A polemic about the Slavic Origins in Polish Lands Volume 3 - Issue 4

Wojciech J Cynarski*

• Committee of Scientific Research, Idokan Poland Association, Poland

Received: February 04, 2021   Published: March 01, 2021

Corresponding author: Wojciech J Cynarski, Committee of Scientific Research, Idokan Poland Association, Rzeszów, Poland

DOI: 10.32474/JAAS.2021.03.000170

 

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Abstract

So far, representatives of historians and archaeologists have not undertaken an invitation to a substantive polemic. Only on forums and blogs you can find both critical comments and positive references to the content previously published by the author. Meanwhile, subsequent excavations and other studies confirm the cultural proximity of the former Slavs (Lechites) and Scythians, and the presence of Proto-Slavs in Central Europe already in antiquity. Hence the need to speak at the next scientific discussion forum.

Keywords: Proto-Slavic History; Autochthonous Theory; Polish Chronicles; Hg R1a1; Language

Introduction

The scattered research results and theoretical concepts of researchers representing various fields of science are like puzzles with which you do not know what to do. The author made epistemological work on the basis of assembling puzzles into larger and larger images and attempts to interpret issues of ever wider conceptual scope [1]. The key is classical logic and the principle of systemic approaches to the studied reality. The author, due to his multi-directional education, undertook the implementation of this puzzle due to the overriding goal of science, which is the pursuit of the truth (classically understood) and discovering the truth about next areas of reality.
[2] indicates that consciousness is inherited from ancestors. It is a pity that the views of this scientist are still poorly known on a global scale [3-8]. However, it is probably worth establishing who the ancestors of individual European nations were.
At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, various national traditions were invented. A participant in this process of strengthening national identification in the case of Germany was Prof. Gustaf Kossinna (1858–1931), linguist and archaeologist [9]. Thanks to him, archeology and German historiography, followed by Poland, adopted the idea of great Germany and antiquity of Germanic tribes as direct ancestors of today’s Germans. Excavations of dishes, weapons and ornaments were to confirm the superiority of the material culture of the Germanic or Celtic tribes over the Slavic ones.
According to allochtonists, the beginnings of statehood and the Slavic language (old-Slavonic) are indicated at - 6-9 c. AD [10,11], i.e., after the alleged late arrival of the Slavs to Central Europe. Nińska [2016] writes about no con-sensus as to the location of the Slavic homeland. However, many works indicate that the autochthonous theory is better substantiated. However, the results of genetic and archaeogenetic research are already announced in the popularizing media, because going back the history of the Slavs to around 2000 BC and pointing to common ancestors with the Aryans in India sounds sensational [12].
Editor-in-chief of the quarterly “Ido Movement for Culture. Journal of Martial Arts Anthropology” invited to the pages of the same Journal to a substantive debate, even sharp but factual polemics. No one, so far, from the milieu of historians and archaeologists has accepted this invitation. Only on internet forums and blogs you can find both critical comments and positive references to the content published in the interdisciplinary periodical mentioned above. Meanwhile, subsequent excavations confirm the cultural proximity of the former Slavs (Lechites) and Scythians [13]. Hence the willingness to speak at another forum for scientific discussion.

A Brief Overview of the Opinions

Despite the fairly unambiguous results of genetic research, the dispute between the supporters of the late appearance of the Slavs and the supporters of their long-term stay in the lands of today’s Poland does not seem to be close. Despite the fact that the theory of the autochthonous origin of today’s Poles is confirmed, among others, by:

a. Linguists -[14-18] and others [19-21].
b. Researchers of historical sources [22-24].
c. Archaeologists [19,22,25,26].
d. Anthropologists (comparative research on the shape of skulls) [27].
e. Geneticists [28,29,30].
On the other hand, the author of this essay does not find a rational justification for the concept of the late arrival of the Slavs in the basins of the Vistula and Oder - be it from the Pripyat or the Danube only around the 7th century AD. However, books popularizing this version of history (or rather narrative) are still being published [31,32]. In them, as well as in many school textbooks, a kind of dogma is adopted about the creation of culture in Central Europe by the Celts and Germans, and the Slavs are not actually here until the 7th c. AD.
[33] Tries to reconcile the supporters of the concept of allo- and indigenous origin of the Slavs in Poland (Polish lands). However, is it feasible? They have either been here or have just come. The dispute concerns Biskupin and the Lusatian culture, excavations in Trzcinica and many other places. However, if the immediate ancestors of Poles lived in Poland and in today’s Germany from around 2000 BC [19,34], it might be worth rereading the works of the oldest Polish chroniclers, especially the master Wincenty Kadłubek.

Chronicles and Other Sources

Blessed Wincenty Kadłubek (died 1223), a bishop, a welleducated man, described the heroic deeds of King Krak and his daughter in “KronikaPolska”. The same Krak defeated the Gauls (Celts) in Pannonia and became the king of the Slavic lands - from today’s Poland to Carinthia. Wanda (actually Wąda, where the “ą” should be read as “au”) was one of Krak’s daughters. The dates of the events point to the 5th century BC. Nota bene Queen Wanda’s mound is located in the village of Mogiła near Kraków, where a Cistercian monastery was built [35]Kadłubek wrote about the twotime defeat of the Danes (Vikings?), Then about defeating the Gauls (Celts) and conquering the areas as far as Greece and the lands of the Romans. In the 4th century BC, Leszek or Lestko was to rule and defeated Alexander of Macedon (that seems unlikely). “The previously indicated border between Lechia and the country of the Parthians and a description of the victorious war with Macedonians [Wincenty 1208, book 1, chap. 9: 20-25] may testify that Kadłubek identified the Lechites with the Scythians” [36].

It is not true, as some enthusiasts of the kingdom of Lechia claim, that the Roman Catholic Church blocked the knowledge of the pre-Christian history of that kingdom. On the contrary, the first Polish chronicles were written by bishops, i.e., church hierarchs [37,38]. It is them that we owe the knowledge of pro-Polish events from ancient times. Jan Długosz [1867: 22] wrote that “Lech, the father of Lechites or Poles” ruled before 500 BC.

Matej Bor read the Venetian language as Slavic [16]. The Indo- European people, or rather the Ario-Slavic people, which were characterized by a significant domination of the R1a1 Y-DNA haplogroup, reached the areas of today’s Germany and Scandinavian countries (today’s Norway and Sweden). Before the Germanic tribes and languages developed, the Proto-Slavic languages could dominate these areas, adjacent to the Proto-Celtic and pre-Indo- European peoples (with the dominant hg I1 and its mutations).

Pre-homeland of the Slavs

The pre-homeland of all Slavs was probably the Odra and Vistula river basins, as in relation to the first millennium BC it follows from the linguistic analyzes of Witold Mańczak [1981: 132]. The Old Slavic names of the rivers confirm the autochthonousness of the Slavs in the areas east of the Elbe, which at the same time falsifies the allochthonous concept of Godłowski [1986]. Other studies also point to the Vistula basin as the most likely Slavic residence. This is the result of the genetic research of Peter Ralph and Graham Coop [39,40]. This confirms the theory of the autochthonous origin of the Slavs.

According to new archaeological and archaeo-genetic research, we can conclude that people inhabiting the southern territories of present-day Poland before 2000 BC were genetically close to earlier communities from these areas [41,29]. Then, in the Bronze Age, that is before 1000 BC, in today’s southern Poland, there were three groups of people, characterized by archaeologists using three terms: the Mierzanowice, Strzyżów culture and the Trzciniec cultural circle. Genetic studies of mtDNA (female inheritance) from 80 skeletons excavated in the cemeteries of these cultures show that there was continuity of population. However, from the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC, there was an influx and interbreeding of the local population with the nomadic population of the Eastern-European steppes. It also turned out that in the community of several hundred years later: the Mierzanowice culture or the Trzciniec cultural circle - genetic continuity (related to the culture of corded ware) is visible, present in the female lines. Dr. Eng. Anna Juras from the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland) stated in an interview: “We found that representatives of the communities associated with the Mierzanowice, Strzyżów and Trzciniec cultural circles (which existed from 2400 to 1100 BC), genetically resembled populations from the steppe from the vicinity of the Black Sea - and their descendants, including communities associated with the culture of corded ware” [42,43].

Is it not a confirmation of strong ties, perhaps even identity, the Scythian state and the legendary Lechia? The genetic and cultural relationships of the Ario-Slavic peoples have already been published in the pages of “Ido Movement for Culture. Journal of Martial Arts Anthropology” four articles [13,20,36,44], and the editor-in-chief invited to a possible polemic.

Weapon kinship

The relationship of the military traditions of the Slavs and Scythians was already analyzed separately [20, 44]. New excavations are shedding new light here. The bronze swords found at the site of the battle on the river Dolęza (or Dolenica, German Tollense), fought around 1250 BC, were very similar to the Scythian ones. Perhaps the reason for this was the cooperation of the Proto- Slavic Lechites in Lusatian culture with the Scythians [26]. And this is also an argument in favor of the opinion that there was some Slavic (Lechite?) Statehood at that time.
Asian nomads in the territories occupied by the early Slavs carried out a mutual cultural exchange with them. Did the Huns attack the lands of the Slavs, or - as [45] wrote, did they help them in the fight against the Goths? Significantly, the Huns Attila (406- 453) and his brother Bleda (390-445) were sons of Mundzek, and grandsons of Kurdiak. Are these East Asian or rather Slavic names? We don’t know if their features were Indo-European or rather typical of the yellow race. What we do know is that the Hun army was multi-ethnic. They were especially horse archers - like Scolotians called Scythians [46].
The same applies to the Avars in the 6th-7th centuries. Were they a Scythian tribe? Did they use the Slavic language in their country? Perhaps. However, they undoubtedly used a special bow, just like the Scythians and Sarmatians, Huns, Parthians and Pechenegs, and later the Tatars, as well as Polish cavalry - from light cavalry to hussars. It was a reflective (reversible), composite bow - made of wood and bone. Later, apart from the saber, it was an attribute of the Polish nobility. We can talk about the community of the composite arch. Of course, it was not the only armament of the peoples and nations mentioned [47,48].
Scythians are horse archers, and “every adult free man was a warrior” [49]. Similarly, at the stage of military democracy, every Slav, even if it was a settled one, was a fighter if necessary (i.e., war). However, especially the nomadic peoples of the steppe region of Europe and Asia have perfected horse-fighting and the use of the bow for centuries. A reflex arc of the Scythian type differed only slightly from the shape of the Hunnic bow [50]. Together, we can talk about a certain community at the same time genetic, hoplological (in terms of the use of weapons and technical and tactical skills in martial arts) and perhaps also the linguistic community of the Ario- Slavic peoples.

Even earlierbeginnings

Meanwhile, according to the Italian-Dutch linguist Mario Alinea - the Illyrians, the Dacians-Gets and the Thracians, and the Weneds were Slavs. The Proto-Slavic cradle could have been located between the Danube and the Vistula River as early as 6000-5000 BC (the Danube cultures of Vinča and Baden). The professor considers this thesis about the so-called “late arrival” of the Slavs to Europe as completely absurd [17,45]. If he is right, could not statehood - the legendary Lechia described by Polish chroniclers - have existed since 6000 BC?
“Language and languages are much more ancient than traditionally thought. Consequently, also the record of their origins, change and development must be mapped onto a much longer chronology, instead of being compressed into a few millennia, as traditionally done, …” [51]. Thus, the language, and after it, the social and material culture of the Slavs (Proto-Slavic), could well precede the expansion of the Aryans and the Scythian state. Wenedowie / Wenetowie - they are Slavs, just like the creators of Vinča culture. If the Słews (Suevi), Wędowie (Wenedowie / Wandalowie) and the Goths / Gets, the ancestors of the Western Slavs, came from the Balts, it was also the Balts - from their north-eastern branch. They separated themselves by mixing with the Finnish tribes (hg N).
In area of today’s Poland, wheeled carts and spiral ornaments have been in use since around 3650 BC [52], or maybe even earlier. Hence the influence of the nomads from the Asiatic steppes (common ancestors of the Ario-Slavic peoples of hg R1a1) would have to come early enough [53], or it was a parallel development. The Polish surnames Cyna, Cynar, Cynarski and Kowalski may be a reminder of the metallurgy of our Bronze Age ancestors from the Bronze Age, Vinča or related culture. These would be the beginnings of a technological civilization in Europe. The profession of a blacksmith could be born on the Danube.
Statistical analyzes showed that ‘Aryo-Slavic languages’ (the concept was introduced by [36]) were the source for the Avestan, Vedic Sanskrit and many Indian languages on the one hand, and Slavic, Italo-Celtic (Latin, Old-Irish, Romance) and Germanic on the other [54]. Proto-Slavic is the basis for other “Indo-European” languages; Proto-Slavic is the trunk of the Indo-European language tree, not its branch. According to [55], Proto-Slavic was synonymous of the Proto-Indo-European. Proto-Slavic and today’s Polish language, retaining the nasal sounds, are closest to the original language of “Indo-Europeans”[56,57].

Conclusion

In conclusion, a wider look at the history of the Slavs in Europe, especially the Western Slavs, falsifies the concept of the late arrival of the Slavs. The arguments of linguists, historians, physical anthropologists and geneticists quite clearly indicate the early and permanent settlement of the Lusatian archaeological culture by the Slavs. The Proto-Slavic language could have been developed since the earlier Danubian cultures, as the root of Ario-Slavic and other Indo-European languages.

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