[gothic-l] Re: The Scandinavian Origin of the Goths

[dirk at SMRA.CO.UK]

I think we all agree on the quality of reearchers under the NS regime
that tried to prove certain things for ideological reasons.
The same was by the way also done in Scandinavia, claiming the Goths
and almost every major East Germanic tribe as
there ancectors who conquered Europe etc. All of that is of
course nationalistic non-sense. However, to suggest that Juergen
Udolph falls into that category is totally wrong.
Certainly, Jordanes claim about the origin of the Goths is valid and
there is no reason to doubt that
Goths came from Scandinavia some time around the birth of Christ.
Yet, that is not even the point. Udolph's argument goes far further
back into time to the origin of the Germanic cultural group, not the
ethnogenesis of the Goths, which was much later and most likely in
Scandinavia. Moreover, I do not dogmatically claim that he is right,
but his argument and methodology is interesting and quite convincing.
Sometimes scholars try to locate places of origin because they find
one or two placenames that resemble a tribal name. For example
nationalistic 'scholars' claimed links between the Goths and town
names like Gottrop, Goettingen, etc. or the Vandals and Wandelheim
etc. This is of course ludicrous, but the methodology by which large
samples of place names are investigated to calculate frequency
distributions, which in turn allows for statements at high
statistical
significance levels is very interested and scientifically one of the
best available, especially as its results seem to confirm postulates
of nation-building theory as well. In Scandinavia there was simply
not
the cultural interaction with a 'more advanced' group such as the
Celts, which theory deems necessary for the process of identity,
culture and 'nation' formation.

best regards
Dirk



--- In gothic-l at egroups.com, bertil <mvk575b at t...> wrote:
> Den 28 Sep 2000 skrev null:
>
> What is it in Ulrich that
> points to an origin of the
> Germanic peoples in Germany?
>
> During the national socialist
> era in Germany the argument
> was of course put forward that
> the origin of all Germanic
> peoples was in Germany. But
> post-1945 there have only been
> a few attempts to claim this
> origin. And what is your view
> on Jordanes' claim that the Goths
> originated in Scandinavia (Scandza)?
>
> Of course Scandinavia today is
> on the outer fringes of Europe,
> especially in relation to EU.
> But that was not always the case
> especially not in the period between
> 500 BC and 1000 AD.
>
> Gothically
>
> Bertil Haggman
>
> > One source of the Spiegel article,
> (der Spiegel is of course not an
> > academic journal) is Juergen Udolph.
> His 1036-pages study of Germanic
> > names (Namenkundliche Studien zum
> Germanenproblem), Walter de Gruyter
> > Verlag Berlin, provides the
> substantiation of the mere statements, as
> > you call them, about the origin of
> the Germanic culture and people.
> >
>  Scandinavia is simply not in the
> > centre of Europe and at the cross-roads
> of different cultures, which
> > nation-buiding theory see as a requirement
> for the formation of
> > cultures and identities. Scandinavia certainly has a rich and
> > interesting history nobody would dispute that.


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