Dacianism

 ( Historiography Of Romania ) 

An additional, but not universal, feature is the attempted connection between the supposed monotheism of the Zalmoxis cult and Christianity,Boia, p.169 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, who is considered doubtfully as the clear origin of modern-day Romanian Orthodoxy. Despite the lack of supporting evidence, it is the official church stance, being found in history textbooks used in Romanian Orthodox seminaries and theology institutes.Lavinia Stan, Lucian Turcescu, Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania, Oxford University Press, 2007, p.48

Dacianism most likely came about with the views professed in the 1870s by Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu,Boia, 138-139, 140, 147; Verdery, p.326 one of the main points of the dispute between him and the conservatism Junimea. 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),Boia, p.268 but also that the ruling dynasties of early medieval Wallachia and Moldavia were descendants of a caste of Dacians established with "King" (tribal chief) Burebista.Boia, p.82 Other advocates of the idea before World War I included the amateur Archaeology Cezar Bolliac,Boia, p.139-140 as well as Teohari Antonescu and Nicolae Densușianu. The latter composed an intricate and unsupported theory on Dacia as the center of European prehistory,Boia, p.147-148 authoring a complete parallel to Romanian official history, which included among the Dacians such diverse figures as those of the Asen dynasty, and Horea. The main volume of his writings is Dacia Preistorică ("Prehistoric Dacia").

After World War I and throughout Greater Romania's existence, the ideology increased its appeal. The Iron Guard flirted with the concept, making considerable parallels between its projects and interpretations of what would have been Zalmoxis' message.Boia, p.320 Mircea Eliade was notably preoccupied with Zalmoxis' cult, arguing in favour of its structural links with Christianity;Boia, p.152; Eliade, "Zalmoxis, The Vanishing God", in Slavic Review, Vol. 33, No. 4 (December 1974), p.807-809 his theory on Dacian history, viewing Romanisation as a limited phenomenon, is celebrated by contemporary partisans of Dacianism.Boia, p.152; Șimonca

In a neutral context, the Romanian archaeology school led by Vasile Pârvan investigated scores of previously ignored Dacian sites, which indirectly contributed to the idea's appeal at the time.Boia, p.145-146

In 1974 Edgar Papu published in the mainstream cultural monthly Secolul XX an essay titled "The Romanian Protochronism", arguing for Romanian chronological priority for some European achievements.Boia, p.122-123; Martin The idea was promptly adopted by the nationalist Ceaușescu regime, which subsequently encouraged and amplified a cultural and historical discourse claiming the prevalence of autochthony over any foreign influence.Boia, p.117-126 Ceaușescu's ideologues developed a singular concept after the 1974 11th Congress of the Communist Party of Romania, when they attached Dacianism to official Marxism, arguing that the Dacians had produced a permanent and "unorganised state".Boia, p.120 The Dacians had been favoured by several communist generations as autochthonous insurgents against an "imperialist" Rome (with the Stalinism leadership of the 1950s proclaiming them to be closely linked with the Slavic peoples);Boia, p.154-155, 156 however, Ceaușescu's was an interpretation with a distinct motivation, making a connection with the opinions of previous Dacianists.Boia, p.155-157; 330-331

The regime started a partnership with Italy resident, former Iron Guard member and millionaire Iosif Constantin Drăgan, who continued championing the Dacian cause even after the fall of Ceaușescu.Verdary, p.343 Critics regard these excesses as the expression of an economic nationalist course, amalgamating provincial frustrations and persistent nationalist rhetoric, as autarky and cultural isolation of the late Ceaușescu's regime came along with an increase in Dacianist messages.Boia, p.338

Vladimir Tismăneanu wrote:

"Protochronism" was the party-sponsored ideology that claimed Romanian precedence in major scientific and cultural discoveries. It was actually the underpinning of Ceaușescu's nationalist tyranny.

Vladimir Tismăneanu (2003). 9780520237476, University of California Press. . ISBN 9780520237476

While no longer backed by a Totalitarianism state structure after the 1989 revolution, the interpretation still enjoys popularity in several circles.Babeș; Boia, p.356 The main representative of current Protochronism was still Drăgan (now deceased), but the New York City-based physician Napoleon Săvescu took over after Drăgan's death. Together, they issued the magazine Noi, Dacii ("We, the Dacians") and organised a yearly "International Congress of Dacology". "Ca și cînd precedentele reuniuni n-ar fi fost de ajuns, dacologii bat cîmpii in centrul Capitalei", in Evenimentul Zilei, 22 June 2002 Săvescu still does those.

Săvescu's most famous theory says that the Romanians are not descendants of the Roman colonists and assimilated Dacians, as mainstream historians say, but that they are the descendants of only the Dacians, who spoke a language close to Latin.

Other controversial theories of his include the Dacians (or their ancestors) having developed the first writing system in the world (see the Tărtăria tablets), the first set of laws or having conquered Western Europe, India, Iraq, Japan and the Americas.

His theories are, however, disregarded by historical journals and most historians, e.g. Mircea Babeș, Lucian Boia and Alexandra Tomiță, who label these theories as pseudoscience and anachronistic and consider that there is not enough scientific evidence to support them. Dacia, journal of the Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology, and the history journal Saeculum did not speak highly of him, either.

In the opinion of Sorin Olteanu, a modern expert at the Vasile Pârvan Institute of Archaeology, Bucharest, "Dacian 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 alphabet and , though possibly not as early as in neighbouring Thracians where the Ezerovo ring in Greek script has been dated to the 5th century BC. A vase fragment from the La Tène period (see illustration above), a probable illiterate imitation of Greek letters, indicates visual knowledge of the Greek alphabet during the La Tène period 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, an enthusiast amateur archaeologist, claimed to have discovered a Dacian alphabet. They were immediately criticized for archaeologicalBoia, p.92 and linguistic Cf. Moldovan G. А latin, cyrill, (ШК es székely irasjegyek kérdése a. románoknál. (A Bp. Szernle 1887. évi oklób. sz.) Bpest, 1887. reasons. Alexandru Odobescu, criticized some of Bolliac's conclusions. In 1871 Odobescu, along with Henric Trenk, inventoried the Fundul Peșterii cave, one of the Ialomiței caves (See the Romanian Wikipedia article) near Buzău. 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 Rohonc Codex is written in a Dacian alphabet.