--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "david_russell_watson" <liberty@> wrote:
> >
> > I wasn't aware myself of any such ongoing strife, and
> > neither does the Wikipedia article mention the like.
> > It was my understanding that no modern scholar besides
> > Sulimirski takes the premises of Sarmatism seriously.
>
> OK, so Sulimirski has been ostracized.

So between the extremes of ostracization on one end and
the mere failure to have convinced anybody else of ones
idea on the other you can't imagine any middle ground at
all?

Who's ostracized Sulimirski? I've read 'The Sarmatians'
many times, and have often quoted him as an authority on
the subject in discussion with others.

In fact I myself don't doubt that there's some Sarmatian
component in the background of the Poles. I generally
assume that most modern Slavic people descend culturally
and genetical from various streams besides the ancient
Slavs, including steppe Iranians, Huns, Mongols, Finns,
etc. That the Poles had an unbroken awareness of their
Sarmatian ancestry stretching from the Sarmatian period
to the 16th century, however, I am not at all convinced.

The claim that Sulimirski makes in defense of his idea,
that some insignias of the Polish nobility are similar
to Sarmatian tamgas, as well has have names of Iranic
origin, might actually be a good topic of discussion for
this list, however.

> OK, so no one has been ostracized.

Well if you actually know of anybody specifically who's
been ostracized, then why not simply give his name and
prove your claim conclusively?

> That shows how dumb the Poles were, since they forgot they
> put the name there themselves.

Did they? I had assumed the designation was inherited
from the Classical period. I'm probably wrong.

> > What I find interesting is that there weren't any more
> > sources on the lifestyle of the ancient Sarmatians
> > available to a Sarmatizing Pole of the time than there
> > are now, and so on the basis of what model did they
> > assemble the particular culture described in the Wiki-
> > pedia article, I have long wondered?
>
> Good question. Maybe the Poles are just plain crazy?

Well all nationalists are mad, so it goes without saying,
but even in madness there's often a method, and so still
I wonder how they arrived at their particular notion of
what a Sarmatian should be.

A large component was obviously Orientalism, and, if they
had travelled to Digor in their time or any time since
almost up to the present, they would have found their
Sarmatian cousins indeed living in an Oriental manner,
but of course there's no evidence, that I know of, of
any such pre-modern awareness of the Ossetes' ancestry.

However there was more to the Poles' image of a proper
Sarmatian than just the Oriental elements. Some of it
seems to be no more than the lifestyle and value system
typical of the European nobility of the time, probably
intentionally taken to a more extreme form than it took
elsewhere in Europe where it was more mere habit and
not a specific badge of group membership as it was to
Sarmatizing Poles.

> I understand. Modern Ossetes and Jasz have made up their own
> connection to the Sarmatians.

They haven't made up their connection to the Sarmatians,
but the nationalistic significance of that connection,
along with the romanticized, often completely fantastic,
versions of Sarmatian history often put forth for the
purposes of ethno-glorification are only slightly less
incredible than old Polish Sarmatism. For instance,
did you know that 'London' is based on the Ossetic 'don',
and thus is evidence of a once vast Sarmatian empire in
Europe?

Moreover the Ossetes have not only Sarmatian roots but
also Caucasian, and enormous Russian cultural influence
besides, and the Jasz have in turn Turkic, Magyar, and
German additions to their background, all of which makes
any simplistic equation of a modern Ossete or Jassi to
an ancient Sarmatian rather useless.

> OK, so if I persist, I will be ostracized like Sulimirski, which
> never happened in the past.

I don't know if you've been ostracized elsewhere or not,
Torsten, but you've obviously "persisted" for several
years now with Cybalist without being ostracized in the
least. Gratitude might better become you than suspicion
and insinuation.

David