FOOTNOTES:
[144] Official Austrian figures estimate the number of Slovaks at slightly over 2,000,000. Slavic authorities generally give higher figures.
[145] J. Zemmich: Deutschen und Slawen in den österreichischen Südetenländern, Deutsche Erde, Vol. 2, 1903, pp. 1-4.
[146] L. Bourlier: Les Tchèques et la Bohême contemporaine, Paris, 1897, pp. 143-220.
[147] Census returns for 1910. New Inter. Encyc., New York, 1914.
[148] Quoted from the Geogr. Journ., Vol. 16, 1900, p. 553.
[149] According to data gathered by Niederle “the Bohemian boundary in the fourteenth century started at Kynwart and passed through Zdar, Kralipy and Komotan, the latter being German. Thence it attained Most and spread to Duchcov and Dieczin. Bilin and Teplitz were still Bohemian. The frontier then reached the German settlement of Benesov and extended to Jablonna and beyond the Iestred mountains until it struck the sources of the Iser river. Reichenberg was a German city in the fourteenth century. The Germans also occupied the mountainous land beyond Hohenelbe. This town was then peopled by Bohemians mainly, but Pilnikov, Trutnov, Zaclev and Stare Buky were already German. Starkov was Bohemian, but the Brunov region and the Kladsko country was Germanized. Olesnica and Rokytince were Bohemian. Beyond Policzka and Litomysl the situation was similar to that of our day. Nemecky Brod contained a German enclave. Jindrichuv Hradec as well as Budweiss, Krumlov and Prachatice were inhabited by both peoples. The Kasperk mountains were mainly German. The boundary in the Domazlice country was on Bohemian soil. Klatovy was a mixed zone, while Tachov was German.”
[150] Lützow: Bohemia, New York, 1910, pp. 71, 92.
[151] L. Niederle: La race slave, Paris, 1916, p. 109.
[152] Lützow: op. cit., p. 294.
[153] V. Gayda: Modern Austria, New York, 1915.
[154] L. Niederle: La race slave, Paris, 1911, p. 127.
[155] L. Niederle: La race slave, Paris, 1916, p. 106.
[156] The March acquires this name in its last stretch.
[CHAPTER VIII]
THE LANDS OF HUNGARIAN AND RUMANIAN LANGUAGES
The presence in Europe of Hungarians, a race bearing strong linguistic and physical affinity to Turki tribesmen, is perhaps best explained by the prolific harvests yielded by the broad valleys of the Danube and Theiss. Huns, Avars and Magyars, one and all Asiatics wandering into Europe, were induced to abandon nomadism by the fertility of the boundless Alföld. Western influences took solid root among these descendants of eastern ancestors after their conversion to Christianity and the adoption of the Latin alphabet. So strongly did they become permeated by the spirit of occidental civilization, that the menace of absorption by the Turks was rendered abortive whenever the Sultan’s hordes made successful advances towards Vienna. At the same time, fusion with the Germans was prevented by the oriental origin of the race. The foundation of a separate European nation was thus laid in the Hungarian plains.
Language to the Magyar has always represented nationality. When in 1527 St. Stephen’s crown was offered to Ferdinand of Austria in order to strengthen Hungary’s resistance against the Turk, the new ruler pledged himself not to destroy this sacred token of Hungarian political independence. “Nationem et linguam vestram servare non perdere intendimus” was his solemn promise. The germ of a dual form of government was thus created in the presence of the Sultan’s barbarous hordes, but Hungary always preserved its individuality, for at no time did the kingdom form part of the Holy Roman Empire. Closer union with Austria towards the end of the seventeenth century when the right of succession to the Hungarian throne became hereditary in the Hapsburg family, failed to Germanize the land during all the eighteenth century. Later, up to 1867, the persistent struggle of the Magyar against the Austrian was kept up. Attempts to replace German by Hungarian in the governing bodies of counties and municipalities were merely the outward expression of the contest.
When, in 1825, the Hungarian Academy of Science was founded by a group of patriotic leaders, the movement was little more than an attempt to revive the Magyar tongue. Count Stephen Széchenyi’s words on this occasion betray the consciousness of the intimate relation between language and nationality which is felt in every country during periods of actual danger. “I am not here,” he said, “as a great dignitary of the kingdom; but I am an opulent landowner, and if an institution be established that will develop the Magyar language and, by so doing, advance the national education of our countrymen, I will sacrifice the revenues of my estates for one year.” The impetus given by this statesman, and a few equally earnest compatriots, to the cultivation of national literature in Hungary became a potent factor in the shaping of the country’s modern political destiny. It liberated the Magyar from the Germanizing influences of Austrian rule and ultimately paved the way to the establishment of a dual government in the Empire.
The linguistic boundary between Hungarian and German is found in the eastern extremity of the Austrian Alps. The southern side of the valley of the Danube between Pressburg and Raab is German. Magyar spreads however to the north to meet the Slovak area. South of Pressburg the shores of Lake Neusiedler are included in the German area. The line then crosses the upper valley of the Raab and attains the Drave, which forms the linguistic boundary between Croatian and Hungarian. East of the Theiss, contact with the Rumanian of Transylvania begins in the vicinity of Arad, on the Maros river, and extends northward in an irregular line, hugging the western outliers of the Transylvanian Alps and attaining the sources of the Theiss. In the northeastern valley of this river, Hungarian and Ruthenian languages replace each other. The area of Magyar speech thus defined lacks homogeneity in its western section lying west of the Danube. Important enclaves of Germans are solidly intrenched in this portion of the Hungarian domain. The central portion of the monotonous expanse unfolding itself between the Danube and the Theiss is, on the other hand, characterized by uniformity of the Hungarian population it supports. Enclaves however exist all along the border of this eastern area.
Hungarian nationality asserted itself definitely in the nineteenth century in the face of strenuous effort on the part of Germans to assimilate the Magyars. The latter took advantage of the defeat of the Austrians at Sadowa in 1867 to reach a compromise with their masters. The Hapsburg Empire was then converted into a Dual Monarchy. For a time the economic advantages of this union lay entirely with Austria. The Hungarian plain, vast and fecund, bestowed the wealth of its fertility on Austria. A land of farmers it also became an important market for the industrial output of its German partner-state. This economic relation was maintained until the beginning of the twentieth century, when Hungary made rapid progress in industry and forced Austria to seek Balkan markets for the disposal of its manufactured goods.
Austria’s unsuccessful attempt to dominate Hungary’s economic life accelerated the growth of the germ of dissension between the two countries. The tie that links Budapest to Vienna, at present, is strengthened by Hungarian dread of the Slav. It might have given way long ago otherwise, for in truth Hungary has to face the menace of Pan-Germanism as well. The percentage of native Hungarians in their own country is under 55 per cent and gives them a bare majority over the combined alien peoples.[157] The number of Germans scattered in Hungarian districts is 2,000,000. The only advantage which the natives of the soil possess lies in their occupation of the richest lands in their country.
A minor group of Hungarians have settled on the eastern edge of the Transylvania mountains. Here they live surrounded by Rumanians on all sides except on the west where a lone outpost of Saxons brings Teutonic customs and speech to the east. The name of Szekler, meaning frontier guardsmen, applied to this body of Magyars is indicative of their origin. Their presence on the heights overlooking the Rumanian plain bespeaks the desire of Hungarian sovereigns to control the site of a natural rampart dominating their plains. At the end of the thirteenth century this Hungarian colony was in full development. Its soldiers distinguished themselves during the period of war with the Turks. Prestige acquired on battlefields strengthened the separate and semi-independent existence of the community. The region occupied by these Hungarians is situated along the easternmost border of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. It extends west of the uninhabited mountain-frontier district between Tölgyes Pass and Crasna. The towns of Schässburg and Maros Vasarhely lie on its western border. But the area of Rumanian speech situated between the land of the Szekler and the main Hungarian district is studded with numerous colonies of Magyars, thereby rendering delimitation of a linguistic boundary in the region almost impossible.
The Saxon colony adjoining the Szekler area on the west is also a relic of medieval strategic necessities. In spite of the name by which this German settlement is designated, its original members appear to have been recruited from different sections of western European regions occupied by Teutons.[158] Colonization had already been started when King Gesa II of Hungary gave it a fresh impulse, in the middle of the twelfth century, by inducing peasants of the middle Rhine and Moselle valleys to exchange servitude in their native villages for land ownership in the Transylvania area.[159]
To promote the efficiency of these colonists as frontier guardsmen an unusual degree of political latitude was accorded them. In time their deputies sat in the Hungarian diet on terms of equality with representatives of the nobility. Prolonged warfare with the Tatar populations who attempted to force entrance into the Hungarian plains, led to the selection of strategical sites as nuclei of original settlements. These facts account for the survival of the Teutonic groups in the midst of Rumanians and Hungarians. Today the so-called Saxon area does not constitute a single group, but consists of separate agglomerations clustered in the vicinity of the passes and defiles which the ancestors of the Teutons were called upon to defend. The upper valley of the Oltu and its mountain affluents, in the rectangle inclosed between the towns of Hermannstadt, Fogaras, Mediasch and Schässburg, contain at present the bulk of this Austrian colony of German ancestry.
Fig. 42—View of the Transylvanian plateau near the western edge of the Carpathians. Hosszufalu (Langendorf) in the distance.
The Rumanian problem in Hungary is mainly economic. The chief aim of Hungarians is to maintain political supremacy in the provinces containing a majority of the Romance-speaking element. The Rumanian communities are scattered over an area of about 76,000 square miles (122,278 sq. kms.) which comprises Transylvania and its old “exterior” counties as well as the Banat. This region is peopled by 6,305,666 inhabitants according to recent census figures. Of these 87.8 per cent consist of peasants. The number of Rumanians is officially estimated at 2,932,214. Rumanian students, however, point to official Austrian returns for the year 1840 which placed the number of their countrymen at 2,202,000[160] and lay stress on the coefficient of increase for the period 1870 to 1910, which is 15.5 per thousand in Rumania and 10.8 per thousand in Hungary. Applying the Rumanian rate to the Rumanian subjects of the Hapsburgs they find that their kinsmen in Hungary ought to number approximately 3,536,000. Otherwise it is necessary to admit that between 1840 and 1890 Magyars increased 54 per cent, and Rumanians only 17 per cent, in spite of the recognized fact that Rumanian peasants have larger families than their Hungarian masters.[161]
Social grouping in Transylvania shows that the dominating Hungarian class consists largely of city dwellers and government employees. These are the characteristics of an immigrant population which is not solidly rooted to the land. The Szekler alone among Magyars are tillers of the soil and in intimate contact with the land on which they live. Few of the Rumanians are landowners. The estates held by an insignificant number of their kinsmen generally form part of ecclesiastical domains and are of restricted size. They own however a relatively large proportion of Transylvania’s forested areas, which the Hungarian ruling class is endeavoring to acquire by imitating Prussian methods of absorption of Polish lands.
The Germans and Hungarians who founded settlements on the Transylvanian plateau were unable to impose their language on the inhabitants of the mountainous region. Rumanian, representing the easternmost expansion of Latin speech, is in use today on the greatest portion of this highland[162] as well as in the fertile valleys and plains surrounding it between the Dniester and the Danube. A portion of Hungary and the Russian province of Bessarabia is therefore included in this linguistic unit outside of the kingdom of Rumania.[163] Beyond the limits of this continuous area, the only important colony of Rumanians is found around Metsovo in Greece where, in the recesses of the Pindus mountains and surrounded by the Greeks, Albanians and Bulgarians of the plains, almost half a million Rumanians[164] have managed to maintain the predominant Latin character of their language.[165]
Rumanian is derived directly from the low Latin spoken in the Imperial era. In syntax and grammar it reproduces Latin forms of striking purity. Words dealing with agricultural pursuits, however, are generally of Slavic origin. The closeness of Rumanian to Latin can be gathered from the following two specimens of Wallachian verse and their Latin rendering:
1.
Rumanian
Bela in large valle amblà
Erba verde lin calcà;
Cantà, qui cantand plangeà,
Quod tódi munti resunà;
Ea in genunchi se puneà,
Ochi in sus indireptà;
Ecce, asi vorbe faceâ;
“Domne, domne, bune domne.”
Latin
Puella in larga valle ambulabat,
Herbam viridem leniter calcabat,
Cantabat et cantando plangebat,
Ut omnes montes resonarent:
Illa in genua se ponebat,
Oculos sursum dirigebat;
Ecce, sic verba faciebat:
“Domine, domine, bone domine.”
2.
Rumanian
Nucu, fagu, frassinu
Mult se certà intra séne.
“Nuce,” dice frassinu,
“Quine vine, nuci college,
“Cullegend si ramuri frange
“Vaide dar de pelle a tua;
“Dar tu fage, mi vecine,
“Que voi spune in mente tene:
“Multe fere saturasi;
“Qui prébéne nu amblasi;
“Quum se au geru apropiat
“La pament te au si culcat,
“Si in focu te au si aruncat, ...
Latin
Nux, fagus, fraxinus,
Multum certant inter se.
“Nux,” dicit fraxinus
“Quisquis venit, nuces legit,
“Colligendo ramos frangit:
“Vae itaque pelli tuae!
“At tu fage, mi vicine,
“Quae exponam mente tene?
“Multas feras saturasti,
“At haud bene ambulasti;
“Quum gelu appropinquat
“Ad pavimentum de deculcant
“Ad focum averruncant, ...
The prevalence of Latin in an eastern land, and in a form which is stated to present closer analogies with the language of the Roman period than with any of its western derivatives, had its origin in the Roman conquest of southeastern Europe in the early part of the first Christian millennium. Occupation of the land by important bodies of legionaries and a host of civil administrators, their intermarriage with the natives, the advantages conferred by Roman citizenship, all combined to force Latin into current use. And when in 275 Aurelian recalled Roman troops from the eastern provinces of the empire, the vernacular of Rome had taken too solid a footing on Dacian soil to be extirpated.
Abandonment of the region by the Romans is cited for political reasons by the Magyar rulers of Transylvania to refute Rumanian claims to this Hungarian province. Rumanian historians, however, have been able to demonstrate the untenability of this assumption.[166] They have shown that many of the customs of their country are distinctly reminiscent of Latin Italy. It is still customary in many Rumanian villages to attach a small coin to the finger of the dead after an ancient Roman custom of providing the soul with its fare across the Styx. Bands of traveling musicians in Balkan or Hungarian cities are known to be composed of Rumanians whenever their members carry an instrument which is a faithful imitation of the pipes of Pan as sculptured upon Roman and Gallo-Roman monuments. Rumania’s national dance, the Calusaré, commemorates the rape of the Sabines to this day. Neither does the list of these analogies end with the examples given here. Furthermore the evidence afforded by geography tends also to validate Rumanian claims.
From the valley of the Dniester to the basin of the Theiss the steppes of southern Russia spread in unvarying uniformity save where the tableland of the Transylvanian Alps breaks their continuity. The entire region was the Dacia colonized by the Romans.[167] Unity of life, in this home of Rumanian nationality, has been unaffected by the sharp physical diversity afforded by the inclosure of mountain and plain within the same linguistic boundary. The thoroughness with which Rumanians have adapted themselves to the peculiarities of their land is evinced by the combination of the twin occupations of herder and husbandman characteristic of Moldavians and Wallachians. Cattle and flocks are led every summer to the rich grazing lands of the Transylvania valleys. 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.[169]
There was a time, however, when Rumanian nationality was entirely confined to the mountain zone. Invasions which followed the retirement of the Romans had driven Rumanians to the shelter of the Transylvanian ranges. Perched on this natural fortress, they beheld the irruption of Slavs and Tatars in the broad valleys which they once held in undisputed sway. Only after the flow of southeastern migrations had abated did they venture to reoccupy the plains and resume their agricultural life and seasonal wanderings.
The outstanding fact in these historical vicissitudes is that the mountain saved the Latin character of Rumanian speech. Had the Romanized Dacians been unable to find refuge in the Transylvanian Alps their language would probably have been submerged by the Slavic or Tatar flood. As it is, the life of Rumanians is strongly impregnated with eastern influences. Oddly enough its Christianity was derived from Byzantium instead of from Rome and, were it not for a veritable renaissance of Latinism about 1860, its affinity with the Slavic world would be manifest with greater intensity than is apparent in the present century.
The preservation of Roman speech was not confined to the Transylvanian mountain area. In spite of Rome’s waning power in the Balkans, her language had taken such solid root in the peninsula that it has maintained itself to this day in the Pindus mountain region intervening between Epirus and Macedonia. Here the Kutzo-Vlachs of the region speak a language identical with that spoken in the last stretches of the valley of the Danube. In Albania also the same cultural heritage has been treasured to this day in the mountainous tangle of the land. Albanian however is further removed from Latin than Rumanian, probably on account of less intercourse with the Roman world.[170]
The name of Kutzo-Wallachians or Aromunes is given to the mountaineers of Rumanian speech peopling parts of Macedonia, Albania and Thessaly. This detached band of Rumanians occupies mainly the region between the mountains of the Pindus range and the Serbian boundary. In Albania they are found scattered along the upper reaches of the Semeni and Devoli rivers. In Greece, the channels of the Voyussa, the Arta, the Aspropotamos, the Bistritza and the lower Vardar likewise constitute their favorite tramping grounds. A shepherd people, roaming with their flocks, their life is spent either in the valleys of their summer mountain resorts or in the plains which they favor in winter. Tribes or clans among which dialectical differences can be found occur according to locality, but they nevertheless compose when taken together a compact mass of Rumanians settled far from the main body of their kinsmen by speech.
A group 5,000 to 6,000 strong live near the sources of the Aspropotamos around Siracu, and between Kalarites and Malakasi. Northwards this clan extends to Metsovo.[171] In the Olympus mountains Rumanians are known at Vlakho-Livadi and adjoining districts. Eastwards, the Veria Rumanians are found in the villages of Selia, Doliani and Kirolivadi. West of the latter locality, the settlements of Vlakho-Klissura, Blatza and Sisani are likewise composed entirely of Rumanian inhabitants. The same is true of the villages of Nevesca, Belcamen and Pisuderi as well as of Gramosta, in the recesses of the Grammos mountains and of Koritza and Sipiska. Other colonies exist at Okrida, Gopes, Krushevo, Molovista, Tirnova, Magarevo and Monastir. The Struga and Geala settlements are also part of the preceding groups.
Within Albanian territory the village of Frasheri is the most important Rumanian settlement. Its name has passed to the Frasherist group of western Rumanians. Around Berat, a strong contingent occupies about 40 villages and can muster ten thousand men. In the Vardar valley various settlements aggregating 14,000 individuals, all farmers, are distributed near Guevgueli as well as in localities north and south of this town. Many of these peasants are Mohammedans and speak a dialect of their own. A Rumanian settlement is also found in the Jumaya Pass south of Sofia and along the old Turco-Bulgarian frontier.
The nomadic character of these isolated adherents of a Latin language is shown in many of their villages, which are occupied during part of the year only. As an example the villages in the vicinity of Frasheri, the ancient “Little Wallachia,” are inhabited during winter alone. Many Frasherists can be met along the Albanian coast between Kimara and the bay of Valona, as well as along the eastern coast of Corfu and in villages of the Moskopolis and Koritza districts. As a rule they are peddlers and confine their commercial nomadism to profitable routes just as pastoral nomads, who are their kinsmen, seesaw back and forth between the mountain districts nearest their plains.
The three areas of Romance language in the Balkans attest, by implication, the powerful influence attained by Rome in the peninsula prior to the rise of the Slavic flood. The presence of the Slavs began to be felt about the seventh century and two hundred years later the Balkan peninsula had become heavily Slavicized. Before that period, however, every nook and corner of the land area between the Adriatic and the Black and Ægean seas must have been under effective Roman jurisdiction. Lanes of travel from the coasts of Albania to the famous Thracian rendezvous were frequented by Roman traders and colonists with increasing regularity in the early centuries of the Christian era. The growing estrangement of Byzantium from the west, Slavic inroads and later Turkish advances all but destroyed the social unity which must have characterized the Balkan region in Roman times. Of this unity, the Rumanian and Albanian languages alone have survived along different coasts. Both languages are knit together structurally as well as by outward harmony.
Through the survival of Romanic languages in the Balkan peninsula an excellent glimpse is obtained of the conditions preceding the Slavic migrations which, beginning at the end of the third century, burst into full strength at the opening of the sixth. The Slavic flood was both heavy and prolonged. Its strength can be surmised from the survival of Slavic place names in the sections of Balkan territory under Greek, Rumanian or Albanian control. But the Slavs mastered only the drainage area of the Danube and its tributaries. The twin basins of the Save and Drave afforded them westerly routes of penetration without, however, providing channels of southerly advance. The watershed coinciding roughly with easterly longitude 21° in Albania and attaining the Pindus mountains therefore remained closed land to the Slavs. As a result Albania and Macedonia are to be considered as areas in which Romance speech once prevailed. The signs of this linguistic relation are numerous in Albania because the country is less open to invasion than the Macedonian basin.
A territory of Romance languages extending continuously from the Atlantic to the Black Sea probably existed prior to the immigration of Slavs into southeastern Europe. The areas of Romansh, Friulian, Ladin, Albanian and Rumanian are remnants of this ancient language zone. Even the Slavic language of the Macedonian peasant is a layer superimposed on the linguistic stratum prevailing before the period of Slavic invasion. It is therefore about thirteen centuries old. The changes undergone by the earlier form of Macedonian in this span of centuries have been so sweeping as to obliterate altogether the character of the pre-Slavic tongue. Rumanian vernaculars of the Pindus extended therefore to the east and not improbably into Thrace. A claim upon Macedonia based on this assumption has even been put forward by Rumanians.[172]
Fig. 43—The easterly sweep of Romance languages. The dotted areas are lowlands. Romance languages are spoken in the diagonally ruled areas. Cross-ruling represents the connecting areas between eastern and western Romance languages. Pindus localities in which Rumanian is spoken are indicated by R. Scale, 1:12,500,000.
No fair conception of the character of the Rumanian population can be attained without thorough realization of the extent to which the land has been open to the invasions of Asiatic nomads of the steppes. The intensity of this movement can be ascertained for the historical period. Back of that time, however, the interminable stretch of centuries must have been characterized by the same inflow from the east, else the Rumanian population would not betray today such distinctly Tatar earmarks. The eastern sections of the country, those nearest to, and forming practically a continuation of Russia, teem with settlements of pure Tatars.
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’s past differed from that of the other Balkan nations. During the centuries in which the destiny of the ancient world was controlled largely by Byzantine statesmen, Moldavia and Wallachia seldom took part in the quarrels that pitted Slavs against Greeks. Balkan conflicts seemed then to be restricted to the populations living south of the Danube. Excellent relations were maintained between the rulers of Rumanian principalities and the Byzantine court. It was always felt at Constantinople, throughout the centuries of bitter struggle against Islam’s waxing might, that the voivodes’ aid against the Turks was assured.
After the terrible blow inflicted on Christendom by the fall of Constantinople, the two principalities of the northern Danubian bank managed to preserve autonomy. This is a highly significant fact in Rumanian history, for it meant that the country was spared the effects of racial blendings or upheavals consequent to the Ottoman occupation of southeastern Europe. Religious and national antagonism between the various elements of the Christian populations under the Sultan’s rule were incessantly fostered by the Turks as a means of consolidating their own sovereignty.
The rôle played by Rumania during the long period of Christian servitude entitles the country to the gratitude of the other Balkan states. The land beyond the Danube became a haven to which victims of Mohammedan persecution repaired whenever possible. Noblemen despoiled of their estates, traders menaced with execution for having claimed payment of debts incurred towards them by the followers of the Prophet, students whose only crime consisted of having interpreted Christian doctrines to their co-religionists, all found refuge under the banner of the cross flying on the north bank of the Danube. Hungary itself has incurred a heavy debt of obligation to Rumania, for both Moldavia and Wallachia served as a buffer against which Turkish blows directed at Magyar power spent themselves in vain.
The province of Bukovina, once the borderland between Rumanians and Ruthenians, has become in modern times the meeting place of both peoples. According to recent Austrian statistics its population is as follows:
| 1900 | 1910 | ||
| Germans | 159,486 | 168,851 | |
| Bohemians and Slovakians | 596 | 1,005 | |
| Poles | 26,857 | 26,210 | |
| Ruthenians | 297,798 | 305,101 | |
| Slovenes | 108 | 80 | |
| Serbo-Croatians | 6 | 1 | |
| Italians | 119 | 36 | |
| Rumanians | 229,018 | 273,254 | |
| Hungarians | 9,516 | 10,391 | |
| Total | 723,504 | 784,929 | [173] |
The Rumanians and Ruthenians are the oldest and most numerous inhabitants of Bukovina. The former are generally confined to the southeastern districts of the province while the majority of the Ruthenians inhabit the northwest. The mountainous sections are peopled by the Huzuli, a folk whose speech and customs contain traces of Slavic influence. The remainder of the inhabitants of Bukovina consists of descendants of immigrants who settled in the province about five or six centuries ago.
Fig. 44—Sketch map of the Rumanian area (diagonally ruled) in Bukovina and Hungary. The blank area is overwhelmingly Slavic (Little Russians or Ruthenians). The dotted patches in Hungary represent areas of Hungarian speech.
Germans, mostly traders and artisans from Transylvania and Galicia, made their first appearance in Bukovina in the fourteenth century. Occasionally German priests and warriors would also find their way into the province and decide to settle permanently within its borders. A fresh impetus to German colonization was given by the fall of Bukovina into Austrian hands in 1774. Under the rule of Maria Theresa and Emperor Joseph II Germans of all classes and conditions were induced to seek the province and Germanize the land. They came as officials, teachers, soldiers and merchants and took up their abode generally in special cities.[174]
This German element was derived chiefly from Swabia, Bohemia and German Austria. The Swabians were the earliest colonists and are found scattered in the best farming districts of the province.[175] The Zips of northern Hungary are generally found in the mountains of southwestern Bukovina which they had occupied originally as miners.[176]
The Hungarians of Bukovina are not descendants of immigrants from Hungary but from Rumania. Their ancestors were the Magyars and Szeklers who had been dispatched by Hungarian kings to defend the passes of Transylvania. After Bukovina’s annexation to Austria, efforts were made to induce the descendants of the old frontier guardsmen to live within Austrian boundaries. The call was heeded by many who as a result selected Bukovina as residence. One of the earliest colonies was founded at Istensegitz, while Hadikfalva and Andreasfalva became sites of their settlements during the reign of Emperor Joseph.
The Poles emigrated to the province mainly from Galicia between the years 1786 and 1849. They are found scattered in the larger cities, notably at Czernowitz. The Slovaks came later. Prior to the nineteenth century they had no colonies of any importance in Bukovina. In 1803 they appear around the glass factories near Crasna, where they were employed as woodcutters. Between 1830 and 1840 they founded the settlements of Neusolonetz and Pojana-Mikuli.
Many Bukovinan localities are inhabited by Lippowans, who are Great Russians and who on the basis of language are considered as Ruthenians by Austrian census-takers. The Lippowans belong to the sect of Old Believers which seceded from the Russian Orthodox Church in the middle of the seventeenth century. Persecution forced them to flee to neighboring countries and they flocked in large numbers into Bukovina. Their descendants now inhabit principally the towns of Mitoka-Dragomirna and Klimutz as well as neighboring villages.
By the acquisition of Bukovina in 1777 the Hapsburgs increased their territory by about 6,200 sq. m. (10,000 sq. km.) and a population of 75,000 inhabitants, consisting largely of Rumanians.[177] Nistor estimates the population at the time of this annexation at 56,700 Rumanians, about 15,000 Ruthenians at the most and 5,000 Huzulis, who, from the border bandits that they were, settled finally in western Bukovina.[178] According to Rumanian historians the Slavic element of Bukovina was negligible in the fourteenth century. It was a common occurrence for Ruthenian peasants to escape from Polish serfdom and settle in Moldavia, the land of free farmers. The fugitives, dribbling on Rumanian soil in small numbers, became merged in the mass of the native population. The consolidation of large estates in the seventeenth century and the resulting agricultural boom obliged landowners to induce peasants of neighboring countries to settle in Bukovina. The emigration of many Ruthenians can be accounted for by this economic change.
After the Turkish conquest of Kamieniec-Podolski the new provinces of the Dniester valley were populated by Slavs drawn from among Little Russians. The district of Hotin in eastern Bukovina was colonized at that time. Again Sobieski’s victories over the Turks were followed by a temporary Polish occupation of northern and western Moldavia and a renewed inflow of Slavs.
Ruthenian invasion of the soil of Bukovina persisted steadily from the eighteenth century on. Galician serfs were driven by oppression to this hitherto unexploited territory. In 1779 the number of Ruthenians in Bukovina was estimated at 21,114. Tombstones of that date found between the Dniester and the Pruth are almost entirely in Rumanian. In 1848 the Ruthenian element in the province numbered 108,907 against 208,293 Rumanians. The census of 1910 places the number of Russian-speaking inhabitants at 305,101, while the users of Rumanian are placed at 273,254. Rumanian authorities, however, call attention to the fact that these figures are determined on the basis of the language most commonly used and not on that of the inherited mother tongue.
Rumanian also holds easy predominance in the strange medley of languages which can be heard in the Russian province of Bessarabia. The region forms a natural extension of Moldavia, east of the Pruth furrow, and has always been intimately connected with Rumanian life. It became part of the Czar’s dominion in 1812, after the treaty of Bucarest of May 28 of that year, but the southern part was reincorporated with the principality of Moldavia after the Crimean war. This section was restored, however, to Russia by a decision of the Congress which met in Berlin in June 1878. It has since remained Russian territory. These changes, no less than its position as the narrow corridor between the Asiatic steppeland and southern Europe, have made it the meeting land of Europe’s most untutored elements.
The broad hilly spurs bounded by the Dniester and the Pruth contain the bulk of these Bessarabian Rumanians, who make up half the population of the province or nearly one million souls. Interspersed with this native element, German colonists and Bulgarian immigrants,—the latter brought wholesale in the course of Turkey’s European recessional,—and Serbian or Greek cultivators are to be found in many of the villages that nestle in the broad and smiling valleys of the low plateau. The flat marshy tracts along the Pruth and at the mouth of the Danube are occupied by Cosacks and Tatars, while a numerous gipsy element manages to subsist on the rest of the inhabitants by juggling or fortune telling, or frequently by pilfering.
The national consolidation of the Rumanians of Bukovina, the Banat and Bessarabia with the main body would supply a non-Slavic linguistic wedge between Russians and Balkan Slavs. But apart from this linguistic difference, Rumanian life and institutions present close analogies with their Russian counterparts. From the standpoint of the anthropologist both countries contain a Slavic substratum strongly diluted by Tatar infiltration. Religious views nursed and cherished in the Kremlin hold spiritual sway throughout the length and breadth of Rumania. And yet, in spite of such strong bonds, and that of immediate neighborhood, language with nationality remains sharply distinct in the two kingdoms.