Извор и назив дела :
Wiener Studien zur Skandinavistik
herausgegeben von Robert Nedoma (Wien) und Sven Hakon Rossel (Wien)
zusammen mit Hans Basbøll (Odense), Poul Houe (Minneapolis), Hermann Reichert (Wien), Roger Reidinger (Wien) und Stephan Michael Schröder (Köln)
Band 15
Praesens Verlag Literaturwissenschaft | Sprachwissenschaft
Musikwissenschaft | Kulturwissenschaft
Wien 2006
*
Текст у фокусу стране 244,245,246 :
,,The name Slavs was the one used most regularly, whereas the term Vandali was the oldest one, which can be traced back to Tacitus.6 In Krantz’s main work, Wandalia, he therefore avoids Sclavi and uses Wandali instead, even if Sclavi are mentioned in a cited source. Thus, according to Krantz, the Slavs are not Asian Scythians, but Europeans as testified by Tacitus and Berossos. The rule and seigniorial power of the Holy Roman Empire over the Slavic peoples are stressed and legitimated with this deliberate alteration of history.7
The Polish humanist Martin Cromer (1512-1589) strove to create a Polish history independent from the western neighbours and therefore tried to confine the ample concept of Vandal identity designed by Albertus Krantz. In 1555 his Polish history in thirty books was printed, entitled De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum. Cromer confronted the historical ideas of German humanists with a pronouncedly Polish and Slavic attitude in order to generate a genuine Slavic prehistory. Cromer starts his treatise with the remark that the Polish are a Slavic people first and foremost (Primum omnium constat, Polonos Slavicam gentem esse). The Slavs are Sarmatians, descending not from Noah’s son Japheth, but rather from Sem. According to Cromer, the Slavs settled in former Vandal territories. Rebutting Krantz’ equation of Vandals and Wends, he unmistakably distinguishes between Germanic Vandals on the one and Slavic Wends on the other hand.8
Both Krantz’ and Cromer’s theories were well-known in early modern Sweden and were the cause of significant debates and discussions. The 16th and 17th centuries marked the heyday of Swedish Gothicism, when the Swedish monarchy asserted its Gothic heritage to increase its prestige and justify its expansionist policies.9 Though far from undisputed, the elaborate doctrine of Gothicism played a crucial role in the intellectual life of early modern Sweden.
It is therefore undoubtedly appropriate to start an overview of Vandal hypotheses in early modern Sweden with the most prominent exponent of 16th century Gothicism: Johannes Magnus (1488-1544), the exiled last Catholic archbishop of Uppsala. His Gothorum Sueonumque Historia was finished in 1540 and printed in 1554. Magnus broadly follows Jordanes’ 6th century Getica. In a short passage he explains his view of the relation between Wends and Vandals: After having defeated the Heruli the Goths ruled by their king Armanaricus10 attacked the Veneti. Johannes Magnus alters Jordanes’ report and replaces the Veneti with Vandali. He states that the latter – according to the ancient author Ablavius – are a part of the Slavs (nec Sclavonica gens a Vandalica, nisi solo nomine differebat). Because of the Sclavonica gens being split up in so many nationes, they bear different names. Thus the Vandals differ from the gens Slavonica only by their ethnonym. Armanaricus defeated the Vandals and was able to establish his reign in vast territories up to the coast of the Maris Germanici. Johannes Magnus thereby demonstrates the great variety of possible political interpretations of ancient history.11
The protestant theologian and reformer Olaus Petri (1493-1552) is commonly regarded as the most ardent critic of Gothicism in 16th century Sweden. In his Swedish chronicle, En swensk cröneka (~1540), Olaus displayed a pronouncedly sceptic attitude towards the genealogical connections between ancient Goths and contemporary Swedes that formed the core of gothicist self-perception during Gustav I Vasa’s reign. Olaus subsequently fell from grace and was condemned for high treason in Örebro 1539/40. Early drafts of his chronicle were quoted in the accusation to prove that Olaus had slandered king and nobility.
The Swenska cröneka touches the topic of Wends and Vandals in a brief excursus12 that might seem insignificant. Bearing the chronicle’s complicated development in mind,13 it proves, however, to be a significant indicator for the importance of Wends in gothicist thought: The initial version dismisses a linguistic affinity between the Goths – the putative ancestors of the Swedes – and the Wends as very unlikely. Later revisions dating from the years after the Örebro trial extenuate the initial repudiation and concede that there might be a certain relatedness between Goths and Wends after all. Olaus and his revisers, possibly including his brother Laurentius Petri, included references to Albert Krantz and to Helmold of Bosau’s Chronica Slaworum – which had been edited for the first time in 1556 – in later versions of the chronicle, in order to prove that they were familiar with the latest literature on Wends and Vandals.“
*
[6] Albertus Krantz, Rerum Germanicarum historici claris regnorum Aquilonarium, Daniae, Sueciae, Norvagiae chronica […] (Cologne 1546), 241; Cf. Viktor Anton Nordmann, Die Wandalia des Albert Krantz (= Annales Academiæ scientiarum Fennicæ B 29: 3; Helsinki 1934), 28ff.; Steinacher, “Vandalen im frühneuzeitlichen Ostseeraum“ [footnote 5].
[7] Albertus Krantz, Wandalia. De Wandalorum vera origine […] (Cologne 1519), I, 6 and Praefatio; The content of this voluminous tome is summarized by Nordmann, Die Wandalia des Albert Krantz [footnote 6], 49-74.
[8] Martin Cromer, De origine et rebus gestis Polonorum libri XXX (Basle 1550), 32f. Cf. Steinacher, “Vandalen im frühneuzeitlichen Ostseeraum“ [footnote 5].
[9] Important literature on Swedish Gothicism includes: Sten Lindroth, “Göticismen.“ Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder fra vikingetid til reformationstid 6, 35-38; H[arald] Ehrhardt, “Goticismus.” Lexikon des Mittelalters 4, 1573-1575; F[ritz] Paul, “Gotizismus.“ Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 2 12, 461- 466; Gustav Löw, Sveriges forntid i svensk historieskrivning (Stockholm 1908-10), I, 50-160; Johan Nordström, De yverbornes ö. Sextonhundratalsstudier (Stockholm 1934); Josef Svennung, Zur Geschichte des Goticismus (= Skrifter utgivna av K. Humanistiska vetenskapssamfundet i Uppsala 44: 2B; Stockholm 1967). In her recent dissertation, Inken Schmidt-Voges displays a critical attitude towards these older research traditions, characterising Gothicism and its mythic subtext as an example of ethnocentric historiography. Cf. Inken Schmidt-Voges, De antiqua claritate et clara antiquitate Gothorum. Gotizismus als Identitätsmodell im frühneuzeitlichen Schweden (= Imaginatio borealis 4; Frankfurt 2004).
[10] In Jordanes’ Getica 117-118, Armanaricus is named Hermanaricus. (Iordanis Romana et Getica, Theodor Mommsen, ed. [= MGH AA 5, 1; Berlin 1882], 88.)
[11] Johannes Magnus, Gothorum Sueonumque Historia (Rome 1554), VI, XXII, 219.
[12] Olavus Petri, ”En Swensk Cröneka”, Jöran Sahlgren, ed. Samlade skrifter af Olavus Petri 4. Bengt Hesselman, ed. (Uppsala 1917), 9.
[13] The following assumptions are based on Efraim Lundmark, “Redaktionerna av Olavus Petris Svenska krönika. Översikt och gruppering av handskrifterna.” VetenskapsSocieteten i Lund, Årsbok 1940, 13-76. Differing opinions on the development and the various revisions of Olaus Petri’s Swenska cröneka have been put forward by Lars Sjödin and Gunnar T. Westin. (Lars Sjödin, “Tillkomsten av Olaus Petri krönika.”
*
