Roumania Past and Present

by James Samuelson

A word or two more concerning the prominent events preceding the first fall of the Bulgarians. About the end of the ninth century the descendants of the Daco-Romans, recovering from the repeated blows they had received by the successive barbarian irruptions and conquests, are said once more to have rallied to power; and several chiefs or kings are believed to have been of Daco-Roman origin. Of these Simeon (about 887), Peter (? a.d.), and Samuel (about 976 a.d.), are conspicuous. The first-named we find at war, first with the Grecian Emperor Leo (893 a.d.), whom he defeated; then with the same ruler and his allies the Ungri, under Arpad, their king. Finding himself hard pressed, Simeon made peace with Leo, and turned his arms against the Ungri, whom he defeated with great bloodshed and drove out of his territories. (To the Ungri and their career we shall return presently.) These feuds continued for a long period, and about 970 a.d. the Bulgarians crossed the Balkans, but were beaten by the Greeks, whilst two or three years afterwards the Greek emperor (or rather one of them, for there were several pretenders to the throne), John Zimisces (? 972), attacked Marcianopolis, the Bulgarian capital, and took the king, Boris, prisoner. Before the end of the century another Bulgarian king, Simeon, had fought the Greeks with varying success, but ultimately the Emperor Basilius II. (1014 a.d.) completely annihilated the Bulgarian army, and annexed the whole country as a province of the Greek Empire. Thus ended the first rule of the Bulgarians.

V.

Of all the tribes or hordes of the East who made the devoted plains of the Danube their highway into Europe, there were none who have earned a character so notorious for rapine and cruelty as the Ungri, or Hungarians. Their origin is doubtful in the extreme, but it is probable that they were a Turanian race, and Roesler has found them an aboriginal home in Ugria, a country situated eastward of the Ural mountains and the river Obi.[117] Their savage nature, which long survived their advent into Europe, has been graphically described by several writers. Roesler, who has carefully studied their early history, says that they were mare-milking nomads living in tents, that they ate the half-raw meat of game or fish without knives. Mare's milk appears to have been what we may call their temperance beverage; whilst stronger drinks were the blood of wild animals or of their enemies on the field of battle; and the hearts of the latter were considered a sovereign remedy for diseases.[118] Our own Hallam, in describing their appearance and ravages in Europe, calls them a 'Tartarian tribe' who moved forward in great numbers as a vast wave. Their ferocity, he says, was untamed; they fought with cavalry and light armour, trusting to their showers of arrows, against which the swords and lances of the European armies could not avail. 'The memory of Attila,' he adds, 'was renewed in the devastations of these savages, who, if they were not his compatriots, resembled them both in countenance and customs.'[119]

But the nation who suffered the most severely from their irruptions, and whose history reflects their ferocity the most faithfully, were the Germans. Fortresses were erected to check their inroads, but 'exultingly and with scorn these wild horsemen brushed past them, and as though they were in pursuit of game they picked off the peasant at the plough, or the soldier mounting guard upon the walls. Men, women, and children were captured wherever they were found; were coupled by the hair of their heads and driven in herds, like cattle, into Hungary. If a regular army moved out against them, they dispersed like the winds of heaven, and the joyful cry went up, "God be praised, they are gone;" but soon they reappeared to harass the retreating soldiery. The horrors of desolation and rapine were the condition most congenial to them; in these they revelled and rejoiced; and most happy were they when they could anoint their beards with German blood, or, casting their firebrands into the houses of God, could witness the devouring flames as they rose up into the skies.'[120]

Although in after times the Hungarians claimed the suzerainty over part or the whole of Wallachia (and we shall have occasion hereafter to refer to their relations with that country), their domination during the ninth and tenth centuries was of a very partial and transient character. They probably moved westward from the Ukraine at the beginning of the ninth century, and between the years 839 and 860 they were actively aggressive in Eastern Wallachia. They are said to have attacked Constantine, the Christian missionary, on his way through the district they occupied, but his venerable mien prevented them from doing him any injury. He is said not even to have allowed their cries to disturb him during prayer, in which he was engaged when they made their appearance. Towards the close of the century, as we have already said, they sustained a defeat at the hands of the Bulgarians, when, under their chief Arpad, they had formed an alliance with the Emperor Leo, who is said to have made peace with the enemy and left them in the lurch. After this they were driven into the Carpathians, a.d. 894, and, having first overrun the greater part of Transylvania, they commenced those aggressions into Germany, France, and Italy, which for a considerable period rendered them the terror of all Europe. At the end of the tenth century, having met with severe reverses and been compelled to withdraw into Hungary, they at length settled down under an established government. The first king was undoubtedly Stephen (997 or 1008 a.d.), and they annexed Transylvania, which up to that time had been a debatable territory, either about 1002 according to some writers, or, as others affirm, not until the time of Ladislaus the Holy (1078-1095 a.d.).[121]

VI.

In studying the historical records of this time, the reader will frequently encounter the names of two tribes which will cause him considerable perplexity, namely, the Patzinakitai,[122] as they were called by the Greeks, and the Wallachs, who were variously called 'Vlaci,' 'Blaci,' 'Valachi,' 'Olachi,' &c. Of the former little can and need be said. They are sometimes called Romans; were dominant in certain parts of the country in the tenth, and probably also the eleventh, century; assisted the Bulgari to drive the Hungarians over the Carpathians, and were even strong enough to make war upon the Eastern Empire about the end of the eleventh century. About that time ineffectual attempts were made to christianise them, and the last we hear of them is at the close of the thirteenth century, when they were associated with the Wallachs in the Carpathians, and probably gave their name to a district in which they were settled. They are believed, later on, to have migrated into Hungary, and cease to be named as a distinct people.

Concerning the Wallachs, however, who have played a most important part in Roumanian history, a good deal is known, but much is still obscure and the subject of heated controversy. First as to their origin. Some writers believe them to have been a branch of the Slaves; others think they were the Daco-Roman colonists of Mœsia, who, joining the Slaves, crossed the Danube with them, and that subsequently the fused races were known as Wallachs, who gradually spread themselves northward to the Carpathians. Other historians are silent about them until the foundation of the 'Wallacho-Bulgarian Empire,' and then they simply mention that the two races joined for the purpose of gaining their independence.[123] There are, however, certain historians of the middle agea who accord to them a direct Roman origin and say they were the descendants of the Roman colonists who managed to retain their language and their hold upon the soil throughout the dark ages, and in spite of the irruptions and passage of the barbarian tribes of the north and east. This is now the view generally accepted.

As we have freely quoted the opinions of modern writers, many of whom, along with the authorities on which their views are based, are entirely unknown to the bulk of our readers, it is only fair that they should be made acquainted with the views of well-known historians who flourished nearer the time of which we are writing.