Thank you very much, Jordan.
“Summing up the above information, we can distinguish in them 2 types of theories about the “homeland of the Slavs”: Scandinavian, which put this homeland in Scandinavia, and Danube, according to which it is near the middle and lower reaches of the Danube.
Why Scandinavia?
The search for the answer to this question must begin with a consideration of an interesting phenomenon that took place in the 15th-17th centuries. in Europe, for which the eloquent term “gotomania” is sometimes used.
Its beginning can be traced back to Basel Cathedral in 1431. Representatives of Sweden and the Spanish Habsburgs presented claims to provide them with first places in the hall. These places belonged to them, since, according to their statements, they came from the glorious and victorious Goths. Sweden was represented at the cathedral by Nicolaus Ragvaldi, Bishop of Växjö and Ulrich, Bishop of Arhus.
In his speech at the Council, Bishop Ragvaldson draws Sweden as the center of world history. Countless nations have come from the Goths homeland, which today is called Sweden – assures Ragvaldson. The first among them are the Goths and the West Goths. These two nations have done wonderful and glorious deeds. They conquered Europe, Asia and Egypt. The Amazons were Gothic women, and the Gothic king Euriphilus, a cousin or nephew of the Trojan king Priam, fought in the Trojan War, where he died gloriously …
After Ragvaldson’s speech at the Cathedral in Basel (1431) and especially after he became bishop of Uppsala (1438), Swedish historiography experienced a period of patriotic heyday. Its culmination came in 1554, when the book “The History is Ready” by the Swedish historian and writer John Magnus went out of print in Rome. In it, the author, the last Swedish Catholic Bishop Magnus, claims that more than thirty nations and peoples came from Sweden. By force of arms they settled in Asia, Africa and Europe. The most brilliant among them were the Goths, who in 875 from the Flood were the first to leave Scandinavia. Magnus has 87 East and West Gothic kings who reigned “outside of Sweden”. Magnus calls them “external Gothic rulers” and connects them with the history of Sweden.
Later, the Habsburg court historian Wolfgang Latsius further developed Magnus’ geopolitical views on the “conquest” of Goths, putting forward the idea of a “great migration of peoples”. In his version, the “Germanic peoples”, led by the Goths, not only conquered territories and ruled over them, but also moved in great numbers, settled them, and there, in the settled territories, they left a common national heritage. All these territories, Lazius believed, should unite the power of the Habsburgs.
And these “Gothic conquests” extend, no less, from Crimea to Spain and Sweden.
Josef Svennung. Zur Geschichte des Goticismus. Uppsala, 1967, S. 34.
Curt Weibull. Die Ausweiderung der Goten aus Schweden. Göteborg, 1958, S. 3.
Johannes Magnus, Historia de omnibus Gothorum Sueonumque regibus.
Hans Messmer. Hispania Idee und Gotenmythos. Zurich, 1960, S. 51. Wolfgang Lazius. De gentium aliquot migrationibus, libri XII, Basel, 1557, p. 4.
(Google translation)”
Hidden History Research 