Piotr wrote
> An Iranian tribal name inherited by a Slavic people is not
particularly surprising, given the proximity of their respective
homelands and the well-evidenced Iranian impact on the neighbouring
cultures as a result of their dominance in the north Pontic region
(see my earlier comments on Slavic religious terms). However, its
Iranian etymology doesn't mean that "Croatians are of Scythian
stock".
After all, the name of the Slavic Bulgarians was borrowed from the
Turkic Bulgars (ancestors of the Chuvash), and the Slavic Macedonians
took their name from the land where they settled. The name of the
French is Germanic, their language is Romance, their historical roots
are partly Gaulish, and their genes come from all over the place.
>
> BTW, the Polish nobility from the 16th century onwards firmly
believed they were descended from the historical Sarmatians. That
theory was developed by Maciej of Miechów in his Tractatus de
duabus
Sarmatiis, Asiana et Europiana (1517), based on the ideas of Roman
geographers. The Sarmatian myth indirectly reflects the importance of
the Iranian element in ancient eastern Europe. It seems that the
Arachosia story is another romantic attempt to answer the question
"who we are and where we come from" by creating a latterday
nationalistic myth. The "possible chronological progression" from
Sarasvati to Hrvat is arbitrary, based on the similarity of sound,
and
makes no sense in terms of known linguistic processes.
It was not just the Polish Nobility. Because Ashkenaz (Scythians)
were listed as amongst the descendents of Japeth, there was an
attempt
from the Middle Ages to trace the geneologies of all the European
Royal Families back to the Scythians. Thus the Merovignians can now
be traced to a Scythian Source, and the Anglo-Saxon royal families
(Via Offa of Denmark and Hamlet) can be traced back to Woden and
hence
to the Scythians too.
The alternative was to trace a fictitious geneology via integrating
Greek Genealogy (eg. The Sons of Hellen and the Trojans) into
Biblical
Genealogy (i.e. Via Javan = Ion, and Japeth = Iapetus). Thus "Brutus
of Troy" was equated with the Celtic "Bran", and built into Welsh
Genealogies, and Miled Despanie (Miletus the Spaniard) the epinomous
originator of the Celtic Milesians (and the Irish Genealogies are the
most accurate of Western Europe), was traced back to the Ionian
Milesians of Asia Minor.
Interesting from a Biblical mythology point of view. Strange how the
"kurgan fact" parallels "medieval myth". In modern times, Arthur
Koestler also tried similarly to connect Ashkenazi Jews to the
medieval Jewish Khazar Khanate.
Regards
John