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TheAryan race is a pseudoscientifichistorical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people who descend from theProto-Indo-Europeans as aracial grouping.[1][2] The terminology derives from the historical usage ofAryan, used by modernIndo-Iranians as anepithet of "noble".Anthropological,historical, andarchaeological evidence does not support the validity of this concept.[3][4]
The concept derives from the notion that the original speakers of theProto-Indo-European language were distinct progenitors of a superior specimen of humankind,[5][6] and that their descendants up to the present day constitute either a distinctive race or a sub-race of theCaucasian race, alongside theSemitic race and theHamitic race.[7][8] Thistaxonomic approach to categorizing human population groups is now considered to be misguided and biologically meaningless due to theclose genetic similarity and complex interrelationships between these groups.[9][10][11]
The term was adopted by variousracist andantisemitic writers during the 19th century, includingArthur de Gobineau,Richard Wagner, andHouston Stewart Chamberlain,[12] whosescientific racism influenced laterNazi racial ideology.[13] By the 1930s, the concept had been associated with bothNazism andNordicism,[14] and used to support thewhite supremacist ideology ofAryanism that portrayed the Aryan race as a "master race",[15] with non-Aryans regarded asracially inferior (Untermensch,lit. 'subhuman') and an existential threat that was to beexterminated.[16] InNazi Germany, these ideas formed an essential part of the state ideology that led tothe Holocaust.[17][18]
In the late 18th century,Proto-Indo-European (PIE) was constructed as the hypothesized commonproto-language of theIndo-European languages.[19][20]Sir William Jones, who was acclaimed as the "most respected linguist in Europe" for hisGrammar of the Persian Language (1771), was appointed one of the three justices of theSupreme Court of Bengal.[21] Jones, who arrived inCalcutta and began his study of Sanskrit and theRig Veda, was astonished by thelexical similarities betweenSanskrit and other Indo-European languages such asPersian,Gothic,Greek, andLatin, and concluded that Sanskrit—as adescendant language—belonged to the same proto- or parent-language in thelanguage family—that is PIE, as the other Indo-European languages,[22] in hisThird Anniversary Discourse on the Hindus (1786).[23] However, thelinguistic homeland of theoriginal speakers of Proto-Indo-European was a politicized debate among the archaeologists andcomparative historical linguists since the start, entangling inchauvinistic causes.[20][24][25] Some Europeannationalists anddictators, most notably the Nazis, later attempted to identify the Proto-Indo-European homeland in their country or region as racially superior.[26][27]
According toLeon Poliakov, the concept of the Aryan race was deeply rooted in philology, based on the work of Sir William Jones' claiming that Sanskrit was related to Greco-Roman (European) languages. Other thinkers invented secularized origins for European civilization that were not based on the biblical genealogies from which Europe's aristocracy had long claimed descent.[28][29]
The influence ofRomanticism in Germany saw a revival of the intellectual quest for "the German language and traditions" and a desire to "discard the cold, artificial logic ofEnlightenment".[30] AfterDarwin's 1859 publication ofOn the Origin of Species and publicization of the theorized model ofProto-Indo-European language (PIE), the Romantics convicted that language was a defining factor innational identity, combined with the new ideas ofDarwinism.[31] TheGerman nationalists misemployed thescientific theory ofnatural selection for the rationalization of the supposedfitness of some races over others, although Darwin himself never applied histheory of fitness to vague entities such as races or languages.[31] The "unfit" races were suggested as a source of genetic weakness, and a threat that might contaminate the superior qualities of the "fit" races.[31] The misleading mixture ofpseudoscience and Romanticism produced new racial ideologies which used distortedSocial Darwinist interpretations of race to explain "the superior biological-spiritual-linguistic essence of theNorthern Europeans" in self-congratulatory studies.[32][33] Subsequently, the German Romantics' quest for a "pure" national heritage led to the interpretation of the ancient speakers of PIE language as the distinct progenitors of a "racial-linguistic-national stereotype".[34][35]
The term "Aryan" was originally used as anethnocultural self-designative identity and epithet of "noble" byIndo-Iranians and the authors of the oldest knownreligious texts ofRig Veda andAvesta within the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European language family—Sanskrit andIranian, who lived inancient India andIran.[36] Although the Sanskrit ā́rya- and Iranian *arya- descended from a form *ā̆rya-, it was only attested to the Indo-Iranian tribes.[37][38]Benjamin W. Fortson states that there may have been no term for self-designation of Proto-Indo-Europeans, and no suchmorphemes has survived.[38]J. P. Mallory et al. states although the term "Aryan" takes on an ethnic meaning attesting to Indo-Iranians, there is no grounds for ascribing this semantic use to the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction of lexicon*h₂eryós i.e. there is no evidence that the speakers of proto-language referred to themselves as "Aryans".[39] However, in the 19th century, it was proposed that ā́rya- was not only the tribal self-designation of Indo-Iranians, but self-designation of Proto-Indo-Europeans themselves, a theory rejected by modern scholarships.[37][38] "Aryan" then came to be used by scholars of the 19th century to refer to Indo-Europeans.[37] The now-discredited andchronologically reconstructedNorth European hypothesis was endorsed by such scholars who situated the PIE homeland in northern Europe,[37] which led to the association of "Proto-Indo-Europeans", originally a hypothesized linguistic population ofEurasian PIE speakers, with a new, imagined biological category: "a tall, light-complexioned, blonde, blue-eyed race" - supposedphenotypic traits ofNordic race.[40][41][42][43] Theanglicized term "Aryan" then developed into a purely racialist meaning implicating Nordic racial type.[43][37] However, modern scholarship of Indo-European studies use "Aryan" and "Indo-Aryan" in their original senses referring to Indo-Iranian and Indic branch of Indo-Europeans.[44]
Classification of human races based on the now-pseudoscientific study of phenotypical differences developed during the nineteenth century and evidence in support of such theories were sought from the study of language and reconstructions of language families.[45] Scholars of this era established the ethnological term "Aryan" as the race that had spoken the Proto-Indo-European language, and in this context, the term was often used as a synonym for "Indo-Europeans".[45]
Scholars point out that, even in ancient times, the Aryan identity as asserted in theRig Veda wascultural,religious, andlinguistic, not racial; nor do theVedas contemplateracial purity.[46][47][48] The Rig Veda affirms aritualistic barrier: an individual is considered Aryan if theysacrifice to the right gods, which requires performing traditional prayer in the traditional language, and does not connote a racial barrier.[47]Michael Witzel states that term Aryan "does not mean a particularpeople or even a particular 'racial' group but all those who had joined the tribes speakingVedic Sanskrit and adhering to their cultural norms (such as ritual, poetry, etc.)".[48] Scholars state that the historical Aryans, theVedic periodBronze Age tribes who lived inIran,Afghanistan, and the northernIndian subcontinent—composers of the Rig Veda and Avesta—were unlikely to be blond or blue-eyed, contrary to the proponents of Aryanism and Nordicism.[25][49]
The racial interpretation ofAryans stems from the now-discreditedculture-historical archaeology theory ofGustaf Kossinna, who asserted a one-to-one correspondence betweenarchaeological culture andarchaeological race.[50][51] According to Kossinna, the continuity of a "culture" exposits the continuity of a "race" which lived continuously in the same area, and the resemblance of a culture in a younger layer to a culture from an older layer indicates that the autochthonoustribe from the homeland had migrated.[52] Kossinna developed an ethnic paradigm in archaeology calledsettlement archaeology and practiced the nationalistic interpretation of German archaeology for theThird Reich.[53] The obsolete North European hypothesis was endorsed by Kossinna andKarl Penka, including German nationalists, which was later used by the Nazis to condone their genocidal and racist state policies.[40][24] Kossinna identified theProto-Indo-Europeans with theCorded Ware culture, and placed theProto-Indo-European homeland inSchleswig-Holstein.[54] He argued adiffusionist model of culture, and emphasised the racial superiority ofGermanic peoples overRomans (Roman Empire) andFrench, whom he described as destroyers of culture as compared to Germanics.[55] Kossinna's ideas have been heavily criticised for its inherent ambiguities in the method and advocacy for the ideology of aGermanic master race.[56]
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Max Müller popularized the term Aryan in his writings oncomparative linguistics,[59] and is often identified as the first writer to mention an Aryan race in English.[60] He began the racial interpretation of theVedic passages based upon his editing of theRigveda from 1849 to 1874.[61] He postulated a small Aryan clan living on a high elevation in central Asia, speaking a proto-language ancestral to later Indo-European languages, which later branched off in two directions: one moved towards Europe and the other migrated to Iran, eventually splitting again with one group invading north-western India and conquering the dark-skinneddasas ofScythian origin who lived there.[62] The northern Aryans of Europe became energetic and combative, and they invented the idea of a nation, while the southern Aryans of Iran and India were passive and meditative and focussed on religion and philosophy.[63]
Though he occasionally used the term "Aryan race" afterward, Müller later objected to the mixing of the linguistic and racial categories,[64] and was "deeply saddened by the fact that these classifications later came to be expressed in racist terms".[65] In his 1888 lecture atOxford, he stated, "[the] science of Language and the science of Man cannot be kept too much asunder [...] it would be as wrong to speak of Aryan blood as of dolichocephalic grammar",[64] and in hisBiographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas (1888), he writes, "[the] ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes, and hair, is a great sinner as a linguist [...]".[66]
European scholars of 19th century interpreted the Vedic passages as depicting battle between light-skinnedAryan migrants and dark-skinned indigenous tribes, but modern scholars reject this characterization of racial division as a misreading of the Sanskrit text,[67] and indicate that the Rig Vedic opposition betweenārya anddasyu is distinction between "disorder, chaos and dark side of human nature" contrasted with the concepts of "order, purity, goodness and light",[67] and "dark and light worlds".[68][46] In other contexts of the Vedic passages the dinstiction betweenārya anddasyu refers to those who had adopted theVedic religion, speaking Vedic Sanskrit, and those who opposed it.[48][69]
However, increasing number of Western writers of this era, especially among anthropologists and non-specialists influenced by Darwinist theories, contrastedAryans as a "physical-genetic species" rather than an ethnolinguistic category.[70][71]
Encyclopedias and textbooks of historiography, ethnography, and anthropology from this era, such asMeyers Konversations-Lexikon,Brockhaus Enzyklopädie,Nordisk familjebok,H. G. Wells'sA Short History of the World,John Clark Ridpath'sGreat Races of Mankind, and other works reinforced European racial constructions developed on now-pseudoscientific concepts such asracial taxonomy,Social Darwinism, andscientific racism to classify human races.[57][72][73][74]
The termAryan was adopted by variousracist andantisemitic writers such asArthur de Gobineau,Theodor Poesche,Houston Chamberlain,Paul Broca,Karl Penka andHans Günther during the nineteenth century for the promotion ofscientific racism, spawning ideologies such asNordicism andAryanism.[41][42][43][75] The connotation of the termAryan was detached from its proper geographic and linguistic confinement as aIndo-Iranian branch ofIndo-European language family by this time.[43] The inequality of races and the notion of a "superior race" was universally accepted by the scholars of this era, therefore race was referred to "national character and national culture" beyond biological confinement.[76]
In 1853, Arthur de Gobineau publishedAn Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, in which he originally identified the Aryan race as the white race,[77] and the only civilized one, and conceived cultural decline andmiscegenation as intimately intertwined.[3] He argued that the Aryans represented a superior branch of humanity,[78] and attempted to identify the races of Europe as Aryan and associated them with the sons ofNoah, emphasizing superiority, and categorized non-Aryan as an intrusion of theSemitic race.[63] According to him, northern Europeans had migrated across the world and founded the major civilizations, before being diluted through racial mixing with indigenous populations described as racially inferior, leading to the progressive decay of the ancient Aryan civilizations.[2][3]
In 1878, German American anthropologistTheodor Poesche published a survey of historical references attempting to demonstrate that the Aryans were light-skinned blue-eyed blonds.[41]
In 1899,Houston Stewart Chamberlain published what is described as "one of the most important proto-Nazi texts",The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, in which he theorized an existential struggle to the death between a superior German-Aryan race and a destructiveJewish-Semitic race.[79]
In 1916,Madison Grant publishedThe Passing of the Great Race, a polemic against interbreeding between "Aryan" Americans, the originalThirteen Colonies settlers of British-Scots-Irish-German origin, with immigrant "inferior races", which according to him were,Poles,Czechs, Jews, andItalians.[43] The book was a best-seller at the time.[43]
While the Aryan race theory remained popular, particularly inGermany, some authors opposed it, in particularOtto Schrader,Rudolph von Jhering and the ethnologistRobert Hartmann, who proposed to ban the notion of Aryan from anthropology.[78] The term was also adopted by variousoccultists andesoteric ideological systems of this era, such asHelena Blavatsky,[80] andAriosophy.[81]
Theracial policies of Nazi Germany, the1935 Nuremberg Laws, and theracist doctrines ofAdolf Hitler consideredJews,Roma andSlavs, includingPoles,Czechs,Russians andSerbs, "racially inferior sub-humans" (German:Untermensch,lit. 'sub-human');[82][17][83][84] the term was also applied to "Mischling" (persons ofmixed "Aryan" and non-Aryan, such as Jewish, ancestry) andblack people.[85][86]
A definition of Aryan that included all non-Jewish Europeans was deemed unacceptable, and theExpert Committee on Questions of Population and Racial Policy of 1933 brought together important Nazi intellectualsAlfred Ploetz,Fritz Thyssen, andErnst Rüdin to plan the course of Nazi racial policy, defining an Aryan as one who was "tribally related to the German blood and descendant of aVolk".[87][88] The term "Volksdeutsche" was used by Nazis to indicate "ethnic Germans" who did not hold German Reich citizenship;[89]Volksdeutsche further consist of "racial groups"—minorities within a state—who are descendants of aVolk domiciled in Europe in a closed tribal settlement and are closely related to German racial community.[90][87] The Nazi concept of "Volksgemeinschaft" racially unified ethnic Germans, including those living outside the German Reich, propounding only the members of the racial community be considered Aryan.[91][92]
Members of theSS deemed Aryans could be selected from populations ofVolksdeutsche across Europe to create "master race".[93] Nazi Party established the organizationNSDAP/AO to disseminate Nazi propaganda among the ethnic German minorities consideredVolksdeutsche in central and eastern Europe.[94] Nazi racial theories considered the "purest stock of Aryans" theNordic people, identified byphysical anthropological features such as tallness, white skin, blue eyes, narrow and straight noses,dolichocephalic skulls, prominent chins, and blond hair, includingScandinavians,Germans,English andFrench,[95][96] with Nordic andGermanic people being the "master race" (German:Herrenrasse).[97] Recentarchaeogenetic studies contradict these ideas, and instead suggest that Proto-Indo-European speaking peoples probably had brown eyes and hair, and intermediate skin complexion.[98]
After the death of Kossinna,Heinrich Himmler, and other Nazi figures such asAlfred Rosenberg, adopted his nationalistic theories ofGermanic peoples and methodologies, including settlement archaeology, and founded theSS organizationAhnenerbe (German:Deutsches Ahnenerbe) for conducting archaeological investigations of a presumed "Germanic expansion in pre-history".[99][100] Nazi scholars endorsed the now-discreditedNorth European hypothesis in an effort to prove PIE was originally spoken by an "Aryan master race", and associated theSemitic languages with "inferior races".[26]Historical revisionism around race was disseminated through the Nazithink tank Ahnenerbe.[12][75] Hitler regularly invokedSocial Darwinist concepts ofErnst Haeckel such as higher evolution (German:Höherentwicklung), struggle for existence (German:Existenzkampf), selection (German:Auslese), struggle for life (German:Lebenskampf), in his Nazi racial ideology, which is the central theme in the chapter "Nation and Race" ofMein Kampf.[101] Haeckel's Social Darwinism was also praised by Alfred Ploetz, founder of theGerman Society for Racial Hygiene, who made him an honorary member of the eugenic organization.[102]
In 1938, theReich Ministry of Education released the German biology curriculum which reflected the curriculum developed by theNational Socialist Teachers League and emphasized the Social Darwinst interpretation of the evolution of human races.[103]Hans Weinert, who had joined theSS and worked for theKaiser Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology publishing theories ofNazi eugenics and racial evolution, claimed theNordic race as a highly evolved race, andAboriginal Australians as being the lowest rank in theracial hierarchy.[104]Hans F. K. Günther was considered to be the most influential Nazi anthropologist, although he was not professionally trained.[105] Günther's racist writings on Nordicism was suffused with the ideas of Gobineau, who believed the Nordic race had originated in northern Europe and spread through conquest;[104] this had expressed approval of theNazi eugenics policies and had critical influence on scientific racism.[105] Günther's theories gained acclamation from Hitler, who later included his books as a recommended reading material for theNazi Party members.[106] After the Nazis came to power,selective breeding for supposed Aryan traits such as athleticism, blond hair and blue eyes was encouraged, while the "inferior races" and people withphysical ormental illness were deemed "life unworthy of life" (German:lebensunwertes Leben,lit. 'lives unworthy of life') and many were interned inconcentration camps.[107]
The culmination of Nazi eugenicist and racial hygiene programs of sterilization and extermination aimed at creating an "Aryan master race" and eliminating "inferior non-Aryan types" such as Jews, Slavs, Poles, Roma, homosexuals, and thedisabled.[15][108] Nazi Germany introduced theAnti-Jewish legislation that systemicallydiscriminated against Jews by requiringAryan certification for aGerman Reich citizen.[109][110] After Hitler became theChancellor of Germany, the public policies of Nazi Germany became increasingly hostile towards supposed "inferior types",[111] particularly Jews, who were considered to be the highest manifestation of the Semitic race,[112] and segregation ofJews in ghettos culminated in the policy of extermination the Nazis called theFinal Solution to theJewish Question.[113] Thestate-sponsored persecution systematically murdered over 6 million Jews,[114] 5.7 million Slavs,[115] 1.8–3 million Poles,[116] 270,000 disabled people,[117]among other victims, including children throughmass shooting,gas chamber,gas van, andconcentration camps, in the process known asthe Holocaust.[118][119] The ethnic Germans consideredVolksdeutsche joined the local SS organizations under NSDAP/AO and participated inNazi-sponsored pogroms in eastern and central Europe during the Holocaust, including seizures of Jewish property.[89][120] The Aryan race belief was used by the Nazis to justify the persecution, depicting the victims as the "antipode and eternal enemy of the Aryans".[111]
FollowingNazi Germany's defeat in World War II, variousneo-Nazi andracial nationalist movements developed a more inclusive definition of Aryan claiming toWestern European peoples, withNordic andGermanic peoples being the most "racially pure".[121][122][123] However, in theUnited States, most white nationalistsdefine whiteness broadly as people ofEuropean ancestry, and some consider Jews to be white although this is controversial within white nationalist circles.[124]
Many white supremacist neo-Nazi groups andprison gangs, notably in the United States, view themselves as part of an Aryan race, including theAryan Brotherhood,Aryan Nations,Aryan Guard,Aryan Republican Army,White Aryan Resistance,Aryan Circle,Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, andothers.[125][126]
Indo-European history, real and feigned, plays a significant role in variousneo-pagan movements.[25]
TheRussian Slavophile movements borrowed various discrete ideas of a presumed "prestigious Aryan origin" of Europeans from Nazi Germany.[129][25] AlthoughRussian Orthodoxy was the primary religious influence on Russian nationalists, theprimacy of Christianity was treated skeptically by these groups, who later began searching for an ancient text to rationalize a "return to the origins".[130] Various writers in the newspaperZhar-Ptitsa showed interest in a purported manuscript—theBook of Veles—which supposedly dated to the first century BCE.[131] F. A. Izenbek, aWhite Army officer, alleged the discovery of this manuscript during theRussian Civil War. However one of Izenbek's friends, Iurii Miroliubov, had forged the manuscript, and used the term "Vedism" to describe Russian neo-paganism; he later appropriated the Indian religious scripture, theVedas, to aggrandize the manuscript.[131][132] Nationalisticwhite Russian émigrés and neo-Pagans consider the manuscript to be an authentic historical source of Slavic antiquity,[133] who claim a direct link between "ancient Aryans" and themselves as Slavs.[25] However, the manuscript is declaredliterary forgery by scholars.[134][135]Alexey Dobrovolsky, a Russianneo-Nazi,[136] is considered thefounding Nazi ideologue ofSlavic Neopaganism.[137][138]
With the rise offirst-wave feminism, various authors of theGoddess movement cast the ancient Indo-Europeans as a "patriarchal, warlike invaders who destroyed a utopian prehistoric world of feminine peace and beauty" in variousarchaeological dramas and books such asRiane Eisler'sThe Chalice and the Blade (1987) andMarija Gimbutas'sCivilization of the Goddess (1991).[25]
Notes
... the answer to the question whether races exist in humans is clear and unambiguous: no.
The process was further assisted by a romanticism which gloried in the exotic and encouraged the idea that the greatest civilizational achievements of Europe could be attributed to the stimulus of ancient Aryan tribal movements...Historians seemed increasingly bent on discovering in each case a vigorous national past from which could be projected an even greater future. Scholars searching for Aryan pedigree also availed themselves of such newer disciplines as ethnology and anthropology.
It seemed as in the Europeans of the scientific age, having freed themselves from the conventional Noachian genealogy and rejected Adam as a common father, were looking around for new ancestors but were unable to break with the tradition which placed their origin in the fabulous Orient. It was the science of linguistics which was to give a name to these ancestors by opposing the Aryans to the Hamites, the Mongols—and the Jews.
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{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)In later years, especially before his death, he was deeply saddened by the fact that these classifications later came to be expressed in racist terms
Documentation remains fragmentary, but today scholars of independent Poland believe that 1.8 to 1.9 million Polish civilians (non-Jews) were victims of German Occupation policies and the war. This approximate total includes Poles killed in executions or who died in prisons, forced labor, and concentration camps. It also includes an estimated 225,000 civilian victims of the 1944 Warsaw uprising, more than 50,000 civilians who died during the 1939 invasion and siege of Warsaw, and a relatively small but unknown number of civilians killed during the Allies' military campaign of 1944–45 to liberate Poland.
The urbanized bookish Neo-Paganism is constructed by people of high educational standards. They do not restrict themselves to an oral tradition and are searching for earlier cultures reconstructed by scholars. It is on this ground that the Russian Neo-Pagans forge their versions of the Neo-Pagan belief system: some of them emphasize an Indo-Iranian heritage ('Aryan', 'Vedaic'), others are more fascinated with Zoroastrianism, still others are adherents of the 'Runic Magic'
Bibliography
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