Barbarian

Barbarian (from ancient Greek βάρβαρος bárbaros, plural βάρβαροι bárbaroi) was the original term in ancient Greece for all those who did not speak Greek (or spoke it badly) and thus unintelligibly (literally: stammerers, stutterers, actually: br-br-sayers). In parallel, the Sanskrit word barbarāh (plural) 'stammerer, laller' was used by the Indians to designate foreign peoples.

Later, the term "barbarians" referred to peoples who, according to the ancient Greeks and Romans, were on a lower cultural level than themselves.

In modern usage, the term is used derogatorily in the meaning of "raw-uncivilized, uneducated people". Since the beginning of antiquity, the term "barbarian" ("a European keyword") or "barbarianism" has served within a Hellenocentric or ethnocentric worldview as a delimiting and pejorative designation for the otherness of foreign cultures, be they in regional (especially marginal and border peoples) or ideological (Jews, Christians, "pagans") distance. Parallel to this goes a strongly rhetorically-propagandistically charged use of the term, which seldom meets the real proximity or distance of the cultures confronted in each case. "The figure of speech remained, insofar as the negatively occupiable pole of the barbarian or barbarism was always available to shield one's own position per negationem or to expand expansively."

Term History

The term "barbarian" has undergone many changes of meaning up to the present day. Therefore, one can no longer assume a concrete designation, but it is rather a metaphor, which changed in the course of history.

• Greco-Roman antiquity: Already in antiquity the barbarian changed from the "speaker of a rough language" in Homer to a non-barbarian in Herodotus. In his drama The Persians, Aeschylus refers to the Persian ships under the Persian king Xerxes I as a barbarian fleet. In Roman times, any person who came from outside the Greco-Roman cultural sphere was basically considered a barbarian, although this did not prevent such persons from making a career in the military, for example, in late antiquity.

• China: Persons outside the Chinese cultural sphere, such as members of one of the various equestrian peoples from the steppe zone, were considered barbarians (Yi-Di) (much like in the ancient Greco-Roman West). This led to the fact that in contact with equestrian peoples the so-called Heqin marriage policy was practiced for a long time in order to be able to maintain diplomatic contacts at all.

• Middle Ages: In the Middle Ages, the idea of the barbarian was strongly linked to that of the pagan. Thus, the Arabs, who were technically and culturally more advanced than the Christian West, also became barbarians. Georg Scheibelreiter, however, also uses the term for already Christianized West Germanic ruling elites - especially the Merovingians - who, under the feeling of being constantly endangered, gained short-term advantages by means of brutal and insidious crimes and physically eliminated potential opponents from competing noble groups on mere suspicion. In the process, Christian values as well as Gallo-Roman "civilized" forms of unification handed down from late antiquity are de facto suspended in conflicts; the mechanisms of religious inhibition do not function. Only through unsuccessfulness directly experienced by the senses, not through pious sermons, can this behavior be changed. To the more Romanized tribes such as the Burgundians, this behavior appeared unpredictable and barbaric.

• Turn to the modern era: With the voyages of discovery at the turn of the modern era, a differentiation of the concept of barbarians began. For example, the Chinese described by Marco Polo were perceived as exotic, while the indigenous peoples of North, Central and South America were described as barbarians. By describing the indigenous peoples of North and Central America as barbarians, they were denied sanity and thus, to some extent, humanity, which served as a pattern of legitimacy for their subjugation by the Spanish. The African slaves occupied the lowest place in the hierarchy of reception.

• Humanism: The romanticizing image of the barbarian as a cultural projection figure in the 18th and 19th centuries should be considered in the context of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's idea of the "noble savage".

Barbarians in the fantasy genre

In the fantasy genre, barbarians are depicted as powerful warriors who come from an archaic culture and have a rather offensive fighting style. They are usually described as brutal, quick-tempered and primitive, but also as brave, resilient and direct or honest. This is not only the case in books about Conan, but also in the universe of Dungeons & Dragons or in the action role-playing game Diablo II. The Gjalskerlands in The Black Eye or the Wasa in the world of Middle Earth are also considered typical barbarians.