Problems of Ancient Ethnicity Essay

Lecture 1. Terminology and emergence of ancient ethnicity. Dr. Boyan Dumanov. New Bulgarian University. Sofia. Some terms. Nationalism Common concept: Nationalism is not older than the second half of the 18th c. The first great manifestation was the French Revolution. The French Revolution (17891799): • The French Revolution however did not mark the birth of the Nationalism. • Nationalism has deep roots in the past and developed through evolution. • Factors of evolution – political, economic, intellectual developments, which are interconnected, each reacting upon the others. Nation – the simplified explanation At first glance the nation is the division between “we” and the “Others”. “We” and the “Others” are categories measurable with different positive and negative qualities. We are: • • • • • • • • • • Better in spirit and skills (including physical power and health) Clever Beautiful Rich Ancient Educated Pious Free Well organized / living under the Law (human and divine) Peacefull The others are: • • • • • • • • • • Worse and treacherous (unskilled, weak and sick) Stupid and opaque Ugly or strange in appearance Poor therefore thievish and thirsty Newcomersbarbarians Illiterate Godless and wicked Inclined to obedience or born in slavery Lawless, living in anarchy Warlike Ridiculous images of nations in WWI. Nation Nation Nation Factors that could unite the nations: •Science – first of all to understand the nature of the Universe •Empires Globalism – to unite the in communities that could be an alternative to the nation •Monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism, Islam) •Trade and common economic interests Oxford Dictionary: Definition of a nation and nationalism “1.1. A large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular state or territory”. Synonyms: “country, state, land, sovereign state, nation state, kingdom, empire, republic, confederation, federation, commonwealth, power, superpower, polity, domain.” “1.2. A North American Indian people or confederation of peoples”. Synonyms: “ethnic group, ethnic minority, tribe, clan, race”. “1.1 Identification with one’s own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations”. “1.2. Advocacy of or support for the political independence of a particular nation or people”. Synonims: “patriotism, patriotic sentiment, allegiance to one’s country, loyalty to one’s country, loyalism, nationality”. Some terms. Nationalism and sovereignty Nationalism is not possible without the ideas of popular sovereignty – revision of the position of the ruler and the ruled, of classes and castes. Secularization – The aspect of the Universe and of society had to be secularized with the help of a new natural science and of natural law. The Third estate – The tradionalism of economic life had to be broken by the rise of the third estate. Turning the attention away from royal courts to the life, language and arts of the people. Nationalism. The third estate. Aristocracy Clergy Tradition Third estate (bourgeoisie ) Peasantry Nationalism. The third estate. The third estate claimed to represent a new class and its interests but also the whole people. Powerful third estate (18th c.) – nationalism found expression in political and economic changes. Weak third estate (18th c.) – nationalism found expression in the cultural field (Volksgeist). Nationalism. Growth of nationalism – process of integration of the masses of the people into a common political form. Centralized power – nationalism presupposes the existence (in fact or ideal) of a centralized form of government over distinct territory. Centralized power – 1 – initially created by the absolute monarchism which were the pece makers of modern nationalism. Centralized power – 2 – the late 18th century inherited and continued the centralizing tenedencies of the kings, but filled the central organization with power od cohesion unknown before. Ethnicity. Some terms. 1. The term “ethnicity” first appeared in the English language in the 1950’s. 2. Oxford English Dictionary of 1953: “Ethnicity seems to be a new term. It can mean: – the essence of an ethnic group, – quality of belonging to an ethnic community or group, – what it is you have if you are an ethnic group.” 3. The term often has been used in the context of opposed other ethnic groups. Ethnicity. Some terms. 1. The English adjective “ethnic” derives from the ancient Greek term “ethnos”. It was used as a synonym of gentile that is non-Chrsitian and non-Jewish pagan in the New Testament Greek. 2. In French language the Greek noun survives as ethnie with an associated adjective ethnique. As the English language has no concrete noun for ethnos and ethnie, the French term is used to denote an “ethnic community” or “ethnic group”. 3. The Ancient Greeks used the term ethnos in a variety of ways. In Homer we read of ethnos hetairon – a band of friends; ethnos Lukion – a tribe of Lycians, and the ethnos melisson or ornithon – a swarm of bees or birds. 4. Pindar speaks of ethnos aneron or gunaikon – a race of men and women. Herodotus (484-425) The Father of the history or the father of the Liars? Herodotus refers to Medikon ethnos – the Median people Gore Vidal (1925 – 2012) Herodotus (484-425) The Father of the history or the father of the Liars? What these usages have in common is the idea of a number of people or animals who share some cultural or biological characteristics and who live and act in concert. But these usages refer to other people, who like animals belong to some group unlike one’s own. Hence the tendency to characterize the non-Greeks peripheral, foreign barbarians as ethnea. Greeks tended to refer themselves as genos Hellenon Ethnicity. Some terms. 1. 2. The dichotomy between the a non-ethnic “us” and ethnic “others” was reproduced later in Latin texts. In Latin natio was applied to distant, barbarian peoples, whereas the Roman term for themselves was populus. Gens – a great tribal group, but also a confederation of more ethnes. Gens is unfinished teritorial and political entity; this is not a finished process of national identity, but an ever-opened one. A Gens in stadium of formation always stays in migration “in peregrinatione”, and becomes populus through the kingdom and conservation of the faith. Romanization – definitions. Marcus Aurelius Severus Antoninus Augustus – Caracalla • Romanization was historical process, including events as acculturation, integration and assimilation. • Object of Romanization were incorporated or neighboring to the Roman state communities. • According to the common stereotype the Romanization is characterized through the civilization of the barbarians. • Constitutio Antoniniana was proclaimed in AD 212, stating the right of Roman citizenship to every free man at the teritory of the Empire. Migration period (Völkerwanderungszeit). The enemies of Rome. Gothic Gepidic Lombardic “Antique” Roman • Paulus Orosius “Historium adversum paganos”: “At first I wanted to erase the Roman name and convert all Roman territory into a Gothic Empire: I longed for Romania to become Gothia, and Athaulf to be what Caesar Augustus had been. But long experience has taught me that the ungoverned wildness of the Goths will never submit to laws, and that without law, a state is not a state. Therefore I have more prudently chosen the different glory of reviving the Roman name with Gothic vigour, and I hope to be acknowledged by posterity as the initiator of a Roman restoration, since it is impossible for me to alter the character of this Empire”. The successors states of Rome. Did the barbarians know who they are? Walter Goffart (1934- ) Peter Heather (1960- ) Patrick Amory (1965- ) The series of national awakenings of the late 18th and 19th cc provoked some modern people to legitimize their existence and political pretenses through the heroic deeds of their barbarian forefathers. „Attilla“, Eugene Delacroix Arminius memorial at Detmold in the Teutoburg forest. Memorial of Syd Campeador in Burgos The Swedish Stoergoticismus is an example of myth formation that was based on real or fictive historical facts. The death of Gustaus ІІ Adolphus At the battle of Lutzen in 1632 Gustaus ІІ Adolphus – “The Lion of the North” The Rök inscription The death of Carolus XII at Fredericschald in 1718. Celtomania Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) The Aryan theory Gustaf Kossinna (1858-1931) • “Die Hernkunft der Germanen” (1911): Kossinna defined and systematically applied the concept of a culture in conjunction with the “direct ethnohistorical” method. His approach was based on the axiom that “Cultural provinces clearly outlined archaeologically coincide in all periods with precise peoples or tribes”. Culture was thus a homogenous, biological entity, conceived on the model of the modern Nation-state. He died in 1931, too early to be compromised by Nazism. • • Race=a culture=a language Society=a unit that rejects or discrimates against others Alphred Rosenberg (1893-1946) Heinrich Himler (1900-1945) “Venus” from Slovakia. Herman Wirth (1881-1985) The Nordic space The Germans were the European forerunners Fredrik Barth (1928-2016) • Barth was the editor of Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (1969) in which he outlines an approach to the study of ethnicity which focuses on the on-going negotiations of boundaries between groups of people. Barth’s view is that such groups are not discontinuous cultural isolates, or logical a prioris to which people naturally belong. • Barth wants to part with anthropological notions of cultures as bounded entities, and ethnicity as primordialist bonds, replacing it with a focus on the interface between groups. • Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, therefore, is a focus on the interconnectedness of ethnic identities. Barth writes “…. categorical ethnic distinctions do not depend on an absence of mobility, contact and information, but do entail social processes of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintained despite changing participation and membership in the course of individual life histories.” Furthermore, Barth accentuates that group categories – i.e. ethnic labels – will most often endure even when individual members move across boundaries or share an identity with people in more than one group. Herwig Wolfram: The royal power – the institution of transition. In spite of all disasters the kings remained an “offspring of Gods and Heroes” Peter Heather: The keepers of the ethnic identity and the institution of transition was the tribal elite or some kind of “middle class” The primordialists criteria of ethnic community and/or ethnie (after Shirokogoroff and Smith) 1. A collective ethnic or national name 2. A group’s myth of past and origin 3. Shared historical memory 4. One or more typical elements of common material and material culture 5. A connection with land and patria 6. A sense of solidarity that includes considerable parts of population …

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