Ariska Idoler. Den indoeuropeiska mytologin som ideologi och vetenskap
(2000)- Abstract
- By using ancient texts, medieval documents, philological observations, and archaeological artifacts, scholars have reconstructed a prehistorical world and religion. The people who upheld this culture have been named, inter alia, "Indo-Europeans", "Aryans", "Japhetites" and "Wiros". Yet, these people have not left any texts, no artifacts can with certainty be ascribed to them, nor do we know any individual "Indo-European" by name. Despite this, scholars have, with help from daring historical, linguistic and archaeological reconstructions, persistently tried to reach the ancient Indo-Europeans in hopes of finding the foundations for their own culture and religion. The main hypothesis of this thesis is that these pre-historical peoples have... (More)
- By using ancient texts, medieval documents, philological observations, and archaeological artifacts, scholars have reconstructed a prehistorical world and religion. The people who upheld this culture have been named, inter alia, "Indo-Europeans", "Aryans", "Japhetites" and "Wiros". Yet, these people have not left any texts, no artifacts can with certainty be ascribed to them, nor do we know any individual "Indo-European" by name. Despite this, scholars have, with help from daring historical, linguistic and archaeological reconstructions, persistently tried to reach the ancient Indo-Europeans in hopes of finding the foundations for their own culture and religion. The main hypothesis of this thesis is that these pre-historical peoples have not occupied modern man because they were important as historical agents, but because they were, with the words of Claude Lévi-Strauss, "good to think". The interest in "the Indo-Europeans", "the Aryans" and their "Others" — which latter group has at times been described as Jews, Savages, Orientals, Aristocrats, priests, matriarchal farmers, martial pastoralists, French liberals, and/or German nationalists — was (and still is) motivated by a wish to construct alternatives to those identities given by tradition. The study of the Indo-Europeans, their culture and religion, has been a way to produce new concepts, new identities and thus an alternative future. Chapter 1 describes how the concept of an Indo-European entity evolved during the 18th and 19th centuries out of speculations on the identity of different people mentioned in the Bible, out of the discovery of similarities between Indic and European languages, and out of romantic ideas about race and Volk. Chapter 2 deals with the first paradigm in the Indo-European studies, the Nature-Mythological school, and its relationship to Christianity, anti-Semitism and liberal-bourgeois mentality. Chapter 3 discusses the "primitivization" of the "Indo-Europeans" that developt at the end of the 19th century due to nationalism and vitalistic philosophy. Chapter 4 analyses the relationship between the study of Indo-Germanic or Aryan religion in the Third Reich and Nazi ideology. Chapter 5 treats theories that were created as alternative to Nazi scholarship by fascist, Catholic scholars. That chapter also deals with the developments in the study of Indo-European religion and culture during the last half of the 20th century (Less)
- Abstract (Swedish)
- Popular Abstract in Swedish
I över 200 år har en rad historiker, språkmän, folklorister och arkeologer försökt att återskapa en svunnen kultur. Med hjälp av antika texter, medeltida uppteckningar, filologiska observationer och arkeologiska lämningar har de beskrivit en värld, en religion och ett folk äldre än sumererna, med vilka all historia annars sägs ha börjat. De som upprätthöll denna svunna kultur har kallats "indoeuropéer" och "proto-indoeuropéer", "arier" och "fornarier", "jafetiter" och "wiros", samt en hel del annat. Dessa människor har inte lämnat efter sig några texter, inga föremål kan med säkerhet knytas till dem, inte heller känner vi någon "indoeuropé" till namnet. Trots det har forskare med hjälp av djärva... (More) - Popular Abstract in Swedish
I över 200 år har en rad historiker, språkmän, folklorister och arkeologer försökt att återskapa en svunnen kultur. Med hjälp av antika texter, medeltida uppteckningar, filologiska observationer och arkeologiska lämningar har de beskrivit en värld, en religion och ett folk äldre än sumererna, med vilka all historia annars sägs ha börjat. De som upprätthöll denna svunna kultur har kallats "indoeuropéer" och "proto-indoeuropéer", "arier" och "fornarier", "jafetiter" och "wiros", samt en hel del annat. Dessa människor har inte lämnat efter sig några texter, inga föremål kan med säkerhet knytas till dem, inte heller känner vi någon "indoeuropé" till namnet. Trots det har forskare med hjälp av djärva historiska, språkliga och arkeologiska rekonstruktioner envist försökt nå tillbaka till de urtida "indoeuropéerna" i hopp om att där finna grundvalen för sin egen kultur och religion. Den grundläggande tesen i denna avhandling är att dessa förhistoriska människor inte har sysselsatt den moderna tidens människor i första hand därför att de var betydelsefulla som historiska aktörer, utan därför de med Claude Lévi-Strauss ord var "bra att tänka med". Intresset för "indoeuropéerna", "arierna" och deras "andra", vilka genom historien har växlat mellan judar, vildar, orientaler, aristokrater, präster, matriarkala bönder, krigiska nomader, franska liberaler och tyska nationalister, stammade - och stammar ännu - ur en vilja att skapa alternativ till de identiteter som skänkts av traditionen. Forskningen om indoeuropéerna, deras kultur och religion har varit ett försök att skapa nya tankekategorier, nya identiteter och därmed en framtid annorlunda än den man ansåg sig föreskriven. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/19564
- author
- Arvidsson, Stefan LU
- supervisor
- opponent
-
- von Schnurbein, Stefanie
- organization
- publishing date
- 2000
- type
- Thesis
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- George Dumézil, Wilhelm Schmidt, Aryan, Indo-European, History of Religion, Mythology, Myth, Historiography, Humanities, Ideology, Philology, Old Norse Myth, Germanic Religion, Vedic Religion, Friedrich Max Müller, Greek Religion, Marija Gimbutas, Theology, Teologi
- pages
- 425 pages
- publisher
- Brutus Östlings Bokförlag Symposion
- defense location
- Edens hörsal
- defense date
- 2000-09-30 10:00:00
- ISBN
- 91-7139-495-8
- language
- Swedish
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- The information about affiliations in this record was updated in December 2015. The record was previously connected to the following departments: History and Anthropology of Religions (015017025), General History and Anthropology of Religions (015017030)
- id
- d3839650-b0f3-4a3c-8e51-e45fac4ef310 (old id 19564)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-04 10:56:22
- date last changed
- 2018-11-21 21:01:41
@phdthesis{d3839650-b0f3-4a3c-8e51-e45fac4ef310,
abstract = {{By using ancient texts, medieval documents, philological observations, and archaeological artifacts, scholars have reconstructed a prehistorical world and religion. The people who upheld this culture have been named, inter alia, "Indo-Europeans", "Aryans", "Japhetites" and "Wiros". Yet, these people have not left any texts, no artifacts can with certainty be ascribed to them, nor do we know any individual "Indo-European" by name. Despite this, scholars have, with help from daring historical, linguistic and archaeological reconstructions, persistently tried to reach the ancient Indo-Europeans in hopes of finding the foundations for their own culture and religion. The main hypothesis of this thesis is that these pre-historical peoples have not occupied modern man because they were important as historical agents, but because they were, with the words of Claude Lévi-Strauss, "good to think". The interest in "the Indo-Europeans", "the Aryans" and their "Others" — which latter group has at times been described as Jews, Savages, Orientals, Aristocrats, priests, matriarchal farmers, martial pastoralists, French liberals, and/or German nationalists — was (and still is) motivated by a wish to construct alternatives to those identities given by tradition. The study of the Indo-Europeans, their culture and religion, has been a way to produce new concepts, new identities and thus an alternative future. Chapter 1 describes how the concept of an Indo-European entity evolved during the 18th and 19th centuries out of speculations on the identity of different people mentioned in the Bible, out of the discovery of similarities between Indic and European languages, and out of romantic ideas about race and Volk. Chapter 2 deals with the first paradigm in the Indo-European studies, the Nature-Mythological school, and its relationship to Christianity, anti-Semitism and liberal-bourgeois mentality. Chapter 3 discusses the "primitivization" of the "Indo-Europeans" that developt at the end of the 19th century due to nationalism and vitalistic philosophy. Chapter 4 analyses the relationship between the study of Indo-Germanic or Aryan religion in the Third Reich and Nazi ideology. Chapter 5 treats theories that were created as alternative to Nazi scholarship by fascist, Catholic scholars. That chapter also deals with the developments in the study of Indo-European religion and culture during the last half of the 20th century}},
author = {{Arvidsson, Stefan}},
isbn = {{91-7139-495-8}},
keywords = {{George Dumézil; Wilhelm Schmidt; Aryan; Indo-European; History of Religion; Mythology; Myth; Historiography; Humanities; Ideology; Philology; Old Norse Myth; Germanic Religion; Vedic Religion; Friedrich Max Müller; Greek Religion; Marija Gimbutas; Theology; Teologi}},
language = {{swe}},
publisher = {{Brutus Östlings Bokförlag Symposion}},
school = {{Lund University}},
title = {{Ariska Idoler. Den indoeuropeiska mytologin som ideologi och vetenskap}},
year = {{2000}},
}