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contact with the invaders.
But with the coming of the Slavs, who settled in the Balkan peninsula about the beginning of the seventh
century, certain fundamental changes took place in the ethnical conditions prevailing on the Danube. The
Rumanians were separated from the Romans, following the occupation by the Slavs of the Roman provinces
between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. Such part of the population as was not annihilated during the raids of
the Avars was taken into captivity, or compelled to retire southwards towards modern Macedonia and
northwards towards the Dacian regions.
Parts of the Rumanian country became dependent upon the new state founded between the Balkans and the
Danube in 679 by the Bulgarians, a people of Turanian origin, who formerly inhabited the regions north of the
Black Sea between the Volga and the mouth of the Danube.
After the conversion of the Bulgarians to Christianity (864) the Slovenian language was introduced into their
Church, and afterwards also into the Church of the already politically dependent Rumanian provinces.[1] This
finally severed the Daco-Rumanians from the Latin world. The former remained for a long time under Slav
influence, the extent of which is shown by the large number of words of Slav origin contained in the
Rumanian language, especially in geographical and agricultural terminology.
[Footnote 1: The Rumanians north and south of the Danube embraced the Christian faith after its introduction
into the Roman Empire by Constantine the Great (325), with Latin as religious language and their church
organization under the rule of Rome. A Christian basilica, dating from that period, has been discovered by the
Rumanian; archaeologist, Tocilescu, at Adam Klissi (Dobrogea).]
The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria--Serbia--Greece--Rumania--Turkey 93
The coming of the Hungarians (a people of Mongolian race) about the end of the ninth century put an end to
the Bulgarian domination in Dacia. While a few of the existing Rumanian duchies were subdued by Stephen
the Saint, the first King of Hungary (995-1038), the 'land of the Vlakhs' (_Terra Blacorum_), in the
south-eastern part of Transylvania, enjoyed under the Hungarian kings a certain degree of national autonomy.
The Hungarian chronicles speak of the Vlakhs as 'former colonists of the Romans'. The ethnological influence
of the Hungarians upon the Rumanian population has been practically nil. They found the Rumanian nation
firmly established, race and language, and the latter remained pure of Magyarisms, even in Transylvania.
Indeed, it is easy to prove--and it is only what might be expected, seeing that the Rumanians had attained a
higher state of civilization than the Hungarian invaders--that the Hungarians were largely influenced by the
Daco-Romans. They adopted Latin as their official language, they copied many of the institutions and
customs of the Rumanians, and recruited a large number of their nobles from among the Rumanian nobility,
which was already established on a feudal basis when the Hungarians arrived.
A great number of the Rumanian nobles and freemen were, however, inimical to the new masters, and
migrated to the regions across the mountains. This the Hungarians used as a pretext for bringing parts of
Rumania under their domination, and they were only prevented from further extending it by the coming of the
Tartars (1241), the last people of Mongolian origin to harry these regions. The Hungarians maintained
themselves, however, in the parts which they had already occupied, until the latter were united into the
principality of the 'Rumanian land'.
To sum up: 'The Rumanians are living to-day where fifteen centuries ago their ancestors were living. The
possession of the regions on the Lower Danube passed from one nation to another, but none endangered the
Rumanian nation as a national entity. "The water passes, the stones remain"; the hordes of the migration
period, detached from their native soil, disappeared as mist before the sun. But the Roman element bent their [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]