By: M. A. Sepanlu, January 2002
British scholar Noel Malcom in his book “A short history of Bosnia” printed in Britain offers valuable research about the racial relationship between Iranians and some ethnicities of the former Yugoslavia. He writes: “The name Croat, or Hravat in Serbian, is not a Serbian word. It is similar to the Iranian name Choroatos, found on tombstones of Greek dwelling regions of south Russia.” He goes on to add that the original form of the word is “Khoravat” as mentioned in Avesta, meaning “friendly”.
Historical studies indicate that the Croats started migrating from the Iranian homeland to Croatia, Serbia and Bosnia about 3,000 years ago. However, a much larger migration took place about 1,700 years ago. Probably the reason behind this migration was the suppression of the followers of Manichean faith during the Sassanid era. The said scholar LSO says that the word Serb has also Iranian origin, which can be recognized in the word “Charv” meaning cattle.
According top ancient documents, these two ethnic groups were tribes of Iranian origin that had accepted Slavic subjects among themselves.
Noel Malcom says that new theories confirm historical knowledge. Some Croatian nationalist theoreticians have opted to adopt the theory linking their origins to Iran, thereby preserving their cultural and psychological independence, in order not to merge into the neighboring cultures. Such a theory gained particular popularity during World War II, for Iranians were considered to have a higher ranking compared to the Slava in terms of racial hierarchy. However, in Malcom’s words, the plain historical fact is that both the Croats and the Serbs migrated at the same time, and both have some characteristics of Iranian peoples.
One point is clear: the early immigrants called themselves Khoravat or Croat in order to distinguish with other tribes of that region. These Iranian-origin immigrants also did something more to stress the difference: they tied a handkerchief around their necks, something which later gained global popularity under the name of Cravat.
In 1656 CE, Louis XIV formed a regiment of Croat volunteers inside his army. The members of this regiment, in accordance to their ancient tradition, wore a neckerchief of plain of floral silk, its ends dangling from the tie. It could also be used as bandage if the soldier was wounded. After this time the Croatian scarf was accepted in France, above all in court, where military ornaments were much admired. The fashionable expression, �a la croate�, soon evolved into a new French word, which still exists today: la cravate. Some 170 years later, the necktie became a universal fashion. It would be worthwhile to add that the Croatian national flag is derived from the chessboard, thus some nationalist historians consider Croatians the descendants of Bozorgmehr, the chess master and minister of the Sassanid era.
Talking of the global influence of Persian, it would also be interesting to not that the word Pajamas has Persian origins, meaning “leg ware”. My mind drifts back to the Mauritanian desert. In an isolated oasis, an old man opens an ancient book, reading with not so familiar accent, one of the great poems of Sa’adi” “Human beings are organs of one body.”
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Greetings to All,
Thank you for this forward. The article is essentially correct however I must humbly chime in my 2 cents worth.
Khorvat is also North Iranic for “Fortress, settlement”, although this is now among the Alans who had been forced to migrate to the Balkans by the attacking Huns by the 4th century AD (perhaps a little earlier). Words can often diverge in meaning across time and distance, even when they are from the same language family (in this case Iranic). An excellent text for this is Tadeusz Sulimiirski’s 1970 work on the Sarmatians.
Khorvat is known as Herat in Afghanistan as these were those North Iranian Saka who were forced to take refuge in the Sassanian Empire (224-651 AD) alongisde their ethnic kin, the Medes and the Persians at the time. These had arrived there well by the time of the Hephthalite disasters of 484 AD (the death of Piruz at the hands of Hephthalite leader Kushnavaz).
Another varient of the term Khorvat is Khochen which is now Chechen in the north Caucasus, which again was settled by those Alans who had survived the Hun-Turkic assaults. Their remnants are now the Ossetians who refer to themselves as the “Ir-On” – they live in Northern Georgia and parts of South Russia. The actual Chechens today do not speak Iranic languages, but vernaculars of the Caucasus. It is also interesting that a number of Alans had converted to Zoroastrianism just as Iran (with the exception of the North of the country) had fallen to the Arabs by the 660s AD.
There are close to a toal of 60 cities and locales in Europe that have names of Iranian origin. Examples include Tarvin near Chester in England, Aireen in Normandy, France or the Don, Dniepr, and Dniester rivers. Even the term Danube is Iranic, however the actuial name is from the Celts whose language shares many similarities with Iranic:
Old Iranc for water: Don/Dan
Old Celtic for water: Danuvius
The Celtic name for Ireland is “Eire-An”. This is interesting as the Mde/Kurdish term for Aryan is “Eire”. The ancient way of saying Iran is actually “Eire-An”. There are a number of similarities between Gaelic and the Gilaki of Northern Iran as well. The ancient Celtic tongue also has the term Asura which is the equivalet of the Iranian Ahura (or Ahura-Mazda).
Serb (or Serboi) may also mean viceroy, at least according to the late Sulimirski who (in my humble opinion) was a definate authority on Sarmatian customs, history and language.
There are many Iranic words in the Serbo-Croat region, one of these being Zhupin of course. I also noticed that the Serbo-Croat language (as well as Ukrainian) has a number of linguistic similarities with Iranic languages, notably in phonology. Old Iranic words persist in many Slavi languages (e.g. Mokry=wet; Bogh=God, etc).
Many Slavic languages have Iranic style terms for numbers such as
Dva = 2 or do
Chetyere = 4 or Chahar
Pianja = 5 or Panj
Shest = 6 or Shesh
Sot/Sotka=100 or Sat
There were also a number of Sassanian mercenary cavalry serving with the Roman army who settled in Europe as well during the campaigns of Belisarius.
A book is required for htis subject, but hopefully this will give you some ideas.
My Best Regards
Dr. Kaveh Farrokh
I don’t know why you connect Croats and Serbs in subject of Iranian homeland of Croats.First mention of Serbs was 1,500 years later on Caucasus.And if we speak about profesor Sulimiirski it is well known the he was influenced by communist pro-Russian scholars,in their doctrine all Slavs are same,no diversity.