A reader had sent me a copy of the Barbarian Tsunami booklet regarding “migrations” in Poland. I haven’t had a chance to go through this in detail but a cursory glance at some of the nonsense described therein is not encouraging. Aside from the poor translation of the Polish, the writing is that of ideologically-constrained dilettantes.
Basically, the theme is that during the Communist times, the political mantra was that Poland had been occupied from times immemorial by Slavs and the organizers of this project resented that. Now, that Poland is democratic, the organizers are free to spread their own theories which – they claim – are based on facts. Those theories suggest the presence of Germanic tribes in Poland and that the Slavs came from somewhere else. These new theories are also based on facts and are politically unbiased because we live in a world where we have democracy and truth, politics does not exist and truth can finally emerge from its hibernation… yadda yadda yadda.
I will have more to say about that but here are some pearls of fancy that were made up by the drafters of this silliness. (Note that these guys are much more cavalier in identifying every object they find with a very specific ethnic group than any archeologist in the West would dare now do):
“A much less known fact and one that we find very exciting is that the peoples involved the most in the upheaval – Goths, Vandals, Herules, Gepids and Burgundians – had issued from the lands between the Odra and the Vistula.”
Not one shred of evidence about any of this – at least as regards Vandals, Herules or Gepids. By the fourth century, all these people are recorded in Ukraine – not Poland. With the possible exception of some portion of the Goths who likely landed from Scandinavia somewhere around Gdansk (or just maintained an emporium there?) and, if you believe Ptolemy, Burgundians, none of these peoples can be placed in Poland.
“Among the best known materials are those discovered within the complex of settlements at Gąski-Wierzbiczany in Kuiavia, a central place of the Vandals. Some of these are discussed below by Marcin Rudnicki.”
I am curious how these guys know that these were “Vandal” sites (and central sites no less!). I mean, they could just as easily have been Japanese or Aztec “sites”.
“The same year, the Vandals settled in southern and central Poland, and on the upper Tisa River, the Alans and Suebians living on the middle Danube, burst into Gaul, which they cruelly plundered for a full three years and then moved to Spain.”
This run-on sentence is pure bullshit. First of all there is no evidence of any tribes that could be called Vandals anywhere in Poland with the – possible – exception of very southern Poland. The only, and indeed, the first, place that any Vandals are actually recorded is the Tisa. I understand the reference to the “upper” as trying to “move” the Vandals closer to Poland.
Secondly, there is zero evidence from whence the Vandals, Alans and Suevi that entered Gall came from other than, presumably, somewhere east of the Rhine (since they had to cross it).
Third, we don’t even know who exactly crossed the Rhine but it seems it was a hell of a lot of different peoples. Jerome gives the following list:
- “Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians, Alans, Gepids, Herules, Saxons, Burgundians, Alemanni and the armies of the Pannonians”
Fourth, putting aside that the above list does not actually list any Suebi, if we were to include Suebi, we probably should write (like the ancient writers) Suevi and not Suebi (like the ossified 19th century Prussian historians).
Fifth, “cruelly plundered” seems like a bit of rhetoric better fitting a Christian or Roman eyewitness of the events rather than a detached scientist.
“Having issued from the lands in the Odra and the Vistula drainage basin the Germanic Goths, Vandals, Gepides, Herules and Burgundians would go on play an important part in the emergence of a new, medieval Europe. It would be incorrect to say that the Migration Period brought destruction only; it was also the beginning of a new order on our continent.”
“Having issued from the writer’s feverish imagination” would have been better said.
“The Przeworsk culture people were mostly Vandals, but presumably included some Lugians, a group which a few centuries earlier had established a powerful organised society which contributed to the emergence of the Przeworsk culture.”
This is an almost verbatim plagiarism of Herwig Wolfram’s failed attempt to reconcile the fact that Poland was, in fact, occupied by the Lougi/Legii with his enormous desire to place the Vandals there instead. Wolfram’s attempt was pulled out of his ass. Now it looks like we have someone trying to make a carbon copy of that watery turd.
“There is evidence from archaeology as well on the presence in the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland (Polish Jura) in late 4th and early 5th century of the Vandals (the Przeworsk culture people) but also, of Gothic immigrants from the territory of present-day Ukraine.”
Again, how is Przeworsk “Vandalic”? I’d really like to know. Artifacts? Even assuming these artifacts were Scandinavian in (ethnic) origin, it’s a far cry to suggest that they must have been Vandalic given that Vandals are not recorded in Poland… But, if, as I suspect, the idea is to inculcate Poles with the notion that they are immigrants in their own homeland, then why not skip the Vandalic middleman and go straight to the heart of the matter? After all there are tons of Arab dirhams found all over Poland. Why not declare that this is evidence of massive Arab presence in Poland in the middle ages? (rab > rob > worker?)
One thing about that paragraph does deserve some attention. The author suggests a (presumably return in his telling) migration of Goths to Poland from Ukraine. It would behoove scientists to look at the question (particularly given the centum character of Tocharian and recent R1b finds among Sarmatians) of whether the Goths and other Scandinavians may indeed have come – relatively late – from the Pontic Steppe.
“Recent finds from western Lesser Poland suggest the arrival in late 4th and early 5th century to this region also of a group of Goths from the territory of present-day Ukraine. Finds displaying Hunnic traits, like burials excavated at Jakuszowice and Przemęczany, show that in the early Migration Period the western region of Lesser Poland was under the control of the nomads and their allies. Presumably, this situation was accepted by groups of Vandals still living there.”
Again, no Vandals. But if there had been Vandals there, then, yeah, I am sure they would have “accepted this situation.” Assuming they desired to continue living there (or just living). The author seems almost apologetic in explainng why and how his übermensch Vandals “accepted” the overlordship of “nomads and their allies.”
“Echoes of these events are to be found in the written record. The bulk of the population of the Przeworsk culture may safely be identified with the Vandals.”
Whenever I see phrases such as “there is no doubt” or “may safely be assumed” I get this gnawing feeling that nothing could be further from the truth. But, hey, maybe it’s just paranoia…
“Presumably, the Vandals who remained in their homeland in Poland, are those immortalised by Procopius of Caesarea. He noted that in 439–477, the reign of king Geiseric, the Vandals in Africa received an embassy of their compatriots still residing in their ancestral abodes come to sure that the former had no intention of returning North. In this context highly intriguing are some references which recur in the early medieval written record. In his hagiography of Saint Ulrich written in 983–993, Gerhard of Augsburg repeatedly refers to Mieszko I as the duke of the Vandals (dux Wandalorum, Misico nomine). What could be the source of this piece of intelligence recorded in the late 10th century? Could it be that the descendants of the Vandals had actually survived in central Poland, or – as some historians claim – had the provost of the Augsburg Cathedral simply misspelt the German name Wenden (Slavs)? For an answer to this and many other questions we have to look to the future.”
As I’ve written before… assuming that such an embassy did in fact take place and Procopius did actually find out about it, the “ancestral abodes” of the Vandals would much more likely have been in places such as:
- Spain
- France
- Romania/Hungary (even Czechia)
All places in which Vandals had been living for over 2 centuries before. But, if we must look further in time and, if in fact there was such a thing as Vandals back then, then I would look in Scandinavia – not Poland.
As regards the fact that half a millennium later Gerhard of Augsburg thought Poles were Vandals (and others thought they were Goths or Sarmatians or Illyrians), well, I would refer these fine archeologists to Roland Steinacher’s Phd thesis or his little write up Wenden, Slawen, Vandalen. Eine frühmittelalterliche pseudologische Gleichsetzung und ihr Nachleben bis ins 18. bis ins 21. Jahrhundert.
In any event, it seems to me that the Vandals may well have been named after the Wends whose territories – likely in East Germany – they may have occupied.
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