Alexander the Great in Mythologies all over the world

[Phrossack]

I think you're misunderstanding my post? The exasperation is due to learning of his ethnicity kind of blowing my argument out of the water. It's a lot easier to make the argument when you know you're against another American.

Cheezy's point clarifies things for me, though, so eh.

Ah. Apologies, sir. I totally misunderstood your post.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Was Alexander III technically Slavic?

Almost certainly no.

Nationalists from modern Republic of Macedonia insist that he was.

That's the joke.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Of ****ing course he is.

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Of &*%#)@(&% course he is.

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[r16]

maybe ı should have been clearer by suggesting the Greeks would have felt no need to identify the Persian Empire between the Aegean Sea and Indian peers had Rome developed earlier and invaded Greece . Hence Alexander going West and forced to return at the Pyrenees .

conspiracy is never history but history of it can be and isn't this "Greek" tradition that made Ceasar to burn all the documents and stuff Alexander collected ? In a soft power thing as if he meant to protect the traditions and achievements , say those of Indians ? Though ı can't say Romans burning the Great Library for a particular reason was not invented in the 1700s or 1900s .

 

[Domen]

Was Alexander III technically Slavic?

Depends which one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_III_of_Russia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_III_of_Scotland

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_III

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_the_Great

 

[Kyriakos]

Apart from Alexander III of Russia, i can't see any other one of them not being slavic

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Personally, I don't care what color skin Alexander, his people, or his enemies had. They could all have purple hair and plaid skin; what's important is what they did and why, and how it affected the people and events afterward.

 

[Plotinus]

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[Kyriakos]

Wiki article on the Kalash, people living in Pakistan and claiming to be descended from the soldiers of Alexander the Great:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalash_people

 

[Phrossack]

Wiki article on the Kalash, people living in Pakistan and claiming to be descended from the soldiers of Alexander the Great:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalash_people

Operative word, of course, is "claiming". But they are interesting for seeming to have a lot of ancient Indo-Aryan customs.

 

[H4run]

That is only half the truth. In Islamic Iran, especially in the Medieval Era, Alexander was seen as a wise Persian King. Of course, many Iranians hated him, but in Medieval Iran that was not the case.

not half but truth, don't mix Iskandar as Alexander, we got tons interpretation of who is Iskandar is (the man whom mention in Quran). The persian when they talk about Iskandar they not talking about Alexander but they related it with Cyrus, which I consider myself more likely to agree on their point of view regarding this matters.

So those picture you collect mostly been attribute to Cyrus not Alexander.

 

[cybrxkhan]

Interesting fact: Alexander was even well-known and respected among the medieval sub-Saharan states of West Africa and in their oral traditions which survive to this day. For example, Sundiata Keita, the founder of Mali and a national hero of sorts for the Mande peoples of West Africa, has been compared to Alexader the Great in Mande oral tradition. In the Epic of Sundiata, the main body of oral traditions concerning him, in a section where his qualities are praised - he is a pious Muslim, for instance, but also follows old West African traditions of kingship - he has been called something like the "last Alexander", implying that he is the last of a great line of conquerors and kings.

For those who wonder where I got this, I took a class on African history last year and I had to read the Epic of Sundiata. Pretty interesting and it amazed me at how far indeed the mythology surrounding Alexander the Great had spread.


As for Alexander the Great himself, I will mention rather tangentially that the professor and specialist of Persian history at my school - who, incidentally, is Persian - has a viewpoint on Alexander similar to what Traitorfish proposed. That Alexander was essentially simply taking over the old Persian Empire, rather than conquering and destroying it; Alexander adopted Persian customs and ideas - most people with a basic knowledge of Alexander know this to some extent - but my professor says that in the West this has been downplayed by, as Traitorfish argues, an Orientalist, mighty whitey sort of narrative. In the West the Persians have always been portrayed as the "other" as suited the West at the time - during the Renaissance for instance the ancient Persians were depicted like Ottomans; during the Cold War they would have a bit of a Russian flair to them in the American media; and nowadays with the great movie 300 we can see the influence of the War on Terror. But anyhow regardless of how valid my professor's viewpoint is (I find it convincing), I would like to point out that despite being Persian himself my professor is in no way any sort of Iranian nationalist, and in fact thinks "great" conquerors like Alexander is a complete douchebag comparable to other douchebag conquerors like Genghis Khan and Hitler (yes, he used Hitler one time to make his point) and Iranian ones like Nader Shah and Shah Ismail, so I don't think he would be biased in that way.

But now I'm starting to ramble like my professor.


Anyhow I did find it rather amusing growing up the history books would always say Alexander did great conquests and made an empire larger than any in the ancient world at the time... then they'll show the approximate borders of the Persian Empire and Alexander's Empire, and they'd more or less be about the same size.

 

[H4run]

maybe I'm wrong while both you and traitorfish are right, I can't have so much confidence in this issue but for sure there are several interpretation of who is Iskandar Zulkarnaen are, whom been related as a wise King and been mention and praise in Quran.

Many peoples see the criteria are closer more likely to Cyrus than Alexander the Great. I'm not a shiite but I do once had try to enter the Iranian shiite community from my languages course just for curiosity, while talking about history they never have a rest on joking or cursing Alexander, and they percept Iskandar as Cyrus not Alexander.

And regarding the shiite in Iran you must know the more religious they are they more nationalist they are, the raising of Shah Ismail in the time of Yavuz Sultan Selim is not only the raising of Shiite against Sunni but more into the raising of Iran Nationalism, and so the Shiite today are more into Iran nationalism than actually a religion. The base doctrine of shiite is on hating historical character, name it : Abu Baqr Shidq, Umar Ibn Khatab, Umayyah Ibn Abi Sufyan, Yazid Ibn Umayyah, Abu Hurairah, etc.

Not to mention Alexander whom they consider doing rampage to whole of persepolis, even the first caliph whom introduce them with Islam they not give him a respite. So I really hardly believe the persian consider Alexander as Iskandar, if they do consider there is no room for them to condemn him because regarding to Islamic doctrine Iskandar is an awliya or a person who close to God. You may ask this to your professor maybe I'm the one who wrong here.

Btw, in west sumatera, specifically in Bukit Tinggi, they consider themselves to be descendent of Alexander the Great. You can examine it from their tambo or oral tradition, they name him Maharajo Dirajo. They state the youngest son of Alexander decide to cross the pillar of hercule from India to seek for the lost continent, so they sail and end up in Bukit Tinggi, where he teach the local to form a government base on 10 peoples that coming from 3 different group of peoples which they called as Tigo Tungku Sajarang, one group is delegation of intellectual, another group religious, another group ninik mamak or leader of the community. And this system stand for quite long until the era of Pagaruyung Kingdom I suppose.

 

[cybrxkhan]

@haroon: I wouldn't necessarily say you are wrong concerning Cyrus and Alexander the Great. It is entirely possible, and plausible that people project the ideals of leadership onto both men. After all, both ruled the Persian Empire, essentially, both conquered a whole swath of territory.

I would also add that my professor doesn't necessarily argue that Persians love Alexander the Great per se, rather than Alexander the Great attempted to be a monarch in the Persian tradition, much more than Western sources would admit. Still, I feel that any hatred towards Alexander - as opposed to other possible historical figures - might be a more modern, even nationalistic thing. The tendency (historical and present) in the West to consider Alexander their own - a projection of European superiority over non-Europeans, essentially - plays extremely well into more modern narrative of the West as an imperialist bastard. But anyhow I'm rambling. I'm not too aware on the subject, so I don't want to say anything that might be problematic.

Ultimately though I think we do agree at least that Alexander, whoever he really was, is a lot more complicated and problematic a figure than the mythology he is typical associated with.

 

[john1565]

No man, except for Prophet Mohament, Buddha and Jesus, has ever been so adopted in the mythologies of so many nations and was given so diverse depictions. For example, look at this Malay epic:

It's a great collection indeed! And it's true that Alexander is present in every myth. There is a possible reason according to me. Look at the tour map of Alexander. With such a short life-span and poor technology support, he went almost every possible part of the world which was a dream for even travelers in that period.

 

[Arakhor]

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