As we have discussed many times before, given man’s infinite capacity for hubris, each age of man proclaims its own truth as the most rational, scientific and – most importantly – final.  By extension, each such age also proclaims the truths of the past as wrong, outdated and altogether passé.

Looking from the outside (to the extent that is possible! we try though!) one might be tempted to ask whether current truths are only those truths that are currently “trending” – often with no serious foundation or reason – other than the logic of a snowball heading down hill.

But the beauty of the story of the snowball and the hill is that the former eventually runs out of the latter.  Now, this may be a result of exhaustion or, if you will, gravity and friction.  But it also may be a result of someone noticing that there was no hill or no snowball in the first place and that what we were witnessing was an elaborate parlour trick (or, less kindly, con job).  Since the magician is unlikely to be motivated to show his hand, we are forced – if we suspect something ain’t right – to reason our way to calling him out on his illusion.

Which brings us exactly to the heart of the matter as regards the whole “Origin of the Slavs” debate.  We’ve previously looked at how what is taught as history may be rooted not so much in truth but in current political preferences.  Let’s now look at several other similarly delicious aspects of this debate.

• First, let’s look at the effect of the relative balance of power (economic, military, cultural, etc) determines how one perceives history.  We have an excellent example from the German approach to the “Origin of the Slavs” question.

• Second, we will look (again) at how different assumptions about history translate into different interpretations of facts that might – absent such assumptions – have resulted in entirely new theories.  Here the example of the Suavi-Slavi incongruity being ignored or molded to fit preexisting notions about the past will be of interest.  Another example will have to do with the heavily politicized (strange, isn’t it!?) question of the ethnic nature of the Aesti.

• Third, we will look at the final refuge of the scoundrels – the redefinition of the debate.  Here we have an excellent example of linguistic prestidigitation when we ask the mainstream historians and archeologists to tell us what do they mean exactly by “Slavs”.

• Fourth, we will ask about the implication of answers that differ from the ones that we are regularly being served up – both in the context of German self-perception and in the context, to come full circle, of today’s status of the “European project” – a project that the Germans (but also many others) hold near and dear – at whatever price.

Let’s begin, with the first aspect – our carrot & stick theory of German perception of the history of the Slavs.  (We will continue with items 2, 3 as well as 4 in subsequent entries).

Germans on the Origin of the Slavs

German “Elitist” Theories

Eastern Hypothesis

In the 19th century we had the, let’s call it, Eastern hypothesis.  German scientists, confident in the rise of a strong, industrialized and unified Germany had to explain why so many inhabitants of the Empire were not speaking German.  They, therefore, came up with the Eastern hypothesis which, basically makes some or all of the following points:

1. Central Europe was “originally” Germanic (Eastern Germanic but nevertheless);
2. Germans left.
3. Slavs were newcomers who arrived from the East – probably with the Huns but maybe even with the (in larger numbers) or pushed forth by, the Avars.
4. Where in the East the mass of Slavs came from was irrelevant (or, at least, it was irrelevant for so long as the German Empire was not claiming those Eastern lands) with the proposed homelands ranging from the Pripet Marshes to somewhere beyond the Urals.
5. The German Drang Nach Osten, therefore was not only a civilizational mission but a form of Reconquista where the Germans (never mind which) were returning to their Eastern homelands (which, just happened to be one of many German homelands but never mind that).
6. The formation of the Slavic state was the work of Germanic peoples (Vikings from the North but the Germans of Germany were content with that as they always looked up to their Nordic “cousins” as “purer” versions of themselves – perhaps a certain sense of inadequacy).

(On the other hand, 19th century and early 20th century Slavic historians, of course, denied all six of the above postulates.)

This view of Germans and Slavs was picked up on by the Nazis (although whole heartedly only after it become clear that Poles and Czechs would not be drawn into a crusade against the Soviet Union).  It was a view whose strongest expression, therefore, occurred in times of relative German strength.  Put simply, whenever Germany was strong it could define history however it liked to and exclude others from its past just as it was actually excluding others from the present.

Eastern-light Hypothesis

After the war the Eastern view, for obvious reasons, mostly fell out of favor.  Nevertheless, it perseveres today in an “Eastern-light” version where postulates 1, 2 and 3 are still clung onto, postulate 4 is rarely mentioned, 5 is never mentioned in polite company and 6 is (with the exception of the old Rus state – where it actually does seem to apply) nowadays agreed to have been wrong.

This much for the German “mainstream”.

German Theories of “Inclusion”

But the German (far) right always had a different theory in its pocket.

A theory that seems to be strongest whenever Germany is relatively weak militarily.  This theory is one that is – with one exception – actually quite similar to the 19th century Slavic theory.  This is what we would call the “Inclusive” theory.  According to this view:

1. Central Europe was “originally” Germanic (Eastern Germanic but nevertheless);
2. Germans, for the most part, did not leave.
3. Slavs were newcomers from somewhere but their numbers were – relatively – small.
4. Where in the East the Slav conquerors came from is irrelevant.
5. The German Drang Nach Osten was a mission of national reawakening (some versions of this actually deny Germany colonization in any large numbers).
6. As to the leadership of the early Slav states, there are two variations here depending on whether the “Nordic” theory is too tempting for the given professor of this view or not:
   • “basic version” – no, they were foreign (Slavic) oppressors of the Germanic populace.
   • “convoluted version” – yes, the leadership of the new states was largely Nordic (though, as a “bone” to the locals, perhaps they do not have to have come from Scandinavia – they could have been local);

The crux of this theory is that the vast majority of the Slavs are, in fact, Germans though some (unspecified) percentage may be “Slavs” – whatever that means.  For more of this type of thinking look at Walther Steller or, more recently, Jochen Wittmann.

(The “Daglinger” are Wittmann’s invention – based on the Dagome Iudex document and a stray reference to another Dagons in the Baltic area found in a Scandinavian saga).

Basic Inclusion

The “basic” version of this theory basically posits the Slavs as arrivals in the 6th century  and later who took over and who “Slavicized” the local German populace.

This theory is basically a variation on the mainstream Eastern-light theory which  – grudgingly – admits that some Germanic population may have survived in Central Europe and was later Slavicized.  This acknowledgment itself is a response to criticism of the mainstream Eastern theories from the so-called Slavic “autochtonists”.  Those historians raised the issue of how was it possible for the Slavs to have inherited toponyms and hydronyms which are – allegedly – not Slavic if the entire population of Central Europe was posited to have been replaced.  The answer that came back was that, well, not everyone left so some – small relatively to the newcomers – percentage of the Slavic population could have Germanic ancestors.  Let’s call this variation of the mainstream Eastern-light theory, the “Eastern-light with small Germanic survival” (confused yet?).

As the autochtonists immediately pointed out, this mainstream response, of course, presented many problems.  For one thing, the “small” Germanic “rest-population” would have had to have survived across vast swaths of Central Europe since the phenomenon of – allegedly – “non-Slavic” names was not local in its occurrence.  This suggested that a rather large component of the “new” Slavs was composed of a “preexisting” population.  Second, the inherited names were vastly non-Germanic – which suggested that – whatever original population did survive, such a population was not Germanic.  This seems to have been confirmed by the fact that “real” Nordic names for the various place and water names did exist – but they had not become part of the Slavic dictionary (e.g., ancient Vistla, Viscla, Vistla > Polish Wisła (with pronunciation of Visua or Viswa) whereas the German word is Weichsel).

The “basic inclusive” theory basically turns the mainstream “Eastern-light with small Germanic survival” theory on its head.  Whereas proponents of the latter theory might say that, say 10-20% of the Slavic population (but evenly spread out over Central Europe!) was Germanic, the “inclusive” Germanic theory would say that that percentage was closer to a range of 70-90% (depending on how “inclusive” one wanted to get).

The problem with the “basic inclusive” theory, of course, is that it does not answer how the local Germanic population would have become so thoroughly conquered and Slavicized with so few Slavs arriving.  A corresponding situation in the Kievan Rus developed entirely differently with the Swedish (probably) Rus conquerors becoming thoroughly Slavicized in the span of a couple of generations.

Of course, the “basic inclusive” theory could “solve” this problem by simply varying the relative percentages of the “Germanic autochtons” and the “Slavic conquerors” but obviously to do this it would have to give up some of its boldest claims (i.e., of predominantly Germanic local population).  In the end, if it were to claim that the 10% of local Germans were Slavicized by 90% of the population which was new and Slavic, the theory would look no different than the above “Eastern-light with small Germanic survival” theory.

Convoluted Inclusion

What about the version of the inclusive theory that is slightly, shall we say, convoluted?  Well, in this version, the leadership of the new Slavic states is Nordic.  This is much like postulate 6 of the German elitist theory of the 19th century but the difference appears to be (we say appears because these theories are, let’s say, “not entirely worked out) that the majority (?) of the population appears to be Germanic too.  The Slavs are, thus, reduced to nonexistence.

The obvious problem with this theory is that it cannot (given its assumption as to what it means to be Germanic – i.e., it means Nordicism) explain how the same vast swaths of Central Europe that we mentioned above suddenly started to speak Slavic languages.

Now, there is, of course, a way to salvage even this theory but it is unlikely to be a way that the theory’s proponents would appreciate the solution proposed.

Other Versions of Inclusion?

We conclude by noting that something akin to the above “inclusive” theories exists even outside of German “far-right” thought.

For one thing, as already noted above, the Eastern-light Hypothesis already admits that some – small – percentage of current Slavs can trace their ancestry to a pre-Slavic – presumably Germanic – population.

Even the 19th century brought forth some version of the inclusive theories – in amateur form – as this article (featuring a “Gothic” incarnation of the idea) in The Open Court magazine titled “The Poles and their Gothic Descent” indicated:

Of course, this brought a vigorous response from Polish-American press with the result that the editors of The Open Court were put on the defensive publishing a follow-up “apologia that was not an apologia” under the title “Slav and Goth“.

But even some mainstream scholars may be willing (?) to go a little further than the mainstream.  Thus, even though we previously picked on his shoddy scholarship regarding the Vandals, we would be remiss if we did not quote Herwig Wolfram on the subject of Slavs here:

“We cannot describe the phenomenon of Slav expansion in conventional historical categories, let alone explain it.  A silent revolution [eh, those assumptions!] took place from the end of the fifth century to the beginning of the seventh century in large parts of eastern and central Europe between the Baltic Sea and the Aegean, and nobody can really say how half of Europe could become Slavic in such a  short period of time.  After the end of the tribal migrations, Germania was, if anything, smaller than before, if we subtract the losses in the east [i.e., he means to the Slavs!] from the gains in the west and south [i.e., he means the kingdoms of the Goths, Franks, Lombards, etc – this is a false equivalence because these tribes – like the Rus later – lost their original language and became fully – and relatively quickly – assimilated by the local population)].  Over the period of half a millennium, the empire was able to Romanize only part of the land under its rule.  By contrast, in only a few generations Slavicization had a much more lasting success, which was more than the result of a mere migration and also far exceeded any imperial policy, let alone military conquest… Perhaps the ‘obscure progression of the Slavs’ [from Lucien Musset] can best be characterized as follows: the Germanic bearers of tradition and their warrior bands departed from the region east of the Elbe, and a Slavic identity seems to have emerged among the Germanic-Sarmatian peasant population left behind.  However, this did not take place in a continuous sweep from east to west, as certain areas were passed by and became Slavic only at a later time.”  [emphasis ours]

Of course, if one goes along with this, there are only two things that remain to be asked.  One is: Which Germanic and which Sarmatian peasants became “Slavicized?”  The most likely answer to this question, we’ve already given here when discussing the Suevi and the Sarmatian connection.  (The follow up question of what those Sarmatian “Iazyges” (?) tribes could have been called is, no doubt, too difficult for most of today’s historians to answer…)

The more difficult question is the second one: How did this happen?  This is a much harder question to answer, seemingly because it relies for its existence on an assumption which stubbornly refuses to go away.

So Now What?

Ok… so some Slavs may, indeed, feel flattered by being courted and sign another Volksliste (for another “divide and conquer” strategy, feel free to see also the Austrian concept of Windische).

However, none of these “inclusive” folks want consider where this kind of thinking ultimately leads and who the people previously known as Germans may well have been…

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