NeoCornelio
09-28-2008, 08:44 AM
I've translated this short article mainly as a curiosity. It highlights the relation between Spain and Ossetia. It has been published in this month's issue of Revista Identidad (http://www.revistaidentidad.com), a spanish identitarian monthly paper. Sorry about all the grammatical mistakes.
Image from Wikipedia: Alan and Vandal migrations 4th–5th centuries. Red: migrations; Orange: military expeditions; Yellow: settlement areas
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Alani_map.jpg
THE OSSETIANS ARE 'OUR' ALANS
"Because of several reasons we can be sure that the alans are the ancestors of nowadays ossetians who people the Caucasus", said the german philologist Max Vasmer at the beguinning of the XX century.
Althoug this is practically ignored, there are tenuous ties of blood between spaniards and ossetians. Coming to Spain along with the suebi and the vandals, the alans were were not a germanic nation (as the suebi and the vandals were); they came from the Caucasus. A portion of the alan people was drawn towards the Roman Empire with the germanic tribes; they crossed the Gauls, and along with the suebi and the vandals invaded Hispania in 409 A.D., then fused together (as subordinates) with the vandals that crossed the Strait [of Gibraltar] and founded the Vandal Empire of North Africa, whose sovereign held the title of "Rex Vandalorum et Alanorum".
The portion of the Alan nation that satayed in their orinal homeland in the Caucasus are the present-day ossetians. It's enough to point out that the second oficial name of Ossetia is Alania.
The alans were one of the ethinicities of the Massagetae, indoeuropean people related to the persians and the medes. Because of this it is more than probable that the ossetian alan ethnos was influenced by ancient persian warriors. The Great Kings settled some of their own people in the Dariel Valley (?), an osetian settlement. It's odd (taking into account the current circumstances) that their present-day name, ossetians, was given to them by their Georgian neighbours. They called themselves Iron (singular: Ir), and their country Ironistan, which means "Aryans" and "the homeland of Aryans". However, in the medieval chronicles they are called alans or asios in castilian.
The ossetians have zealously kept their ancient traditions, particularly evident in the social stratification that still retains the typical structure of the Caucaisan antiquity. The same can be said about their religion, which is a synchretic combination of christianism and indoeuropean traditions of iranian and scythian origin.
In the european Middle Ages they dominated the Caucasus beyond their current frontiers, but they were progressively pushed by the Khazars, the caucasian kabards and the mongols, in the period between the VII and the XVIII centuries. The present-day ossetians regard themselves as a nation of knightly nature. Proud guardians of their identity, at the end of the XIX century the Ossetian intellectuals compiled poems, accounts, myths and history of their fatherland, passed on by oral tradition, to arrange and publish them in a literary corpus that is today the main source of information about this brave nation.
Image from Wikipedia: Alan and Vandal migrations 4th–5th centuries. Red: migrations; Orange: military expeditions; Yellow: settlement areas
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ea/Alani_map.jpg
THE OSSETIANS ARE 'OUR' ALANS
"Because of several reasons we can be sure that the alans are the ancestors of nowadays ossetians who people the Caucasus", said the german philologist Max Vasmer at the beguinning of the XX century.
Althoug this is practically ignored, there are tenuous ties of blood between spaniards and ossetians. Coming to Spain along with the suebi and the vandals, the alans were were not a germanic nation (as the suebi and the vandals were); they came from the Caucasus. A portion of the alan people was drawn towards the Roman Empire with the germanic tribes; they crossed the Gauls, and along with the suebi and the vandals invaded Hispania in 409 A.D., then fused together (as subordinates) with the vandals that crossed the Strait [of Gibraltar] and founded the Vandal Empire of North Africa, whose sovereign held the title of "Rex Vandalorum et Alanorum".
The portion of the Alan nation that satayed in their orinal homeland in the Caucasus are the present-day ossetians. It's enough to point out that the second oficial name of Ossetia is Alania.
The alans were one of the ethinicities of the Massagetae, indoeuropean people related to the persians and the medes. Because of this it is more than probable that the ossetian alan ethnos was influenced by ancient persian warriors. The Great Kings settled some of their own people in the Dariel Valley (?), an osetian settlement. It's odd (taking into account the current circumstances) that their present-day name, ossetians, was given to them by their Georgian neighbours. They called themselves Iron (singular: Ir), and their country Ironistan, which means "Aryans" and "the homeland of Aryans". However, in the medieval chronicles they are called alans or asios in castilian.
The ossetians have zealously kept their ancient traditions, particularly evident in the social stratification that still retains the typical structure of the Caucaisan antiquity. The same can be said about their religion, which is a synchretic combination of christianism and indoeuropean traditions of iranian and scythian origin.
In the european Middle Ages they dominated the Caucasus beyond their current frontiers, but they were progressively pushed by the Khazars, the caucasian kabards and the mongols, in the period between the VII and the XVIII centuries. The present-day ossetians regard themselves as a nation of knightly nature. Proud guardians of their identity, at the end of the XIX century the Ossetian intellectuals compiled poems, accounts, myths and history of their fatherland, passed on by oral tradition, to arrange and publish them in a literary corpus that is today the main source of information about this brave nation.