george knysh wrote:
> GK: Just exactly which "homeland" did the Slavs
> lose "due to the activities of Goths and Huns"?
>
> AM: Ahahha. George you want me to show you the
> "homeland" of the Slavs?
>
> ****GK: I want you to substantiate the argument you
> put forth to rebut my contention that people
> frequently migrate to seek a better life and not out
> of some imminent danger. If you cant do this one
> must conclude that this particular aspect of your
> thesis is unreasonable. With further consequences of
> course.
First of all George the statment " to search for a better life" should
be the one discusses here. It may appear as being an innocente expresion
though, this expresion has maybe a lot of explanation in the timeline.
In the time we speak about, the one of the slavic migration, what could
mean at that time "searching for a better life"? The existence of people
in the "barbaricum" was mainly agriculture and bread of animals and of
course fishing/hunting. (we have to agree at least for the curtesy of
accepted terms that everything outisde of Latin/Greek world was called
barbarian). I don't see something more in that time and it was all
necesary for a population to live.On this statement, pretty depending on
what the respectively population has specialised itself, we can see the
danger for survying. In this case danger could have two natures ,
economical and military (I exclude the religios factor in Europe for
that time)
Economical:
-natural catastrofes which made imposible to cultive the land or to
bread the animals
-insuficience of fish/animals for fishing/hunting.
These are the factors of food which, when they occure, then it can be
assumed a population will be ready to migrate somewhere else, even if
not with the idea to migrate forever, but with the chanse to migrate
indeed forever.
Military:
The another factor is the military menance of other population which
will determine them to move due the feeling of unsecurity or simply
because they are forced to do it. Motto: "Me strong, you weak, you
leave."
For the period of time we are speaking about there cannot be other
factors IMHO.
Now these all have been generalities. We have to come back to the point
of that part of Slavs which migrated from their dwelling places due one
of these factors I mentioned before. What do we know about these factors
in the time the Slavs "begun to move"? Almost nothing. We do not know
anything about economicaly factors of that time. It can be they have
occured it can be they did not occured, we simply don't know.
Do we know something about the military factors? Yes we do. We know
about the Goths which are supposed to have been the first who somehow
forced the Slavs to move and the Huns which made almost everyfolk to
move with them. The assumption that the Goths and after this the Huns
have been the folks which trough their presence (or more as simply
presence) obliged the Slavs to move I found first in the work of Th.
Mommsen about the Roman Empire if I remember well and it seemed reliable
to me. Since we don't have any points of refference regarding the
economical factors but we have points of military presence, one would
assume it is indeed the factor for moving of someone.
In this way I did not accepted your "searching for a better life"
because it seems this is a simply poeticaly argumentation or, if should
have been indeed a true fact, it stil remains without any posibility to
correlate with the special case here (moving of the Slavs) due missing
known arguments, placign all the demonstration in the sphere of
proabilities.
So I see the scenario and I will be curious to knwo how you see the
reasons which will make a population to decide "we leave now".
>
> The intricacies of the historical development of
> Romanian Christianity deserve a separate discussion.
> Well get to that.
I agree.
Alex