I. HISTORY
1. ABOUT THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE PEOPLES OF SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE
2. ABOUT THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE ROMANIANS
The First Written Sources About Early Vlachs. The Testimony of Byzantine Authors
3. MEDIEVAL CHRONICLERS. THE RUSSIAN PRIMARY CHRONICLE. THE GESTA HUNGARORUM
A Summary of the Gesta Hungarorum
The Passages of the Gesta that Refer to Eastern Hungary and Transylvania
Ethnical Criteria in the Gesta Hungarorum and the Russian Primary Chronicle
Place Names Mentioned by Anonymus in Transylvania and the Banat
5. THE MOLDAVIAN AND THE WALLACHIAN CHRONICLERS
The Origins and Development of the Idea of Roman Continuity North of the Danube
6. THE ROOTS OF THE ROMANIAN NATIONAL AWAKENING
The Development of the Theory of Continuity as a Political Tool
The Transylvanian School (Şcoala Ardeleană)
Maior's Theories About the Presence of a Roman Population in Dacia After 275 A.D.
Transylvania in the Tenth Century in Maior's Work
7. THE ROMANTIC WRITING OF HISTORY
The Rise of Modern Nationalism in Europe
The Beginnings of Modern Romanian Historiography
The Period Between the Two World Wars
8. THE DOMINATION OF MARXIST IDEOLOGY
The Period After the Second World War
ABOUT THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE PEOPLES OF SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE BEFORE AND DURING THE ROMAN CONQUEST
Introduction
Southeastern Europe, especially the Balkan Peninsula, has been subject to centuries of historical and ethnic turbulence. In the course of its history some of the oldest peoples, such as the Illyrians, Getae, and Dacians, became extinct. The scarcity of written records about the ancient and early medieval history of Southeastern Europe is well known. Although the texts in Latin and those by the byzantine authors about historical events and the populations or the area do offer researchers a starting point, they are frequently contradictory and unreliable in many areas, such as chronology and the designation of the names of individual peoples. In general, these texts are difficult to interpret, because they are vague and fragmentary. Too often, they have been interpreted in a to support an author's particular prejudices.
The lack of historical records, philological theories based on insufficient and unreliable data, and, finally, speculative and arbitrary analyses of archaeological discoveries make it difficult to give a clear picture of the ethnic relationships in Southeastern Europe in ancient and medieval times.
There are no written records about the early history of the autochtonous inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula, the Illyrians and the Thracians. Some were Romanized or semi-Romanized and probably retreated from the Slavs into the mountainous regions. Only fragments of their languages have survived, and these cannot be appraised with any degree of certainty.
Rome conquered part of the southern Balkan Peninsula including Macedonia in about 168 B.C. and Dalmatia in 156-155 B.C. A second
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period of conquest subdued the Balkan peoples on the Sava in 35 B.C.; a quarter of a century later the Balkan Peninsula as far as the Danube belonged to Rome, in 395 A.D., after the death of Emperor Theodosius I, the Roman Empire split into two parts and was never to be reintegrated. The Western Empire (Rome) collapsed less than a century later following the German conquest in 476 A.D.; the smaller, yet stronger Eastern Roman, or Byzantine, part lasted, however, for another thousand years. The Byzantine Empire (Byzantium), with Constantinople as its capital, was thus the organic continuation of the Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire itself fell in 1453. The Byzantines called themselves Romans (Rumi, Romanoi), while the Slavs identified them as Greeks. In the sixth century, particularly during the reign of Justinian (527-565) Latinity became evident in court life, in the army, and in public life of the Byzantine Empire. From the time of Mauritius Tiberius (582-602), however, the second element got the upper hand; and the empire became more and more Greek. The Latin language, however, preserved its influence to some extent as late as the seventh century. After the seventh century the main sources of information about the early Middle Ages were provided by Byzantine writers, chroniclers, hagiographers, and letter writers, writing in Greek; and there are no extant Latin sources, until the ninth century. Besides the Byzantine sources there are Muslim historical narratives, the reliability of which, however, is generally assumed to be questionable.
in Roman times the northwestern part of the Balkan Peninsula, inhabited by various tribes, was a territory administrated by the Romans and was designated as Illyricum by Greek and Roman authors. At the beginning of the first century A.D. this territory was divided into Dalmatia [Illyricum Superior], Pannonia, and Moesia [Illyricum Inferior]. Fragments of the Old Illyrian language are preserved in the form of personal names in inscriptions of Roman times. Latin was the principal liturgical language and Dalmatian the main vernacular one. The Slavic invasions of the seventh century eliminated to a large extent the Latin-speaking element of Illyricum.
The territory north of the lower Danube (the Wallachian Plain) was inhabited by the Getae and part of modern Transylvania and the Banat by the Dacians. The only peoples of the Balkan Peninsula, other than the Greeks, to survive the turbulences of Balkan history were the Vlachs (the ancestors of the Romanians) and the Albanians. Tenth and eleventh century documents, mostly Byzantine, mention these two peoples. The
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Viachs inhabited the southern part of the Danubian region, that is, Moesia Superior and Dardania, as well as Macedonia and Thessaly, which was known at the end of the Middle Ages as Grand Wallachia.
The basic religious terminology of Rumanian is Latin, which suggests that the Vlachs were Christianized during the Roman epoch, in an environment of Latin. They were organized by the Bulgarians in the Orthodox Church probably in the early tenth century, and borrowed from them the Slavic liturgy and the Cyrillic-Methodian church tradition. [1] The Slavonic Council decreed Slavic the official language of the church in 893 A.D.
The ethnic identity of the peoples mentioned in the early medieval records of Southeastern Europe is still of central importance. Unfortunately, the few surviving written materials, except when they deal with the most important subjects, have only caused great confusion. Ethnic names, for instance, are used inconsistently by the various authors: The name Scythian, for example, was often applied indiscriminately to Cumanians, Pechenegs, and Tatars; the Hungarians were often referred to as Turks, Paeonians, Sarmatians, and Pannonians; and Bulgarians were called Moesians and Scythians. Similarly, the Romans were called Bulgarians, or Ausonians; the Scythians, Uzes or Carps; the early Romanians, Vlachs or Dacians; the Germanic tribes, Alemanni and Franks; and the Getae, Cumanians and Uzes. The Pechenegs were called Moesians, Sarmatians, and Scythians; and the Huns were referred to as Hungarians, Uzes, or Scythians. The sixth century Gothic historian Jordanes called the Goths Slavs, and the Huns Goths, while the fifth century Byzantine historian Priscus designated the Huns nearly always as Scythians. The Byzantines regarded all their northern neighbors as Slavs. Furthermore, writers of antiquity could not distinguish clearly between Dacians and Getae, the northern neighbors of the actual Thracians, who spoke either Thracian or a Thracian-related language. The Greek sources identify the Dacians also as Getae, which also include the actual Getae who lived on the lower Danube. This makes it difficult to differentiate between the Dacians of Dacia Traiana and the Getae to the south of the Danube.
The Thracians
The name Thracian is a collective designation for several Balkan groups and for some of the peoples of Asia Minor. The Thracians succumbed to Greek influence in the eighth and seventh centuries B.C. and, later, during the second century B.c., the Thracians were under Roman rule. In 46 B.C. the Roman Emperor Claudius made
Provinces of the Roman Empire in Southeastern Europe in the First Century A.D.
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Thracia a Roman province. The territory of old Thracia was up into several districts stretching from south of the Balkan Mountains to Moesia Inferior and Scythia Minor (Dobrudja). Because the Thracians had at least partly lost their identity under Greek and Roman rule, they were assimilated into other peoples during the age of the peoples' migrations.
The Thracian language belongs to the Indo-European group spoken in ancient times in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula. In the sixth century A.D. the Thracian language became extinct. The area in which Thracian was spoken is difficult to ascertain, since only few linguistic remnants still exist. In all probability, however, Thracian dialects were used at one time or another in Thracia, in parts of Macedonia, in Lower Moesia, by the Getae on the Danube, and in Dacia as far as Asia Minor. [2]
The Scythians
The Scythians came as nomadic tribes from Inner Asia in about 1500 B.C. and settled on the lower course of the Don and Dnieper rivers. This territory was known as Scythia, a name also given to Dobrudja (Scythia Minor) and to the territory to the north of the Danube. Their language was akin to the extinct language of the Iranians. The Danubian Scythians were known alternatively as Goths and Huns.
Moesia (Misia)
Moesia, the territory between the lower Danube and the Haemus (Balkan) Mountains was a Scythian domain in ancient times. The inhabitants belonged to the Thracian family of peoples (Getae and others) who fell under Roman rule in 29 B.C. At the end of the first century Moesia was divided into Moesia Superior (the western part) and Moesia Inferior (the eastern part). Moesia Superior disintegrated later into Dardania, whose capital was Scupi (modern Skoplje), while Moesia Inferior, in turn, disintegrated into Dacia Mediterranea, whose capital was Serdica (modern Sofia). Following the division of the Roman Empire, Moesia became part of the Eastern Roman Empire. In the sixth and seventh centuries Slavs and Avars passed through Moesia. By 681 the land was under Bulgar domination, and it became a Slavic-Bulgarian territory.
ABOUT THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE ROMANIANS
Even though the early history of the Romanians is still obscure, contemporary scholarship indicates that the center of their ethnogenesis
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should be sought south of the Danube, on the Balkan Peninsula. This conclusion is not new; [3] indeed, it has long been the subject of much in the past few decades new information has come to light that could lead to a solution of the problem. The field of linguistics offers the most valuable evidence; but historical records and the knowledge supplied by place names and, to some extent, by archaeology can also help lead to a conclusion.
The medieval history of the Romanians will be discussed in the analysis of ancient and early medieval peoples and in the history of the languages of Southeastern Europe in subsequent chapters. Special attention will be accorded to archaeology and linguistics in that process. Likewise, Romanian historiography from the beginning to the present will be examined and evaluated.
The First Written Sources About Early Vlachs. The Testimony of Byzantine Authors
Medieval written records first mention Vlachs (Vlahi) south of the Danube between Kastoria and Prispa in the second half of the tenth century (976) and in the first half of the eleventh century, in the time of the Byzantine Emperor Basileios II. And anonymous Byzantine chronicler referred to Vlachs south of the Danube in 980: the Emperor Basileios II entrusted the ruling of the Vlachs of Elada (northern Greece, Thessaly, and Enbeea) to Nicoulitza. [4] In the second half of the tenth century the Vlachs were mentioned by Byzantine and West European authors as being in the central and southern parts of the Balkan Peninsula, south of the Sava and Danube rivers. [5] The twelfth century Byzantine author, Ioannes Kinnamos, described an expedition against Hungary in 1166 A.D. in Historia. [6] He wrote, among other things, that "Leon, also known as Vatatzes, brought many soldiers from other areas, even a large number of Vlachs, about whom it is said that they are the descendants of colonists from Italy.” [7] There are divers' theories about the geographical origins of the Vlach recruits in the army of Leon Vatatzes: J. Ch. Engel, R. Roesler, B. P. Hasdeu, J. Jung, N. Banescu, and the Hungarian Byzantine scholar Gyula Moravcsik argued that they came from south of the Danube, that is, from the Balkan Peninsula or Paristrion (Dobrudja), while Th. Uspenskij, L. Pic, D. Onciul, Nicolae Iorga and others assumed that these Vlachs were from north of the Danube. [8]
It is still of concern to Romanian historians whether the Vlachs mentioned in the texts of the Byzantine chroniclers were Romanian from north or south of the Danube. [9]
Byzantine historical writing enjoyed a renaissance under Anna Komnena, Niketas Choniates, Kekaumenos, and others who followed
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the example of great historians of antiquity such as Priskos, Prokopios, and Theophylaktos Simokatta, in the sixth century, the last of the ancient historians of the Greeks. Anna Komnena (1083-1148), a daughter of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnen (1081-1118) and the author of the Alexiade (Alexias), [10] which deals with the events during her father's rule from 1081 to 1118, mentioned Vlachs on the Balkan Peninsula near the village of Andronia (modern-day Nezeros) in Thessaly. She also described the Pechenegs’ crossing the Danube from the north to fight against the Byzantines. Komnena's Alexiade described the Vlachs as a nomadic population, and several passages tell about their presence between the Balakn Mountains and the Danube. Komnena, like other Byzantine authoers, generally refers to the Hungarians as Dacians.
Niketas (Nikhetas) Choniates, [11] a Byzantine chronicler of the mid-twelfth century, mentioned that on their way to Galicia (Halicz) after escaping from prison the Vlachs had captured Andronic Komnen. Opinion is divided about whether these Vlachs were living north of the Danube or south of the river: Wilhelm Tomaschek, Robert Roesler, the Romanian Alexandru D. Xenopol, Dimitrie Onciul, and Constantin C. Giurescu argued that the Vlachs who captured Andronic Komnen were from north of the Danube, while the Romanian Haralambie Mihăescu, Constantin Daicoviciu, and others assume that these Vlachs were from south of the Danube.[12] In a series of articles published in the periodical Tribuna (Cluj), [13] the prominent Romanian scholar and foremost expert on Dacia Traiana, Constantin Daicoviciu, set forth the false interpretation of Byzantine sourses. “We are persuaded that the Vlachs who captured Andronic on their way to Galicia were pursuing officers of the Byzantine army set up especially for such missions; in other words, they were Vlachs from the Haemus (Balkan) Mountains.” [14] Thus, “the Vlachs mentioned in Choniates’ text were those Vlachs who lived in Moesia, south of the Danube, at the time of the arrival of the Slavs and Bulgars." [15]
Around the turn of the twelfth century, Georgios Kedrenos, [16] a Byzantine monk, described events beginning with the rule of Emperor Isaac I Komnen (1057-1059). He frequently referred to the Goths from the north bank of the Danube and the Avars as being at war with the Byzantine Empire; the Gepidae and the Slavs were among
who, after their victory over the Byzantines, established their rule south of the Danube, and to the Hungarians, who were allies of Byzantine Emperor Leon VI. Kedrenos also made the first mention, in 976, of nomadic transhumant Vlachs in their early homeland on the Balkan Peninsula.
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Niketas (Nikhetas) Conchitas mentioned the beginning of the 1185 revolt of the Vlachs, under the brothers Asen and Peter, against the Byzantine Emperor Isaac II Anghelos. This, as well as the founding of Grand Vallachia, which was approximately the size of Thessaly, is evidence that a large number of Vlachs lived south of the Danube, on the Balkan Peninsula. In the same period, Niketas Conchitas mentioned "the barbarians of the Haemus Mountain, who formerly called themselves Misians but now Vlachs and are enemies of the Romans." These Vlachs destroyed whole cities and also at times defeated the Byzantine armies. As late as the fourteenth century, the Vlachs still played an important political role and were instrumental in bringing Bulgarian Czar Michael III Sisman in 1323 to the throne. The Vlachs fought with the Bulgarians on the Balkan Peninsula as well as with the Cumanians north of the Danube (1186), against Byzantium, an indication that few, if any, Vlachs lived north of the Danube at this time. As already noted, the medieval Byzantine authors reported Vlachs only south of the Danube, on the Balkan Peninsula; they mentioned only Pechenegs and Cumanians north of the Danube.
One Byzantine document was discovered in 1881 in a Moscow library and contains two eleventh century writings by the Byzantine general and author Kekaumenos: a book called the Strategicon, written between 1075 and 1078 [17] giving important advice on both military and political matters of the time; and a smaller book that its discoverer named Logos Nudetetikos. Kekaumenos's Strategicon gives a good picture of Byzantine and Balkan history. It contains a passage about the early Vlachs in the tenth and eleventh centuries and is often described as the first and most important record of the connection between the Vlachs and the Dacians. The author described the Vlachs who were living in the southern parts of the Balkan Peninsula as peasants and townsmen. Besides the Vlachs in his own territory (Thessaly), he also knew about Vlachs living in Epirus and Macedonia. These passages are based upon documents and family tradition and should be considered reliable; they include the first mention of Vlachs in 976 A.D. between Kastoria and Prispa (the Annals of Bari with information about Vlach soldiers in the Byzantine army in 1027, and the edict of Emperor Basileios II from 1020 in which the "Vlachs throughout Bulgaria" are subordinated to the archbishop of Ochrida).
The relevant passages of Kekaumenos's Strategicon as interpreted by Romanian historians will be given here. According to Istoria României, the Byzantine general and author Kekaumenos correctly associated the Vlachs of the Balkans with the Dacians of Decebal, showing the connection between these Romanians and the ancient Daco-Thracian population of the Carpatho-Danubian-Moesian
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territory. [18] With respect to the three branches of Romanians (that is, Arumanians, Meglenorumanians, and Istro-Rumanians), it has been assumed that certain historical sources, such as the Byzantine author Kekaumenos and the anonymous geographer from the beginning of the fourteenth century, justify the opinion that these three branches of Romanians arrived relatively recently in groups in the areas in which they are still living today. "They came in shepherds' migrations from the masses of Daco-Moeso-Romans and thereby had avoided Slavization." [19] In the third edition of the same treatise (1974), the explanation about the detachment of Arumanians, Meglenorumanians, and Istro-Rumanians was changed to read: "as a result of the pressure by the last waves of horsemen." [20]
As can be seen from the interpretation of Kekaumenos's text, contemporary Romanian historiography (since 1960) puts the emphasis on the Dacian component of "Daco-Roman" rather than the Roman. The Byzantine chronicler Kekaumenos in his Advice and Stories mentioned that the Vlachs were the descendants of the Dacians. [21] Furthermore, it is assumed that Kekaumenos described some displacements of population from the North to the South and not the reverse. [22]
A superficial reading of these texts would give the impression that Kekaumenos described a popular tradition among the eleventh century Vlachs of Thessaly, whom he must have known well from personal contact, about their origin from the Dacians, the Bessians, and the Romans. Closer analysis reveals, however, that this impression is false in several respects. It is an example of how historical records can be misinterpreted in the absence of rigorous analysis of sources. The interpretations of Kekaumenos's passages by contemporary Romanian historians are characterized first of all by omissions of key parts of Kekaumenos's text; vague assumptions; and data inserted by modern authors into Kekaumenoss text. Indeed, all these records ignore the fact that Kekaumenos described the territory of the Dacians and the Bessians (whom he identified with the Vlachs) as entirely to the south of the Sava [Saos] and Danube rivers, in Serbia. Instead, the geographical areas are made vague (for example, "Carpatho-Danubian-Moesian" area); and the periods in which the migrations of the Dacians and Bessians may have taken place are also referred to only vaguely as "centuries earlier" or "at relatively late periods." The most serious distortion, however, is the way in which the authors treated the crucial question of the location of the ancient Dacian and Bessian areas. The text of Kekaumenos does not, in fact, even mention the Carpathians or the areas north of the Danube.
It is obvious that a correct interpretation of the passages about the Vlachs in the Strategicon presupposes a critical analysis of the
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whole texts and the circumstances under which it was written. Kekaumenos's data about the Vlachs must be divided into two categories: records about the Vlachs who were living in Hellas in his own time, and a passage about the early history of the Vlachs. Kekaumenos must have possessed several letters and other documents written by Byzantine Emperors Basileios II and Constantine X to relatives and members of the Nikoulitza family. He described to them the June 1066 revolt in Hellas by Greeks, Bulgarians, and Vlachs because of increasing taxes. [23] Kekaumenos's passage on the Vlachs living in his own time in Hellas and their part in the revolt against the Byzantine Emperor was based on personal experience, family tradition, and letters from the Byzantine emperors. What he wrote about the origin of the Vlachs, however, was of questionable reliability:
"[The Vlachs] never kept their word to anyone, not even to the ancient Roman Emperors. Having been attacked in war by Emperor Trajan and having been defeated totally, they were subdued and their King, named Decebal, was killed and his head was put on a pike and brought to the city of the Romans. These [Vlachs] are, in fact, the so-called Dacians, also called Bessians [Bessoi]. Earlier they lived in the vicinity of the Danube and Saos, a river which we now call Sava, where the Serbians live today, and [later] withdrew to their inaccessible fortifications. Relying upon these fortifications, they feigned friendship and submission to the ancient Roman Emperors and then swept down from their strongholds and plundered the Roman provinces. Therefore, the exasperated Romans crushed them. And these left the region: some of them were dispersed to Epirus and Macedonia, and a large number established themselves in Hellas." [24]
It had long been assumed that Kekaumenos wrote this on the basis of a Vlach tradition with which he was acquainted. The Byzantist Mátyás Gyóni summarized the opinions of the following nineteenth century authors about what Kekaumenos meant by Dacians and Bessians: Wilhelm Tomaschek (who believed that the Vlachs were of Bessian origin), Josef Ladislav Pić, Alexandru D. Xenopol, Dimitrie Onciul, and Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu. [25] It is most likely, however, that Kekaumenos did not derive his data about the origin of the Vlachs from popular traditions but rather from the Byzantine literature of his own time. The story about Athénodore and the Emperor Augustus when he was advising the Byzantine Emperor against relying on flatterers shows that he did use contemporary literature when writing the Strategicon. This history could hardly have been taken from popular tradition but is found in several Byzantine texts, such as the Excerpta of Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenetos (or Porphyrogenitus, 905-959), [26] written between 945 and 959; the Epitome of Léon Grammaticos; and the abbreviated
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version of the Historia Romana by Dio Cassius Coccineus (Cocceianus, 155-255). At the time of Kekaumenos the Byzantine historians' main source about the history of Rome and the history of Trajan's wars with the Dacians was the second century Historia Romana (translated into Greek by Ioannes Xiphilinos between 1071 and 10 78). [27] It should be mentioned that the passages and excerpts of Dio Cassius's Roman History were the source of errors and erroneous explanations (Decebal, for instance, was not killed but committed suicide). The descriptions of the carrying of Decebal's head to Rome are similar to those in the abbreviated version in the Strategicon, [28] except that Dio Cassius did not call Decebal an "emperor." There were, however, four places in the Historia Romana in which "emperor" [βασιλεως] was used. [29]
Furthermore, the text itself has nothing to do with the essence of the theory of continuity: namely the intermingling of the Romans and the Dacians in Dacia. On the contrary, the "Dacians" and "Bessians" were described as the Romans' enemies, who were defeated and dispersed by the Roman Emperors and were later decimated, after which they left the area, wandering to Epirus, Macedonia, and Hellas. The description of the territory in which these Dacians and Bessians were living was not north of the Danube but was clearly defined as being "in the vicinity of the Sava and the Danube rivers, where the Serbians are living today." In contemporary Byzantine texts, Serbia was described as the territory between the Morava River in the east, the Drin in the south, and the Drina in the west, in other words, south of the Sava on the Balkan Peninsula. Thus, if Kekaumenos's text is to be believed, it is actually evidence against the theory of continuity north of the Danube. An analysis of the Strategicon shows, however, that Kekaumenos really had no idea about the original territory of the Vlachs; nor did he even know where Dacia Traiana was situated. This is not surprising because many Byzantine authors confused Dacia Traiana and Dacia Aureliana. Errors about the areas in which the other non-Greek peoples were living were also frequent in Byzantine literature. The twelfth century scholar Ioannes Tzetze, for example, placed the Hungarians in the Balkan Peninsula (south of the Sava and Danube rivers), because he mistakenly identified this population with the Moesians.
In the second half of the passage about the Vlachs, Kekaumenos described the situation in Dacia before the Roman conquest: the Dacian fortifications in the high mountains, Dacian incursions and the plundering of the Roman provinces before 106 A.D.; and the treacherous character of the Dacians, all of which was available to Kekaumenos in Dio Cassius's Roman History or in its abbreviated version. He also described the incursion in 10 A.D. of the Dacians into Pannonia.
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Kekaumenos apparently believed that these events had occurred south of the Danube, in Serbia, or in other words, that Dacia was situated there and that the Dacians and Bessians were living there until Trajan dispersed them to Epirus, Macedonia, and Hellas.
Why, then, did Kekaumenos identify the Vlachs with the Dacians and the Bessians? The Byzantine authors' love of the archaic is well-known. As previously mentioned, they often designated contemporary peoples by antique names, in most cases on the basis of the territory in which they were living or some ethnographical similarity between the different populations. In this respect, two contemporaries of Kekaumenos, Michael Psellos and Anna Komnena, founded a kind of literary custom, with the principle of not designating any contemporary people by its barbarian [contemporary] name. [30]
MEDIEVAL CHRONICLERS. THE RUSSLAN PRIMARY CHRONICLE. THE GESTA HUNGARORUM.
As already mentioned, although the written sources about the early medieval history of Southeastern Europe do offer researchers certain indications of the contemporary situation, they are frequently contradictory and confused in many areas, such as chronology and the designation of the names of individual peoples. This is repeatedly shown by critical analyses of the texts. Moreover, subjective factors, such as the historical biases of the chroniclers, make it even more difficult to arrive at a balanced and objective view. An investigation should also be made to determine whether the chroniclers wrote the texts themselves and, if so, to what extent they went back to earlier historical records or whether they relied on secondary sources.
The early historians, of course, had a propensity to distort their writings about the past by using contemporary facts and ideas. As classic examples, one may cite the Gesta Hungarorum and the Russian Primary Chronicle, which are, as the only written sources, extremely important for their commentaries about the ethnic and historic relationships of Southeastern Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries. [31] At the same time, however, they are responsible, through their inaccuracies, for the controversy between two neighboring peoples, the Romanians and Hungarians, over the meaning of "Roman" and "Vlach." An attempt will therefore be made to give as objective an analysis as possible of the problem. (It should be remembered that since these texts refer to the 9th - 10th centuries, thus at least five centuries after the Romans abandoned Dacia Traiana, they have no relevance for the question of Daco-Roman-Romanian continuity /see chapter IV/).
The Russian Primary Chronicle, which allegedly corroborates the Gesta Hungarorum, should be mentioned before a closer analysis of Anonymus's work. The Russian Primary Chronicle, formerly called
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Nestor's Chronicle after one of its supposed compilers (died 1112), is called Povest' vremenykh lyet [Tale of Past Years] [32] in Russian and was probably written by anonymous Russian monks in Kiev in the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. It deals chiefly with the founding of Russia and the deeds of its leaders until about 1110. The authors of the chronicle used various Greek, Bulgarian, Russian, and other sources as well as oral information. It contains 93 chapters; the Romanian translation [33] is 203 pages. A short passage in this chronicle mentions Slavs, Vlachs, and Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin at the end of the ninth century:
in 6396, 6397, 6398, 6400, 6401, 6403, 6404, 6405, and 6406 [888-897 a.d.] the Hungarians passed near Kiev, near the mountain that is still called Ugers Koie; and when they had reached the banks of the Dnieper, they set up their tents there, for they were nomads, as the Polovitsi still are today. Coming from the east, they marched in haste over the high mountains, which are called the mountains of the Ougri, and began to fight against the Volochi and the Slavs who inhabited these countries. The Slavs had originally lived there, and the Volochi had subdued the country of the Slavs. Later, however, the Hungarians drove out the Volochi, subdued the Slavs, and settled in their country. Since then, that region has been called Hungary. [34]
Transylvania is not mentioned in this text, a fact that makes any conclusions about this territory only hypothetical. Consequently, the Russian Primary Chronicle cannot confirm anything the author of the Gesta Hungarorum wrote about Transylvania.
The beginning of the Hungarian chronicles dates to the second half of the eleventh century. The first, early chronicle, the Gesta Ungarorum, from the time of Saint Ladislaus 1040-1095 in its original form, has not been preserved but was continued in the twelfth century. An anonymous chronicler used the early chronicle in writing his own Gesta Hungarorum, which dealt with the early history of the Hungarians, especially the conquest. [35] Research has determined that the anonymous author, Master P. (P[etrus] Dictus Magister), was the notary of King Bela III (reigned from 1173 to 1196) and that the work was written in about 1200. [36]
The Hungarian historian György Györffy [37] has listed the main works on this subject, the first of which was published in 1802. [38] Although the text was written in Latin, it contains some isolated Hungarian words with certain archaic characteristics (especially final vowels) that began to disappear in the twelfth century. They were still found in the Hungarian words of the Regestrum Varadiensis (1208-
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1235) but disappeared completely by the second half of the thirteenth century.
Györffy collected the names of the small localities, estates, rivers, and so forth, that are mentioned in Anonymus's work and marked them on a map. Most of them are in the region of Buda and along the middle course of the Tisza River. A few appear along the Vág River in northwestern Hungary, in Transylvania, in the region of Kolozsvár (Cluj), and in the Banat. He pointed out that an awareness of small, insignificant geographical names generally indicates a more thorough knowledge of the area in question than would the names of large rivers and places that could be known to people who never even lived in those areas. The area around Buda, as Györffy's map testifies, was one of the regions the author of the Gesta Hungarorum (Gesta) [39] knew best and where he might well have lived. These and certain other circumstances brought Györffy to the conclusion that the Gesta was written by Peter (Petrus), a high priest in Buda and a former notary of King Bela III. [40] This is now considered the most probable hypothesis about the identity of the anonymous notary.
A Summary of the Gesta Hungarorum
In the first sentence of the prologue, the author refers to himself — P. dictus magister ac quondam bone memorie gloriosissimi Bele regis Hungariae notarius . . . [and] then writes about his schools where he became fond of the history of Troy and Greece as well as the works of Dares Phrygius, works that prompted him to write "the genealogy of the Hungarian Kings and noblemen" and describe their wandering from Scythia to Hungary. The first chapter gives the description of Scythia, [41] largely taken verbatim from Exordia Scythica [whose author took it] from a work by Justinus. In the second chapter the author explains that the name Hungari [came] from the place name of Hunguar (Ungvar). The third to sixth chapters relate the election in Scythia of Álmos as a leader. The seventh through eleventh chapters describe the wandering of the Hungarians from Scythia to Pannonia. [42] According to the author, the Hungarians crossed the Volga (Ethyl, the old Hungarian name) and the province of Suzdal (in Rusciam, que Susudal dicitur) and arrived at the town of Kiev (ad civitatem Kyeu) where seven Cuman leaders (VII duces Cumanorum) and their peoples joined the Hungarians; and the Russian leaders (duces Ruthenorum) committed themselves to pay an annual tribute of 10,000 Marks. From there, they marched to the town of Vlagyimir (ad civitatem Lodomer) and then to Galicia (in Galiciam). The chiefs of Vlagyimir and Galicia opened the gates of their towns to the Hungarians, honored their leader Álmos with a very precious gift, and asked the Hungarians to move on to Pannonia, describing the country and its habitants. The twelfth and the thirteenth chapters
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relate the crossing of the Carpathian Mountains (per silvam Houos) and the occupation of Ungvár; the fourteenth through eighteenth chapters describe the occupation of the region between the Tisza River and the Tatra Mountains (mons Turtur); and the nineteenth through twenty-third chapters concern the military operations against Menumorout, who reigned over the Chazars (populus Cozar) in a country situated between the Tisza and Maros rivers. Chapters twenty-four through twenty-seven, inserted later, interrupt this narrative to describe the occupation of Transylvania where the Vlach leader Gelou reigned (dux Blacorum). Chapters twenty-eight and twenty-nine return to the military occupation of the territory between the Tisza and Nyitra rivers, most of which was ruled by the Czech leader Zubur with a small part under the Bulgarian Salan, a vassal of Byzantium. The occupation of Salan's province between the Danube and Tisza rivers is covered in chapters thirty-eight through forty-one, while the forty-second and forty-third narrate the conquest of Dalmatia, Croatia, and the area around Zagreb. In chapters forty-four and forty-five the country of Glad between the Maros and Danube rivers is conquered, and a military expedition is made in the Balkans. Chapters forty-six through fifty-two deal with the conquest of Pannonia, which until then was dominated by the Romans, as well as the conclusion of the military campaign against Menumorout. Chapters fifty-three through fifty-six are taken partly from the annals of Regino and describe the "wandering" military expeditions in the West during the time of Crown Prince Zulta. The fifty-seventh and last chapter describes the establishment of Hungary's frontiers and settlement of foreign peoples there in the tenth century. [43]
The author of the Gesta rejected the oral tradition, declaring in the preface: "It would be unfortunate for the noble Hungarian people to hear about their origins and some of their heroic deeds from the false tales of peasants or from the chattering songs of the minstrels. The Hungarian people will now hear the truth from reliable written descriptions and with a clear interpretation of the historical works, as is proper for noblemen." [44] One of these historical writings, De excidio Troiae historia by Dares Phrygius, was mentioned in the preface and was the author's model. He took several passages verbatim from this text as well as from another work by the same author, Gesta Alexandri Magni. He also borrowed several sections from the annals of Abbot Regino (d. 915). Most of chapter 1 (De Scythia) is taken from Exordia Scythica, a seventh century text based on the work of Justinus (second century). Some expressions were borrowed from the Bible and others from Etymologiarum libri by Isidorus Hispalensis and Rationes dictanti prosaice by Hugo Bononiensis. The anonymous Notary also used, as previously mentioned, the first early Hungarian chronicle, the Gesta Ungarorum, written at the turn of the twelfth century and
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known today only from later modified versions. This narrative is no longer considered to have been his main source, as had been thought earlier. [45] Similarities in style indicate that the Notary was well acquainted with the romantic Gesta literature that became fashionable in Western Europe, especially in England and France, in the twelfth century.
The Passages of the Gesta that Refer to Eastern Hungary and Transylvania
From chapter 11:
The territory between the Tisza and the Igyfon Forest toward Transylvania and from the Morus [46] (Maros) River to the Zomus (Szamos) River was occupied by Duke Morout (Marót), whose grandson was called Mén-Marót by the Hungarians because he had several wives. [47] This territory was inhabited by a people called Cozar (Kozár).
From chapter 19:
The Hungarian leader, Árpád, sends messengers to Menumorout in Bihar Castle and asks him to cede the territory between the Zomus (Szamos) River and the Mezes (Meszes) Mountains.
From chapter 20:
Menumorout refuses, referring to his lord, the Byzantine Emperor, who supports him. Árpád therefore attacks and occupies his country. From that day on, all the places on which chief Álmos and his son Árpád had walked with their noblemen were owned by their descendants and are owned by them until this day [p. 99]. [48]
From chapter 21:
Szabolcs and Tas then went to the castle of Zotmar (Szatmár). They won a victory after three days of siege and battle. On the fourth day, they entered the castle and bound all of Menumorout's warriors that they found there and put them into dreadful dungeons, taking the sons of the inhabitants as hostages. They left the castle full of warriors, and they themselves departed for the Mezes (Meszes) Gate (ad portas Mezesinas) [pp. 99-100].
From chapter 22: The Nyr (Nyír):
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Tétény arid his son Horka riding through the area of the Nyr (Nyír), subdued a large number of people in the region between the forests of the Nyír and the Umosoer (Omsóér). In this way they reached Zyloc (Zilah); and no one attacked them, because Duke Menumorout and his people did not dare fight them but had started to guard the Cris (Körös) River. Then Tétény and his son Horka departed from Zilah and reached the region of the Meszes (in partes Mezesinas), where they met with Szabolcs and Tas. They were very glad to see each other again and prepared a feast, at which each of them boasted of his victory. In the morning, Szabolcs, Tas, and Tétény held a council and decided that the frontier of their country would be at the Meszes Gate. Thus, the inhabitants of the area built, upon orders, gates of stone, and erected, from felled trees, great boundary-dams at the frontier of the country [p. 100].
In chapters 51 and 52:
The story is told once again but in a somewhat different way: When Menumorout was attacked by the Hungarians, he fled from his Bihar Castle to the forests. The castle was occupied after 13 days of siege. Menumorout sent messengers to Árpád to tell him that he, Menumorout, who had earlier declined "with a Bulgarian heart" (bulgarico corde) to yield any part of his territory, now offered Árpád the whole country plus his daughter in marriage to Árpád's son, Zolta. Árpád accepted this and ordered that "Menumorout have the Castle of Bihar" [p. 126]. Menumorout died two years later without a son, leaving his country to his son-in-law, Zolta.
About Duke Glad and his territory (From chapter 11):
Finally, with the help of the Cumans, the territory between the Maros River and the Castle of Orsova was occupied, by a duke named Glad (Galád), who came from the Castle of Vidin. His descendent was Ohtum (Ajtony) who much later, in the time of King St. Stephen, was killed by Sunad (Csanád), the son of Dobuca (Doboka), the cousin of the king, because he had defied him in many ways. In exchange for Csanád's help, the king gave him a wife and the Castle of Ajtony with all its dependencies, according to the custom of good lords of providing gifts to their faithful followers. To this day the castle bears Csanád's name [pp. 89-90].
From chapter 44:
[The Hungarians] wanted to send an army against Duke Glad (aálád), who ruled over the territory between the Morus (Maros) River and the
Chapter 26 of Anonymus Gesta Hungarorum; from the facsimile edition by Magyar Helikon, Budapest, 1975. - The original is found in the National Szechenyi Library, Budapest, under Cod. Lat. Medii Aevi 403.
English translation of the Latin text:
Tuhutum, having been informed of the good quality of the territory (Tuhutum audita bonitate terre illae) sent messengers to duke Árpád and asked for permission to go beyond the forests (ultra siluas eundi) to fight duke Gelou. And duke Árpád held a council and favoured the intention of Tuhutum and permitted for him to go beyond the forests (ultra siluas eundi) and fight Gelou. When Tuhutum heard this from his messengers he prepared himself together with his warriors and leaving his comrades behind, he headed towards the east beyond the forests (ultra siluas) against Gelou the blac duke. Gelou duke from (the territory) beyond the forest (Gelou dux ultra siluanus) hearing his arrival, gathered his army (congregavit exercitum suum) rode in a hurry to meet him and stop him at the Mezes gates (portas mezesinas). But Tuhutum passed the forest in one day and reached the river Almas (fluvium almas). The two armies were there separated only by the river. Duke Gelou wanted, however, to stop the Hungarians with his warriors armed with arrows in that place.
Fragment from chapter 11 of Anonymus: Gesta Hungarorum, in which the Hungarian name of Transylvania (erdeuelu = "beyond the forest") appears for the first time.
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Castle of Horom (Haram). . . . They stayed two weeks in the area of Böge, until they subdued all the population of that territory from the Maros River to the Temes (Temes) River, and took the peoples' sons as hostages. They then marched their army toward the Temes River and pitched camp at the Fövény ferry. When they tried to pass the Temes River, the duke of that country came against them. It was Glad (Galád), whose descendant is Ahtum (Ajtony), with a great army of cavalry and infantry, as well as with Cuman, Bulgarian, and Blach support (adiutorio). On the following day, the Hungarians defeated the enemy, killing many of them. In this battle, two Cumanian dukes and three Bulgarian leaders [kenez] died (duo duces cumanos et tres kenezi bulgaros). The enemy duke, Glad, fled; but his army was dissolved as wax is by fire. After this triumph, Szovard, Kadocsa, and Vajta went toward the Bulgarian frontier and pitched camp near the Panyóca River. As we said above, Duke Glad, fearful of the Hungarians, fled seeking refuge in the Castle of Keue (Keve). On the third day, Szovárd and Kadocsa, together with Vajta, who was the ancestor of the Baracska family, organized their army and laid siege to the Castle of Keve. When Glad, the leader of the enemy camp, saw this, he sent messengers seeking peace and surrendered the castle and gave gifts. From there, the victors went to the Castle of Orsova and occupied it, spending one month there [pp. 117-118].
Chapter 24: With regard to the territory beyond the forest:
Tuhutum, the father of Horca, found out from the inhabitants about the high quality of the territory beyond the forest (bonitatem terre ultra siluane), where some Vlach (named) Gelou ruled (ubi gelou quidam blacus dominium tenebat). Tuhutum was a smart man and began to long for the territory beyond the forest, to win it if possible for himself and his descendants with the kind help of his lord Árpád. In time this came to pass, and the territory beyond the forest (terram ultra siluanam) was held by the descendents of Tuhutum until the time of St. Stephen and, indeed, would have continued to be possessed by them if Gyla the Younger with his two sons, Buia and Bucna, had been willing to adopt the Christian faith and had not always acted against the will of the saint-king, as will be described later (p. 101).
From chapter 25-27:
The Hungarian leader Tétény sent a spy beyond the forest to report on the country he found there; it was rich in salt and gold and had many good rivers. The inhabitants of that country are the most unworthy in the whole world. Because they are Vlachs and Slavs [49]". . . they have no other weapons than bows and arrows . . . "and also because the Cumans and the Pechenegs cause great damage to them" [p. 102].
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"A fierce battle started, in which the soldiers of Gelou were defeated and many of them were killed or taken prisoner. When their leader Gelou saw this, he prepared, together with a few of his people, to flee in order to save his life. While fleeing in haste toward his castle near the Zomus (Szamos) River, however, he was pursued by warriors of Tétény and killed at the Copus (Kapus) River. When the inhabitants of the country saw the death of their lord, they wanted to make peace and chose Tétény, the father of Horka, as their leader. They confirmed their loyalty by an oath at a place named Esculeu (Esküllő); and from that day on, the place was called Esküllő, because they had sworn an oath there. [50] Tétény ruled that country in peace and good fortune, and his descendants kept it until the time of King St. Stephen. Tétény 's son was Horka; Horka's sons were Gyula and Zombor. Gyula had two daughters: one was named Karold, the other Sarolt. Sarolt was the mother of King St. Stephen. Zombor's son was Gyula the Younger, the father of Bolya and Bonyha. In Gyula's time St. Stephen subdued the country beyond the forests. He bound Gyula and brought him to Hungary where kept him captive for the rest of his life, because he was proud of his faith and refused to become a Christian and did many other things against the will of King St. Stephen, even though he was related to [Stephen's] mother''[p. 103].
It must be pointed out that the anonymous notary of King Bela III, who wrote much later than the Russian compilers, had a very limited knowledge indeed about the Carpathian Basin. Written 300 years after the Hungarian conquest, Anonymus's narratives are, in many respects, of very questionable historical value, which not only has been noted by Hungarian scholars but is generally acknowledged in the international literature. [51] Anonymus was neither an eyewitness to nor a participant in the historical events that he described in the Gesta Hungarorum, and his sources did not include contemporary eyewitness accounts regarding the course of the Hungarian conquest. Instead, the observations of a Western chronicler, Regino, and the Gesta Ungarorum served as secondary sources. Two important events, for example, recorded by contemporary sources and related to military actions, were not mentioned at all by Anonymus: in 896 Emperor Arnulf appointed Braslav to defend Pannonia; and in 907 the Hungarians defeated the Bavarian army at Bretslavspurc, today Bratislava (Pozsony) in Slovakia. There are, however, a few correct elements in the narrative, such as most of the place names and the fact that the Hungarians conducted military raids in Western Europe and the Balkans, especially in the first half of the tenth century. The details Anonymus gave about these battles were not compatible with descriptions from other sources, and place names often were used merely
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to tell a story about someone of the same name who died at the place. The Hungarian leader Botond, for example, was mentioned in Byzantine sources in connection with raid against Byzantium in 958, while Anonymus placed him in the first years of the tenth century; and Lél and Bulcsu were killed, according to some sources, [52] in 955 at Augsburg, not in 913, after the Hungarian defeat at the Inn River, as Anonymus thought.
The Gesta did make mention of some historical figures who really existed, such as Prince Ahtum (Ajtony), who lived in the region of the lower Maros and Küküllő rivers, and Gyula (Djila or Djula) [the name means commander-in-chief], an Hungarian leader in southern Transylvania at the beginning of the eleventh century. [53] Ajtony (whose origin has not yet been clarified) was the lord of Marosvár [Latin: Morisena] Castle and adopted the Byzantine Christian religion in Vidin. [54]. On the other hand, contemporary records mention some twenty rulers and significant historical figures who played an important political role in the history of the ninth century; Anonymus is unacquainted with any of them. [55] Anonymus's biographical data about members of the Árpád dynasty are also fictional. [56] The individual who reworked the Hungarian Chronicle (Magyar Krónika) in the thirteenth century recorded, for instance, the settlement of the Huns in the present-day territory of Hungary as the first Hungarian conquest. The rest of the names found in the Gesta in connection with southeastern Hungary were apparently not the names of real persons but were figures created by Anonymus for the purpose of his narrative.
At the end of the twelfth century, when the Gesta was written, King Emerich (1196-1204) was making many royal land grants to a new, foreign aristocracy. [57] King Bela's anonymous notary wrote his narrative also with the aim of defending the positions and rights of the landowners who had inherited their estates from the time of the conquest and the following century.
The notary took up the tradition about the fight between King St. Stephen and several powerful local Hungarian leaders, who resisted central rule and often also Christianity. Their names were in many cases still borne by their descendants, the landowners of the notary's own time. They also knew about the castles and areas possessed by their ancestors but did not know what peoples their ancestors had had to fight with or the details of the conquest. Anonymus wrote a narrative to demonstrate the courage of the landowners' ancestors, and for this he needed fearless leaders whom he simply invented.
While the Hungarians were living north of the Black Sea, the Chozars and the Szekelys joined them and followed them to the Carpathian Basin. These peoples then were settled in the region of
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Nyitra (Slovakian Nitra) and Bihar, and their territories were ruled by the princes of the Árpád dynasty. [58] Furthermore, the Gesta noted that Zulta, the son of Árpád, received the territory of the Chozars, the Bihar region; but the name of Zulta's ancestor, defeated in the narrative by the Hungarians, was invented by the anonymous notary on the basis of the names Menrot and Morot, found in the Hungarian Chronicle of the eleventh century. Morot, according to this chronicle, was the leader the Hungarians met in Pannonia. This story was based on the tradition that Moravia, a country in the northwestern Carpathian Basin, was attacked by the Hungarians at the time of the conquest; [59] Marot is the old Hungarian designation for the Moravians. The notary did not, however, know about Moravia and placed the country of the invented leader in the region of Bihar because of the villages of Marot and Marótlaka.
King Saint Stephen (King from between 970 and 975 to 1038), who Christianized Hungary, subdued the Hungarian chief Gyula in Transylvania in 1002 and Ahtum (Ajtony) in the Banat several years later. Gyula and Ajtony, as mentioned previously, were known by Anonymus; but he constructed the names of their unknown ancestors whom the Hungarians defeated in the Gesta from place names in the areas in question: Glad, of Bulgarian origin from Galad (1332-1337: Galad; 1462: Galadmonostora), today Gilad, in the Banat; and Gelou (name of Turkish origin) from the name of the village Gyalu where, according to the Gesta, this imaginary leader was killed. [60]
The anonymous notary was very fond of inventing etymologies: there are twenty-one in the Gesta Hungarorum; [61] and they are often connected with an event described in the story, such as the death of the prince of the Czechs, Zubur. According to Anonymus, Zubur was killed on a mountain that was thereafter called Zubur (Zobor). There had, however, been a monastery on that mountain since the ninth century whose Slavic name [zъborъ] (cf., modern Czech, Slovak, and Polish zbor) must have been connected with the name of the mountain.
It is important to note that also in the thirteenth century chronicle of Simon de Kéza (Kézai Simon), as in the Gesta Ungarorum, fictional battles, historical events, and people were often associated with place names. In his writings about the history of the Huns, Simon de Kéza first referred to Romans, Langobards, and Germans in Pannonia; but later, in his reports dealing with the period just before the Hungarian conquest, he wrote (probably under the influence of Anonymus) about Slavs (Sclavis), Greeks (Graecis), Germans (Teutonicis), Bulgarians (Messianis), and Vlachs (Ulahis) in Pannonia. It is well known that
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Kézai did not differentiate between the Romani and Teutonici (Alamanni, Germanici).
Ethnical Criteria in the Gesta Hungarorum and the Russian Primary Chronicle with Special Reference to "Romans" (Romani) and "Blachii" (Vlachi or Voloch)
The first medieval chronicler to mention the name "Voloch" (Voloh) north of the Danube was the twelfth century anonymous Russian monk, who wrote the Russian Primary Chronicle. The first to use the form "Blachi" was Hungarian King Bela III's anonymous notary who wrote the Gesta Hungarorum at the end of the twelfth century. It has repeatedly been demonstrated that neither chronicle, even if it gives valuable data about the ethnic relationships in the ninth and tenth centuries, can be accepted as historical proof, especially 800 years after it was written. It is, moreover, also impossible to conclude, on the basis of the texts of the anonymous notary and the Russian chronicler, that there was a Romanian population in Transylvania or in the Banat at the time of the Hungarian conquest. In the first place, the anonymous notary did not use the word "Romanians," as Romanian historians maintain, but rather "Blachii," the ethnic significance of which will be discussed.
The population of the Bihar area was, according to Gesta, Chazar; Duke Menumorout who ruled there said about himself that he had "a Bulgarian heart." As already noted, his name was most probably constructed from the old Hungarian morva or Marót, the name for the Moravians. Another of the notary's inventions was in his description of the peoples found by the Hungarians upon their arrival in the Carpathian Basin. Contemporary sources recorded the presence of six different peoples: Avars, Danubian Slovenes, Moravians, Bavarian Franks, Bulgarians, and Gepidae. [62] Anonymus mentioned Sclauii (which probably corresponds to the Slovenes), Bulgarii (Bulgarians), and Blachii; and spoke of Romans, Czechs (Boemy), [63] Greeks, Chazars, and Cumans. At the beginning of the tenth century, however, the Czechs had no contact with the Hungarians, [64] nor were such contacts developed until the eleventh and the twelfth centuries. They were quite intensive at the time of Anonymus. The Turkic-speaking Cumans, called Polovtsy by the Russians, lived in the time of the Hungarian conquest on the Pontic Steppe north of the Black Sea. They migrated westward in about 1050 and reached the plains east and south of the Carpathians (present-day Moldavia and Muntenia) in the second half of the twelfth century. From then until the mid-thirteenth century, these areas, which had belonged before to the Pechenegs, were called
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Cumania. The Cumans helped the brothers Peter and Asên create the second Bulgarian Empire (1186-1393), fighting against Byzantium only a few years before Anonymus wrote his narrative. It is not surprising that a scribe rewriting a chronicle or translating foreign texts would change the ethnic names. It is documented that the conquering Hungarians fought the Bulgars in Transylvania, but it is not impossible to assume that Anonymus substituted or confused the Bulgars with the Vlachs. In the days of Anonymus the Vlachs were indeed in Transylvania while the Bulgars were no longer there.
As is known, there were Bulgars on the east side of the Tisza River at the time of the Hungarian conquest; and it is known that they fought the Magyars, although the extent of the fighting is unknown. [65] There is documentary evidence that the troops of the Danubian Bulgar King Simeon (reigned from 890 to 927) included, in addition to Greeks, Balkan Vlachs who fought against the Hungarian conquerors. This was recorded 300 years later by the anonymous notary who knew of this from oral traditions. The name Bulgar at that time encompassed the mixture of Bulgars, Slavs, Vlachs, and other groups that populated the Bulgarian state. The pertinent literature in English refers only to the Franks and the Pannonian Bulgars, who occupied the territory of modern Hungary after the end of the Avar domination (about 800) and at the time of the Hungarian conquest.
The designation "Voloh" (Volochi) appears three times in the Russian Primary Chronicle. [66] The early Slavic literature on the subject considered the "Volohs" of the Russian Primary Chronicle to be Celts or Roman legionaries from Dacia; the early Hungarian writings interpreted the name "Voloh" to be a reference mainly to the Romans but also to the Bulgarians, Romanians, and Getae. According to the Russian scholar A. Sahmatov, the term "Vlach" or "Voloch" is used by the Slavs to mean Roman, not just Italian. [67] According to the Hungarian scholar Mátyás Gyóni, the "Volochs" of the Russian Primary Chronicle were Franks, [68] a theory that is supported by the Slovene, D. Trstenjak, and by most Hungarian researchers. [69] Romanian historians, however, consider the "Volochs" to have been Romanians; this opinion is shared by Moldavian-born V. D. Koroljuk. After exhaustive research, the Hungarian Gyula Kristó determined that the most plausible historical explanation was that the "Volohs" of the Russian Primary Chronicle were a New Latin-speaking people of Western Europe, certainly the French, that is, the Franks of the ninth century.
The wide range of theories indicates the difficulties involved in identifying the "Volohs" of the Russian Primary Chronicle, a subject that will continue to spark controversy for a long time to come. It is, in fact, questionable whether an authoritative answer can be found
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owing to the inaccuracies, confused statements, and inventions of the medieval chroniclers. Ethnic names are used loosely in medieval sources and do not reveal a people's identity or history. The name Vlach, for example, is sometimes but not always used to indicate Romanian ethnic identity. Correct conclusions can only be reached with the help of philology and a careful study of the causes of historical events.
It is interesting to quote the opinion of the Romanian scholar and main proponent of the theory of Roman continuity north of the Danube, Constantin Daicoviciu: "I am convinced that the disputed passage from the pseudo-Nestor chronicle refers, in fact, to the Volochii of Pannonia [and not Transylvania], which [therefore] reveals a different situation." [70]
In the Gesta Hungarorum the anonymous notary referred to "Romans" (Romani) in three different periods:
1. Before the fifth century, that is, until Attila drove them out and began his reign in Pannonia;
2. From the fifth through the tenth centuries. As Álmos, the chief of the Hungarians, left Scythia, he was told by the Russian leaders that Pannonia was inhabited by Slavs, Bulgarians, and Blachs, and by shepherds of the Romans (Sclaui, Bulgarii at Blachii ac pastores Romanorum);
3. In Anonymus's own time. In connection with the pastures of the Romans, he wrote: "One could say in all fairness that Pannonia is the pasture land of the Romans, because right now the Romans are pasturing [their herds] from the goods [territory] of Hungary."
Contemporary Hungarian and, to some extent, international scholars consider that the designation "Roman" before the fifth century in Pannonia referred without doubt to the ancient Romans. [71] There are, however, sharply differing opinions about the identity of the "Romans" in Pannonia from the fifth through the tenth centuries. It is highly likely that the anonymous notary believed that the Romans of this period were, in fact, ancient Romans who had returned to Pannonia after the death of Attila. The anonymous notary's imagination doubtless played a role here, however, since the Hungarians found no Romans when they entered Pannonia.
The designation "Vlach" is referred by Anonymus in the Gesta Hungarorum as Blacus (plural Blachii, Blasii, Blacorum) and is associated with three events:
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1. On the way to the Carpathian Basin the Hungarians were told by the Russian leaders that "Pannonia is inhabited by Slavs, Bulgarians, and Blachs, and by shepherds of the Romans";
2. A "Blach" by the name of Gelou was a ruler in Transylvania;
3. The conquering Hungarians went to battle with Glad (Galad, the ruler of the area between the Maros River and the lower Danube), who was "supported by the Cumans, Bulgarians, and Blachs."
An Analysis of the Treatment of the Gesta Hungarorum as an Historical Source by Modern Romanian Historians
During the last decades, Romanian historiographers have produced several surveys analyzing the text of the anonymous notary of King Bela III. Here, however, our discussion is limited to the interpretations from only a few Romanian historical works. The Romanians' main historical argument for the theory that their ancestors lived in Transylvania before the arrival of the Hungarians is the Gesta Hungarorum of Anonymus, supported by the chronicle of Simon de Kéza written about 1283. [72] The Romanian historians generally see in Anonymus's "Romani" the ancestors of the Romanians north of the Danube. A detailed analysis of the modern Romanian interpretation of Anonymus's Gesta Hungarorum will follow.
In Istoria românilor (1975) Constantin C. Giurescu refuted the assumption that mention of Vlachs in Transylvania in the early tenth century was only a transposition of circumstances of Anonymus's own time into the past. He explained this opinion by referring to the fact that Anonymus did not write in the Gesta about Saxons in Transylvania in the tenth century, in spite of their presence there in his own time. This comment, however, creates a serious chronological inconsistency: the settlement of the Germans in Transylvania, as is well known, was organized by the Hungarian King, started in the mid-twelfth century, and was in progress when Anonymus wrote his chronicle. Obviously, he could not have described the Saxons as having lived in Transylvania three centuries earlier. Giurescu tried to prove that even the Hungarian historian Bálint Homan considered the narrative of the anonymous notary as a reliable source and that its mention of Vlachs in Transylvania at the beginning of the tenth century was supported by the Russian Primary Chronicle, which wrote about "Volohs and Slavs" whom the Hungarians encountered in the Carpathian Basin. [73]
With regard to Homan's opinion about the reliability of the anonymous notary, one should consult the whole text [74] from which Giurescu
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only quotes a few words: "The perfect elaboration of the history of the Hungarian conquest from the geographical and strategic points of view proves the advanced nature of his critical spirit, his systematic thinking and solid knowledge. [75] It was, in fact, his independent criticism that caused his errors, the most characteristic of which was his inclination for ethnographical anachronisms. All thinking medieval authors were, in their descriptions of past ethnographical, political, and social situations and constitutions, influenced by the ethnographical, political, and social situations and the constitution of their own time, except when they relied upon contemporary written sources. Anonymus, too, fell into this error, explaining events and facts of "once upon a time" by transposing the situation of his own period into the past. He saw Cumans in the people of Ed and Edömen, because of the fact that Cumans were living in Ruthenia in his time. He identified the shepherds living in western Hungary under Frankish rule and the Pannonian Vlachs, called "Roman shepherds" by the eleventh century Gesta and "Danubian Volochs" by the eleventh century Russian chronicle, with the Vlach shepherds. He referred to the Moravian prince of the Slovenes in the region of Zobor as a Czech. He constructed the document about the oath of the Hungarians (vérszerződés), according to the custom of the contemporary royal court."
The comparison of Giurescu's quotations with the original text shows that the support he claimed from Hungarian historiography was quite spurious, that his argument with Hungarian historians about Anonymus's credibility was untenable, and that he considered this narrative of great importance, since he resorted to the most unscholarly methods to try to preserve its credibility.
Ironically, current Romanian historians often question the reliability of Anonymus and the other medieval sources they so often cite, when these sources do not support the desired conclusions. It is maintained, for example, that the reports of the Byzantine chronicler Kekaumenos are not reliable sources, [76] that Eutropius's writings about the evacuation from Dacia are not accurate, and that early written sources are in general scarce, incomplete, and at times contradictory. [77]
On the other hand, Romanian historians have drawn numerous conclusions from the Gesta Hungarorum that are not warranted by the text itself, before one even questions the author's credibility. All these conclusions are notable for their methodical deficiencies: there is an almost total absence of any rigorous, scholarly examination of the sources; instead of objective, linguistic arguments, they use unsubstantiated and arbitrary statements; and facts are taken out of context to defend preconceived theories.
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Although it is asserted that Anonymus mentioned "three Romanian or Romanian-Slavic countries" called "voivodships," [78] in only one of them were Romanians (Vlachs) actually mentioned. The Gesta clearly stated that the country of Menumorout was inhabited by Chozars (a Turkic people), with no mention whatsoever of Vlachs. The territory between the Maros River and Haram Castle was said to have been ruled by Glad, who came from Vidin; but the ethnic character of his people was not specified. Glad's army was described as "a great army of cavalry and infantry" supported by Cumans, Bulgarians, and Vlachs. Nothing in this text, however, would indicate that Vlachs were living in that territory; on the contrary, one may infer that the supporting troops came from abroad. The whole description, of course, bears all the marks of having been written at the end of the twelfth century, the time of the revolt of Bulgarian nobles in Byzantium in 1185 under the brothers Peter or Kalopetros (usually called Theodor) and Asên. [79] This revolt led to the foundation of the independent Second Bulgarian Empire (which lasted from 1186 to 1393) and was strongly supported by the Cumanians, who at that time lived north of the Danube and on the Pontic Steppes, and by the Vlachs of the Balkan Peninsula. It is noteworthy that at the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth centuries the Byzantine chroniclers reported an alliance of the Vlachs and Cumanians on the Balkan Peninsula against the Byzantine Empire and also mentioned Latin refugees in Pannonia (Hungary). Certainly, these reports were still fresh in Anonymus's mind and were obviously the inspiration for his narrative. The text of the anonymous notary thus mentioned the Vlachs as living in Transylvania in the areas southeast of the Meszes Mountains.
It is asserted that Anonymus claimed "the mass of the Hungarian tribes was forced to retreat mostly to Pannonia." This is not, however, found in the text; nor does it follow from it. Most of the time, Anonymus described successful offensive attacks, in which the ancestors of his contemporary Hungarian lords fought bravely and, in several cases, won the estates owned by these lords. Another example of warranted conclusions was the assumption of some "representative authority" in the territory of Gelou, on grounds of resistance to the Hungarians and because Tuhutum had "reached an agreement" with the population, "strengthened by an oath."
So far, two types of methodological mistakes in the above-mentioned treatises have been discussed: taking most of Anonymus's statements as confirmed facts and drawing conclusions, even from nonexistent statements, about the presence of Romanians in eastern and southeastern Hungary in the tenth century. To these may be added the Romanian historiographers' erroneous assumption of the existence in
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that period of Romanian polities in other parts of Transylvania. All these errors have been exaggerated even more by Ştefan Pascu, [80] whose reasoning is reminiscent of the eighteenth century Transylvanian School, whose works were admittedly produced for use in a political struggle. Considering the scarcity of materials from the ninth through the twelfth centuries, it is clear that Pascu's work was of necessity based largely on hypotheses, supported by the Gesta Hungarorum and archaeological finds. Like many of his contemporaries in Romania, Pascu adapts his research to support an ideology. His analyses of the ethnic makeup of the population of Transylvania have been influenced by the theory of Romanism and continuity. He draws many conclusions from the narrative of Anonymus, describing (albeit with frequent reservations such as "possibly," "probably," or "one may presuppose") a Romanian Transylvania even to the smallest valleys. He enumerated more than 80 so-called "village communities" [81] that allegedly existed in the ninth and tenth centuries. The borders of the land ruled by Gelou were not described by Anonymus, but Pascu assumed that the northeastern frontiers might have been situated at the Meseş (Meszes) Mountains, because Gelou tried to oppose the Hungarians there. (Repeated attempts to locate the fortress of Gelou, prince of Vlachs and Slavs, in Gilău [Gyalu], Dăbîca [Doboka], and Cluj-Mănăştur [Kolozsmonostor, all in Cluj County] have been fruitless.) The unfamiliar reader would believe that in the period between the tenth and fourteenth centuries in Transylvania there was a continuous existence of Romanian villages, lead by dukes, such as Glad, Menumorout, Gelou, Negru Voda, Dragoş, and Bogdan. [82] It is known, however, that Negru Voda (or Radu Negru) was a figure in popular traditions in Fogaras (Făgăraş) County and is said to have been lived there in the thirteenth century, [83] while Dragoş and Bogdan were Romanian leaders (with names of Slavic origin) in Máramaros (Maramureş) in the mid-fourteenth century; Glad (Galád), as previously mentioned, was of Bulgarian origin in the vicinity of Temes (Timiş), where several localities in the Middle Ages already bore the name Galád and where even today there is a village called Gilád. [84] Two of the other names, Gelou and Menumorout, as stated above, were created by Anonymus; and the two others, Ahtum (Ajtony) and Gyla (Gyula), were Hungarian leaders (the name Gyula is of Turkish origin and that of Ahtum has not yet been clarified).
With respect to the castles mentioned by Anonymus and cited by Pascu (Bihar, Szatmár, Orsova, Haram, Keve, and Doboka), it has been proven that no wood-earthen fortifications were built in Transylvania between 650 and 950 and those built after that period were Hungarian. [85]
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It is even strange that Pascu did not discuss the question of Anonymus's credibility inasmuch as he questioned his reliability elsewhere. He pointed out, for instance, that Anonymus confused the Pechenegs with the Cumans "because, when he wrote his Gesta, the Cumans were the dominant people on the Danube." [86] Moreover, Anonymus wrote about the cnezes of the Bulgarians, "but the Bulgarians never had cnezes." [87] Pascu also mentioned the medieval writers' habit of creating personal names out of existing place names [88] to be used for legendary figures in narratives, and he questioned the assertion of Anonymus (as well as of Simon Kézai) that the Székelys originated from the Huns. [89] These doubts alorie would seem to warrant a thorough analysis of the Gesta before he would base so many assumptions on it.
One Romanian historiographer recently made an interesting analysis about those passages in the Gesta Hungarorum that probably refer to Romance populations: pascua Romanorum, pastores Romanorum, Blachi, and Blasi. [90] Based on rich references to both old and more recent literature, the author of the survey makes a long argument which is, however, not convincing and shows serious defects. He claims that starting in the second half of the nineteenth century political considerations prompted the severe criticism of Anonymus as an historical source. [91] On the other hand, however, the author himself had asserted that the idea of continuity became a basic political argument for the national movement of Romanians in Transylvania beginning at the end of the eighteenth century. [92] Under these circumstances, the narrative of Anonymus, considered as "one of the basic proofs in favor of continuity," [93] must also have been regarded by the Romanian historiographers as an argument in a political struggle rather than a topic of objective historical investigation.
According to the current Romanian historiography, one may presume from the explanations given by Anonymus that there was a tradition in the eleventh to fourteenth centuries that the Romanians were the oldest population of Transylvania. This view, however, confronts its proponents with a dangerous corollary: if Romanian historians accept this conclusion from Anonymus's text, they must also accept Anonymus's statement that the Székelys were the successors of Attiia, that is, the Huns, and that the Székelys were already on the territory before the arrival of the Hungarians.
Anonymus's Gesta Hungarorum, as already discussed, was an example of the romantic descriptions that became fashionable in Europe during the twelfth century. To glorify the Hungarians, the ancestors of the author's contemporary landholders, the ancient Hungarian nobility, are presented mainly in fierce battles with their victories
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over their enemies securing their lands. It would, therefore, not be unlikely that Anonymus, in search of enemies and not being familiar with the real ethnic situation of the Carpathian Basin three centuries before his own times, placed the Vlachs there for reasons of expedience.
There are several medieval texts in which "Romans," "shepherds of the Romans," and Blachi are mentioned as living in Pannonia [94] (and in several Balkan provinces). In the Middle Ages the designation "Blach" (Vlach) was not, like "Vlach" is today, a specific reference to the ancestors of the present-day Romanians. The Germanic tribes, for example, designated both the Celts and Romans as "Walh" (Vlachs), just as the Rhaeto-Romanic and Italian-speaking peoples were called "Walchen" by the Germans until modern times. From "Walach" came the Slavic name for the Romans, Vlach (plural Blasi, Vlasi; Russian Voloch), which was used by the Bohemians, Poles, and Slovenes until modern times to describe the Italians. The inhabitants of the Dalmatian cities and islands still use the Slavic Vlah for all the farmers and shepherds on the mainland, while in Croatia Viach is used to describe a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
When the thirteenth century Hungarian chronicler Simon de Kéza refers to the "Blachs" who remained in Pannonia during the Hunnish domination, this cannot mean Romanians in the present sense of the word, because in the fifth century, the period of the Hunnish domination in Pannonia, one can only speak about Romans. The development of the Romance languages had scarcely started in that century. If the tradition has any real substance, it can only be interpreted as referring to a "Romanized population." Such populations are known to have existed in the Balkans, in Raetia, Noricum, and Pannonia even after the collapse of the Roman Empire.
It must be emphasized that in all these texts, the territory in which the Romanized population is described is always Pannonia and several Balkan provinces but never Dacia. [95] Anonymus also mentions only Pannonia and not Dacia in connection with a former Roman population. When writing about Transylvania, he merely mentions "Blasi et Sclavi" and "quidatn Blacus" but does not connect these Vlachs with a Roman population. The tradition about Hungary (Pannonia) being the former "pastures of the Romans" is also mentioned in the Hungarian chronicles of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. [96]
According to certain Hungarian historians, [97] the Vlach and Blacus (Blak, Blacii) were two different peoples: the Vlachs were the ancestors of the Romanians, while the Blaks were a Turkic people from the Trans-Ural territory who probably lived at one time in symbiosis with the Onoguric Bulgars, with whom they shared a common culture. They eventually reached Transylvania, perhaps even together with
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the Onoguric Bulgarians, where they became assimilated with the Székelys. [98] Anonymus, as previously indicated, mentioned the Blaks twice in connection with the Bulgarians and once in connection with the Slavs. The plural of Blacus appears as both Blachi and Blacci (Blaks, as Blacki). [99] The first reference to the Blaks as Blachi, Blaci, or Blacci was in 1222 in the Hungarian charters: terra Blacorum was said to be in the area of Fogaras (Făgăraş). [100] information is provided also by Simon Kézai on the Blaks as Blackis. A charter of Pope Honorius III mentions in 1222 terra Blacorum, [101] the area that the Blachi had occupied with the Pechenegs and that was under Bulgarian sovereignty at that time.
Place Names Mentioned by Anonymus in Transylvania and the Banat
If one were to assume, as contemporary Romanian historiographers do, that the territory between the Meszes Mountains and the sources of the Szamos River was inhabited by Romanians and Slavs in the ninth century and that the Hungarians systematically subdued them, toward the eleventh century, one would expect that the Hungarians would have borrowed place names from Romanian as is normal in such cases. While the place names are among the reliable elements of the Gesta Hungarorum, they do not reflect the situation in the tenth century but are taken rather from the time of Anonymus at the end of the twelfth century. Anonymus mentioned the names of three villages, six rivers, and a mountain in northwestern Transylvania and in the Banat. It would be reasonable to expect at least some of these names to be of Romanian origin, if the population of the area had really been Romanian before the Hungarian conquest. What, then, is the origin of these names?
Meszes Gate: from Hungarian mész "limestone," a common name for mountains; it was borrowed by the Romanian language as Meseş.
Almás River: from Hungarian alma "apple" + s, "something with apples"; borrowed by Romanian as Almaş.
Körös (Criş) River: the old Hungarian name Kris mentioned at the first time in 950 and later changed to Kërës, Körös; the Romanian name Criş was borrowed from Hungarian.
Morus (Maros) River: the Hungarian-Latin Morisius, Morus, Mors, Maros is attested for the twelfth to thirteenth century and was most probably adopted from the Slavic Morisъ. [102] The Romanian Mureş may be derived from the medieval Hungarian form Maros.
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Zomus (Szamos) River: ancient names: Latin, Samus; Hungarian, Szamos; and Romanian, Someş. The Romanian form is not directly inherited from Latin because Latin s did not change to Romanian ş. The ancient river name Zomus was transferred to Hungarian most probably by the Slavs and to Romanian either by Hungarians or Slavs.
Temes River: the old Hungarian form Timis was replaced in the thirteenth century by Temes. The Romanian form Timiş(ul) was borrowed from the old Hungarian form.
Kapus River: from kapu "gate, door" + s "something with doors", borrowed by Romanian: Căpuş (a without stress changes to ă in Romanian borrowings from Hungarian).
Zyloc village: modern Hungarian Zilah. The origin of this name has not yet been established. It may derive from Slavic (cf., the Ukrainian personal name Zel'ak). [103]
Esculeu (Esküllő) village: from old Hungarian es + küllő "old" + "swallow"; German Schwalbendorf. The Romanian form is Aşchileu, evidently borrowed from Hungarian. There is another village with this name in the district of Élesd (Aleşd), west of Nagyvárad (Oradea).
Gyalu village: from the Hungarian personal name Gyeló, Gyaló, documented in 1246 as Golou. [104] There are several villages with this name in other parts of Hungary. The Romanian Gilău is borrowed from Hungarian and is not a personal name in Romanian.
As already noted, nothing about these place names would indicate Romanian presence in that area at the time of the Hungarian conquest. On the contrary, the Romanians borrowed all the village names and nearly all of the river names from the Hungarians. Moreover, two of these names have sound patterns in Romanian that give some indication as to the period in which they were borrowed by the Romanians: Căpuş and Zalău. (The time of borrowing is, in this case, identical with the appearance of the first Romanians in the area.) In the Gesta the modern Kapus River is written Copus. In Hungarian, the vowel o changed to a during the twelfth to thirteenth century; by the mid-fourteenth century, this change was almost general, Since Hungarian o is generally preserved in Romanian borrowings from Hungarian but the Hungarian a changes (if unstressed) to ă, the form Căpuş must have derived from Hungarian Kapus after the o > a change or, in other words, after the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries. [105] The Romanian Zalău from Hungarian Zilah is also a later borrowing; in the Gesta, at the end of the twelfth century, this name ended in a consonant (Zyloc). In Romanian borrowings from Hungarian, -k was preserved: Hungarian Széplak > Romanian Săplac. At the time of borrowing,
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the consonant had already disappeared from the end of this name.
The place names that appear in the Gesta suggest that in the anonymous notary's time, northwestern Transylvania was inhabited by Hungarians and that the Romanians appeared there no earlier than in the thirteenth century. The number of place names in the Gesta is, of course, far too low to draw a definitive conclusion. A detailed survey of the problem of Transylvanian place names is given in chapter IV (Geographical names).
THE HUMANISTS
The Latinity of the Romanians
The Byzantine chronicles that mentioned the Vlachs were not generally known in Europe. Only beginning with the Humanist era (fourteenth to sixteenth centuries) and initially in connection with the defense of the Christian World against the Mohammedan Turks was more information spread about the Vlachs, who lived both north and south of the Danube in that era. Toward the end of the fourteenth century, the Turks expanded northward on the Balkan Peninsula; and the European powers, often under the leadership of the Pope, organized resistance against them. A lively diplomatic interchange resulted; and several of the high priests, diplomats, and statesmen that traveled to the Balkan Peninsula, the territory in immediate danger, later described their experiences. The introduction of printing in the late fifteenth century widened the distribution of their writings. One of the first of these travelers was Archbishop Ioannes de Sultanyeh, who described in 1404 the country of the Serbs and the Bulgarians and the population living in the same areas: Ipsi ideo jactant se esse Romanos et patet in linguam quia ipsi locuntur quasi Romani. [106] There is also a vague reference to a certain Roman emperor who once colonized the area. These references were all to the Vlachs south of the Danube; but Sultanyeh also described "Volaquia" defining its frontiers to the east, as "the great sea"; to the south, Constantinople; to the west, Albania; and to the north, "Russiam sive Litfaniam" ["Russia or Lithuania"]. The author thus knew about the Vlachs living south of the Danube as well as about those on the Wallachian Plains, but he was unable to correctly define these territories. When this treatise was written in 1404 there were already two Romanian principalities, Ţara Românească (Wallachia) and Moldavia, with a considerable population within their frontiers, although there were a great number of Vlachs still lilving in the central and southern part of the Balkans.
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Many similar descriptions followed in the fifteenth century. The struggle against the Turks made it necessary to study the geography and the populations of the Balkan Peninsula, thus turning people's interest to the realities of their own time and own national history. The spirit of free inquiry following the Renaissance also changed the approach of scholars to the origins of contemporary peoples and their languages. In the same period, reaction was slowly emerging against the dominant scholastic way of thinking: While explanations had previously been sought on the basis of mythical personalities, the new approach was much more scientific. This new ideological and cultural movement of the fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries, which sought to draw on the spiritual traditions of classical times, was Humanism, a term derived from Cicero's Humanitas, meaning civilization as opposed to barbarism. A certain tendency toward nationalism often played a role. The Humanists claimed, for instance, the Illyrian was a Slavic language in order to explain the South Slavic (or Croatian) character of the area that had been populated by the Illyrians. The Humanists sought to return to the real values, to the best original Latin and Greek authors; and they regarded the literature of classical antiquity as the source of all "civilized" values and considered it their duty to analyze these texts critically. At the same time, interest also increased in research of modern languages, and many grammars were written.
It is obvious that the adherents of the Humanistic [classical] ideas were extremely interested in everything left by the great classical cultures: not only material vestiges, but perhaps even more in their living vestiges, such as peoples and languages with Latin origins. This explains the enthusiasm with which many Humanists described and commented on the discovery of the Romanian language as a descendant of Latin. For the Italians it must have been of particular interest.
The first Italian Humanist to write about the Roman origin of the Romanians was Poggio Bracciolini (1380-1459). [107] This author himself did not travel in areas inhabited by Vlachs but most probably received his information from other Italian travelers. He wrote about a colony "left by Trajan," "so they say," thus implying the continuous presence of the Vlachs in those areas since the time of Trajan. He did not give the details of this assumed continuity and resistance "among many barbarian peoples"; [108] he merely quoted others.
The most important scholar to contribute insights about the Roman origin of the Romanians was Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (1405-1464), who was Pope Pius II for the last six years of his life. Interested in geography (his Asia was read by Christopher Columbus) and having
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written a history in a truly critical spirit, [109] Piccolomini tried to convince the European powers of the necessity of fighting against the Turks; and his preoccupation with this conflict led to interest in the Balkan Peninsula, which was directly threatened at that time by the expanding Turkish Empire. From Dominican and Franciscan missionaries, he received information about Southeastern Europe, thus also about the Vlachs. He could not, however, evade the etymologizing fervor of his time and took up the idea of Vlachus originating from a Roman general named Flaccus. [110] Piccolomini had probably read about the Flaccus > Vlachus etymology, which had been mentioned before by others including Ansbertus, the chronicler of the third Crusade. [111] It was characteristic of the Humanist period to try to explain the origins of nations and their languages by means of historical personalities and events. Flaccus, for example, was now considered to be the ancient father of the Vlachs (cf, Italus, Francus, Germanicus, Britannicus). The writings of Piccolomini were widely read and respected; his passage about Flaccus was still being quoted as late as the eighteenth century by many historians and geographers. [112]
The Athenian historian Laonikos Chalcocondylas wrote a contemporary history whose central theme was the growing power of the Turks and the fall of the Byzantine Empire. He mentioned the Vlachs, referring to those living north of the Danube as Dacians and those in the south as Vlachs. The designation "Dacians" is explained by the preference of Byzantine authors for the archaic. [113] Chalcocondylas knew that the Vlachs on the Balkan Peninsula and those north of the Danube, in Wallachia, were of common origin. [114]
Since the authors of the Renaissance aspired to the highest values of antique civilization, they also adopted the Greeks' view that language is a people's most relevant feature. They also reflected on the way the Romance population of the Vlachs had come to the areas of Southeastern Europe. One explanation was that they descended from general Flaccus, as described by Ovid (43 B.C. to 18 A.D.), but not all authors took such explanations for granted. Chalcocondylas, for example, showed signs of a more developed critical sense and stated that he had neither heard anything worthy of note about this question nor could comment on it. [115] This attitude suggests that there was no generally known popular tradition in the fifteenth century about how the Romanians had come to their lands.
Of all the Humanist authors, Antonio Bonfini (c. 1427-1502) wrote the most about the Romanians and their Roman origin. Living from 1486 to 1502 in the Hungarian royal court, he had a particular reason to occupy himself with the problem: the Hungarian King Matthias (Mátyás, 1443-1490) was partly of Vlach origin. Authors in the court
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of Matthias developed the theory that the king was of Roman origin, a descendant of a Roman named Valerius Volusus. Bonfini knew that the language of the Vlachs had a Latin character; and he also knew about the history of the Roman Empire, Trajan's wars with the Dacians, and the final occupation of Dacia.
Transylvanian German (Saxon) Historians of the Seventeenth to Eighteenth Centuries on the Origin of the Romanians
The scholar who had most influence on the Romanian chroniclers of the seventeenth century was a Transylvanian German with a Humanist education, Lorenz Töppelt (Laurentius Toppeltinus, 1641-1670), whose chief work, Origines et occasus Transsylvanorum, appeared in Lyon (Lugduni) in 1667. Widely known throughout Europe, it was the main source of the Moldavian chronicler Miron Costin and was also used by other Moldavian chroniclers. Toppeltinus, carefully studying the literature about the peoples of Transylvania, affirmed 1) the Roman origin of the Romanians (on the basis of their language, which he knew well), and 2) their continuity in Dacia. He does not seem to have considered the background of this assumption, although he was probably aware of the absence of historical mention about a Romanic population north of the Danube for about 900 years. That he was not purely scientific when affirming the Romanic origin and continuity of the Vlachs north of the Danube is shown by the fact that he consciously falsified an important source to suit his own views. The Roman chronicler Flavius Vopiscus wrote about Emperor Aurelian: provinciam trans Danubium Daciam a Trajano constitutam, sublato exercitu et Provincialibus, reliquit. When quoting this passage, Toppeltinus omitted the conjunction "et," altering the meaning of the sentence to say that Aurelian removed the army and left Dacia to the population. [116]
This distortion of a document by an otherwise erudite scholar is quite incomprehensible. It may have originated in his desire to prove the Dacian origin of the Transylvanian Germans, which was a popular thesis among their scholars of the seventeenth century. (It stems from the attempts of most European peoples of that time to show their antiquity.) The Transylvanian German scholars were anxious to prove that the Romanians were of purely Roman origin and had nothing to do with the Dacians, in order to affirm that the Dacians were their ancestors.
Another Transylvanian German historian, Johannes Tröster [117] (died 1670), endeavored to maintain that the name Walache (its equivalent in the Transylvanian German dialect was Blôch) derived from Gallen
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or Wallen, the etymology for the German word Wellen ("waves"). He argued that this could be explained by the fact that the Vlachs settled in the vicinity of the waves of the Danube. The dialectal word Blôch, Troster said, derived from the Swedish bölja, meaning "billow, wave".
This exemplifies the fantastic etymologies characteristic of the period. Tröster, however, knew the Romanian language; and he put this knowledge to good use in his work. He was, in fact, the first Transylvanian German scholar to use Romanian words and expressions in his arguments to prove the Roman character of the language. In addition to their language, Tröster considered that the Romanians exhibited typically Roman traits in their customs, dress, dances, popular beliefs, and everyday life. He did not accept the derivation of Vlachus from the name of the Roman general Flaccus, because the general never passed the Danube to the territory north of the river. [118] The Transylvanian scholars of the Humanist tradition were typical of this period in general, but to a much lesser extent they also described what they knew from their own experiences.
The ideas of Toppeltinus (the Dacian origin of the Transylvanian Germans and the Latinity and continuity of the Romanians in Dacia) were taken up by several younger Transylvanian German scholars. George Haner (1672-1740), for example, considered that the Hungarian kings had not brought Germans to Transylvania but had only converted them from their Gothic Arianism to Roman Catholicism. Toppeltinus's influence on the chroniclers of Moldavia and Muntenia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was of great historical significance.
The writings of the seventeenth century Transylvanian Germans (Saxons) about the area's ancient history caused a major sensation among the German-speaking peoples. An Austrian scholar of Swiss origin, Franz Joseph Sulzer, [119] contested the theory of Daco-Roman continuity, as did the Transylvanian Saxon Joseph Karl Eder, [120] the most important historian of his time. Johann Christian Engel, Michael Ballmann, and Carol Schuller, as well as the Hungarian Martin Bolla, joined in the opposition to the theory.
Sulzer argued that the lack of linguistic elements in Romanian from the period of the people's migration, which, after all, lasted seven hundred years, disproved the theory of continuity. Eder even went so far as to oppose the arguments pleading for equal rights that the Transylvanian Romanians had made in their petition (Supplex Libellus Valachorum) to Austrian Emperor Leopold II. The debate over Daco-Roman continuity north of the Danube was initially a matter between the Germans (Transylvanian Saxons) and the Romanians, reaching its heights in the eighteenth century. It was hundred years
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before Robert Roesler developed his theory, based on the assumptions of Sulzer, about Romanian ethnogenesis south of the Danube. [121]
As early as in the sixteenth century German Humanists had developed a theory about a Geto-Gothic origin of the Transylvanian Saxons, and this was expanded upon in the seventeenth century by the Transylvanian Saxons themselves. [122] This concept that the Transylvanian Germans were the descendants of the Getae ana Goths continued until the eighteenth century.
THE MOLDAVIAN AND WALLACHIAN CHRONICLERS
The Origins and Development of the Idea of Roman Continuity North of the Danube
Grigore Ureche (c. 1590-1647) was the first chronicler of Romanian nationality to describe the Roman origin of the Romanians. [123] Born to a family of boyars (nobles), he studied in Poland, where he became acquainted with Humanist literature. He was above all interested in his own country, Moldavia, whose history he described in his chief work, Letopiseţul Ţării Moldovei până la Aron Vodă (1359-1594), written between 1642 and 1647. [124] Ureche discussed at length the origin of the name Moldova and described, on the basis of an old Moldavian chronicle written by an unknown author before 1504, the founding of the Moldavian state by boyars from Máramaros (Maramureş). He occupied himself with the origin of the Moldavians but was also obliged to discuss the origins of the Romanians, whose unity he considered as fact, based on their common language. His considerable objectivity is shown also by his following statement: "Also our language is composed of many languages and our speech is mixed with that of our neighbours who are living around us, although we originate from Rome." Later historiographers, who selected material according to its usefulness in a political struggle, cut short (distorted) this statement quoting only the last words: "we originate from Rome" ("de la Rîm ne tragem"). This selective quotation did an injustice to Ureche, whose views about the Romanian language were more realistic and based on his own knowledge and did not try to conceal the many non-Latin elements of Romanian. Ureche knew from his Humanist sources about the Latin character of the Romanian language but did not consider this to be of the same importance as did later Romanian chroniclers.
Miron Costin (1633-1691), who continued Ureche s work, also came from a family of boyars. His father was forced to emigrate to Poland, where Costin spent the first 18 years of his life. His sources were the Polish and Hungarian Humanists, as well as Transylvanian German scholars, the most significant of whom was Toppeltinus, whose Origines
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et occasus Transsylvanorum he translated. It was here that Costin read about the Roman origin of the Vlachs and about Emperor Trajan, which was certainly a great revelation to him. [125] According to modern Romanian historians, Toppeltinus's work was Costin's most important source. Costin himself referred to authors from Hungary "who knew about the colonists of Trajan and wrote about them." [126]
Involved in the political struggles of his time, Costin was the first Moldavian politician to exploit the idea of a Roman origin as a political argument. [127] His most significant achievement was, however, the creation of the basis of a Romanian national consciousness, through the development of the following theories: The Romanian language and, consequently, the Romanian people were of Latin (Roman) origin; they were of purely Roman origin, without admixture from other peoples; and they were the descendants of Emperor Trajan's soldiers and colonists and had been living in the former province of Dacia Traiana ever since the time of Trajan.
Costin did not reflect much on the details and implications of the theory of continuous existence of the Romans in Dacia but considered this, as had his sources, a matter of fact that did not need to be proven. He knew, of course, very little about the real historical circumstances; he did not, for example, even have a correct idea about the extent of Dacia Trajana. Costin believed, as he had read in his sources, that the former Roman province north of the Danube was situated between the Dniester River and the Black Sea to the east, the Danube to the south, Pannonia (i.e., Hungary) and Moravia to the west, and Podolia in Poland to the north.
The ideas initiated in the Romanian Principalities by Grigore Ureche and Miron Costin were best expressed by Dimitrie Cantemir (1673-1723). [128] Voivod of Moldavia in 1693 and in 1710 and 1711, he spent his last years in Russia as an emigrant (1711-1723). Cantemir was a famous European scholar and wrote several works, mostly historical and philosophical but also about religion, politics, and the arts. Two of Cantemir's works were of the utmost importance to the development of Romanian national consciousness: Descriptio antiqui et hodierni status Moldaviae (1719) and Hronicul vechimei româno-moldo-vlahilor (1719-1722), [129] based on the narratives of the Byzantine historian Niketas Choniates. The Descriptio was written for the Academy of Sciences in Berlin, of which the author became a member in 1714. In this work, Cantemir defended the theory that the Romanians originated from the Dacians and the Romans. He described the Moldavia of his own time, in which several different ethnic groups were living: Besides Moldavians, there are Greeks, Albanians, Serbians,
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Bulgarians, Poles, Cozaks (Cazaci), Russians, Hungarians, Germans, Armenians, Jews, and the prolific Gypsies. [130]
One wonders why Cantemir, in contrast to his main source, Toppeltinus, defended the theory of the mixed Dacian and Roman origin of the Romanians. In any case, he changed his mind in his following work, Hronicul, in which he declared that the Romanians were of purely Roman origin, because the Dacians had disappeared from Dacia. The Romanian national sentiment was much stronger in Hronicul than in Descriptio.
Cantemir did not say anything new; his merit was that he adopted the ideas of Costin and gave them a more firm and concise expression. It is interesting that this reputed scholar sensed the danger of criticism by foreign scholars because of nationalist bias: "we [must] avoid arousing enmity among our neighbors, from becoming ridiculous, and to [keep them from] considering [that we] have been maddened by the love of our Fatherland and say[ing] that we have transgressed the frontiers of historical credibility." [131]
Cantemir also questioned why there was no historical mention of a Roman or Romanian population north of the Danube for about 900 years before the twelfth century, when the first Vlachs were described in Moldavia. His explanation reflected his deep conviction about Roman continuity in Dacia: he simply stated that events had not been recorded. [132] Evidently for the same reason and because of his lack of knowledge of basic historical facts, he believed that there had been a single Romanian state from the time of Trajan until 1274, when it was divided by the migrations of Radu Negru and Dragoş from Fogaras and Máramaros, respectively. Cantemir even explained the existence of Vlachs on the Balkan Peninsula south of the Danube by Trajan's colonization. Cantemir also described the Vlachs' crossing the Danube toward the north following their defeat by the Bulgarians and Latins (Romans) in 1236.
The Muntenian Chroniclers
The oldest Muntenian chronicle, attributed to Stoica Ludescu, preserved a very significant popular tradition among the Romanians that was, however, ignored or dismissed by later historians: [133] "They belonged to the Romanians who originated from the Romans and went to the north. Crossing the waters of the Danube, some settled at Turnu Severin; others, along the waters of the Olt, the Mureş, and the Tisza; and still others in Hungary, reaching as far as Maramureş.
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Those who settled at Turnu Severin extended along the foot of the mountains to the waters of the Olt, [and] others wandered downward along the Danube, and thus all places having been filled by them, they came as far as the borders of Nicopolis." [134] Therefore, there was a tradition among the Romanian people in the sixteenth century about a migration of their ancestors toward the North, most of which took place three to four centuries earlier. Although this does not in itself prove the migration, as no popular belief can prove anything in history, it is important to point out its existence. It is unfortunate that so much effort has been spent searching for evidence of the Romanian popular tradition about a Latin origin, while the tradition about the northward migrations from Bulgaria has been neglected. [135]
With Constantin Cantacuzino (c. 1640-1714) historiography in Wallachia (the present-day Muntenia) reached the level of that in Moldavia. Cantacuzino studied at Adrianopol, Constantinople, and Padua. He knew the chronicles of Ureche and Costin. In Istoria Ţării Româneşti 1290-1690 (Letopiseţul Cantacuzinesc) [136] he described the origin of the Romanians and their history up to the time of the Huns (the fourth century A.D). His chief source was Toppeltinus; but he also used the works of Bonfinius, Carion, Istv’an Szamosközy, Aenas Sylvius Piccolomini, and others.
Cantacuzino followed his predecessors, with regard to the Roman origin of the Romanians and their continuous presence in Dacia Traiana. In contrast to Cantacuzino, however, Radu Popescu contested the continued presence of Romanians in Dacia Traiana in Istoriile domnilor Ţării Româneşti (written between 1718 and 1729).
A general survey of seventeenth century Moldavian and Muntenian chroniclers shows that they relied largely upon the writings of Humanist scholars, [137] especially Toppeltinus, the Transylvanian German historiographer from Mediasch (Medgyes). From these scholars, the chroniclers of the Romanian Principalities took over the idea of the Roman origin of the Romanians and of their unity and continued existence in the former province of Dacia Traiana. One would expect that if there had indeed been a popular tradition among the Romanians about their Roman origin and about their continuity in Dacia (that is, a strong awareness of linguistic or ethnic ties), as claimed by modern Romanian historiographers, [138] these seventeenth century chroniclers would have recorded it. This is, however, not the case. The popular traditions or records from the older chronicles they mention tell us about the migration of some boyars from Transylvania (Maramaros and Fogaras) to Moldavia and Muntenia in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, respectively. There was also a tradition about the migration of Romanians northward across the Danube.
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The Moldavian and Muntenian chroniclers followed their sources, the Humanist authors, also insofar as they were not particularly interested in religion. The Humanists wrote very little about religious problems, the history of the Church, and similar subjects. Although adherence to the Orthodox Church had been, since ancient times, the most important link among all Romanians, the Moldavian and Wallachian chroniclers paid little attention to it in their histories. [139]
The importance of the early chroniclers is that they laid the foundations of Romanian national sentiment, without, however, a political aim in their works: The Latin origin of the Romanian language; the Roman origin of the Romanians, and even the consciousness of geographical and historical unity. The national sentiments remained on the level of popular traditions. These works had no immediate effect; they were unknown except to a very restricted circle of educated boyars in Moldavia and Wallachia. At the end of the eighteenth century the panorthodox awareness of the high-ranking clergy in the Danubian Principalities was stronger than their consciousness of linguistic or ethnic ties. The Latin origin of the Romanians was of no interest to the Orthodox Russians with whom Cantemir allied himself against the Turks, since their cultural relations were directed to Byzantine Orthodoxy. Quite different circumstances and a different political situation were needed for the ideas of Latinity and continuity to be taken up and used in actual politics, which happened in Transylvania in the eighteenth century.
THE ROOTS OF THE ROMANIAN NATIONAL AWAKENING
At the turn of the seventeenth century the social order of Transylvania was a feudal one, with the Hungarian nobles, the Székelys (Szekler), and the Germans (Saxons) constituting three "nations," mostly in the social and political senses of the word. Those Hungarians, Székelys, and Saxons who did not belong to the nobility were outside the privileged classes, as were the Romanian peasants, most of whom were serfs and did not make up a "nation" but were simply "tolerated." The official classification of the Transylvanian Romanians as "tolerated" was first codified in Transylvanian civil law in the Approbatae Constitutiones Regni Transsylvaniae et Partium Hungariae eidem adnexae. This collection of laws was approved by the Diet of Nagyvárad [140] in 1653 and was expanded in 1669 in the Compilatae Constitutiones, which also contained other resolutions of the diets from 1654 to 1669.
Suppression was social rather than national; the Romanians had the opportunity to enter the nobility. Until that era or somewhat later, they looked upon nobility as the best way to rise socially; and
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when they became noblemen, many of them also converted to Catholicism or Protestantism and merged into the Hungarian nobility. This situation resulted in the almost total lack of a Romanian noble class in Transylvania. Attempts made by Protestants during the sixteenth century to convert the Orthodox Romanians of Transylvania were largely unsuccessful. Their chief cultural institution was the Orthodox Church. There was no Romanian intellectual class in Transylvania in that period; indeed, with the exception of Brassó (Braşov), there were no permanent Romanian schools until the end of the seventeenth century. Parish priests received their education in monasteries or from their fathers and many of them could read but not write. They often worked together with their parishioners in the fields in order to support themselves. [141] This situation had a decisive influence upon the Romanian national movement throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Generations of intellectuals were priests or the sons of priests. [142]
The three constitutional "nations" of Transylvania with their established rights were the major obstacle to Vienna's attempts to extend its power. It was not a problem of constitutional, administrative, or social jurisdiction but rather of religion. It is relevant to note that a large share of the Hungarians and the Székelys were Protestant (Reformed [Calvinist] and Unitarian), and the Germans were chiefly Lutheran. The Protestant Churches held considerable power. Throughout most of the eighteenth century the Hapsburgs used more or less violent methods to further Catholicism and drive back the Protestant Churches, which were the leading social element in Transylvania. The Hapsburgs, in their attempts to strengthen absolute central control over local government, felt that it was necessary to increase the power of the Catholic Church, believing, as they did, that the people should adhere to the same religion as the ruler ("cuius regio eius religio"). In a drive that could be called a "late Counter Reformation," the Protestant Churches were attacked in different ways with the aim of decreasing their influence and membership. The biggest gains for Catholicism could be made, however, by converting the Orthodox Romanians. Vienna hoped, on the one hand, to increase its power in this way at the expense of the other nations, especially the Hungarians, and, on the other hand, to make the Romanians their allies in the struggle against those in power. The large Romanian population in Transylvania was an important political factor for Vienna's centralist policies. The Romanians in Transylvania at the end of the seventeenth century accounted for about 40 percent of the total population. They increased during the next century, mainly because of the immigration of large numbers of Romanian peasants
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from the neighboring Romanian principalities of Moldavia and Muntenia (Wallachia), where they were exploited and suppressed by the Greek Phanariots [143] and the Romanian landlords.
The union between one faction of the Orthodox Church in Transylvania and Rome (the Uniate Church) was carried out in 1697 and 1698 by Bishop Teofil and Atanasie Anghel and 38 chief priests. [144] This was part of the Hapsburg dynasty's nationality policy of using the Romanians to increase its own power. The Romanian clergy were promised the same rights as those enjoyed by the Catholic clergy; and they hoped to improve their social and political situation, which was certainly the main reason for their accepting the union. The Orthodox peasants scarcely took notice of the change; but the Orthodox leader, Metropolitan Teofil of Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia), insisted that the Uniate clergy "be no longer merely tolerated but rather received as sons of the Fatherland." [145]
This was the Transylvanian Romanians' first political move, [146] several decades before the theory of the Roman origin of the Romanians was discovered by the Romanian intellectuals who appeared during the first half of the eighteenth century. The national movement of the Romanians in Transylvania did not begin with the belief in their Roman origin or in their continuity north of the Danube but was rather a part or a consequence of the union of the Orthodox Church and Rome, supported by Vienna and Rome (Sacra Congregatio de Propaganda Fide). The union with the Roman Catholic Church was, therefore, of utmost significance in making at least the leading stratum of Transylvanian Romanians aware of their supposed Roman origin.
In 1691 Emperor Leopold promulgated the First Leopoldine Diploma (Diploma Leopoldinum) which, in accordance with earlier promises, granted Uniate priests the same status as the Roman Catholic clergy and exempted them from compulsory labor and tithes to the landlord. In 1701 the so-called Second Leopoldine Diploma was issued in which the emperor ruled that all Romanians that accepted the union would be regarded as belonging to the Catholic Church and would no longer be merely "tolerated" ("tolerati") but would have all the rights of the other nations (Article 3). Although this was not put into practice, the Diploma's existence was of great significance, because it provided a legal basis for the Romanian national movement and for those struggling for the rights of the Romanians during the eighteenth century, especially Bishop Inochentie Micu-Klein (also Clain).
The union did not cause the Romanians to abandon their ancient Orthodox faith, which had, after all, supported national unity; nor did the emperor keep all his promises about the rights and status of Uniate priests. The most significant effect of this act was the op porturiities
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it gave a large and ever increasing number of Romanian youngsters to receive a higher education. [147] Romanian schools were established, Balázsfalva (Blaj) became the spiritual center for Transylvanian Romanians, and at this time the first beginnings of a distinctly Romanian cultural life appeared. [148] Many Romanians were able to study at Hungarian middle schools and universities. Bishop Atanasie, Bishop loan Inochentie Micu-Klein, Gheorghe Şincai, Petru Maior, and many other representatives of the Romanian intellectual movement of the eighteenth century studied at Transylvanian Hungarian Jesuit and Protestant colleges in Kolozsvár, Gyulafehérvár, and other cities. [149] Many of them continued their studies at the universities of Nagyszombat (the present-day Slovakian Trnava) and Vienna, as well as in several Italian cities. At these schools, the Romanians learned Latin, which was, of course, a prerequisite for understanding the Humanist writings about the Latin origin of their own language.
The ideology that characterized Vienna's policy through most of the second part of the eighteenth century is generally called Josephinism: [150] a political-philosophical ideology and statemans policy which, in the contradictory ethnic, social, and cultural conditions of Southeastern Europe, aimed at the creation of a centralized, authoritarian state in which the outdated social orders (Stände) would be abolished, thus contributing indirectly to the social evolution of those people of the monarchy who adhered to the Orthodox religion. [151]
One of the factors that contributed substantially to the rise of the Romanian population of Transylvania was the organization of the frontier guards (1762 to 1851). [152] Those Romanian peasants who were organized in these guards were exempted from their duties to the landlord, and they were given land and weapons. The Romanian villages were incorporated into the militarized border zone, which made possible the creation of a school system and the training of teachers. The Romanian officers of the border guards instilled in the villagers for the first time a sense of national identity. The organization of the border guards is therefore considered the first act of emancipation of the Romanians of Transylvania. [153] It was also the aim of the Viennese court to favor the non-noble groups and the socially underprivileged stratum of people in the territory of St. Stephen's crown and, in this way, to weaken the Hungarian feudalistic nobility and hasten the creation of the enlightened and centralized authoritarian state. [154]
In the 1760s, the Tabulae continuae were organized in Transylvania. These were courts before which even the peasant serfs had the right to petition. Moreover, complaints were allowed to be sent directly to Vienna, without going through the local administration.
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Josephinism was not a nationalist ideology; on the contrary, the notion of "nation" had no place in its system. It may seem paradoxical that the reforms brought about by the domination of this ideology in Southeastern Europe contributed substantially to the emergence of nationalism. For the Romanians, the importance of Josephinism lay in the psychological effect it had of giving the Romanians a feeling of national identity (1744-1762), which found expression in the petition Supplex Libellus Valachorum of 1791-1792. In this petition they called for recognition of the historical primacy and continuity of the Romanians in Transylvania. [155] In 1792 the theory of the so-called Daco-Roman continuity was first propagated in the schools and by the Church; and in 1850 the Latin alphabet replaced the Cyrillic. [156]
The Development of the Theory of Continuity as a Political Tool
As previously stated, the national demands of the Transylvanian Romanians found strong support in the confessional motivated policies of the Hapsburg rulers as well as from a small part of the Uniate clergy. It should be mentioned that only a small group of priests, educators, and nobility—not the Romanian population in general— supported the movement for a national identity.
Ioan Inochentie Micu-Klein (1692-1768), a bishop from 1729 to 1744, was one of the important leaders of the new movement and a promoter of the Romanian demands for equal social and political rights. He was born near Nagyszeben (Sibiu / Hermannstadt), to a family of free peasants and studied at the Hungarian Jesuit gymnasium in Kolozsvár and at Nagyszombat University.
Bishop Micu-Klein based his legal claims on the Second Leopoldine Diploma. Initially, linguistic and cultural demands were voiced; they were followed by demands for national recognition and autonomy. Micu-Klein tried to convince his fellow Romanians that the best way to obtain equal rights with the other "nations" of Transylvania was to accept the union. At first, he fought mainly for the rights of the clergy, but later he extended his struggle to comprise all Romanians. In his conception, the continuity and priority of the Romanians in Transylvania was the most effective argument for his struggle. This idea was presumably strengthened by the reading of Dimitrie Cantemir's chronicle, a manuscript he bought in Vienna from a merchant who had brought it from St. Petersburg. [157] In about 1730 the manuscript of Dimitrie Cantemir (Hronicul vechimei româno-moldo vlachilor) as well as Costin's work became the foundation of the Romanian clergy's new view of history. [158]
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As previously mentioned, in 1791 a petition was sent to Emperor Leopold II (1747-1792), the Supplex Libeilus Valachorum, [159] which attempted to justify the Romanian national movement in Transylvania and the demands for social and political reforms. The Supplex was the first manifestation of Romanian national consciousness and the new historical ideology to be supported by Vienna, although it was only one of the results of the political movement in the 1780s. Its authors were a group of intellectuals of the Romanian clergy in Transylvania and the main figures of the so-called Transylvanian School, as well as other supporters in Vienna. One of the chief compilators was Josif Méhesy, the secretary of the Hungarian-Transylvanian court-chancellery. In contrast to the arguments used by Bishop Inochenjie Klein, the authors now had the opportunity to apply a new historical source, published in 1746, the Gesta Hungarorum of the anonymous notary of King Bela III. Referring to a few documents from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, it was argued that the Romanians at that time had had fully equal rights with other nations and that it was merely the "injustice of the times" [160] that deprived the people of them. Thus, they did not demand new rights but only asked for the reinstating of the ancient ones that they had before 1437. They alleged that the remarks about the Romanians only being tolerated or "admitted only for the public good" were not part of the law but had been inserted by compilers. The most important argument drawn from the present situation was the reference to the large numbers of the Romanians in Transylvania. [161] This was also used to gain support in Vienna. The idea of Daco-Roman continuity, which originated from the Humanist authors and the Moldavian and Muntenian chroniclers, was developed and expanded further by the proponents of the "Transylvanian School," who supported it by historical, linguistic, and ethnic arguments.
The Transylvanian School (Şcoala Ardeleană)
As previously noted, the national awakening began at the beginning of the eighteenth century as a general movement throughout Central Europe and aroused the interests of the Transylvanian Romanian intellectuals. The Latin origin of their language increased their national consciousness, and the so-called "Daco-Roman" theory became the focal point of their ideology. As a result of the Enlightenment, religion was replaced by the nation, as a leading concept in Europe; but this was not possible for the Romanians, who lacked a developed national culture. The Transylvanian School came into being under the influence of this new interest in history.
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The most important leaders of this group, which consisted of Uniate priests, were Samuil Micu-Klein (also Clain, 1745-1806), Gheorghe Şincai (1754-1816), and Petru Maior (1756-1812). [162] They studied mostly at Hungarian schools in Transylvania and received their university education in Vienna and Rome. Samuil Micu-Klein, the son of a Uniate chief priest (protopope), one of the leaders of the Transylvanian School, was born near Hermannstadt (Nagyszeben / Sibiu) in 1745. In 1762 he entered the Order of Saint Basil in Balázsfalva (Blaj) and spent six years at the Pazmaneum Institute in Vienna. At that time the ideas of the Enlightenment dominated the institute, and the influence of the Jesuits was decreasing. It was significant for a Romanian from Transylvania, while in Vienna, to hear the idea propagated of a national Church, as opposed to the doctrine of an all-powerful universal Catholic Church.
Micu-Klein spoke several languages and possessed a vast knowledge of historical works and records. One of his chief interests was the Romanian language; and in cooperation with Gheorghe Şincai he wrote the first Romanian grammar in the Latin alphabet: Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae (Vienna 1780). He also introduced his own etymological system of transcribing the sounds of Romanian into the Roman alphabet. The greatest preoccupation of Micu-Klein was with the history of the Romanian people, which he did not study for its own sake but in order to present historical arguments in favor of Romanian demands for equality with the three Transylvanian nations. [163] In his historical work written in Latin, De ortu, progressu, conversione Valachorum episcopis item archiepiscopis et metropolitis eorum (1774), Micu-Klein described the history of the Christian Church, as he saw it, in the territory of former Dacia Traiana. He affirmed that the Church, as well as the Romanians, had existed there without interruption since the time of Trajan.
Micu-Klein dealt with the origins and the history of the Romanians in several works: Historia daco-romanorum sive valachorum; Istoria şi lucrurile şi întîmplările românilor; Istoria românilor cu intrebări şi răspunsuri, and others. [164] The last work was written in the form of a catechism. The content of Micu-Klein's works is largely similar to that of other writers of the Transylvanian School; and like other leaders of the movement as well as later generations of Romanian historians, his purpose was to provide arguments in a political struggle, which consequently bound him to the theory of the Romanians' Roman character and their continuity in Dacia Traiana. He considered continuity an axiom that could not be questioned. As early as in the mid-1730s Bishop Micu-Klein used the ideas about the continuity of Moldavian Romanians and Vlachs, which had been formulated in
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good faith by the Moldavian chronicler Dimitrie Cantemir, as arguments in his political struggle with the ruling class. [165] As the theory of continuity became increasingly more remote from the requirements of scholarship the exploitation thereof for special purposes becomes ever more apparent. [166]
Although their Romance language was the main reason for considering the Romanians to be descendants of the Romans, historians with Humanistic traditions had already endeavored to find elements in Romanian folklore, customs, and habits that could have been of Roman origin. Micu-Klein claimed that many Romanian customs had been handed down from one generation to the next since the days of Dacia Traiana. He also believed in a theory that dates from the Humanist scholars and still appears in Romanian historical works: that the existence of certain words of Latin origin in the language of the Vlachs proved that they were acquainted with the meanings of the words as early as in Roman times and have continued to use them ever since in Dacia. He argued that such Romanian words as biserică ("church", from Latin basilica), duminecă ("Sunday) from Latin dies dominica), and crăciun ("Christmas" from Latin creatio) [167] proves that Christianity had existed in Dacia from its earliest time.
It is remarkable how many scholars have unquestioningly followed this way of reasoning, apparently ignoring the fact that people have always migrated to new territories, taking their language with them. This error is even more glaring because the members of the Transylvanian School were well aware that the Latin language had also been taken to Dacia by Roman soldiers, officials, and colonists in the second century A.D.
Gheorghe Şincai was bom in Marosvásárhely (Tîrgu Mureş). He studied in his home town, the Jesuit Academy in Kolozsvâr, and m Beszterce (Bistriţa), and then for several years in Rome, where he collected a vast number of books and manuscripts about the history of the Romanians. He also spent several years in Vienna together with Samuil Micu-Klein. In 1784, Şincai left the Church, and in 1804 he became proofreader of Romanian books for the University of Buda's press in Hungary. He spent his last years at the home of the Hungarian noble family Daniel Wass, in Cege (Ţaga).
Şincais most celebrated work is Hronica românilor şi a mai multor neamuri, published posthumously (despite Maior's attempt to suppress it) in 1853, in which he wrote that the Vlachs lived not only north but also south of the Danube. [168]
Petru Maior was born in Marosvásárhely as the son of an Uniate chief priest of that town, and his three older brothers were also priests. He attended schools in his native town and in Kolozsvár and
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then joined the Balázsfalva (Blaj) monastery of the Holy Trinity and received a scholarship to Rome in 1774. In 1779 Maior studied canon law in Vienna and in 1780 became professor of logic and metaphysics in Balázsfalva. Like Şincai, he was appointed "censor et corrector valachicus" at the University press of Buda in 1809.
Maior's works were mainly historical and religious. The first, called Procanon, was a sharp criticism of the doctrine of Papal supremacy. He wrote his chief work, Istoria pentru începutul românilor in Dacia [169] in only a few years in Buda. First published in 1812 (a second edition in 1834), this work had an enormous impact upon several generations of Romanians, both laymen and historians. Maior's writings and especially his Istoria have become the Gospel of the younger generation [170] and still has a significant influence upon Romanian scholars; and its theses are generally recognized as valid, even today. [171]
Undoubtedly, Petru Maior's works are indispensable for a study of the development of modern Romanian historical thought. A brief description of his chief work will be given here, with most of the titles of his chapters and sections translated. Besides this survey of the whole work, certain parts will be discussed in some detail, with the purpose of giving an idea about the author's methods and the contents of his chief work.
Istoria pentru începutul românilor în Dacia contains 15 chapters, 1 through 11 dealing with the Romanians north of the Danube and 12 through 15 with those south of the Danube. Chapter I discussed the conquest of Dacia by the Romans: the Roman-Dacian wars before Trajan; Trajan's first Dacian war; Trajan's second Dacian war; the Roman extermination of the Dacians; the Roman colonization of Dacia; Maior claims that the Romans sent by Trajan to settle Dacia did not marry Dacian women. Chapter II covers the Romans in Dacia after the death of Emperor Trajan. (Special sections deal with the eras of the different emperors.) Chapter III describes the withdrawal of the Romans back across the Danube from Dacia during the reign of Aurelian. Ancient authors are quoted with regard to the Romans' withdrawal from Dacia. Maior points out that it would have been impossible for all the Romans to have left Dacia for Moesia in the time of Aurelian; and, in fact, most of them did not leave. He also quotes and analyzes the writings of Flavius Vopiscus, Rufus, and Eutropius about the Romans' crossing of the Danube. Chapter IV discusses the assumed Romans of Dacia from the time of Atfrelian until the appearance of the Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin. Maior affirms that the Romans of Dacia were dominated consecutively by the Goths, the Huns, the Gepidae, and the Avars, but the Romanians (românii) remained in Dacia even after the time of Aurelian as a distinct
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population [neam osebit]. Chapter V deals with the appearance of the Hungarians in Transylvania and Pannonia. Maior asserts that the Notary of King Bela had excessive sympathy for the Hungarians. In chapter VI, the situation of the Romanians in Transylvania from the beginning of Tuhutum's rule is discussed as well as the eras of Tuhutum and King St. Stephen and the period after St. Stephen's death. Chapter VII covers the empires of Menumorout and Glad and their territories, according to Bela's Notary; the peoples in Pannonia at the time the Hungarians reached there; and the first and second Hungarian wars against Menumorout, who, it is alleged, was Romanian. Maior also claims that Glad, the duke of the Banat, was not Bulgarian. Sections 7 and 8 of Chapter VII deal with the Székelys (Szekler) and the Germans (Transylvanian Saxons), respectively. Chapter VIII makes the claim that the name of the Romans in Dacia was changed into rumani, romîni, and rumuni, and into vlahi and valáhi. Chapter IX discusses the origin of the names of some other peoples among whom the Romanians lived. Chapter X discusses and refutes the opinion of the Austrian scholar Joseph Sulzer that the Romanians came to Dacia across the Danube in the thirteenth century. Chapter XI refutes the claim by the Transylvanian Saxon scholar, Johann Christian Engel, that the Romanians came to Dacia across the Danube in the ninth century. Chapter XII deals with the history of the Romanians living beyond the Danube from the time of Aurelian to the coming of the Bulgarians to Moesia. Chapter XIII recounts the history of the Romanians beyond the Danube from the time the Bulgarians arrived in Moesia until the reign of the Greek Emperor Isaac II Anghelos (also Isaak II Angelos). Chapter XIV covers the history of the Romanians living beyond the Danube in the time of Emperor Isaac II Anghelos. Chapter XV analyzes the situation of the Romanians beyond the Danube after Isaac II Anghelos.
As previously stated, the Transylvanian Romanians found it urgently necessary in the eighteenth century to find proofs to justify their claims to social and political equality with the other peoples of Transylvania. Those rights had been denied to them and, from a legal standpoint, the Romanians did not constitute a "nation." This was due, on the one hand, to the feudal system and, on the other, to the cultural gap that separated the Romanians from the other Transylvanian peoples. In order to match the arguments of the other Transylvanian peoples, the Romanians had to put forth the same kinds of claims as their adversaries. Nothing could have been more suitable than to postulate their existence in Transylvania long before the Hungarians and the Germans entered the country, that is, the theory of their continued existence there since the time of Trajan.
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The ideas of the Latinist movement (Transylvanian School) became successful tools in the political and national struggle and would be used for more than a century. The purpose of the authors was to demonstrate with their writings the legitimacy of the Romanians' claims, to enable the masses to understand their own interests, and, to a lesser degree, to contribute to the development of writing history. Polemical needs most often dictated the quality of arguments and the carefulness of research. [172] The political situation required a premise that could convince Romanians in different countries of their unity. This unity, determined by a common language of Roman origin, was strengthened by the theory of continuity in Dacia. [173] The fact that the authors' chief concerns were political ("to awaken, at all cost, the Romanian nation") [174] and ideological had, of course, a negative effect on the objectivity of their works. These works often arrive at conclusions that did not correspond to reality. [175]
With respect to the problems connected with the origin of the Romanians, Maior constructed a system of more or less plausible arguments, which led to the conclusion that because of the great hostility between the Roman conquerors and the Dacians, all Dacians fled the country. Maior maintained this because of the fierceness of Dacian opposition to the Romans and because of the Romans' custom of destroying their enemies (pp. 7-8). [176] Maior also purported that if any Dacian women remained in Dacia, the Romans did not marry them, because the wrath against the Romans there was nourished not only among the Dacian men but also among their women (p. 17).
Maior's Theories About the Presence of a Roman Population in Dacia After 275 A.D.
Maior, studying the historical sources, made a great effort to bridge over the gap between the abandonment of Trajan's Dacia by the Romans in 275 A.D. and the appearance of the Hungarians in the Carpathian Basin, a period nearly devoid of any reliable historical records. Beginning with the records concerning the Goths, Maior maintained that Dacia was reconquered by Constantine the Great (about 306-337), although, as is known, in Constantine's times merely a few bridgeheads and towns along the northern shore of the lower Danube, as well as the southern part of Oltenia, were under the domination of the Eastern Roman Empire. [177]
Maior discussed the Hunnish domination of Dacia and referred to reports by Priscus, a fifth century Byzantine historian who visited King Attila in his court and described his experiences. Someone
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named Zerhon Maurusius had amused the guests by mixing Hunnish, Gothic, and Ausonian words in his speech; and someone else at the table had spoken to Priscus in Latin (p. 65). From this report, Maior drew conclusions characteristic of his way of reasoning that the Huns knew the Latin and Gothic languages. Moreover, Maior quoted Otrococius, who "says that what Priscus called the language of the Ausonians was the Romanian language. It follows, therefore, that Attila and his lords knew Romanian." In Maior's view, "It is not surprizing that Attila and the other Huns knew Romanian, inasmuch as Attila and almost all the other Huns in that period were born and grew up in Dacia among Romanians. It also follows that in those times, a multitude of Romanians lived in Dacia and that there were many more Romanians than barbarians. . . . This is the case today in Transylvania, where the Romanians outnumber the Hungarians and the Saxons, who usually know the Romanian language, while there are very few Romanians who speak Hungarian and it is very surprising to find a Romanian who speaks the language of the Saxons." (pp 65-66)
Maior only wrote a few lines about the Gepidae and the Avars, who lived for several centuries in the Carpathian Basin. In 568 A.D. the Avars drove the Longobards out of Pannonia: All Avars no doubt, left Dacia, when they moved to Pannonia, because it was the custom of the barbarian peoples to live some time in a country and then, when they moved, for all to leave (p. 71). In Dacia, therefore, "only the Romans were left." (p. 71)
In the last section of the same chapter, Maior again took up the question of Roman continuity in Dacia, in answer to Johann Christian Engel, who claimed in Apendicea that even if a number of Romans had remained in Dacia Traiana after 275 A.D., it would be difficult to believe that they could have preserved their Latin identity and resisted assimilation with those numerous other peoples who were living there, while mixing with them,
Transylvania in the Tenth Century in Maior's Work
In chapter V Maior described at length the situation in Transylvania at the time of the Hungarian conquest (pp. 82-128) based almost entirely on the Gesta Hungarorum by King Bela's Notary. He considered most of the statements found in the Gesta to be reliable except that the writer had a special sympathy for the Hungarians and always described them as the victors. [178] Except for minor points, Maior took the Gesta Hungarorum very seriously, using it as the basis of hypothetical, detailed descriptions about the Romanians he assumed were living in Transylvania at that time.
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According to the Gesta, assumed Maior, the "Vlachs and the Slavs" elected the Hungarian chief Tuhutum as their leader similar to the election of the Hungarian leaders Álmos and Árpád. It was only when King Stephen (later canonized) subdued Gyula at the beginning of the eleventh century that the Romanians in Transylvania lost their independence. Furthermore, Maior inferred that the Romanians had received the Hungarians in Transylvania of their own will (p. 129), with the purpose of getting help in defending the country against outside attacks. He also claimed that the followers of Menumorout were Romanians despite the Notary's text, which said they were Chazars (p. 143).
There can now be little doubt that most of Maior's conclusions were mere imaginatory. He was also not above altering texts or deliberately misinterpreting them. Maior's nationalism necessarily led him to extremes and, like the other representatives of the Transylvanian School, he was intolerant of all those in disagreement with the glorious descriptions of the Romanian people.
As previously stated, the seventeenth century Moldavian and Muntenian chroniclers did not occupy themselves seriously with the problem of the absence of historical records about a Roman population north of the Danube after 275 A.D. They simply assumed, on the basis of their Humanist sources, that the Romanians had developed in the former province of Dacia Traiana. To them this was the most logical explanation. Maior, however, studied several historical records in search of references to Romans or Romanians. Finding none, he claimed that certain other peoples referred to were actually Romanians. Several of Maior's errors have been refuted by modern Romanian historians, although there is no consistent, critical analysis of his entire text. Many of his assertions are defended even now, and his Istoria is still considered by some as an important historical treatise.
THE ROMANTIC WRITING OF HISTORY
The Rise of Modern Nationalism in Europe
The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, which was initially rooted in Humanism, decisively changed the way of interpreting history: the nation became the focus of interest. At the beginning of the nineteenth century or, indeed, even in the last decades of the eighteenth century, the idea developed throughout Europe that the concept of the nation could only be defined by its history. Historiography, therefore, became a very important source of national consciousness, as did language, culture, and popular traditions.
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notions of "chronological primacy," "historical rights" and "nation" became essential elements of writing history. During this period, which became known as the age of Romanticism, the medieval myths of previous times were abandoned, historical theses revised, and fabrications exposed. At the same time, however, a new concept was created in the search for a justification for national continuity. The main emphasis of nineteenth century Romanticism was on nationalism, which developed as means of filling the need for an emotional and ethical ideology based on such principles as "the unity of a people" and "national independence. " The excesses of national fervor in the historical writings inevitably led to the rise of modern nationalism.Throughout Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries these trends in historiography prepared the way for national integration. Although the Romantics abandoned the medieval view of history, they turned to the legacy of national myths as a source of legitimacy for "national rights." It is therefore not surprising that "historical mythology" was revived: a writer with a vivid imagination could put together a glorious history outshining that of his adversaries. That was the best way for the peoples of Europe to become modern nations, that is, a group of people, usually speaking the same language and sharing a basic concept about their identity, origins, and place in history.
The later a nation established itself, the greater its emphasis on history, as can be seen in Central and Eastern Europe, where a whole new psychological situation was created at a relatively late date by the expulsion of the Turks. Nationalism, which had already declined in Western Europe, became a major movement in the East. Out of Romantic ideology grew the various forms of nationalism, which became increasing complicated and emotional in proportion to the number of ethnic groups involved. Not only the conflicts between the Western and Eastern (Byzantine) cultures but also those among the various ethnic groups created an almost unbridgeable gap. In contrast to the countries of Western Europe, the nationality question in the East was and has remained to the present a serious problem.
While in Western Europe nations had already been established as political units because of their linguistic and national unity, in Central Europe the creation of national states (Serbia, Romania, and Poland) was thhe primary task. The political factors involved in achieving this end made it necessary to maintain a nationalistic ideology. Ideas came to the fore that had long ceased to be of importance in Western Europe.
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Romanian Nationalism
The first signs of Romanian nationalism appeared with the revolution of the Romanian Principalities under Tudor Vladimirescu in 1821, as a reaction to centuries of Turkish domination and to suppression and exploitation by the Phanariots. [179] Later, liberation from Russia and the union of the two principalities played an important role. [180] Nationalism in the principalities therefore lacked the elements of a Latin origin and a basic unity of Romanians that were central points of nationalism in Transylvania and had arisen from the Church union and the writings of the Transylvanian School in the eighteenth century. Another difference between Transylvania and the principalities is the fact that in Wallachia and Moldavia the main supporters of nationalism were the boyars, the upper aristocracy, while in Transylvania it was a small group of intellectuals. The boyars sought more freedom and through the influence of French ideas brought the Balkans into closer contact with Western Europe. Fundamental difference, not the least with regard to their views about social problems, continued to arise between the nationalist movements in Transylvania and in the Romanian Principalities. [181] The history of the Transylvanian Romanians in the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries clearly shows that their political aim was to obtain equal rights. The claim of modern Romanian historians that the revolts during this time (Horea, Cloşca, and Crişan, for example) were of both a social and a nationalist nature is clearly absurd. They were, in fact, strictly antifeudal and not patriotic movements. It is true, however, that from the middle of the nineteenth century nationalist-Romantic ideas served the cause of nationalist movements. In the second and third decades of the nineteenth century Romanian nationalism became a more popular phenomenon. The national movement in Wallachia took up from Romanian refugees the idea of Latinity and the claim that Romanians were the descendants of the Dacians and the Romans. While the idea of Daco-Roman continuity was not the direct source of Romanian nationalism, it had a strong influence and later became a determining factor in the development of the movement insofar as it gave it an ideological basis. In this way the irredentist ideas of the Transylvanian Romanians and the efforts to unite all territories inhabited by ethnic Romanians found support in the Romanian Principalities by the end of the nineteenth century. [182]
It can be concluded that from its very beginnings Romanian nationalism had a political character. Its ideology contains pronounced medieval aspects insofar as it uses "ancient origin" and the "ancient
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occupation of territory" as the source of so-cailed historical rights. Early historical and ethnogenetical suppositions became the fundamental support for modern Romanian consciousness. [183] This ideology has also acted as a kind of psychological compensation for the failures of national development and as a justification for the country's rights to the territories gained after World War I: Transylvania, Bessarabia, the Bucovina, the Banat, and Dobrudja.
The Beginnings of Modern Romanian Historiography
Romanian historiography dates back to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the time of the Moldavian and Wallachian chronicles. Modern concepts in Romanian historiography became apparent at the end of the eighteenth century and in the first decades of the nineteenth century after the publication of works by the Transylvanian School and the systematization of the archives in the Romanian Principalities. Shortly thereafter, an intense period of writing history began, in the favorable climate after the union of the two principalities (1859). Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu (1838-1907) examined many historical documents and published critiques of them, and Ion Bogdan prepared a translation and critical edition of the Slav chronicles. The first compilation of Romanian history was written in this period by Alexandru D. Xenopol (1847-1920). The nationalistic ideology of the century in Europe required historical works that reflected a peoples glorious past, a characteristic that is also present in Xenopol's works.
There was a reaction against this nationalist-romantic way of writing history toward the end of the nineteenth century. [184] Ion Bogdan, for example, defying the nationalistic sentiments, pointed out the weaknesses of past Romanian leaders as well as the foreign influences exerted on the Romanians by their neighbors. These authors did not, however, write syntheses. They realized that there had not been sufficient preparatory work, and for this reason their influence on Romanian historiography is not significant.
During the decades before the First World War and for a time after, Nicolae Iorga (1871-1940), a man of great imagination and enormous productivity, was Romania's chief historian. Several of his works were published in West European languages and had a lasting influence on European public opinion. During the time of Iorga, nationalistic ideology was predominant in Romanian historiography. [185]
As previously stated, the Romanian language, like historiography in the nineteenth century, became a source of national consciousness. There were sufficient data about the Romanian language by the end of the nineteenth century for some far-reaching conclusions to be made,
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and it is no coincidence that the most significant departure from the traditional ideology of national sentiments came in the field of linguistics. With new information about the Romanian Balkan dialects, Italian dialects, Albanian, and South Slavic languages, only a qualified scholar was needed to establish the origin of the Romanian language. This scholar was Ovid Densusianu (1873-1938), who, in addition to his great knowledge and ability to synthetize, also refused to be influenced by public opinion. These were the first signs of the differences of opinion between the historians and linguists that exist to this day.
Densusianu's Histoire de la langue roumaine (1901), the first scientific history of the Romanian language, was a revelation. [186] In the introduction to this work, the author gave a concise review of the state of research on the history of Romanian and pointed out the difficulties in writing a synthesis. One of these difficulties was the scarcity of preparatory work; and the other main obstacle, encountered by everyone who wanted to make an objective, scientific analysis, was the prevailing nationalistic bias, because of which the most extravagant theories had been proposed and defended with an ardor, that only could hinder scholarship. [187] Stating that acceptance of the Latin origin of the Romanian language had nothing to do with where it was formed, Densusianu pointed out that the question of continuity north of the Danube had above all a political significance and that political considerations had heated up the debates about this problem. [188] Densusianu noted that Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, had also created hypotheses without a sound basis. Hasdeu had assumed, for example, the Dacian origin of a series of Romanian words and combined his theory with his ability to debate to make them sound convincing, often stating mere assumptions as fact.
It is obvious that in such an atmosphere, Densusianu could not hope to be understood and appreciated. In the preface, he stated that his work was meant for scholars with open minds, mostly foreign students of Romance languages, because "in several aspects our opinions differ from those current in Romania." [189] He noted that the "way in which we describe the formation of the Romanian language is not, in fact, what would satisfy the sensitivities of our fellow countrymen." [190] He warned his fellow Romanians to abandon outdated theories. [191]
With this work, the main problem of the origin of the Romanian language was clarified. This language contains vestiges from the time its speakers lived within the Roman Empire, in close contact with Italy and the Latin-speaking world. These characteristics appeared in Late Latin during the fourth through the seventh centuries A.D., thus,
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at a time when Dacia Traiana no longer belonged to the empire. The South Slavic influence shows signs of having reached the Romanians south of the Danube, indicating that they also lived there from the seventh to the twelfth centuries. These theories, well documented and presented in Densusianu's monumental work (the 1975 edition is 859 pages), also paved the way for historians, showing that the origins of the Romanian language were to be sought in the central parts of the Balkan Peninsula, south of the Danube and the Sava River. [192]
The Period Between the Two World Wars
After World War I ethnic Romanians were united into a unitary state. Obviously, this fulfillment of national goals must have had a great effect on the nationalist movement and ideology as well as on the writing of history. The younger generation of historians, however, was positively influenced by the new situation in that it endeavored to consider the national past in an objective manner. A similar goal was also set in the periodical Revista Istorică Română, which was founded in 1931 and edited by Constantin C. Giurescu, Gheorghe Brătianu, and Petre P. Panaitescu. First of all, Nicolae Iorga was criticized. In a brief survey published in several languages, Giurescu, after analyzing Iorga's work, came to the conclusion that Iorga had often made unsubstantiated statements, presented presuppositions as facts, had not taken the opinions of others into consideration, and had drawn unwarranted conclusions from isolated data. [193] Giurescu also pointed out the influence of foreign peoples on Romanian history, mentioning, among Western influences, also that of the Hungarians. The works produced by these young historians were based more on solid data than those by Iorga, although they did not abandon a certain national prejudice. This period did not, however, last long.
Traditional Romanian nationalism, supported by the Orthodox Church's domination over the spiritual life, encouraged an intolerant attitude toward non-Romanians as early as in the nineteenth century. An extremely nationalistic attitude appeared, especially among the Romanian middle classes and intellectuals at an early stage. Alexandru C. Cuza, a professor of political science at Iaşi University, preached anti-Semitism at the beginning of this century. He founded the National Democratic Party in 1909, adopting the swastica as its symbol. In the 1920s and 1930s Fascist ideas were being spread in Eastern Europe. Since these ideas originated in nationalism, the traditions of Romanian nationalism made them very easy to accept. The chief hallmark of the Romanian Fascist movement was the Romanian Legionary or Iron
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Guard movement [194] started between 1920 and 1923 as a student organization, first in Iaşi, then in Czernowitz, Bucharest, and in Cluj (Kolozsvár) in Transylvania. Its leaders were Corneliu Zelea (Zelinsky) Codreanu (1899-1938) and Ion Mota. The first expression of this movement rooted in "Romanianism," a religious-mystical nationalism, is to be found in Codreanu's organization, the "Association of Christian Students," established in Iaşi in 1922. In 1923 Codreanu and Alexandru C. Cuza formed the right-wing, anti-Semitic, political party, the League of National Christian Defense (Liga Apărării Naţionale Creştine). In 1927 the first independent political organization of Codreanu's movement, the "Legion of the Archangel Michael" (Legiunea Arhanghelului Mihail), was established. Its meetings were proceded by Orthodox religious services, primarily because the Orthodox clergy were among the strongest supporters of Codreanu's movement. The activist political unit of this organization, with its nationalistic political program, was the Garda de Fier (Iron Guard). Its name was adopted in 1930. It was banned in 1933 by the government of Ion G. Duca but was soon re-established as a formal political party, headed by Codreanu, under the name of Totul Pentru Ţară (All for the Fatherland). Outlawed again by the royal dictatorship in 1938, the Iron Guard finally came to power in September 1940 with the establishment of the "National Legionary State," a fascist military dictatorship led jointly by General Ion Antonescu and Horia Sima, the head of the Guard. The Iron Guard, however, was liquidated by Antonescu in 1941 following an unsuccessful rebellion by the legionaries; and many of its leaders were executed. [195] In that manner they shared the fate of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu and his closest associates, who had themselves been executed in November 1938 on orders of King Carol II.
The Iron Guard was a typical populist, national fascist organization — ritualistic, Christian-Orthodox, idealistic and romantic in character, antidemocratic and anti-Western, aiming at the moral regeneration of the nation and directed against domestic corruption and foreign influence, with the "personal dedication and sacrifice . . . [of] young fanatics ready to kill and be killed." [196] Later, however, the Iron guard became a terrorist, racist, anti-Semitic, and antiminority (at first anti-Hungarian) mass movement. Its members were primarily of peasant origin and included numerous young intellectuals. In 1937 the total membership was at least 200,000 and probably significantly higher. [197] In the elections of 1937 the Iron Guard received 500,000 votes. [198]
The magazine Gîndirea, edited by Nichifor Crainic and published in Cluj from 1921 to 1940, was considered the spiritual guide of Romanian nationalism after 1920. With its two main ideas, the return
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to historical tradition (the legacy of the Church) and service to the Romanian people, it continued to some extent the traditions of the periodical Semănătorul. [199] Toward the end of the 1930s Gîndirea adopted the fascist ideology.
THE DOMINATION OF MARXIST IDEOLOGY
The Period After the Second World War
It is a well-known fact that changes in political systems must be evaluated in the light of the historiography of a particular period. After the occupation of Romania by the Soviet Army in the autumn of 1944, the country was gradually transformed into a socialist state. Instead of nationalism, proletarian internationalism was proclaimed. The leaders of the nationalistic movements and a part of the upper middle class either fled the country during the war or were imprisoned. It took several years to indoctrinate historians to the point that they were able to follow the new ideas; those who had been most active during the so-called "bourgeois" period were not allowed to publish their works in the first years of socialism. In this way, important historians of the interwar period, such as Nicolae Iorga, Petre P. Panaitescu, Constantin C. Giurescu, Aurelian Sacerdoţeanu, Ion Moga, and others, were silenced. Interest at that time was directed predominantly toward the immediate past. In a 1952 textbook of Romanian history, for example, the creation of the first Romanian social organizations in the fourteenth century was given only seven lines. [200] Similarly, the problem of the origins of the Romanian language and people was scarcely mentioned in historical treatises.
With the introduction of historical materialism, the Marxist dogmatic-schematic writing of history was initiated, reaching its peak in the Russocentric "Roller-Period" (1947-1954). [201] According to an official decision in 1954 (during the period of "Russification"), the letter â was completely dropped and was replaced by î. In 1963 some of the orthographic changes were revoked: The word România and all its cognates were again written with â. [202] The dogmatic theses of Soviet historiography were uncritically adopted by all the countries of Eastern Europe except Yugoslavia. Historical writings had a conceptional and methodical orientation that gave predominance to politics and ideology. Marxist clichés, platitudes, and methodological deficiencies gained the ascendary. Traditional nationalism was displaced by internationalism, which, however, was not devoid of definite national characteristics.
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The dogmatic interpretation of history, introduced from abroad and imposed on Romania more or less artificially, had no real chance of changing the minds of historians and politicians. In Istoria Republicii Populare Române, [203] "bourgeoise historians," foreign as well as Romanian, were criticized; but instead of refuting errors and unfounded theories that had resulted from hypothesizing without material evidence, the criticism was aimed mainly at those who denied the theory of continuity. The official view, even then, was that a Romanized population had occupied Dacia Traiana and remained there through the centuries of the peoples' migration. [204]
Historical materialism and internationalism also provided an opportunity to establish cooperation in the field of historical research with neighboring countries. Such cooperation had been almost nonexistent during the "bourgeois" era; no real progress took place, however, in this area under socialism either. Until about 1960 the significance in Romanian history of the Slavs, especially of Russia, was stressed. In Istoria României (especially the first volume), for example, the role played by the ancient Slavs in the development of the "Daco-Romans" was considered very significant. It was necessary, for example, during the "Russification" of the Stalinist period to demonstrate the existence of Slavs in Transylvania through archaeological finds; "they had to be found." [205]
The Re-evaluation of Nationalism
As previously mentioned, the ideas of internationalism and historic materialism were not rooted in Romania; and the vigorous traditions of nationalism were revived through "de-Russification" after the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Romania (1958), a political and ideological turning point. Until the mid-1960s, a process was introduced in which the Romanian leaders abandoned internationalism step by step and changed to a national form (characteristic of the "bourgeois" era) of communism. This was partly a reaction to pressure from the Soviet Union and was also aimed at gaining some public support for the leadership. [206] Chauvinism, anti-Semitism, anti-Russian and anti-Hungarian attitudes, and excessive patriotism were integral parts of the new nationalism and were perhaps as important as social and economic reform. [207]
As a consequence of this new orientation, nationalism received increasing importance in the writing of history, and historians of the "bourgeois" period were increasingly given the opportunity of publishing their works. The first significant deviation from the ideology of the 1950s and from the influence of Soviet historiography came
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in the second volume (1962) of Istoria României. While the Moldavian Duke Stephen the Great (Ştefan cel Mare, 1457-1504), for example, was described in 1955 as a ruthless exploiter of the masses and his familial and political contacts with Kiev and Moscow were stressed, in volume II he was called a great defender of the freedom of Moldavia. [208] In the new volume, the Wallachian Prince, Michael the Brave (Mihail Viteazul, 1593-1601), was described as a hero who succeeded for the first time in uniting "the three Romanian countries"; and the peasant revolt in Transylvania (1599-1600) was said to have been strongly marked by Romanian discontent and solidarity with Romanians living outside the Carpathian region. [209] This exaggeration of the achievements of "heroic" historical figures, based on false analogies, has become characteristic of current Romanian historical writing. Michael the Brave, for example, is represented as having created the forerunner of Greater Romania by having "for the first time united all Romanian lands," even though the modern concept of the nation was unknown to him. The third volume of Istoria României (1963 and 1964) appeared shortly before the abrupt change in relations between the Romanian and Soviet Communist Parties in 1964. The worsening relations were accompanied by a change in ideology sharp enough to warrant the immediate publication of a new "third volume." There were not many changes; but they were of significance insofar as they put the emphasis on Romanian leaders and Romanians in general, rather than on the role of non-Romanians, particularly Russians.
A significant turning point in the writing of Romanian history occurred in 1965. A campaign was begun to reinterpret the national history; and the encouragement given to historians went far beyond that in any other East European country. The nineteenth century historical traditions were reformulated as a national mythology and a legitimator of historical rights. The concepts of "national" and "progressive" became central to a system in which the "national" took precedence in every case over Marxist-Leninist ideology. Everything that was labeled "national" and "progressive" was positive, and what was negative was antinational and antiprogressive; the national aspect gained equal significance with class considerations. Some parts of the texts are often kept unchanged, some are changed, biased, or falsificated, and others—such as significant data—are deliberately omitted to obtain the desired historical picture. [210]
History and Ideology
Since the mid-1960s the glorification of national history has been used to give the government some degree of legitimacy in the face
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of the country's external and serious domestic problems: in external politics to justify historically the possession of territories gained after World War I, and domestically to gain popular support for the regime's current policies and at the same time draw attention away from the country's internal problems. By historical rights is meant the claim to the territory that comprises present-day Romania as derived from the historical continuity of the Romanians.
Party and state leader Nicolae Ceauşescu proposed theses and leitmotifs about the evolution of history and is committed to establishing communist Romania as the crowning point in the historical continuity of Romanian state and national history starting from the legendary Dacian King Burebista, who was supposed to have created the first centralized and independent Dacian state more than two millenia ago, [211] and extending to himself. In the process, a good deal of "continuity" has been invented, which has been all the easier to do inasmuch as historical materialism had freely permitted historical revisions on the basis of contemporary dogmas and political opportunism. In this manner historiography becomes ever more remote from scientific requirements and performs a triple function: as executor of the irrefutable official line decreed by the Party; an instrument for deepening a sense of national identity; and a tool for persuading foreign readers unacquainted with the historic facts. This concept of history, characterized by militant ideological and political motivations and a schematical form in which myth and reality are confused, is obviously, like any other dogmatic synthesis, not in conformity with realities.
Characteristic of the contemporary Romanian historiographical orientation is the revival of nationalism, which survived uninterrupted from the nineteenth century through interwar bourgeois nationalism to 1947. In the last two decades there has been a shifting of emphasis of historical themes. The patriotic and nationalist aspects have gained precedence over Marxist ideology, although in certain works nationalist and dogmatic Marxist ideas are still closely linked. [212] Thematic emphasis has been put on the ethnogenesis of the Romanians, [213] national unity (the unification of all ethnic Romanians into a unitary state), national independence, and demonstrations of patriotism (that is, a right-wing nationalism under the guise of "socialist patriotism"). The theories of Daco-Roman continuity and Romanity were stressed more strongly than before World War II. Works with these themes account for an overwhelmingly large share of all the historical works and monographs published in Romania. Political commitment is of greater importance than even scholarly considerations. [214]
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Not only historiography, but also other related disciplines, such as linguistics, archaeology, anthropology, historical statistics, demography, and ethnography, are promoted. Three years of Romanian history have been compulsory in the elementary schools since 1977; and university departments require a survey of Romanian history and recommend Latin, in view of the Latin roots and "Daco-Roman" continuity. The extent to which historiography has grown in importance can be seen in the increasing rehabilitation of previously outlawed "bourgeois" historians, such as Constantin C. Giurescu, Constantin Daicoviciu, Petre P. Panaitescu, and others, whose sharply nationalist interpretation of history can again be of use. Even many respected scholars are not without a commitment to militant Marxism or national subjectivity. [215]
After the 11th Congress of the Romanian Communist Party, held from November 24 to 27, 1974, Romanian historiography assumed a specific and Party-dictated political function. Historical facts and events of several centuries earlier, of the medieval and early modern periods, are interpreted through the prism of contemporary ideologies. It is evident that the dual insistence on the ideas of the nation and of ideology, which is so prevalent in historiography, does violence to theoretical and methodological principles. In summary, it is fair to say that during the 1970s Romanian historical writing lent itself to more and more exaggerated statements and hypotheses, which were presented as irrefutable facts, albeit unsupported by demonstrable evidence. Positions incompatible with official theses were unacceptable. Romanian historiography had to promote the peoples instruction according to nationalistic and Marxist interpretations. Indicative of these trends was the subordination of historical research to the Party's "Section for Culture and Propaganda." The increasing publication of historical works in foreign languages is designed to intensify Romanian propaganda abroad. [216]
Historical writing has focused on the history of Transylvania with a view to proving Romania's historical rights to that territory. In an ideological speech about Transylvania made to historians, the head of the Party and State, Nicolae Ceauşescu, postulated that the Daco-Roman origins and continuity of the Romanian people in Transylvania would become the fundamental premise of all ideological, theoretical, and political-educational activities. [217] Political considerations require that the emphasis be put on the Dacian component of "Daco-Roman" and that the lands of the "Thraco-Dacians" constantly be expanded in order to legitimize the possession of Romania's present territories. [218]
Omissions, truncations, and falsifications are the most relevant features of historical writings on Transylvania. Above all, Transylvania,
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which belonged to Hungary until 1918, is regarded as a former Romanian principality just as Moldavia and Wallachia are. The history of Transylvania is, therefore, presented strictly as an integral part of Romanian national history. Neither the determining role of Hungary nor the significant contribution of the Transylvanian Saxons to the history of Transylvania is taken into account; instead, the centuries-long national and social struggles of the Romanian people for independence, which are represented as irresistible, legitimate, and progressive, are presented. [219] National unity is presumed a priori and is the preconceived basis of false analogies, myths, hypotheses, and historical facts deliberately taken out of context.
The union of Transylvania with the old kingdom is depicted as a fundamental preconception, interpreted as a natural historical evolution. At the same time, in direct contradiction to reality, it is claimed that a significant proportion of the Hungarians of Transylvania favored the union. [220] The desire to justify historical rights from a nationalistic standpoint is achieved at the expense of scholarship. [221]
The peasant uprisings in Transylvania, such as the common rebellion of Hungarians and Romanians of 1437, is described as purely Romanian and, as such, a link in the chain of uprisings for national independence. The concepts of "class struggle" and "nationality" are fused into one. The history of the peoples' settlements and ethnic development of Transylvania is subject to like interpretations. Contrary to international usage, old Hungarian and German place names, as well as the names of historical figures, have been changed into Romanian without any reference to the original language. Party chief Nicolae Ceauşescu declared at the Second International Thracian Congress, held in Bucharest in September 1976, that "we are dealing with an idea."