Part 1:
The Serboi contribute to the ethnogenesis of
Goths, Sarmatians, Slavs, Vandals & Venets
It will be shown here that that the
aristocratic Amal royal family that led the Goths accross much of Europe for
200 years was a branch of the Serboi.
We will cite the anti-Slavic, German
historian Herwig Wolfram and his mammoth work History of the Goths published in 1979. Aside from his obvious
anti-Slavic biase, another defficiency of this work is that it does not consult
the fossil record.
Marcellinus calls the two Amal kings
Vithimiris and Videric, whereas...they carry the boastful names Vinitharius "conqueror of the
Venedi" and Vandalarius "conqueror of the Vandals" ... The Vendish victory of Vinitharius was
originally a 4th century victory over
the Antes, for at that time the Slavs did not exist. Not until he Origo Gothica
was composed (555 AD) were the Sclaveni causing havoc everywhere...
Herwig Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 252
Wolfram thinks the Slavs did not exist
because he equates their ethnogenesis with the appearance of the Slavic name in
Europe. This is deadly error because it has already been shown that the Slavs
were known as Wends previously. Slavic propensity for making alliances with
Avars, Antes and Sarmatians and assimilating their ethno-tribal names results
in the Slavs not being recognized to the common historian. Anthropologists who
consult the fossil record know that Slavs existed long before the fourth
centuy.
It has also already been shown above
that the Serboi were directly connected to the Wends and that the Illyrian
Veneti were indirectly connected to
the Wends. It has already been shown above that the Iranian-Sarmatians and
Slavs were practically linguistic and cultural kinsmen.
The connection and continuity of the Serboi with the Amal Gothic aristocracy is just as solid the connection of the Serboi with the Wends. Below it will become obvious that this connection is deliberately avoided and ignored by Wolfram - despite the fact the connection is obvious to such an extent that examples can be found on every page of Wolfram's work.
Below, it will also be shown that the Vandals (Vandal - Venet - Wend) were
also connected to the Iranian-Sarmatians, with whom the Serboi are commonly
associated by Western scholars (see: Juddah, Malcolm etc...)
Goths
and Borani had certainly visited the places of sacrifice but only for the sake
of the riches
piled up there...
Until 257 AD, the Goths had always appeared together with Carpi and Borani...and with Vandal Sarmatian groups.
Herwig Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 50, 51
Aside from establishing a Sarmatian
link with the Vandals & Goths, Wolfram aquaints us with two other the
tribes: the Carpi and the Borani. At
this point, Wolframès earlier statement that the Slavs did not exist in the 4th
century is discreditted. Borani is a
Slavic name steming from the word bor
"pine tree". In Serbian, Borani
actually means "the people of the pines". In fact, there is a
city in eatern Serbia named Bor and
its people are reffered to as Borani.
The Borani, who were acting in
concert with the Goths in the mid-3rd century were certainly a Slavic tribe,
possibly but not necessarily connected to the Serboi on account of the
toponyms.
The Vandals figure very prominently in
the ethnogenesis of the Goths:
From the
island of Scandza, as from a factory of tribes or a womb of peoples the Goths
are said to have migrated ... At that time, they subjugated their neighbors, the Vandals and by their victories forced them to join the Gothic tribe.
This is the beginning of the memoria, the Amal tribal history of the
Goths which Cassidrius recorded and which
Jordanes preserved for posterity
Origo Gothica
Johannes Jordanes
555 AD
Taken
from:
Herwig Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 36
In his book Conversio, Herwig Wolfram attempts to refute historians'
identification of Slavs and Avars as Vandals on page 102 and in footnotes 27,
28 and 29. The Vandals are considered by most contemporary historians to be
Germanic but the agreement is not ubiquitous and most scholars who take this
point of view do so because they negate any Wend-Vened-Venet-Slavic connection.
Such schlars would irresponsibly dismiss the connection even though the
observations of ancient historians can be confirmed by linguistics and
etymology, as it has been shown throughout this section.
Wilfram next discusses the Goths under
their ancient name, the Gutones, as
he delves into the connection of the Vandals and the Goths. A third people also
figure prominently in the ethnogenesis of the Goths, the Lugians:
Pliny the
elder mentions the Gutones as a sub-group of the Vandal-Vandili. Moreover, Strabo
connects the Gutones with the Lugians and
Vandals in one breath. The most likely explanation is that the Lugians and the Vandals were the same people ... Tacitus could
all at once recognize the importance of the Vandals, locating the
Gutones..."beyond the Lugians"
and include
many Lugian sub-tribes among the Vandals ... during the first part of the 1st Century AD, the utones were part of
the Celtic-dominated Lugians, then in
the second half of the 1st Century
the...Vandals become prominent ... The Gutones broke away from the Lugian-Vandal
community and expanded their territory east of the Vistula
Herwig Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 40
These facts become apparant: the
Lugians and Vandals are integral to the ethnogenesis of the Goths and
contributed in large part to the bulk of the Gothic population. The identity of
the Lugians is not analyzed by Wolfram. Lug
in one form or another means "swamp" in every single contemporary
Slavic language. It also meant "swamp" in the Illyrian language (or
what little is left of it with which we are acquainted). The likely connection
between Vandals and Wends and the connection of Wends with Serboi have already
been demonstrated. The identity of the Lugians
as Iranian Sarmatians / Slavs and the obvious etymology of the Lugian ethnonym
logically connects Lugians to the swampy territory of the Vistula have been
established.
Speaking about the Gothic language and
Gothic vocabulary, Wolfram says:
Among the
names for Mediterranean fruit-bearing trees, that of the olive was borrowed early, perhaps from the Illyrian Venetic
languages ...
The physician lekeis (in Gothic)...used herbs and spices, the former derived from Gothic tradition,
the latter supplied by Rome ... The only Slavic loanword in Gothic possibly has
to do with dancing; perhaps it came from an originally foreign and therefore
conspicuous ritual.
Herwig Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 40
This has to be one of the most humerous
and ill-informed statements made by Wolfram because while claiming that
"the only Slavic loanword in Gothic possibly has to do with dancing,"
Wolfram mentions the that the Gothic word, lekeis,
means "physician". Lek is
an Eastern and Southern Slavic word meaning medicine. Clearly,
"dancing" is not the only Slavic loanword in Gothic.
Wolfram makes another embarrassing
blunder when discussing the meeting of the early Goths (still known as Gutones) with the Iranian-Sarmatian
tribe Spali:
...in Scythia
the Gutones met the Iranian-Sarmatian peoples. As an example of a hostile confrontation the Origo Gothica (555 AD)
mentions the fight against the Spali. In Slavic, their name means something like "giants". Such an unfriendly
name is typically used to label foreigners and thus the Spali were probably not
Slavs.
Herwig Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 43
Spali does mean something like giant
(in Old Church Slavonic but it has fallen into disuse in contemporary Slavic
languages) but there is no reason to consider it "an unfriendly name
typically used to label foreigners". This is a non-sequiter. Since it is a
non-sequiter, the Spali were probbaly Slavs or Iranian Sarmatians of whom the
Serboi were a branch according to Juddah and Malcolm and thus - ethnic and
linguistic kinsmen of the Slavs.
What deserves even more attention and
what is even more discrediting to Wolfram is the connection he makes between
Goths and Venetic Illyrians:
Among the
names for Mediterranean fruit-bearing trees, that of the olive was borrowed early,
perhaps from the Illyrian Venetic
languages...
Herwig Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 40
Gothic-Venetic connection via loanwords
could only have come through a continuity of Vandals with Illyrian Venets because by the time the Goths began to
expand southward from Skandinavia in 250 AD, Illyrian languages like Venetic
had been extinct for 2 centuries. The continuity between the Vandals and the
Illyrian Venets becomes likely when we examine Gothic vocabulary because any
assimilation of Illyrian Venetic words into Gothic could not have occured
before 250 AD because the Goths were still in Scandinavia. But the assimilation
could not have happened after 250 AD - unless the Illyrian Venetic language and
Venetic people survived as "Vandals".
The Sarmatian-Gothic connection goes
back to the earliest origins of the Goths, while they were still known as the
Gutones, when they made their first thrust to the Bosporus from the Crimea. The
Borani whose Slavic/Sarmatian
identity was demonstrated through etymology earlier in this text, also figure
prominently in the Goths first expansion:
The years,
255, 256 and 257 saw the first "Scythian" attacks by sea. Once again Sarmatians preceded the Goths in this new
theater of war. As a result, the Gothic- Sarmatian
neighbours gained control of the Bosporian kingdom ... First we hear of the Borani
who took the fleet and its crews away from the Bosporans... The Borani had simply ordered the Bosporian sailors to set them
ashore; then the Borani sent the
sailors and ships home.
Herwig Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 48, 49
The first half of this text is intended
to demonstrate the contribution of Sarmatian Iranian & Slavic contributions
to the ethnogenesis of the Germanic Goths, as well as to show that the Vandals
represent Wendish Slavic/Sarmatian continuity bridged by the Venetic Illyrians.
It seems liely that the Vandals may have been a branch of the Serboi, or at
least their ruling class may have been, if we consider the personal name of the
Vandal king, Visimir.
A part of the
"free Sarmatians" had
probably fled in 333 to the Hasdingian Vandals under King Visimir ... The
Origo Gothica locates the Vandal settlements between the Mures & Koros rivers. Hungarian archaeologists can
discover no traces of these settlements; the finds
seem throroughly Sarmatian.
Herwig Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 62
First: Visimir (visiti = to hang or to
float over; mir = peace) is clearly a Serb personal name belonging to a Vandal
ruler.
Second: the fact that Hungarian
archaeologists can discover no traces of Vandal settlements when there are
clear written records of them being in Pannonia, implies that Sarmatians and
Vandals were indistinguishable from one another and ultimately that the Vandals
were not Germanic, but Iranian. The Iranians are cited by Coon (above) as being
nearly undistinguishable from the Slavs, who were essentially linguistic and
cultural kinsmen of European Iranian peoples (Scythians, Antes, Sarmatians).
Third: the association of the Serboi
with the Sarmatians by contemporary western historians (Malcolm, Judah etc...)
means that the Serboi can also be grouped with the Vandals, Sarmatians,
Scythians and Antes.
Part 2:
The Serb personal names of Gothic rulers
What is embarrassing to Herwig Wolfram
is that, while he is aware that Spali is an ancient Slavic word &
that the Gothic word for dance has a
Slavic etymology, he is ignorant of the fact that Borani, lekeis, Lugians are also clearly of Slavic
etymology. His familiarity with ancient Slavic words contrasted by his
ignorance of contemporary Slavic words is inexplicable to such a degree that it
can only come accross as deliberate.
With that in mind, we will examine the
personal names of the Goths to determine whether or not they are Germanic and
if not, whether they are Slavo/Sarmatian instead. It is the personal names of
the Gothic aristocracy that undeniably tie them specifically to the Serboi
because these personal are not only un-Germanic, they are undeniably
contemporary Serb personal names common to no other living Slavic or non-Slavic
people. All of these personal names are not Serb but enough of them (especially
among the highest Amal aristicrats) certainly are. Some of the personal names
cannot be placed in any modern language and Wolfram rarely gives any insight
into the etymology of Gothic names.
Wolfram discusses the Visigothic
ancestral line:
Gundiok's son,
Gundobad is considered the nepos - the grandson, nephew or relative - of Ricimir,
whose mother was the daughter of Valia.
Herwig Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 33
Ricimir can be read as Recimir (reci = to speak; mir = peace;
or: the one who speaks of peace). Or it could be an archaic version of Rastimir
(rasti = to grow). The short form of this name is Rastko which was also the personal name of the Serb patron St. Sava
before he entered the cloister. A further corruption of this name could have
evolved into Stracimir, as in the Serb medieval ruler of Zeta, Djuradj
Stracimirovic Balsa but that is speculation.
Wolfram continues discussing the
Visigoth royal line:
The attackers
came from Pannonia and were led by the
Amal king Vidimir...whereupon his son,
Vidimir, the younger inherited the
army but not his father's kingship ... After 485 AD we hear of Vidimir on
two other occasions. Bishop Ruricius...exchanged letters with a member of the
high nobility by the name of Vittamar...
The shipment of such a gift would point
to Limousin as the place where Vidimir
settled, provided we are right with identifying him with Vittamar.
Herwig Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 188
Vidimir: vidi = to
see; mir = peace. The name Vittamar also
has a cognate in the modern Serb personal name Vitomir.
Around 330 AD
probably began the increasing Goth infiltration of Transylvania... This advance
led to a confrontation with the Tisza Sarmatians. The attackers were led by Vidigoia, "the bravest among the
Goths" who lost his life near th Tisza...and was buried there.
Herwig Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 61
Vidigoia or Vidigoj. Personal names
ending with "goj" are typically found among the earliest Serb and
Croat rulers: Domagoj, Prosigoj, (add
names). Names with this ending (goj) are considered archaic among Serbs and
are no longer current, though they are still given to male children in Croatia.
The etymology of this word may be from the Slavic word: "gojiti" = to
grow prosperous or to grow fat.
Wolfram mentions the founding fathers
of the Amal Goths confronting another family, whose relationship with the Goths
is uncertain, the Balthi:
...the first
to step fully into the light of history are the Amal brothers Valamir, Thudimir and Vidimir,
who around 450 AD were the leaders of the "Hunnic" Ostrogoths.
Led
by the three royal brothers, Valamir,
Thudimir and Vidimir, the Amali
directly confronted the Balthi.
Herwig Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 31, 178
Valamir can be read as the contemporary
Serb personal name, Velimir (veli(ki) = great; mir = peace). For an example of
this name in contemporary usage, see Bishop Nikolaj Velimirovic.
Nonetheless,
the Goth Modares was a real gain for
the Romans when he entered their army ... Modares
belonged to the same clan as Athanarik...and in fact Modares rose quickly ...
In 379, Modares succeded in
destroying a large column of Gothic plunderers.
Herwig
Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 131
In the absence of the all the names we
have analyzed, attributing Serb etymology to the name Modares would be
tennuous. But we have enough valid examples to procede with identifying Modares
with the Serb word mudar = the wise
one.
Wolfram discusses Gothic law:
They formed a
confederation of all tribal divisions and placed themselves under the authority
of a barbarian chief whom he Romans call a judge... But this judge was not
allowed to lave the tribal territory... Rather, he was responsible for the
defense of Gothiuda: land of the Gothic people.
Though Gothiuda means etymologically nothing
more than "Gothic people,"
in the 4th century it designated no a community of descent but the terrirtory
ruled by the...tribal confederation.
Herwig
Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 67, 91
Gothiuda means etymologically nothing
more than "Gothic people,"
- in which language? Gothiuda: Goti -- ljudi. Ljudi means people in all Slavic languages; thus the etymology of Gothiuda can
only be Slavic.
Wolfram next analyzes more Gothic
vocabulary, consistently avoiding attributing a Slavic etymology to what are
obviously Slavic words:
LANGUAGE
AND DAILY LIFE
The
word for fig, smakka...comes from the
Caucasus.
The
same goes for harijs - legion of army
Herwig
Wolfam
History of the Goths
1979, Munich
Page 112, 113
Smakka is smokva; the Serbian word for fig and harijs, meaning legion or army has its
etymology in the Serb verb hariti =
to ravage.
The evidence presented here is adequate
enough to demand a revision of the traditionally held views about the Goths,
Sarmatians, Serboi, Vandals and Venets. An exaggerated Germanic origin for many
peoples who would be better classified as European Iranians is responsible for
much of the "mystery" surrounding Goths, Vandals, Venets and others.
A better understanding of the Iranian peoples: Sarmatians, Antes and Alans and
apparantly the Serboi, as well - along with a greater emphasis of this
particular branch of Indo-Europeans would clarify much of the confusion
surrounding their origin and place in European history.