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.