According to Leon Poliakov, the concept of the Aryan race was deeply rooted in philology, based on the work of Sir William Jones' claiming that Sanskrit was related to Greco-Roman (European) languages. Other thinkers invented secularized origins for European civilization that were not based on the biblical genealogies from which Europe's aristocracy had long claimed descent.[28][29]
The influence of Romanticism in Germany saw a revival of the intellectual quest for "the German language and traditions" and a desire to "discard the cold, artificial logic of Enlightenment".[30] After Darwin's 1859 publication of On the Origin of Species and publicization of the theorized model of Proto-Indo-European language (PIE), the Romantics convicted that language was a defining factor in national identity, combined with the new ideas of Darwinism.[31] The German nationalists misemployed the scientific theory of natural selection for the rationalization of the supposed fitness of some races over others, although Darwin himself never applied his theory of fitness to vague entities such as races or languages.[31] The "unfit" races were suggested as a source of genetic weakness, and a threat that might contaminate the superior qualities of the "fit" races.[31] The misleading mixture of pseudoscience and Romanticism produced new racial ideologies which used distorted Social Darwinist interpretations of race to explain "the superior biological-spiritual-linguistic essence of the Northern Europeans" in self-congratulatory studies.[32][33] Subsequently, the German Romantics' quest for a "pure" national heritage led to the interpretation of the ancient speakers of PIE language as the distinct progenitors of a "racial-linguistic-national stereotype".[34][35]
The term "Aryan" was originally used as an ethnocultural self-designative identity and epithet of "noble" by Indo-Iranians and the authors of the oldest known religious texts of Rig Veda and Avesta within the Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European language family—Sanskrit and Iranian, who lived in ancient India and Iran.[36] Although the Sanskrit ā́rya- and Iranian *arya- descended from a form *ā̆rya-, it was only attested to the Indo-Iranian tribes.[37][38]Benjamin W. Fortson states that there may have been no term for self-designation of Proto-Indo-Europeans, and no such morphemes has survived.[38]J. P. Mallory et al. states although the term "Aryan" takes on an ethnic meaning attesting to Indo-Iranians, there is no grounds for ascribing this semantic use to the Proto-Indo-European reconstruction of lexicon *h₂eryós i.e. there is no evidence that the speakers of proto-language referred to themselves as "Aryans".[39] However, in the 19th century, it was proposed that ā́rya- was not only the tribal self-designation of Indo-Iranians, but self-designation of Proto-Indo-Europeans themselves, a theory rejected by modern scholarships.[37][38] "Aryan" then came to be used by scholars of the 19th century to refer to Indo-Europeans.[37] The now-discredited and chronologically reconstructedNorth European hypothesis was endorsed by such scholars who situated the PIE homeland in northern Europe,[37] which led to the association of "Proto-Indo-Europeans", originally a hypothesized linguistic population of Eurasian PIE speakers, with a new, imagined biological category: "a tall, light-complexioned, blonde, blue-eyed race" - supposed phenotypic traits of Nordic race.[40][41][42][43] The anglicized term "Aryan" then developed into a purely racialist meaning implicating Nordic racial type.[43][37] However, modern scholarship of Indo-European studies use "Aryan" and "Indo-Aryan" in their original senses referring to Indo-Iranian and Indic branch of Indo-Europeans.[44]
Classification of human races based on the now-pseudoscientific study of phenotypical differences developed during the nineteenth century and evidence in support of such theories were sought from the study of language and reconstructions of language families.[45] Scholars of this era established the ethnological term "Aryan" as the race that had spoken the Proto-Indo-European language, and in this context, the term was often used as a synonym for "Indo-Europeans".[45]
Scholars point out that, even in ancient times, the Aryan identity as asserted in the Rig Veda was cultural, religious, and linguistic, not racial; nor do the Vedas contemplate racial purity.[46][47][48] The Rig Veda affirms a ritualistic barrier: an individual is considered Aryan if they sacrifice to the right gods, which requires performing traditional prayer in the traditional language, and does not connote a racial barrier.[47]Michael Witzel states that term Aryan "does not mean a particular people or even a particular 'racial' group but all those who had joined the tribes speaking Vedic Sanskrit and adhering to their cultural norms (such as ritual, poetry, etc.)".[48] Scholars state that the historical Aryans, the Vedic periodBronze Age tribes who lived in Iran, Afghanistan, and the northern Indian subcontinent—composers of the Rig Veda and Avesta—were unlikely to be blond or blue-eyed, contrary to the proponents of Aryanism and Nordicism.[25][49]
North Europe hypothesis and archaeological affirmation
The racial interpretation of Aryans stems from the now-discredited culture-historical archaeology theory of Gustaf Kossinna, who asserted a one-to-one correspondence between archaeological culture and archaeological race.[50][51] According to Kossinna, the continuity of a "culture" exposits the continuity of a "race" which lived continuously in the same area, and the resemblance of a culture in a younger layer to a culture from an older layer indicates that the autochthonous tribe from the homeland had migrated.[52] Kossinna developed an ethnic paradigm in archaeology called settlement archaeology and practiced the nationalistic interpretation of German archaeology for the Third Reich.[53] The obsolete North European hypothesis was endorsed by Kossinna and Karl Penka, including German nationalists, which was later used by the Nazis to condone their genocidal and racist state policies.[40][24] Kossinna identified the Proto-Indo-Europeans with the Corded Ware culture, and placed the Proto-Indo-European homeland in Schleswig-Holstein.[54] He argued a diffusionist model of culture, and emphasised the racial superiority of Germanic peoples over Romans (Roman Empire) and French, whom he described as destroyers of culture as compared to Germanics.[55] Kossinna's ideas have been heavily criticised for its inherent ambiguities in the method and advocacy for the ideology of a Germanic master race.[56]
Earliest utilization of Aryan race
Max Müller popularized the term Aryan in his writings on comparative linguistics,[59] and is often identified as the first writer to mention an Aryan race in English.[60] He began the racial interpretation of the Vedic passages based upon his editing of the Rigveda from 1849 to 1874.[61] He postulated a small Aryan clan living on a high elevation in central Asia, speaking a proto-language ancestral to later Indo-European languages, which later branched off in two directions: one moved towards Europe and the other migrated to Iran, eventually splitting again with one group invading north-western India and conquering the dark-skinned dasas of Scythian origin who lived there.[62] The northern Aryans of Europe became energetic and combative, and they invented the idea of a nation, while the southern Aryans of Iran and India were passive and meditative and focussed on religion and philosophy.[63]
Though he occasionally used the term "Aryan race" afterward, Müller later objected to the mixing of the linguistic and racial categories,[64] and was "deeply saddened by the fact that these classifications later came to be expressed in racist terms".[65] In his 1888 lecture at Oxford, he stated, "[the] science of Language and the science of Man cannot be kept too much asunder [...] it would be as wrong to speak of Aryan blood as of dolichocephalic grammar",[64] and in his Biographies of Words and the Home of the Aryas (1888), he writes, "[the] ethnologist who speaks of Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes, and hair, is a great sinner as a linguist [...]".[66]
European scholars of 19th century interpreted the Vedic passages as depicting battle between light-skinned Aryan migrants and dark-skinned indigenous tribes, but modern scholars reject this characterization of racial division as a misreading of the Sanskrit text,[67] and indicate that the Rig Vedic opposition between ārya and dasyu is distinction between "disorder, chaos and dark side of human nature" contrasted with the concepts of "order, purity, goodness and light",[67] and "dark and light worlds".[68][46] In other contexts of the Vedic passages the dinstiction between ārya and dasyu refers to those who had adopted the Vedic religion, speaking Vedic Sanskrit, and those who opposed it.[48][69]
However, increasing number of Western writers of this era, especially among anthropologists and non-specialists influenced by Darwinist theories, contrasted Aryans as a "physical-genetic species" rather than an ethnolinguistic category.[70][71]
In 1853, Arthur de Gobineau published An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, in which he originally identified the Aryan race as the white race,[77] and the only civilized one, and conceived cultural decline and miscegenation as intimately intertwined.[3] He argued that the Aryans represented a superior branch of humanity,[78] and attempted to identify the races of Europe as Aryan and associated them with the sons of Noah, emphasizing superiority, and categorized non-Aryan as an intrusion of the Semitic race.[63] According to him, northern Europeans had migrated across the world and founded the major civilizations, before being diluted through racial mixing with indigenous populations described as racially inferior, leading to the progressive decay of the ancient Aryan civilizations.[2][3]
In 1878, German American anthropologist Theodor Poesche published a survey of historical references attempting to demonstrate that the Aryans were light-skinned blue-eyed blonds.[41]
In 1916, Madison Grant published The Passing of the Great Race, a polemic against interbreeding between "Aryan" Americans, the original Thirteen Colonies settlers of British-Scots-Irish-German origin, with immigrant "inferior races", which according to him were, Poles, Czechs, Jews, and Italians.[43] The book was a best-seller at the time.[43]
A definition of Aryan that included all non-Jewish Europeans was deemed unacceptable, and the Expert Committee on Questions of Population and Racial Policy of 1933 brought together important Nazi intellectuals Alfred Ploetz, Fritz Thyssen, and Ernst Rüdin to plan the course of Nazi racial policy, defining an Aryan as one who was "tribally related to the German blood and descendant of a Volk".[87][88] The term "Volksdeutsche" was used by Nazis to indicate "ethnic Germans" who did not hold German Reich citizenship;[89]Volksdeutsche further consist of "racial groups"—minorities within a state—who are descendants of a Volk domiciled in Europe in a closed tribal settlement and are closely related to German racial community.[90][87] The Nazi concept of "Volksgemeinschaft" racially unified ethnic Germans, including those living outside the German Reich, propounding only the members of the racial community be considered Aryan.[91][92]
Members of the SS deemed Aryans could be selected from populations of Volksdeutsche across Europe to create "master race".[93] Nazi Party established the organization NSDAP/AO to disseminate Nazi propaganda among the ethnic German minorities considered Volksdeutsche in central and eastern Europe.[94] Nazi racial theories considered the "purest stock of Aryans" the Nordic people, identified by physical anthropological features such as tallness, white skin, blue eyes, narrow and straight noses, doliocephalic skulls, prominent chins, and blond hair, including Scandinavians, Germans, English and French,[95][96] with Nordic and Germanic people being the "master race" (German: Herrenrasse).[97] Recent archaeogenetic studies contradict these ideas, and instead suggest that Proto-Indo-European speaking peoples probably had brown eyes and hair, and intermediate skin complexion.[98]
Historical revisionism
After the death of Kossinna, Heinrich Himmler, and other Nazi figures such as Alfred Rosenberg, adopted his nationalistic theories of Germanic peoples and methodologies, including settlement archaeology, and founded the SS organization Ahnenerbe (German: Deutsches Ahnenerbe) for conducting archaeological investigations of a presumed "Germanic expansion in pre-history".[99][100] Nazi scholars endorsed the now-discredited North European hypothesis in an effort to prove PIE was originally spoken by an "Aryan master race", and associated the Semitic languages with "inferior races".[26]Historical revisionism around race was disseminated through the Nazi think tank Ahnenerbe.[12][75] Hitler regularly invoked Social Darwinist concepts of Ernst Haeckel such as higher evolution (German: Höherentwicklung), struggle for existence (German: Existenzkampf), selection (German: Auslese), struggle for life (German: Lebenskampf), in his Nazi racial ideology, which is the central theme in the chapter "Nation and Race" of Mein Kampf.[101] Haeckel's Social Darwinism was also praised by Alfred Ploetz, founder of the German Society for Racial Hygiene, who made him an honorary member of the eugenic organization.[102]
The culmination of Nazi eugenicist and racial hygiene programs of sterilization and extermination aimed at creating an "Aryan master race" and eliminating "inferior non-Aryan types" such as Jews, Slavs, Poles, Roma, homosexuals, and the disabled.[15][108] Nazi Germany introduced the Anti-Jewish legislation that systemically discriminated against Jews by requiring Aryan certification for a German Reich citizen.[109][110] After Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany, the public policies of Nazi Germany became increasingly hostile towards supposed "inferior types",[111] particularly Jews, who were considered to be the highest manifestation of the Semitic race,[112] and segregation of Jews in ghettos culminated in the policy of extermination the Nazis called the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.[113] The state-sponsored persecution systematically murdered over 6 million Jews,[114] 5.7 million Slavs,[115] 1.8–3 million Poles,[116] 270,000 disabled people,[117]among other victims, including children through mass shooting, gas chamber, gas van, and concentration camps, in the process known as the Holocaust.[118][119] The ethnic Germans considered Volksdeutsche joined the local SS organizations under NSDAP/AO and participated in Nazi-sponsored pogroms in eastern and central Europe during the Holocaust, including seizures of Jewish property.[89][120] The Aryan race belief was used by the Nazis to justify the persecution, depicting the victims as the "antipode and eternal enemy of the Aryans".[111]
Indo-European history, real and feigned, plays a significant role in various neo-pagan movements.[25]
Russian neo-paganism
The Russian Slavophile movements borrowed various discrete ideas of a presumed "prestigious Aryan origin" of Europeans from Nazi Germany.[129][25] Although Russian Orthodoxy was the primary religious influence on Russian nationalists, the primacy of Christianity was treated skeptically by these groups, who later began searching for an ancient text to rationalize a "return to the origins".[130] Various writers in the newspaper Zhar-Ptitsa showed interest in a purported manuscript—the Book of Veles—which supposedly dated to the first century BCE.[131] F. A. Izenbek, a White Army officer, alleged the discovery of this manuscript during the Russian Civil War. However one of Izenbek's friends, Iurii Miroliubov, had forged the manuscript, and used the term "Vedism" to describe Russian neo-paganism; he later appropriated the Indian religious scripture, the Vedas, to aggrandize the manuscript.[131][132] Nationalistic white Russian émigrés and neo-Pagans consider the manuscript to be an authentic historical source of Slavic antiquity,[133] who claim a direct link between "ancient Aryans" and themselves as Slavs.[25] However, the manuscript is declared literary forgery by scholars.[134][135]Alexey Dobrovolsky, a Russian neo-Nazi,[136] is considered the founding Nazi ideologues of Slavic Neopaganism.[137][138]
^Mish, Frederic C., Editor in Chief Webster's Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary Springfield, Massachusetts. 1994 – Merriam-Webster See original definition (definition #1) of "Aryan" in English. 0. 66
^Leoussi, Athena (2001). Encyclopedia of Nationalism. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis. p. 11. The process was further assisted by a romanticism which gloried in the exotic and encouraged the idea that the greatest civilizational achievements of Europe could be attributed to the stimulus of ancient Aryan tribal movements...Historians seemed increasingly bent on discovering in each case a vigorous national past from which could be projected an even greater future. Scholars searching for Aryan pedigree also availed themselves of such newer disciplines as ethnology and anthropology.
^Judaken, Jonathan (6 March 2024). "Leon Poliakov, Philosophy, and the Secularization of Anti-Judaism in the Development of Racism". Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal. 35 (1): 193–195. It seemed as in the Europeans of the scientific age, having freed themselves from the conventional Noachian genealogy and rejected Adam as a common father, were looking around for new ancestors but were unable to break with the tradition which placed their origin in the fabulous Orient. It was the science of linguistics which was to give a name to these ancestors by opposing the Aryans to the Hamites, the Mongols—and the Jews.
^Arnold, Bettina (July–August 1992). "The Past as Propaganda: How Hitler's Archaeologists Distorted European Prehistory to Justify Racist and Territorial Goals". Archaeology. Archaeological Institute of America: 30–37.
^"Polish Resistance and Conclusions". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 2 January 2018. Documentation remains fragmentary, but today scholars of independent Poland believe that 1.8 to 1.9 million Polish civilians (non-Jews) were victims of German Occupation policies and the war. This approximate total includes Poles killed in executions or who died in prisons, forced labor, and concentration camps. It also includes an estimated 225,000 civilian victims of the 1944 Warsaw uprising, more than 50,000 civilians who died during the 1939 invasion and siege of Warsaw, and a relatively small but unknown number of civilians killed during the Allies' military campaign of 1944–45 to liberate Poland.
^Shnirelman, Victor A. (2 August 2010). "'Christians! Go home': A Revival of Neo-Paganism between the Baltic Sea and Transcaucasia (An Overview)". Journal of Contemporary Religion. 17 (2): 197–211. doi:10.1080/13537900220125181. S2CID51303383. The urbanized bookish Neo-Paganism is constructed by people of high educational standards. They do not restrict themselves to an oral tradition and are searching for earlier cultures reconstructed by scholars. It is on this ground that the Russian Neo-Pagans forge their versions of the Neo-Pagan belief system: some of them emphasize an Indo-Iranian heritage ('Aryan', 'Vedaic'), others are more fascinated with Zoroastrianism, still others are adherents of the 'Runic Magic'
^Shizhensky, Roman (2009). "Neo-pagan myth about Prince Vladimir". Bulletin of the Buryat State University. Philosophy, Sociology, Political Science, Cultural Studies (in Russian) (6): 250–256.