Let's Discuss Poland

[Ahimsadharma]

There can't be a "history of Poland" before there were any Poles. There can be a history of the area which later became Poland but was, before Slavic tribes migrated there, not Poland in any sense of the word; it was merely the area which later became Poland. Likewise, there can be no "history of Sweden" before there were any Swedes. One can talk of a "prehistory", of course, but that's not the same thing at all. Give up, already.

And I'm out of this thread again. It's getting sillier all the time.

False. History of Poland has nothing whatsoever to do with Poles, history of Sweden has nothing whatsoever to do with Swedes. It is simply a question of history of the land and whether 1 or 100 ethnic groups inhabited or intermingled in it is irrelevant. A Pole today is as much a Pole as some native Hun living there in Hunnic times. Same with Sweden and whoever the pre-swedes were. And if tomorrow entire Poland gets nuked and 2000 years later, the pygmies from Africa move into Poland, then 4000 AD wize, pygmies = Poles.
Defining history with race/ethnicity is a racist and ethnocentric perspective of history, not an objective one. Your history is simply the history of the land you live/lived in. Nothing more, nothing less. Ethnic and political definitions change with time. Defining it through land does not.

As far as i am concerned, a Hun living in Poland is just as much Polish as the current Primier of Poland is.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

from what i know, the Byzantines paid the Avars (i think, could be some other nomadic peoples) to wipe out the renmants of the Huns, who were pretty much nothing by then.

So Poland was completely empty for a while after the Byzantines wiped out the Huns and before the Slavs arrived ?
In anycase, Byzantines paid the Avars ( actually, a subsection of the Hunnic tribes that migrated later from Zungaria) to take care of Huns in the balkans and black sea area. Byzantines had little or no political and military influence in Poland.

the Slavs were actually not too close to the Hun's powerbase 2 centuries previously anyhow.

For all intents and purposes, Huns = absorbed into the slavic fold, therefore modern slavs are Huns as much as slavs historically and genetically speaking.

and anyhow, Huns -/-> Poles. Huns -~-> Hungarians!!!

False. Huns and Hungarian association is common but it is utterly false.
Hungarians are Magyars and the name 'Hungary' doesnt come from "hun/Huna/hepthali" ( the ancient words for Hun during Hun times) but from the word 'On Onguur', which meant ' union of 7 arrows' or something like that,signifying the unification of the Magyar tribes.
And when the Huns/Poles were at it, Hungarians were living somewhere near the Ural mountains and not in Hungary or Hunnic lands.

 

[0R4NG3]

And when the Huns/Poles were at it, Hungarians were living somewhere near the Ural mountains and not in Hungary or Hunnic lands.

I understand what you're saying, but I don't agree with it. Poles are Slavs and Slavs only, obviously there are mixtures, but huns are not Poles. Consider the following example: before Romans there were Etruscans, in modern day Italians there is very little Etruscan blood, if any at all. Meaning that Etruscans are not Italians. The same way as Huns are not Polish. Oh and don't forget Scythians.

 

[cybrxkhan]

the origins of the Slavs themselves are questionable, because, well, frankly, its very hard to pinpoint any origin. various peoples - Scythians, Sarmatians, Suedi, Balts, balh blah blah, have been pointed to their origin. so it is possible that a little Hun blood runs in Poles. but then again, it probably runs in Germans and Romanians for that matter.

and anyhow, the history of "Poland the piece of land right there" and the history of "Polish people" are entirely different. "Poland" couold mean either.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

Poles are Slavs and Slavs only

And who are the slavs ? Slavs what what and what only ?

before Romans there were Etruscans, in modern day Italians there is very little Etruscan blood, if any at all.

Etruscans were not a race/ethnicity- they were a culture. Same with all these huns, slavs,magyars, etc.
Besides, there is no way to prove/disprove your claim that there is very little Etruscan blood in italy today, given that we don't exactly have Etruscan dna to compare modern Italians with. You have no way of knowing whether the Etruscans were exterminated by 'Romans', whether the Romans were Etruscans themselves by blood ( who just happened to adopt Greek flavoured culture) or did the Romans simply 'absorb' Etruscans into their folds. So for all intents and purposes, Etruscans and Romans are both equally 'Italian' an entity as modern Italy is.

The same way as Huns are not Polish. Oh and don't forget Scythians.

If Huns get absorbed by the slavs and the new absorbed group deciedes to do away with Hunnic history, it still doesnt change the fact that Poles/slavs today are mixed with Huns and therefore, hunnic history is every bit their own as their so-called 'slavic' history is.

As i said, barring a few exception cases like Inuits or Hawaiians or south tibetans, there is no basis on trying to bring the issue of 'bloodlines' or 'ethnic/tribe' when debating the history of a land, since everyone is mixed with everyone else at some point in history or another and nobody has a clear idea when/what extent to which the mixing occured.
Elements of nationalism, particularly with ethnic-nation states tend to cloud sound judgement on this issue remarkably.

For eg even by removing naturalization processes, a Swede is one who is a Swede by birth and follows Swedish culture. You could be a big tall blue-eyed blond haired Swede called Olaf Ericsson and the guy next to you could be a big tall African lad, 2nd generation descendant of migrants (but born as a swede) and he is every bit as Swede as you are- and if he follows/participates in Swedish culture more than you, he certainly has a stronger claim to Swedish citizenship than you ( if we were to revert to the old school method of 'own land/participate in culture = earn citizenship')

As i keep saying, race/ethnicity has very little merit in history- only culture and civilization have.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

and anyhow, the history of "Poland the piece of land right there" and the history of "Polish people" are entirely different. "Poland" couold mean either.

Polish people = people of Poland.
People of Poland = people who are native to Poland at any given point in history. Today it may be slav, yesterday it may have been Huns and tomorrow it may be German. Today the slav is a pole, yesterday the Hun was a pole and tomorrow the German would be a Pole.
It is simple logic, really.
If you cannot pin-point the origin of an ethnicity and/or garantee that the said ethnicity have undergone little/no mixing, then you have no basis on associating an ethnicity with a civilization/culture.

That 'Polish history is for slavic poles only' or 'Viet history is that of die viet only' holds true If and only if it can be established that these viet/slavic people for example, underwent little or no intermingling and represented a clear break in cultural continuity from their predecessors in the said land.

For unless that can be established, 'history of poles and history of poland' will forever be history of the people who've inhabited the land and geo-political (and cultural) historical developments in the land known today as Poland.
Nothing more, nothing less.
For eg, if someone can determine where Atilla's family was from and it turns out to be Poland, then Atilla the Hun is every bit as Polish as any Pole alive today.

 

[0R4NG3]

And who are the slavs ? Slavs what what and what only ?



Etruscans were not a race/ethnicity- they were a culture. Same with all these huns, slavs,magyars, etc.
Besides, there is no way to prove/disprove your claim that there is very little Etruscan blood in italy today, given that we don't exactly have Etruscan dna to compare modern Italians with.



If Huns get absorbed by the slavs and the new absorbed group deciedes to do away with Hunnic history, it still doesnt change the fact that Poles/slavs today are mixed with Huns and therefore, hunnic history is every bit their own as their so-called 'slavic' history is.

As i said, barring a few exception cases like Inuits or Hawaiians or south tibetans, there is no basis on trying to bring the issue of 'bloodlines' or 'ethnic/tribe' when debating the history of a land, since everyone is mixed with everyone else at some point in history or another and nobody has a clear idea when/what extent to which the mixing occured.
Elements of nationalism, particularly with ethnic-nation states tend to cloud sound judgement on this issue remarkably.

For eg even by removing naturalization processes, a Swede is one who is a Swede by birth and follows Swedish culture. You could be a big tall blue-eyed blond haired Swede called Olaf Ericsson and the guy next to you could be a big tall African lad, 2nd generation descendant of migrants (but born as a swede) and he is every bit as Swede as you are- and if he follows/participates in Swedish culture more than you, he certainly has a stronger claim to Swedish citizenship than you ( if we were to revert to the old school method of 'own land/participate in culture = earn citizenship')

As i keep saying, race/ethnicity has very little merit in history- only culture and civilization have.

There has been a study comparing Etruscan DNA to Italian DNA, which showed the results that I've mentioned. I'm sorry I can not give you a link to the source, but I have read about it somewhere. Oh and the very same study proved that Etruscans were indeed not Romans.
I agree with you to some extend, but you must not forget that people were nationalistic and at times destroyed other people totally, instead of mixing with them.
And yes, it is not clear where the Slavs came from, but your theory is just that - a theory, just like mine is.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

There has been a study comparing Etruscan DNA to Italian DNA, which showed the results that I've mentioned

Don't pay too much attention to those studies, if indeed they can be called that.
Just where are you getting Etruscan DNA for, for the basis of comparison ?
From Etruscan graves ? Well that'd make it 2500 year old 'DNA evidence' - which is highly suspect and eroded to begin with.

Secondly, there is no such thing as 'etruscan genes' identified in modern geneology. Best you can do is point out that 2500 years ago, the Italians (wh you call Etruscans) were different physiologically from italians today.
Whopee.
It does not shed any light whatsoever into the issue whether Etruscans were exterminated by the Romans or were they married into the Romans or whether the Romans were themselves Etruscans with a different culture.
All it'd show (even in the best of circumstances today) is a change in DNA- not whether the change represents new people or Etruscans themselves evolving and subsequently, mixing.

And yes, it is not clear where the Slavs came from, but your theory is just that - a theory, just like mine is.

Ah but my theory is far more grounded in logic and science.
For any theory in any field, you start with a general postulation that doesn't compromise the fundamentals. And then you add qualifiers/narrowing down clauses based on definitive evidence.
Which is why i said that if you wish your theory to be logically sound, you must provide clear evidence that the Slavs/Poles did not mix with the huns and represent a clear cultural break from the Hunnic age.
If you cannot provide evidence for these qualifiers/narrowing down parameters, then you have no evidence whatsoever to employ them and therefore, presenting a theory with far more/bigger loopholes in it.

 

[0R4NG3]

Polish people = people of Poland.
People of Poland = people who are native to Poland at any given point in history. Today it may be slav, yesterday it may have been Huns and tomorrow it may be German. Today the slav is a pole, yesterday the Hun was a pole and tomorrow the German would be a Pole.
It is simple logic, really.
If you cannot pin-point the origin of an ethnicity and/or garantee that the said ethnicity have undergone little/no mixing, then you have no basis on associating an ethnicity with a civilization/culture.

That 'Polish history is for slavic poles only' or 'Viet history is that of die viet only' holds true If and only if it can be established that these viet/slavic people for example, underwent little or no intermingling and represented a clear break in cultural continuity from their predecessors in the said land.

For unless that can be established, 'history of poles and history of poland' will forever be history of the people who've inhabited the land and geo-political (and cultural) historical developments in the land known today as Poland.
Nothing more, nothing less.
For eg, if someone can determine where Atilla's family was from and it turns out to be Poland, then Atilla the Hun is every bit as Polish as any Pole alive today.

So when the Magyars left their "original" habitat near Volga and travelled to Danube did they cease to be Magyar, or are the people who live where the Magyars used to live are in fact Magyar?

 

[0R4NG3]

Don't pay too much attention to those studies, if indeed they can be called that.
Just where are you getting Etruscan DNA for, for the basis of comparison ?
From Etruscan graves ? Well that'd make it 2500 year old 'DNA evidence' - which is highly suspect and eroded to begin with.

Secondly, there is no such thing as 'etruscan genes' identified in modern geneology. Best you can do is point out that 2500 years ago, the Italians (wh you call Etruscans) were different physiologically from italians today.
Whopee.
It does not shed any light whatsoever into the issue whether Etruscans were exterminated by the Romans or were they married into the Romans or whether the Romans were themselves Etruscans with a different culture.
All it'd show (even in the best of circumstances today) is a change in DNA- not whether the change represents new people or Etruscans themselves evolving and subsequently, mixing.



Ah but my theory is far more grounded in logic and science.
For any theory in any field, you start with a general postulation that doesn't compromise the fundamentals. And then you add qualifiers/narrowing down clauses based on definitive evidence.
Which is why i said that if you wish your theory to be logically sound, you must provide clear evidence that the Slavs/Poles did not mix with the huns and represent a clear cultural break from the Hunnic age.
If you cannot provide evidence for these qualifiers/narrowing down parameters, then you have no evidence whatsoever to employ them and therefore, presenting a theory with far more/bigger loopholes in it.

Interesting, you say that your theory is grounded in logic and science, and yet when I say that there has been a study you try to discredit it. Seems to me that you are just a little bit biased....
I do however admit that the study I was referring to could've been flawed, as I am by no means an expert and I was not the one who carried it out.

 

[Öjevind Lång]

False. History of Poland has nothing whatsoever to do with Poles, history of Sweden has nothing whatsoever to do with Swedes. As far as i am concerned, a Hun living in Poland is just as much Polish as the current Primier of Poland is.

In one word: rubbish.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

So when the Magyars left their "original" habitat near Volga and travelled to Danube did they cease to be Magyar, or are the people who live where the Magyars used to live are in fact Magyar?

As a people, it would depend solely on information about how much the Magyars mixed with 'others', if at all.
Given that under normal circumstances (especially when religion is not an issue, which clearly was not in shamanistic Huns/Slavs/Germans in pre-christian era), people marry like-minded people or for the sake of convininence. This produces mixed bloodlines, which were mixed to begin with from the dawn of mankind.

Unless you have data/evidence of mixings and when the mixings occured, there is no basis on attaching 'race' or 'ethnic' bloodlines to a culture.
As far as we can tell, the Magyar culture along with a significant % of magyar people migrated to Hungary area today. Just how much related they are to the 'original magyars' is an issue that cannot be answered one way or another.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

Interesting, you say that your theory is grounded in logis and science, and yet when I say that there has been a study you try to discredit it. Seems to me that you are just a little bit biased....

I am showing you the limitation of the study.
I apologise is i come across as patronizing but sciences is my field. And scientifically speaking, all you can determine by comparing 2500 year old Italian graves with Italians today is how much (if any) different the two specimens are- not whether the original people got wiped out or simply mixed & evolved into the ones today. Unless ofcourse you can identify gene markers to be specifically Etruscan and then compare its prevalence amongst Italians today.

So simply based on data generated/analyzed, the conclusion that Etruscan blood doesnt remain is simply a speculation. This is because i know for a fact that there is no such thing as 'Etruscan DNA markers' identified and therefore, you cannot claim whether Italians today can claim descendance from Etruscans or not. But given that Etruscans lived in Italy, there is no evidence of an Etruscan 'wipe-out', the default position, by logic, must remain that italians today carry Etruscan heritage unless proven otherwise.

In one word: rubbish.

Sorry but it isn't. As i gave you an example- if you are a born & brought up Swede, you are a swede- doesnt matter if your grandparents came from Uganda or whether your last 30 generations have stayed put in Sweden and you are a prototypical Viking in features.
The question of race/ethnicity is irrelevant when discussing civilizations and cultures, unless we are talking about a few exception cases like Hawaii/Inuits etc, where there is clear evidence that these group of people remained largely without outside contact for thousands of years.
You think it is rubbish because you are using the flawed perspective of using a race/ethnicity to define a culture/civilization.
And i can garantee you that you would discard this perspective if you knew of your history for the last 7000-8000 years or more- me being an Indian by heritage, i know my history well and the amount of mixing evident simply rules out any attempt at 'racial/ethnic' ideas on a culture/civilization.
And considering that we are talking about people who's history barely stretches the last 2000 years ( Slavs, Germainic people, etc), it would be utterly foolish and boderline racist to assume that they represent a unique ethnic or racial entity.

 

[Tortilla Boy]

This is a euro-centric perspective, really. Most non-european cultures consider the history of their land as their's, not a question of "our history starts when this tribe migrated here/barged in" but " this is the history of me and my land".

It's not europocentric perspective. It's European perspective. Difference is that I employ it to think about myself. And I can't start thinking Asian way, just because I wasn't raised in Asian culture. I can't find anything wrong about it.
I could just write reverse: You are thinking Asian. (That's bad) Most European cultures consider the history of their land as X (which I will explain in a moment) and not "this is the history of me and my land".

Thing is - I don't require you to think European way about yourself, because I know that ANY way has it's flaws.

Perhaps your view is a result of racial undertones to European history ( Europe tends to define history through race, while rest of the world defines it through land) and a far more fundamentally flawed perspective.

I don't define history through race. And I don't define it through land. This makes me as non-nationalistic and non-racist as somebody in Europe can be, just because I'm a relativist. Yes, Europeans used both things - race and land as explanans for their theories. Both have flaws.

Race - I don't care about race actually. It's not a biological term, because it's based on phenotype, so it's arbitraty. There are of course some minimum differences in genotype, but it does not have anything to do with question of Polish civilization. Some Stanford scientific yadda yadda on that
There are many Poles now who came here from Vietnam in early '90s. If they want to be Poles, than they are. And yes - I'm not French - they are part of Polish civilization if they want. That has it's flaws in arguments about Maria Skłodowska-Curie not being Polish. It's not some important matter for me if she was, but it's good example. French say that she DEFINITELY wasn't Polish (if she was French is unimportant for this discussion). So imagine: You are 23 years old woman who travels from country of origin where Polish-speaking people are discriminated (beaten in school for using Polish, churches with Polish language masses closed, forbidden to use Polish in workplace, public place under penalties like confiscation of all private property) just because they wanted us that bad to become Russians and Germans. Does that woman ceases to be the Pole, just because she wanted to live decently? Does native language mean nothing? You can change it easily and become non-Pole? Is it all about "my land" (France in this case)?

Land - But ofcourse, European people did and do define themselves through land. This one is as false as the former. It so easily leads to dialogue like that:
-Poland is for Polish people only;
-Who are Polish people?
-Those who live in Poland now (stop immigration).
-What is Poland?
-Geographical DEFINITION.
-How does it define itself?
-Current borders - Curzon line and western borders as signed in peace treaty with Germany in 1945 and in German-Polish border treaty of 1990.

"Race" definition ends up in Auschwitz. "Land" definition ends up in expelling Germans in 1945-48. It was done easily, as during war Germans made "Volksdeutsche" List in Poland and even if documents were lost, there always were "friendly neighbours" who remembered, who declared himself who. It's effect of hybrid of those two definitions: We make up what is "land of Poles", we force people to move there (Ukrainians to Ukraine, Poles to Poland, Germans to Germany - it was mass forced migrations which USSR and Allies wanted "for the sake of the peace"), here you go - civilization "instant". So, been there, done that - all those "definitions".
Thinking in terms of "land" is bad as well - it makes you think that Europe is somehow not a place for Muslim.

This is because, one really has very little idea what their ancestors looked like/were or hell, who their ancestors really were.

Yes, "looks" and places they came from are in most cases unimportant for my view of what Polish civilization is.

Take for example you- You are, i presume, Polish. According to you, Polish history starts after Atilla (when the slavs moved there)simply because you identify with the slavic people.

No. I do identify with Slavic people, that's right. But it's unimportant where were they from, or how did they look like as specimens of humankind (blonde hair or whatever - in Poland you can have ALMOST any phenotype of human you like). What is important is LANGUAGE. Language is culture. Not the language you CAN speak (I can speak English, Polish, Russian and French). It's the language you think in, or dream in. It can change. But not all of the sudden. It happens so that "Poland" is no Hunnic word. "Polska" is an adjective meaning 'land in relation to Poles'. Why Poles (back then Polans)? Because of agrary nature - "pole" (pl. noun) means "field". It is not important if there were any Huns then - it's language which they used. It had "similar words", but it's like English and Polish adjectives: intelligent, inteligentny - similarity comes from Greek root.

So on that record, whether you like it or not, their history is also your history.In short, Hunnic history of Poland is very much history of Poland- every bit as much as Slavic history of Poland.

Yes, because Slavic group languages happen to have many things in common. I can go to Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and understand "basic idea" of what is being told to me, where are adjectives, where is noun and verb (sometimes it's trickier). When I go to Hungary or Turkey it's like "Az ország területén nincsenek nagy szintkülönbségek, legalacsonyabb pontja tengerszint felett 78 méter" (random sentence taken from site) - with only words I understand being "78 metre". Hungarians actually are - in terms of language - descendants of Ugric people , but it makes up for the concept of civilization I believe in - English and Americans or Austrian and Germans can understand each better than English and Hungarians, or Germans and Poles.
The issue here is - when you come as a tribe to A place (it's still not THE place) it doesn't have big signs with word "Polska" all over it, and Huns probably had other word for it. How come that their history is mine history if we just don't understand each other? Even though vulgar latin was like "common language", regional languages were spoken in common day conversations. It's just that Polish language eventually dominated in region called Poland.

Issue with Danzig is two-fold. One is binding place with other language. Second one is binding place by naming it. That's Biblical thing - European thinking, in that time, was Biblical - by naming something, you make yourself master of it: God called man "Adam", Adam called woman "Eve" (yes, Bible is patriarchal).
And I don't blame Germans for taking that place. It would be silly: "Bad Brandenburgian Germans, you shouldn't conquer. You should build cottages and use GA instead". I'm stating here the fact that they did that in rather rude manner, which tends to be common thing in Polish-German relations. Germans are "more civilized", it's just that they eventually tell you that you just started war with them, come over the place, take some paintings and raze it.
There was even this joke during wartime, about tourist agency with trips to Berlin, main attraction: "Go see your own furniture".

I am an Indian( from eastern parts of India) and i know most of Indian history for the last 6000-7000 years.

Good for you, but there was no alphabet back then in Europe.

You will find that if you were to discover the history of any people ( barring exception cases of people stuck in remote/isolated locations) for the last 7000-8000 years, everyone is mixed with half a dozen or more other 'tribes/groups' that are now impossible to follow/date, given that it'd be like trying to differentiate cavemen societies.

Why stay post-Glacial North if you could bask in the sun of Mediterranean and there's no passport control? That was a place to be. Not some forests with bear, wolves and all nasty stuff.

 

[0R4NG3]

I am showing you the limitation of the study.
I apologise is i come across as patronizing but sciences is my field. And scientifically speaking, all you can determine by comparing 2500 year old Italian graves with Italians today is how much (if any) different the two specimens are- not whether the original people got wiped out or simply mixed & evolved into the ones today. Unless ofcourse you can identify gene markers to be specifically Etruscan and then compare its prevalence amongst Italians today.

So simply based on data generated/analyzed, the conclusion that Etruscan blood doesnt remain is simply a speculation. This is because i know for a fact that there is no such thing as 'Etruscan DNA markers' identified and therefore, you cannot claim whether Italians today can claim descendance from Etruscans or not. But given that Etruscans lived in Italy, there is no evidence of an Etruscan 'wipe-out', the default position, by logic, must remain that italians today carry Etruscan heritage unless proven otherwise.



Sorry but it isn't. As i gave you an example- if you are a born & brought up Swede, you are a swede- doesnt matter if your grandparents came from Uganda or whether your last 30 generations have stayed put in Sweden and you are a prototypical Viking in features.
The question of race/ethnicity is irrelevant when discussing civilizations and cultures, unless we are talking about a few exception cases like Hawaii/Inuits etc, where there is clear evidence that these group of people remained largely without outside contact for thousands of years.
You think it is rubbish because you are using the flawed perspective of using a race/ethnicity to define a culture/civilization.
And i can garantee you that you would discard this perspective if you knew of your history for the last 7000-8000 years or more- me being an Indian by heritage, i know my history well and the amount of mixing evident simply rules out any attempt at 'racial/ethnic' ideas on a culture/civilization.
And considering that we are talking about people who's history barely stretches the last 2000 years ( Slavs, Germainic people, etc), it would be utterly foolish and boderline racist to assume that they represent a unique ethnic or racial entity.

I understand your point of view, but I do not understand why you are being so stubborn about it. I mean if people in Europe weren't racist there wouldn't have been as many wars as there were.
Frankly since it is unknown where the slavs came from, it is totally possible that there was a tribe called Slavs with a subdivision of Poland 6000 years ago. There is no way to prove otherwise.
As for the Etruscan study I believe the specimens were taken from Etruscan buriel grounds, and as I said I don't know how accurate the results are.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

I can't find anything wrong about it.

The thing wrong about it is that the perspective espoused here is far narrower, no doubt owing to a much thinner historical understanding and basis. learning how to view history from those who know history for thousands of years longer than your own people would be a good start.

I don't define history through race. And I don't define it through land.

Err, history can be defined in only two ways :that of a race/ethnicity and that of a certain piece of land ( ie, geographically).
That you are trying to say you don't use either is false because it *must* be either history of the people now inhabiting Poland or the history of the land known today as Poland.
Either way, the latter definition is more historically sound, since history of an ethnic group/race is much narrower, much more clouded and leaves much more room for ambiguity than having history of a piece of land X, bound by geographical features A,B,C,D.

How come their history is mine history if we just don't understand each other.

You don't understand each other because:
a) Hungarians are not Huns
b) Languages change over time due to different reasons but that doesnt negate common root/common history in earlier times.
Today, I can barely understand the guy from India in the state next to mine but i know for a fact that 1500 years ago, we were both the same people forming an unified kingdom/empire.

Why stay post-Glacial North if you could bask in the sun of Mediterranean and there's no passport control? That was a place to be. Not some forests with bear, wolves and all nasty stuff.

I don't get what you are trying to say here. Besides, history shows us that Romans & Greeks didn't take it too kindly when 'barbarians from the north' tried to barge in to the 'sunny mediterranean'.

 

[Ahimsadharma]

I mean if people in Europe weren't racist there wouldn't have been as many wars as there were.

True but largely irrelevant because we do not know which wars were racial wars and which wars were simply wars of conquest ( as in " i beat your army-->i take your city-->i hold it/develop it & reap tax money). Entirely possible that any war between slavs and huns were simply wars of conquest or that no war took place at all and was a gradual migration/intemingling.

Frankly since it is unknown where the slavs came from, it is totally possible that there was a tribe called Slavs with a subdivision of Poland 6000 years ago. There is no way to prove otherwise.

It is also totally possible that the Huns were ancestors to the slavs and/or huns got absorbed in the slavic folds.
so therefore, it'd be foolish to disassociate a section of Poland's history(the hunnic period).

As for the Etruscan study I believe the specimens were taken from Etruscan buriel grounds, and as I said I don't know how accurate the results are.

As i said, even if the studies were accurate(which i highly doubt with 2500 year old grave samples), all it'd show is the difference between Italians 2500 years ago(Etruscans) and Italians today. It certainly does not shed any light on the issue whether the Etruscans were annihilated or whether Italians today are simply Etruscans mixed in with a bunch of other people who've barged into Italy in subsequent times.

 

[Tortilla Boy]

For eg, if someone can determine where Atilla's family was from and it turns out to be Poland, then Atilla the Hun is every bit as Polish as any Pole alive today.

Oh look - Arthur Schopenhauer is Polish, because he was born in Gdańsk. Gdańsk is in Poland, TODAY. Same goes for Gunther Grass. And Immanuel Kant is obviously Russian, because Konigsberg is Kaliningrad now, just like Polish city of Katowice which was German Kattowitz in XIX cent and Stalinogród in 1953-1956 (Peoples Republic of Poland).

If Martians ever conquer this land and we knew about it today, we might as well call ourselves Martians now, because there is no difference between past or future if certain.

 

[0R4NG3]

As i said, even if the studies were accurate(which i highly doubt with 2500 year old grave samples), all it'd show is the difference between Italians 2500 years ago(Etruscans) and Italians today. It certainly does not shed any light on the issue whether the Etruscans were annihilated or whether Italians today are simply Etruscans mixed in with a bunch of other people who've barged into Italy in subsequent times.

How's about: when compared to Roman DNA the Etruscan DNA proved to be totally different and there was more similarity between Roman and Italian then Etruscan and Italian? In fact there was no similarity between Etruscan and Italian?

I think you finally agree that your theory is just a theory. And what happened in Asia may in fact differ from what happened in Europe. Sure it might've been the way you say it was, but there is no hard evidence to justify it and your logic is based upon Asian history.

Scythians used to inhabit the territory of modern day Ukraine and Russia and yet most of the studies show that Scythians have very little to do with modern day Ukrainians or Russians.

The thing wrong about it is that the perspective espoused here is far narrower, no doubt owing to a much thinner historical understanding and basis. learning how to view history from those who know history for thousands of years longer than your own people would be a good start.

Wow, does this sound snobbish to you? If not to say racist? What exactly do you know about your people? What facts do you base your knowledge on? Did they have paper 6000 years ago? For all you know it might all be made up by some clever dude who lived a 100 years ago...

 

[Ahimsadharma]

Wow, does this sound snobbish to you? If not to say racist?

Okay, i've hit a wall it'd seem. I am going to stop now, because discussion is now pointless, you clearly refuse to see logic.
So much so that you care calling ME a racist for pointing out that YOUR definition of a culture/civilization is racist and completely subjective of a specific period of history being considered.
How ironic, indeed.

when compared to Roman DNA the Etruscan DNA proved to be totally different and there was more similarity between Roman and Italian then Etruscan and Italian? In fact there was no similarity between Etruscan and Italian?

Any genetic analysis that claims that is worth throwing in the dustbin for it is clearly the product of a flawed/agenda-driven thinking.
You cannot say Etruscans and Italians/Romans were very different from each other because we humans are all 99.6% alike or so. Secondly, there is NO gene-marker said to be Etruscan. Which was the Roman period used to contrast the 'Etruscans' with ? Was it some Roman from 400 AD ? well that'd make it 800-900 years of evolution & intermingling with other people and can easily explain the difference.
You cannot make the claim that Romans & Etruscans were different people unless you can identify any gene marker that is unique to the groups and missing from one group. If you simply contrast difference in genetics, it proves squat- as i said, an Etruscan marrying a Greek would present a genetic change, same with Etruscan marrying Pheonician. You have no basis in claiming whether this happened or not and as such, you cannot rule it out. Therefore, your comment that 'Etruscan blood is absent' is mere speculation.

And what happened in Asia may in fact differ from what happened in Europe.

It is not a question of different happenings- its simply a question of certain Asiatic cultures ( predominantly India & China) retaining a historical perspective/record that dates from 7000-8000 years ago and thus shows how mixed people get in time-frame spanning 300-400 generations.

All i am saying is this : It is an established FACT that Huns lived in the region of Poland/Eastern Europe when Atilla was around. Their eventual fate (and the origins of the slavs) are unknown as of now, so therefore, Huns *must* be considered part of Polish history, until it can be proved that their people did not mix with the ancestors of 'Slavic Poles' today and therefore, represent a different ethnic identity that did not diffuse into modern day Poland.
Unless you can provide evidence for that, there is simply no basis in discarding Hunnic period of Poland's history.
For all we know, half of Poland today could be mixed descendants of Huns.
Until you can safely rule that out, there is no basis in disassociating history of Poland from one group of people who inhabited it at time X with another.