The hypothesis that somewhere, sometime, an Indo-European race has existed has always been anchored in linguistic observations. But during the ninete… - Stefan Arvidsson

There were many reasons for this shift (of homeland from Asia to Europe). First of all, the hypothesis of a European homeland accorded with the folklore's focus on Germanic material. A second, closely related reason was that the idea of a northern European homeland was in line with the strong German nationalism that bloomed after the Franco-Prussian War and Germany's unification. One's native land now became more valuable than any dreamed-of colonizable, but foreign lands. Thirdly, the ideas of racial anthropology gained more and more credibility, and according to them, Europe was the origin of the e white Aryan race ((Arvidsson 2006, p.142, parenthesis added).

It is easy-as is evident from a critical reading of, for example. the foremost work about the Aryan discourse, Leon Poliakov's The Aryan Myth-to interpret all praise of the Aryan mentality as an expression of the naturalistic critique of the Semites, that is to say, as true anti-Semitism. But during the nineteenth century, especially, and even into the twentieth century, there did exist an Aryanist tradition that had very little in common with the naturalistic tradition and its Nazi anticlimax. This Aryanism had liberal and universalist overtones, and interpreted. the Semitic tradition as the incarnation of conservatism and antiquated. pluralistic chauvinism. Scholars such as Renan and Müller would probably have criticized. Nazism in the same way that they criticized traditionalistic Semitic religions: it stands in the way of the realization of universal humanity. From this perspective, the Aryan becomes the same as the consummate human being. 317

First, there is no direct evidence for the culture of the Indo-Europeans, with the result that researchers have used their imagination to a very high degree. It is only with the help of methodologically problematic linguistic and archaeological theories that they have been able to chisel an Indo- European culture in to being. (8).