Mythe aryen et référent linguistique indo-européen dans la Russie du XIXe siècle

Abstract

SummaryLike the other European countries, Russia of the 19th century experienced much of the same scholarly discourse concerning the Aryan idea. The Russian Aryan myth distinguishes itself from the German and French versions by the absence of racialism and its Orthodox anchoring, this way offering the possibility of a certain ‘decentralization’ in the face of the Western experience of Aryanism. This difference often permits Slavophile intellectual circles at the periphery of the classic university life to develop a genealogical discourse concerning nationhood and the legitimization of the imperial expansion of Russia in Asia and the Far East. As a result, the Aryan reference blossomed in the historical and archaeological arguments for the justification of the supposed national continuity and statehood between the ancient Scythian world and contemporary Russia. The proximity between the Slavic and the Indo-Iranian languages, of the Oriental branch of the Indo-European family, would naturally constitute, for the Slavophiles, a scientific argument in favour of the Aryan assertion of Russia : the competition between the Germanic peoples and the Slaves for the most ancient antiquity is then transposed into the notion of language.