What do Lake Geneva and Lake Constance have to do with the Slavs?  At first, these (mostly) Swiss lakes appear to have very little to do with the Slavic peoples.  Indeed, the question may itself seem ridiculous.  And yet, there are a number of strange connections that, we think, may help solve some of the puzzle about the ancient composition of Europe.

Let’s first start with the names.  Oddly they seem to relate to the story of Wanda and the “Lemannic” tyrant.

The Lemannic antagonist of Wanda is supposed to refer to an Alemannic – meaning German – opponent.  Kadlubek had studied in France and would have known the French term for Germans, i.e., Allemands.  The name, according to Agathias (or Quadratus), was supposed to mean “all men”.

And yet, Kadlubek uses the term Lemannic – not Alemannic.

The name Wanda has both a water connotation (wendka – fishing rod, wendzic – to smoke [a fish], i.e., get the water out) and an obvious connection to the Veneti (and, maybe, Vandals).

The fact that Lake Geneva was earlier called Lake Lemanus and Lake Constance (or Bodensee) was earlier called Lake Veneticus is another curious fact.

The fact that Jordanes speaks of Slavs as living as far as Lake Musianus and that Lake Veneticus is as late as the 17th century attested as being named Lake Musianus adds further aura of mystery.

Then you have the fact that the Alemanni supposedly never referred to themselves as such.  Instead, they went by Suevi (as per Walahfrid Strabo).  On the strange connections between Slavs and Suevi/Suavi, we’ve written ad nauseum.

And we know that Tiberius routed out the Vindelici out of the area.  We also know that the Vindelici may simply refer to those Vindi that lived by the River Lech and that the Vindelici may have bee a tribe of Liburnians.  (We know too that the Suevi used Liburnian ships in their worship of “Isidi”).

Further, the River Lech that runs near the ancient seats of the Vindelici just so happens to share its name with the eponymous founder of the Lechites, i.e., Poles, Pomeranians, etc.

And, of course, the Slavs are also known as Wends.

Going down this path, Lake Geneva (Lemanus) is named after the city of Geneva – the earlier Genava of Caesar.  Genava shares its etymological roots with Genoa (Genova) in Italy (Genova aka Stalia aka Zena in Ligurian).  Although Genoa was not in the (historically attested) lands of the Veneti, it was close…

We will leave for you the connection (if any) between the Ligurians and Liburnians.

Whether Lemanus may have a Slavic etymology (lemiesz – see Plaumorati) we also leave as a homework assignment.

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We already discussed some of the similarities between Slavic and other (or are they?) idols like the Krieger aus Hirschlanden here.  But take a look at the famous Światowid from Zbruch again here:

and compare it with the so-called Taanach Cult Stand from Israel:

The Światowid steele features a sun disk or solar symbol just like the Taanach column (albeit at a lower tier and mostly eroded) but the disk was hidden and an empty space is visible to the naked eye.

At least one scholar has suggested that the empty space in the second tier (from the bottom) of Taanach steele was meant to represent the concept of the incorporeal YHWH.  This is similar to the representation of God in the Jerusalem Temple which we are told the presence of God was marked simply by an empty space with two cherubim keeping guard.  See here for more.  Apparently, YHWH was initially also a Sun God.

Interestingly, it was the American author – Alexander Del Mar – that first suggested a connection between the Veneti and solar worship (allegedly via their God Jasius or Jason).  While some of his suggestions are a little bit unhinged, others appear quite interesting.

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This question has been asked numerous times and some Poles obsess about it.  Based on everything that we’ve seen, the answer currently seems to be a qualified ‘yes’.

Why a ‘yes’ and why ‘qualified’?

Well, let’s start at the beginning.  First, of all, who do we mean by Poles?  This is simply the genetic nation.  Basically, the ‘Polish-looking’ population.  What does that mean though?  Well, you can extrapolate to saying the generally white, more specifically, ‘Eastern European’ population of Poland with their relatives (and, of course, their biological descendants, wherever in the world located).  Of course, there were some additions to (and subtractions from) that gene pool over historical time but the fundamental fabric of it has not really changed.  The description of Slavs given by Procopius (hair not too blonde, not too dark) still holds approximately true for Slavs everywhere and so too for Poles.

Virtually all of that nation, as with most Slavic nations, is derived from the peasant-farmers who had lived there over the course of the last millennium.  But what about before that?

Here we come to our qualified yes.

First of all, there is the technical question of the first usage of the name Poles for the nation that we described above.

On the one hand, it is true that the name ‘Poles’ does appear in relation to pre-10th century periods in the Nestor Chronicle and in certain Scandinavian documents.  On the other hand, the Nestor Chronicle was written in the early 12th century and it uses the name to refer to the Eastern (Kievan) Poles* whereas the antiquity of the tradition of the Scandinavian sources is debatable.

[* Interestingly though for anyone familiar with the eagle nest of the Lech legend, the Norse name hreiðr – which some connect with the Hreiðgoths of Hreiðgotaland – means “nest”.  The fact that the Western Poles had their early capital at Gniezno (meaning “nest”) while Gnezdovo was a major Slavic (Eastern Polanian?) and Viking site in Russia seems suspicious.  Add to that the fact that the Slavic for “burg” was gard or gord but also horod (see Horodło/Городло) and that the concept of a “home” or “nest” and a protected enclosure (as in a burg) are quite obviously related and you cannot help but wonder what this all means.  For more fun note that rod is also the name for clan or family just as ha-rod is the name for nation.  Since the latter is related to “birthing” it is not too much of a stretch to tie that too to the “nest”.  For more fun yet just see the Lombard king name Lethuc]

All in all, we can accept that the name ‘Poles’ – as relating to the inhabitants of present-day Poland – appears for the first time around the turn of the millennium.  That said, however, not much of an inference can be drawn from the fact that first attested use is so late.  

While some BS purveyors have claimed that the name was “invented” around the year 1000 in conjunction with the state-building activities of the Piast dynasty, such a claim is pure speculation.  For one thing, there are very few sources regarding Polish territories prior to the 11th century.  Consequently, given such source material paucity, one cannot reasonably equate the first attested appearance of the name with any “invention” of it (and the fact that the name was very likely used for Eastern Polans around Kiev speaks against attributing it to the Piasts’ creativity). (Take the name “Germans”.  It was clearly not “invented” the first time some Roman mason etched the name Germani in Italian stone).  

More importantly, even an invention of the name would have no relevance to the issue any more than the invention of the Polish state.  The ancestors of the American Anglo-Saxons existed before the name Americans ever became known and the history of that “American” people certainly did not begin only in 1787 with the creation of the modern American state (Jamestown was founded in 1607 – interestingly, the first Poles and Germans arrived there just a year later) .

So too with the Poles.  It appears the same people (whatever may have been their name) lived in the territories of Piast (and today’s) Poland not only around year 1000 but also around the year 1 and, likely, a thousand years before.  Hints of this appear not only in the historiography (Legii, Lechites, Licikaviki) of the region but also in the anthropological studies and, most recently, in genetic studies.  We will not get into detail regarding the same here.  Nevertheless, population continuity of the Central European Plain since at least 1000 BC may – tentatively – be assumed.  (The same may also be true of other Slavs (Belarussians, Ukrainians, Slovenes (they had their own Veneti too) and, maybe, Czechs and Slovaks)).

What this does not mean is that the people who lived in Poland were Poles by name.  It also does not mean that these people spoke the same language as they speak today (or as they spoke a millennium ago).  It further does not mean that other tribes (or warrior bands) did not pass through “Polish” territory or that these bands did not form their own “states” on that territory (or bring their own language?).  Nor does it mean, in the longer horizon, that these “Poles” did not come “out of Africa” (that’s a separate discussion in any event) or even that they were the “first” humans in Poland.

But it does mean, again, that more or less the same people – by blood – have lived in the same geographic space as far back as we can tell (and, more obviously, the nation, as defined above, must have had a northern Urheimat since the lighter hair and skin are unlikely to have come with the original migrants from Africa).

Thus, it seems more than likely that the people of Biskupin were, after all, what we could call proto-Poles.

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