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Date:         Tue, 6 Oct 1992 15:34:35 -0500
Reply-To:     TSATSOUL%turing@UKANVAX.BITNET
From:         TSATSOUL%turing@UKANVAX.BITNET
Subject:      Endiaferon istoriko keimeno
Comments: To: hellas@uga.bitnet

To parakatw keimeno emfanis0hke se mia allh lista, alla htan endiaferon kai
to metaferw sth HELLAS xwris thn adeia tou syggrafea.  Ean sas aresei exei
ki alla:

--- Kwstas

In reading books covering the last seventy years or so of the Habsburg Monarchy
(where hindsight excused the Decline Of or Collapse Of in the titles), I'd see
such usages as "fierce Croats," who suppressed Italians and Hungarians in
1848-9; and "wild Serbs," either Noble Savage heroes fighting oppressive Turks
or Troublemakers impeding the Powers' efforts to impose Decency in the Balkans.
People who, close to our own times, were called Wild or Fierce are not almost
by definition whites.

This series of posts, which is a spinoff of the series sent in response to
**** *****' original query, "When did race begin?" is a cursory review of
the bad name Slav peoples have got from the Dark Ages to Hitler's "Hordes of
Slav subhumanity" and the slightly later "Lower Slobbovia" of Al Capp, the
land of the Schmoo (The most likely inspiration was Eastern Rumelia, a piece
of creative mapmaking by European diplomats at the Congress of Berlin, 1878,
which graced or disgraced the maps of Europe from 1878-1883 and possibly was
useful experience in drawing boundaries in Africa: by popular demand of the
Bulgarians on both sides of the "border" this mistake was however quickly
erased).

Before whiteness was invented, the English had a usage, "wild Irish," who were
at once a security problem and a source of communal lands to be appropriated
since, as these belonged to nobody, they might be clamed as Private Property
by the first Somebody to file suit in court. When the victimized lineage went
to court in its turn, it would be declared "a mere wild Irish sept," hence of
no standing. To hold down the Irish, the English Crown (or Cromwell's
Protectorate) established Plantations. What was planted was not cotton, but
people, specifically Protestants, whose interests were thought to lie with the
English Ascendancy. The Protestants were usually Scottish Presbyterians, who as
Dissenters were discriminated against by the Anglicans and later produced the
occasional rebel like Wolfe Tone, as well as immigrants to America known as
"Scots-Irish."

In North America, Wild Irishness was transposed onto Wild Indians whose
communal lands were turned into Private Property in violation of established
ustom according to pre-existing English custom. What did not at first exist
was *whiteness*, as the word "race" itself was exclusively used for those of
noble (Lat. *nobilis*, best) or aristocratic (Gr. *aristoi*, best) or Gentle
(Fr. *gentil*, from Lat. *gens*, a noble lineage): Richard Williams, Hierar-
chical Structure and Social Value, p. 45, cites the following:

   Gentlemen are described as "those whome their *race* and *blood* or at least
   their vertues doo make noble and knowne."

Cf. Decent, from It. *gente decente*, people with pedigrees. No Work (or
Protestant) Ethic at this time; the overt puropose of Civilization at that
time was still for the Civilized to watch *somebody else* do the work, if not
actually hiring somebody to do the tiresome watching itself. Those who did the
work, while not net white or nonwhite, were certainly "race"-less:

      In calling our attention to the manner in which the structurally and
   morally low group was perceived in Colonial America, Perkins (1980:70)
   states:
      "In the tobacco colonies, planters constantly complained about the poor
   quality of servant labor. Masters invariably described their white
   indentures as lazy, ignorant, and alcoholic idlers, who were universally
   ungrateful, unruly, and irresponsible."
   (Richard Williams, Hierarchical Structure and Social Value, p. 46)

   Poor whites, we see, were *slobs* and Africans were en*slav*ed. Something
here goes a long way back. The word denoting property in people who are subject
to labor at will of owners is, in every language in Western Europe, derived
from *Slav*, where our word *slave* is merely the former with the French suffix
(as in Tchaikovsky's "Marche Slave"). For this reason the Latin *servus*,
slave, could be put to other uses such as *serf*, later *servant*.

   In 542 an epidemic of Bubonic Plague, called the Plague of Justinian,
reached Constantinople, where in suspiciously round numbers Procopius claimed
that 10,000 died every day. This epidemic spread all over the Mediterranean and
like that of the mid-fourteenth century, with its recurrences changed history
in too many ways to keep entirely straight. With contagious bacterial infect-
ions, warm, moist climates are deadliest, the more so where they are densely
populated; and cold climates on the one hand and hot, dry ones on the other
are healthier. The whole Mediterranean "civilized" world became a demographic
sink, possibly with effects even on the language in which this is written: In
faroff Britain, Maelgwynn, King of Powys and leader of the indigenous Britons
in their resistance to Angles and Saxons, suddenly died and the military
balance shifted forthwith.

   In Gaul, the mid-sixth century was a time of political chaos for the ruling
Merovingians and one of effacement of Frank-Roman divisions among landowners.
All landlowners alike were confronted with a huge shortage of labor. In a time
and place where the clergy paid no attention to technology, something wholly
relegated to illiterates, Gregory of Tours was was compelled to take note of a
squabble over water rights between a monk and s Frankish layman, since both
intended to use the same spot for installation of a water mill. This was a
unseful contrivance invented in the Roman Empire in the first century though
subsequently used by the Romans most sparingly, in contexts where slave labor
was inadequate for the job. That one of those Roman mills, in the Vienne
vicinity I think, linked up 20 or so wheels shows that the Romans were familiar
with this machine, could have made more use of it, but did not. (In England,
there were 6,000 water mills reported in Domesday Book, all built since the
Roman departure.)

   Labor-saving devices were no solution; the Franks went Slav-raiding. In 620
a certain Samo, King of Great Moravia, was reported engaged in slave-trading
relations with the Frankish Kingdom. (Great Moravia was roughly the former
Czechoslovakia, at least.) In some places I have seen Samo described as a
"Frankish merchant." Ask your local historian, in the Yellow Pages.

   Europe receded to the periphery of the Mediterranean economy, now dominated
by the Muslim Caliphate. Europe's role became that of supplying slaves, along
with raw materials such as amber and furs, to the Middle East. The slaves were
Slavs. This reflected the filling up of the demographic sink. As Arabs invaded
from hot, dry Arabia after 632, the Byzantine Danube Frontier was penetrated by
Slav migrations from the 550s; and broken down by Avars, nomadic Turkic people
from Central Asia ruling over Slavs, from the 580s.

   The names of the three major peoples of the Balkans were acquired in the
seventh cntury: The Bulgars are described as "Turkic"; the Serbs and Croats
"Iranian." Each of these, like the Avars, were nomadic, from Central Asia,
whose warriors were mounted. (John V.A. Fine, The Early Mediveal Balkans: A
Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century, 1983.) The regular
occurrence is noted that, whenever Slavs were said to have been operating on
their own, they staged small-scale raids, had to be defeated one small tribe
at a time, and were led only by consensual "chiefs." To attain truly impressive
politico-military results required on the other hand conquest by external
invaders and the formation by an alien ruling aristocracy of states and
kingdoms. Is this entirely *true* or does it reflect a long-established legend
of Slav Inferiority?

   My linecounter has run out.
   [Note: "buggery" is derived from "bulgarus," Bulgarian, and dates from the
time of the Bogomil heresy, better known in the West as Albigensianism.]
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