Indo-European Culture Research Articles

Marija Gimbutas and the Ethnic Origin of the Baltic Nation

Birutė Marija Alseikaitė-Gimbutienė (English Marija Gimbutas), is one of the most prominent and well-known archaeologists of the 20th century, pioneer of archaeomythology, creator of new theories in archaeology. In her scientific research, she paid a great attention to the ethnic origins and development of nations.This article analyzes the Theory of Baltic Ethnic Origins formulated by Gimbutas. The solution to this important scientific problem involves two main research stages. The first stage is formulation of the Theory of Indo-European homeland, named the Kurgans Theory. The second stage is formulation of the Theory of the origins of Balts. According to Gimbutas, a few cultural systems participated in the formation of the Balts: the indoeuropeans and substrat culture, that is Indo-Europeanized people of Central Europe. The Indo-Europeans migrated from their homeland, located in the steppe zone north of the Black and Caspian seas, in three waves between 4400/4200 and 3000/2800 BC, ultimately reaching Europe and Indo-Europeanizing it.A secondary Indo-European Homeland was formed in Central Europe, from which the Indo-European culture spread to the Baltic region and other European regions.The last, third wave of newcomers, from around 3000–2800 BC, had the greatest influence on the southeastern and eastern Baltic region and the surrounding territories. During several centuries of assimilation between local inhabitants and newcomers, around 2500–2000 BC, in the territory between the Vistula River in the west and the Volga and Oka rivers in the east, several cultural groups of Proto-Balts were formed. During further ethnocultural processes, around 2000 BC. the Baltic ethnos was formed. In the 2nd and 1st millennium BC. and in the first part of the 1st millennium AD the Balts inhabited a huge area in the North Eastern part of Europe.

Analysis of the process of emergence and development trends of Ukrainian and Eastern national types of martial arts

Background and Study Aim. National types of martial arts have been created and are functioning in Ukraine, which are gaining more and more popularity in the world. Modern sports science investigates the history of the creation of national types of martial arts. The purpose of the article is to investigate the historical origins of the emergence and development of Ukrainian and Eastern national martial arts. Material and Methods. 217 sources of information on the history of traditional Ukrainian martial culture were analyzed. Bibliometric methods of processing the received information were used. After the initial analysis, 34 sources were selected, which fully correspond to the purpose of the study. Results. The stages of the formation of the Ukrainian nation are quite fully covered in scientific historical sources. The mutual connection between the development of society and its martial culture is shown. It is reliably known about the presence of military training in the era of the Trypil culture (approx. 5400 - 2750 BC). It is shown that the complication of social relations and the development of material production created conditions for the separation of the caste of professional warriors. Professional soldiers conducted specialized training for weapons and physical fitness. In combat units, young men were trained for combat operations. The military training of professional soldiers reached its maximum development during the period of existence of Kyivan Rus (IX-XIII centuries of the new era). Literary sources provide information that the national physical culture developed at the same time as the complex of military-applied youth training. The training included fencing with various types of weapons, archery and types of unarmed combat. On the banks of the Dnieper, on the island of Khortytsia, the Cossacks formed the military society of Zaporizhzhya Sich (16th - 18th centuries of the new era) and on a systematic basis conducted preparations for conducting military operations. Varieties of fencing, wrestling and fist fighting were developed at a high level. Data given in scientific sources indicate that the Cossack martial arts became the basis of modern Ukrainian national types of martial arts. In Japan, in the process of the foundation of the country (1603-1868 years of the new era), a national martial culture was formed based on the training of samurai warriors. Conclusions. The bibliometric analysis of publications on the history of Ukraine determined the correlation between the stages of the formation of the Ukrainian nation and the development of the military culture of Ukraine. The significant influence of religion on the consciousness of Ukrainians makes it possible to divide martial arts into pre-Christian (Trypylian and Indo-European cultures) and Christian (Kyiv Rus, Zaporizhzhya Sich). A comparison of the emergence and development of traditional national martial arts of Ukraine and Japan makes it possible to highlight the general patterns of formation of modern national types of martial arts.

20 rhetorical theses on the European Paidèia-Aktualisierung

Europe first? That`s not what we`re looking for. We need a long-term strategy for mobilising an integral but pluricentric National European Renovation. Besides pure political typology, Europe is also rooted in traditional essentials of systemic rhetoric as well as in antitotalitarian pathways, not to forget indo-european cultures, recognizing their multifold mythologies, consisting of diverse heterogeneous value structures within our socalled Modern world. As for crossdisciplinary rhetoric the homo loquens (Fry 1977) remains embedded within an accurate alliance of coherencies, conditions, governing principles and real-systematic dimensions. Easy to understand in terms of a systemic quintuple of rhetoric (Nickl 2010;11). Affirming personal knowledge (Polanyi 1962) and opposing the tendency to make knowledge impersonal: emphasizing Actualization of Paideia/Παιδεία& Individualism (against collectivist equalization and ideologically tempered social theories in Education), pro Ethnoconstructivism, Political Pluralism, and Trustworthiness in different levels &types of Democracies. EU-citizens’ trust in mediation and supervision of supranational EU-oligarchgovernance & institutional structures seems to be on the decline. The opposite is true with a slightly raising ascendancy of Constitutional Europatriotism or even a moderate Paneuropean patriotism.

Ecology, Anti-Christianity, and the Far Right

Ecology, Anti-Christianity, and the Far Right

Prípad jednej nešťastnej anotácie, pseudovedeckého zborníka a zamyslenie sa nad indoeuropeistikou na Slovensku

In 2020 and 2021, a summary of the book Arctic Theory of Our Origin written by Russian ethnologist and Indologist Natalia Romanovna Guseva appeared in multiple places. This summary was written by Lenka Mihová and published in several journals: Cultural history, Studia Mythologica Slavica, and Literary magazine. This summary was written in a completely unprofessional manner and quoted absurd statements (for example, that Slovak writer Jozef Banáš was able to understand Indians in the Slovak language and they understood him), which showed that the author of this abstract was unable to approach this book critically. Based on this unfortunate summary, I decided to write a critique analysing Mihová’s problematic approach as well as the background of the published translation of Guseva’s compilation. In general, the “Arctic Theory” is an unscientific narrative without the support of any archaeological or relevant linguistic evidence, and it is popular amongst the esoteric and nationalistic groups in Russia and India. Neither the book’s slipshod translation nor Mihová’s summary are in line with the available knowledge of the Indo-European culture or comparative linguistics thereof. Both show a considerable lack of critical reflection or erudition to evaluate the material.

Elava rahvalaulu juurde jõudmine: Herbert Tampere teadlaseisiksuse kujunemine

Elava rahvalaulu juurde jõudmine: Herbert Tampere teadlaseisiksuse kujunemine

Перформативная функция голоса в архаических речевых практиках

This study is aimed at the early practice of speech (or speech acts) as a functional tool in performative constructions, which can be considered as an integral part of the cultural heart and the reflection of an important semantic and pragmatic connection between the intentions and actions in mythical thinking. This way of thinking created images on the interpretation of the world as a system determined by supreme forces (gods). Communication of people with higher forces as an early speech practice of Indo-European cultures is traced in ancient prayers, rituals, incantations, spells, etc. They not only reflect the fixed language formulae which are a base of a cultural matrix but also offer a whole picture of the mythical thinking functioning. The following fundamental cultural phenomena are noted: the power of the word, as a primary vocal image; the act of assigning a name as giving birth to a creature (what is not named, does not exist), voice as a ritual constitutive force in prayers, and in the tabooing. The study of performative constructions in ancient Indo-European language data (Avesta, Upanishads, Edda, Old /New Testaments, Old Church Slavonic, and Anglo-Saxon spells) has revealed a strong relation of the functional power of voice to the ritual actions, which reflect in the traditional performative constructions - first person singular verbs: 1) prayers - I pray, I ask; 2) naming - I name, I give a name; 3) actions taken during incantation - I stretch out [my hands], I order; 4) and also the representation of voice as a divine being, which reflects in the concept of true godly knowledge and corresponds with the physical ability to attract attention and ask to follow with voice. In early performative practice, to legitimize the action it must be followed with words said out loud properly. And this interdependent phenomenon forms the heart of culture.

Plato and Aristotle in the light of research on Indo-European culture

<p>Współcześnie zwykliśmy mierzyć wartość wytworów kultury oryginalnością i innowacyjnością ich twórców. Na tym tle jako odosobniony przypadek jawi się stanowisko włoskiego badacza filozofii antycznej, Giovanniego Realego, który doceniając wielkość Arystotelesa, dostrzega w nim przede wszystkim wiernego kontynuatora filozoficznego dzieła Platona. Chociaż Reale przywołuje liczne i ważne argumenty na rzecz swojej tezy, jego punkt widzenia koliduje z odczuciami większości czytelników obydwu filozofów i nie wytrzymuje krytyki z perspektywy, której Reale wcale nie wziął pod uwagę w swojej pracy badawczej. Polemizując z tezą włoskiego historyka, wykażę, że różnica pomiędzy Platonem a Arystotelesem sięga meritum ich poglądów ontologicznych. Wierny tradycji wczesnej kultury indoeuropejskiej Platon przyjmował układ ternarny za naczelną zasadę konstrukcji systemu filozoficznego, tymczasem metafizyka Arystotelesa jest binarna. Powodem tej paradygmatycznej niezgodności może być różnica kulturowa dzieląca obu filozofów.</p>

Historical Methodology and Expert Opinion in the Aryan Debate

We show that Trautmann’s criteria to accept expert opinion are compatible with the guidelines for an ‘objective historian’ proposed by Schneider based on the ‘generally accepted standards of historical scholarship’ described by Evans. Taken together, they form a credible framework to assess evidences in the Aryan Debate. We show that Sanskrit scholars who support the Aryan Invasion/Migration Theory have implied transmission of cultural practices from 3rd millennium BC India to 2nd millennium BC Eurasia. This tilts the debate on common features found in Indo-European cultures in favour of transmission out of India. We propose the Sanskrit in Indus Civilization Theory (SICT) based on joint consensus between Sanskrit scholars and scientists that Vedic rituals date to 3rd millennium BC. All theories of the origins of the Indo-European language family must incorporate the main elements of SICT when discussing Indian evidences later than 3rd millennium BC. We discuss the methodological issues related to claims based on recent genetic studies. We show that SICT can accommodate the results of recent genetic studies.

The deviant typological profile of the Tocharian branch of Indo-European may be due to Uralic substrate influence

Abstract Tocharian agglutinative case inflexion as well as its single series of voiceless stops, the two most striking typological deviations from Proto-Indo-European, can be explained through influence from Uralic. A number of other typological features of Tocharian may likewise be interpreted as due to contact with a Uralic language. The supposed contacts are likely to be associated with the Afanas’evo Culture of South Siberia. This Indo-European culture probably represents an intermediate phase in the movement of speakers of early Tocharian from the Proto-Indo-European homeland in the Eastern European steppe to the Tarim Basin in Northwest China. At the same time, the Proto-Samoyedic homeland must have been in or close to the Afanas’evo area. A close match between the Pre-Proto-Tocharian and Pre-Proto-Samoyedic vowel systems is a strong indication that the Uralic contact language was an early form of Samoyedic.

Idioms and Idiotisms: Theodore Thass-Thienemann’s The Interpretation of Language and Spectral Inheritance

The late work of the Hungarian émigré linguist and comparatist, Theodore Thass-Thienemann, presents a challenging combination of psychoanalytic discourse and the historical study of languages. His two-volume book entitled The Interpretation of Language (1973) sets out to complement the Freudian analysis of dream images and bodily symptoms via an investigation into the symbolism of ordinary verbal expressions as they appear in the languages of Indo-European cultures. His attention to the unconsciously inherited dimensions of particular idioms opens a path to the linguistic archeology of the human mind and a rethinking of the very notion of “idiom” in terms of “idiotism.” After providing a brief overview of the life and late works of Thass-Thienemann, this study offers a comprehensive analysis of his book. In the final analysis, Thass-Thienemann appears as the provocative thinker of a spectral inheritance, from which even his own discourse is not exempt.

Farzad Sharifian, (Ed.) The Routledge Handbook of language and culture. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2015. Pp. xv-522. ISBN: 978-0-415-52701-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-79399-3 (ebk)7

Farzad Sharifian, (Ed.) The Routledge Handbook of language and culture. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2015. Pp. xv-522. ISBN: 978-0-415-52701-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-79399-3 (ebk)7

О символике связи быка и растений в пехлевийском «Бундахишне»

In the Pahlavi Bundahishn, Ahriman (the supreme deity of evil) has sacrificed the primeval bull beside primordial man Gayomard. Most of the mythical evidence of Indo-European culture illustrates the image or Imagination of the creation of a human or animal sacrifice for the creation of the whole world of its parts and organs. An example of these sacrifices is Gayomard and the primeval bull in Bundashen. In Zoroastrianism, there are more mythical narratives of human beings and less about other phenomena, including animals. However, in the narrative of the creation myth in Iranian culture, besides the creation of parts of the body of the gods or primitive human beings, the archetype of the primeval bull is present. The idea of adaptation of the Macro and Micro worlds in the Iranian narrative refers the distinction between the creation of animals and plants from the body of bull and the manner in which the first pair of creation, Mashya and Mashyana of the body of Gayomard. This is not evident in other narratives of Indo-European culture. This study aims to explain the image of plant creation of organs in primeval bull conjunction with other examples of the creation of the deity or androgynous goddesses and to answer the question of whether the two patterns are essentially interrelated. Therefore, after citing evidence from both instances, it is attempted to analyze this relationship in the above narratives and to show that the role of cattle in the myths of Indo-European creation with the role of goddess in the creation of the world, man, earth, and plant can be co-existent. After bull's death, his body created the plants and animals. This article makes an attempt to explain origin of the animals and vegetable species from the bull-sacrifice based on the sources of myths and archaeological evidences. The bull is the symbol of the fertility goddess, the Earth Goddess, the androgynous being and the origin of life. Therefore, the plants are created from his body.

Indo-European Roots of the Helen of Troy

As a part of the series on female deities and demons in the Indo-European culture, the article begins by establishing Helen’s divine character in the Greek tradition and religion. The first area where the Indo-European character of Helen is displayed concerns the etymology of her name, which has been the subject of discussion and controversy throughout several decades. The most prominent theories are presented, including the concept of Pokorny and West to explain her name as ‘Lady of Light’ from the Proto-Indo-European root *swel- or *swelh1-, the idea of Skutsch to connect Helen with Vedic Saṛanyū, the etymology by Clader relying on the local Greek ritual practices and finally the new etymology provided by Pinault explaining the name as ‘having a year like a thread’ from Proto-Indo-European *suh1-l̥-h1eno. The second part of the article deals with the cultural, literary and religious attributes of Helen which connect her with the Indo-European world, especially with the Vedic tradition. The most interesting aspects include the issue of Helen’s parenthood and her birth, her relationship with her brothers – the Dioskouroi – the prototypical Indo-European Divine Twins, as well as similarities with Vedic goddesses Uṣās – Dawn and Sūryā́ – the Sun Princess. The final part of the article establishes Helen as the Greek representation of the Indo-European myth of an abducted wife. Relying heavily on the analysis of Jamison, it draws on the similarities between the passages in the book III of the Mahābhārata and the book III of the Iliad, which from the comparative perspective explains well the inclusion of this scene in the Homeric epic and Helen’s role in it as well as sheds more light on the Indo-European practices regarding marriage. Lastly, the article mentions a connection between Helen and Vedic Saṛanyū by the story of eidolon – a phantom, which both characters created at certains points in some literary traditions.

Translation of Arabic Ecological Terms: An Eco-Cultural Approach

Unlike most translations which are carried out within the Indo-European language-family and culture, the translation of Arabic language and culture into English language and culture tends to cause serious problems for translators. This paper is an attempt to examine the problems and difficulties in translating Arabic ecological terms of literary and religious texts using Peter Newmark’s (1988) ecological categorizations of ‘Fauna’, Flora’, and other ‘Geographical features’ in conceptualised and contextualised examples as parameters for discussion and analysis. Results of the discussion and analysis of the samples used in this paper have highlighted the importance of attending to ecological issues in translation and the need for an eco-cultural approach to be used for solving such problems. Some suggestions and recommendations have been made to help translators adjust their translation methods to fit the Arabic eco-cultural context as well as those who are interested in carrying out further research in this field.

Ritual dialogues of Yuletide in the Carpathian Region of Ukraine

Ritual dialogues have interested several prominent scholars of Slavic folklore as source for reconstruction of proto-Slavic ritual text structure. More recent studies of folklore have a different focus, studying the structure of Slavic societies reflected in folklore. This article introduces a number of ritual dialogues traditionally performed in villages in the Carpathian area of Western Ukraine around Yuletide, recorded by one of the authors between 1987 and 2018, and analyses the dialogues from both these points of view. A number of examined dialogues show specific structural patterns (question-answer-interpretation structure, the positions of the male performer outside the house, and the female performer, inside, etc.) agreeing with Propp’s hypothesis about the Yuletide blessings of the house given by ancestral spirits coming from the otherworld in East Slavic culture, and with Toporov’s hypothesis about Yuletide riddles performed in Indo-European culture to re-create world order at the time of winter solstice. Carpathian dialogs also turn out to reflect and corroborate the gender-age hierarchy of the traditional rural society.

Кінь на петрогліфах бронзового віку Центральної Азії.

The study of rock paintings is an important component in the reconstruction of daily life, beliefs, mythological and aesthetic representations of ancient people. One of the questions that petroglyphs can help to answer is the spread of the horse cult in Central Asia, which many archaeologists understand as one of the indicators of the presence and influence of the Indo-European cultures. The purpose of the article is to search for the markers of the cult of the horse in the set of petroglyphs of Central Asia.The article analyzes the key plots of petroglyphs associated with the image of the horse. From petroglyphs depicting a horse in the context of a hunt in its wild, non-domesticated form, to sled animals in chariots and scenes related to ritual actions regarding the horse. I consider such plot blocks as the horse near the world tree, the heaven chariots, the conceptual pairs horse-dog, horse-goat, horse-snake, horse images in the form of a deer, etc. are compared with the myths and ritual practices of the Indo-Europeans represented in written records in order to make an attempt to interpret them.Considering the results of analysis, it can be concluded that the cult of the horse in the classical sense was completly entrenched in Central Asia only in Late Bronze Age. Certain stages of the formation of the cult are traced, from the object of the hunt to the harness of animals. Combined with a chariot it symbolizes the movement of the god and, finally, to the world animal, which in turn is associated with the king and the gods.

Following the Pathways of Greimas’ Mythology

Although several decades have passed since studies in mythology by Algirdas Julius Greimas Apie dievus ir žmones (‘Of Gods and Men’, 1979) and Tautos atminties beieškant (‘In Search of the National Memory’, 1990) saw publication, his pathway of mythological research has not been discussed in detail so far. The article contains chronological survey of Greimas’ works on mythology (including the ones published in French). The author highlights prerequisites and goals of Greimas’ studies on mythology and his attitude towards the situation of mythological research in Lithuania.Greimas’ earliest encounter with mythology and folklore is related with Lithuanian folklorist Jonas Balys. In the 1940s–1960s Greimas used to correspond with Balys, receiving folklore publications from him, and after having started publishing his works on Lithuanian mythology,engaging in discussions regarding his research methods. In 1949, Greimas published in theperiodical of Lithuanian diaspora Viltis his review of the research study and collection ofsources “Readings in Lithuanian Folklore” by Balys, and that was the first time he touchedupon issues of Lithuanian mythology.However, it was not friendship and discussions with Balys that channeled Greimas’ interest towards mythology. In the 1950s, his inspiration to study mythology stemmed from semiotic research: when developing his theory in semantics, Greimas used works on mythology, cultural anthropology, and folklore – among others, those by George Dumézil, Claude Lévi-Strauss, and Vladimir Propp. In 1963, 1965, and 1966 Greimas published theoretical articles on mythology. Lithuanian mythology attracted his attention in the late 1950s, when he wrote two works on semiotic theory based on the Lithuanian fairy tale belonging to the type AT 326 (“The Youth Who Wanted to Learn What Fear Is”). In 1972, his mythological study in Lithuanian appeared, focusing on analysis of kaukas and aitvaras (Greimas 1972). Afterwards, Greimas published all his research on mythology in Lithuanian. The sequence of rapidly appearing studies formed two books (Greimas 1979, 1990) that comprised all his most important contributions to mythology written in Lithuanian.Lithuanian mythology not only constituted an “experimental plot” for Greimas’ semiotic research, but also presented him with possibility of self-realization as a culture historian and researcher of religion. Besides, in his own words, he was thus paying his “debt to Lithuania”. On the other hand, he also attempted to open up the Lithuanian material to the research of the Indo-European culture. Greimas’ contribution to the studies of Lithuanian mythology and to the comparative research in mythology still awaits proper appreciation.

Mesolithic Sources of the First Indo-European Cultures in Europe Based on Archaeological Data

Mesolithic Sources of the First Indo-European Cultures in Europe Based on Archaeological Data

Semiotics and writing systems

AbstractThis article deals with semiotic modeling in writing. The process of modeling is involved in the creation of new scripts and alphabets. The narrative describes the so called ABC-principle in action. Since the ABC code is also a text, the letters have meaningful collocations and the letter names have meaningful associations. The sequence of letters in an ABC is a meaningful syntagm within a ritual text. We shall attempt to prove that these parts of an ABC are meaningful micro-texts that constitute a model of the world as conceived in Indo-European culture. Together with rituals, alphabets have contributed to the formation of concepts of the physical world and cultural identities.