Protochronism

[Hanslune]

A new name for an old problem - people with nationalist bents coming up with very wild and fringy historical background for people and countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protochronism

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Protochronism

http://alina_stefanescu.typepad.com/romania_revealed/2009/03/protochronism-and-the-ceausescu-regime-creating-a-culture-of-national-socialism.html

http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/Protochronism

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by Hanslune

[cern]

the brits said thriving populations of aurignacians existed in romania after the ice age. they also said the seapeople came from romania. the french said troy was in romania. the greeks said atlantis was in romania. in 1968 a national celebration was held in romania to mark the fact that nothing at all happened there before 106bc. is this what you mean by protochronism?

[Hanslune]

7 hours ago, cern said:

the brits said thriving populations of aurignacians existed in romania after the ice age. they also said the seapeople came from romania. the french said troy was in romania. the greeks said atlantis was in romania. in 1968 a national celebration was held in romania to mark the fact that nothing at all happened there before 106bc. is this what you mean by protochronism?

No, not really its people saying x or y came from their OWN country - a typical pseudo nationalism exported into the past. The word originally came from Romania where it was used to label just such a movement which was then applied to other existing ones.

In the wikipedia article it states:

Quote

In this context, the term makes reference to the trend (noticed in several versions of Romanian nationalism) to ascribe a unique quality to the Dacians and their civilization.

 

Quote

During the 1940s, protochronism in the Soviet Union claimed that Russians had been the first to invent the lightbulb and telephone. Imitating Stalinist trends in the Communist Bloc, Albania developed its own version of protochronist ideology, which stressed the national superiority and continuity of Albanians from ancient peoples such as the Illyrians.Macedonians from the Republic of Macedonia have also engaged in protochronism claiming a Slavic-Thracian ethnogenesis, which is opposed by Greece due to parts of ancient Macedonia being within that country.

A type of protochronism might be applied to most states, the USA for some thing it was the creation of God, something the English in 19th century thought also, France in the 18-19th century though they were the center of civilization, and the same for Germany,and China at various times. I would say North Korea, Iran and a number of other countries have the same 'problem'.

One could see that nation states finding the 'earliest' ancient man which lead to frauds like Piltown, etc.

 

Edited May 16, 2017 by Hanslune

[back to earth]

I read an old book that tried to  attribute nearly all culture to Englishmen   that had not even existed as a concept back then    

Gawd it was a load of rubbish  ... it even ended off with stuff about how proud the author was to be  English . 

 

I however am desperately trying to cure the problem .

People, please !     Russell Crowe is NOT an Aussie .... he is a Kiwi  .    Please stop blaming us for him !      

[Hanslune]

18 minutes ago, back to earth said:

I read an old book that tried to  attribute nearly all culture to Englishmen   that had not even existed as a concept back then    

Gawd it was a load of rubbish  ... it even ended off with stuff about how proud the author was to be  English . 

 

Yep there is some really bad examples of that over the last few centuries. The only country I don't think that has a problem with that is Andorra and Liechtenstein....but I could be wrong.

[back to earth]

And   Fernando Poo    . 

 

[jaylemurph]

1 hour ago, back to earth said:

I read an old book that tried to  attribute nearly all culture to Englishmen   that had not even existed as a concept back then    

Gawd it was a load of rubbish  ... it even ended off with stuff about how proud the author was to be  English . 

 

I however am desperately trying to cure the problem .

People, please !     Russell Crowe is NOT an Aussie .... he is a Kiwi  .    Please stop blaming us for him !      

Were you reading The Golden Bough again?

--Jaylemurph

[back to earth]

Oh no   much more    ..........    than that !  

He specifically used the word Englishmen    and cited  paces all over the world  ....   and  ancient history .   And it ended something like ' Truly it is,  and always has been, great to be an Englishman !

.......   Adam  might even have been the first English man     !          

 

Top Ho Chaps  !   

 

[jaylemurph]

7 hours ago, back to earth said:

.....   Adam  might even have been the first English man     !        

I don't know about that, but I do know God certainly speaks Latin.

--Jaylemurph

[kmt_sesh]

I think of an Indian man I once met in our Egyptian exhibit at the museum. Not American Indian but Asian Indian. He overheard me talking to some folks about Alexander the Great, one of my favorite figures in history. After the other folks wandered off, the Indian man came over to continue the discussion. I was certainly fine with that...until this man insisted Alexander the Great was defeated by the Indians in battle. I tried explaining thay Alex himself never lost a battle, and his men gave up on him before they could even enter India-proper. To no avail, of course.

I've encountered several such folks from India who suffer from the same sort of self-defeating nationalism, and we've had a couple here at UM (including one who insisted Indo-European originated in India). I've been a little surprised by this because usually it's from someone of a minor country trying to add grandeur where little to none exists, but India has a very long, proud, and dynamic history. So why invent nonsense? Who's teaching these people?

At least we have a new term: protochronism. I like it. I like learning new words.

[kmt_sesh]

On May 16, 2017 at 5:40 PM, back to earth said:

...

People, please !     Russell Crowe is NOT an Aussie .... he is a Kiwi  .    Please stop blaming us for him !      

I don't blame you for Crowe, BTE.

Mel Gibson, on the other hand...

[Hanslune]

1 hour ago, kmt_sesh said:

I think of an Indian man I once met in our Egyptian exhibit at the museum. Not American Indian but Asian Indian. He overheard me talking to some folks about Alexander the Great, one of my favorite figures in history. After the other folks wandered off, the Indian man came over to continue the discussion. I was certainly fine with that...until this man insisted Alexander the Great was defeated by the Indians in battle. I tried explaining thay Alex himself never lost a battle, and his men gave up on him before they could even enter India-proper. To no avail, of course.

I've encountered several such folks from India who suffer from the same sort of self-defeating nationalism, and we've had a couple here at UM (including one who insisted Indo-European originated in India). I've been a little surprised by this because usually it's from someone of a minor country trying to add grandeur where little to none exists, but India has a very long, proud, and dynamic history. So why invent nonsense? Who's teaching these people?

At least we have a new term: protochronism. I like it. I like learning new words.

I was struck with the words usefulness much better in some ways than pseudo-history or myth

[back to earth]

20 hours ago, kmt_sesh said:

I think of an Indian man I once met in our Egyptian exhibit at the museum. Not American Indian but Asian Indian. He overheard me talking to some folks about Alexander the Great, one of my favorite figures in history. After the other folks wandered off, the Indian man came over to continue the discussion. I was certainly fine with that...until this man insisted Alexander the Great was defeated by the Indians in battle. I tried explaining thay Alex himself never lost a battle, and his men gave up on him before they could even enter India-proper. To no avail, of course.

I've encountered several such folks from India who suffer from the same sort of self-defeating nationalism, and we've had a couple here at UM (including one who insisted Indo-European originated in India). I've been a little surprised by this because usually it's from someone of a minor country trying to add grandeur where little to none exists, but India has a very long, proud, and dynamic history. So why invent nonsense? Who's teaching these people?

At least we have a new term: protochronism. I like it. I like learning new words.

Indian Nationalist Party  - they strongly support ' Out of India Theory '   .   Aryans   ?  Originally from India ! 

Eg .  ;     https://www.quora.com/Prehistoric-India-What-is-Out-of-India-theory-and-what-are-the-proofs-supporting-the-theory

 

[back to earth]

20 hours ago, kmt_sesh said:

I don't blame you for Crowe, BTE.

Mel Gibson, on the other hand...

     Yes  .....     < trudges off in shame >  

[Frank Merton]

19 hours ago, Hanslune said:

I was struck with the words usefulness much better in some ways than pseudo-history or myth

Some of these pseudo-histories are dangerous -- this one is an example.  They would use it to justify silly things like suppressing the use of English in India (which would harm the economy) and of course war with Pakistan (I never quite understood how but there it is).

The Turks and Pakistanis have similar (but of course reversed in their favor) narratives that glorify their history.  For that matter, pretty much all the Old Testament was invented shortly after the Persian return in order to make the Hebrews seem a much more ancient and important culture than anything archeology has found.  Look at the trouble that has caused.

Americans do that too, practically deifying the Founding Fathers and figures like Lincoln.  A quick tour through China one time and I heard from lots of experts (trained paleontologists) how the Chinese were descendent's of Homo erectus and hence not derived from any African source.  This is patent nonsense done for political or jingoistic reasons.

[+DieChecker]

On 5/15/2017 at 10:32 PM, Hanslune said:

A new name for an old problem - people with nationalist bents coming up with very wild and fringy historical background for people and countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protochronism

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Protochronism

http://alina_stefanescu.typepad.com/romania_revealed/2009/03/protochronism-and-the-ceausescu-regime-creating-a-culture-of-national-socialism.html

http://self.gutenberg.org/articles/Protochronism

 

Same thing that made otherwise intelligent individuals go crazy and support the premise of the Bosnian Pyramids. 

[Hanslune]

3 hours ago, DieChecker said:

Same thing that made otherwise intelligent individuals go crazy and support the premise of the Bosnian Pyramids. 

Yep zealous nationalistic propaganda. It use to be used to promote jingoism but now just pseudo-archaeology - mostly.

[Hanslune]

13 hours ago, Frank Merton said:

Some of these pseudo-histories are dangerous -- this one is an example.  They would use it to justify silly things like suppressing the use of English in India (which would harm the economy) and of course war with Pakistan (I never quite understood how but there it is).

The Turks and Pakistanis have similar (but of course reversed in their favor) narratives that glorify their history.  For that matter, pretty much all the Old Testament was invented shortly after the Persian return in order to make the Hebrews seem a much more ancient and important culture than anything archeology has found.  Look at the trouble that has caused.

Americans do that too, practically deifying the Founding Fathers and figures like Lincoln.

Yes I had to deal with that anti-English wave I use to hire Anglo-Indian (Indian's who speak English as their first language and may or may not have English ancestors) as cheap English teachers for Arab HS. Usually the Indian accent is to strong but a tiny minority of teh AI's have wonderfully accented English that is quite clear with strange archaic phrase, 'To do the needful', 'presently sir', etc.

Quote

 A quick tour through China one time and I heard from lots of experts (trained paleontologists) how the Chinese were descendent's of Homo erectus and hence not derived from any African source.  This is patent nonsense done for political or jingoistic reasons.

Strangely I heard that same claim a few days ago from an Indonesian (of Chinese descent). He was not aware of the Denisovians or Hobbits.

[PersonFromPorlock]

I seem to recall that  the Nazis did a whole lot of this.