Some of Czechs are not Slavs

[ceskybojovnik1938]

So you are saying that Slavs with Almond shaped eyes are not Slavs?? There are probably more Slavs who look like that than Slavs with "Aryan" characteristics... Not even alot of Germans look "Aryan"..

Damn brother, Ive been caught out. I have almond shaped eyes too, I dont look like a oriental mud though! ;D

[joko]

I have high cheek bones, almond shaped eyes...the question is...are these characteristics "oriental" or are they just how Slavs naturally have always looked WITHOUT interacting with other tribal groups.. Alot of people say the Sami in North Scandanavia are part Mongolian because of their characteristics..but..I've read somewhere that DNA analysis has shown that the Sami aka Lapps are distinct from Asians.

[White Cossack]

joko said:

I have high cheek bones, almond shaped eyes...the question is...are these characteristics "oriental" or are they just how Slavs naturally have always looked WITHOUT interacting with other tribal groups.. Alot of people say the Sami in North Scandanavia are part Mongolian because of their characteristics..but..I've read somewhere that DNA analysis has shown that the Sami aka Lapps are distinct from Asians.

I say we answer WHO CARES. We love our people not because they are Aryans, but because they are who they are, regardless. If Slavs have asian blood, does it change anyone's feelings? I am sure it doesn't.
Either way, Slavs look the best.

[pastir]

That`s an inteligent thing to say. But if we were to drive that point home shouldn`t we by the same logic conclude that we shouldn`t care much if in the future the average apperance of Slavs was to change to some degree due to some amount of Asian or some other blood influx?

[ceskybojovnik1938]

if in the future the average apperance of Slavs was to change to some degree due to some amount of Asian or some other blood influx?

Well, Slavs have mixed with non slavic tribes since thier inception in Europe, as long as they dont mix with tribes they didnt mix with originally like Negroids, Latinos, Indians etc then we should maintain the "Slavic look"

[White Cossack]

pastir said:

That`s an inteligent thing to say. But if we were to drive that point home shouldn`t we by the same logic conclude that we shouldn`t care much if in the future the average apperance of Slavs was to change to some degree due to some amount of Asian or some other blood influx?

No, because Slavs would cease to be what they are today. The point is, it doesn't matter if today Slavs have asian blood or not, because that is not going to change our thoughts on Slavic Nationalism.
Slavs mixing with groids or furthering mixing heavily with asiatic people would change who Slavs are, as a distinct people.
Yeah, I know what the counter argument is, and that's probably where you are coming from. "But History is a long process, and today will only be tomorrow's past, in the sense that mixing that happened centuries ago is no different from mixing that could happen today".
That reminds me of that argument that Christianity was not originally Slavic, and that in a thousand years from now some other religion could be as Slavic and part of us as Christianism. That ain't true though. We need to draw the line somewhere.
First of all, we need to consider the civilizational aspect. Slavs 2.000 years ago were as much Slavs as we are today, obviously. But really, how distinct they were from other Indo-European people?
However, the sun has risen so many times since then, and during this time we developed an unique Culture that sets us apart from everyone else. Slavic Civilization.
That's where the line should be drawn. You could say 2.000 years ago Slavs were not cultureless beings, and they certainly weren't, but that would be a sophism. You can't argue Slavs are a lot more distinct today than they were before, because the civilizational process does that to people.
Mixing with other Indo-European people - and asiatic if you wish, although I think that's western BS - was part of that building identity process that made what Slavs are today.
I think that in other words, you could say that today we have something to lose. 2.000 years ago we probably didn't.
If we don't draw the line somewhere, we will be trapped in the liberal trap that says nothing makes a difference, since it's all a long process anyway and changing/mixing is part of it. We could go back 10.000 years ago to make a point that preserving makes no sense. Like a vicious circle.
Plus, there is also the fact that in our day and age of Globalisation, and with all the ideological implications of mixing and "accepting" foreigners, the consequences are certainly going to be a lot stronger than they were before. When you take into consideration that there are people in the world that have as their sole goal to mix everyone up, it leaves us with no doubt that this can't be compared to any mixing that came before due to the natural contact with other people.

[pastir]

I am not falling into any liberal trap. I am not advocating any mixing myself. I am only wondering if your argument I responded to couldn`t be seen as an appology or justification of mixing.

Yes I would say Slavs 1,500 years ago were a more distinct people than we are today. Largely because they were a much more unified people. Since then we have grown apart to some extent, which neccesarily widens the definition of Slavs and becames less distinct from non-Slavs.

We can take Protestant Slavs as an illustration of that, in some ways and to some degree their traditions and world outlook are closer to some Protestan non-Slavs than to Protestan Slavs, but we must wideen the definition of Slavdom to include them, in the proccess neccessarily making the definition of Slavdom less narrow and thus less distinct from non-Slavs.

Furthermore 1,500 years ago we spoke a single language and had not jet assimilated various non-Slavic genetic material which we have since.

Just how cultered Slavs were 1,500 years ago is fairly irrelevant. Slavs then were a distinct people and they were aware of themselves being a distinct people. That identification and ethinc awarness is ultimatley what matters most (alongside blood), far more than what clothing they used and what customs they practiced, what structures they built and what settlements they founded.

Mixing with other Indo-European people - and asiatic if you wish, although I think that's western BS - was part of that building identity process that made what Slavs are today.

I doubt any mixing was required for the "identity building process". Yes some mixing definetley took place from 500 AD until today, but by calling it mixing of Slavs with non-Slavs in the first place you are saying Slavs were already Slavs before that. Also I fail to notice why should the Slavs of today be that ideal that should justify mixing with non-Slavs a hundred, two hundred or five hundred years ago, in order to produce the Slavs of today. Could we not have turned out even better? Or in other ways why claim the Slavs of today as this ideal? Why not Slavs say one hundred and fifty years ago?

[White Cossack]

I am not falling into any liberal trap. I am not advocating any mixing myself. I am only wondering if your argument I responded to couldn`t be seen as an appology or justification of mixing.

No it couldn't. I mean, you could see it this way, but it was not what I meant.

Yes I would say Slavs 1,500 years ago were a more distinct people than we are today. Largely because they were a much more unified people. Since then we have grown apart to some extent, which neccesarily widens the definition of Slavs and becames less distinct from non-Slavs.

I am sorry, but that is plain BS. Culture makes a people unique. Blood does too, but to a lesser extent.
So what if they were more unified? That has nothing to do with being more distinct. The relevant aspect is, at that point in History - you chose 1.500 rather than 2.000 years ago for whatever reason, but it does not make a difference really - Slavs were not that much different than other Indo-European people. Hunters, warriors, living in similar tribalist fashion, worshipping more or less the same deities - which represented the same things. So what if they had less contact with other people?
You are coming from a purity perspective, and I am telling you that the civilization aspect is what makes a people/ethnicity/race/whatever distinct. Eastern Slavs are, TODAY, different from Germanic races in every possible way, minus the look - in a broad sense. Culturally, the way to see the world, spirituality, etc and etc. If you think we were that much different from them 1.500/2.000 years ago you are just delusional.
I want to stress though, that I am not saying it was mixing that made us apart. It was the Civilizational process that I have been pointing out since the beginning. Mixing is just a circunstance that happened to a lesser or greater degree - I believe to a lesser.

We can take Protestant Slavs as an illustration of that, in some ways and to some degree their traditions and world outlook are closer to some Protestan non-Slavs than to Protestan Slavs, but we must wideen the definition of Slavdom to include them, in the proccess neccessarily making the definition of Slavdom less narrow and thus less distinct from non-Slavs.

Sophism. I know how you view this subject, but I can't agree. Protestant and muslim Slavs are Slavic by blood only. I don't see them as part of Slavdom, from a Civilizational standpoint. So what if they are Slavic by blood, how does that proves your point that Slavic used to be more unique? It is pure nonsense.
Anyway, how many Protestant Slavs are there in? Sorry, but your example is a terrible one.
Plus, who says we have to widen our definition? I say we don't. As long as you keep approaching this from a purely racial perspective, you won't be able to look further beyond that.

Furthermore 1,500 years ago we spoke a single language and had not jet assimilated various non-Slavic genetic material which we have since.

A single language 1.500 years ago? I don't think so. Regardless, again you mention a blood relation that is not at all important to make a people unique - not compared to the Culture of a people.
And by the way, I don't abide to the thought that Culture is more important than race. A groid can never be a Slav, however you cut it, but that's a different subject.

Just how cultered Slavs were 1,500 years ago is fairly irrelevant. Slavs then were a distinct people and they were aware of themselves being a distinct people. That identification and ethinc awarness is ultimatley what matters most (alongside blood), far more than what clothing they used and what customs they practiced, what structures they built and what settlements they founded.

Oh really? And where is this "uniqueness" when their neighbours, which happened to be related to Slavs by way of being Indo-European, whether you like it or not, praticed the same customs, lived the same way they did, dressed the same way, built settlements in the same fashion, worshipped the same deities? Of course when I say "same" you should understand it as "hellish simillar".
But they were "more unique" simply because their blood was distinct - and even that, not 100%, because Indo-Europeans have the same, even if old, origin - and because they were "aware" of it? Do you really believe this crap?
And by the way, you are being delusional. The whole awareness thing is pure crap. Slavs fought against other Slavs. Slavs assimilated other people when expanding and on and on. If anything, I am sure the sense of ethnic belonging is much stronger today - or was in the XIX century anyway - than it was back then. Or do you think ancient Slavs had worries such as "we shouldn't mix or Slavic blood to maintain our identity". ? I am sure they were more worried with more prevalent thing such as surviving and making alliances with whoever in order to be stronger.

I doubt any mixing was required for the "identity building process". Yes some mixing definetley took place from 500 AD until today, but by calling it mixing of Slavs with non-Slavs in the first place you are saying Slavs were already Slavs before that. Also I fail to notice why should the Slavs of today be that ideal that should justify mixing with non-Slavs a hundred, two hundred or five hundred years ago, in order to produce the Slavs of today. Could we not have turned out even better? Or in other ways why claim the Slavs of today as this ideal? Why not Slavs say one hundred and fifty years ago?

You didn't read what I wrote did you? Of course mixing s required for shit! Slavs didn't become what we are today because we "mixed". Mixing is a circunstance, and I don't even believe it happened to a great degree.
The identity building process happened because we evolved. We built a Civilization, a distinct Culture, and when you are part of a Civilization, which stands on it's own, you develop a sense of belonging and uniqueness, something that JUST DOESN'T HAPPEN if you are a barbarian living in the woods, whose sole purpose in living is hunting, battling and procreating, just like all your neighbours do as well.

Of course Slavs were already Slavs before any mixing...Yeah, 10.000 years ago Slavs were already Slavic by blood, and I am sure a lot more "pure" than 1.500 years ago. How is that relevant? Do you think Slavs had any redeeming trait 10.000 years ago that is worthy that we keep it today, or were they just another Indo-European people without much of a Culture to speak of? By your reasoning, 10.000 years ago must had been the peak of Slavdom, since that's when they were more "unified", spoke a single language and had mixed less. Oh wait, except if you compare them with Slavs from 15.000 years ago, who are also "less unique" than Slavs from 20.000 years ago. Who cares if they had not a Culture to speak of, they spoke a single language and were "more unified".

Your last point makes clear you didn't read what I wrote. I specifically said we should draw a line somewhere. It has nothing to do with Slavs of today being more desirable than Slavs of yore or Slavs of tomorrow. Where did you get this idea?
The thing is, when you haven't built a Civilization of your own per see, there is not much to "preserve". In other words, the richest - rich in the sense of with more details, deeper, more complex, with more aspects, better developed, etc - your Culture is, the more you have to lose by mixing.
It is not so much that today is better than yesterday. I hope you can understand that. But the thing is, and that's undeniable, the more you go back into History, the less distinct your find that we were. The simpler a Civilization is, the more similar - less distinct - it is in comparison to other "Civilizations" - and I use this term loosely. Nomadic tribalist people are not that much different from other nomadic tribalist people, regardless the color of their skin, the language they speak, the blood they carry.
The further you look back into History, the more you learn that all of our ancestors were not that much different. You could write essays, whole books, concerning the differences between, say, Russians and germans. I doubt you could write more than a page between the differences between Slavs and Germanics of 2.000 years ago. Of course you can always find something to write about, but still it is meaningless compared to the differences we have today.
Honestly, I feel stupid even having to say all that. It is so bloody obvious that a people "develop" their uniqueness by the time their Civilization expands and gets more complex, and not because they mixed their blood less and used to be "more unifed" and "spoke the same language".
So no, it is not that today we reached our peak, that the ammount of mixing and development we had is the ideal one, and that it can't even be better. It's all about drawing a line. 2.000 years ago there was not much of a unique Slavic Culture to preserve. Today there is. Today we even speak about a Slavic soul, some like to mention a Russian soul. All of that was unheard of two bloody thousand years ago, because we weren't that much different from Germanic or Celts, and if you think otherwise, you just like to fool and delude yourself.
So no, it is not that we should preserve 2008 Slavs - I don't think that is a good idea considering the shitty situation we are in. I think Slavs had much of a Civilization 200 years ago, 500 years, and I am sure it goes even longer than that, that made us unique enough and worthy to preserve, but damn, if some mixing ensued, what can we do? Blow our heads up? It has to end somewhere though. That's called drawing a line.

You also failed to acknowledge there is a global project to destroy ethincities and to create a "single human race" in our day and age. You can't compare that with any previous mixing that happened because of natural contact. That is also a factor to ponder.

Anyway, what's your point anyway? Since acknowledging some mixing might have occurred back then, ALLEGEDLY makes the thought of preserving ourselves today a mute point, we should pretend mixing never took place?

[joko]

whitecossack said:

joko said:

I have high cheek bones, almond shaped eyes...the question is...are these characteristics "oriental" or are they just how Slavs naturally have always looked WITHOUT interacting with other tribal groups.. Alot of people say the Sami in North Scandanavia are part Mongolian because of their characteristics..but..I've read somewhere that DNA analysis has shown that the Sami aka Lapps are distinct from Asians.

I say we answer WHO CARES. We love our people not because they are Aryans, but because they are who they are, regardless. If Slavs have asian blood, does it change anyone's feelings? I am sure it doesn't.
Either way, Slavs look the best.

Agreed.

[pastir]

whitecossack said:

You are coming from a purity perspective, and I am telling you that the civilization aspect is what makes a people/ethnicity/race/whatever distinct. Eastern Slavs are, TODAY, different from Germanic races in every possible way, minus the look - in a broad sense.

And therein lies your problem. You had to resort to saying "Eastern Slavs" instead of "Slavs". That is because you are claiming civilisation is what defines a people first and foremost, but you are aware it is impossible to speak of any well rounded, well defined and very distinct Slavic civilisation. At best we can speak of East Slavic civilisation. But that we can is of minor relevance when we speak of Slavdom as a whole.

whitecossack said:

The relevant aspect is, at that point in History - you chose 1.500 rather than 2.000 years ago for whatever reason, but it does not make a difference really - Slavs were not that much different than other Indo-European people. Hunters, warriors, living in similar tribalist fashion, worshipping more or less the same deities - which represented the same things.

Hypocrisy. As if today we were not all railwaymen, coal miners and accountants, living in very similar nuclear families and worshipping precisley the same christian God as the rest of the Europeans.

And by the way 500 AD Slavs were primarily farmers not hunters. Also they were expert beekepers and mead brewers. But I suppose that is not as convenient for your argument as characterising them as no more advanced than cro magnons.

Why 500 AD picks itself should be obvious. It was just before the great migration and expansion of Slavs thus just before differences between us started to develop since we were stil living over a relativley small area and were in constant communication with eachother.

whitecossack said:

Sophism. I know how you view this subject, but I can't agree. Protestant and muslim Slavs are Slavic by blood only. I don't see them as part of Slavdom, from a Civilizational standpoint. So what if they are Slavic by blood, how does that proves your point that Slavic used to be more unique? It is pure nonsense.
Anyway, how many Protestant Slavs are there in? Sorry, but your example is a terrible one.
Plus, who says we have to widen our definition? I say we don't. As long as you keep approaching this from a purely racial perspective, you won't be able to look further beyond that.

At least you can not be accused of shying away from the implications of driving your argument home. Sticking to your definition obviously demands we start to exclude a great deal of Slavs as not fully worthy of Slavdom and I`m glad you realise that.

How many Slavs are Protestant is irrelevant (and in any case there are far more than there are Sorbs, jet you would not claim the low number of Sorbs means they are less Slavic would you?). They are Slavs and they have as much right to be considered Slavs as anybody else does. You can not simply pull claims to the contrary out of your arse to say otherwise. They are Protestant, and so what? Who is to say that going Protestant was an incorrect civilisational choice?

And in any case Protestants probably contributed disproportionaly to Slavic culture, in quite a few Slavic nations it was Protestant ministers who translated the Bible and published the first books printed in the local Slavic language. On top of that they were traditionaly far more rebellious and resentfull of foreign overrule than Catholics were. The best example are the Czech Hussites. Actually it is impossible to seperate Czech national character from the Czech Protestant tradition, their version of the battle of the blackbird`s field - the battle of the white mountain- the battle that spelt the end of Czech statehood was actually a battle between Catholics and Protestants and let me tell you the Czechs there were not the Catholics.

But you are saying they are not fully Slavs anymore, unlike the Czechs that bowed to the Pope and the Kaiser of the Holly Roman Empire of the German People? Fascinating.

All Slavic Catholic peoples historicaly and traditionaly had a Protestants among them with a significan enough number of Czechs, Slovaks and Slovenes stil being Protestant today (a number which would have been higher had they not been persecuted by the chatolic chauvinists and enemies of Slavs - the Habsburgs) and there are probably more Protestant than Catholic Sorbs. But you would claim only the Catholic Sorbs are really Slavs? Not sure how well is that going to go down with them. What about Milan Kucan the first president of Slovenia...he stems from a Protestant family so he isn`t really a Slav, huh. Well Slovenes being defined as a Slavic nation, he isn`t really a Slovene either is he. Will you break this news to the Slovenes or should I?

whitecossack said:

Plus, who says we have to widen our definition? I say we don't.

What you say is meaningless when you base it on thin air. Thousands and thousands of Protestant Slavs speak louder to me than you do. If Protestants can be culturaly Slavs then we must widden the definition of slavic culture to include and allow some Protestant traditions and currents. But of course, you do not accept Protestants as Slavs for the sin of millitantly insisting that they be allowed to worship God in their own native Slavonic language rather than in Latin like the pliant Catholics Slavs of the time did? Oooh, bad Protestants, bad Protestants!

Infact this is getting insulting. We can not have an Ukraininan deciding for Czechs and Slovaks which ones of them are worthy of being fully Slavs and which are not. What is next? The Polish deciding for the Russians Old Belivers are actually Slavic by blood only and must be left out of Slavdom to some extent? I belive any Catholic Czech/Slovak/Slovene would view it is a package. You either take them all as your brethren in full or none.

We can`t allow someone "deciding" Slavs of protestant faith aren`t fully Slav anymore than we can have someone deciding Roman Catholic Slavs aren`t really culturaly Slavs or someone deciding it is actually the Orthodox Slavs who aren`t culturaly Slavic.

The sheer notion is plainly absurd.

whitecossack said:

A single language 1.500 years ago? I don`t think so.

What are you talking about? Even centuries later than 500 AD we stil spoke what was essentially stil one dialecticised, but mutually inteligable language (with Old Church Slavonic being it`s shared literary standard). There is no single instance of a modern Slavic language claiming to be more than 1,000 years old. There is no modern Slavic language that can point to a written example of it`s early variant that would be older than 1,000 years.

whitecossack said:

Oh really? And where is this "uniqueness" when their neighbours, which happened to be related to Slavs by way of being Indo-European, ...

They are stil related to Slavs by that way, jet you don`t seem to care much for that. Ah but of course you don`t care because since then our civilisations have grown distinct? Except we Slavs ourselves have grown civilisationaly seperate to quite a degree too, so why do you care about Slavs as a whole then at all? Surely the civilisational differences between Sorbs and Don Cossacks, or between Novosibirsk and Trieste do no lag very much behind the civilisational differences between Carinthian Germans and Carinthian Slovenes (in Austria`s Carinthia region).

whitecossack said:

... whether you like it or not, praticed the same customs, lived the same way they did, dressed the same way, built settlements in the same fashion, worshipped the same deities? Of course when I say "same" you should understand it as "hellish simillar".

1. This is rubish. The same customs? Absolutley not. I jet have to find mention of jurjevanje, kurentovanje and other preserved slavic pagan traditions among the Pashtuns, the Norwegians or Albanians.

Actually Slavs of the time lived in very specific housing "zemljanke" or ground houses distinct from anything the Persians or the Greeks and mayority of other Indo-Europeans lived in at the time.

The same deities? Wrong. First Slavic paganism was much less a fully blown, and well rounded religion than Greek, Roman and even Germanic paganism were, it simply lacked a concrete and definite pantheon of Slavic gods. Second, while there are similarities between say Germanic or Greek and Slavic paganism there are also substantial differences. For example while Perun is obviously the same deity as Jupiter is there is no Roman counterpart for Volos that would be truly paralel to him.

2. Hypocrisy again. Do we today not practice very many customs that can be found among many non-Slavs as well? And in a very similar manner? Baptism, engagement, bachelor party, graduation ceremony, friday night binge drinking? Infact what do you know many of theese customs are performed more similarly between some Slavs and some non-Slavs than between some Slavs and other Slavs. Certainly a catholic baptism in Poznan looks much more like catholic baptism in Dublin than an orthodox baptism in Rostov. And certainly a Slovene alpine village looks exactly the same as a German alpine village.

3. There is a much bigger difference between the way of life of Polish of the middle ages and the Polish of today than there is between the Polish of the middle ages and of the Germans of the middle ages. Does that means a German of 15th century was more of a Pole than a today`s Pole?

4. Here you limit yourself to Indo-Europeans. In the original post however there was talk about Asians as well.

whitecossack said:

And by the way, you are being delusional. The whole awareness thing is pure crap. Slavs fought against other Slavs. Slavs assimilated other people when expanding and on and on. If anything, I am sure the sense of ethnic belonging is much stronger today - or was in the XIX century anyway - than it was back then. Or do you think ancient Slavs had worries such as "we shouldn't mix or Slavic blood to maintain our identity". ? I am sure they were more worried with more prevalent thing such as surviving and making alliances with whoever in order to be stronger.

Hypocrisy, hypocrisy, hypocrisy.

So they fought eachother? Big deal, as if that was of great relevance when speaking of identity. Wars are fought for reasons of politics not of identity. Serbs fought eachother in at least three sided civil war in the 1941/45 period as did the Russians eg in various uprisings jet nobody would claim Serbs and Russians of the time were not aware of themselves being Serbs and Russians.

So they didn`t have worries about mixing with other populations? You mean just like Slavs didn`t worry about that 200 or 500 years ago, after this civilisational proccess of yours had already taken place? Lets not be hypocrites here, 200 years ago Russian nobles spoke French, considered Russian a peasant language and the tsars themselves were breeding with Germanics like there is no tommorow.

Additionaly you are mixing up terms. Ethnic and national awarness is not one and the same. (Although with modern Slavs forming exclusivley Ehnic Nation states our national awarness ie nationalism is built on our ethnicity and ethnic identity.) Slavs were aware of their own ethnic distinction. This is a fact. You are fool if you think otherwise. You said tribal societies everywhere are much alike. Well tribal societies everywhere where they are in contact with ethnic aliens have a sense of ethnic awarness, it is true for Pashtuns today, it was true for the Sioux in the 19th century, it was true of the Avars in the 7th century and it was true of Slavs in the 6th century (hell it was true for Montenegrins of 18th century). This ethnic awarness might not guide their actions to a huge degree, might not have even be their primary identity, but that doesn`t mean it doesn`t exist. There would not have been a native term "Slavs" if it didn`t in the first place. If the ethnic identity was the primary motivation and guidance for their politics (including wars and intermarrying) then I would have been speaking of a national awarness not of simply an ethnic awerness, which I obviously hadn`t.

Besides as you say yourself national awarness did not appear in a meaningful way until the 19th century. Jet this again reveals the hypocrisy of your argument. If Slavs of 16th century are not bashed by you for lacking national awarness why should the Slavs of 6th century be? If anything their ethnic identity was more important to the pre-migration Slavs and guided their politics more than of a huge number of catholic Slavs at the zenith of catholic influence and it`s universalism.


By the way, do you have any sources to back this claim of ancient Slavs fighting amongst themselves? I sure as hell can`t think of any specific documented instance. Know a fair many of them after this civilisational process of yours started to kick in.

whitecossack said:

The identity building process happened because we evolved. We built a Civilization, a distinct Culture, and when you are part of a Civilization, which stands on it's own, you develop a sense of belonging and uniqueness.

Except there isn`t a distinct and unified Slavic civilisation. Thus Slavic identity can not rest on civilisation and did not develop based on it. How could there be a Slavic civilisation when there was next to no communication between us?? Communication is surely the most basic requirement for a unified civilisation. There are huge similarities between us but they stem from our shared ethnic character, unified origin and old pre-migration traditions, not from Slavdom as a whole building one single civilisation together.

Russian romanticist poets were familiar with the Englishman Byron, but I`ll be damned if any of them read Slovene Preseren.

whitecossack said:

something that JUST DOESN'T HAPPEN if you are a barbarian living in the woods,

Slavs of the time were not living in the woods. They burned them to make room for fields. Not sure if you noticed, but Ukraine the ancient homeland of Slavs isn`t all that wooded.

Early Slavs were simple farmfolk, not savages despite your insinuations.

whitecossack said:

whose sole purpose in living is hunting, battling and procreating, just like all your neighbours do as well

You`re obviously generalising and distorting. But well two can play at it... You mean just like today the sole purpose of dwellers in Slavic countries is TV watching, fucking around and drinking in youth and TV watching, procreating (but not too much) and drinking in maturity, just like of all of our neigbours` as well?

whitecossack said:

Of course Slavs were already Slavs before any mixing...Yeah, 10.000 years ago Slavs were already Slavic by blood, and I am sure a lot more "pure" than 1.500 years ago. How is that relevant? Do you think Slavs had any redeeming trait 10.000 years ago that is worthy that we keep it today, or were they just another Indo-European people without much of a Culture to speak of? By your reasoning, 10.000 years ago must had been the peak of Slavdom, since that's when they were more "unified", spoke a single language and had mixed less. Oh wait, except if you compare them with Slavs from 15.000 years ago, who are also "less unique" than Slavs from 20.000 years ago. Who cares if they had not a Culture to speak of, they spoke a single language and were "more unified".

I see you had fun writting this, but I am not quite sure to put it mildly Slavs were already a distinct ethnicity 20,000 years ago, which is actually way before the last ice age ended in Europe.

whitecossack said:

Your last point makes clear you didn't read what I wrote. I specifically said we should draw a line somewhere. It has nothing to do with Slavs of today being more desirable than Slavs of yore or Slavs of tomorrow. Where did you get this idea?

It is clear you don`t see what I was getting to. I`m sying "we should draw a line somewhere" is a non-argument. It is entirely arbitrary. There is no thought out coherent logic ingrained within it. When you are in the buissines of drawing lines like this, there is no reason why drawing of the line on one point in time is any better than drawing it on any other point of time. Regardless how beneficial do you think the drawing of the line *somewhere* would be.

And this collapses the whole argument. By the same token that you want to arbitrarily draw the line today I can assert that the line should be actually drawn not today but exactly 3 years from now or maybe precisley two months ago or something as ridicilous as that.

whitecossack said:

The thing is, when you haven't built a Civilization of your own per see, there is not much to "preserve". In other words, the richest - rich in the sense of with more details, deeper, more complex, with more aspects, better developed, etc - your Culture is, the more you have to lose by mixing.

Which is an interesting argument for Russians not to mix with Slovenes.

whitecossack said:

So no, it is not that we should preserve 2008 Slavs - I don't think that is a good idea considering the shitty situation we are in. I think Slavs had much of a Civilization 200 years ago, 500 years, and I am sure it goes even longer than that, that made us unique enough and worthy to preserve, but damn, if some mixing ensued, what can we do? Blow our heads up? It has to end somewhere though. That's called drawing a line.

Why should we? I know myself why we should, but your argument for it is lacking. The very civilisation 200 or 500 years ago which you value so much in itself, did not consider naturaly occuring ethnic mixing a threat to herself, why then should we who according to you quite possibly live in civlisationaly inferior circumnstances?

whitecossack said:

Anyway, what's your point anyway? Since acknowledging some mixing might have occurred back then, ALLEGEDLY makes the thought of preserving ourselves today a mute point, we should pretend mixing never took place?

The point I was hoping to get to eventualy is... If you are OK with the thought that "slavic look" is in some part a result of early mixing with Asians (which it probably isn`t since Asians have wide checkbones not high checkbones) then you are obviously OK with the physical appearance of Slavs changing from the original before we supposedly mixed with Asians and thus have no argument against mixing with other peoples that would result in enhancing that look further. It means you can not be against mixing with a few Vietnameese on the grounds that it would in some small way enhance the "slavic look".

That this is not what you mean and stand for is irrelevant, if this logicaly stems from your initial stance (which I share) and so far l belive it does.

The point is. The average physical appearance of Slavs has shifted through time to some degree. This is a fact. You only need to take a short walk through Herzegovina or Montenegro to see the influence Illyrian Dinaric genetic material had on largely geneticaly recessive more Slavic physical traits. So in light of that to insist on "racial purity" on the grounds that we must preserve our look comes dangerously close to me to implying we should hate ourselves for not looking precisley like our forefathers (who maybe did not have looked precisely like their forefathers themselves if the Asian mixing thing is correct - which it probably isn`t, but with which we are OK even if correct, because we are not morons).

The reason mixing is actually undesirable is that ultimatley we are Slavs for no other reason than that we are heirs to the same unified people and a continuation of the same forefathers. (We share much more than our origin, but it is our origin, our ancestry that makes us Slavs, what else we share is a result of that origin and acenstry.) If we mix that is simply not true anymore. We can preserve our culture and language as mongrels regardless, but if we are not largely Slavs by ancestry anymore then it is all a fakery and a delusion regardless of physical appearance.

Thus in conclusion mixing with people who look like us is as undesirable as mixing with people who don`t.

[White Cossack]

And therein lies your problem. You had to resort to saying "Eastern Slavs" instead of "Slavs". That is because you are claiming civilisation is what defines a people first and foremost, but you are aware it is impossible to speak of any well rounded, well defined and very distinct Slavic civilisation. At best we can speak of East Slavic civilisation. But that we can is of minor relevance when we speak of Slavdom as a whole.

Not a problem. I said Eastern Slavs because I know them the most, and because speaking on behalf of a great mass of people is very pretentious.
I could had said Slavs only, and it would still be a truthful assertion.

Hypocrisy. As if today we were not all railwaymen, coal miners and accountants, living in very similar nuclear families and worshipping precisley the same christian God as the rest of the Europeans.

Except that today we have developed a writting system, music, literature, an aesthetic sense, a worldview of our own - by the manner of our thinkers and even through our simple folk - etc from which we express ourselves. If you can't see that, than you probably won't be able to look things from a different perspective.
Second of all, again I will only speak for Eastern Slavs, not because of what implied before, but because I would like to avoid being pretentious. Anyway, the way we worship our Christian God has absolutely NOTHING to do with the "rest of Europeans". This was true 500 years ago, let alone today...

And by the way 500 AD Slavs were primarily farmers not hunters. Also they were expert beekepers and mead brewers. But I suppose that is not as convenient for your argument as characterising them as no more advanced than cro magnons.

It is irrelevant to my argument, because, and I think you fail to notice that so far, it has nothing to do with how advanced we were, but how similar we were to other Indo-European people.

Why 500 AD picks itself should be obvious. It was just before the great migration and expansion of Slavs thus just before differences between us started to develop since we were stil living over a relativley small area and were in constant communication with eachother.

It has been a lot of talk as to the Great Migration in this forum, different theories pertaining it. But let's no dwell on that, it doesn't change the subject at hand by any means.

At least you can not be accused of shying away from the implications of driving your argument home. Sticking to your definition obviously demands we start to exclude a great deal of Slavs as not fully worthy of Slavdom and I`m glad you realise that.

In the other hand, you are not being entirely coherent, like I am, but I will speak more about that when I get to the "drawing the line" argument.
As to the excluding part, more on that below.

How many Slavs are Protestant is irrelevant (and in any case there are far more than there are Sorbs, jet you would not claim the low number of Sorbs means they are less Slavic would you?). They are Slavs and they have as much right to be considered Slavs as anybody else does. You can not simply pull claims to the contrary out of your arse to say otherwise. They are Protestant, and so what? Who is to say that going Protestant was an incorrect civilisational choice?

Numbers are quite relevant. If they are were so few - and they mean any group of people, not solely protestants - they didn't have an impact on the development of what defines being Slavic.
Sorbs is a different matter altogether. They faced - and still face - the obnoxious Germanic genocidal warmachine. They didn't chose to be few in numbers.
And I won't bother answering to "who says what is right" BS, because I don't bother to reply to typical liberal crap. By the same tokien, Nationalism is not the right choice per see - however you put it, you could never justify it in absolute terms, at most you could say it is your preferable choice - and I don't abide to discussing in this relativism terms, because they are foreign to everything I believe in.

And in any case Protestants probably contributed disproportionaly to Slavic culture, in quite a few Slavic nations it was Protestant ministers who translated the Bible and published the first books printed in the local Slavic language. On top of that they were traditionaly far more rebellious and resentfull of foreign overrule than Catholics were. The best example are the Czech Hussites. Actually it is impossible to seperate Czech national character from the Czech Protestant tradition, their version of the battle of the blackbird`s field - the battle of the white mountain- the battle that spelt the end of Czech statehood was actually a battle between Catholics and Protestants and let me tell you the Czechs there were not the Catholics.

Dude, I think you are grossly mistaken. The Hussite Wars took place between 1420-1434. Protestant Reformation came only a century later... You are confusing things. Hussite movement began in response to the execution of Jan Hus, and although it had a clearly anti-Papal tone, they couldn't had been "protestant", because there was no such a thing by then. Do you mean the Utraquists?
Anyway, I reckon religion is not that much important in Czech Republic, but even so, only 2.5% of them are protestant, and when you consider the folkdeutsch living there, it means no Slavic Czech is protestant nowadays. How important can be protestantism for Czechs if it was not even able to minally root itself in Czech Nation? It didn't because it is an unSlavic religion. Haha, and you say we can't separate Czech Nation from protestantism. That comes to me as a gross offense. Unless you mean german "Czechs".

But you are saying they are not fully Slavs anymore, unlike the Czechs that bowed to the Pope and the Kaiser of the Holly Roman Empire of the German People? Fascinating.

Read above. Protestantism was not able to root itself in ANY Slavic Nation, simple because it is unSlavic - if not anti-Slavic. It can't be part of Slavdom if no Slavic Nation has even adopted in large scale. Despite if you like Catholics or the Pope, there is no denying Catholicism is part of the Slavdom. You can't separate Polish Nation from Catholicism. Now that is a fair assertion, unlike your previous BS about Czech people and protestantism.

All Slavic Catholic peoples historicaly and traditionaly had a Protestants among them

And I am sure the Polacks resent that to this day. Read something on the Potop - Deluge - and you will have a great example of protestant loyalty to their Slavic "masters".

with a significan enough number of Czechs, Slovaks and Slovenes stil being Protestant today

2,5% for Czechs - and there are still germans living there by the way - 10% in Slovakia. As for Slovenia, there are more Orthodox and mudslim than there are protestant. So LEARN YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT.
Slovakia is the only with a minor considerable number. There are more muslim than that in Russia though, and no one who isn't a liberal idiot will say that islamism is part of Russian Civilization.
Damn, all Slavic Nations - probably not in the Balkans, but you can correct me on that - had a zhid minority through out History, and they are not at all part of those nations.

(a number which would have been higher had they not been persecuted by the chatolic chauvinists and enemies of Slavs - the Habsburgs)

Most of them ethnic germans anyway. Won't be missed. Plus, as I said, Polish have a thing or two to say about protestant loyalty.

and there are probably more Protestant than Catholic Sorbs. But you would claim only the Catholic Sorbs are really Slavs? Not sure how well is that going to go down with them.

I admit I don't know what are the demographics for the Sorbs, but really, the fact you insists in them proves your desperation to make a point.
They are an entirely different case. There are barely no Sorbians, and they live in a mostly protestant country. Really low blow to use them the way you do. They don't even have a country of their own.

What about Milan Kucan the first president of Slovenia...he stems from a Protestant family so he isn`t really a Slav, huh. Well Slovenes being defined as a Slavic nation, he isn`t really a Slovene either is he. Will you break this news to the Slovenes or should I?

Despite your ironic overtone, I don't really care for some Milan Kucan nobody. As I said before, there are more Orthodox people in Slovenia than there are protestants. I rest my case.

What you say is meaningless when you base it on thin air. Thousands and thousands of Protestant Slavs speak louder to me than you do. If Protestants can be culturaly Slavs then we must widden the definition of slavic culture to include and allow some Protestant traditions and currents. But of course, you do not accept Protestants as Slavs for the sin of millitantly insisting that they be allowed to worship God in their own native Slavonic language rather than in Latin like the pliant Catholics Slavs of the time did? Oooh, bad Protestants, bad Protestants!

You are the one basing your argument on thin air. As I proved above, protestantism has NO BEARING to the Culture of any Slavic Nation. It has no roots in any Slavic Nation. At most, it is a tiny religion practiced by a small minority of people - some of them ethnic germans. No more than that.
Plus, there are as many definitions as there are people. I won't ever accept protestantism as part of Slavic Civilization, no matter the ammount of liberal rhetoric you might use. There are ETHNIC Russians who converted to islamism, and I won't "widden" my definition of Russkii to encompass them. How ridiculous of you.

Plus, you were talking about being Slavic by blood, now you refer to being "culturally Slavic". Make up your mind. Anyway, they can be Slavic only by blood.

Infact this is getting insulting. We can not have an Ukraininan deciding for Czechs and Slovaks which ones of them are worthy of being fully Slavs and which are not. What is next? The Polish deciding for the Russians Old Belivers are actually Slavic by blood only and must be left out of Slavdom to some extent? I belive any Catholic Czech/Slovak/Slovene would view it is a package. You either take them all as your brethren in full or none.

Except that I CRUMBLED your premisses above, so your logical construction does not make any sense. There are not any considerable ammount of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks who are protestant, so don't speak as if I am denying dozens of millions the condition of being Slavic.
Anyway, I have as much legitimacy to say which ones of them I think are not, as you have legitimacy to say how many of them actually are. And even if I have none, I can certainly say which ones I will be accepting as my brethren, and I don't accept protestants as my own. That must mean I am anti-Slavic in your book, but whatever. And no, it is not "a package".

We can`t allow someone "deciding" Slavs of protestant faith aren`t fully Slav anymore than we can have someone deciding Roman Catholic Slavs aren`t really culturaly Slavs or someone deciding it is actually the Orthodox Slavs who aren`t culturaly Slavic.

As I already said, I won't go around broadening my definitions, because eventually that will lead to accepting any sort of trash.

The sheer notion is plainly absurd.

What is plainly absurd is to pretend that protestantism is as relevant to any Slavic Nation as Orthodoxy is to Eastern Slavs or Catholicism to Polacks.

What are you talking about? Even centuries later than 500 AD we stil spoke what was essentially stil one dialecticised, but mutually inteligable language (with Old Church Slavonic being it`s shared literary standard). There is no single instance of a modern Slavic language claiming to be more than 1,000 years old. There is no modern Slavic language that can point to a written example of it`s early variant that would be older than 1,000 years.

By the time of the Baptism of Rus, my ancestors already spoke a distinctive language.

They are stil related to Slavs by that way, jet you don`t seem to care much for that. Ah but of course you don`t care because since then our civilisations have grown distinct? Except we Slavs ourselves have grown civilisationaly seperate to quite a degree too, so why do you care about Slavs as a whole then at all? Surely the civilisational differences between Sorbs and Don Cossacks, or between Novosibirsk and Trieste do no lag very much behind the civilisational differences between Carinthian Germans and Carinthian Slovenes (in Austria`s Carinthia region).

They are still related, but much less. Culturally saying, I would say they are only marginally related.
It is true Slavs have grown distinct as well. We should respect that and not pretend we are carbon papers of each other. I think that's great.

1. This is rubish. The same customs? Absolutley not. I jet have to find mention of jurjevanje, kurentovanje and other preserved slavic pagan traditions among the Pashtuns, the Norwegians or Albanians.

I don't know who the Pashtuns are, and the albanians are not related to us in any sense. As for the Norwegians, I doubt you have any great deal of knowledge about them to say so.
But if you want to dellude yourself that Slavs were that much different from Germanics, then be my guess - I mean 2.000 years ago. I am sure 1.000 years ago we had already parted ways with them a greater deal.

Actually Slavs of the time lived in very specific housing "zemljanke" or ground houses distinct from anything the Persians or the Greeks and mayority of other Indo-Europeans lived in at the time.

Haha, very smart of you, but I won't fall for that. Magically you changed the focus from Germanics to Persians and Greeks. Oh why of course, they were the ones most advanced of all of us, and the ones who lived the most differently. I was not refering to them, obviously.

The same deities? Wrong. First Slavic paganism was much less a fully blown, and well rounded religion than Greek, Roman and even Germanic paganism were, it simply lacked a concrete and definite pantheon of Slavic gods. Second, while there are similarities between say Germanic or Greek and Slavic paganism there are also substantial differences. For example while Perun is obviously the same deity as Jupiter is there is no Roman counterpart for Volos that would be truly paralel to him.

Just because Slavic paganism is less known than Germanic one, it doesn't mean it was more abstract - lacked a pantheon. I want to see sources for your claim.

2. Hypocrisy again. Do we today not practice very many customs that can be found among many non-Slavs as well? And in a very similar manner? Baptism, engagement, bachelor party, graduation ceremony, friday night binge drinking? Infact what do you know many of theese customs are performed more similarly between some Slavs and some non-Slavs than between some Slavs and other Slavs. Certainly a catholic baptism in Poznan looks much more like catholic baptism in Dublin than an orthodox baptism in Rostov. And certainly a Slovene alpine village looks exactly the same as a German alpine village.

Refer to what I said before. We express ourselves in many more and different ways than we did before, which allowed us to develop our Slavic Soul and unique Civilization. I am sure you couldn't speak of a Slavic Soul when we were hunting - or plowing if you prefer - some 2.000 years ago.
Plus, it is not for playing that Slavs are divided into three groups. Of course there are differences to be found. It is you who are insisting on them. Maybe you want to emphatise them.

3. There is a much bigger difference between the way of life of Polish of the middle ages and the Polish of today than there is between the Polish of the middle ages and of the Germans of the middle ages. Does that means a German of 15th century was more of a Pole than a today`s Pole?

How long it will take you to realise it is about drawing the line somewhere? In the 15th century I reckon there was already a distinctiveness in Polish Nation enough to tell them apart from krauts. Not so much 2.000 years ago.
Anticipating your counter-argument, of course it is arbitrary, but so is everything else. Drawing the line to recognize Slavs as a distinct group is also arbitrary. Some might argue we are all Indo-Europeans, and some will draw the line in the "human race". I am sure you don't mind being arbitrary yourself when you draw the line to define Slavs do you? So don't pretend my argument should be counted out just because it is "arbitrary".

4. Here you limit yourself to Indo-Europeans. In the original post however there was talk about Asians as well.

Unintentional. But it should be clear though. Obviously we mixed more with other Indo-Europeans than with asiatics - I don't even believe we did that to any relevant degree, that's purely western propaganda. I was only saying, considering we can't change the past - and that's the whole point - that this won't change the least my view on Slavic people.
This is important for knowledge purposes, at most.

So they fought eachother? Big deal, as if that was of great relevance when speaking of identity. Wars are fought for reasons of politics not of identity. Serbs fought eachother in at least three sided civil war in the 1941/45 period as did the Russians eg in various uprisings jet nobody would claim Serbs and Russians of the time were not aware of themselves being Serbs and Russians.

Why did you omit the word "unified" this time? Yeah, very smart of you...

So they didn`t have worries about mixing with other populations? You mean just like Slavs didn`t worry about that 200 or 500 years ago, after this civilisational proccess of yours had already taken place? Lets not be hypocrites here, 200 years ago Russian nobles spoke French, considered Russian a peasant language and the tsars themselves were breeding with Germanics like there is no tommorow.

Still, the sense of ethnic belonging is much stronger today than it was before, you can't deny that.
This is not the same as saying we don't mix today, or that we didn't 200 years ago.
At least with the knowledge - and the bigger awareness - we have today, we might have the choice to decide whence we go from here. There was no such an option back then. Again, this makes a big difference.

Additionaly you are mixing up terms.

Actually you are. Pureness is not the same as uniqueness. Of course the further back in time we are, the purer we were. However, the less we were unique, because the less distinct traits we had to separate us from other similar people. The simpler a society is, the most similar it is going to be to other societies more or less around the same civilizational stage - and when the racial origin is related, the similiarities will only get bigger.
You don't need a master degree in Anthropology or Sociology to notice that.

[White Cossack]

Ehnic Nation states our national awarness ie nationalism is built on our ethnicity and ethnic identity.) Slavs were aware of their own ethnic distinction. This is a fact. You are fool if you think otherwise.

A child is aware that she is a distinctive human being, yet she can not fully grasp what that means, not until she fully develops.
I think that is a fair analogy to make. To know you are distinctive means not much by itself. They spoke a different language than say Celts, of course they could notice there had to exist a difference; they were not morons. If you think this awareness is the same we have today, than you are the fool.
In other words, those four lines of you have absolutely no relevant meaning.

You said tribal societies everywhere are much alike.

Because they are. Of course the differences between European tribal societies and Sub-Saharan ones are a lot bigger though.

Well tribal societies everywhere where they are in contact with ethnic aliens have a sense of ethnic awarness, it is true for Pashtuns today, it was true for the Sioux in the 19th century, it was true of the Avars in the 7th century and it was true of Slavs in the 6th century

And that is supposed to mean? Refer to what I said two quotation above.

(hell it was true for Montenegrins of 18th century).

LOL! It is true for 21th century Montenegrins, as pitiful as that might be.

This ethnic awarness might not guide their actions to a huge degree, might not have even be their primary identity, but that doesn`t mean it doesn`t exist.

Existing is not alone to make it relevant. You say "not to a huge degree", I say "not by any degree". To say it existed is nitpicking for the sake of arguing. It's extent might be a relevant subject for discussion.

There would not have been a native term "Slavs" if it didn`t in the first place.

As mentioned, it is all about linguists. You see someone speaking a different language, and it becomes all to clear for you.

If the ethnic identity was the primary motivation and guidance for their politics (including wars and intermarrying) then I would have been speaking of a national awarness not of simply an ethnic awerness, which I obviously hadn`t.

Haha, now you are making up stuff to argue. Speaking out of your ass like I have never seen before.
There is no such distinction. Ethnic awareness refer to, well, ethnic awareness. National awareness refer to, you guess right, national awareness. The difference lies in the fact that ethnicity is a different concept from nation, not in the degree of awareness, like you imply - there is national awareness if I base my actions on this knowledge; there is ethnical awareness if, despite knowing I am apart, I don't let this knowledge affect my decision in regards to who I should marry or go to war with. LOL! Come on dude, this is ridiculous!
Ethnicity is a broader term than Nation is. You can have one without the other, although most likely if you care about your ethnicity - which is a step ahead of being simply "aware" - than you will also care for your Nation. Unless you are a Pan-Slavist, who cares solely for the Slavic ethnicity, in detriment to your own individual Nation.
But please, don't make up this non-existant distinction between ethnical and national awareness. That's belittling my intelligence.

Besides as you say yourself national awarness did not appear in a meaningful way until the 19th century. Jet this again reveals the hypocrisy of your argument.

I NEVER did so. Next.

If Slavs of 16th century are not bashed by you for lacking national awarness why should the Slavs of 6th century be? If anything their ethnic identity was more important to the pre-migration Slavs and guided their politics more than of a huge number of catholic Slavs at the zenith of catholic influence and it`s universalism.

Both were aware. Being Aware is different from caring though. Anyway, I will use my child analogy once again. 6th century Slavs were children who knew their condition as a distinctive group from non-Slavs they had encountered so far. Still, that knowledge was pure instinct. 16th century Slavs already had a bigger sense of awareness. I am sure today this knowledge is much bigger.
As I said, being aware is not the same as caring for. Although today there is absolutely no doubt of our uniqueness, a LOT of people don't care the least about that. However, it is as I said, being aware does not equal caring for, but the more aware you are, the more chances you have to care for. There is at least an option to do so. When you base your sense of distinctiveness in pure instinct - the people you meet look or speak differently from you - than the option is a lot smaller.
Just for saying, I would say the moment awareness and sense of caring meet with each other in their peak, was the 19th century.

By the way, do you have any sources to back this claim of ancient Slavs fighting amongst themselves? I sure as hell can`t think of any specific documented instance. Know a fair many of them after this civilisational process of yours started to kick in.

I don't need a source to tell you the sun rises everyday in the East. Or you mean they were so aware of their ethnicity that they refused to fight amongst themselves?

Except there isn`t a distinct and unified Slavic civilisation. Thus Slavic identity can not rest on civilisation and did not develop based on it. How could there be a Slavic civilisation when there was next to no communication between us??

Which is why Slavs are classed into three big groups. Each of them have a mini-Civilization of their own. I hope you know this.

Communication is surely the most basic requirement for a unified civilisation. There are huge similarities between us but they stem from our shared ethnic character, unified origin and old pre-migration traditions, not from Slavdom as a whole building one single civilisation together.

Who says there was no communication? Anyway, when I say Slavic Civilization, I have in mind the relevant differences between us, and I don't believe they should be supressed. Still, I believe in Slavdom, and not because of purely ethnical reasons, or because we share the same origin. I can see differences between the looks of different Slavic people, so if common origin and ethnicity is the best that you have, then you better find something a little more solid.

Russian romanticist poets were familiar with the Englishman Byron, but I`ll be damned if any of them read Slovene Preseren.

If you think Russian writters have that much in common with English ones, then I urge you to read on some Russian literature.

Slavs of the time were not living in the woods. They burned them to make room for fields. Not sure if you noticed, but Ukraine the ancient homeland of Slavs isn`t all that wooded.

Early Slavs were simple farmfolk, not savages despite your insinuations.

Whatever dude... if you think I wrote all that because my intent was to make Slavs look like savages, then you should re read it all.

You`re obviously generalising and distorting. But well two can play at it... You mean just like today the sole purpose of dwellers in Slavic countries is TV watching, fucking around and drinking in youth and TV watching, procreating (but not too much) and drinking in maturity, just like of all of our neigbours` as well?

Let me copy and paste something I have written before:

Except that today we have developed a writting system, music, literature, an aesthetic sense, a worldview of our own - by the manner of our thinkers and even through our simple folk - etc from which we express ourselves. If you can't see that, than you probably won't be able to look things from a different perspective.
Second of all, again I will only speak for Eastern Slavs, not because of what implied before, but because I would like to avoid being pretentious. Anyway, the way we worship our Christian God has absolutely NOTHING to do with the "rest of Europeans". This was true 500 years ago, let alone today...

I see you had fun writting this, but I am not quite sure to put it mildly Slavs were already a distinct ethnicity 20,000 years ago, which is actually way before the last ice age ended in Europe.

I am not quite sure myself either, but if you missed the point, than I fear for your comprehension skills.

It is clear you don`t see what I was getting to. I`m sying "we should draw a line somewhere" is a non-argument. It is entirely arbitrary.

Refer to what I said about "being arbitrary" somewhere above in my post.

There is no thought out coherent logic ingrained within it. When you are in the buissines of drawing lines like this, there is no reason why drawing of the line on one point in time is any better than drawing it on any other point of time. Regardless how beneficial do you think the drawing of the line *somewhere* would be.

Just like there is no "thought out coherent logic", or a "reason" to draw the line for Slavic Nationalism, and not including Germanics, Celts and Latins in a greater "Indo-European family". Stop bullshitting me man! We are drawing the line somewhere, everytime.
You could say you draw the line in the Slavic languages, and I will tell you Austrians, Eastern krauts and Hungarians have a lot of Slavic blood, and so we should welcome them as well, and you will tell me they shouldn't be accepted for whatever reason. That's called drawing a line somewhere, and that is arbitrary, because there is no reason I should abide to your definition.
I already gave you many hints as to where to draw the line. I think by the time of the Baptism of Rus, there was already a Slavic Culture to speak of. If you go back 2.000 years into History, I don't think we did. Of course it is arbitrary, but no less than any other classification. Still, as long as there is some fundament, it is legitimate.
Now, if it was 10 years before that, a few decades later, who knows or who CARES? However, it is a fair enough assumption to make that 2.000 years ago there wasn't any Slavic Civilization to speak of.

And this collapses the whole argument. By the same token that you want to arbitrarily draw the line today I can assert that the line should be actually drawn not today but exactly 3 years from now or maybe precisley two months ago or something as ridicilous as that.

Yeah, but that would make you look like a fool. As I already said in the example above, where should we draw the line for Slavic Nationalism? You once said anyone who identifies himself as Slavic and has some ammount of Slavic blood. Ain't that arbitrary? Why not an Austrian full of Slavic blood but who doesn't identify himself as Slavic? Why not the other way around? How about an ethnic Slav who doesn't identify himself as Slavic? So you are telling me that you can be arbitrary but I can not? Is that so?
I never said the line should be drawn today, I said it should be drawn somewhere. Can we speak of a Slavic Civilization today - having in mind our differences, obviously? Surely. 200 years ago, yeah. 1.000 years ago? I think so. 1.200 years before? We can discuss that. 2.000 years ago? Certainly not.
It is not about a specific year or month, it is about a period. I think you never studied History, because this is done everytime. Or do you think the Classical Antiquity ended precisely in 476? The Modernity started in 1453, and not a year before or later? And we all know Contemporany age began in 1789, when someone shout "The French Revolution has started".
It is not about the precise hour these transitions took place though, because they don't happen from night to day to begin with. It is a long process, but Historicians still "draw the line" somewhere because that makes the most sense. So you are only making a fool out of yourself pretending to make an argument out of a non-issue such as "three years from now" or "two months ago".
Why did they chose those years, well, because they had to chose a starting point, and it happened to be these. Arbitrary? Yes, but who fucking cares?!
So yeah, it is not about if the line should be a tad bit more to the right or to the left. I hope you can see that by now.

Which is an interesting argument for Russians not to mix with Slovenes.

Because of?

Why should we? I know myself why we should, but your argument for it is lacking. The very civilisation 200 or 500 years ago which you value so much in itself, did not consider naturaly occuring ethnic mixing a threat to herself, why then should we who according to you quite possibly live in civlisationaly inferior circumnstances?

What are you talking about? You didn't reply to what I said. I said that if mixing occurred before, this is long past, and there is nothing we can do about that. We can decide what to do from now on though.
I have also said that today the circumstances are entirely different - which you failed to address twice. Today there is a worldwide project to mix everyone up. Once this is accomplished, there won't be Slavs left to speak of. It is a whole different level from small scaled mixing that happened naturally when Slavs met up with different people.

The point I was hoping to get to eventualy is... If you are OK with the thought that "slavic look" is in some part a result of early mixing with Asians (which it probably isn`t since Asians have wide checkbones not high checkbones) then you are obviously OK with the physical appearance of Slavs changing from the original before we supposedly mixed with Asians and thus have no argument against mixing with other peoples that would result in enhancing that look further. It means you can not be against mixing with a few Vietnameese on the grounds that it would in some small way enhance the "slavic look".

First of all, "enhancing" is the word you chose to use, not me. Secondly, it is about choice; we can't change what our ancestors did, but we can decide how we do from now on. Thirdly, I am not "OK" with any thought. I don't care either way, because past can't be changed. It is you who seems prone to deny a "possible" historical fact on the account that you are not OK with the pratical implications of it - and that makes you a revisionist.
Fourthly, I am not, again, "Ok" with "furthering changing our look". The fact is, whether you like it or not, it MIGHT have changed - and it certainly did in some regions - and there is nothing that can be done about that. Regardless of the ammount of mixing that ensued, I am quite sure it was not that much, which means we preserve our original look, some more, some less, but we do nonetheless. If we keep mixing though, we wil eventually lose it.
The problem is that you look it through an "all or nothing" standpoint, and that is certainly BS. You are basically saying that if some mixing happened before, than it doesn't make any difference anymore. I can't comply with that. We aren't past the point of no return yet, but when "our" children start to look like they are from China or Georgia, then you can be sure nothing matters any longer - which is exactly what the NWO is all about.
Firthly, I have billions of arguments to justify why we shouldn't mix with Vietmanese. If it is you who can't find a single one if all the pieces of the puzzle can't fit exactly like you wish them to, or idealize them to, than that's your own problem.

That this is not what you mean and stand for is irrelevant, if this logicaly stems from your initial stance (which I share) and so far l belive it does.

Except that this is not necessarily the only logical consequence of my stance. The whole "if we mixed before we might as well keep mixing" logic is your own, and I certainly don't share it. That's like saying if you drank a litter of alcohol, you might as well drink two or three. It can always get worse.
Your logic would only make sense since we pass the point of no return - but I am sure you are going to say the "point of no return" is just my arbitrary construction, but whatever. Point of no return for me is giving birth to children who look like they could be from Vietnam, and I see no Slav who look like that. I would also like to repeat I don't believe today Slavs deviate from the "original Slavic look" that much.

The point is. The average physical appearance of Slavs has shifted through time to some degree. This is a fact. You only need to take a short walk through Herzegovina or Montenegro to see the influence Illyrian Dinaric genetic material had on largely geneticaly recessive more Slavic physical traits. So in light of that to insist on "racial purity" on the grounds that we must preserve our look comes dangerously close to me to implying we should hate ourselves for not looking precisley like our forefathers (who maybe did not have looked precisely like their forefathers themselves if the Asian mixing thing is correct - which it probably isn`t, but with which we are OK even if correct, because we are not morons).

The reason mixing is actually undesirable is that ultimatley we are Slavs for no other reason than that we are heirs to the same unified people and a continuation of the same forefathers. (We share much more than our origin, but it is our origin, our ancestry that makes us Slavs, what else we share is a result of that origin and acenstry.) If we mix that is simply not true anymore. We can preserve our culture and language as mongrels regardless, but if we are not largely Slavs by ancestry anymore then it is all a fakery and a delusion regardless of physical appearance.

So, you give me all this BS to finally present me with such an arbitrary reason? "Not true anymore". And where do YOU draw the line that enough mixing is enough? How much do we need to mix to lose this "link" to the ancient "unified Slavs"? To what degree we can be mongrels before we are not able anymore to preserve our culture and language? How much is "largely Slavs by ancestry"?
Why the Dinaric mixing in the Balkans - that you mentioned - was acceptable, and mixing today is not? How is it that this same mixing happened before and we still could preserve our language and culture, and if we mix today, we will simply lose them like magic? Mixing oh yore is different from mixing of today? Where is it that YOU DRAW THE LINE?!
Ultimately, you went around in circles to conclude the same thing I did...

Plus, you say that "ultimatley we are Slavs for no other reason than that we are heirs to the same unified people and a continuation of the same forefathers" but then you talk about preserving our culture and language, but who cares for culture and language if ultimatley we are Slavs for no other reason than that we are heirs to the same unified people and a continuation of the same forefathers. If culture and language are not part of what makes us "ultimately Slavs", then why bother preserving them? Just throw it all in the toilet, as long as you remember not to mix with anyone else, it won't make a difference... I am sorry, but you make no sense whatsoever. You need to work further on the foundations of your ideology. If you need justification to believe in Nationalism, then you need to try harder, because there is no coherence in your thinking.

Thus in conclusion mixing with people who look like us is as undesirable as mixing with people who don`t.

Now you are transforming the discussion between "mixing with other Whites" versus mixing with non-Whites. This was never the subject though. I am sure we diverged on this issue somewhere in the past in another thread, but this has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

[pastir]

whitecossack said:

To know you are distinctive means not much by itself. They spoke a different language than say Celts, of course they could notice there had to exist a difference; they were not morons. If you think this awareness is the same we have today, than you are the fool..

Can you read? I didn`t say their awarness was the same we have today. Infact I said it wasn`t. Don`t pull things out of your arse I supposedly said.

I said the Early Slavs posessed THE SAME LEVEL OF AWARNESS that Slavs posessed before the 19th century and the fomration of nationalist sentiment. Ie, they possesed ethnic awarness, but not national awarnes. Just like Slovaks or Serbs in medival times.

whitecossack said:

Because they are. Of course the differences between European tribal societies and Sub-Saharan ones are a lot bigger though.

You are pissing me off. Can`t you read?? YES THEY ARE. I SAID AS MUCH. I DIDN`T CONTEST THIS. SO WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU REPEATING IT?? Yes they are very much alike. Just like modern post-industrial societies everywhere are much alike. Of course with differences with post-industrial societies of East Asia are alot bigger.

whitecossack said:

LOL! It is true for 21th century Montenegrins, as pitiful as that might be.

Is this comedy for you?

18th century Montenegrins were a tribal society and possesed ethnic identiy. Is there a problem with what I said? Do you disagree with it??

Your ridicule of 21st century Montenegrins only harms your own position, because it again points out that even "civilised" Slavs do not neccesarily posses a national identity.

whitecossack said:

As mentioned, it is all about linguists. You see someone speaking a different language, and it becomes all to clear for you.

Show me how is that any different from 16th century Slovenes? Who were oh so civilised and shit according to you and so much better than Early Slavs based on just that alone.

Please do show me how Slovenes of 16th century were more aware of their own ethnic distinctivness than their 6th century predecesors were. If anything an 8th cenutry Slovene rebelling against the Franks with Ljudevit Posavski was a great deal more ethnicaly aware than some Slovene serf serving a German overlord in 14th.

whitecossack said:

Haha, now you are making up stuff to argue. Speaking out of your ass like I have never seen before.
There is no such distinction. Ethnic awareness refer to, well, ethnic awareness. National awareness refer to, you guess right, national awareness. The difference lies in the fact that ethnicity is a different concept from nation, not in the degree of awareness, like you imply - there is national awareness if I base my actions on this knowledge; there is ethnical awareness if, despite knowing I am apart, I don't let this knowledge affect my decision in regards to who I should marry or go to war with. LOL! Come on dude, this is ridiculous!
Ethnicity is a broader term than Nation is. You can have one without the other, although most likely if you care about your ethnicity - which is a step ahead of being simply "aware" - than you will also care for your Nation. Unless you are a Pan-Slavist, who cares solely for the Slavic ethnicity, in detriment to your own individual Nation.
But please, don't make up this non-existant distinction between ethnical and national awareness. That's belittling my intelligence.

I can`t belive what I am hearing. Shocking. You are not culturaly Slav! You have just been found out. Do you know what "narod" is? Have you any idea?! Apparently not! You obviously culturaly Western!

For a Slav both "ethnicity" and "nationality" are defined by narod and refered to as narod. There is no distinction. Distinction exists in the West where you can be Catalan/Galician/Castillian by ethnicity but Spanish by nationality, but not for Slavs. Narod to a nationaly awakened Slav means both his people, his ethnic kin, his nation. There is no distinction between theese concepts.

When a nationaly awakened Croat says "Hrvatski narod" he means both his Croatian nation and his Croat ethnic kin, because to a Slav there can be no distinction between the terms "ethnicity" and "nationality". This is why we refer to what is know as "ethnicity" in the West simply as "nationality". This is why Yugoslavia was said to have over 15 different autochthonous "nationalities" within her borders when obviously „ethnicities“ were meant – at least in the Western sense.

Narod equals both the people and the nation. This is why a synonmy of "nacionalnost" (a loan word) is "narodnost", but at the same time the communists could refer to "narod" as freely as the nationalists and name the army - Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija as in Yugoslav People`s Army.

A Nation is only a politicaly awakened ethnicity. In Slavic world there is no distinction beyond this. A nation is an ethnicity that pursues ethno-centric politics. (As opposed to politics of some church, or an empire.)

whitecossack said:

Both were aware. Being Aware is different from caring though. Anyway, I will use my child analogy once again. 6th century Slavs were children who knew their condition as a distinctive group from non-Slavs they had encountered so far. Still, that knowledge was pure instinct. 16th century Slavs already had a bigger sense of awareness. I am sure today this knowledge is much bigger.

You`re pulling things out of your ass. This isn`t a proof of anything. Just saying it doesn`t make it true when it goes against COMMON KNOWLEDGE. It is common knowledge pre 19th century Europeans were not nationaly aware. The sheer idea of us being nationaly aware BEFORE THE NATIONAL AWAKENING is absurd. 16th century Slovene was as likely to think of himself as a Christian and a Catholic or a Carniolian/Styrian/Carinthian as he was to think himself of as a Slovene, which was actually the least important of his identities and denoted little more than the language he spoke.

whitecossack said:

Which is why Slavs are classed into three big groups. Each of them have a mini-Civilization of their own. I hope you know this.

Hahaha! You are telling me there is a South Slavonic civilisation? Ahaha! And I suppose Drina river would be the center of this unified civilisational space?!? AHAHAHAAAA! When did we build this civiliasation of ours by the way? In the lunch breaks between the 500 years under the Turks??

Maybe if you stretched it you could speak of a medival Serb-Bulgarian-Greek mini-civilisation but you can`t anymore and in any case that wasn`t a South Slavic civilisation to begin with and it has been discontinued.

There is no West Slavic civilisation either BTW. Slovaks/Czechs didn`t go around influencing the Polish or vice versa. Czechs were predominantley in civilisation contact with the Germans (Bohemia was actually a constituent state of the Holly Roman Empire of the German People.), Slovaks with Hungarians.

whitecossack said:

Who says there was no communication?

History does. As does common sense. Russians communicated and interacted way more with people they neigboured with than with say Croats. The same way Czechs communicated and interacted way more with the Germans that with Bulgarians, or Poles for that matter.

In 16th century when a Slovene Žiga Herberštajn wrote Notes on Muscovite Affairs after spending time at the Muscowite court it signified the first contact and communication between the two peoples in centuries and it showed, as the guy wrote it as if he was writting of China or some place. On the other hand he was so familiar with the Germans he had an offical German name and spoke German on a native level.

whitecossack said:

If you think Russian writters have that much in common with English ones, then I urge you to read on some Russian literature.

Do you deny Pushkin was aware of Lord Byron and his work? No? So why are you contesting my point? I didn`t say Russian literature neccesarily has anything in common with English literature. I am saying English romanticists literature (Byron) was actually a larger influence on Russian poets of the time than Slovene literature was (because the influence of Slovene literature was zero). So much for a Slavic civilisation and communication between distant Slavs then.

whitecossack said:

Second of all, again I will only speak for Eastern Slavs, not because of what implied before, but because I would like to avoid being pretentious. Anyway, the way we worship our Christian God has absolutely NOTHING to do with the "rest of Europeans". This was true 500 years ago, let alone today...

I didn`t say it is worshipped in the same manner. I said the same God is worshipped. Certainly if you can assert that Perun is Zeus then I can assert that Greek Catholic God of the Galician Ukraininas is the Roman Catholic God of the Irish.

whitecossack said:

Just like there is no "thought out coherent logic", or a "reason" to draw the line for Slavic Nationalism, and not including Germanics, Celts and Latins in a greater "Indo-European family". Stop bullshitting me man! We are drawing the line somewhere, everytime.
You could say you draw the line in the Slavic languages, and I will tell you Austrians, Eastern krauts and Hungarians have a lot of Slavic blood, and so we should welcome them as well, and you will tell me they shouldn't be accepted for whatever reason. That's called drawing a line somewhere, and that is arbitrary, because there is no reason I should abide to your definition.

Bullshit! The line between Slavs and non-Slavs draws itself naturaly! "Indo-Aryans" and "Slavs" is not even a similar term. Can you point me to the ancient home-land of all Indo-Aryans? Can you point me to their legends of migration from this homeland? Can you show me the language they spoke? CAN YOU TELL ME HOW THEY REFERED TO THEMSELVES?? What was their name? I doubt they ran around calling themselves "Indo-Aryans". Indo-Aryans are a linguistic theory and category they were never a unified people or of a single origin. Slavs are a single people that branched out into seperate but similar narodi. "Indo-Aryans" are a collection of tribes of varying genetic relatedness to eachother that never belonged to a monolithic culture that ran around influencing eachother`s language with parts of them sometimes melting from one language into another. Slavs had always been aware to some extent they are Slavs besides being Russian/Serb or whatever (,"Slovene" and "Slovak" were actually originaly synonymous with "Slavic" from the point of view of old Slovenes and Slovaks). "Indo-Aryans" on the other hand needed a bunch of scientists to tell them they share something long after they had forgoten it, if indeed they ever felt they did.

whitecossack said:

I already gave you many hints as to where to draw the line. I think by the time of the Baptism of Rus, there was already a Slavic Culture to speak of. If you go back 2.000 years into History, I don't think we did. Of course it is arbitrary, but no less than any other classification. Still, as long as there is some fundament, it is legitimate.
Now, if it was 10 years before that, a few decades later, who knows or who CARES? However, it is a fair enough assumption to make that 2.000 years ago there wasn't any Slavic Civilization to speak of.

Of course there was a Slavic Culture in pagan Rus already. Except there was in 500 AD, just over a century before a first Slavic state was to be formed as well.

whitecossack said:

Yeah, but that would make you look like a fool. As I already said in the example above, where should we draw the line for Slavic Nationalism? You once said anyone who identifies himself as Slavic and has some ammount of Slavic blood. Ain't that arbitrary? Why not an Austrian full of Slavic blood but who doesn't identify himself as Slavic? Why not the other way around? How about an ethnic Slav who doesn't identify himself as Slavic? So you are telling me that you can be arbitrary but I can not? Is that so?

It is not arbitrary. It is counter-arbitrary.

It is based on logic. The logic of self-identification and self-declaration. The only valid logic in this case, because "Slav" emerged as a self-referential term. It was a term invented by Slavs to be used by themselves and identify with.

If a Slavic induvidual only partly considers himself a Slav due to whatever reason then he *is* only partly a Slav and can`t be considered fully a Slav. "Slav" has always been a self-referential term. It was a term the Slavs reffered to themselves with nad identified with themselves. If you only refer to yourself as a Slav to some extent and not fully, then you are only a Slav to some extent.

A person who is slavic geneticaly but does not identify as a Slav or with some Slavic narod is not a Slav at all. "Slav" has always been a self-referential term. It was a term the Slavs reffered to themselves with and identified with. If you do not think of yourself as Slav (or a member of some Slavic ethnicity) in any way and deny you are one, then you *aren`t* trully a Slav, won`t be considered one and don`t grasp what it means to be one.

A person who is partly slavic geneticaly and identifies as a Slav in full is fully Slav and should be accepted as such. Precisley because to demand as a requirement he be geneticaly slavic beyond any percentage other than 0% or 100% would be arbitrary! It would mean pulling numbers out of thin air. The only requirement that can be placed on amount of ancestry that isn`t arbitrary is to either demand an induvidual have "some amount of Slavic blood" or have "nothing but slavic blood". Both are logicaly legitimate choices, but the 100% requirement would be unpractical and not in line with slavic tradition.

whitecossack said:

whitecossack said:

The thing is, when you haven't built a Civilization of your own per see, there is not much to "preserve". In other words, the richest - rich in the sense of with more details, deeper, more complex, with more aspects, better developed, etc - your Culture is, the more you have to lose by mixing.?

Which is an interesting argument for Russians not to mix with Slovenes.

Because of?

Because whichever Civilisation was it that the Russians built, Slovenes are not a part of it.

whitecossack said:

Plus, you say that "ultimatley we are Slavs for no other reason than that we are heirs to the same unified people and a continuation of the same forefathers" but then you talk about preserving our culture and language, but who cares for culture and language if ultimatley we are Slavs for no other reason than that we are heirs to the same unified people and a continuation of the same forefathers. If culture and language are not part of what makes us "ultimately Slavs", then why bother preserving them? Just throw it all in the toilet, as long as you remember not to mix with anyone else, it won't make a difference... I am sorry, but you make no sense whatsoever. You need to work further on the foundations of your ideology.

Yes we are Slavs, because we are heirs to the same people. Being heirs to the same people we were always going to end up culturaly/civilisationaly similar in many aspect and were always going to be aware we are Slavs. This is why we ended up in many aspect much alike even if our pre-19th century predecesors were not jet nationalists in any sense. Since the national awakening we are also nationalists so we can work to preserve our culture and language conscioussly which is desirable, because it is our link to people of the same ancestry and origin and a link to our forefathers.

whitecossack said:

If you need justification to believe in Nationalism, then you need to try harder, because there is no coherence in your thinking.

It is you who pulls things out of you arse to be able to claim to be a nationalist. You deny a unified origin of Slavs and in any case refer to our forefathers as "barbarians running around woods" and don`t take pride in them. So to be able to claim you feel for Slavdom as a whole you make a ridicilous claim of Slavs possesing a single civilisation or three related slavic mini-civilisations.

I think if you need to belive in this notion of a seperate civilisation that you are better off calling yourself an East Slavic Nationalist.

[pastir]

whitecossack said:

Except that today we have developed a writting system, music, literature, an aesthetic sense, a worldview of our own - by the manner of our thinkers and even through our simple folk - etc from which we express ourselves. If you can't see that, than you probably won't be able to look things from a different perspective.

So? That we would develop it was always bound to happen. That we became "civilised" is nothing extrodinary. It was going to happen sooner or later after we settled down and started farming. That our culture was going to be heavily influenced by our unified Slavic ethnic origin is nothing extrodinary. An idiot could look at 500 AD Slavs and see they are going to turn out similarly, even once they rise to higer civilisational leves.

whitecossack said:

It is irrelevant to my argument, because, and I think you fail to notice that so far, it has nothing to do with how advanced we were, but how similar we were to other Indo-European people.

But it does reveal your ignorance and your disregard of Early Slavs.

whitecossack said:

It has been a lot of talk as to the Great Migration in this forum, different theories pertaining it. But let's no dwell on that, it doesn't change the subject at hand by any means.

There is common knowledge and there are crackpot theories. Great Migration of Slavs is a generaly accepted fact in every Slavic country and anybody disputing it is seen as a clow or worse.

whitecossack said:

Dude, I think you are grossly mistaken. The Hussite Wars took place between 1420-1434. Protestant Reformation came only a century later... You are confusing things. Hussite movement began in response to the execution of Jan Hus, and although it had a clearly anti-Papal tone, they couldn't had been "protestant", because there was no such a thing by then.Do you mean the Utraquists?

Don`t bullshit. Hussites were the original protestants. They defined themselves as protestants after the reformation. They alligned themselves with the protestants during the counter-reformation. They fought and died alongside other protestants in the thirty years war. Or do you think Hussites only existed for 14 years in 15th cenutry?? Anybody speaking of Czech protestants includes Hussites. In any case it is common knowledge Bohemia prior to the thirty years war was a Protestant state or at least as much a Protestant as a Catholic state. And in any case Czechs were historicaly not only Hussites but also Evangelican Lutherans.

whitecossack said:

Anyway, I reckon religion is not that much important in Czech Republic, but even so, only 2.5% of them are protestant, and when you consider the folkdeutsch living there, it means no Slavic Czech is protestant nowadays.

Germans make 0.38% of the Czech popullation. What Volksdeutsche?? They are a non-entity nowdays. Don`t you know they were booted out in 1945?

There are at least 200,000 protestant Czechs today (yes Slavic Czechs, there can be no other kind, to suggest anything else is idiocy). Half of those are Evangelicans and the other half are Hussites.

whitecossack said:

How important can be protestantism for Czechs if it was not even able to minally root itself in Czech Nation? It didn't because it is an unSlavic religion. Haha, and you say we can't separate Czech Nation from protestantism. That comes to me as a gross offense.

Gee. You keep digging yourself further. The reason there are so few protestant Czechs today is because they were persecuted. Persecuted by the Catholic German Habsburgs. They were being expelled, killed and forcefully converted. The Czech Hussite church was only allowed to reestablishe after Czechoslovakia had been founded, and the Czech Evangelican Church was only allowed to reestablishe after the Edict of Tolerance in 1781 after the ascention of the Enlighment-influenced Joseph II on the throne of Austria.

Infact this is why Czechs are so non-religious today. They (largely) did not wish to be catholic and they were not allowed to be protestant.

Czech national character can not be seperated from the history of protestant Czechs, their rebellions and their traditions. Czechs regardless of their own induvidual religious affiliation celebrate the protestants fighters at the White Mountain in 1620 as fighters for Czech statehood. Theese Czechs are not only seen as much Czech as any other Czechs, but they are seen as important integral part of Czech history and one of the corner stones of Czech national identity and example of Czech national heroes.

whitecossack said:

Despite your ironic overtone, I don't really care for some Milan Kucan nobody. As I said before, there are more Orthodox people in Slovenia than there are protestants. I rest my case.

LOL. And you are calling me desperate??? The Orthodox in Slovenia are Serb and Macedonian immigrants. The Protestants in Slovenia are Slovenes. Their number is irrelevant, because regardless of their number they are regarded as Slovene. By everyone. And your implying of the contrary is making you look like an idiot. Slovenes are defined as a Slavic nation. You can not be a Slovene if you are first not a Slav. To say Slovene Protestants are not Slavs is to say they are not Slovenes. To say Protestant Slovenes are not Slovenes to a Slovene is bound to make him run away from you in terror and book you a gig at a looney house. To say the men who defined early Slovene alphabet. wrote and printed the first boook in Slovene, translated the Bible into Slovene and got elected as the first slovene president is sheer idiocy. To even make any distinction between "Slovene-sness" of Protestant and Roman Catholic Slovenes is going to get you funny looks. For fuck`s sake Reformation Day is actually a national holiday in Slovenia! Nevermind all the streets named after protestants, and a protestant dude on a banknote.

whitecossack said:

You are the one basing your argument on thin air. As I proved above, protestantism has NO BEARING to the Culture of any Slavic Nation

Read above and cover yourself in ash. And dude what the fuck is wrong with you? I already said they influenced the culture of multiple slavic nations disproportionaly and you just choose to burry your head in the sand and ignore it??? Yeah maybe if you shout loud enough it will go away.

Won`t change the fact though that for 300 years Slovene Roman Catholics used a protestant translation of the bible. Or that they during the counter-reformation burned every other boook in slovene they could lay their hands on. A spledid contribution to slovene culture was that by theese roman catholics.

whitecossack said:

Plus, there are as many definitions as there are people. I won't ever accept protestantism as part of Slavic Civilization, no matter the ammount of liberal rhetoric you might use.

There is no Slavic Civilisation. There is only characteristics we share due to our common ethnic and cultural origin.

whitecossack said:

Plus, you were talking about being Slavic by blood, now you refer to being "culturally Slavic". Make up your mind.

Jesus Christ! I am talking about "culturaly Slavic", because YOU intorduced this term into discussion and I am replying to you! Do you have the attention spawn of a gold fish?

whitecossack said:

Except that I CRUMBLED your premisses above, so your logical construction does not make any sense

You ain`t crumbled shit.

whitecossack said:

There are not any considerable ammount of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks who are protestant, so don't speak as if I am denying dozens of millions the condition of being Slavic.

Numbers are irrelevant. The principle is what is relevant. Wether it applies to 50 million or just one has no bearing on the matter. If 50 million Russians converted to Islam instead of a handful would you suddenly start talking about Moslem Russians?? No. So why this obsession with numbers?

whitecossack said:

Anyway, I have as much legitimacy to say which ones of them I think are not, as you have legitimacy to say how many of them actually are. And even if I have none, I can certainly say which ones I will be accepting as my brethren, and I don't accept protestants as my own. That must mean I am anti-Slavic in your book, but whatever. And no, it is not "a package".

Yes you are right you have no right to say somebody is not actually a Czech/Slovak/Slovene when he is considered a Czech/Slovak/Slovene by the rest of the Czech/Slovak/Slovenes. And yes it is a package. A Czech is not going to associate himself with somebody who shouts at the top of his voice that some of his national heroes were not Slavs and thus not Czechs and aren`t his brethren. You put a cross on the protestants - you can put a cross on Czechs and Slovenes, all Czechs and Slovenes.

whitecossack said:

What is plainly absurd is to pretend that protestantism is as relevant to any Slavic Nation as Orthodoxy is to Eastern Slavs or Catholicism to Polacks.

You miss the point. The absurdity is that an Ukrainian should be deciding who is really a Slovene or a Czech. If a Russian says a Moslem can not be a Russian then that is the truth. But if a Slovene says an Evangelican *can be* a Slovene then that is the truth as well, and there is nothing you can do about it.

whitecossack said:

I don't know who the Pashtuns are, and the albanians are not related to us in any sense. As for the Norwegians, I doubt you have any great deal of knowledge about them to say so.

All three are Indo-European peoples and thus related to us according to you.

whitecossack said:

IHaha, very smart of you, but I won't fall for that. Magically you changed the focus from Germanics to Persians and Greeks. Oh why of course, they were the ones most advanced of all of us, and the ones who lived the most differently. I was not refering to them, obviously.

If you are speaking of Germanics please do referer to them as Germanics and not as "Indo-Europeans" otherwise be prepeared to get stabbed like this. You claimed our lifestyles were similar to that of Indo-Europeans. I pointed out it was only similar to a minority of Indo-Europeans.

whitecossack said:

Just because Slavic paganism is less known than Germanic one, it doesn't mean it was more abstract - lacked a pantheon. I want to see sources for your claim.

Rupnik, Anton - Tretji Rim : Rusija nekoč in danes And why do you care anyway? `Barbarians running through the woods, caring only about procrastinating and fighting just like everyone around them??` It didn`t lack a pantheon, it didn`t have a fully defined and well rounded pantheon. Slavic pagan traditions were stil quite ambigious and stil more in domain of folklore than fully developed worshipping system. It was hard to decide which god is god of what and which one is more important and what are the roles of them all and stuff like that. When Prince Vladimir had a mind to introduce slavic paganism as the state religion of Kievan Rus he was having difficulties to decide which deites to include as chief ones and which ones not to, there simply wasn`t a definite anwser. He ended up placing six (or was it eight?) statues of deities up in the town centre and the 7th, the statue of Volos a big distance away on some lower ground down with the commons, but his pick of the 7 (9?) was arbitrary. Anyway it was a long time ago, something like that.

whitecossack said:

Plus, it is not for playing that Slavs are divided into three groups.

The three groups are down to three directions Slavs expanded to during the great migration.

whitecossack said:

Why did you omit the word "unified" this time? Yeah, very smart of you...

LOL! Because. Is it important to you? When I say a "unified" people I don`t mean politicaly unified. I mean ethnicaly unified. I think I`ve said enough times already Early Slavs were ethnicaly unified to make my stance clear.

whitecossack said:

Still, the sense of ethnic belonging is much stronger today than it was before, you can't deny that.

And where was I denying that? Why are you even saying this? Didn`t I just offer illustrations of the weakness of ethnic belonging 200 years ago, which certainly falls into category of before today, not into category of today.

[White Cossack]

Can you read? I didn`t say their awarness was the same we have today. Infact I said it wasn`t. Don`t pull things out of your arse I supposedly said.

I said the Early Slavs posessed THE SAME LEVEL OF AWARNESS that Slavs posessed before the 19th century and the fomration of nationalist sentiment. Ie, they possesed ethnic awarness, but not national awarnes. Just like Slovaks or Serbs in medival times.

Well, since you are only partly quoting my post, some of the things I said might come a bit out of context.
Basically, I was saying that your mention that our forefathers had "ethnic awareness" was a mute point. I don't need someone to tell me the sun rises in the East.

You are pissing me off. Can`t you read?? YES THEY ARE. I SAID AS MUCH. I DIDN`T CONTEST THIS. SO WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU REPEATING IT?? Yes they are very much alike. Just like modern post-industrial societies everywhere are much alike. Of course with differences with post-industrial societies of East Asia are alot bigger.

Again partly quoting. Point is, we are more distinct from "Germanic tribes" today than we were before. Period.

Is this comedy for you?

18th century Montenegrins were a tribal society and possesed ethnic identiy. Is there a problem with what I said? Do you disagree with it??

Your ridicule of 21st century Montenegrins only harms your own position, because it again points out that even "civilised" Slavs do not neccesarily posses a national identity.

Do you have a problem? I was refering to the recent separation from Serbia, which I think was a pitiful event.

Show me how is that any different from 16th century Slovenes? Who were oh so civilised and shit according to you and so much better than Early Slavs based on just that alone.

Please do show me how Slovenes of 16th century were more aware of their own ethnic distinctivness than their 6th century predecesors were. If anything an 8th cenutry Slovene rebelling against the Franks with Ljudevit Posavski was a great deal more ethnicaly aware than some Slovene serf serving a German overlord in 14th.

You are always bringing up Slovenes. I am sorry, but Slovenia is a really small Nation, and I don't know much about it. You are trying to make the rule out of individual examples, and that's pretty retarded.
Anyway, just the fact they were "serving" a german overlord as you say, it is enough for a serf to know he is someone apart.
Regardless, the point is not "awareness". It is "distinctiveness". It seems it is you who can't read it seems. One can be very distinctive, but maybe he is not as much aware of that as he should. So maybe 6th century "Slovenes" had as much awareness as 16th century Slovenes did, but I am sure they were less distinct from their Germanic neighbours.
And please, do stop putting words into my mouth "Who were oh so civilised and shit according to you and so much better than Early Slavs based on just that alone".

I can`t belive what I am hearing. Shocking. You are not culturaly Slav! You have just been found out. Do you know what "narod" is? Have you any idea?! Apparently not! You obviously culturaly Western!

Now you are using ad hominem to justify your arbitrary and non-existant distinction.

For a Slav both "ethnicity" and "nationality" are defined by narod and refered to as narod. There is no distinction. Distinction exists in the West where you can be Catalan/Galician/Castillian by ethnicity but Spanish by nationality, but not for Slavs. Narod to a nationaly awakened Slav means both his people, his ethnic kin, his nation. There is no distinction between theese concepts.

When a nationaly awakened Croat says "Hrvatski narod" he means both his Croatian nation and his Croat ethnic kin, because to a Slav there can be no distinction between the terms "ethnicity" and "nationality". This is why we refer to what is know as "ethnicity" in the West simply as "nationality". This is why Yugoslavia was said to have over 15 different autochthonous "nationalities" within her borders when obviously „ethnicities“ were meant – at least in the Western sense.

Narod equals both the people and the nation. This is why a synonmy of "nacionalnost" (a loan word) is "narodnost", but at the same time the communists could refer to "narod" as freely as the nationalists and name the army - Jugoslovenska Narodna Armija as in Yugoslav People`s Army.

A Nation is only a politicaly awakened ethnicity. In Slavic world there is no distinction beyond this. A nation is an ethnicity that pursues ethno-centric politics. (As opposed to politics of some church, or an empire.)

Bla bla bla. Doesn't matter. We are discussing in English, and the terms used were "ethnicity" and "nation". NOT "narod". You are just being a smartass to jusitify your gross mistake, but whatever you say it, you can't change the fact you created a non-existant definition in the English language, one which was plain ridiculous.
If you were talking about "Narod" - in the sense that it is used in Slavic languages - you would had said it expressly. And don't even say that's what you meant, because you have used the word "Narod" before, when you wanted to mean just that, so if you didn't use it now, then it is fair enough to assume that was not what you meant.

You`re pulling things out of your ass. This isn`t a proof of anything. Just saying it doesn`t make it true when it goes against COMMON KNOWLEDGE. It is common knowledge pre 19th century Europeans were not nationaly aware. The sheer idea of us being nationaly aware BEFORE THE NATIONAL AWAKENING is absurd. 16th century Slovene was as likely to think of himself as a Christian and a Catholic or a Carniolian/Styrian/Carinthian as he was to think himself of as a Slovene, which was actually the least important of his identities and denoted little more than the language he spoke.

You are clueless. In Rzeczpospolita people were clearly defined on a ethnic base, and that's much before the 19th century. Regardless, I already said, it is not so much awareness as distinctiveness. The 19th century brought only the national aspect to the balance. In Italy, for example, they started to view themselves all as Italians, but before that they already had an ethnic conscience as Milaneses, Sicilians, etc. Same goes for germans.

Hahaha! You are telling me there is a South Slavonic civilisation? Ahaha! And I suppose Drina river would be the center of this unified civilisational space?!? AHAHAHAAAA! When did we build this civiliasation of ours by the way? In the lunch breaks between the 500 years under the Turks??

I said mini. It is you who is degrading South Slavs, pretending they don't have much of a Civilization. Regardless, they have their own cultural aspects which differ from Eastern and Western Slavs, and that's the point.

Maybe if you stretched it you could speak of a medival Serb-Bulgarian-Greek mini-civilisation but you can`t anymore and in any case that wasn`t a South Slavic civilisation to begin with and it has been discontinued.

Ok then, you used to have a Civilization. You don't anymore though. turks made you into a bunch of "cultureless"barbarians. Is that what you are saying?

There is no West Slavic civilisation either BTW. Slovaks/Czechs didn`t go around influencing the Polish or vice versa. Czechs were predominantley in civilisation contact with the Germans (Bohemia was actually a constituent state of the Holly Roman Empire of the German People.), Slovaks with Hungarians.

I would rather hear that from a western Slav, thank you.

History does. As does common sense. Russians communicated and interacted way more with people they neigboured with than with say Croats. The same way Czechs communicated and interacted way more with the Germans that with Bulgarians, or Poles for that matter.

Of course, if you take Russians and Croats, Czechs and Bulgarians. How about taking two neighboring Slavic countries though? But I fear that wouldn't be good for the point you are trying to make.

In 16th century when a Slovene Žiga Herberštajn wrote Notes on Muscovite Affairs after spending time at the Muscowite court it signified the first contact and communication between the two peoples in centuries and it showed, as the guy wrote it as if he was writting of China or some place. On the other hand he was so familiar with the Germans he had an offical German name and spoke German on a native level.

Let me tell you Slovenia is not, at all, the centre of Slavdom. You are always trying to make a rule out of some example pertaining Slovenia, which is plainly comical, considering it's size. How about western Ukraine and Poland though? Belarus and Russia?

Do you deny Pushkin was aware of Lord Byron and his work? No? So why are you contesting my point? I didn`t say Russian literature neccesarily has anything in common with English literature. I am saying English romanticists literature (Byron) was actually a larger influence on Russian poets of the time than Slovene literature was (because the influence of Slovene literature was zero). So much for a Slavic civilisation and communication between distant Slavs then.

He was aware, but so what? Still, Russian literature stands on it's own. "I didn`t say Russian literature neccesarily has anything in common with English literature" So why are YOU contesting MY point?
Anyway, again you point out Slovenia. This is getting ridiculous. In my previous post I specifically divided Slavs into 3 groups, each one of them with different traits. It is you who is pretending Slavs are a single monolithic block.

I didn`t say it is worshipped in the same manner. I said the same God is worshipped. Certainly if you can assert that Perun is Zeus then I can assert that Greek Catholic God of the Galician Ukraininas is the Roman Catholic God of the Irish.

muslim and zhids also worship the One-God. What is your point?

Bullshit! The line between Slavs and non-Slavs draws itself naturaly!

LOL! Because you say so? It is not so much arbitrary when it comes out from your mouth is it?

"Indo-Aryans" and "Slavs" is not even a similar term.

I never said it was.

Can you point me to the ancient home-land of all Indo-Aryans? Can you point me to their legends of migration from this homeland? Can you show me the language they spoke? CAN YOU TELL ME HOW THEY REFERED TO THEMSELVES?? What was their name? I doubt they ran around calling themselves "Indo-Aryans". Indo-Aryans are a linguistic theory and category they were never a unified people or of a single origin.

You are being nonsensical again. Indo-Europeans have a common origin, which can be observed by our similar looks and language. It is not my problem you don't like that.
It is even more clear when you notice the similiarity between Indo-European languages when it comes to the most basic and "rudimentary" words, those that were used daily by tribalist people. Words that denote family links - mother, father, brother, etc - and the name of simple tools that our forefather used a long time ago.
That can only mean they lived together, at some point in History. Or do you think it is all a big COINCIDENCE that Slavs say Brat, and English say Brother? Yeah, a bunch of people who never lived together or shared a common link, by some kind of miracle, use very similar words for all those things
However, they separated from each other much further back into History than Slavs spread amongst themselves, for obvious reasons.

Slavs are a single people that branched out into seperate but similar narodi. "Indo-Aryans" are a collection of tribes of varying genetic relatedness to eachother that never belonged to a monolithic culture that ran around influencing eachother`s language with parts of them sometimes melting from one language into another. Slavs had always been aware to some extent they are Slavs besides being Russian/Serb or whatever (,"Slovene" and "Slovak" were actually originaly synonymous with "Slavic" from the point of view of old Slovenes and Slovaks). "Indo-Aryans" on the other hand needed a bunch of scientists to tell them they share something long after they had forgoten it, if indeed they ever felt they did.

Same goes for Indo-Europeans. Ever head of the Balto-Slav branch of the Indo-European "family"? Of course the similiarities are smaller, and of course the sense of "community" is even more insignificat, after all, they separated from each other A GREAT DEAL BEFORE. That doesn't give you the right to deny a common, even if far away, common origin. And that's when "drawing the line" is relevant. Still, where you will draw it is still arbitrary.

Of course there was a Slavic Culture in pagan Rus already. Except there was in 500 AD, just over a century before a first Slavic state was to be formed as well.

So? The point was to say it is not about giving a precise date for defining a starting point for what we know as "Slavic Civilization", or "Slavic Culture" or "Russian Civilization/Culture".

It is not arbitrary. It is counter-arbitrary.

It is based on logic. The logic of self-identification and self-declaration. The only valid logic in this case, because "Slav" emerged as a self-referential term. It was a term invented by Slavs to be used by themselves and identify with.

It is not up to you to decide what is, and what is not, "arbitrary". To say it is "counter-arbitrary" only shows your pretense.

The three situations in bold that you mention are very arbitrary per see. They are only your view into the matter. It is hardly serious science. It is not even "logical" like you want to pretend.
Even if we assumed it was true, we would still need to draw the line as to what means exactly "identifying fully as a Slavic". It might be "clear" for you, but it is not to everybody.
Just admit you accuse me of being arbitrary, but you are not any better yourself. At least I admit being so, because in such matters, there is always going to have some level of subjetivity involved. I don't cover myself in a mantle of pseudo logical thinking, as if this was all hard and cold science.
Your problem is that you take yourself too seriously, and you think your definition are the best thing since sliced bread.

Because whichever Civilisation was it that the Russians built, Slovenes are not a part of it.

That was not at all what I said. I was saying the more complex a society is, the more distinct it is from the others. But I won't elaborate on that again.

Yes we are Slavs, because we are heirs to the same people. Being heirs to the same people we were always going to end up culturaly/civilisationaly similar in many aspect and were always going to be aware we are Slavs. This is why we ended up in many aspect much alike even if our pre-19th century predecesors were not jet nationalists in any sense. Since the national awakening we are also nationalists so we can work to preserve our culture and language conscioussly which is desirable, because it is our link to people of the same ancestry and origin and a link to our forefathers.

Very beautiful, but it does not answer my quote in the least.

It is you who pulls things out of you arse to be able to claim to be a nationalist. You deny a unified origin of Slavs and in any case refer to our forefathers as "barbarians running around woods" and don`t take pride in them. So to be able to claim you feel for Slavdom as a whole you make a ridicilous claim of Slavs possesing a single civilisation or three related slavic mini-civilisations.

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LOL! I deny a common origin? WHERE???!!! I don't even deny we share a distant origin with other Indo-European people - something that you do - let alone denying Slavs share a common link!!!
Barbarians, at some point in History, our forefathers were, whether you like it or not. When they ceased to be is up to discussion.
I don't take pride in them? Ok dude, whatever you say.
I just don't like BS like you do. I don't need to pretend we didn't mix before; I don't need to deny we might not share as much as you would like to think we do with the "original Slavs".
I am sure we do share, and I am sure we didn't mix to any large extent, but I don't need to repeat that in front of the mirror everyday to be ok with myself and to justify me being a Nationalist. Unlike you, but that's your own issue, and you need to deal with it by yourself.

I think if you need to belive in this notion of a seperate civilisation that you are better off calling yourself an East Slavic Nationalist.

What you think is irrelevant.