Romanians

“ Relations between Romanians and Hungarians, the two largest ethnic groups, have been less than smooth. During the eight centuries of Hungarian rule of Transylvania, Romanians, who constituted the poorest rural elements of the population, occupied a subservient position to the wealthier, more urbanized, and better educated Hungarians and Germans. With the joining of Transylvania to Romania in 1918, the Hungarian and German populations of the region lost much of their favored position and, through land reform and nationalization since World War II, they lost their source of wealth. ”

“ The values of urban Romanians are more complex than those of peasants. They have been influenced by ideas and values from abroad, particularly by those emanating from France. Educated Romanians have long felt a kinship with the French emotionally and intellectually and have looked to French culture as a model to emulate. ”

“ To gain religious equality and to win a larger measure of economic and social recognition, many of the Romanians gradually abandoned their Eastern Orthodox creed and became Uniates by accepting papal authority in 1698. ”

“ The great majority of the people are ethnic Romanians, although two sizable minority groups, Hungarian and German, still resided within Romania's borders in 1972. Other, much smaller, minority groups include Jews, Ukrainians, Serbs, Russians, Bulgarians, Czechs and Slovaks, Tatars, Turks, and Gypsies. ”

“ The Rumanian peasant, like his fellows below the Danube, is, as a rule, a good-natured, easy-going though easily excited, reasonably honest and extremely industrious fellow who labors from dawn to darkness in six days of the week and spends the seventh in harmless village carouses, chiefly characterized by dancing, music and the cheap native wine. Rumania is one of the few countries in Europe where the peasants still dress like the pictures on the postcards. ”

“ I have climbed up to humble little houses clustering together on mountain-sides. I have come upon lovely little places hidden amongst giant pines. On forlorn seashores I have discovered humble hamlets where Turks dwelt in solitary aloofness; near the broad Danube I have strayed amongst tiny boroughs inhabited by Russian fisher-folk, whose type is so different from that of the Rumanian peasant. At first sight one recognises their nationality—tall, fair-bearded giants, with blue eyes, their red shirts visible from a great way off. ”

“ There are some strange customs amongst the peasants, curious superstitions. Rumania being a dry country, it is lucky to arrive with rain: it means abundance, fertility, the hope of a fine harvest—wealth.
Sometimes as I went through the villages, the peasant women would put large wooden buckets full of water before their threshold; a full vessel is a sign of Good-luck. They will even sprinkle water before one's feet, always because of that strange superstition, that water is abundance, and, when the great one comes amongst them, honour must be done unto her in every way. ”

“ Religion has never played an important part in Rumanian national life, and was generally limited to merely external practices. This may be attributed largely to the fact that as the Slavonic language had been used in the Church since the ninth century and then was superseded by Greek up to the nineteenth century, the clergy was foreign, and was neither in a position nor did it endeavour to acquire a spiritual influence over the Rumanian peasant. There is no record whatever in Rumanian history of any religious feuds or dissensions. ”

“ Rumania’s claims to Transylvania are not of an historical nature. They are founded upon the numerical superiority of the subject Rumanians in Transylvania, that is upon the ‘principle of nationality’, and are morally strengthened by the treatment the Transylvanians suffer at the hands of the Magyars. By its passivity, however, the Rumanian Government has sacrificed the prime factor of the ‘principle of nationality’ to the attainment of an object in itself subordinate to that factor; that is, it has sacrificed the ‘people’ in order to make more sure of the ‘land’. ”

“ Every one knows that, in the modern principality of Roumania and in the adjoining parts of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, there is to be seen that phenomenon so unique in the East, a people who not only still keep the Roman name, but who speak neither Greek nor Turkish, neither Slave nor Skipetar, but a dialect of Latin, a tongue akin, not to the tongues of any of their neighbors, but to the tongues of Gaul, Italy, and Spain. ”

“ The basis for Romanian seems to be the Vulgar Latin of ancient Rome. Long contact with Slavic-speaking peoples has left its mark on the vocabulary but has not affected grammar or syntax, which remain similar to those of other Romance languages. The vocabulary of literary Romanian is more purely of Latin origin than that of the spoken dialects. Frequently, parallel words of Latin and Slavic derivation exist for an object or concept and are used interchangeably. Turkish, Albanian, Hungarian, and German have also influenced the vocabulary of the spoken language in various parts of the country. ”

“ As the peasant question is the most important problem left for Rumania to solve, and as I believe that, in a broad sense, it has a considerable bearing upon the present political situation in that country, it may not be out of place here to devote a little space to its consideration. ”

“ Your sword of blood, smoking/steaming from the enemy,
and on top of the hydra which billows by the wind
Your dream of proud, succeeding glory
What they say of the world, coloured flags,
That which are the people, grand and Romanian,
When he strikes, sacrificing his naive flame
Sweet Romania, this I wish for you. ”

“ In Rumania’s dark hour there is yet a gleam of hope and the indications of a dawn which shall see her triumphant and reaping where she has sown, and ultimately honored among the nations for the part she has determined to play in the struggle for freedom and for international integrity. The reward of high courage and faith is often not at the moment, but is none the less certain for all that. ”

“ The intellectual development of Rumania has never until modern times been affected by Latin culture, but it has been profoundly influenced first by Slavonic literature, then by the Greek or Byzantine literature, and last, by the Western, notably French and Italian novels. The history of Rumanian literature can be divided into three distinct periods: the Slavonic, from the beginnings of Rumanian literature in the middle of the 16th century down to 1710 ”

“ Underlying all these influences from abroad are elements of a native peasant culture that can be traced back to the Neolithic settlement found on the territory of the Romanian state. The mixing of all the elements has produced a cultural mosaic that, although it has much in common with the cultures of neighboring countries, is purely Romanian. ”

“ Though the Rumanians seem to have contributed but little, up to the nineteenth century, to the advance of civilization, their part in European history is nevertheless a glorious one, and if less apparent, perhaps of more fundamental importance. By shedding their blood in the struggle against the Ottoman invasion, they, together with the other peoples of Oriental Europe, procured that security which alone made possible the development of western civilization. ”

“ Romania is the common and indivisible homeland of all its citizens, without any discrimination on account of race, nationality, ethnic origin, language, religion, sex, opinion, political adherence, property or social origin. ”

“ Take at random a score of individuals from any Roumanian village, and, like a handful of antique gems which have been strewn broadcast over the land, you will there surely find a good choice of classical profiles worthy to be immortalized on agate, onyx, or jasper. An air of plaintive melancholy generally characterizes the Roumanian peasant: it is the melancholy of a long-subjected and oppressed race. ”

“ The axis on which Rumanian foreign policy ought naturally to revolve is the circumstance that almost half the Rumanian nation lives outside Rumanian territory. As the available official statistics generally show political bias it is not possible to give precise figures; but roughly speaking there are about one million Rumanians in Bessarabia, a quarter of a million in Bucovina, three and a half millions in Hungary, while something above half a million form scattered colonies in Bulgaria, Serbia, and Macedonia. ”

“ The earliest inhabitants of Rumania are tall, dark brachycephs—the Cevenoles of Deniker’s classification. This original element has been repeatedly diluted by Slavic and Tatar percolation. The Roman conquest, which together with the “pax Romana” brought civilization to the land, was not an ethnical victory. The Romans, a mere minority of leaders, ruled in the land much after the fashion in which the British govern India at present. But this occupation of the land by men representing a superior civilization sufficed to stamp the speech of Rome upon Rumania. ”

“ Rumania is not a country of violent colours. There is a curious unity in its large horizons, its dusty roads, its white-clad peasants, its rough wooden carts. Even oxen and horses seem to have toned down to grey or dun, so as to become one with a sort of dreamy haziness that lies over the whole.
It is only the sunsets that turn all these shadowy tints into a sudden marvel of colour, flooding earth and sky with wondrous gold. I have seen hay-stacks change into [13] fiery pyramids, rivers into burning ribbons, and pale, tired faces light up with a marvellous glow. ”

“ The contact with French civilization, at an epoch when the Rumanians were striving to free themselves from Turkish, Greek, and Russian political influence, roused in them the sleeping Latin spirit, and the younger generation, in constantly increasing numbers, flocked to Paris in search of new forms of civilization and political life. ”

“ In winter man and beast seek the pastures of the Danubian steppes and prairies. Rumanians thus maintain mountain and plain residences, which they occupy alternately. [168] This mode of life is the transformation which the nomadism of the Asiatic steppe received on Rumanian soil. It is a true relic of past habitat. These seasonal migrations also account for the intimacy between highlanders and lowlanders in Rumania, besides affording adequate explanation of the peopling of the region by a single nationality. ”

“ Here, men whose lives were darkened by suspicion found a rare atmosphere, where mystery was physical, and did not hide the truth; here, could be learned the story of a race from one whose memory was saturated with traditions, who faced the future calmly, knowing its perils, sustained by hope and faith; here could be heard the twin voices of sanity and reason, expounding not what Rumania was supposed to think, but what Rumania thought. ”

“ Generally speaking, the Western Empire was Latin in language and character, while the Eastern was Greek, though owing to the importance of the Danubian provinces to Rome from the military point of view, and the lively intercourse maintained between them, Latin influence in them was for a long time stronger than Greek. Its extent is proved by the fact that the people of modern Rumania are partly, and their language very largely, defended from those of the legions and colonies of the Emperor Trajan. ”

“ The Roumanian synthesis which today plays its allotted part in forging into homogeneity the masses of diverse race and tongue in the present-day Roumania, which, despite these obstacles to progress, neverless possess a certain identity of aims and aspirations, has been the achievement of one class and one class only: the peasantry. They have infused their fundamental folklore with all that was brought by the alien or discovered by the cultured. All syntheses proceed from the truest representatives, from the most virile factors of a society. ”

“ It is the season of harvest that shows Rumania in all her glory, that season when the labour of man meets its reward, when, the earth having given her utmost, man, woman, and child go forth to gather in the wealth that makes this country what it is.
Sometimes, indeed, it is an hour of disappointment, for rain, hail, or drought ofttimes undoes man's weary work. Sometimes the earth has not responded to his dearest hopes, has not been able to bring forth her fruit. ”

“ RUMANIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE. Rumanian Language. A Romance tongue spoken in three dialects, the Daco-Rumanian, in Rumania, Transylvania, Bessarabia, the Hungarian Banat, and Bukowina—that is, in old Dacia, by about 9,000,000 people; the Macedo-Rumanian, in Macedonia, Albania, Thessaly, and Epirus, by several hundred thousand people; and the Istro-Rumanian, in Istria, by about 3000 people. The Daco-Rumanian dialect comprises the Wallachian, Moldavian, Transylvanian, and Banatian sub-dialects. ”

“ In this view, the modern Roumans would be the descendants of Trajan's colonists and of Dacians who had learned of them to adopt the speech and manners of Rome. But when we remember that Dacia was the first Roman province to be given up—that the modern Roumania was for ages the highway of every barbarian tribe on its way from the East to the West—that the land has been conquered and settled and forsaken over and over again—it would be passing strange if this should be the one land, and its people the one race, to keep the Latin tongue when it has been forgotten in all the neighboring countries. ”

“ Chapter I THE RUMANIAN PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC
Art. 1 . The Rumanian People's Re public is a popular, unitary, independent and sovereign State. Art. 2. — The Rumanian People's Re public was created in the struggle of the people led by the working class, against fascism , reaction and imperialism . Art. 3. — In the Rumanian People's Re public all the power of the State proceeds from the people and belongs to the people. The people exercise their power through representative organs elected by universal, equal, direct and secret vote. ”