Lajos Kazar: Facts against fiction

EPILOGUE

Although circumstances have hindered the line-up of a broader selection of pertinent encyclopedia articles dating from prior to 1920, the pattern is clear. Since 1920 more and more articles have written Transylvania's and, for that matter, Rumania's history in the spirit of the Daco-Roman propaganda line. This state of affairs could come about mainly because 1) no internationally recognized institution has challenged the erring writers of pertinent articles for many decades, 2) intellectual dishonesty has advanced rapidly, particularly in the second half of the 20th century.

Successive governments in Rumania, but Nicolae Ceausescu's regime especially, have disseminated, at tremendous expense, the Daco-roman version of the histories of Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia, and President Ion Iliescu's government is redoubling its efforts to convince the world about Rumania's ,,historical right" to Transylvania.

However, the facts are slowly emerging from under the heaps of propaganda. Five writings in particular stand out in this respect.

1. Opere, II: Linguistica. Histoire de la langue roumaine, I. Les origines, II. Le seizičme sičcle (Works, II: Linguistic Works. The history of the Rumanian language. The origins, II. The 16th century). Eds. B. Cazacu, V. Rusu, I. Serb. Bucuresti: Editura Minerva, 1975 (re-publishing); by O. Densusianu.

2. ,,The Daco-Rumanian theory of continuity: Origins of the Rumanian nation and language" by André du Nay, in: Transylvania and the theory of Daco-Roman-Rumanian continuity. Rochester, N.Y.: Committee of Transylvania Inc., ed. Louis L. Lote.

3. Ethnic continuity in the Carpatho-Danubian area - East European Monographs No. CCXLIX. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988, by Elemér Illyés.

4. Eroberer und Eingesessene: Geographische Lehnnamen als Zeugen der Geschichte Südosteuropas im 1. Jahrtausend n. Chr. (Conquerors and native peoples: Borrowed geographical names as witnesses to the history of Southeastern Europe during the 1st millennium A.D.). Stuttgart: Anton Hirsemann, 1981, by Gottfried Schramm.

5. A dákóromán legenda (The Daco-roman legend). Budapest: Népszava, 1989, by Árpád Kosztin.

O. Densusianu, a truth-seeking Rumanian linguist, André du Nay and Gottfried Schramm utilize telling linguistic research results in their powerful arguments against the validity of the Daco-Roman theory. E. Illyés employs archaeological, linguistic and toponymic data for the same purpose, while Á. Kosztin and János Gyurkó - the latter's research results appeared as an appendix to Á. Kosztin's above book - scrutinized the data of building and rebuilding of the early churches/chapels/cloisters in (former) Eastern Hungary, including Transylvania, as well as in Wallachia and Moldavia. As a result the latter two authors found that not only in (former) Eastern Hungary, but also in Wallachia and Moldavia the ancestors of today's Rumanians had no permanent church buildings prior to the 13th century.

This is devastating evidence against the Daco-roman theory. For it is just about impossible to imagine that an entire, settled , Christian people, especially of claimed roman ancestry, would build no churches of durable material soon after settling in a certain region. Nor is there any record attesting the complete destruction of their cultic buildings century after century.

Equally devastating to the Daco-roman theory is the complete lack of archaeological evidence regarding the reasonably expected hundreds of thousands of graves of the alleged Daco-roman population in what is today Transylvania and adjoining areas, dating from approx. 270 A.D. until approx. the 13th century, when written documents begin to mention the Wallachian ancestors of the Rumanians moving from the southern and central regions of the Balkan Peninsula towards areas north of the Danube.

If someone were now say that the move north of the Danube of the Wallachian ancestors, say, from the 11th century, was the ,,reconquerin"G of once Roman lands, then the logical answer would be: the Latin basis and approx. 1/3 Latin-based vocabulary of the Rumanian language by no means proves that the Wallachians are the descendants of the Romans, let alone the Dacians; even if it were proven that the Wallachians were the descendants of the conquering Romans, why should only the Wallachians be entitled to the land in question? Why not also the descendants of any of the other conquerors who followed the Romans there, such as the Hungarians? For it was the Hungarians and their colonists, the Saxons and Swabian Germans, further the Armenians and Jews who mainly built up Transylvania, while the defence fell most heavily on the Hungarians. While the Hungarians and Germans were often decimated in Transylvania in defending it, the mainly refugee and casual labourer Wallachians/Rumanians enjoyed the benefits of a country protected by others.

Seeing that hardly any of the encyclopedia articles written after 1920 and treated in these pages has given even the approximately correct size of Transylvania as defined in the Treaty of Trianon (1920), i.e., 102,787km², and many of the articles are mutually contradictory, one cannot escape the thought that most writers of such articles took the easy way out by copying data from antiquated sources, or by borrowing from other inadequately informed writers, or by simply rephrasing propaganda literature placed at their disposal by Bucharest propagandists.

The hope is expressed here that in future this way of writing encyclopedia articles on Transylvania and/or Rumania and/or Wallachia and/or Moldavia will radically change. Truly reliable pertinent sources are available to remedy the errors.

By the way, hundreds of valuable M.A. and Ph.D. theses could be written - and should be written - using the rich, pertinent and interesting historical, linguistic, archaeological etc. material.

Lastly, a word of warning to librarians. It is a fact that books giving an objective description of the circumstances and consequences of the Paris Peace Treaties of 1920 (Trianon in Versailles) and 1947, and telling the truth about the many lies, falsifications, breakings of contractual undertakings etc. are simply systematically spirited away from important libraries in Holland, Belgium, the USA, Japan and other countries. The aim of such stealing is beyond doubt. But should not the culprits be ferreted out? After all, such stealing frequently by embassy personnel is not merely vandalism, but a deliberate scheme to prevent people from learning the truth.

Lajos Kazár

Lajos Kazar: Facts against fiction