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Dacian-themed mural on aCommunist-eraapartment block inOrăștie,exhibiting theidiosyncratic nationalist traits of Romanian Communism.
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Dacianismis aRomanianterm describing the tendency to ascribe, largely relying on questionable data and subjective interpretation, an idealized past to the country as a whole. While particularly prevalent during theregimeofNicolae Ceaușescu,its origin in Romanian scholarship dates back more than a century.

The term refers to perceived aggrandizing of Dacian and earlier roots of today'sRomanians.This phenomenon is also pejoratively labelled "Dacomania"or"Dacopathy"or sometimes"Thracomania",while its proponents prefer"Dacology".The termprotochronism(anglicized from theRomanian:protocronism,from theAncient Greekterms for "first in time" ), originally coined to refer to the supposed pioneering character of theRomanian culture,is sometimes used as a synonym.

Overview[edit]

In this context, the term makes reference to the trend (noticed in several versions ofRomanian nationalism) to ascribe a unique quality to theDaciansand their civilization.[1]Dacianists attempt to prove either that Dacians had a major part to play inancient historyor even that they had the ascendancy over all cultures (with a particular accent onAncient Rome,which, in a complete reversal of thefounding myth,would have been created by Dacian migrants).[2]Also noted are the exploitation of theTărtăria tabletsas certain proof that writing originated on proto-Dacian territory, and the belief that theDacian languagesurvived all the way to theMiddle Ages.[2]

An additional, but not universal, feature is the attempted connection between the supposedmonotheismof theZalmoxiscult andChristianity,[3]in the belief that Dacians easily adopted and subsequently influenced the religion. Also, Christianity is argued to have been preached to the Daco-Romans bySaint Andrew,who is considered doubtfully as the clear origin of modern-dayRomanian Orthodoxy.Despite the lack of supporting evidence, it is the official church stance, being found in history textbooks used in Romanian Orthodox seminaries and theology institutes.[4]

History[edit]

The ideas have been explained as part of aninferiority complexpresent in Romanian nationalism,[5]one which also manifested itself in works not connected with Dacianism, mainly as a rejection of the ideas that Romanian territories only served as a colony of Rome, voided of initiative, and subject to an influx of Latins which would have completely wiped out a Dacian presence.[6]

Dacianism most likely came about with the views professed in the 1870s byBogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu,[7]one of the main points of the dispute between him and theconservativeJunimea.For example, Hasdeu'sEtymologicum magnum Romaniaenot only claimed that Dacians gave Rome many of her Emperors (an idea supported in recent times byIosif Constantin Drăgan),[8]but also that the ruling dynasties of early medievalWallachiaandMoldaviawere descendants of acasteof Dacians established with "King" (chieftain)Burebista.[9]Other advocates of the idea beforeWorld War Iincluded the amateurarchaeologistCezar Bolliac,[10]as well asTeohari AntonescuandNicolae Densușianu.The latter composed an intricate and unsupported theory on Dacia as the center of European prehistory,[11]authoring a complete parallel to Romanian official history, which included among the Dacians such diverse figures as those of theAsen dynasty,andHorea.[11]The main volume of his writings isDacia Preistorică( "Prehistoric Dacia" ).

AfterWorld War Iand throughoutGreater Romania's existence, the ideology increased its appeal. TheIron Guardflirted with the concept, making considerable parallels between its projects and interpretations of what would have been Zalmoxis' message.[12]Mircea Eliadewas notably preoccupied with Zalmoxis' cult, arguing in favor of its structural links with Christianity;[13]his theory on Dacian history, viewingRomanizationas a limited phenomenon, is celebrated by contemporary partisans of Dacianism.[14]

In a neutral context, the Romanian archaeology school led byVasile Pârvaninvestigated scores of previously ignored Dacian sites, which indirectly contributed to the idea's appeal at the time.[15]

In 1974Edgar Papupublished in the mainstream cultural monthlySecolul XXan essay titled "The Romanian Protochronism", arguing for Romanian chronological priority for some European achievements.[16]The idea was promptly adopted by the nationalist Ceaușescu regime, which subsequently encouraged and amplified a cultural and historical discourse claiming the prevalence of autochthony over any foreign influence.[17]Ceaușescu's ideologues developed a singular concept after the 1974 11th Congress of theCommunist Party of Romania,when they attached Dacianism to officialMarxism,arguing that the Dacians had produced a permanent and "unorganized State".[18]The Dacians had been favored by several communist generations as autochthonous insurgents against an "Imperialist"Rome (with theStalinistleadership of the 1950s proclaiming them to be closely linked with theSlavic peoples);[19]however, Ceaușescu's was an interpretation with a distinct motivation, making a connection with the opinions of previous Dacianists.[20]

The regime started a partnership withItalianresident, former Iron Guardist and millionaireIosif Constantin Drăgan,who continued championing the Dacian cause even after the fall of Ceaușescu.[21]Critics regard these excesses as the expression of aneconomic nationalistcourse, amalgamating provincial frustrations and persistent nationalist rhetoric, asautarkyand cultural isolation of the late Ceaușescu's regime came along with an increase in Dacianist messages.[22]

Vladimir Tismăneanuwrote:

"Protochronism" was the party-sponsored ideology that claimed Romanian precedence in major scientific and cultural discoveries. It was actually the underpinning of Ceaușescu's nationalist tyranny.[23]

No longer backed by atotalitarianstate structure after the1989 Revolution,the interpretation still enjoys popularity in several circles.[24]The main representative of current Protochronism was still Drăgan (now deceased), but theNew York City-based physician Napoleon Săvescu took over after Drăgan's death. Together, they issued the magazineNoi, Dacii( "We Dacians" ) and organized a yearly "International Congress of Dacology".[25]Săvescu still does those.

Săvescu's most famous theory says that the Romanians are not descendants of the Roman colonists and assimilated Dacians, as mainstream historians say, but that they are the descendants of only the Dacians, who spoke a language close toLatin.

Other controversial theories of his include the Dacians (or their ancestors) developing of the first Alpha bet in the world (see theTărtăria tablets), the first set of laws or the Dacian conquest ofWestern Europe,India,Iraq,Japanand theAmericas.

"If the Harappa culture did not disappear after the Carpatho-Danubian invasion, how come the invaders themselves vanished, leaving no traces behind, or leaving, as Sir Wheeler put it," nothing but a name? "How could the nomad Carpatho-Danubians, mainly a people of breeders, give birth not only to a new religion, but found splendid cities that outlived them to this day? How could the greatest and most complex literature in the world have come from these Carpatho-Danubian people? Actually, the whole Vedic literature is based on four texts (the oldest being Rig-Veda, Yajur-Veda and Sama-Veda, the later Athara-Veda and two poems resembling the Iliad and the Odyssey only two thousand years older; Ramnayana and Mahabharata have preserved a toponimy echoing that of the Aryan Carpatho-Danubians' homeland and share the same main theme – the enmity and rancor between two families fighting over the throne of Bahataral (according to some, today's Banat-Romania).

— The Conquest of India by the Carpatho-Danubian People

His theories are, however, disregarded by historical journals and most historians, e.g. Mircea Babeș,Lucian Boiaand Alexandra Tomiță,[26][27][28]who label these theories aspseudoscienceand anachronistic and consider that there is not enough scientific evidence to support them.[29]Dacia,journal of theVasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology,and the history journalSaeculumdid not speak highly of him, either.[30][31]

Dacian script[edit]

A Dacian script or the work of an illiterate potter?

"Dacian Alpha bet" is a term used in Romanian protochronism and Dacianism forpseudohistoricalclaims of a supposed Alpha bet of theDaciansprior to the conquest ofDaciaand its absorption into theRoman Empire. Its existence was first proposed in the late 19th century byRomanian nationalists,but has been completely rejected by mainstream modern scholarship.

In the opinion ofSorin Olteanu,a modern expert at theVasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology,Bucharest, "[Dacian script] is pure fabrication [...] purely and simply Dacian writing does not exist", adding that many scholars believe that the use of writing may have been subject to a religious taboo among the Dacians.[32]It is known that the ancientDaciansused theGreekandLatin Alpha bets,[33]though possibly not as early as in neighbouringThracewhere theEzerovo ringin Greek script has been dated to the 5th century BC. A vase fragment from theLa Tène period(see illustration above), a probable illiterate imitation of Greek letters, indicates visual knowledge of the Greek Alpha bet[34]during theLa Tène periodprior to the Roman invasion. Some Romanian writers writing at the end of the 19th century and later identified as protochronists, particularly the Romanian poet and journalistCezar Bolliac,an enthusiast amateur archaeologist,[35]claimed to have discovered a Dacian Alpha bet. They were immediately criticized for archaeological[36]and linguistic[37][38]reasons.Alexandru Odobescu,criticized some of Bolliac's conclusions.[39]In 1871 Odobescu, along withHenric Trenk,inventoried the Fundul Peșterii cave, one of the Ialomiței caves (See theRomanian Wikipedia article) nearBuzău.Odobescu was the first to be fascinated by its writings, which were later dated to the 3rd or 4th century.[40]In 2002, the controversial[41]Romanian historian, Viorica Enăchiuc, stated that theCodex Rohoncziis written in a Dacian Alpha bet.[42] The equally controversial[43]linguist Aurora Petan (2005) claims that someSinaia lead platescould contain unique Dacian scripts.[44]

The linguistGeorge Pruteanucalled protochronism as "the barren and paranoid nationalism", because protochronism claims that the Dacian language was the origin of Latin and all other languages, includingHindiandBabylonian.[45]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^Boia, p.160-161
  2. ^abBoia, p.149-151
  3. ^Boia, p.169
  4. ^Lavinia Stan, Lucian Turcescu,Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania,Oxford University Press, 2007, p.48
  5. ^Verdery, p.177
  6. ^Boia, p.85, 127-147
  7. ^Boia, 138-139, 140, 147; Verdery, p.326
  8. ^Boia, p.268
  9. ^Boia, p.82
  10. ^Boia, p.139-140
  11. ^abBoia, p.147-148
  12. ^Boia, p.320
  13. ^Boia, p.152; Eliade, "Zalmoxis, The Vanishing God", inSlavic Review,Vol. 33, No. 4 (December 1974), p.807-809
  14. ^Boia, p.152; Șimonca
  15. ^Boia, p.145-146
  16. ^Boia, p.122-123; Martin
  17. ^Boia, p.117-126
  18. ^Boia, p.120
  19. ^Boia, p.154-155, 156
  20. ^Boia, p.155-157; 330-331
  21. ^Verdary, p.343
  22. ^Boia, p.338
  23. ^Tismăneanu, Vladimir (15 October 2003).Stalinism for All Seasons: A Political History of Romanian Communism.University of California Press. p. 319.ISBN978-0-520-23747-6.
  24. ^Babeș; Boia, p.356
  25. ^"Ca și cînd precedentele reuniuni n-ar fi fost de ajuns, dacologii bat cîmpii in centrul Capitalei"[permanent dead link],inEvenimentul Zilei,22 June 2002
  26. ^Manea, Irina-Maria (22 March 2017)."Dacomania sau cum mai falsificãm istoria".historia.ro(in Romanian).Retrieved1 August2019.
  27. ^Petre, Zoe (28 August 2001)."Burebista, contemporanul nostru".Observator Cultural(in Romanian) (79). Archived fromthe originalon 16 October 2007.Retrieved1 August2019.
  28. ^Babeș, Mircea (9 September 2003)."Renașterea Daciei?".Observator Cultural(in Romanian) (185). Archived fromthe originalon 30 September 2007.Retrieved1 August2019.
  29. ^Corbea, Andrei (12 May 2003)."Herodot si" Todoreh "".Observator Cultural(in Romanian) (168).Retrieved1 August2019.
  30. ^Niculescu, Gheorghe Alexandru (2005)."Archaeology, Nationalism and" The History of the Romanians "(2001)".Dacia: Revue d'archéologie et d'histoire ancienne.48–49. Institutul de Arheologie (București): 101.ISSN0070-251X.
  31. ^Arens, Meinolf; Bein, Daniel (2003)."Katholische Ungarn in der Moldau".Saeculum.54(2). Böhlau Verlag: 252.doi:10.7788/saeculum.2003.54.2.213.ISSN0080-5319.S2CID201277080.
  32. ^Gherasim, Gabriel Teodor (4 March 2007).""Scrierea daca" este pura inventie ".Noi, NU!.Archived fromthe originalon 7 January 2011.Retrieved9 January2011.Este un bun prilej să demontăm un alt mit drag tracomanilor, anume cel al 'scrierii dacice' si al vechimii ei 'imemorabile'. 'Scrierea dacă' este pură inventie. Nu este nici măcar vorba de incertitudini, de chestiuni de interpretare (din ce punct de vedere privim) s.a.m.d., ci pur si simplu nu există nici o scriere dacă [...] Asa cum cred multi dintre învătati, este foarte posibil ca la daci, întocmai ca si la celti până la un anumit moment, scrierea să fi fost supusă unui tabu religios.
  33. ^Daicoviciu, Hadrian (1972).Dacii.Editura Enciclopedică Română.
  34. ^Vulpe, Radu; Vulpe, Ecaterina (1933)."Les fouilles de Poiana".Dacia: Revue d'archéologie et d'histoire ancienne(in French).3–4:342.RetrievedJanuary 9,2011.On ne pos sắc de malheureusement pas de plus grand fragment pour établir s'il s'agit d'une inscription en langue latine ou grecque, éventullement gète, ou plutôt d'une ornementation grossière en forme d' Alpha bet, oeuvre probable d'un potier illetré. Ce tesson présente dans tous les cas un grand intérêt au point de vue de l'influence méridionale sur les artisans de notre station de Poiana, à la fin de l'époque Latène, à laquelle il appartient. Même s'il ne s'agit que d'un jeu d'imitation de quelque potier gète, sa connaissance approximative des lettres grecques ou romaines prouve que les relations entre les Gètes de la Moldavie et le monde gréco-romain d'outre Danube étaient devenues extrêmement étroites à la veille de la directe expansion romaine en Dacie.
  35. ^Măndescu, Dragoș."DESCOPERIREA SITULUI ARHEOLOGIC DE LA ZIMNICEA ȘI PRIMA ETAPĂ A CERCETĂRII SALE: 'EXPLORAȚIUNILE' LUI CEZAR BOLLIAC (1845, 1858?, 1869, 1871–1873)"(PDF).Muzeul Județean Teleorman(in Romanian).RetrievedJanuary 9,2011.[permanent dead link]
  36. ^Boia, p.92
  37. ^Hovelacque, Abel(1877).The science of language: linguistics, philology, etymology.Chapmanand Hall. p. 292.RetrievedJanuary 9,2011.The Rumanian writer Eajden... fancies he has lighted upon the old Dacian Alpha bet, in an Alpha bet surviving till the last century amongst the Szeklers of Transylvania. But he has altogether overlooked the preliminary question, to what group of languages Dacian may belong.
  38. ^Le Moyen âge(in French). Champion. 1888. p. 258.La théorie d'un Alpha bet dace est une fable; les caractères cyrilliques sont d'origine slave, non roumaine. Ce n'est que depuis le XV^ siècle que le peuple roumain les a admis dans son idiome national.Cf. Moldovan G.А latin, cyrill, (ШК es székely irasjegyek kérdése a. románoknál.(A Bp. Szernle 1887. évi oklób. sz.) Bpest, 1887.
  39. ^Oișteanu, Andrei (April 30, 2008)."Scriitorii romani si narcoticele (1) De la Scavinski la Odobescu".22 Revista Grupului Pentru Dialog Social(in Romanian). Archived fromthe originalon January 5, 2011.RetrievedJanuary 9,2011.
  40. ^Popescu, Florentin."Les ermitages des Monts de Buzau".Le site des monuments rupestres(in French). Archived fromthe originalon 2011-07-20.RetrievedJanuary 9,2011.
  41. ^Ungureanu, Dan (May 6, 2003)."Nu trageti in ambulanta".Oservator Cultural(in Romanian). Archived fromthe originalon March 27, 2004.RetrievedJanuary 8,2011.
  42. ^Enăchiuc, Vioroca (2002).Rohonczi Codex: descifrare, transcriere si traducere (Déchiffrement, transcription et traduction)(in Romanian and French). Editura Alcor.ISBN973-8160-07-3.
  43. ^Olteanu, Sorin."Raspuns Petan".Thraco-Daco-Moesian Languages Project(in Romanian).RetrievedJanuary 9,2011.
  44. ^Pețan, Aurora."A possible Dacian royal archive on lead plates".Antiquity.RetrievedJanuary 8,2011.
  45. ^"Doar o vorbă SĂȚ-I mai spun".George Pruteanu(in Romanian). 26 March 1996.Retrieved21 January2020.

References[edit]

External links[edit]

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