The theory about the Iranian origin of the Serbian ethnonym assumes that the ancient Serbs from the North Caucasus (Asian Sarmatia) were a Sarmatian (Alanian) tribe. The theory then assumes that the Alanic Serbs were subjugated by the Huns in the 4th century and that they, as part of the Hunnic army, migrated to the western edge of the Hunnic Empire (in the area of ​​Central Europe near the Elbe River , later designated.

White Serbia in what is now Saxony and Thuringia ( eastern Germany ), recorded by Vibius Sequester as Cervetiis ( Servetiis ). After the death of the Hunnic leader Attila (in 453), the Alanic Serbs apparently became independent and ruled east of the Saale River (in present-day Germany ) over the native Slavic population.

Over time, they are argued to have intermarried with the native Slavic population of the region, adopted the Slavic language and transferred the name to the Slavs. According to Tadeusz Sulimirski, a similar event could have occurred in Balkan Serbia , settled by Slavs coming from the north and ruled by already Slavicized Serbs.

Deformed human skulls associated with the Alans have also been discovered in the area later designated as “White Serbia”. According to the Indo-European interpretation, different parts of the world are designated by different colors, with white being a designation for the west, black for the north, blue or green for the east, and red for the south. According to this view, White Serbia and White Croatia were designated as Western Serbia and Western Croatia, and were located to the west of some hypothetical lands with the same names that supposedly existed to the east.

“Serbi” located near the mouth of the Volga in a map depicting Sarmatia Asiatica, c. 1770

Sources

Miodrag Milanović, Srpski stari vek, Belgrade, 2008, page 81.

Sulimirski, Tadeusz (1970). The Sarmatians . Thames and Hudson. page 189– 190. ISBN 9780500020715

Novaković 1992.

Relja Novaković, Srbi, Zemun, 1993, page 61