[gothic-l] Sarmatians and Goths in Poland

[Xoxana at WEBTV.NET]

            I learned today of a new indigenist 
distortion of history I had never heard of before. During the 18th and
19th centuries, many Polish nobles entered a romantic cult called
"Sarmatism." They thought they were the descendents of ancient warriors
from the steppes called Sarmatians. 
            I knew that the nobility of Poland
were descended from Goths or vikings, so what about the myth? It turned
out that some Poles in the 16th century studying the classics at the
University of Cracow read about the Sarmatians. Herodotus wrote about
them. They were the closet thing to ancestors of the Poles in his works.
Some Polish nobles had adopted coats of arms that seemed to be of steppe
origin. 
            Sarmatians had invaded Poland nearly
2,000 years ago. But then they were conquered by the Goths. The Goths
adopted some of the customs of the Sarmatians, and foreigners often had
difficulty telling them apart. 
The Sarmatians, also known as Alans, were very blond and warlike, just
like the Goths. So the Polish nobililty were descended from blond
warriors without any doubt. 

          This article describes how the blond Goths
conquered the blond Sarmatians: 
Blond Alans
Goths, Sarmatians, and Huns
Address: 
http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/leguin/165/barbarian.html 

                This aritcle tells about
the develpment of the Sarmatian myth in the 18th and 19th centuries: 
Sarmatian Review XVII.2: Wasko
Address: 
http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~sarmatia/497/wasko.html Changed:7:41 AM on
Thursday, July 3, 1997 
              This article is more of the
same:
Myth
Newsletter -- Fall, AS XXXII (1997)
Address: 
http://slavic.freeservers.com/slovo/news08.html Changed:10:48 PM on
Saturday, March 4, 2000 
            For hundreds of years, Poland was
joined with Lithuania. The Lithuanian nobles had a myth of their own,
that they were actually Romans who emigrated from the Roman Empire. They
believed that the Romans actually spoke Lithuanian. They also believed
in the Sarmatian myth. 

Lithuanian Roman myth
Artium Unitio
Address:
http://www.artium.lt/8/cons.html 
          It seems that everybody (except northwest
Europeans) wants to invent a glorious history for themselves. 
http://www.delphi.com/ancientnordics
http://www.delphi.com/nordichistory1
http://www.delphi.com/truthseekers8 

http://community.webtv.net/Xoxana/AMAZINGNEW
http://community.webtv.net/Xoxana/RamesesTheGreata


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