Protochronism
Encyclopedia
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n term describing the tendency to ascribe, largely relying on questionable data and subjective interpretations, an idealised past to the country as a whole. While particularly prevalent during the regime of Nicolae Ceauşescu
Nicolae Ceausescu
Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...
, its origin in Romanian scholarship dates back more than a century.
The term refers to perceived aggrandizing of Dacian and earlier roots of today's Romanians. This phenomenon is also pejoratively labelled Dacomania or sometimes Thracomania, while its proponents prefer Dacology.
Overview
In this context, the term makes reference to the trend (noticed in several versions of Romanian nationalism) to ascribe a unique quality to the DaciansDacians
The Dacians were an Indo-European people, very close or part of the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia...
and their civilization. Usually glossing over the fact that Dacian society lacked such basic instruments as a writing system
Writing system
A writing system is a symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language.-General properties:Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that the reader must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to...
, protochronists attempt to prove either that Dacians had a major part to play in Ancient history
Ancient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
, or even that they had the ascendancy over all cultures (with a particular accent on Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
, which, in a complete reversal of the founding myth
Founding myth
A national myth is an inspiring narrative or anecdote about a nation's past. Such myths often serve as an important national symbol and affirm a set of national values. A national myth may sometimes take the form of a national epic...
, would have been created by Dacian migrants). Also noted are the exploitation of the Tărtăria tablets
Tartaria tablets
The Tărtăria tablets are three tablets, known since the late 19th century excavation at the Neolithic site of Turdaş in Transylvania Romania, by Zsófia Torma, which date to around 5300 BC...
as certain proof that writing originated on proto-Dacian territory, and the belief that the Dacian language
Dacian language
The extinct Dacian language may have developed from proto-Indo-European in the Carpathian region around 2,500 BC and probably died out by AD 600. In the 1st century AD, it was the predominant language of the ancient regions of Dacia and Moesia and, possibly, of some surrounding regions.It belonged...
survived all the way to the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
.
An additional - but not universal - feature is the attempted connection between the supposed monotheism
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
of the Zalmoxis
Zalmoxis
Zalmoxis , is a divinity of the Getae, mentioned by Herodotus in his Histories IV, 93-96...
cult and Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, in the belief that Dacians easily adopted and subsequently influenced the religion. Also, Christianity is argued to have been preached to the Daco-Romans by Saint Andrew
Saint Andrew
Saint Andrew , called in the Orthodox tradition Prōtoklētos, or the First-called, is a Christian Apostle and the brother of Saint Peter. The name "Andrew" , like other Greek names, appears to have been common among the Jews from the 3rd or 2nd century BC. No Hebrew or Aramaic name is recorded for him...
, who is considered, doubtfully, as the clear origin of modern-day Romanian Orthodoxy. Despite the lack of evidence to support this, it is the official church stance, being found in history textbooks used in Romanian Orthodox seminaries and theology institutes.
History
The ideas have been explained as part of an inferiority complexInferiority complex
An inferiority complex, in the fields of psychology and psychoanalysis, is a feeling that one is inferior to others in some way. Such feelings can arise from an imagined or actual inferiority in the afflicted person...
present in Romanian nationalism, one which also manifested itself in works not connected with Protochronism, 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.
Protochronism most likely came about with the views professed in the 1870s by Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu
Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu
Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu was a Romanian writer and philologist, who pioneered many branches of Romanian philology and history. Hasdeu is considered to have been able to understand 26 languages .-Life:...
, one of the main points of the dispute between him and the conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
Junimea
Junimea
Junimea was a Romanian literary society founded in Iaşi in 1863, through the initiative of several foreign-educated personalities led by Titu Maiorescu, Petre P. Carp, Vasile Pogor, Theodor Rosetti and Iacob Negruzzi...
. For example, Hasdeu's Etymologicum magnum Romaniae not only claimed that Dacians gave Rome many of her Emperors (an idea supported in recent times by Iosif Constantin Drăgan
Iosif Constantin Dragan
Iosif Constantin Drăgan was a Romanian and Italian businessman, writer and historian. In 2005, he was the second wealthiest Romanian, according to the Romanian financial magazine Capital, having a wealth estimated at $850 million...
), but also that the ruling dynasties of early medieval Wallachia
Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Danube and south of the Southern Carpathians...
and Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
were descendants of a caste
Caste
Caste is an elaborate and complex social system that combines elements of endogamy, occupation, culture, social class, tribal affiliation and political power. It should not be confused with race or social class, e.g. members of different castes in one society may belong to the same race, as in India...
of Dacians established with "King" (chieftain
Tribal chief
A tribal chief is the leader of a tribal society or chiefdom. Tribal societies with social stratification under a single leader emerged in the Neolithic period out of earlier tribal structures with little stratification, and they remained prevalent throughout the Iron Age.In the case of ...
) Burebista
Burebista
Burebista was a king of the Getae and Dacians, who unified for the first time their tribes and ruled them between 82 BC and 44 BC. He led plunder and conquest raids across Central and Southeastern Europe, subjugating most of the neighbouring tribes...
. Other advocates of the idea before World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
included the amateur archaeologist
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
Cezar Bolliac
Cezar Bolliac
Cezar Bolliac or Boliac, Boliak was a Wallachian and Romanian radical political figure, amateur archaeologist, journalist and Romantic poet.-Early life:...
, as well as Teohari Antonescu and Nicolae Densuşianu
Nicolae Densusianu
Nicolae Densuşianu was a Transylvanian-born Romanian ethnologist and collector of Romanian folklore. His main work, for which he is chiefly remembered, was the posthumously printed Dacia Preistorică , with a preface contributed by C. I...
. The latter composed an intricate and unsupported theory on Dacia as the center of European prehistory, authoring a complete parallel to Romanian official history, which included among the Dacians such diverse figures as those of the Asen dynasty
Asen dynasty
The Asen dynasty ruled a medieval Bulgarian state, called in modern historiography the Second Bulgarian Empire, between 1187 and 1280.The Asen dynasty and the Second Bulgarian Empire rose as the leaders of a rebellion against the Byzantine Empire at the turn of the year 1185/1186 caused by the...
, and Horea. The main volume of his writings is Dacia Preistorică ("Prehistoric Dacia").
After World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
and throughout Greater Romania
Greater Romania
The Greater Romania generally refers to the territory of Romania in the years between the First World War and the Second World War, the largest geographical extent of Romania up to that time and its largest peacetime extent ever ; more precisely, it refers to the territory of the Kingdom of...
's existence, the ideology increased its appeal. The Iron Guard
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
flirted with the concept, making considerable parallels between its projects and interpretations of what would have been Zalmoxis' message. Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...
was notably preoccupied with Zalmoxis' cult, arguing in favor of its structural links with Christianity; his theory on Dacian history, viewing Romanization
Romanization (cultural)
Romanization or latinization indicate different historical processes, such as acculturation, integration and assimilation of newly incorporated and peripheral populations by the Roman Republic and the later Roman Empire...
as a limited phenomenon, is celebrated by contemporary partisans of Protochronism.
In a neutral context, the Romanian archaeology school led by Vasile Pârvan
Vasile Pârvan
Vasile Pârvan was a Romanian historian and archaeologist.He studied history in Bucharest, with Nicolae Iorga as one of his professors. He continued his studies in Germany. His Ph.D. thesis, written in 1909, was titled The nationality of merchants in the Roman Empire...
investigated scores of previously ignored Dacian sites, which indirectly contributed to the idea's appeal at the time.
In 1974 Edgar Papu published in the mainstream cultural monthly Secolul XX an essay titled "The Romanian Prothocronism", arguing for Romanian chronological priority for some European achievements. The idea was promptly adopted by the nationalist Ceauşescu regime, which subsequently encouraged and amplified a cultural and historical discourse claiming the prevalence of autochthony over any foreign influence. Ceauşescu's ideologues developed a singular concept after the 1974 11th Congress of the Communist Party of Romania, when they attached Protochronism to official Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
, arguing that the Dacians had produced a permanent and "unorganized State". The Dacians had been favored by several communist generations as autochthonous insurgents against an "Imperialist" Rome (with the Stalinist
Stalinism
Stalinism refers to the ideology that Joseph Stalin conceived and implemented in the Soviet Union, and is generally considered a branch of Marxist–Leninist ideology but considered by some historians to be a significant deviation from this philosophy...
leadership of the 1950s proclaiming them to be closely linked with the Slavic peoples
Slavic peoples
The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...
); however, Ceauşescu's was an interpretation with a distinct motivation, making a connection with the opinions of previous protochronists.
The regime started a partnership with Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
resident, former Iron Guardist and millionaire Iosif Constantin Drăgan
Iosif Constantin Dragan
Iosif Constantin Drăgan was a Romanian and Italian businessman, writer and historian. In 2005, he was the second wealthiest Romanian, according to the Romanian financial magazine Capital, having a wealth estimated at $850 million...
, who continued championing the Dacian cause even after the fall of Ceauşescu. Critics regard these excesses as the expression of an economic nationalist
Economic nationalism
Economic nationalism is a term used to describe policies which emphasize domestic control of the economy, labor and capital formation, even if this requires the imposition of tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of labor, goods and capital. It opposes globalization in many cases, or at...
course, amalgamating provincial frustrations and persistent nationalist rhetoric, as autarky
Autarky
Autarky is the quality of being self-sufficient. Usually the term is applied to political states or their economic policies. Autarky exists whenever an entity can survive or continue its activities without external assistance. Autarky is not necessarily economic. For example, a military autarky...
and cultural isolation of the late Ceauşescu's regime came along with an increase in prothocronistic messages.
No longer backed by a totalitarian
Totalitarianism
Totalitarianism is a political system where the state recognizes no limits to its authority and strives to regulate every aspect of public and private life wherever feasible...
state structure after the 1989 Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
, the interpretation still enjoys popularity in several circles. The main representative of current Protochronism is still Drăgan, but he is seconded by the New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
-based physician Napoleon Săvescu
Napoleon Savescu
Napoleon Săvescu is a Romanian-American physician famous for being the supporter of some controversial theories regarding the origins and history of Dacians and Romanians...
. Together, they issue the magazine Noi, Dacii ("Us Dacians") and organize a yearly "International Congress of Dacology".
Dacian script, an example
Dacian alphabet is a term used in Romanian "Protochronism" for pseudohistorical claims of a supposed alphabet of the DaciansDacians
The Dacians were an Indo-European people, very close or part of the Thracians. Dacians were the ancient inhabitants of Dacia...
prior to the conquest of Dacia
Dacia
In ancient geography, especially in Roman sources, Dacia was the land inhabited by the Dacians or Getae as they were known by the Greeks—the branch of the Thracians north of the Haemus range...
and its absorption into the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
.
Its existence was first proposed in the late 19th century by Romanian nationalists, but has been completely rejected by mainstream modern scholarship.
In the opinion of Sorin Olteanu, a modern expert at the Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology
Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology
The Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology is an institute of the Romanian Academy, located in Bucharest, Romania and specialized in prehistory, ancient history, classical archeology and medieval history...
, 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. It is known that the ancient Dacians used the Greek
Greek alphabet
The Greek alphabet is the script that has been used to write the Greek language since at least 730 BC . The alphabet in its classical and modern form consists of 24 letters ordered in sequence from alpha to omega...
and Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
s, though possibly not as early as in neighbouring Thrace
Thracians
The ancient Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting areas including Thrace in Southeastern Europe. They spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family...
where the Ezerovo ring in Greek script has been dated to the 5th century BC. A vase fragment from the La Tène period
La Tène culture
The La Tène culture was a European Iron Age culture named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where a rich cache of artifacts was discovered by Hansli Kopp in 1857....
(Fig., right), a probable illiterate imitation of Greek letters, indicates visual knowledge of the Greek alphabet. during the La Tène period
La Tène culture
The La Tène culture was a European Iron Age culture named after the archaeological site of La Tène on the north side of Lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, where a rich cache of artifacts was discovered by Hansli Kopp in 1857....
, prior 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 journalist Cezar Bolliac
Cezar Bolliac
Cezar Bolliac or Boliac, Boliak was a Wallachian and Romanian radical political figure, amateur archaeologist, journalist and Romantic poet.-Early life:...
, an enthusiast amateur archeologist, claimed to have discovered a Dacian alphabet. They were immediately criticized for archeological and linguistic reasons. Alexandru Odobescu
Alexandru Odobescu
Alexandru Ioan Odobescu was a Romanian author, archaeologist and politician.-Biography:He was born in Bucharest, the second child of General Ioan Odobescu and his wife Ecaterina. After attending Saint Sava College and, from 1850, a Paris lycée, he took the baccalauréat in 1853 and studied...
, criticized some of Bolliac's conclusions. In 1871 Odobescu, along with Henric Trenk
Henric Trenk
Henric Trenk was a Swiss-born Romanian painter and graphic artist, best known for his Romantic landscapes and his association with writer and amateur archaeologist Alexandru Odobescu.-Biography:...
, inventoried the Fundul Peşterii cave, one of the Ialomiţei caves (See the Romanian Wikipedia article) near Buzău
Buzau
The city of Buzău is the county seat of Buzău County, Romania, in the historical region of Wallachia. It lies near the right bank of the Buzău River, between the south-eastern curvature of the Carpathian Mountains and the lowlands of Bărăgan Plain.The city's name dates back to 376 AD when the name...
. Odobescu was the first to be fascinated by its writings, which were later dated to the 3rd or 4th century. In 2002, the controversial Romanian historian, Viorica Enăchiuc, stated that the Codex Rohonczi is written in a Dacian alphabet.
The equally controversial linguist Aurora Petan (2005) claims that some Sinaia lead plates
Sinaia lead plates
The Sinaia lead plates are a set of lead plates written in an unknown language or constructed language. They are alleged to be a chronicle of the Dacians, but have been widely regarded by scholars as modern forgeries...
could contain unique Dacian scripts.
Modern-day equivalents
- Albanian nationalistsAlbanian nationalismAlbanian nationalism is a general grouping of nationalist ideas and concepts among ethnic Albanians that were first formed in the beginning of 19th century in what was called the Albanian National Awakening...
claim that the Albanians descend from the ancient PelasgiansPelasgiansThe name Pelasgians was used by some ancient Greek writers to refer to populations that were either the ancestors of the Greeks or who preceded the Greeks in Greece, "a hold-all term for any ancient, primitive and presumably indigenous people in the Greek world." In general, "Pelasgian" has come...
, the semi-mythical original inhabitants of GreeceGreeceGreece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, as a way of establishing primacy over other Balkan peoples, particularly the GreeksGreeksThe Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....
. In Communist Albania, an Illyrian origin of the Albanians (without denying Pelasgian roots a theory which has been revitalized today) played a significant role in Albanian nationalism, resulting in a revival of given names supposedly of "Illyrian" origin, at the expense of given names associated with Christianity. The protochronist ideology developed in Romania was directly borrowed by the communist regime in Albania. - IraqIraqIraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
i dictator Saddam HusseinSaddam HusseinSaddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
frequently appealed to imagery and rhetoric that assumed a direct link between the modern-day country and SumerSumerSumer was a civilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern Iraq during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age....
or BabylonBabylonBabylon was an Akkadian city-state of ancient Mesopotamia, the remains of which are found in present-day Al Hillah, Babil Province, Iraq, about 85 kilometers south of Baghdad...
. - The "Venetic theoryVenetic theoryThe Venetic theory is a widely diffused autochthonist theory of the origin of Slovenes which denies the Slavic settlement of the Eastern Alps in the 6th century, claiming that proto-Slovenes have inhabited the region since ancient times. Although it has been rejected by scholars, it has been an...
" of Slavic settlement of Eastern Alps forwarded by Slovene authors Jožko ŠavliJožko ŠavliJožko Šavli was a Slovene author, self-declared historian and high school teacher in economic sciences from Italy....
, Matej BorMatej BorMatej Bor was the pen name of Vladimir Pavšič , who was a Slovene poet, translator, playwright, journalist and partisan.-Biography:...
and Ivan Tomažič.
External links
- www.dacii.ro: A site displaying prominent characteristics of Romanian Protochronism.
- www.dacia.org: A site connected with Săvescu.
- Monica Spiridon's essay on the intellectual origins of Romanian Protochronism.
- Historical myths, legitimating discourses, and identity politics in Ceauşescu's Romania (Part 1), (Part 2)
- Tracologie şi Tracomanie (Thracology and Thracomania) at Sorin Olteanu's LTDM Project (SOLTDM.COM)
- Teme tracomanice (Thracomaniacal Themes) at Sorin Olteanu's LTDM Project (SOLTDM.COM)