Dako-Romance continuity theory

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Spatial conditions and presumed ethnic-linguistic conditions in the early Middle Ages - the extension of the reference area of ​​Romanian includes areas north as well as south of the Danube.
The Jireček Line

The Dako-Roman continuity theory says that today's population or the language of Romania goes back to a fusion of the Dacian and Roman population to form a Dako-Roman population in the province of Dacia .

After the Romans gave up the province in 270, the mixed Dacian-Roman population remained in the country. After the invasion of the Huns in 376, she withdrew from the cities into the mountains and forests, where she survived the subsequent invasions of the Goths , Gepids , Slavs , Avars , Pechenegs and Kipchaks as a farmer or shepherd . From this dako-Roman population and of Getae and Greeks in today's Dobrogea which are Romanians emerged. Their ethnogenesis took place between the 6th and 10th centuries in what is now Romania. This theory asserts not only the idea of ​​an ethnic or linguistic continuity in Romania since ancient times , but also a spatial continuity . The theory was developed in the 18th century by the Romanian " Transylvanian School " ( Școala Ardeleană ) and has been represented almost consistently by Romanian scientists ever since.

This contrasts with the migration theory developed by Robert Rösler in 1871 , according to which the Romanians should not have immigrated to what is now Romania, especially to Transylvania , until the high Middle Ages - i.e. after the arrival of the Hungarians in the 9th century . The Dacians largely perished in the Roman wars of conquest, and the Latin-speaking population was evacuated when the province was abandoned. According to this, the ethnogenesis of the Romanians took place south of the Danube from Balkan-Roman migrant shepherds who, due to their transhumance lifestyle (seasonal change of pastures over long distances, resulting in high mobility), invaded Romania and Transylvania since the Middle Ages.

Arguments for continuity theory

During the conquest of Dacia, the Dacians were not annihilated, which would not have been in line with the Roman policy towards defeated tribes. The Wallachia and the inner Transylvania had a Daco-Roman mixed population, as not least apparent from überliefertem name material. There is no doubt that Latin played a central role in the development of Romanian . Archaeological finds from Roman times are documented in Transylvania up to the end of the 4th century, so the evacuation of the province was not complete; although after the withdrawal there was probably only a sparse remaining settlement, there are also indications of continuing settlements.

In today's Transylvania there are hardly any Roman place names to be found, but river names with Latin roots can be found. In many countries the language of the underprivileged classes was written down relatively late. The predominant languages ​​in writing were Latin / Greek , also Church Slavonic and partly the idiom of the ruling or privileged classes (in Transylvania, for example, the languages ​​of the three ruling "nations", the Hungarians, Szekler and Transylvanian Saxons ). This could explain why it was difficult to prove the Romanian language in Transylvania in the Middle Ages. It is also worth mentioning in the present context that the Wallachian population group in Transylvania appeared in 1288 as Universitas Valachorum .

Arguments for the migration theory

The archaeological tradition of Roman finds ceases after the end of the 4th century. Internationally recognized evidence of a Wallachian population in the Sub-Carpathian Mountains does not go back to the 12th century. Also, hardly any Dacian or Romanesque place names have survived in Transylvania, river names of Latin origin, as in some cases in Germania, may have been retransferred from other areas or passed down by other population groups.

Romanian knows some words of pre-Roman origin, which may come from Dacian (perhaps also from Thracian ), but these may also have been adopted later into Romanian (for example through Slavonic mediation). Certain similarities between Romanian and Albanian are remarkable , which could indicate an origin of the Romanians or Romanian from areas further south-west. The distribution of the Aromanians in the border area between Albania , Greece and (Slav) Macedonia fits this .

Romanians and Albanians

Building on similarities between Romanian and Albanian , Gottfried Schramm developed a theory of the common origins of Albanians and Romanians in the area between Niš , Sofija and Skopje : the Romanians migrated from there to the north, the Albanians to the south / southwest. Scientists dealing with Albania, however, largely reject this theory as being too speculative. The Wallachian culture of the southern and western Balkans is originally closely associated with migrant cattle breeding ( transhumance ). However, the migrations of the Balkan cattle breeders mostly took place over short distances and between stationary pastures. The disputed areas of Romania are quite far from the Central and Southern Balkans, which would speak against Romanians immigrating from this region. On the other hand, the widespread use of both Romanian and Albanian-speaking population groups, which was once and in some cases still to be found today, shows that extensive migrations of Romanians and Albanians have taken place. Romanian populations can be found from northern Greece to southern Ukraine (also far outside of historical Dacia), while Albanians can be shown to have settled as far as the Attica area .

Ideological disputes

Special ideological excesses found the Dacian-Roman continuity in the Latin designation of places, so for example, if the non-Romanian origin city name "Cluj" (German Cluj , Hungarian Kolozsvár ) was added to the ancient Dacian-Roman name "Napoca" in 1974: Cluj -Napoca . On the other hand, the Hungarian side used the assumption of Romanian immigration from the inner Balkans, especially in the 19th century, to historically dispute Romanian claims to the inner Carpathian arc (i.e. Transylvania and areas adjacent to the west). Although the country indisputably had a Romanian-speaking majority of the population over the last two centuries, many Hungarians insist to this day on the historical affiliation of Transylvania ( Erdély in Hungarian ) to Hungary, as it was part of Greater Hungary .

Other Balkan scholars do not commit to either of the two theories because of the facts; Interim solutions are also conceivable, for example the survival of the Latin-speaking population in some retreat areas.

Both continuity and migration theories have been used in such a way that the populations they consider are identified with modern nations. This contradicts modern and constructivist theories of nationalism , which national consciousness only since the emergence of the modern concept of the nation in the 18th and 19th centuries. Think of the century as possible: "It is nationalism that creates nations, and not the other way around" ( Ernest Gellner ).

literature

  • Johannes Kramer: Linguistics and Politics. The theory of the continuity of Romanian and Balkan ethno-nationalism in the 20th century. In: Balkan Archives. 24/25, 1999/2000, ISSN  0170-8007 , pp. 103-163.
  • Thomas Nägler: The Romanians and the Transylvanian Saxons from the 12th century to 1848. hora-Verlag, Hermannstadt et al. 1999, ISBN 3-929848-13-9 ( Transsylvanica ), (pro continuity).
  • Ștefan Pascu, Ștefan Ștefănescu (ed.): The dangerous game of falsifying history. Studies and articles. Editura Științifică și Enciclopedică, Bucharest 1987 (this work gives a good impression of the ideological significance of the subject).
  • Mircea Rebreanu: The fateful choices in Romanian history. Hänsel-Hohenhausen, Egelsbach et al. 1997, ISBN 3-89349-932-6 (more recent Romanian representation).
  • Harald Roth: A Brief History of Transylvania. 2nd revised edition. Böhlau, Cologne et al. 2003, ISBN 3-412-13502-X (per migration).
  • Gottfried Schramm : A dam breaks. The Roman Danube border and the invasions of the 5th – 7th centuries Century in the light of names and words (= Southeast European works. Vol. 100). Oldenbourg, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-486-56262-2 .
  • Karl Strobel : The question of Romanian ethnogenesis. Continuity - discontinuity in the lower Danube region in antiquity and the early Middle Ages. In: Balkan Archives. 30/32, 2005–2007, pp. 59–166 (extensive presentation based on the current state of research; pro migration).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Harald Roth, Siebenbürgen, p. 22
  2. ^ Nicolae Gudea : Rural Settlements in the Dacian Provinces. In: Yearbook of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum Mainz 56, 2009, p. 187ff., Here p. 195 ( online ).
  3. ↑ See also Vladimir Iliescu: The evacuation of Dacia in the light of written sources , in: Dacoromania 1, 1973, Karl Albert Verlag, Freiburg i. Br, pp. 6–27, as well as the other articles in the volume. See also Vladimir Iliescu, Romania du Sud - Est , in Romance Language History, ed. G. Ernst, M-.D. Gleßgen, Chr. Schmitt, W. Schweikard, Vol. 2, Art. No. 101, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin-New York 2006, pp. 1153–1167. The conclusions of this work are also taken over in the Cambridge Ancient History , 2nd edition, Volume 12, Cambridge 2005, p. 53 (inter alia).
  4. ^ Clewing in: Jens Reuter, Konrad Clewing: The Kosovo conflict, Klagenfurt 2000, ISBN 3-85129-329-0 , p. 26, also Noel Malcolm: Kosovo. A short history. London 1998; MD Peyfuß , Basic Problems of Balkanology or Dams Must Break Sometime, Österreichische Osthefte (ÖOH) 42, pp. 211–215, 2000
  5. ^ Karl Kaser, Family and Relatives in the Balkans, Vienna 1995; ders .: Southeast European history and historiography. Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-8252-8224-4 , p. 60 ff.
  6. ↑ for example Karl Kaser, Southeast European History ..., p. 60; Ekkehard Völkl, Romania, Regensburg 1995, ISBN 3-7917-1463-5 , p. 13 f.
  7. ↑ from a Hungarian perspective: Brief history of Transylvania, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, edited by Béla Köpeczi , Budapest 1989, chap. 1 and 2.
  8. ↑ the Romanian point of view gives a lecture: Christian Schneider, The Continuity of the Romanian Population in Transylvania, Vienna 1986, introduction, pdf
  9. ^ Vg. Walter Pohl , "Conceptions of Ethnicity in Early Medieval Studies" Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings, ed. Lester K. Little and Barbara H. Rosenwein, (Blackwell), 1998, pp. 13-24, page 20 -21 ( on-line text ).
  10. ^ Nationalismproject: Overview of theories of nationalism