[Gromoljut]

That is your main problem, you know? You can't read a post as a whole and then try to make a system in your head, you are binary and need to process quote after quote in isolation from the rest. I have an ever greater doubt that you will ever understand what I am trying to say, though I am somewhat calmed by the fact that there will be others reading this.

Very well, I can simplify it even further.

Famous post #3:

Originally Posted by M.R.

I'll repeat it again - because being Slavic has no meaning (or hardly any meaning) and it hardly changes anything if a particular nation is considered Slavic or not. Baltic languages are as far as I know not Slavic, but even if they are or have something in common this is such a useless discussion IMHO - at least in this context where we debate whether they are part of some (imaginary) Slavic identity or not. Of course there are people arguing whether Bulgarians, Macedonians, etc are Slavic or not, but it's a complete waste of time. Just like this thread.

We never debated a slavic identity - cultures and languages can be related (by heritage!, not by proximity) without having a common identity (Austria and Germany, Ireland and Northern Ireland), or they can have a common identity without being closely related (England and Northern Ireland). Identity, in contrast to science, is short-sighted, and it should not be the sole base for science.
What you failed to understand time and time again is that I am talking about certain cultural traits Slavic countries share without having had close relations in the last 1000 years and which thus cannot be explained by 19th century romanticism, catholicism or "Europe" (which is quite new as a concept), and I am mentioning them without ever attaching them any political meaning, since they are nothing more then scientific descriptions. You, on the other hand, insist that they are inherently political:

Originally Posted by M.R.

There's a thread about meta-ethnicities somewhere, there are a lot of valid arguments why meta-ethnicities have no real significance. The days of pan-Germanism and pan-Slavism are over [...]

Originally Posted by M.R.

The way I see it all this pan-nationalisms, meta-ethnicities, meta-nations or whatever you want to call it are in many cases welcomed by people who need to feel themselves as being part of something bigger than they actualy are.

Your equate meta-ethnicity with pan-nationalism, constantly, despite my best efforts to convince that there is no inherent connection between the two; one aspect is political/ideological, the other one is linguistic/ethnologic/historical/cultural - they can be connected (thus, mixed up), which is what both you and pan-slavists are doing, one to denounce and the other to promote them both in one go; but that is far from anything I did. Since you so much cry for quotes and backing up arguments - find me a passage that I wrote which conveys the idea of "we are all slavs, that makes us one happy ancient nation, there are no differences between us, we are blood brothers, we should forfeit 1000 years of history and mingle with eastern slavs, <insert further pan-slavic ideas here>".
Those "stupid examples", by the way, are there for people like you, who do not demonstrate the capability of thinking in principles and abstractions, but work merely in specific terms (they can recognize no pattern or structure - "There are no colors! There is only red, and then there is blue, and green, and yellow, ...").

Originally Posted by M.R.

Well I understand if someone is interested in linguistics and debates about the closeness of Baltic and Slavic languages, but here in this context the (alleged) linguistical closeness is only used as a potential argument that Balts are part of (artificial) Slavic indentity.

The context of this thread, as I have underlined before, was strictly linguistic, since the starter of the thread from which our posts were moved was, considering her other posts about polish, slovak and czech, obviously doing a paper about slavic tongues.
To a linguistic question, you replied with a political opinion (somewhat primitive, but still) - "who gives a damn?" Or, to use the monkey's favorite function, quote:

Originally Posted by M.R.

Even if they were - who gives a damn?

Well, they are, as I have explained before. I can't imagine what it was in that one line that seemed constructive enough to you so as to post it as an answer to someone's honest scientific question. I reasoned you sought some close-quarter combat and, since I am a helpful lad, here I am

Originally Posted by M.R.

Cultural closeness between Balts and Slavs? There is Slavic culture?

Closeness, of course, is relative, according to scale (which can also mean time). From the standpoint of all life on earth, humans and apes are the same. From the standpoint of mammals, they aren't. From the standpoint of humans, those are two completely different things. (Read on to find out about "closeness")
Among the culture of every one specific "slavic" nation or even region, there is a certain layer of culture (more prominent here, less important there) which one might call "slavic". That is because there are strings of similarities between (not always including all) slavic nations that cannot be attributed to anything but a once common culture, regardless of who, how, why, from where and how many spread it. It might have been Veneti, it might have been Slavs - those are both fairy-tales to answer the questions who, how, why, from where and how many, not if.
Since we, from my previous post (which you probably never read), now know that

Originally Posted by Gromoljut

[...] it is wrong to assume culture in the context of ethnology /and archaeology/ means merely catholicism, politics and recent history. Culture, as I use the term here, means inherited culture /the part of a given people's culture that is not borrowed from neighbours, but acquired from ancestors/ - heritage, not borrowed culture

(later additions in slashes - //), we can say that archealogical, ethnological and linguistic material suggests there was both a baltic and a slavic culture. At the time of their existence, there was none that was closer to any of them than they were to each other.

Here, of course, there is a lot of room for argument since there is never a pure culture. We are not talking of purity - slavs, balts, germans, ... - these are abstractions, these people never walked the earth and never spoke protoslavic, what science reconstructs is merely the common point from which all successing cultures started to build upon their inheritance, the basis which they sometimes replaced or a part of which they never acquired in the first place.
I understand your thirst for quotes from credible sources that would back any of my statements about ethnology and archaeology up. But, in all honesty, you know as well as I do that there is not a single man under this sun whom you would trust if he were telling you the same as I am. Still, I will try my best.
Matters of linguistics I can mostly debate from memory. Concerning ethnology and archaeology (or any discipline of cultural anthropology, really), I can remember one book title, but this one draws on A LOT of sources, and it actually notes whether the source is a romantic pan-slavist (! - it discards a host of russian sources for that very reason) or a collector of ethnologic material (such as Emil Korytko in Slovenia). It is the work of Damjan J. Ovsec: Slovanska mitologija in verovanje.

Originally Posted by Gromoljut

Slovenians and Bulgarians are similar in terms of culture

Originally Posted by M.R.

They are? Please be specific here.

I am no expert on Bulgarian folklore (I chose Bulgaria at random anyway - had I said Moravia, I would have more to talk about now ) and of course I can't quote any book since I don't keep a library at home, so I can't really be as specific as you would want me to be. Of course, "culture" here means exactly what it means in the previous paragraph - heritage, not influence (of greeks, turks, italians, etc).
I can tell you two things, though. I attend lectures of Bulgarian at the faculty and our lecturer is Bulgarian. It goes without saying he has extensively travelled all countries of ex-Yugoslavia, but he cannot keep commenting how Slovenia much more reminds him of Bulgaria than do either Croatia or Serbia. Which is strange, but he keeps mentioning little details of convergence that grabbed his attention. This, of course, serves as little proof, but I thought I'd share it anyway.
The other one is wikipedia, which is another thing you don't like (I'll join you on this one), but it has a good side - it is multilingual and it tends to cite its sources, which means you get thousands of sources. The bulgarian and polish article on slavic mythology are particularly extensive with their bibliography (and they are much better than the english page). The cited books, of course, deal not only with mythology.

Originally Posted by M.R.

Not all Slovenians share this much of history with them. We (all Slovenians) are still closer to them culturally and historicaly speaking than to Russians or Ukranians or any other eastern Slavs.

Two points here.
1) I already explained my view of culture. Actually, I see this leads to too much confusion, and I propose this: what I called "culture" (under my own definition, as written above) until now, I shall hereupon call "heritage". So yes, we have more in common with bavarian culture than with the russian one. But we have more in common with russian heritage than with the bavarian one.
2) A considerable part of Slovenians is much closer to Croats than it is to Bavarians (I hope we both include Austrians in this category?).[/quote]

Originally Posted by M.R.

Ok, so it's valid in Slavic terms but not in .. what? Germanic/Romance/Baltic terms? So you do agree that in some cases meta-ethnicity can maybe be an unvalid concept? What makes you think that in case of Slavs it is a valid concept?

Meta-ethnicity becomes invalid when you apply it to something which it wasn't meant to be applied to (like the Romanians - read on for more). Why it is valid in the case of Slavs, I have already tried to explain. The common layer of culture found in all slavic countries.

Originally Posted by M.R.

Well to answer the question why so many ("Slavic") people think that Slavs are a meta-ethnicity and share some kind of common ethnic identity (after all, this is what meta-ethnicity is supposed to be - "ethnicity" on a "larger scale") is the result of different agendas of major European nations in 19th and 20th century. That's why instead of Slovenian history we learn romantic fairy-tails mixed with lies of pan-Germanic historians (also basis for pan-Slavism).

Except for you standard blending of meta-ethnicity with pan-nationalism, you make one more typical mistake. You again assume that belonging to a meta-ethnicity means having exactly the same identity as the other members of the meta-ethnicity. While meta-ethnicity could loosely be interpreted as common denominator in the identities of several ethnicities, that does not mean separate ethnicities have only the common identity. Cerkljani and Goričanci each have their own identity, but where they meet is the Slovenian identity, a construct of the 19th century (you refuted this, but with a bare denial - what, then, is your view of the history of forming the modern slovenian nation?)

Originally Posted by M.R.

All this universalist ideas of having some kind of meta-ethnic identity apart from your own (true) ethnic identity is for me hardly any different than ideas of Europeans being a nation or we are all one race?

Europeans are not a nation, neither are modern slavic nations. You are the only one speaking in such terms, I never mentioned anything of the kind. Also, is having a national identity beside your regional one not contradictive to you, if you see so much contradiction between ethnicity and meta-ethnicity (those terms are honestly not contradictory, you know)? How can one be Belokranjec and Slovenec, but not Belokranjec, Slovenec and Slovan? I will tell you the answer. Like I said, identity is short-sighted, and it functions only to a certain scale. Beyond that, it sees everything it can't identify with as equally foreign. Science need not imitate this bad habit. Pan-slavism would indeed exchange Slovenian for Slavic because it seems there are only two levels on which people understand their identity. What we are talking here about, however, is not people or politics, but science, which permits a more complex tree. So, while for the people of Slovenia and their daily and political affairs, there is no use for the term "Slavic", this does not make it invalid.

Originally Posted by M.R.

I wonder why we don't also discuss our meta-meta-ethnic identities than? Maybe in near future someone will come up with than and explain it to us "it's the same scheme as meta-ethnicities, only aplied at larger scale"...

We are only human. There is not nearly enough recorded history and too much time has passed. A category such as meta-meta-ethnicity, however you call, might be valid, but it is even more abstract and speculative than meta-ethnicity and has, of course, even less significance for politics. Though meta-meta-ethnicity in this thread's case is probably the point of convergence of baltic and slavic culture.

Originally Posted by M.R.

You ever wondered why a Spaniard doesn't consider himself as being descendant of some "ancient Romance nation" and calls Italians and Romanians as his Romance brothers, while here in case of our Slavic nation it somehow makes complete sense to some people that they were once part of same nation together with Russians and other Slavic brothers even though both doesn't make any sense?

Well, you wave about with "nation" and "brother" as if that were anything I have used extensively in reference to meta-ethnicity. Neither, of course, makes much sense.
But I must point out here, since you are mentioning the romance people, that their supposed meta-ethnicity suddenly makes much more sense if you consider the huge germanic influence on the french people and the fact that romanians only speak a romance language (with min. 40% slavic loanwords), while their heritage is largely actually slavic and supposedly "indigenous" ( - thracian, dacian and other cultures are mentioned). So latin culture as such only persists in Italy, Spain, Occitania and Portugal (I will not pretend to be an expert here - these are just rough frames).

Originally Posted by M.R.

The fact that because of it's geographical place and history, Slovenian culture has been influenced by cultures neighbouring nations (Gorensjka and Styria by Germans, Prekmurje by Hungarians, Primorska by Italians, southern Slovenia by Balkanoids) and that's also the reason why we have so many differences between regional identities. Slovenian identity is not a single identity as such (a mistake by many today's Slovenians who consider Slovenian national identity to be bunch of jodlars from Gorenjska playing their harmonika and of course Kekec), but it rather consists of different regional identities (which have simmilarities) and of course the ancient state of all Slovenians - Carantania. This can in no way be compared to Slavic identity which is based on nothing but language which, despite of it's importance, doesn't make an ethnic identity or ethnicity (or in this case meta-ethnicity if you like).

Now what do I have in common with, let's say, eastern Slavs?

Historicaly? Before 19th century I can't even remember any historical connection, in 19th century some people in Slovenia where naive enough to think that their big Slavic brothers Russians will help them preserve their identity instead.. well they f????? us over.

Culturaly? I can hardly think what more cultural simmilarities I have with an Ukranian than I have them with French/Italian. Not to mention central-European "non-Slavic" nations which are much more culturaly closer to me than any eastern European nation will ever be, be it Slavic or not.

Descent? Not even close. Ok maybe if you believe in fairy tales - Slovenians are Slavs who came from swamps in eastern Europe in 6th century (never mind there's no historical proof, after all that's not history but romantic fairy tale they teach Slovenians since the good old days of pan-Slavism and call it 'history'), that mean we're all 100% Slavic (never mind that there were other tribes living in Slovenia before 6th century or that by all logic some Slovenians mixed with other nations/tribes since then) which makes us having same Slavic ancestors like a Russian from Moscow or Ukranian from Kiev.

The first paragraph is nicely put.
But then you begin ranting and confusing things again. Slovenian national identity is not a single identity, neither is the slavic "identity" (which is not an identity, but a layer of culture, and is not based only on language). The farther up you go, the less common traits you will find, which is completely normal. One way is to compare cultures by influence, one is by heritage. Slavic is about heritage. Central european is about influence. There is no contradiction in feeling central european and slavic at the same time. I have explained all of this already.
Regarding historical ties - this is not about contacts between our two ethnicities (russians and slovenians), since that presupposes these ethnicities are already formed. This is about what we have in common from the time before there were things such as "russian" and "slovenian".
What you go on to say about fairy-tales ... I have no idea where you read this ("100% Slavic", ...), but I have answered it already in this post (the definition of "slavic culture, see beginning of my post) and in the previous one:

Originally Posted by Gromoljut

I have never said that being of the same meta-ethnicity means having the exact same ancestors. It could mean that we simply have more common ancestors with the slovak people than we do with the italians, or it could mean that poles have more common ancestors with russians than with balts, but it could also not.* Being of the same nationality does not mean having the same ancestors either. These are abstractions we are talking about, a skeleton, so to speak, and as long as you take them as such, you have no trouble understanding that each man/family/tribe/region/nation/meta-ethnicity has a very complex genesis, just as there are different and/or similar muscles jointed onto the same bone.

I know what you mean with the 6th century - I find it hard to believe as well. No explanation so far has satisfied me. Linguistics can only tell so much, history can only tell so much. 6th century AD, 12th BC, Ice Age, ... we weren't discussing the origin of different slavic nations.

Originally Posted by M.R.

Slovenians are Europeans, all other Slavs are too, all Europeans have some simmilarities in culture and at least some common history.

Similarities in culture are traceable to heritage and influence, they are not random.

Originally Posted by M.R.

I'm not. It's still wrong though.

Wrong in what terms? (And I am supposed to be the one who does not provide arguments? You don't even bother to explain your point )

Originally Posted by M.R.

Or just maybe they were already different from begining?

Sure they were, I never said they were clones. But in this beginning, we were much more similar to them than to the Bavarians.

################

Now, to your latest post:

Originally Posted by M.R.

That's because you're not puting enough effort in it, or enough time. Or both. Not my problem.

I think it is evident who puts up the effort here. I write 10.000 lines, and all you do is say "back it up".

Originally Posted by M.R.

Yes which is exactly the same thing you did. Wrote your opinion, but not willing to discuss it, you just re-wrote it. And discussing the opinion where quote comes in, or at least you answer the points or questions other member has made.

If you think discussion is based on dissecting isolated quotes and proving them wrong one by one instead of regarding them as an organic whole, your level of discussion is truly low, like I said in the beginning of this post. But, have it your way.

Originally Posted by M.R.

Oh yeah, where? Examples please..

Ah why I'm a writting this as I'll never get an answer anyway, just like before. The easiest way to refute something is to accuse someone that he is this and that or that he uses this and that, without actually backing up your statements with examples from his posts (because usualy there aren't any, just like here).

Gladly!
False generalisations (some already quoted, but, heck, I'm just doing you a favor):
1) Meta-ethnicity = pan-nationalism, calling other nations "brothers"

Originally Posted by M.R.

There's a thread about meta-ethnicities somewhere, there are a lot of valid arguments why meta-ethnicities have no real significance. The days of pan-Germanism and pan-Slavism [...]

Originally Posted by M.R.

All this universalist ideas of having some kind of meta-ethnic identity apart from your own (true) ethnic identity is for me hardly any different than ideas of Europeans being a nation or we are all one race?

Originally Posted by M.R.

You ever wondered why a Spaniard doesn't consider himself as being descendant of some "ancient Romance nation" and calls Italians and Romanians as his Romance brothers, while here in case of our Slavic nation it somehow makes complete sense to some people that they were once part of same nation together with Russians and other Slavic brothers even though both doesn't make any sense?

Originally Posted by M.R.

The way I see it all this pan-nationalisms, meta-ethnicities, meta-nations or whatever you want to call it are in many cases welcomed by people who need to feel themselves as being part of something bigger than they actualy are.

2) If there is such a thing as slavic culture, it inherently means all nations whose heritage is slavic must be 100% pure and identical

Originally Posted by M.R.

Descent? Not even close. Ok maybe if you believe in fairy tales - Slovenians are Slavs who came from swamps in eastern Europe in 6th century (never mind there's no historical proof, after all that's not history but romantic fairy tale they teach Slovenians since the good old days of pan-Slavism and call it 'history'), that mean we're all 100% Slavic (never mind that there were other tribes living in Slovenia before 6th century or that by all logic some Slovenians mixed with other nations/tribes since then) which makes us having same Slavic ancestors like a Russian from Moscow or Ukranian from Kiev.

Originally Posted by M.R.

Did I say you said that you said that?

No, you did not I said that I said that, you simply used it as an argument against the notion of an abstract slavic heritage, as if that were in integral part of the concept of slavic heritage (if you think it is, you are mistaken):

Originally Posted by M.R.

Descent? Not even close. Ok maybe if you believe in fairy tales - Slovenians are Slavs who came from swamps in eastern Europe in 6th century (never mind there's no historical proof, after all that's not history but romantic fairy tale they teach Slovenians since the good old days of pan-Slavism and call it 'history'), that mean we're all 100% Slavic (never mind that there were other tribes living in Slovenia before 6th century or that by all logic some Slovenians mixed with other nations/tribes since then) which makes us having same Slavic ancestors like a Russian from Moscow or Ukranian from Kiev.

This is the third time I'm quoting this. You owe me a drink

Originally Posted by M.R.

I was making a point, since meta-ethnicity is supposed to be (and widely understood) as an ethnicity on a larger scale. Ethnic identity includes having same descent. You obviously have your own logic and definition.

Originally Posted by M.R.

Actualy it does. Descent is one of many things of which national identity is composed.

Ethnic identity never includes having the same descent. What a blunder. How is that for a fairy-tale! You keep using "same" and "similar" like they were synonyms. It includes having a similar descent, or not even that (north and south germans, north and south italians, ...).
If two or more nations have a similar descent (to a certain degree) and similar heritage (to a certain degree), they are in the same meta-ethnic category.
Of course, the degree of relation between you and your brother is much greater than that between you and your grandfather's brother's son's son (granduncle's grandson?), but you two are still more related than you and me (unless I am that unlucky guy ). We are still in the same ethnic category and have similar descent.

Originally Posted by M.R.

I'm Slavic (as considered by majority of people). For someone that doesn't know I'm Slovenian, this COULD mean that I'm Catholic living in Alps. But it COULD also mean I'm an Orthodox living in some swamps in eastern Europe. It COULD mean I'm a sub-Nordic Slovenian but it COULD Baltid Russian. It could mean I'm a Slovenian and that my culture is close to other central European nations, but it could also mean that I'm a Belarussian with a completly different culture and identity. I could mean a lot of things. You know why? Because it's artificial identity constructed somewhere in 19th century.

It means even less than being American, since beside language Americans share their "American way of life".

For me, you being Slovenian could mean you are from Rezija, Benečija, Istra, Jesenice, Tuhinj, Kranjska Gora, Domžale, Vače or Spodnji Duplek. So, where are you from, Slovenian? This game can be played all the way to your last name. You know why? Because just as Slavic, Slovenian is a blanket term. Being Slovenian, you could be a Pontid like me, a Dinarid like my father, or a Nordid like my cousins. You could be protestant or catholic, etc.
I still hold the Slovenian national identity was constructed in the 19th century. There were also no Germans before the 19th century, and no Italians.

Originally Posted by M.R.

All evidence? Where are all this evidences? You mind showing me those evidences?

"Evidence", in this case, would be the ethnographic material, collected by thousands of people across Slavic countries. The book and wikipedia articles I cited above should be brimming full with titles of ethnographic books.

Originally Posted by M.R.

Replace that Slavs with Slovenian or Slovenic population and your statement suddenly makes sense.

Not really, since (a) there wasn't a Slovenian identity at that time, like there wasn't a hungarian or austrian one - at least in the beginning, and (b) you would have left out all the people who went on to become Slovaks, Croats, Serbs, Czech and perhaps others.

Originally Posted by M.R.

Anyway I'm looking forward to your new posts. It has become quite fun now. Also don't remember you have post #3 to answer.

No way I leave it out after all of this, no. And, surely, if I have been as kind as to have granted you all this fun with what really is more than just a small effort, you will of course not deny me all the pleasure of answering these simple questions:

Originally Posted by Gromoljut

[...] what is the inhabitant of Krško? Of Trst? Dat. sing. of gospa? Which is correct - zaželen or zaželjen? Prinesen or prinešen? Láhek or lahák (tének or tenák)? Zvonenje or zvonjenje? What is the comparative of globok?

Yes, I was serious . I know it's not what where debating here, and I am glad you have answered my question about Goričko since it was an honest inquiry. But you also went out of your way to make me recall my days in primary school, and you woke the sleeping bear .