavs and Antae of Jordanes and the Slavs and Antae of Procopius are side stories, at best.  If one were to want to have an argument with Procopius, it would seem strange to have one on such a side issue.  It is also unclear whether Procopius (or anyone) would have even noticed what Jordanes wrote (he was not a bishop or at least there is no proof of his position as other than that of a monk).

We are told that Jordanes is not consistent (and, therefore, either ignorant, making things up or ill informed) by first discussing the Antae and Sclavenes as two separate categories of the archetype Venethi but then referring to each of the three names as separate peoples.  But this is just silly.  Jordanes is clear that there was one group called the Venethi before, the new people are chiefly called Sclavenes and Antes.  But that implies that there are also others.  This is no different than the practice of medieval scholars who, once these identities have crystallized, would describe Czechs and Poles as separate peoples of the Slavs but would refer to the other Slavs who seemed to lack a permanent polity, simply as Slavs (or Wends).  In fact, the progression is visible since the initial Frankish authorship discusses Slavs (including Mieszko and Boleslaw in Poland) only as Slavs but later German scholars speak of Czechs, Poles, Carinthians, Russians and other Slavs with the Slavs now acting basically as a residual category.  That there were other tribes of the type “Slav” at the time is attested to by Procopius who, in discussing the return trip of the Heruli states that they went back through the lands of the various tribes of the Slavs.  These other Venethi may have had other specific names that Jordanes was not aware of or they may have just called themselves Venethi.  This seems hardly surprising.  (And to be clear, we are not claiming that the Venethi were one “Ur-Slavic” tribe as opposed to one general designation for a whole bunch of separate groups).

We are told that the name Venethi was not in then current “common” use (in the 500s) the way that Jordanes states it was.  This is a bizarre claim and one only needs to read Getica to see that… Jordanes at least used the term.  But seriously, Jordanes does not say that the Venethi was to be applied to the people raiding Roman territory.  A normal reading of his Venethi passage suggests a rather unremarkable conclusion.  Venethi were the progenitors of Antae and Slavs.  There may be other people Venethi whose names Jordanes does not know.  Such other Venethi may be smaller tribes attached to Antae or Slavs but the umbrella group Venethi are also people who may currently (in the 500s) be living back in the old Venethi haunts on the Baltic.  (Further, whether they do or not, is irrelevant since the claim that they do is entirely separate from the claim that the Slavs and Antae derived from the Venethi).  To be more blunt, how many other authors of the sixth century do we have that discuss Slavs in any level of anthropological detail including their background?  Other than Procopus and Jordanes, none.  So, 1/2 of those authors discussing these topics used the name Venethi, the other 1/2 used the name Spori.  To talk about “common usage” of a term when the topic itself is at best obscure and talked about by a sample size of two authors is to waste everyone’s time.

We are told that somehow and for some reason Jordanes wanted to attach the currently relevant tribes of Slavs and Antes to the Venethi.   But the question is why would that have mattered to Jordanes?  And, if this was a major point, why make it as a side reference in the book on Goths?  If it really mattered to Jordanes to show that nothing changes beyond the frontiers of the Empire, he certainly could have written more about that.

To claim that the Venethi were of any interest to Jordanes is to leave the realm of reality and enter a twilight zone of speculation.  Everything that Jordanes wrote suggests that the Venethi were, to him, a minor reference in a minor paragraph in one of his works concerning itself with an entirely different topic – the Goths (vide the title of the book) – he was not focused on the Venethi except as related to the Antes and Slavs and, he wasn’t very focused on the Antes and the Slavs either.  It is also for that reason, that there does not seem to be any reason for him to have lied or misstated facts related to the Venethi.  Would he have called the victor over the Antes, Vinitharius just to spice up his lies?

Moreover, in his other work Romana which does not deal with the Goths he limits himself only to discussing Slavs and Antae but if he were interested in stressing this connection why not throw it in, in Romana as well?

Of course, it is also possible that Jordanes was an entirely faithful compiler of partially untrustworthy sources.  The problem with saying anything about this, however, is that we are now speculating about the veracity of sources not only not in our possession but ones whose identity or even whose very fact of existence is, to put it generously, uncertain.

We are told that the episode of Boz comes from oral tradition applied to the Antes.  But there is no basis for this assertion.  We are alternatively told that it must have had a Greek source (as opposed to Cassiodorus) because of the Anti spelling used there by Jordanes is Greek and there is no evidence that Cassiodorus spoke Greek.  But Jordanes spoke Greek and there is no reason not to think that he could have switched back and forth between Latin and Greek as regards personal names.  Moreover, as per above, we do not even know whether Cassiodorus’ chronicle was a source used by Jordanes.  Even if it was to speculate now as to what languages Cassiodorus spoke seems rather silly – we do know, or at least we think we know, that he went to Constantinople at some point after the collapse of Theodoric’s kingdom – would he have done so, had he not known how to communicate with the appropriate social strata?

Who knows.

All we know is that Jordanes says what he says.  And we do not even know that because no original autographed manuscripts exist – the most ancient one seems to have burned down in Mommsen’s house and the other ones may well have been written by Greeks.

What about the title Vinitharius, “conqueror of the Venethi” as applied to Boz and the Antes?

We are told that the Boz episode Jordanes (or others, in turn, copied by Jordanes) have copied from the account of Ammianus Marcellinus’ discussion of Vithimiris’ war on the Alans, thereby giving the Antes a “pre-history”.  (Incidentally, a discussion on “Gothic” names may well be in order soon too).   However, Jordanes, who did not seem to have had much pride in authorship (listing elsewhere several sources he used), at no point claims to have used Marcellinus.  Moreover, there is no evidence that Vithimiris was Vinitharius.  But let’s say we are taking about the same person.  Vithimiris may well have fought both the Alans and the Antes (the crucifixion was not in Marcellinus and neither is the name Boz).  Or maybe the Alans were also of the Antes or the Antes of the Alans (see, e.g., “Slavs who were previously called Alans” or the claims that Antes may not have been Slavs sensu stricte whatever that means).

Further, at a minimum Jordanes (or someone before him) would have had to have invented the title Vinitharius and, likely, also the name Boz (BTW if Boz is not a Slavic name then we can conclude rather safely that not only Slavs were not Venethi but also that Slavs never existed and continue not existing to this day [3]).

We have even seen people claim that Vinitharius was a real title but seeing the Antes (and not the Venethi) and needing to explain the inconsistency of their whooping at the hands of Vinitharius, Jordanes went back and fabricated the earlier section on the Antes, Slavs and Venethi.

When asking as to why Jordanes (or someone prior to him) would have had an interest in such petty fabrications we ought expect no answers and we receive none.

And this is quite aside from the fact that, as per Jordanes, he had about three days to summarize the entire chronicle he was copying.  Perhaps he could think quickly on his feet and make up the most elaborate contortions but (there is a reason why police interrogators want to get a suspect talking ASAP after his capture) it is just as likely that, strapped for time, he copied more than he made up.

We are, finally, told that he must have used multiple maps – one “normal” and one being of the Peutinger non-projection type.  This is because the Slavs were, according to Jordanes, bound by the Vistula on the North and also because different spellings of Vistula were used by our noble author.  We are then told that Jordanes was a good Christian and respectful of past authority (but, apparently a fibber or, at least, a slob) and, faced with irreconcilable inconsistencies in his maps, his brow sweating with confusion and steam coming out of his ears like an android on instruction-overload kept repeating “error, error, error” while writing nonsense in his pages of the Getica.

Jordanes, though not in the best of health, never suffered from any documented cases of exploding head

There is no evidence for any of this, however.  We know exactly nothing as to what maps (if any) Jordanes used.

An actual case of a Delusiosa Grandiosa Explosiosa

Moreover, the reference of the Sclaveni’s domains extending as far north as the Vistula is entirely consistent with a “regular” map being used.  Vistula, both lower and upper, is north of something.  That something (which happens to be Moravia/Pannonia) in turn is where Jordanes locates his Slavs.  A sideways, “east is up” map is entirely unnecessary for this statement to make sense.  Neither is a Peutinger-type map necessary.  Moreover, for the claim of Jordanes’ being confused to work, one would also have to argue that not only did Jordanes use an east is up or Peutinger map but also that he did not appreciate the fact that on such a map north was really “left”.  We do not know who Jordanes’ taskmaster was but, if all of that were true, one has to seriously question the judgment of this unfortunate patron.

It is, of course, possible that Jordanes used one, two or a billion maps of entirely different projections but to derive such a conclusion from the word Vistla versus Vistula and the statement that the Venethi were bound by a river on the north, seems, to us, a bit much.

But this stuff actually does raise an interesting point…

Venethi on the Peutinger Map

The Peutinger Map has been alleged to be based on an early fifth century or maybe even early third century map.  We will not quibble with such eminently sagacious assertions. (Of course, such versions could have been changed over time, etc).  Instead, let’s take a look at what we have…

And look we can – now – because the Peutinger Map, being item 324 in the Codex Vindobonensis  (named after Vienna aka Vindobona, an ironic nomen omen name, it seems to us, given this current exercise) has been generously (and recently) digitized and placed on the Internets.  This, we think, will have a healthy, democratizing effect on the state of the research in this area…

So what does the Peutinger Map show regarding the Venethi?

First, there are at least three Venethi tribes shown on the map.  We will ignore, for now, the Venethi of Gall (and Wales) whose ships fought Ceasar (see 1A2 on the map) .  This leaves us with two other Venethi.

These include the Venethi of the Danube (Venedi) (7A4):

But they also include the Venethi of Sarmatia (Venadi) (7A1):

Second, it should be (should be…) relatively straightforward to understand that the Venethi discussed by Jordanes as being the “source” of Antes and Slavs are the Venethi of Sarmatia that reside on the shores of the Northern (or Germanic) Ocean.

One look at the Peutinger Map further establishes that these Venethi are shown as completely unbounded by any river. [2]

Third, if this map is merely a reproduction of the state of knowledge in the third (or, would one prefer, fifth?) century then, we are most curious, why the Venethi are found anywhere around the area that Jordanes mentions his Slavs and Antes to be in (i.e., the Danube delta)?

No doubt many papers can now be written about how:

(A) the Peutinger Map is a vicious Slavo-nationalistic forgery;

(B) the map was actually authored by Jordanes who used a time travel vehicle to…yes, you guessed it… time travel, all as part of his plot to link the Venethi to the Slavs and Antes (which plot was key to his strategy of arguing with Procopius that… something or something);

Jordanes arrives in the 3rd century in a plot to to insert the Peutinger Map with its Venethi into the flow of history – the evil mastermind was successful yet again

(C) the Peutinger Map’s original zwar was the correct description of places shown but the portions showing the Venethi were clearly altered after the map’s publication (by Slavic hypernationalist saboteurs working hand in hand with the mysterious Order of Jordanes) [3];

(D) in a post-national Europa we are all Freunde, errrrr… friends, that is, and we should no longer  look at the past but look solely to the Zukunft! Err… you know vat vee meenz.

To all that, we can only say:

Gute Nacht & Viel Glück! [4]

[1] Attempts have been made to do just that by suggesting that Boz was a… Goth and that the Antes (here it is Procopius that gets attacked rather than Jordanes) were “Pontic Goths” who, contrary, to Procopius’ statemens on their language being the same as that of the Slavs, actually spoke a Germanic tongue.  As far as we can tell the only argument for this is that some of the (few) known Antes names could have been Germanic in the sense that some people elsewhere, heretofore considered Germanic, may have carried similar names.  Assuming arguendo that  that were the case (and that names are a trustworthy indication ethnicity – a subject for another day),  one would think that the simplest solution to this “conundrum” would be to consider the possibility that some of those “Germanics” elsewhere (e.g., the Gothic king Radagaisus, in several sources unfamiliar with Slavs called “Scythian”) were not Germanics at all rather than arguing that the Antes, described by both Procopius and Jordanes as being the same as Slavs in manner and language and all else, were Germanic…  But we know of at least one author who instead chose not to follow Occom’s razor in this instance, championing his own theory of Pontic Goth hot air.  In any event, we have said already too much on this.  While we are willing to take up some of our precious time responding to, what we see as, wrong-headed theories, we will not entirely waste it entertaining theories that are, in the immortal words of Wolfgang Pauli, “not even wrong”.

(Incidentally, if the Antes were not Slavs and given that we have no record of the Sclavines ever migrating northward from the Danube (they just keep attacking the Byzantines), the subsequent appearance of the Slavs literally everywhere  in Eastern Europe would be that much more impressive as regards the Slavs’ reproductive capacity).

[2] But Venethi don’t get your hopes up – you actually are bound, it’s just that the people who penned this thing together did not know that the Baltic was not an ocean – not having discovered Scandinavia – or rather, thinking the latter was an island (the biggest of the four east of Cimbria in Tacitus).

[3] It is said that if you turn off all the lights on the 11th of November and hold the Venethi sections of the Peutinger Map close to your nose an image appears directly behind the map.  German old men and wise women who claim to have seen this phenomenon swear by Wodan that it was an image of an evil spirit who would utter these words: Scha- ffa- rik.  The Austrian High Commission for the Cultures and Arts denies these claims wholeheartedly though one commissioner was heard suggesting that, in the alternative, the apparition may be that of an ancient Germanic chieftain – Zavaricus.

[4] Of course, it is possible that the Venethi were at the Danube at some point the past and that that is what later, faced with Antes and Slavs, confused Jordanes who first connected the Slavs and Antes with those Danubian Venethi and then sought to locate their ancestors elsewhere, with the Sarmatian Venethi providing a “solution”.  However, this would be a slightly different and more limited theory than the general “Jordanes was confused” theory as it would, at the very least, have to agree to locate both groups in the same geography.  And, of course, such a theory would also have to explain the alleged population exchange – now, however, not taking place in some Sarmatian terra incognita on the Baltic who knows when but rather right in the Romans back yard at some point between 200-400 OTOH and early 500s OTOH.  All of this is possible, of course, but one fears only at the cost of creating even more Ptolemaic orbits.

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