Although Croatian people are widely considered to be a Slavic nation based on their known early history, language, and physical looks, some historians are likely to argue that fact. Mr. sc. Krešimir Galin is a Croatian ethnomusicologist who has studied the topic of early Croatian ethnology and claims that Croats originate from the territory of today’s Iran and Iraq for almost 6500 years ago.
His claims are accompanied by deep studies of national symbols used in Croatia to this day such as the famous chessboard or the celestial bodies such as the moon and stars (which he warns are not to be confused with crescent and star on Islamic symbology hence the usage of these symbols was known before the foundation of Islam). The Croatian symbols mentioned above have their genesis in the very first civilizations of Mesopotamia and ancient Iranian deities such as Mitra and Varuna.
Besides using those symbols, ancient Croats also were known as skillful warriors with advanced military weaponry. Their first migrations to Europe started around 4500 B.C. Even in that time, Galin claims, ancient Croats held annual ceremonies such as some form of carnivals which were popular among Indo-European nations of that era and the tradition of those carnivals exist in Croatia (mostly during February) to this day.But besides the symbols and customs, Galin finds one of the strongest arguments of Croats not being Slavic in genetics. Most Croats carry in themselves a specific gene, the one called “EU 7” which is not usual for people of Slavic descent but often found in, for example, Iranian natives.
When it comes to language, the only reason why Croats speak a language that is strongly Slavic is that they mixed with Slavic nations during the big migrations over 4000 years ago. Croats didn’t bring their women on the journey, so they married local women on territories which they started to inhabit, and those women were Slavic (mostly today’s Ukrainians).
He stresses out that the lack of materials, hectic history through the last few centuries and lack of appropriately trained historians are mostly the reasons why there is no bigger interest and funding of research of this kind but he hopes the circumstances will change when he publishes his book about the origins of Croats.We can say no more than this is an interesting theory and can’t wait to find out some more!
