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The Faculty of Social Sciences of the Oldenburg University offered, in the winter-term 1996/1997, a seminar on “Might, media and manipulation: The invention of ‘Indogermans’, ‘Indoeuropeans’, ‘Aryans’ as an exemplary case-study.” It is a project of “learning by doing research”, i.e. to start with open questions without prefixing a project plan and not depending on any prefabricated theory.

No one could have anticipated that the seminar would carry on right to the beginning of the winter-term 2000/2001. It was always on the students’ demand, though with some students dropping out and others coming in, the extensions became necessary. The newcomers had to work through the backlog of collected materials, protocols of the sessions, their evaluation, also in terms of time required, and then to develop new facets of further research.

When more than 35 students wished to participate in the seminar it was time for rethinking. A seminar of “learning by doing research” needs a manageable size of between 5 to 15 participants. So in the first session of the term a detailed report was presented on what had already been done and what the open questions were. Thereafter only five participants were left. They decided to evaluate the results achieved so far and to prepare an interim report before proceeding to further research work. In the process of the evaluation, only two participants remained at work. And these were not to undergo any more university-examinations.

They added new materials to fill up the gaps to get a comprehensive view of what had been accomplished. In this process the realisation came that many of the questions would not have arisen at all without the students’ participation. The author thanks all of them and is deeply grateful.

This book is also theirs.

A special acknowledgement is due to Aldo Stowasser. He is one of the two who have completed this project. He joined the seminar in the winter-term 1997/98, at the age of 71. He was born in Fiume, Italy (the town’s name was changed into Rijeka in 1974, as it became part of Yugoslavia, (since 1992 Croatia) and grew up in a multi-lingual environment (Italian, German and Croatian). He enjoyed a substantial humanistic and general education, over which he still has command. In his youth he has attended classes of philosophy for two terms and of law for two more terms at the University of Rome. He can look back to a long life experience in several European countries and to a career in branches as different as travel trade and banking. He is inquisitive and keen to gain new knowledge. Soon he was confronted with “absurdities” of scientific materials and of scientific achievements praised in biographies. He was determined to find out about things, engaged in patient and obstinate research, delivered numerous comprehensive contributions. He is still a polyglot. All translations from the original Latin, Italian and French, as well as a large number of those from English sources are his work. He co-operated in the correction of the manuscript of this book until it actually went into printing.

The methods adopted in this research have been described and substantiated in the Prologue. We do apologise for any obstacle or abridgement which might be found in the report on our journey to the primary sources. In the course of each of the necessary steps we have been startled by the fact that our seemingly simple questions have led to countless corollary questions. Besides, the source-texts are not free from contradictions. We had to read many such texts more than twice. We have marked many of those obstacles by signs. These are exclamation marks, interrogation marks and short comments put in brackets. Many words we have put in inverted commas. These are expressions, terms on which we had to reflect more than twice. This is why we apologise..

We have often wondered why the questions in this book have not been raised earlier by others or by us. Had we been tied up as an integrated part in the establishment called “University” we might not have accomplished this search and research. As we have already indicated, we don’t have to undergo “exams” anymore. And we are beyond the strain of ‘publish or pack up’.

Dr. Gisela Aich has kindly read the manuscript critically at all phases.

Prodosh Aich