Reddit reviews History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness

Hmm... well basically you have to know that at the moment (and it's been like this for the last 15 years or so), the academic and public perception of Romanian history is divided between the "nationalists" — those that mostly reject critical attitude towards the the events and historical figures as they've been taught in the communist era and even before that — and those who prefer a more unbiased perspective, critical spirit and claim they would like to rid history of all the "myths".

Of course, what I said might be a little biased considering that I fall in the latter category, or at least that's what I believe.

However, I would very much recommend that you start by reading Lucian Boia's History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness. Basically he's the one that through this book started the whole shitstorm. Boia is like the frontman of the new "critical approach" to Romanian history. The book focuses on both historiography, pointing out the various historical tendencies during the centuries, and history per se.

I think it's a great book to start with, as it also gives you a good idea of why the historical field seems to be so polarized. Also, he isn't really an "extremist" when it comes to demythisation, although he is the one that started the whole "trend" and, to be honest, I find his work quite lucid and rational.

>so do the Romanians consider themselves Roman in anyway today

This is a tricky one. The level of perceived connection between Romans and Romanians fluctuated over the last 2 centuries, but one thing that remained constant was the linguistic connection, and our whole national identity is based around our "Latinity". As the saying goes, we are "an island of Latinity in a sea of Slavs".

Now regarding the above fluctuation: the "genetic" link (to use an anachronistic term) with the Romans changed over the years. In the initial stages of the development of Romanian nationalism (19th c.), the narrative was that the Romans conquered Dacia, slaughtered all the natives, and brought colonists from other parts of the empire, which over the centuries created the Romanian nation. This narrative was prominent out of a desire to be identified totally with a glorious past and glorious ancestors (the Roman Empire).

Over the decades however, the narrative shifted, as the Romanian state became more solidified and grew, and the provincial anxieties (being at the edge of Europe) gave way to anxieties about minorities (in the interwar period, a quarter of Greater Romania's population was non-Romanian). As such, the narrative shifted towards a more nativist view. The natives were not slaughtered, but were assimilated, and roman colonists were just a minority, albeit a culturally influential minority. Interest in Dacians started to grow, their position shifting from "barbarians worthy of extinction" to that of "our noble ancestors, full of patriotic dignity". This shift reached its peak in the 1980, when Dacocentrism overlapped with Ceauseascu's self-reliant ideology. See the wikiarticle on Protochronism for more detail.

Anyway, today's Romanians largely embrace the middle-of-the-road idea, where genetically we are descended from pre-Roman inhabitants, but culturally and especially linguistically we are descended from the Romans.

To a large extent, the cultural connection with the rest of Latinity has been exagerated, as a way to build a national narrative. We are culturally strongly connected with the peoples around us (Slavs and others from the Balkans) in a lot of ways (folk traditions, supertitions, cuisine, etc). The Roman Empire that had the most influence on us culturally was actually the Byzantine empire, and Nicolae Iorga called Wallachia and Moldova "Byzantium after Byzantium", even though we put much greater emphasis, on the Early imperial period - Trajan - because we speak a Latin-derived language (Byzantium was Greek-speaking) and because that's when Dacia was part of the Empire.

Source: History and Myth in Romanian Consciousness by Lucian Boia

Lucian Boia irt egy konyvet romanul (nekem az angol forditasa van meg); ebbol szoktam idezni, amikor valaki nagyon romankodik (https://www.amazon.co.uk/History-Myth-Romanian-Consciousness-Lucian/dp/9639116971)

A helyzet az, hogy meg kell ideologizalnuk a "belso ellenseg" letet- a magyarokat. Ez erre a legjobb modszer a multbeli elnyomas felemlegetese, es eltulzasa. Idejottek ezek az azsiai barbarok, nem engedtek szegeny oslako szlavokat, romanokat (akik a romaiak leszarmazottai), stb a varosokban elni, elnyomtak oket, meg sem szolalhattak az anyanyelvukon, stb stb.

Ilyen szempontbol mi az o zsidoik vagyunk. A zsidok annak idejen ugye hatba doftek a nemeteket, mi pedig elnyomtuk oket, igy ezert mindkettonkon rajtuk kell tartaniuk a szemuket az adott orszag lakosainak. Az egesz nemzeti onkepuk ezen alapszik -velunk szemben definialjak onmagukat. (Romanokrol es szlovakokrol beszelek; a szerbek, horvatok es ukranok mas teszta.)

Here is the mobile version of your link

Non è certo un argomento che mi appassiona o che ho affrontato di recente, per cui accontentati:

http://www.amazon.com/History-Myth-Romanian-Consciousness-Lucian/dp/9639116971