Ethnogenesis
Encyclopedia
Ethnogenesis is the process by which a group of human beings comes to be understood or to understand themselves as ethnically distinct from the wider social landscape from which their grouping emerges. This recognition of culture creation has caused some historians to place traditional teleological
nation-building narratives into the framework of legend
, when they were once uncritically accepted as historical facts.
revival or creation of a new language, in what eventually becomes a "national literature".
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, societies challenged by the obsolescence of those narrative
s which previously afforded them coherence have fallen back on ethnic or racial narratives as a means of maintaining or reaffirming their collective identity, or polis.
, the integrationalist policy of the French Republic was inclusive; their laws stated all persons born and/or legally residing in France proper (including overseas departments and territories) were "Frenchmen". The law did not make any ethnic distinctions nor racial categories in between the "French" people. All people in France were Frenchmen and became citizens of the French Republic as far the country's law was concerned.
Two forms of nationalism were used in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. After WWII in the Tito era, nationalism was appealed to for uniting South Slav peoples. Later in the 20th century, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, leaders appealed to ancient ethnic feuds or tensions that ignited conflict between the Serbs
and Croats
, as well Bosnians
, Montenegrins and Macedonians
. The conflicts destroyed the formerly communist republic and produced the civil wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992-95. Serbs, Croatians and Bosniaks insisted they were ethnically distinct although many communities had a long history of intermarriage. All could speak closely related languages
. People used ethnic and religious differences to gain power, and in the process broke up the long collaboration of peoples and carried out ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.
ic fringes in Wales
and nationalists in the Basque country
. Activists' attempts in the 1970s to revive the Occitan language in southern France was a similar attempt.
Similarly, in the 19th century, the Fennoman
Grand Duchy of Finland
aimed to raise the Finnish language
from peasant-status to the position of an official national language, which had been only Swedish
for some time. The Fennoman also founded the Finnish Party
to pursue their nationalist aims. The publication in 1835 of the Finnish national epic
, Kalevala
, was a founding stone of Finnish nationalism and ethnogenesis. Finnish was recognized as the official language
of Finland only in 1892. Fennomans were opposed by the Svecomans, headed by Axel Olof Freudenthal
(1836–1911). He supported continuing the use of Swedish
as the official language (it had been a minority language used by the educated elite in government and administration.) In line with contemporary scientific racism
theories, Freudenthal believed that Finland had two "races", one speaking Swedish and the other Finnish. The Svecomans claimed that the Swedish "Germanic race" was superior to the majority Finnish people. In Ireland, revival of Gaelic was part of the reclaiming of Irish
identity in the republic.
Language has been an important and divisive political force in Belgium
between the Dutch/Germanic Flemings and Franco-Celtic Walloons
since the country was created in 1831. Switzerland
's polity is somewhat divided among German-speaking
"Alemmanic" or Schweiz
against the French-speaking Romandies or Arpitians, and the Italian
/Romansh-speaking minorities in the south and east.
In Italy
there were ethnological as well linguistic differences between regional groups, from the Lombardians
of the North to the Sicilians of the south. Mountainous terrain had allowed the development of relatively isolated communities and numerous dialects before unification in the 19th century.
s may become a component of distinct ethnic identities, although they do not usually exist in isolation. Ethnic definitions are subject to change over time, both within and outside groups. For example, 19th-century Europeans classified Jews and Arabs as one 'ethnic' bloc, the Semites or Hamites
. Later the term Hamites came to be associated with Sub-Saharan Africans instead.
Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim followers have historically been aligned with ethnicities (and later nations) speaking different languages and having different cultures. arise on the basis of the languages which followers of each religion historically favoured: (Latin
and Greek
, Hebrew
, Sanskrit and Arabic
, respectively). The sources of religious differentiation are contested among sociologists
and among anthropologists
, as much as between the faith groups themselves.
The line between a well-defined religious sect
and a discrete ethnicity cannot be sharply defined. Sects which most observers would accept as constituting a separate ethnicity usually have, as a minimum, a firm set of rules related to maintenance of endogamy
, censuring those who 'marry-out' or who fail to raise their children in the proper faith. Examples might include:
isolation from larger human societies. Groups which settle remote habitats and intermarry over generations will acquire distinctive cultural and genetic traits, evolving from cultural continuity and through interaction with their unique environmental circumstances. Ethnogenesis in these circumstances typically results in an identity that is less value-laden than one forged in contradistinction to competing populations. Particularly in pastoral
mountain peoples, social organization tends to hinge primarily on familial identification, not a wider collective identity
.
were settled in Gaul
, Spain
and Italy
". Since "they dissolved at their downfall into a myth accessible to everyone" at the head of a long history of attempts to lay claim to a "Gothic" tradition, the ethnogenesis by which disparate bands came to self-identify as "Goths" is of wide interest and application. The problem is in extracting a historical ethnography
from sources that are resolutely Latin and Roman-oriented.
of the Jumano cultural sphere underwent social changes partly in reaction, which spurred their ethnogenesis, Clayton Anderson has observed. Ethnogenesis in the Texas plains and along the coast took two forms: a disadvantaged group identified with a stronger group and became absorbed into it, on the one hand, and on the other hand, cultural institutions were modified and in a sense reinvented. The seventeenth-century Jumano disintegration, a collapse in part due to widespread deaths due to introduced diseases, was followed by their reintegration as Kiowa
, Nancy Hickerson has argued. Exterior stresses that produced ethnogenetic shifts preceded the arrival of the Spanish and their horse culture: recurring cycles of drought had previously forced non-kin to band together or to disband and mobilize. Inter-tribal hostilities forced weaker groups to associate with stronger ones.
ethnic identification was promoted under Soviet rule when the Soviet Union set up an autonomous Moldavian ASSR
in 1924. It was set apart from the Ukrainian SSR
on part of the territory between the Dniester
and Southern Bug
rivers (Transnistria
). The scholar Charles King concluded that this action was in part a prop to Soviet propaganda and help for a potential communist revolution in Romania. At first a Moldovan ethnicity supported territorial claims to the then-Romanian territories of Bessarabia
and Northern Bukovina. The claims were based on the fact that the territory of eastern Bessarabia with Chisinau belonged to Russian Empire. After the Soviet occupation of the two territories in 1940, potential re-unification claims were offset by the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. Since the very establishment of Moldaivan ASSR, Chisianu was named it proper capital, and the city really accepted the fact after 1940.
The recognition of Moldovans
as a separate ethnicity, distinct from Romanians
, remains today a controversial subject. On one side, the Moldovan Parliament adopted in 2003 "The Concept on National Policy of the Republic of Moldova", which states that Moldovans and Romanians are two distinct peoples and speak two different languages, that Romanians form an ethnic minority in Moldova, and that the Republic of Moldova is the legitimate successor to the Principality of Moldavia. On the other side, Moldovans are recognized as a distinct ethnic group only by former Soviet states.
Moreover, in Romania, people from Wallachia and Transylvania call the Romanians inhabiting western Moldavia, now part of Romania, as Moldovans. People in Romanian Moldova call themselves Moldovans, as subethnic denomination, and Romanians, as ethnic denomination (like Kentish and English for English people living in Kent). Romanians from Romania call the Romanians of Republic of Moldova Bessarabians, as identification inside the subethnic group, Moldovans as subethnic group and Romanians as ethnic group. The same way, Romanians of southern Bukovina (today part of Romania and former part of the historical Moldova) are called Bukovinans, Moldovans and Romanians.
In the 2004 Moldovan census
, of the 3,383,332 people living in Moldova, 16.5% (558,508) chose Romanian as their mother tongue, whereas 60% chose Moldovan. While 40% of all urban
Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their mother tongue, in the countryside barely one out of seven Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as his mother tongue.
ethnic cultures, stripped of its metaphoric connotations drawn from biology, of "natural" birth and growth. This view is closely associated with the Austrian historian Herwig Wolfram
and his followers, who argued that such ethnicity was not a matter of genuine genetic descent ("tribes").
Rather, using Reinhard Wenskus' term Traditionskerne ("nuclei of tradition"), ethnogenesis arose from small groups of aristocratic warriors carrying ethnic traditions from place to place and generation to generation. Followers would coalesce or disband around these nuclei of tradition; ethnicities were available to those who wanted to participate in them with no requirement of being born into a "tribe". Thus questions of race and place of origin became secondary.
Proponents of ethnogenesis may claim it is the only alternative to the sort of ethnocentric and nationalist scholarship
that is commonly seen in disputes over the origins of many ancient peoples such as the Franks
, Goths
, and Huns
. It has also been used as an alternative to the Near East's "race history" that had supported Phoenicianism
and claims to the antiquity of the variously called Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac peoples.
Teleology
A teleology is any philosophical account which holds that final causes exist in nature, meaning that design and purpose analogous to that found in human actions are inherent also in the rest of nature. The word comes from the Greek τέλος, telos; root: τελε-, "end, purpose...
nation-building narratives into the framework of legend
Legend
A legend is a narrative of human actions that are perceived both by teller and listeners to take place within human history and to possess certain qualities that give the tale verisimilitude...
, when they were once uncritically accepted as historical facts.
Passive or active ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis can occur passively, in the accumulation of markers of group identity forged through interaction with the physical environment, cultural and religious divisions between sections of a society, migrations and other processes, for which ethnic subdivision is an unintended outcome. It can occur actively, as persons deliberately and directly 'engineer' separate identities to attempt to solve a political problem - the preservation or imposition of certain cultural values, power relations, etc. Since the late eighteenth century, such attempts have often been related to languageLanguage
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
revival or creation of a new language, in what eventually becomes a "national literature".
In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, societies challenged by the obsolescence of those narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
s which previously afforded them coherence have fallen back on ethnic or racial narratives as a means of maintaining or reaffirming their collective identity, or polis.
Inclusive or exclusive nationalism
Ethnogenesis can be promoted to include or exclude any ethnic minority living within a certain country. In FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, the integrationalist policy of the French Republic was inclusive; their laws stated all persons born and/or legally residing in France proper (including overseas departments and territories) were "Frenchmen". The law did not make any ethnic distinctions nor racial categories in between the "French" people. All people in France were Frenchmen and became citizens of the French Republic as far the country's law was concerned.
Two forms of nationalism were used in the territory of the former Yugoslavia. After WWII in the Tito era, nationalism was appealed to for uniting South Slav peoples. Later in the 20th century, after the break-up of the Soviet Union, leaders appealed to ancient ethnic feuds or tensions that ignited conflict between the Serbs
Serbs
The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...
and Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
, as well Bosnians
Bosnians
Bosnians are people who reside in, or come from, Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the modern state definition a Bosnian can be anyone who holds citizenship of the state. This includes, but is not limited to, members of the constituent ethnic groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosniaks, Bosnian Serbs and...
, Montenegrins and Macedonians
Macedonians (ethnic group)
The Macedonians also referred to as Macedonian Slavs: "... the term Slavomacedonian was introduced and was accepted by the community itself, which at the time had a much more widespread non-Greek Macedonian ethnic consciousness...
. The conflicts destroyed the formerly communist republic and produced the civil wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992-95. Serbs, Croatians and Bosniaks insisted they were ethnically distinct although many communities had a long history of intermarriage. All could speak closely related languages
South Slavic languages
The South Slavic languages comprise one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers...
. People used ethnic and religious differences to gain power, and in the process broke up the long collaboration of peoples and carried out ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.
Language revival
Language has been a critical asset for authenticating ethnic identities. The process of reviving an antique ethnic identity often poses an immediate language challenge, as obsolescent languages lack expressions for contemporary experiences. In Europe in the 1990s, examples of proponents of ethnic revivals were from CeltCelt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
ic fringes in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and nationalists in the Basque country
Basque Country (autonomous community)
The Basque Country is an autonomous community of northern Spain. It includes the Basque provinces of Álava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, also called Historical Territories....
. Activists' attempts in the 1970s to revive the Occitan language in southern France was a similar attempt.
Similarly, in the 19th century, the Fennoman
Fennoman
The Fennomans were the most important political movement in the 19th century Grand Principality of Finland. They succeeded the fennophile interests of the 18th and early 19th century.-History:...
Grand Duchy of Finland
Grand Duchy of Finland
The Grand Duchy of Finland was the predecessor state of modern Finland. It existed 1809–1917 as part of the Russian Empire and was ruled by the Russian czar as Grand Prince.- History :...
aimed to raise the Finnish language
Finnish language
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...
from peasant-status to the position of an official national language, which had been only Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
for some time. The Fennoman also founded the Finnish Party
Finnish Party
The Finnish Party was a Fennoman conservative political party in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland and independent Finland. Born out of Finland's language strife in the 1860s, the party sought to improve the position of the Finnish language in Finnish society...
to pursue their nationalist aims. The publication in 1835 of the Finnish national epic
National epic
A national epic is an epic poem or a literary work of epic scope which seeks or is believed to capture and express the essence or spirit of a particular nation; not necessarily a nation-state, but at least an ethnic or linguistic group with aspirations to independence or autonomy...
, Kalevala
Kalevala
The Kalevala is a 19th century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Finnish and Karelian oral folklore and mythology.It is regarded as the national epic of Finland and is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature...
, was a founding stone of Finnish nationalism and ethnogenesis. Finnish was recognized as the official language
Official language
An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration. However, official status can also be used to give a...
of Finland only in 1892. Fennomans were opposed by the Svecomans, headed by Axel Olof Freudenthal
Axel Olof Freudenthal
Axel Olof Freudenthal , was a Swedish-speaking Finnish philologist and politician.He was born in Siuntio, and studied at the University of Helsinki where the nationalistic movement struggle between the Fennomans and the Svecomans was raging...
(1836–1911). He supported continuing the use of Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
as the official language (it had been a minority language used by the educated elite in government and administration.) In line with contemporary scientific racism
Scientific racism
Scientific racism is the use of scientific techniques and hypotheses to sanction the belief in racial superiority or racism.This is not the same as using scientific findings and the scientific method to investigate differences among the humans and argue that there are races...
theories, Freudenthal believed that Finland had two "races", one speaking Swedish and the other Finnish. The Svecomans claimed that the Swedish "Germanic race" was superior to the majority Finnish people. In Ireland, revival of Gaelic was part of the reclaiming of Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
identity in the republic.
Language has been an important and divisive political force in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
between the Dutch/Germanic Flemings and Franco-Celtic Walloons
Walloons
Walloons are a French-speaking people who live in Belgium, principally in Wallonia. Walloons are a distinctive community within Belgium, important historical and anthropological criteria bind Walloons to the French people. More generally, the term also refers to the inhabitants of the Walloon...
since the country was created in 1831. Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
's polity is somewhat divided among German-speaking
Ethnic German
Ethnic Germans historically also ), also collectively referred to as the German diaspora, refers to people who are of German ethnicity. Many are not born in Europe or in the modern-day state of Germany or hold German citizenship...
"Alemmanic" or Schweiz
Swiss German
Swiss German is any of the Alemannic dialects spoken in Switzerland and in some Alpine communities in Northern Italy. Occasionally, the Alemannic dialects spoken in other countries are grouped together with Swiss German as well, especially the dialects of Liechtenstein and Austrian Vorarlberg...
against the French-speaking Romandies or Arpitians, and the Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
/Romansh-speaking minorities in the south and east.
In Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
there were ethnological as well linguistic differences between regional groups, from the Lombardians
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
of the North to the Sicilians of the south. Mountainous terrain had allowed the development of relatively isolated communities and numerous dialects before unification in the 19th century.
Religion
The set of cultural markers that accompanies each of the major religionReligion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
s may become a component of distinct ethnic identities, although they do not usually exist in isolation. Ethnic definitions are subject to change over time, both within and outside groups. For example, 19th-century Europeans classified Jews and Arabs as one 'ethnic' bloc, the Semites or Hamites
Hamitic
Hamitic is an historical term for the peoples supposedly descended from Noah's son Ham, paralleling Semitic and Japhetic.It was formerly used for grouping the non-Semitic Afroasiatic languages , but since, unlike the Semitic branch, these have not been shown to form a phylogenetic unity, the term...
. Later the term Hamites came to be associated with Sub-Saharan Africans instead.
Christian, Jewish, Hindu and Muslim followers have historically been aligned with ethnicities (and later nations) speaking different languages and having different cultures. arise on the basis of the languages which followers of each religion historically favoured: (Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, Sanskrit and Arabic
Arabic language
Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
, respectively). The sources of religious differentiation are contested among sociologists
Sociology of religion
The sociology of religion concerns the role of religion in society: practices, historical backgrounds, developments and universal themes. There is particular emphasis on the recurring role of religion in all societies and throughout recorded history...
and among anthropologists
Anthropology of religion
The anthropology of religion involves the study of religious institutions in relation to other social institutions, and the comparison of religious beliefs and practices across cultures.-History:...
, as much as between the faith groups themselves.
The line between a well-defined religious sect
Sect
A sect is a group with distinctive religious, political or philosophical beliefs. Although in past it was mostly used to refer to religious groups, it has since expanded and in modern culture can refer to any organization that breaks away from a larger one to follow a different set of rules and...
and a discrete ethnicity cannot be sharply defined. Sects which most observers would accept as constituting a separate ethnicity usually have, as a minimum, a firm set of rules related to maintenance of endogamy
Endogamy
Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific ethnic group, class, or social group, rejecting others on such basis as being unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. A Greek Orthodox Christian endogamist, for example, would require that a marriage be only with another...
, censuring those who 'marry-out' or who fail to raise their children in the proper faith. Examples might include:
- AmishAmishThe Amish , sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches...
- Zoroastrians
Geography
Geographical factors can lead to both cultural and geneticGenetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
isolation from larger human societies. Groups which settle remote habitats and intermarry over generations will acquire distinctive cultural and genetic traits, evolving from cultural continuity and through interaction with their unique environmental circumstances. Ethnogenesis in these circumstances typically results in an identity that is less value-laden than one forged in contradistinction to competing populations. Particularly in pastoral
Pastoral
The adjective pastoral refers to the lifestyle of pastoralists, such as shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasturage. It also refers to a genre in literature, art or music that depicts such shepherd life in an...
mountain peoples, social organization tends to hinge primarily on familial identification, not a wider collective identity
Collective identity
The term collective identity may refer to a variety of concepts. In general however, these concepts generally pertain to phenomena where an individuals' perceived membership in a social group impacts upon their own identity in some way. The idea of a collective identity has received attention in a...
.
The Goths
Herwig Wolfram offers "a radically new explanation of the circumstances under which the GothsGoths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
were settled in Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
, Spain
Hispania
Another theory holds that the name derives from Ezpanna, the Basque word for "border" or "edge", thus meaning the farthest area or place. Isidore of Sevilla considered Hispania derived from Hispalis....
and Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
". Since "they dissolved at their downfall into a myth accessible to everyone" at the head of a long history of attempts to lay claim to a "Gothic" tradition, the ethnogenesis by which disparate bands came to self-identify as "Goths" is of wide interest and application. The problem is in extracting a historical ethnography
Ethnohistory
Ethnohistory is the study of ethnographic cultures and indigenous customs by examining historical records. It is also the study of the history of various ethnic groups that may or may not exist today....
from sources that are resolutely Latin and Roman-oriented.
The Amerindian North American Southwest
With the arrival of the Spanish in southwestern North America, the Native AmericansNative Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
of the Jumano cultural sphere underwent social changes partly in reaction, which spurred their ethnogenesis, Clayton Anderson has observed. Ethnogenesis in the Texas plains and along the coast took two forms: a disadvantaged group identified with a stronger group and became absorbed into it, on the one hand, and on the other hand, cultural institutions were modified and in a sense reinvented. The seventeenth-century Jumano disintegration, a collapse in part due to widespread deaths due to introduced diseases, was followed by their reintegration as Kiowa
Kiowa
The Kiowa are a nation of American Indians and indigenous people of the Great Plains. They migrated from the northern plains to the southern plains in the late 17th century. In 1867, the Kiowa moved to a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma...
, Nancy Hickerson has argued. Exterior stresses that produced ethnogenetic shifts preceded the arrival of the Spanish and their horse culture: recurring cycles of drought had previously forced non-kin to band together or to disband and mobilize. Inter-tribal hostilities forced weaker groups to associate with stronger ones.
Creation of the Moldovan identity in the Soviet Union
The separate MoldovanMoldovans
Moldovans or Moldavians are the largest population group of Moldova...
ethnic identification was promoted under Soviet rule when the Soviet Union set up an autonomous Moldavian ASSR
Moldavian ASSR
The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic , shortened to Moldavian ASSR or, less frequently, Moldovan ASSR, was an autonomous republic of the Ukrainian SSR between 12 October 1924 and 2 August 1940, encompassing modern Transnistria The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic...
in 1924. It was set apart from the Ukrainian SSR
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...
on part of the territory between the Dniester
Dniester
The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs through Ukraine and Moldova and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto state of Transnistria.-Names:...
and Southern Bug
Southern Bug
The Southern Bug, also called Southern Buh), is a river located in Ukraine. The source of the river is in the west of Ukraine, in the Volyn-Podillia Upland, about 145 km from the Polish border, and flows southeasterly into the Bug Estuary through the southern steppes...
rivers (Transnistria
Transnistria
Transnistria is a breakaway territory located mostly on a strip of land between the Dniester River and the eastern Moldovan border to Ukraine...
). The scholar Charles King concluded that this action was in part a prop to Soviet propaganda and help for a potential communist revolution in Romania. At first a Moldovan ethnicity supported territorial claims to the then-Romanian territories of Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
and Northern Bukovina. The claims were based on the fact that the territory of eastern Bessarabia with Chisinau belonged to Russian Empire. After the Soviet occupation of the two territories in 1940, potential re-unification claims were offset by the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. Since the very establishment of Moldaivan ASSR, Chisianu was named it proper capital, and the city really accepted the fact after 1940.
The recognition of Moldovans
Moldovans
Moldovans or Moldavians are the largest population group of Moldova...
as a separate ethnicity, distinct from Romanians
Romanians
The Romanians are an ethnic group native to Romania, who speak Romanian; they are the majority inhabitants of Romania....
, remains today a controversial subject. On one side, the Moldovan Parliament adopted in 2003 "The Concept on National Policy of the Republic of Moldova", which states that Moldovans and Romanians are two distinct peoples and speak two different languages, that Romanians form an ethnic minority in Moldova, and that the Republic of Moldova is the legitimate successor to the Principality of Moldavia. On the other side, Moldovans are recognized as a distinct ethnic group only by former Soviet states.
Moreover, in Romania, people from Wallachia and Transylvania call the Romanians inhabiting western Moldavia, now part of Romania, as Moldovans. People in Romanian Moldova call themselves Moldovans, as subethnic denomination, and Romanians, as ethnic denomination (like Kentish and English for English people living in Kent). Romanians from Romania call the Romanians of Republic of Moldova Bessarabians, as identification inside the subethnic group, Moldovans as subethnic group and Romanians as ethnic group. The same way, Romanians of southern Bukovina (today part of Romania and former part of the historical Moldova) are called Bukovinans, Moldovans and Romanians.
In the 2004 Moldovan census
2004 Moldovan Census
The 2004 Republic of Moldova Census was carried between October 5 and October 12, 2004. The breakaway Transnistria failed to come into an agreement with the central government in Chişinău, and carried out its own census during between November 11 and November 18, 2004...
, of the 3,383,332 people living in Moldova, 16.5% (558,508) chose Romanian as their mother tongue, whereas 60% chose Moldovan. While 40% of all urban
Urban area
An urban area is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. Urban areas may be cities, towns or conurbations, but the term is not commonly extended to rural settlements such as villages and hamlets.Urban areas are created and further...
Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as their mother tongue, in the countryside barely one out of seven Romanian/Moldovan speakers indicated Romanian as his mother tongue.
Ethnogenesis in historical scholarship
Within the historical profession, the term "ethnogenesis" has been borrowed as a neologism to explain the origins and evolution of so-called barbarianBarbarian
Barbarian and savage are terms used to refer to a person who is perceived to be uncivilized. The word is often used either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
ethnic cultures, stripped of its metaphoric connotations drawn from biology, of "natural" birth and growth. This view is closely associated with the Austrian historian Herwig Wolfram
Herwig Wolfram
Herwig Wolfram is an Austrian historian. Professor emeritus at the University of Vienna, from 1983 until 2002 he was Director of the Austrian Institute for Historical Research ....
and his followers, who argued that such ethnicity was not a matter of genuine genetic descent ("tribes").
Rather, using Reinhard Wenskus' term Traditionskerne ("nuclei of tradition"), ethnogenesis arose from small groups of aristocratic warriors carrying ethnic traditions from place to place and generation to generation. Followers would coalesce or disband around these nuclei of tradition; ethnicities were available to those who wanted to participate in them with no requirement of being born into a "tribe". Thus questions of race and place of origin became secondary.
Proponents of ethnogenesis may claim it is the only alternative to the sort of ethnocentric and nationalist scholarship
Historiography and nationalism
Historiography is the study of how history is written. One pervasive influence upon the writing of history has been nationalism, a set of beliefs about political legitimacy and "cultural identity". Nationalism has provided a significant framework for historical writing in Europe and in those former...
that is commonly seen in disputes over the origins of many ancient peoples such as the Franks
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
, Goths
Goths
The Goths were an East Germanic tribe of Scandinavian origin whose two branches, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, played an important role in the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of Medieval Europe....
, and Huns
Huns
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who, appearing from east of the Volga River, migrated into Europe c. AD 370 and established the vast Hunnic Empire there. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours of China 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,...
. It has also been used as an alternative to the Near East's "race history" that had supported Phoenicianism
Phoenicianism
Phoenicianism is a form of Lebanese nationalism, especially popular from the 1920s through the 1950s. It promotes the theory that Lebanese people are not Arabs and that the Lebanese speak a distinct language and have their own culture, separate from that of the surrounding Middle Eastern countries...
and claims to the antiquity of the variously called Assyrian/Chaldean/Syriac peoples.
See also
- Imagined communitiesImagined communitiesImagined communities are a concept coined by Benedict Anderson. He believes that a nation is a community socially constructed, imagined by the people who perceive themselves as part of that group...
- Nation-buildingNation-buildingFor nation-building in the sense of enhancing the capacity of state institutions, building state-society relations, and also external interventions see State-building....
- Historiography and nationalismHistoriography and nationalismHistoriography is the study of how history is written. One pervasive influence upon the writing of history has been nationalism, a set of beliefs about political legitimacy and "cultural identity". Nationalism has provided a significant framework for historical writing in Europe and in those former...
- Y-DNA haplogroups by ethnic groupsY-DNA haplogroups by ethnic groupsListed here are notable ethnic groups by Y-DNA haplogroups based on relevant studies. The data is presented in two columns for each haplogroup with the first being the sample size and the second the percentage in the haplogroup designated by the column header...