Debate over Transylvania

[Cimbye]

Holy crap...what a history

Russians liberated Europe??? LOL! Russians INVADED half Europe and I thiink they weren't much better than nazis. They created puppet states in spite of the fact that they promised for free elections to be kept in the occupied countries.

Soviet Union annexed Kárpátalja and because and of this they gave Czechslovakia 11 200km2 from Hungary that we retrieved lawfully, and they gived North-Transylvania to Romania (reward for they turned to the Soviet Unions side and as amends for annexing bessarabia)wich is lawfully ours too and they give Vojdvina to Yugoslavia(Tito) as reward too. And they created a brain wash education to Hungary to forget about Trianon, our acient lands and history and they let the neighbouring countries to try to asslimilate the Hungarians. But we didn't forget about this! (See 1956 october 23, Budapest)

Russia Invaded Poland (Ribbentropp-Molotov pact), Bessarabia from romania wich belongs to romania rightfully (I admit that) and after the war they kept the invaded eastern Polish lands and Sovien Union annexed Lihuania, Estonia, Latvia and they took land from finland. OH WHAT A SAVIOURS!

Now they want to restore Soviet Union and they attacked Georgia....

[Dromikaites]

Soviet Union annexed Kárpátalja and because and of this they gave Czechslovakia 11 200km2 from Hungary that we retrieved lawfully, and they gived North-Transylvania to Romania (reward for they turned to the Soviet Unions side and as amends for annexing bessarabia)wich is lawfully ours too and they give Vojdvina to Yugoslavia(Tito) as reward too.

Come again?! Northern Transylvania "lawfully" yours?

When Hitler and Mussolini forced the Romanian government to hand over Northern Transylvania to Hungary in August 1940 the Hungarians were still a minority in that territory with the Romanians representing the dominant ethnic group (1.3 million Romanians, 860,000 Hungarians and 150,000 Jews). What followed was a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Romanian population and the virtual extermination of the Jewish population from Northern Transylvania which was rounded up and sent to the German concentration camps.

I tell you what: pay a visit to the so-called "Merry Cemetery". You will see there about 30 graves of Romanian peasants from that village killed by the "brave" Hungarian army and military police. The scenes of their deaths are carved on the tombstones. You'll be delighted to see an assortment of beheadings, burnings alive, shots in the back of the head, all performed by Hungarians in uniforms, not by some out of control mob. Such a visit works miracles on the Hungarians as I happened to witness myself on one occasion: they go pale white, stare at the ground and apologize in soft voices, usually adding "we have learned nothing about that in school".

[Cimbye]

Come again?! Northern Transylvania "lawfully" yours?

When Hitler and Mussolini forced the Romanian government to hand over Northern Transylvania to Hungary in August 1940 the Hungarians were still a minority in that territory with the Romanians representing the dominant ethnic group (1.3 million Romanians, 860,000 Hungarians and 150,000 Jews). What followed was a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Romanian population and the virtual extermination of the Jewish population from Northern Transylvania which was rounded up and sent to the German concentration camps.

I tell you what: pay a visit to the so-called "Merry Cemetery". You will see there about 30 graves of Romanian peasants from that village killed by the "brave" Hungarian army and military police. The scenes of their deaths are carved on the tombstones. You'll be delighted to see an assortment of beheadings, burnings alive, shots in the back of the head, all performed by Hungarians in uniforms, not by some out of control mob. Such a visit works miracles on the Hungarians as I happened to witness myself on one occasion: they go pale white, stare at the ground and apologize in soft voices, usually adding "we have learned nothing about that in school".

Yes Transylvania is lawfully ours!

I don't care that you are moderator but Hungarian opinion will never change and I will always say that Transylvania is Hungarian! This is not and insult, this is only our point.

I bet you never heard about Horea and their oláh rebellion.

"Kill all Hungarians who don't wand to turn romanian religion" Horea's order

The rebells killed the hungarian people of 389 settlements.

Just a few example

Date Settlement Killed Hungarians
1848. október 12. Kisenyed (Sângătin) 140
1848. október Magyarigen (Ighiu) 176 family
1848. október Asszonynépe (Asînip) 86
1848. október Boklya (Bochia) 30
1848. október Borosbocsárd (Bucerdea Vinoasǎ) 73
1848. október Bugyfalva (Budeşti) 77
1848. október Csáklya (Cetea) 67
1848. október Forrószeg (Forosig) 54
1848. október Mikeszásza (Micăsasa) almost all
1848. október Zám (Zam) 7
1848. október 20. körül Balázsfalva (Blaj) térsége 400
1848. október Alvinc (Vinţu de Jos) 2 peace emissary
1848. október Sárd (Şard) környéke 3000
1848. október Algyógy (Geoagiu) 85
1848. október 24. Ompolygyepüi (Presaca Ampoiului) 700 zalatnai magyar[7]
1848. november 13. Felvinc (Unirea) 200
1849. január 8. Nagyenyed (Aiud) 800
1849. január 18. Marosnagylak (Noşlac), Hari (Heria), Marosdécse (Decea), Inakfalva (Inoc), Felvinc (Unirea) 100
1849. január Marosújvár (Ocna Mureş) 90
1848. december 14. Kővárhosszúfalu (Satulung), Bácsfalva (Bacea), Türkös (?), Alsócsernáton (Cernat), Tatrang (Tărlungeni), Zajzon (Zizin), Pürkerec (Purcăreni) 980 Gerendkeresztúr (Grindeni) 200
1848. október 28. Borosbenedek (Benic) the whole village
1848. október Székelykocsárd (Lunca Mureşului) 60
1848. Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia) 400
1848. október Naszód (Năsăud) 200
1848. október Borbánd (Bărăbanţ) 74
1848. október 25. Kőrösbánya (Baia de Criş) és Cebe (Ţebea) között the whole Brády-family 1848. október Radnót (Iernut) környéke the wlole village and sorroundings
1849. május Abrudbánya (Abrud) 1100
1849. május Bucsesd (Buceş) 20
The murders written down in the above table were executed exceptionally cruelly many times: limbs sawing, alive burning, alive into ground digging, a plough catch, blinding, into a picket pull ect. The women's, girls' rape was a feature.


Romania's resident with 2.898.356 Hungarian nationalities was in 1944, only 2.217.897 Hungarians were listed in the church register, the party's register and other administrative data already in 1974, from among them 236.981 were born after 1945, the survivors' number so 1.980.916 , taking them into consideration who you bury – between 1944 and 74 altogether 194.562 – there is not news from the missing 722.878 Hungarians.A part of theirs escaped from the country, many people – cca. 100.000 were carried off according to assumptions and the carpathians too settled down, that let them assimilate there and let Romanians be allowed to be settled down into their place. Another cca. 100.000 men were murdered in the course of the 1944 massacres, and cca. 50.000 they dragged onto the Russian gulag. Many men were carried off furthermore onto forced labour into the Danube delta, and it was thrown into a mass grave because of the malnutrition, and illness simply there, deceased because of an other other reason. Likewise considerable the number of those victims who Romanian Securitate arrested and torchered into death.

Anti-Hungarians nowadays
The former mayor of Cluj Napoca, Gheorghe Funar (1992-2004) limited a lot of the local Hungarian minority's life, his activity, his local government made anti-Hungarian manifestations many times, guiding concerning demonstrations.

Stirring up the anti-Hungarian on one organized many times happens. From a viewpoint like this Vatra Românească is at the forefront of Romania




You romanians aren't even good like you say because you killed and humiliated many hungarians too

[Dracula]

I always thought Romania has Transylvania from Roman times. Whose was it then or where did the Northern border of the Empire pass through ?

[Adrian]

Yes Transylvania is lawfully ours!

I don't care that you are moderator but Hungarian opinion will never change and I will always say that Transylvania is Hungarian! This is not and insult, this is only our point.

I bet you never heard about Horea and their oláh rebellion.

"Kill all Hungarians who don't wand to turn romanian religion" Horea's order

The rebells killed the hungarian people of 389 settlements.

Just a few example

Date Settlement Killed Hungarians
1848. október 12. Kisenyed (Sângătin) 140
1848. október Magyarigen (Ighiu) 176 family
1848. október Asszonynépe (Asînip) 86
1848. október Boklya (Bochia) 30
1848. október Borosbocsárd (Bucerdea Vinoasǎ) 73
1848. október Bugyfalva (Budeşti) 77
1848. október Csáklya (Cetea) 67
1848. október Forrószeg (Forosig) 54
1848. október Mikeszásza (Micăsasa) almost all
1848. október Zám (Zam) 7
1848. október 20. körül Balázsfalva (Blaj) térsége 400
1848. október Alvinc (Vinţu de Jos) 2 peace emissary
1848. október Sárd (Şard) környéke 3000
1848. október Algyógy (Geoagiu) 85
1848. október 24. Ompolygyepüi (Presaca Ampoiului) 700 zalatnai magyar[7]
1848. november 13. Felvinc (Unirea) 200
1849. január 8. Nagyenyed (Aiud) 800
1849. január 18. Marosnagylak (Noşlac), Hari (Heria), Marosdécse (Decea), Inakfalva (Inoc), Felvinc (Unirea) 100
1849. január Marosújvár (Ocna Mureş) 90
1848. december 14. Kővárhosszúfalu (Satulung), Bácsfalva (Bacea), Türkös (?), Alsócsernáton (Cernat), Tatrang (Tărlungeni), Zajzon (Zizin), Pürkerec (Purcăreni) 980 Gerendkeresztúr (Grindeni) 200
1848. október 28. Borosbenedek (Benic) the whole village
1848. október Székelykocsárd (Lunca Mureşului) 60
1848. Gyulafehérvár (Alba Iulia) 400
1848. október Naszód (Năsăud) 200
1848. október Borbánd (Bărăbanţ) 74
1848. október 25. Kőrösbánya (Baia de Criş) és Cebe (Ţebea) között the whole Brády-family 1848. október Radnót (Iernut) környéke the wlole village and sorroundings
1849. május Abrudbánya (Abrud) 1100
1849. május Bucsesd (Buceş) 20
The murders written down in the above table were executed exceptionally cruelly many times: limbs sawing, alive burning, alive into ground digging, a plough catch, blinding, into a picket pull ect. The women's, girls' rape was a feature.


Romania's resident with 2.898.356 Hungarian nationalities was in 1944, only 2.217.897 Hungarians were listed in the church register, the party's register and other administrative data already in 1974, from among them 236.981 were born after 1945, the survivors' number so 1.980.916 , taking them into consideration who you bury – between 1944 and 74 altogether 194.562 – there is not news from the missing 722.878 Hungarians.A part of theirs escaped from the country, many people – cca. 100.000 were carried off according to assumptions and the carpathians too settled down, that let them assimilate there and let Romanians be allowed to be settled down into their place. Another cca. 100.000 men were murdered in the course of the 1944 massacres, and cca. 50.000 they dragged onto the Russian gulag. Many men were carried off furthermore onto forced labour into the Danube delta, and it was thrown into a mass grave because of the malnutrition, and illness simply there, deceased because of an other other reason. Likewise considerable the number of those victims who Romanian Securitate arrested and torchered into death.

Anti-Hungarians nowadays
The former mayor of Cluj Napoca, Gheorghe Funar (1992-2004) limited a lot of the local Hungarian minority's life, his activity, his local government made anti-Hungarian manifestations many times, guiding concerning demonstrations.

Stirring up the anti-Hungarian on one organized many times happens. From a viewpoint like this Vatra Românească is at the forefront of Romania




You romanians aren't even good like you say because you killed and humiliated many hungarians too

Hungarians like you should get their head out of their ass and live in the modern world today there is no borders between our countries and you can come live in Transylvania without fear of discrimination if you so choose.

The issues between our countries and the hatred have a long history but now that we are both in the EU i dont see the need to be ing fighting over Transylvania you can live there i can live there so get the over it Im not gonna start talking about atrocities with you witch you know very well your people committed too.

flames removed- HA

[Dracula]

and be happy you still have a country.

[Cimbye]

I always thought Romania has Transylvania from Roman times. Whose was it then or where did the Northern border of the Empire pass through ?

Wrong. Your dákó-roma crap theory is garbage!

flames removed - HA

[StarDreamer]

Hungarians like you should get their head out of their ass and live in the modern world today there is no borders between our countries and you can come live in Transylvania without fear of discrimination if you so choose.

The issues between our countries and the hatred have a long history but now that we are both in the EU i dont see the need to be ing fighting over Transylvania you can live there i can live there so get the over it Im not gonna start talking about atrocities with you witch you know very well your people committed too.

So stfu and be happy you still have a country.

I think your point is quite right, that there is no reason to fight over it since both can live there now without any limitations, but you delivered it a bit roughly. =)

There is no need to fight over it since, the only real things that are limited by today's border is who is lifting the tax from that place. If there would be any injustice happening in the region today the European human rights court would be handing out punishment to the controller of the region.

Lets just be friends and forget historical grudges. Face it a lot of regions in Europe has been contested by different nations in the past. Luckily the EU is there to stop such things nowadays.

[Dracula]

Well, Rome rules. That should go for the heirs as well. Romania rules. Case closed.

In Europe many people don't live in a national country. For example the austrians don't live in Germany and are still happy. The hungarians must get used.

[Dromikaites]

Yes Transylvania is lawfully ours!

Perfect, feel free to explain why

I don't care that you are moderator but Hungarian opinion will never change and I will always say that Transylvania is Hungarian! This is not and insult, this is only our point.

Huh? What does my rank of moderator have with the issue?

I bet you never heard about Horea and their oláh rebellion.

You mean the peasant uprising of 1784 led by Horea, Closca and Crisan? How can we not know about it since it's a major event in our history?

"Kill all Hungarians who don't wand to turn romanian religion" Horea's order

We're talking about a peasant uprising against the Hungarian noblemen which happened 225 years ago and in which the religious differences were also factored in.

What you fail to notice is in spite of being a revolt against the abusive behavior of the nobility the nobles were not executed French-Revolution style just for being abusive aristocrats: no matter how they've mishandled their peasants before they had the option to save their lives by converting to Orthodoxy. In the simple minds of the peasants, converting to the "true religion" was a proof the nobleman, no matter how cruel and abusive might have behaved previously, sincerely regretted his behavior. And repentance brought pardon.

The rebells killed the hungarian people of 389 settlements.

The rebels killed the noblemen in 389 settlements. And if you want to argue numbers do yourself a favor and come up with some academic sources, preferably neutral ones

Romania's resident with 2.898.356 Hungarian nationalities was in 1944, only 2.217.897 Hungarians were listed in the church register, the party's register and other administrative data already in 1974, from among them 236.981 were born after 1945, the survivors' number so 1.980.916 , taking them into consideration who you bury – between 1944 and 74 altogether 194.562 – there is not news from the missing 722.878 Hungarians.A part of theirs escaped from the country, many people – cca. 100.000 were carried off according to assumptions and the carpathians too settled down, that let them assimilate there and let Romanians be allowed to be settled down into their place.

I'm a bit confused:

1. You mean the church registers account for less Hungarians than what you claim their numbers had actually been?

2. 2,217,897 (your numbers according to the church registers) - 1,980,916 = 236,981 people missing from 1944 till 1973.

Do you know what happened in Transylvania from August 23 1944 till October 25 1944?

It happened WW2 with the Romanian army and the Red Army fighting the German and Hungarian armies.

Then from 1944 till 1958 when the Russians withdrew their troops from Romania it happened 2 mass deportations: the first between 1944 and 1948 when on several occasions "fascist minorities" (=Hungarians and Germans) were deported to Siberia by the Soviet authorities.

The second wave of arrests and deportations happened in 1956 because many Hungarians in Romania expressed their solidarity with the Hungarian Anti-communist revolution.

Add to that the 1947 drought that hit Romania and resulted in the death through starvation of many citizens, irrespective of their ethnic origins.

When you have a World War, two soviet mass deportations and a drought I think the difference is easy to account for.

Another cca. 100.000 men were murdered in the course of the 1944 massacres

A claim which you undoubtedly can substantiate from neutral sources, right?

The former mayor of Cluj Napoca, Gheorghe Funar (1992-2004) limited a lot of the local Hungarian minority's life, his activity, his local government made anti-Hungarian manifestations many times, guiding concerning demonstrations.

I'm sure you can prove how the life of the Hungarian minority was hindered, especially given the Hungarian minority's party was part of the ruling government coalitions since 1996 onwards without any interruptions. Kind of hard for a mayor of a city to oppress the people who are represented in the government of the country for most of his term in office, don't you think?

Stirring up the anti-Hungarian on one organized many times happens. From a viewpoint like this Vatra Românească is at the forefront of Romania

For all practical purposes Vatra Romaneasca (a nationalist organization) is dead since more than 10 years now due to lack of popular support for its ideas.

You romanians aren't even good like you say because you killed and humiliated many hungarians too

And you have of course documented evidence for that, other than a peasant uprising which happened 225 years ago, which targeted the noblemen not the general Hungarian population and which resulted in the Austrian emperor Joseph II decreeing the peasants obligations towards the noblemen should be paid in cash instead of labor (since the labor-related abuses had resulted in the uprising).

Wrong. Your dákó-roma crap theory is garbage!

And of course you will take the time to explain why, won't you?

[Cimbye]

I was talking about 1848 not 1784. See the dates what I wrote!
Do you wan sources?? OK

• Dr. Kosztin Árpád: Magyarellenes román kegyetlenkedések Erdélyben, Budapest, 1998
• ^ Florin Constantiniu: De la "bunul împărat" la "Rex Daciae", Magazin istoric, 1984/11. szám, 17. old.
• ^ Czire Dénes: A román nemzeti mozgalmak célja, módszerei és eredményei, Magyar Fórum, 1995/9, 22. old.)
• ^ Cseres Tibor: Vérbosszú Bácskában
• ^ Vikman Zsuzsa: A zentai emberfejkoszorú
• ^ a b Domokos Pál Péter: Rendületlenül, Eötvös Kiadó-Szent Gellért Egyházi Kiadó, 1989, 33.-34. old.
• ^ a b Mátyás Vilmos: Utazások Erdélyben, Panoráma, 1977, 56. old.
• ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Hilda von Klausenburg: Magyarellenes atrocitások Erdélyben és Romániában: 1784-1956
• ^ a b c Gracza György: Az 1848/49-es magyar szabadságharc története, Budapest, Wodianer F. és Fiai kiadása, 337. és 339. old.
• ^ Jancsó Benedek: Erdély története, Cluj-Kolozsvár, Minerva Irodalmi és Nyomdai Műintézet Rt., 1931, 213. old.
• ^ Raffay Ernő: A vajdaságoktól a birodalomig – Az újkori Románia története, JATE Kiadó, Szeged, 1989, 171. old.
• ^ J. Kovács Andrea: Édentől keletre – avagy van-e élet a tündérkerten túl?
• ^ Horror videó 50 ezer délvidéki magyar '44-es kiirtásáról (kuruc.info)
• ^ Genocide in Transylvania, Danubian Press, Inc., 1985, Astor, Florida
• ^ Erdélyi riport"Funar: semmi gond, beolvasztjuk", "Márciusi szelek fújnak Kolozsváron"

Hungarian tribes occupied the Carpathian Basin, including Transylvania, during the ninth century. The first Christian King of Hungary, St. Stephen, was crowned in the year 1000. From that time on, right up to 1920, Transylvania was part of the Kingdom of Hungary. At first, the horse-riding, cattle-raising Hungarians settled in the river valleys of central Transylvania. The defence of the eastern borders was entrusted by the kings of the House of Árpád (the first Hungarian royal family) to one of the Hungarian ethnic groups, the Székelys (Szeklers). The southern borders of Transylvania were settled in the 12th century by colonists invited from the Holy Roman Empire, i.e. Germany. In Hungary these German settlers were known as Transylvanian Saxons. While most Transylvanian peasants were serfs of the nobility, the Szeklers retained their status of free soldiers, and the Saxons obtained the right of self-government.

The ancestors of the Romanians first appeared in the high mountains of South-Transylvania towards the end of the eleventh century. They were shepherds who migrated in from Wallachia and lived in scattered settlements in the mountains. They were distinguished from the roman Catholic Hungarians and Saxons by belonging to the Greek Orthodox religion. Towards the end of the fifteenth century, Transylvania had a population of about 800,000, of whom 65% were Hungarians, the rest split evenly between Saxons and Romanians.

In 1526 the Kingdom of Hungary was defeated by an invading Turkish army in the battle of Mohács, the King himself dying on the battlefield. The heart of the country was conquered by the Turks, while its western and northern parts passed, together with the Hungarian crown, to the Habsburgs in Vienna. Transylvania became an autonomous principality, paying tribute to the Turks, but ruled by Hungarian princes. This principality, now Protestant, became for a time the center of Hungarian culture, and it was here that the political traditions of Hungary survived at their best. At the end of the 17th century the Turks were expelled from Hungary by a coalition of Christian armies, and Hungary regained its unity. The Habsburgs however, although Kings of Hungary, did not allow Transylvania to be administered by the Hungarian authorities, and ruled it directly from Vienna.

Living mostly in the plains, the Hungarians had borne the brunt of the warfare against the Turkish and Mongolian invaders during the preceding two centuries. Consequently, their numbers were heavily reduced. Meanwhile the Romanians, protected against the invaders by being high up in the mountains, had increased their numbers considerably. Their population was further increased during the 18th century by the influx from Wallachia of numerous refugees fleeing rulers installed by the Turks. By the middle of the 18th century the number of Romanians in Transylvania had increased to 50% of the population. This was the period of national awakening among Romanians, when the theory of Daco-Romanian continuity was invented. According to this theory, Romanians are the descendants of the Dacians and of Roman legionaries, and Transylvania is theirs by right of inheritance.

After the Hungarian revolution of 1848 against Habsburg rule, the Transylvanian Diet (Parliament) voted union of the principality with Hungary. After the defeat of the Hungarian War of Independence in 1849, this union was dissolved in Vienna, but it was restored when the Austro-Hungarian Empire was established in 1867.

With the Trianon Peace Treaty (1920) that followed World War I, Hungary lost to Romania not only historical Transylvania, but also parts of the Hungarian plain bordering in the north and west, in total disregard of the ethnological realities. Among the inhabitants there were 1.650,000 Hungarians. The newly created Great Rumania, whose national minorities included Germans, Ukrainians, Serbs, Jews, Armenians and others in addition to Hungarians, declared itself a 'national' state, which endeavoured, in all fields of activity, to diminish the influence of minorities - in particular that of the Hungarian minority, judged to be the most dangerous.
These infringements of minority rights were in complete disregard of the engagements undertaken by Romania at the Peace Conference, where full protection had been promised to national minorities.

The Second Vienna Award in 1940 cut Transylvania in half. Northern Transylvania and the region inhabited by the Székelys (Szeklers) were returned to Hungary. However, the Paris Peace Treaty following World War II restored once again the boundaries established by the Treaty of Trianon.

After 1945, while Prime Minister Groza was the leader of Romania, there was a brief flicker of hope that Romania would assure the economic and cultural development of its Hungarian minority, by then over 2 million strong. But starting in the 1950's an opposing trend prevailed: the increasingly clear aim of the Romanian Government became the crushing and assimilation of the Hungarian and other minorities in the country. This policy has gone to extreme lengths under President Ceausescu: the Hungarian universities and other historic Hungarian education institutions were closed, Hungarian primary schools are constantly diminishing in number, Hungarian-language theatres are closed or are forced to show Romanian plays, there are hardly any Hungarian books published and Hungarian-language newspapers are simply transmitters of official Romanian nationalist propaganda. Hungarians rarely get into managerial positions, the great majority of Hungarian students can only attend Romanian-language primary and secondary schools, and a Hungarian can hardly ever get into university.

No Hungarian cultural institutions survive, books and newspapers published in Hungary are not allowed across the border, and the use of the Hungarian language is prohibited in public places. There has been a systematic settlement of non-Hungarians into purely Hungarian-inhabited areas in order to break up their continuity. Historical Hungarian cities, such as Kolozsvár (Cluj-Napoca), Nagyvárad (Oradea) and Marosvásárhely (Tirgu-Mures), are flooded by the influx of Romanians. Hungarian intellectuals are moved to Moldavia or Wallachia, while teachers and civil servants moved to Transylvania speak Romanian only. Workers in some factories are forced to move with their families to 'old' Romania, to be replaced by ethnic Romanians. The Romanian families receive as an incentive a resettlement allowance.

Several thousand Hungarian villages in Transylvania have been declared 'unviable' to be bulldozed into the ground, and their population to be forcibly scattered and resettled in Romanian-speaking areas. The press, broadcast media and the schools all present Transylvania as historically Romanian territory, where the Hungarians are 'barbarian and fascist invaders, who for centuries had oppressed and exterminated the peaceful and civilized Romanians'.

To divert attention from the inhuman living conditions and the disastrous economic situation in the country, government propaganda turns Hungarians into scapegoats, blaming them for all problems. The hatred stirred up against Hungarians is such that their daily life is filled with terror. There are frequent atrocities against them, and nothing is done against the perpetrators. If anyone dares to protest, he is imprisoned or sentenced to forced labour in the Danube delta camps.

By Dr. Kálmán Benda, Historian, Institute of History, Budapest, 1988.

[Dracula]

I don't think it's the smartest idea to post all sources in hungarian.

[Cimbye]

Rumania will celebrate this year (1980 LK) the 2050th anniversary of ,,the creation of the first centralized and independent Dacian state". They will claim that the Dacians were the ancestors of the Rumanian people and this will be propagated also in several Western countries. Behind this claim, there is the theory of Roman continuity in Dacia Traiana. It is now official ideology in Rumania, and no criticism of it is allowed. It is therefore necessary to investigate the circumstances behind this peculiar celebration and to provide an objective analysis of its significance and the theory behind it.


1. The Appearance of the Theory of Continuity The historical background

As shown by historical records[1], archaeological finds[2], and ancient Hungarian place-names[3], most of Transylvania was populated by Hungarians during the 10th-12th centuries. Until the mid 16th century, it was part of Hungary. During the 12th and 13th centuries, Saxons (Germans) were settled, in certain areas, especially in the south. After the occupation of large parts of Hungary by the expanding Turkish empire in the mid-16th century, Transylvania became independent and continued, for centuries to come, the traditions of Hungary. Towards the end of the 17th century, the Turks were driven out of Hungary, and Transylvania was subjugated by the Habsburg empire.

The first document mentioning Rumanians in Transylvania refers to the year 1210 A.D. [cf. B. Jancsó: Erdély Története (The History of Transylvania) , Cluj-Kolozsvár, 1931, p. 42]. Their number was, however, in the first centuries after their appearance, very low. This is apparent from the analysis of place-names. An investigation of the place-names of villages existing today gives the following picture: Before the end of the 13th century, the names of 511 villages in Transylvania and in the Banat appear in documents, of which only three are of Rumanian origin.

Up to 1400 A.D. 1757 villages are mentioned, out of which 76 (4.3%) have names of Rumanian origin (cf. Kniezsa, 1943, p. 158.). In the following centuries the number of Rumanians continued to increase: in the 1700s, they amounted to about 40% of the total population. During the 18th century, the number of Rumanians in Transylvania increased even more. The cause of this was mainly the immigration of peasants from Muntenia and Moldavia, the Rumanian countries, where they lived in squalor, being exploited by the Turks as well as by their own lords.

Although quite a few Transylvanian Rumanians were granted nobility by the Habsburgs during the 18th century, most of the Rumanians remained bondsmen and shepherds. Meanwhile, the ideas of the Reformation and Enlightenment have found vigorous resonance among the Hungarians and Saxons of Transylvania. In the spirit of these ideas, many of them considered that it was their duty to further the cultural advancement of the Rumanians. It was in Transylvania that the Rumanian language was first introduced as the liturgical language of the Byzantine Rite Catholic Church, replacing Slavonic, which the common people did not understand. The first books in the Rumanian language were printed in Transylvania, on the initiative of Saxon and Hungarian noblemen and priests, who also paid the costs of publishing. In these books printed in southern Transylvania, in the second half of the 16th century by Dean Coresi, ,,we find the beginnings of our literary language" - C. Giurescu states in Istoria românilor, (Bucharest, 1975, p. 387). Almost a century had to pass until the first book in Rumania was printed in Muntenia (in 1640; cf. Istoria României in date, ed. C. Giurescu, 1971, p. 136). After the union of the Byzantine Rite Catholic Church with Rome (in 1700), the number of Rumanian schools increased and Rumanian youths were in increasing numbers sent to foreign universities. Thus, a class of Rumanian intellectuals developed in Transylvania in an epoch in which this would not have been possible in the Rumanian countries of Muntenia and Moldavia. Ironically, it was this intelligentsia, whose existence would not have been possible without the help of the other nationalities of Transylvania (the Hungarians and the Saxons), which started the struggle for political rights of the Rumanians. One of the first and most important protagonists of these intellectuals was bishop Innocentius Klein, who forwarded a series of demands to the provincial government of Transylvania and to the Habsburg court in Vienna. In these, he asked for the recognition of the Rumanians as the fourth nation in Transylvania. One of his arguments was that the Rumanians outnumber any other single nation in the country, but more significantly he claimed that the Rumanians originated from emperor Trajan's colonists and have been living in the country ever since the Roman conquest. This is the first formulation of the theory of roman continuity in Dacia Traiana. It was to support a distinctly Rumanian political struggle in the first half of the 18th century.

The most important petition in this struggle was the Supplex Libellus Valachorum, forwarded to king Leopold II in 1791. Its authors are not exactly known but it is considered as the collective work of the leading Rumanian intellectuals of that time: S. Micu-Klein, I. Molnar-Piuariu, I. Budai-Deleanu, I. Mehes, P. Maior, Gh. Sincai and others. The main points were the following:

The Rumanians should receive all the civil rights the other nations possess: Rumanians should be admitted to the provincial Assembly and should be permitted to hold official positions in proportion to their number; they should receive the right to call together a national assembly, which could elect delegates who would represent them wherever this would be needed; Rumanian place-names should be used in all areas in which Rumanians are living; communities with a Rumanian majority should use the Rumanian name while in those in which the Rumanians are in minority, bilingual Hungarian-Rumanian or Saxon-Rumanian names should be used. (Incidentally in the text of the petition, the word 'Vlach' is used instead of 'Rumanian').

The 'Libellus' claimed, as did earlier demands of this kind, that the Rumanians were first in Transylvania:

,,The Rumanian nation is by far the most ancient of all nations of our epoch, since it is certain and proved by historical evidence, by a never interrupted tradition, by the similarity of the language, traditions and customs, that it originates from the Roman colonists brought here at the beginning of the 2nd century A.D. by emperor Trajan . . .".


The 'Transylvanian School' (Scoala ardeleana)
The ideas of the Enlightenment, the discovery of Latin as the ancestor of the Rumanian language and, above all, the political struggle for the rights of the Rumanians, inspired a new movement in Transylvania in the second half of the 18th century. This movement was called Scoala ardeleana (Transylvanian School). One of the first and most important works produced was Elementa linguae daco-romanae sive valachicae, the first grammar of the Rumanian language. Written by Gh. Sincai and S. Micu-Klein, it was published in Vienna in 1780.

The message of the Transylvanian School may be summarized briefly as follows: The Latin origin of the Rumanian language; the unity of this language spoken in Muntenia, Moldavia and parts of Transylvania; the theory of continuity, i.e., the idea that the Rumanian language developed in the same territory where the Roman colony of Dacia Traiana was situated.

Out of these three ideas, only the first two correspond to reality. In detail, however, many errors were propagated even with these. Thus, for instance, Sincai and Micu-Klein assumed that Rumanian derived from classical Latin. But it was P. Maior in particular who defended the idea that the Latin language spoken by the common people must have given rise to the neo-Latin languages, so also the Rumanian.

The aims of this vigorous intellectual movement were not primarily scientific. The study of Rumanian history and language was developed, in the first place, to be used in the struggle of Rumanian intellectuals for more political rights for their own people. This is also stated in several modern publications about the epoch in question.

Ideas about the glorious past and great importance to all mankind of one's own nation, and, in general, the ideology of romantic nationalism, were widespread in Europe in this age. Thus, several circumstances, internal as well as external, contributed to the development and to the strength of this Rumanian movement in Transylvania.

Petru Maior:


The history of the origin of the Rumanians in Dacia
One of the most important works produced by the Transylvanian School is Istoria pentru inceputul rominilor in Dacia (The History of the origin of the Rumanians in Dacia) by P. Maior, published in Buda, the Hungarian capital, in 1812. The author was in that epoch a licenser of the press at the printing office in Buda.

The author's aim with this book was to provide arguments in the struggle for the rights of Rumanians living in Transylvania and to repudiate those authors who did not agree with the idea that the Rumanians originate from the soldiers and colonists of Trajan.

Maior's chief ideas concerning the origin of the Rumanians may be summarized as follows:

The Rumanians are descendants of those Roman colonists who were brought to Dacia by emperor Trajan after the conquest in 106 A.D. The Dacians were either exterminated in the war with the Romans or fled the country; the Rumanians are thus of purely roman origin, a ,,pure race". In 274 A.D, when the roman empire left Dacia Traiana, most of the population remained in the country and continued living there ever since those times, mainly as sedentary peasants.

Although many of these ideas have been refuted by later Rumanian scholars, this work and, in general, the entire ideology of the Transylvanian School did not only have strong influence upon Rumanian historical thinking but still affects writing of history in Rumania today.

Maior uses arguments of ,,historical logic", confuses assumption with facts and uses, not infrequently, extremely implausible hypotheses and wrong data, if they fit his reasoning. He does not refrain from attacking the person of the author whose ideas he does not like.



2. The Theory of Continuity refuted: O. Densusianu and Al. Philippide


Two events in the 19th century were of decisive importance in Rumanian history: the fact that Muntenia and Moldavia gained independence and were subsequently united in 1859. This was an epoch of national awakening and of the development of a national intelligentsia. A problem of crucial importance was, evidently, the aim of creating a literary language; the establishment of a uniform grammar and orthography; what methods to follow in adopting new lexical elements, etc.
The Latin character of Rumanian had been generally accepted long ago and, almost generally, also the theory that it developed from Latin spoken in Dacia Traiana. There were, however, Rumanian scholars who were sceptical and sought alternative explanations, as for example Filaret Scriban, who asserted that the Rumanians were of Sarmatian origin. In general, however, Rumanian origins were not studied too intensely in that era. Nevertheless, in due course, knowledge about the Rumanian language increased.

During the last decades of the 19th century, Rumanian linguistics established itself as an independent discipline and professional linguists appeared who occupied themselves with problems of linguistics alone. Thus, the prerequisites for a new synthesis were created, for a fresh look upon a problem hitherto not studied by modern scientific methods: the question of the origin of the Rumanian language.

Ovid Densusianu (1873-1938), the disciple of Gaston Paris and Adolf Tobler, was a linguist in whom extensive knowledge of the Rumanian language, his mother-tongue, was coupled with a sincere, almost passionate desire for finding the truth. His chief work, Histoire de la langue roumaine (I: Les origines; II: Le seizičme sičcle) appeared in 1901.

Densusianu collected and weighed a vast amount of linguistic material which gave him a solid basis for the drawing of conclusions. He also recognized the key role the shepherd way of life of the Rumanians played in the history of their language. All the facts point to a territory in close contact with Italy not only until the 3rd century A.D. but very much later. At the same time, no linguistic phenomena indicate any contact with the populations which are known to have been living north of the lower Danube in the centuries after the abandonment of Dacia Traiana by the Romans. Densusianu concludes that the area in which Rumanian was formed must have been Illyria.

It is easy to imagine that, as I. Iordan put it, this book was ,,a revelation" (I. Iordan, Linguistica, 1975, p. 98. note 11). Finally, 90 years after P. Maior's History of the origins of the Rumanians in Dacia, every Rumanian had the opportunity to read a scientific treatise about the origin of his mother-tongue written by an objective and well-prepared Romance scholar. Fully aware of the importance of his findings and conclusions, Densusianu addresses future Rumanian philologists, trying to persuade them to break with tradition that impedes the progress of Rumanian philology:

,,Patriotism as it is conceived today in Rumania will impede the progress of Rumanian philology for a long time to come, hindering the investigators from seeking and telling the truth. The true patriot is not he who seeks to denature the facts and to deceive himself, and the scientist forgets his duty if he does not tell the truth no matter how painful it may be". (O. Densusianu; Histoire de la langue roumaine, 1901; in the 1975 edition, p.26).

Densusianu was not alone in Rumania in conducting impartial research with the passionate interest to find the truth about the origins of his mother-tongue. This scholar in Bucharest had a colleague in Iasi, the capital of Moldavia, who also wrote a large treatise about the problem: Alexandru Philippide (1859-1934).


3. The Theory of Continuity Today The changed political situation


In 1920, the struggle fought by the Rumanians of Transylvania for their national rights came to a resoundingly successful end: the peace treaty after the First World War transferred entire Transylvania, including its purely Hungarian and Saxon areas, to Rumania. The roles have changed. Now the Rumanians became the ruling element and the Hungarians had to struggle for their rights as citizens of the Rumanian nation-state, together with the Saxons and other minor ethnic groups.
Between the two World Wars, much work was done in order to prove the continuity of the Romans (and Rumanians) from the 4th through the 11th centuries, especially by archaeological investigations in Transylvania. Constantin Daicoviciu expressed repeatedly his conviction that definitive archaeological proofs have been found; for example in his preface to D. Protase's Problema continuitâtii in Dacia in lumina arheologiei si numismaticii (The problem of the continuity in Dacia in the light of archaeology and numismatics). It should be pointed out, however, that opposite views were not suppressed: Originea rominilor by Al. Philippide appeared at that time and even a Hungarian book in which the history of the Rumanians is presented entirely according to the ,,immigrationist" view could appear in 1931 in Cluj-Kolozsvár. See B. Jancsó: Erdély története (The History of Transylvania), ed. Minerva.

Such opinions are entirely absent from the writings published in Rumania during the past three decades. Today, every text dealing with this problem, from newspaper articles to scientific treatises, defends unanimously the theory of continuity. The theory is not presented and treated as one of several possibilities, seriously questioned by several Rumanian and foreign scholars, but rather as an axiom.

A single exception would be a new edition of O. Densusianu's Histoire de la langue roumaine in 1975, but this publication in French reached only a very limited number of readers. Moreover, it was provided with a preface and notes in which Densusianu's arguments and ideas are criticized and ,,corrected".

Thus, the main idea of continuity is retained. More disquieting is the fact that the attitude of earlier epochs, in which the adversaries of this ,,Rumanian thesis" were considered people of bad intentions and enemies of the Rumanians still prevails.

In the most recent textbook for university students about the history of the Rumanian language, any idea opposing the theory is declared both un-scientific and chauvinistic!


The heritage of P. Maior

No historian accepts today such obvious errors of P. Maior as the assertion that the Cumans and the Pechenegs were Rumanians, that the Rumanian ,,race" is purely of Roman origin or the belief about the extermination of all the Dacians during the wars with the roman empire.
However, several of Maior's arguments are still used, often in the same form as Maior presented them some 170 years ago. Thus, ,,logical" considerations, without any material evidence from written sources or any other data are still used extensively.

The main arguments in favour of the theory of continuity have been derived, for a long time, from archaeological investigations. This is the case also today; the arguments forwarded within the areas of history and linguistics (including onomastics) are mainly defensive in nature.

A number of settlements and cemeteries from the 4th and 5th centuries, but also from later epochs, have been considered to have been left by a Romanized population. Roman coins found north of the lower Danube are said to demonstrate the existence there of ,,Daco-Romans,,. The same significance is claimed for a number of objects of Christian character dated to the 4th and 5th centuries. Thus, an ex voto, from the 4th century, found near Medgyes (German Mediash, Rumanian Medias) in Transylvania with the inscription ,,Ego Zenovius votum posui" (I, Zenovius, have placed this present) is said to be:

,,a very important proof of the old age of Christianity in the Latin language in Dacia and of the continuity of the Daco-Roman population after the retreat of the legions" (Giurescu: Istoria românilor, 1975, p. 148). (The actual list given includes villages like Bicsad in the [county] of Oas, county Satu Mare, Racsa, etc.)

Now it is a peculiar fact that not a single name of those villages and areas in which these putative ,,Daco-Romans,, lived is of Rumanian origin: -oas derives from Hungarian Avas (Avas 'scrubby, bushy'), Orasul Nou, earlier Ioaras: from Hungarian Ujváros (Abaújváros)('New Town'), mentioned in a document from 1270 A.D. as Nova Civitas or Wynarus (=Wywarus) and in 1370 as Wyuaras, Wyuaros. (The modern Rumanian form is thus the translation of Hungarian Ujváros).

Satu Mare, earlier Satmar, from Hungarian Szatmár, first mentioned in a document from 1213 as Castrum Zathmar (the name originates from a German personal name; the modern Rumanian name developed by popular etymology; it means 'Great Village').

Bicsad is borrowed from Hungarian Bikszád or Bükszád (Hungarian bükk 'beech', szád 'opening'), mentioned in a document from 1478 as Bykzad.

Racsa, Hungarian Ráksa, is first mentioned in a document (from 1493) as Rakos, in another from 1512 as Raksa. (These data were taken from C. Suciu: Dictionar istoric al localitatilor din Transilvania, Bucharest, vol. I and II, 1967, 1968).

As regards the value of these pictures in proving ,,the continuity of the 'Daco-Romans' in the Carpathian region", no comments are necessary, exactly as it is not necessary today to point out, for example, that Rumanian birau 'judge' does not derive, as P. Maior believed, from Latin vir magnus but from Hungarian bíró 'judge'.

A new interpretation:

The Dacians as ,,the most significant ethnic component of the Rumanian nation"

A new interpretation of recent years is the emphasis upon the Dacians as the great ancestors of the Rumanian people. The Transylvanian School, as we have seen above, defended an extremely Latinistic view. It considered only the Latin elements of Rumanian as really belonging to this language and denied all connections with the Dacians, who did not, according to this concept, survive the Roman conquest of their country.
Today the trend seems to be the opposite of this. It is now argued that the most important part of the ancestors of the Rumanians were the Dacians, autochthonous in the whole territory of present day Rumania.

Giurescu describes this relatively new concept as follows: In Dacia Traiana, roman domination lasted for only about 170 years. In Pannonia and in Britannia, the Romans were in power twice as long and still, no lasting roman population developed in these countries. Why? - Giurescu asks.

,,Because only with functionaries and people coming from other areas no new aspect, no new life may be imprinted in a territory". (Giurescu, 1975, p. 127).

Romanization was successful in Dacia, says Giurescu, because the Romans

,,.....represented a superior civilization, a material and cultural creation which synthesized an entire evolution of hundreds of years and as such, it won over the autochthones. These, increasingly convinced and drawn by the advantages of Roman life, learned the language of the conquerors, took their names and were Romanized,, (Giurescu, 1975, p. 127).

Romans, i.e., people from Italy, were very few in Dacia Traiana, states Giurescu rightly (pp. 95 and 125). The colonists in that province were mostly Thracian, Illyrian, Pannonian, people from the East and Greeks. But the number of all these together ,,did not exceed that of the autochthones, the Dacians" (p. 135). And this people ,,is on the basis of our nation as the most significant ethnic component" (p. 62; emphasis added).

The festivities in 1980 of ,,the creation of the first centralized and independent Dacian state" emphasize this new trend. One may ask whether the 2000th anniversary was celebrated in 1930? No anniversary of any kind was even mentioned then! This is no surprise, since the year 1980 as the 2050th anniversary of the first Dacian state was chosen quite arbitrarily. Neither the year in which king Burebista seized power, nor any period of time during which he united the Dacians is recorded. On the basis of a few, vague descriptions, one may guess that these events happen between 82 and 70 or even 60 B.C. What then, is the reason for this remarkable celebration?

The West German publicist Viktor Meier gives, in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, July 18, 1978, a concise answer:

,,One wonders why exactly 2050 years and whether this is known with any precision. Professor Hadrian Daicoviciu of the University of Klausenburg, (German ,,Klausenburg,,; Hungarian ,,Kolozsvár,,; Rumanian ,,Cluj,,), as the successor of his father, the leader of Rumanian research on the Dacians, gives a plausible answer: The leadership asked the scientists for a date in the near future which would be suitable for an exhaustive presentation of the significance of the Dacians in Rumanian history".

[1] Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, 905-959 A.D. Byzantine emperor, erudite scholar; cf. Fontes Historiae Dacoromanae, II ed. H. Mihaescu et al., Bucharest, 1970, pp. 656-668.
[2] Istoria româniei, ed. C. Daicoviciu, Bucharest, 1960, vol. II, p. 47.
[3] Cf., for example, two articles by R.S. Popescu in Limba româna, Bucharest, XXII, 4, 1973, pp. 309-314 and XXIV, 3, 1975, pp. 263-266; I. Kniezsa GGGKeletmagyarország helyneveiGGG (The place-names in eastern Hungary), in Magyarok és románok, (Hungarians and Rumanians), ed. J. Deér and L. Gáldi, Budapest, 1943, pp.111-113.

[Cimbye]

4. Is There Any Evidence of Continuity?
The first known inhabitants of Transylvania, described by Herodotos, in the 6th-4th centuries B.C., were the Agathyrses, probably an Iranian people. They left many material remains in Transylvania and also in Moldavia. In the third and second centuries B.C., a considerably dense population of Celts were living in Transylvania and in the Banat. Settlements and cemeteries used by them were discovered, so far, at 140 places.[4] The Celts disappeared towards the end of the second century B.C.; they were replaced by the Dacians.

The Balkan peninsula south of the Danube was, during the last centuries B.C. conquered by the Roman empire. North of the river the Getae and the Dacians lived and seem to have prospered in that epoch. The development of the technology of iron and gold, as well as commercial contacts with Greek and roman merchants strengthened their economy. In the first half of the 1st century B.C., a king called Burebista (also ,,Buruista" etc.) organized the Dacians and several other populations into a powerful empire.

In what year Burebista seized power is not known. In Istoria României in date, (ed. by C. Giurescu, 1971, p. 26), the year 70 B.C. is given without any further comment.

Towards the end of the 1st century A.D., another strong ruler, Decebal, united the Dacian tribes again into a centralized empire. He fought the Romans with some success, but these defeated him finally and made him to pay tributes. In the first decade of the second century A.D., emperor Trajan waged wars with the Dacians with the aim to conquer their country and succeeded on 106 A.D. Decebal committed suicide and his army dispersed. The new Roman colony north of the lower Danube was called Dacia Traiana; it comprised what is now Oltenia, parts of the Banat and of Transylvania. It was dominated by the roman empire until 275 A.D., i.e., for about 170 years.

Outside the colony, several barbarian populations, Goths and other Old Germanic peoples, Sarmatians, free Dacians, Carps, etc., were living and conducted several incursions into the territory dominated by the Romans. Archaeological finds show that these peoples settled in the area of the former colony after 275 A.D.

In the following century, the Dacians disappear from the scene of history.

Much has been written about the question of the degree of Romanization of the Dacians within the colony of Dacia Traiana; we refer here only to A. Du Nay, 1977, chapters 3 and 4.


About the language of the Dacians.
Very little is preserved of this language. Since it is assumed that it was related to Thracian, some have tried to find similarities between Rumanian and Thracian, which is somewhat better known. Also the designation ,,Thraco-Dacian,, has been used, although it is questionable whether this is really justified.

I. Russu has compiled a Rumanian-Thracian dictionary with almost 200 Thracian words (Russu, 1967, pp. 138-143). Among these, there are 11 words whose Rumanian counterpart is considered to derive from the substratum of Rumanian, (for example copil; child', Thracian -centus, -poris, tap 'he goat', Thracian Buzo-, Cozeil-; spinz 'hellebore', Thracian prodiarna; etc.) If this substratum were Thracian, one would expect some correspondence between these words. This is, however, not the case; there is not a single Rumanian word which reliably could be shown to originate from what is left to us from Thracian.

,,The fact that we do not possess ancient or medieval attestations of the autochthonous lexical elements is a grave gap in the documentary material which could throw light upon the problem of the beginnings and the ancient phase in the development of the Rumanian and Albanian idioms and popular communities" (Russu, 1967, p. 215).

Thus, although this could be caused by chance, the number of preserved Thracian words being very low, it must be stated that there is no evidence to support the idea that Rumanian developed from Thracian. The same applies, of course, to Dacian.


After 275 A.D.
It is reasonable to assume that a part of the inhabitants of Dacia Traiana remained in the province after its abandonment by the Romans. This was the case in Noricum, Raetia, Britannia, not to mention the Balkan provinces. In the case of Dacia, no one has proved that these spoke Latin, but we may assume it. In all the above mentioned provinces, however, the Romans who remained in their places after the retreat of the Roman army and administration, were sooner or later assimilated to the conquering populations and disappeared latest after some centuries.

In post-roman Dacia Traiana, clear-cut evidence (archaeological remains) of Carps and free Dacians, Sarmatians, Goths, Gepidae, Huns and, somewhat later Avars and Slavs were found. On the basis of the fact that many material remains show the influence of roman style and customs, some have argued that these remains indicate a roman population. This cannot be accepted, however, because earthenware of roman provincial style, a few objects with Latin inscriptions, roman coins and other similar finds are described not only from South-East Europe but from almost every part of the European continent. Coins for example, are very numerous not only north of the lower Danube but north of the entire course of this river as well as north of the river Rhine; earthenware of Roman style was not only used but also imitated in far away areas. The ,,roman provincial" style was, in other words, widespread in Europe.


5. The Testimony of the Rumanian Language
As we have seen, neither historical records nor archaeological finds confirm the theory of continuity. These conclusions are, however, negative and we have to ask now where, then, did the Rumanian language develop and what was the nature of that language which, by Romanization, evolved into modern Rumanian?

Although many details remain to be clarified, the analysis of the Rumanian language gives decisive information regarding the principal questions. This has been discovered long ago by linguists; it is sufficient to mention here Gaston Paris and Ovid Densusianu. We can here, of course, only give the main points, a more detailed discussion is found in A. Du Nay 1977. The question to be put is the following: Does the Rumanian language, as it is today, show vestiges which indicate that its speakers lived north of the lower Danube already beginning with the end of the 3rd century A.D. (when the Romans abandoned Dacia-Traiana), in the vicinity of Old Germanic, Avar and other migratory populations? This should be the case if the theory of continuity were the true explanation of the present existence of the Rumanians north of the lower Danube. But this is not the case.

Instead, there are a large number of features in Rumanian which must have developed in a community living in the Roman empire several centuries after the abandonment of Dacia-Traiana by the Romans and in the vicinity of populations very different from those which once lived north of the lower Danube.

The construction of the perfect with the help of the verb habeo developed in Late Latin, after the 4th century; e.g. episcopum invitatum habes ,,you have invited the bishop", Rumanian ai invitat pe episcop.

A number of new expressions and lexical elements were formed in Late Latin, as for example Sclavus, Sclavinus ,,Slav,, Rumanian schiau; primo vere ,,sprin"G Rumanian primavara (cf. Italian primavera), aeramen (instead of classical Latin aes) ,,metal, copper"; Rumanian arama ,,copper" (cf. Italian rame ,,copper").


Lexical elements shared by Rumanian and northern Italian dialects
Already Gaston Paris pointed out the importance of these elements, which in many cases are exclusively found in Rumanian and certain Italian dialects. O. Densusianu gives a detailed description and concludes that these are vestiges from an epoch in which the ancestors of the Rumanians lived in close contacts with the population in northern Italy. We mention here only some of them:

From Latin expanticare, in Venetian and Milanese spantegar, in Rumanian spînteca ,,to rip up"; from Latin implenire, Friulian impleni, Rumanian împlini" to fill, to carry out"; Venetian ol cel della bocha, Rumanian cerul gurei ,,palate", lit. ,,the sky of the mouth"; Latin reus ,,guilty", in the dialect of Campobasso re ,,bad", in Rumanian rau ,,bad", etc.

Vestiges in the Rumanian language of Late Latin features and words shared with northern Italian dialects indicate that the ancestors of the speakers of Rumanian lived, at least until the 7th century A.D., in close contacts with the Latin-speaking population of Italy. From the abandonment of Dacia-Traiana in 275 A.D., however, the Danubian limes was the frontier between the Roman empire and the ,,Barbaricum". Controlled by the roman army, it was a military border, with fortifications, whose chief function was defending the empire against invading armies from the north. Although not totally impermeable, this frontier did not permit everyday contacts between the population of the roman empire in the south and those living north of the lower Danube. Consequently, the phonetical, morphological and lexicological changes of the 3rd-6th centuries A.D. in the Latin language could not have penetrated into the language of a population living north of the lower Danube. The domination for some period of time during the 4th century of a strip of territory along the lower Danube does not change this (cf., for more details, Du Nay, 1977, pp. 214-216).


The relation between Rumanian and Albanian
To the pre-Latin elements of Rumanian belong about 120 words which may be divided into several well-defined semantic groups, as for example parts of the human body, terms of kinship, plants and animals and, most significantly, shepherd words, the largest group. These words were used by a population living close to nature, in the mountains, whose main occupation was the raising of animals (sheep). Expressions designating urban phenomena are absent from this group of words. The question is now, what population spoke the language from which these pre-Latin elements survived in Rumanian?

There are no historical records to give any indication in this respect. As we have seen, elements of Thracian, Dacian and other ancient languages preserved in Greek and Latin texts are of no help, since there is not a single reliable correspondence between these words and Rumanian ones. The language once spoken somewhere in South-East Europe from which Rumanian originates is simply not preserved in writing.

There is, however, another Balkan language, extant today, in which most (about 80%) of the above mentioned lexical elements do exist. This is one of the most ancient languages of the Balkan peninsula: Albanian. Such words are, for example, Rumanian buza, Albanian buzë 'lip; rim, edge'; Rumanian baci, Albanian bac 'shepherd in charge of a sheepfold'; Rumanian galbeaza, câlbeazâ, Albanian gëlbazë, këlbazë 'sheep pox; liverworst'; Rumanian vatra, Albanian vater, vatra 'hearth, fireplace; house, dwelling' and many others (cf. A. Du Nay, 1977, pp.62-70.; A. Rosetti, ed., Istoria limbii române, Edit. Acad. RSR, vol. II, 1969, pp. 327-356).

SEMANTIC GROUP

Number of words:

Also in Albanian
Not in Albanian
Man: parts of the human body,sex, age, family relations
9
2
Plants and animals
22
5
Agriculture
2
1
Clothes; human dwellings; tools;
25
5
Clothes; human dwellings; tools;Nature, geography; popular mythology; Other nouns, adverbs and verbs
42
9
Total:;
100
22

Table 1. Pre-Latin words in Rumanian (After A. Du Nay: The Early History of the Rumanian language, 1977, p. 61, table 3).

There are also similarities between the two languages concerning phonology and morphology. Thus the definite article occurs at the end of the noun in both languages and, what is more remarkable:

,,these two languages coincide in the use of this element of speech in the smallest details of its syntactical position, which contradicts the assumption of an independent evolution in each of these two languages" (E. Cabej: ,,Unele probleme ale istoriei limbii albanese", in Studii si cercertari lingvistice, X, 4, 1959,p. 531).
Out of a large number of similarities concerning phraseology and lexical elements, we mention the following:

'It is proper, it is convenient' may be expressed by Rumanian Ce cu cale and Albanian isthe me udhe which literally mean 'it is with way'.
'That hurts me': Rumanian îmi vine rau, Albanian i erdhi keq 'it comes me bad'.
'Uvula': Rumanian omusor, Albanian njerith 'little man'.
To strengthen the sense of a noun, 'great thing' (Rumanian mare lucru, Albanian pun'e madhe) may be added; etc.

The Latin elements of these languages also show similar features, as for instance
parallel changes of meaning:
Latin falx 'sickle, scythe' - Rumanian falca, Albanian felqine 'jaw, cheek'.
Latin draco 'dragon' - Rumanian drac, Albanian dreq 'devil'.
Latin horreo 'I fear, I am shocked' - Rumanian, urasc, Albanian urrej 'I hate'.
Latin veteranus 'soldier who has served his time' - Rumanian batrin, Albanian vjetër 'old', and many others.

Albanian and Rumanian are now, of course, different languages. This is explained by the difference in the degree of Romanization and by the different history of the two population after their gradual separation not very long after the Roman influence. While the ancestors of the Rumanians were almost totally Romanized, those of the Albanians only borrowed a number of Latin elements but retained most of their own language.

The common elements as regards the ancient word stock, the similarities in the structure of the two languages and in the Latin elements indicate that the ancestors of the Rumanians and of the Albanians were the same, or very closely related. Thus, if we know the territory in which the ancient Albanians were living, we may also know the approximate areas of the ancient Rumanians.

According to G. Stadtmüller: Forschungen zur albanischen Frühgeschichte (1966; pp. 95-95, 120) the Mati district in northern Albania and adjacent areas were the territories of the Albanians during the first centuries A.D. E. Cabej, in ,,Le problčme du territoire de la formation de la langue albanaise,,, Bull. AIESEE, (1972; p. 99), concludes that these territories were the same as present-day Albania and, probably in an earlier period of time, also Dardania. Thus, the ancestors of the Rumanians were living in the mountainous areas of the central parts of the Balkan peninsula, in Old Serbia and adjacent areas.


6. Summary
Time has come when the theory of continuity, refuted by eminent Rumanian scholars as Ovid Densusianu and having served its original purpose, should be abandoned and the advent of a new era in Rumanian historical thinking should not be further delayed. The Rumanian people is not served by those who ,,seek to denature the facts and to deceive themselves" (cf. O. Densusianu, Histoire de la langue roumaine, 1901; in the 1975 edition, p. 26; see above, chapter 2) but deserves a balanced, objective and modern description of its troubled past. As regards the legitimate rights of the Rumanians for which so many generations of patriots have fought, these would not be diminished by such a change.

Although not autochthonous in Transylvania, Rumanians have lived at least in some parts of that country for almost 800 years which must be sufficient for that ,,historical right" which so many historians and politicians tried, wrongly, to derive from a legendary origin from Trajan's soldiers and the Dacians. This implies the right of living in Transylvania, but not the justification of suppressing other nationalities who not only existed earlier in Transylvania but also played a very important role in the development of Rumanian national culture.

There is nothing wrong in emphasizing the positive aspects of the history of one's own nation and to try to bring up the youth in love for their nation and its past. But it is not, as stated by Densusianu, real patriotism to conceal the truth and deceive oneself. The propagation of the theory of continuity conceals many elementary facts and stresses obviously erroneous statements. Meanwhile opposite views, being considered as chauvinistic, are not tolerated. The Rumanians are said to be the only people ,,at home" in South-East Europe, all others are called ,,later colonists", and ,,strangers". Moreover, Rumanians ,,never needed anything from strangers and will never need anything from them in the future"! This is a Herrenvolk-attitude which denies any other people any place in the land of the Rumanians. How can the basic human rights of the other nationalities living in Rumania (about 15% of the total population) be guaranteed in such an atmosphere?

Thus the problem of Roman continuity north of the lower Danube, a question of history and linguistics, is being transformed into an actual conflict not on a juridical but on the cultural and psychological levels. The Rumanians hear and read daily that they belong to a glorious, brave nation which lived and worked and fought in Rumania for several millennia while the members of the national minorities are taught that their ancestors were intruders, accepted by the ,,Rumanian masses" as colonists and they, consequently, are not autochthonous in the country, only immigrants, strangers.

And all this is built upon an obsolete, several hundred years old theory which was proven wrong a long time ago.



BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alexandru, I. 'Transilvania'. Tribuna României; a magazine published by the association ,,România", red. P. Chelmez; Bucharesti VII, No. 127, February 15. 1978, p. 1.
Asztalos, M. (ed.) A történeti Erdély. Budapest, 1936 (740 p.).
Barta ,G. Az Erdélyi Fejedelemség születése; ed. Gondolat, Budapest, 1979 (282p.).
Cabej, E. Le problčme du territoire de la formation de la langue albanaise. Bulletin AIESEE, 10, No 2, 1972, pp. 71-99.
Calinescu, G. Istoria literaturii române. Compendiu. Editura pentru literatura, Bucharest, 1968 (429 p.).
Condurachi, E., Daicoviciu, C. The Ancient Civilization of Romania, Barrie and Jenkins, London; Nagel Publishers, Geneva, 1971 (250 p.).
Constantinescu, M., Daicoviciu, C., Pascu, S.: Istoria României, Compendiu. Editura didactica si pedagogica, Bucuresti, 1969 (728 p.). (Third edition in 1974, ed. S. Pascu 559 p.).
Curticâpeanu, V.; Formarea natiunii române si a statului national unitar român. File de istorie, Editura politica, Bucuresti. 1974 (92 p.).
Daicoviciu, C. Dacica. Bibliotheca musei Napocensis, Cluj, 1969 (610 p.)
Densusianu, O.: Opere: II Lingvistica. Histoire de la langue roumaine. I. Les origines. II. Le seizieme sičcle. Ed. B. Cazacu, v. Rusu, I. Serb, Editura Minerva, Bucuresti, 1975, XVIII (1045 p.).
Dimitrescu, Florica (ed.) Istoria limbii române; Editura didactica si pedagogica, Bucharest, 1978 (380 p.).
Du Nay, A.: The Early History of the Rumanian Language. Edward Sapir Monograph Series in Language, Culture, and Cognition 3. Jupiter Press, Lake Bluff, XI (275 p.)., 1977.
Fontes Historiae Dacoromanae, vol. I; ed. V. Iliescu et al; XXIV (791 p.). Edit. Republicii Populare Romîne, Bucuresti, 1964; vol. II ed. H. Mihaescu et al., XXII. (768 p.), Edit. Republicii Socialiste România, Bucuresti 1970.
Friedwagner, M.: ,,Über die Sprache und Heimat der Rumänen in ihrer Frühzeit." Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie, Halle, LIV, 1934, pp. 641-715.
Giurescu, C. (ed.): Istoria României in date, Editura Enciclopedica Româna, Bucuresti, 1971 (525 p.).
Giurescu, C., Giurescu, D.: Istoria românilor din cele mai vechi timpuri pîna astazi, 2nd edition, Editura Albatros, Bucuresti, 1975 (1038 p.).
Grecu, V.: Scoala Ardeleana si unitatea limbii române literare. Editura Facla, Timisoara, 1973 (141 p.).
Illyés, E.: Erdély változása. Mitosz és valóság. (The change of Transylvania. Myth and reality.) Aurora, München, 1976, 2nd edition, 426 p. - An English version of this book (National Minorities in Rumania) will appear later.
Iordan, I. (ed.): Istoria stiintelor in România. Lingvistica. Editurâ Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, Bucuresti, 1975 (175 p.).
Iordan, I.: Alexandru I. Philippide. Editura Stiintifica, Bucuresti, (157 p.).
Jancsó, B.: Erdély története (The History of Transylvania). Editura Minerva, Cluj-Kolozsvár, 1931 (389 p.).
Kálmán, B.: The World of Names. A Study in Hungarian Onomatology; Ed. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1978 (199 p.).
Kiss, L.: Földrajzi nevek etimológiai szótára (An etymological dictionary of geographical names), Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1978, pp. 726.
Kniezsa, I.: ,,Keletmagyarország helynevei", in Magyarok és románok, ed. J. Deér and L. Gáldi; Edit. Atheneum, Budapest, 1943, pp. 111-313.
Maior, P. (ed. F. Fugariu): Istoria pentru începutul românilor în Dacia. Vol. I-II. Editura Albatros, Bucuresti, 1970, vol. I, 279 p., vol. II, 293 p. (A new edition of P. Maior's principal work published in 1812 in Buda, the Hungarian capital).
Meier, V.: Ceausescus Freude an den Dakern. Geschichtsthesen und politische Zwecke. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, (West Germany), July 18, 1978.
Pippidi, D.M. (ed.) Dictionar de istorie veche a României. Editura Stiintifica si enciclopedica, Bucuresti, 1976 (627 p.)
Protase, D.: Problema continuitatii în Dacia în lumina arheologiei si numismaticii. Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, Bucuresti, 1966, (Biblioteca de arheologie IX), 249 p., (with a summary in French).
Rosetti, Al.: Istoria limbii române de la origini pîna in secolul al XVII-lea. Editura pentru literatura, Bucuresti, 1968 (843 p.).
Rosetti, Al.: (ed.) Istoria limbii române, vol. I, 1965, Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Române, vol. II, 1969, Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste Romania; vol. I, 437 p., vol. II., 464 p.
Russu, I. I.: Limba traco-dacilor, (2nd edition), Editura Academiei Stiintifica, Bucuresti, 1976, 253 p.
Stadtmüller, G.: Forschungen zur albanischen Frühgeschichte. Albanische Forschungen 2 (2nd edition); Edit. Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden, 1966.
Suciu, C.: Dictionar istoric al localitatilor din Transilvania, vol. I, 1967, 433 p., vol, II, 1968, 447 p.; Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, Bucuresti.
Supplex Libellus Valachorum. Translated and commented by K. Köllö; introductory study by I. Pervain and K. Köllö (in Hungarian), Editura Kriterion, Bucuresti, 1971 (Series Téka), 127 p.
Tamás, L.: Romains, Romans et Roumains dans l'historie de Dacie Trajane. Études sur l'Europe Centre-Orientale I. Budapest, 1936.


[4] Dictionar de istorie veche a României, ed. D. M. Pippidi, Bucharest, 1976, p. 147.

[Cimbye]

QUESTIONS REGARDING THE CONTINUOUS HABITATION SINCE DACIAN TIMES OF THE WALLACHIANS/RUMANIANS IN WHAT IS NOW CALLED TRANSYLVANIA




1. Was there any historical, archaeological or other discovery made in 1920 as a result of which a large number of encyclopedias should have felt compelled to write Transylvania's history in the spirit of the Daco-Roman theory which, among other things, claims continuous habitation since Dacian times of the Wallachians/Rumanians in what is now called Transylvania?
2. Assuming the continuous habitation of the Wallachians/Rumanians on the soil of what is now called Transylvania after the withdrawal from there of the roman colonists and legions by approximately 270 A.D. and considering that the peoples following the Romans there, namely the Goths, Huns, Gepids, Avars and Bulgars were swept away by the Völkerwanderung (mass migration of peoples), while according to the proponents of the Daco-roman theory the ,,Daco-roman,, ancestors of the Wallachians/Rumanians survived there in mountain caves, one would like to know in exactly which caves did they survive unnoticed during those war-filled centuries? And where are the pertinent archaeological proofs: sleeping cubicles, whole or broken cooking utensils and other household articles attesting to the permanent living of masses of ,,Daco-Romans,, in such caves?

3. Because the proponents of the Daco-Roman theory claim that the Wallachians/Rumanians became Christian on the soil of what is now called Transylvania in the 4th or 5th century, one is curious to learn about any creation of the ,,Daco-roman,, ancestors of the Wallachians/Rumanians, which should have been preserved in well-hidden caves:

(a) religious creations dating from the time that passed between approx. 270 A.D. and the acceptance of Christianity by the ,,Daco-roman,, ancestors of the Wallachians/Rumanians;

(b) religious creations between the time of acceptance of Christianity by the same people and their first mention in documents of the Hungarian Kingdom in the early 13th century.

One is especially interested in evidence of a reasonable quantity of inscriptions in either the Dacian or the Latin language regarding the first period, and in Latin or Neo-Latin regarding the second, on the walls of cave churches, on gravestones or other cultic objects, for such inscriptions bearing witness to Roman civilization are not lacking in numerous other areas once held by the Romans.

4. How is it explained that no records exist or are referred to either in Rome or in Byzantium about:

(a) the acceptance of Christianity by the ,,Daco-roman,, population which is claimed to have stayed behind after the evacuation of Provincia Dacia around 270 A.D.
(b) episcopal visitations carried out for many centuries to that population;

(c) the discovery of a Latin speaking population in erstwhile Provincia Dacia? It stands to reason that such a discovery should have caused quite a sensation, and exactly an area inhabited by such a population could have been turned into a new center for Christian mission, where at least one bishopric and several parishes as well as monasteries should have been established.

5. Ever since history has records about the ancestors of the Rumanians, they figured as adherents of the Eastern Church of Slav Rites rits:, and in 1698 only one part of the Wallachians/Rumanians living in Transylvania entered into union with Rome.

In 895 A.D. the area now called Transylvania became a part of the new realm of the Hungarians, and in 1003 or 1004 the Hungarian king, (Saint) Stephen I. began to organize the area in question called in Old Hungarian Erdö Elve, later in a contracted form Erdel or Erdély 'the land beyond the forest', as seen from the Great Hungarian Plain - as an integral part of his kingdom within the ecclesiastical framework of the Roman Church; if not under him, then at least since the schism of 1054, the adherents of the Eastern Church of Slav Rites rits: were regarded in the Hungarian Kingdom as heretics, and such were not allowed to stay or settle there. In view of this, how did the claimed ,,Daco-roman,, ancestors of the Wallachians/Rumanians not come into conflict with Endre I. (1046-1060) and his successors, if the claimed ,,Daco-roman,, ancestors lived in the Hungarian Kingdom? And if it is claimed that they had been converted to the Eastern Church of Slav Rites rits: as subjects of the Hungarian Kingdom, one must ask:

(a) when did they convert,

(b) why did they convert,

(c) with whose permission did they convert?

6. How is it explained that in the language of the claimed ,,Daco-roman,, ancestors of the Wallachians/Rumanians the name given to the area in question by the Dacians (if they called it by any name) or the Romans, who called it Provincia Dacia, did not survive? Why was it necessary for the Wallachian ancestors of the Rumanians to borrow Old Hungarian ERDEL which, with some phonetic distortion, the Rumanians still write and pronounce as ARDEAL?

7. If on the soil of Britain after some 400 years of roman rule the Latin language failed to continue its existence, how could it have survived in abandoned Provincia Dacia after a mere 165 years of roman rule? Besides, most of the settlers and soldiers had not hailed from Italy, thus their language was in most cases not Latin.

8. According to the analysis by the 19th century Rumanian linguist Alexandre de Cihac (in Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue roumaine), the vocabulary of the Rumanian language then showed the following break-down: 45.7% words Slav origin, 31.5% words of Latin origin, 8.4% words of Turkish origin, 7% words of Greek origin, 6% words of Hungarian origin, 0.6% words of Albanian origin (plus some unidentified residue with no Dacian word in it). Now linguistics teaches us that after a language change by a people a considerable number of words and some grammatical features are retained as a substratum remaining from the abandoned language. Where are such substratum remnants of the Dacian language in Rumanian?

9. History and archaeology attest clearly that after the withdrawal of the settlers and soldiers from Provincia Dacia, to an area south of the Danube (roughly the area of later Bulgaria), the culturally advanced Goths and Gepids, (of Germanic languages), lived for centuries in the territory abandoned by the Romans. As, according to the testimony of de Cihac, the Wallachians/Rumanians were not at all averse to borrowing from the languages of their neighbours, the question arises: why did they not borrow even a single word from the culturally advanced Goths and Gepids whose neighbours, according to the Daco-Roman hypothesis, they inevitably had to be on the soil of former Provincia Dacia?

10. As objective historiography does not say that the Albanians had migrated to the area of traditional Albania from what is now called Transylvania, how is it explained that many conspicuously common features exist between Albanian and Rumanian? Is it by some chance that the migration of the Wallachians/Rumanians towards Transylvania began right in the vicinity of Albania? It is known that as early as the 10th century A.D. extensive Wallachian settlements existed in the general vicinity of later Albania. Arumunian and Meglenetic ,,Rumanians,, still live there.

11. After his resounding victory over the Bulgars and their Wallachian allies in 1018, the Byzantine Emperor Basilios placed (in 1020) the roaming Vlachos, as the Byzantines called the Wallachian ancestors, under the ecclesiastical rule of the archbishopric of Ochrida, just south-east of Albania. Why did the Wallachians/Rumanians in Transylvania belong to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the archbishopric of Ochrida as late as 1715, when Orthodox bishoprics of Slav Rites existed closer to them?

12. Why was the language of the liturgy of the Wallachians/Rumanians on the soil of what is now called Transylvania neither Latin, nor Wallachian/Rumanian, but Slav even in the second half of the 19th century, and why were so many members of the clergy of the Wallachians/Rumanians over the centuries of Serbian or Bulgarian origin?

13. How it is explained that among the claimed descendants of Dacians and Romans not even the priests used Latin letters, but Cyrillic, even in the 19th century? If the claimed ,,Daco-Roman,, ancestors of the Wallachians/Rumanians exchanged their expected Latin script for Cyrillic, which could not take place prior to the middle of the 9th century, then why and when did they do it in the Hungarian Kingdom where no other group of people used Cyrillic until Serbian and Wallachian refugees from the Turks requested entry?

14. The Regestrum Varadiense contains the court records of ordeals held between 1205 and 1238 within the jurisdiction of the bishopric of Várad covering eastern Hungary, including Transylvania. From those records, approx. 600 place-names and approx. 2500 personal names have been listed. Neither list contains names rooted in the Wallachian/Rumanian language, although along with most Hungarians, Wallonians, Germans, Ruthenians and Ishmaelites are mentioned, and Wallachian/Rumanian names are not lacking in documents of the Hungarian Kingdom during later centuries. How is this explained?

15. What is the explanation for the fact that the Wallachians/Rumanians, claimed descendants of the Dacians who built fortified towns, and of the Romans who were famous far and wide for their ability to build magnificent towns, never built a single town on the soil of what is now called Transylvania? What is more, the Wallachian/Rumanian word for 'town' i.e. oras, is a borrowing of old Hungarian waras.

16. The history of settlements in Transylvania shows that of 511 villages whose names can be ascertained by the end of the 13th century, only three had names rooted in the language of the Wallachians/Rumanians. Did the ancestors of Wallachians-Rumanians begin to immigrate into Transylvania during the 13th century?

17. Why is it that in Transylvania not a single river or larger rivulet bears a name rooted in the language of the Wallachians/Rumanians?

[Dracula]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transylvania

Transylvania became a roman province in 105 AD under the name Dacia Superiora to be distinguished from Wallachia -Dacia Inferiora. So the first inhabitants of it were the ancestors of the romanians.

[Cimbye]

SPECTRUM TIETOKESKUS Porvo: WSOY, 1974, ,,Rumania,,
(summary of translation; notes)

The official language of Rumania is Rumanian. It is derived from the Latin language which was in use in ancient Dacia. The same Rumanian language is used in Moldavia, where it is called Moldovan or Daco-Romanian. - A large part of present-day Rumania once constituted the Province of Dacia, a part of the roman Empire. Later on the Goths, Huns, Slavs, Cumans, Bulgars and Hungarians came through Rumania.

N.B. While Rumanian is a Latin-based language, it is not proven at all that it is the continuation of the Daco-roman dialect which is supposed to have been spoken in erstwhile Dacia (cf. the sentence in the 1964 OTAVA ISO TIETOSANAKIRJA's article: the Rumanian nation's language is based on the Daco-roman dialect). As the idea of Daco-roman continuity is less than 200 years old, one wonders just how deep can be the roots of the tradition according to which the Rumanian language used in Moldavia is called ,,Daco-Romanian,,? Has this term been created by any chance to bolster certain political aspirations and to justify territorial aggrandizement, such as taking away Transylvania from Hungary? By the way, Spectrum Tietokeskus 1974 does not seem to have allotted an article to Transylvania. One may suspect that Conducator Ceausescu's propagandists had advised the editors of SpectRum Tietokeskus to heed Bucharest's desire. The effect is quite plain.

[Grobar]

Holy crap...what a history

Russians liberated Europe??? LOL! Russians INVADED half Europe and I thiink they weren't much better than nazis. They created puppet states in spite of the fact that they promised for free elections to be kept in the occupied countries.

After what your country had done in WW2, you did not deserve any better they being under Soviet boots.

[Cimbye]

After what your country had done in WW2, you did not deserve any better they being under Soviet boots.

And what did your country do after ww1??? Thats why we did.

You always beef after we hit back

And you did much worse during and after ww2 than we did

flames removed - HA

[Baron Vlad Felix]

where they are ing....Huns?

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