THE LANDS OF HUNGARIAN AND RUMANIAN LANGUAGES
The presence in Europe of Hungarians, a race bearing strong
linguistic and physical affinity to Turki tribesmen, is perhaps
best explained by the prolific harvests yielded by the broad
valleys of the Danube and Theiss. Huns, Avars and Magyars, one
and all Asiatics wandering into Europe, were induced to abandon
nomadism by the fertility of the boundless Alföld. Western
influences took solid root among these descendants of eastern
ancestors after their conversion to Christianity and the adoption
of the Latin alphabet. So strongly did they become permeated by the
spirit of occidental civilization, that the menace of absorption
by the Turks was rendered abortive whenever the Sultan’s hordes
made successful advances towards Vienna. At the same time, fusion
with the Germans was prevented by the oriental origin of the race.
The foundation of a separate European nation was thus laid in the
Hungarian plains.
Language to the Magyar has always represented nationality. When in
1527 St. Stephen’s crown was offered to Ferdinand of Austria in
order to strengthen Hungary’s resistance against the Turk, the new
ruler pledged himself not to destroy this sacred token of Hungarian
political independence. “Nationem et linguam vestram servare non
perdere intendimus” was his solemn promise. The germ of a dual form
of government was thus created in the presence of the Sultan’s
barbarous hordes, but Hungary always preserved its individuality,
for at no time did the kingdom form part of the Holy Roman Empire.
Closer union with Austria towards the end of the seventeenth
century when the right of succession to the Hungarian throne
became hereditary in the Hapsburg family, failed to Germanize the
land during all the eighteenth century. Later, up to 1867, the
persistent struggle of the Magyar against the Austrian was kept up.
Attempts to replace German by Hungarian in the governing bodies of
counties and municipalities were merely the outward expression of
the contest.
When, in 1825, the Hungarian Academy of Science was founded by a
group of patriotic leaders, the movement was little more than an
attempt to revive the Magyar tongue. Count Stephen Széchenyi’s
words on this occasion betray the consciousness of the intimate
relation between language and nationality which is felt in every
country during periods of actual danger. “I am not here,” he
said, “as a great dignitary of the kingdom; but I am an opulent
landowner, and if an institution be established that will develop
the Magyar language and, by so doing, advance the national
education of our countrymen, I will sacrifice the revenues of my
estates for one year.” The impetus given by this statesman, and a
few equally earnest compatriots, to the cultivation of national
literature in Hungary became a potent factor in the shaping of the
country’s modern political destiny. It liberated the Magyar from
the Germanizing influences of Austrian rule and ultimately paved
the way to the establishment of a dual government in the Empire.
The linguistic boundary between Hungarian and German is found in
the eastern extremity of the Austrian Alps. The southern side of
the valley of the Danube between Pressburg and Raab is German.
Magyar spreads however to the north to meet the Slovak area. South
of Pressburg the shores of Lake Neusiedler are included in the
German area. The line then crosses the upper valley of the Raab
and attains the Drave, which forms the linguistic boundary between
Croatian and Hungarian. East of the Theiss, contact with the
Rumanian of Transylvania begins in the vicinity of Arad, on the
Maros river, and extends northward in an irregular line, hugging
the western outliers of the Transylvanian Alps and attaining the
sources of the Theiss. In the northeastern valley of this river,
Hungarian and Ruthenian languages replace each other. The area
of Magyar speech thus defined lacks homogeneity in its western
section lying west of the Danube. Important enclaves of Germans are
solidly intrenched in this portion of the Hungarian domain. The
central portion of the monotonous expanse unfolding itself between
the Danube and the Theiss is, on the other hand, characterized
by uniformity of the Hungarian population it supports. Enclaves
however exist all along the border of this eastern area.
Hungarian nationality asserted itself definitely in the nineteenth
century in the face of strenuous effort on the part of Germans to
assimilate the Magyars. The latter took advantage of the defeat
of the Austrians at Sadowa in 1867 to reach a compromise with
their masters. The Hapsburg Empire was then converted into a
Dual Monarchy. For a time the economic advantages of this union
lay entirely with Austria. The Hungarian plain, vast and fecund,
bestowed the wealth of its fertility on Austria. A land of farmers
it also became an important market for the industrial output of its
German partner-state. This economic relation was maintained until
the beginning of the twentieth century, when Hungary made rapid
progress in industry and forced Austria to seek Balkan markets for
the disposal of its manufactured goods.
Austria’s unsuccessful attempt to dominate Hungary’s economic life
accelerated the growth of the germ of dissension between the two
countries. The tie that links Budapest to Vienna, at present, is
strengthened by Hungarian dread of the Slav. It might have given
way long ago otherwise, for in truth Hungary has to face the menace
of Pan-Germanism as well. The percentage of native Hungarians
in their own country is under 55 per cent and gives them a bare
majority over the combined alien peoples.[157] The number of
Germans scattered in Hungarian districts is 2,000,000. The only
advantage which the natives of the soil possess lies in their
occupation of the richest lands in their country.
A minor group of Hungarians have settled on the eastern edge
of the Transylvania mountains. Here they live surrounded by
Rumanians on all sides except on the west where a lone outpost
of Saxons brings Teutonic customs and speech to the east. The
name of Szekler, meaning frontier guardsmen, applied to this body
of Magyars is indicative of their origin. Their presence on the
heights overlooking the Rumanian plain bespeaks the desire of
Hungarian sovereigns to control the site of a natural rampart
dominating their plains. At the end of the thirteenth century
this Hungarian colony was in full development. Its soldiers
distinguished themselves during the period of war with the Turks.
Prestige acquired on battlefields strengthened the separate and
semi-independent existence of the community. The region occupied
by these Hungarians is situated along the easternmost border of
the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. It extends west of the uninhabited
mountain-frontier district between Tölgyes Pass and Crasna. The
towns of Schässburg and Maros Vasarhely lie on its western border.
But the area of Rumanian speech situated between the land of the
Szekler and the main Hungarian district is studded with numerous
colonies of Magyars, thereby rendering delimitation of a linguistic
boundary in the region almost impossible.
The Saxon colony adjoining the Szekler area on the west is also a
relic of medieval strategic necessities. In spite of the name by
which this German settlement is designated, its original members
appear to have been recruited from different sections of western
European regions occupied by Teutons.[158] Colonization had
already been started when King Gesa II of Hungary gave it a fresh
impulse, in the middle of the twelfth century, by inducing peasants
of the middle Rhine and Moselle valleys to exchange servitude
in their native villages for land ownership in the Transylvania
area.[159]
To promote the efficiency of these colonists as frontier guardsmen
an unusual degree of political latitude was accorded them. In time
their deputies sat in the Hungarian diet on terms of equality with
representatives of the nobility. Prolonged warfare with the Tatar
populations who attempted to force entrance into the Hungarian
plains, led to the selection of strategical sites as nuclei of
original settlements. These facts account for the survival of the
Teutonic groups in the midst of Rumanians and Hungarians. Today
the so-called Saxon area does not constitute a single group, but
consists of separate agglomerations clustered in the vicinity
of the passes and defiles which the ancestors of the Teutons
were called upon to defend. The upper valley of the Oltu and its
mountain affluents, in the rectangle inclosed between the towns of
Hermannstadt, Fogaras, Mediasch and Schässburg, contain at present
the bulk of this Austrian colony of German ancestry.
[Illustration:
FIG. 42--View of the Transylvanian plateau near the western edge
of the Carpathians. Hosszufalu (Langendorf) in the distance.]
The Rumanian problem in Hungary is mainly economic. The chief aim
of Hungarians is to maintain political supremacy in the provinces
containing a majority of the Romance-speaking element. The Rumanian
communities are scattered over an area of about 76,000 square
miles (122,278 sq. kms.) which comprises Transylvania and its old
“exterior” counties as well as the Banat. This region is peopled
by 6,305,666 inhabitants according to recent census figures. Of
these 87.8 per cent consist of peasants. The number of Rumanians is
officially estimated at 2,932,214. Rumanian students, however,
point to official Austrian returns for the year 1840 which placed
the number of their countrymen at 2,202,000[160] and lay stress
on the coefficient of increase for the period 1870 to 1910, which
is 15.5 per thousand in Rumania and 10.8 per thousand in Hungary.
Applying the Rumanian rate to the Rumanian subjects of the
Hapsburgs they find that their kinsmen in Hungary ought to number
approximately 3,536,000. Otherwise it is necessary to admit that
between 1840 and 1890 Magyars increased 54 per cent, and Rumanians
only 17 per cent, in spite of the recognized fact that Rumanian
peasants have larger families than their Hungarian masters.[161]
Social grouping in Transylvania shows that the dominating Hungarian
class consists largely of city dwellers and government employees.
These are the characteristics of an immigrant population which is
not solidly rooted to the land. The Szekler alone among Magyars
are tillers of the soil and in intimate contact with the land on
which they live. Few of the Rumanians are landowners. The estates
held by an insignificant number of their kinsmen generally form
part of ecclesiastical domains and are of restricted size. They own
however a relatively large proportion of Transylvania’s forested
areas, which the Hungarian ruling class is endeavoring to acquire
by imitating Prussian methods of absorption of Polish lands.
The Germans and Hungarians who founded settlements on the
Transylvanian plateau were unable to impose their language on the
inhabitants of the mountainous region. Rumanian, representing the
easternmost expansion of Latin speech, is in use today on the
greatest portion of this highland[162] as well as in the fertile
valleys and plains surrounding it between the Dniester and the
Danube. A portion of Hungary and the Russian province of Bessarabia
is therefore included in this linguistic unit outside of the
kingdom of Rumania.[163] Beyond the limits of this continuous area,
the only important colony of Rumanians is found around Metsovo
in Greece where, in the recesses of the Pindus mountains and
surrounded by the Greeks, Albanians and Bulgarians of the plains,
almost half a million Rumanians[164] have managed to maintain the
predominant Latin character of their language.[165]
Rumanian is derived directly from the low Latin spoken in the
Imperial era. In syntax and grammar it reproduces Latin forms of
striking purity. Words dealing with agricultural pursuits, however,
are generally of Slavic origin. The closeness of Rumanian to Latin
can be gathered from the following two specimens of Wallachian
verse and their Latin rendering:
1.
_Rumanian_
Bela in large valle amblà
Erba verde lin calcà;
Cantà, qui cantand plangeà,
Quod tódi munti resunà;
Ea in genunchi se puneà,
Ochi in sus indireptà;
Ecce, asi vorbe faceâ;
“Domne, domne, bune domne.”
_Latin_
Puella in larga valle ambulabat,
Herbam viridem leniter calcabat,
Cantabat et cantando plangebat,
Ut omnes montes resonarent:
Illa in genua se ponebat,
Oculos sursum dirigebat;
Ecce, sic verba faciebat:
“Domine, domine, bone domine.”
2.
_Rumanian_
Nucu, fagu, frassinu
Mult se certà intra séne.
“Nuce,” dice frassinu,
“Quine vine, nuci college,
“Cullegend si ramuri frange
“Vaide dar de pelle a tua;
“Dar tu fage, mi vecine,
“Que voi spune in mente tene:
“Multe fere saturasi;
“Qui prébéne nu amblasi;
“Quum se au geru apropiat
“La pament te au si culcat,
“Si in focu te au si aruncat, ...
_Latin_
Nux, fagus, fraxinus,
Multum certant inter se.
“Nux,” dicit fraxinus
“Quisquis venit, nuces legit,
“Colligendo ramos frangit:
“Vae itaque pelli tuae!
“At tu fage, mi vicine,
“Quae exponam mente tene?
“Multas feras saturasti,
“At haud bene ambulasti;
“Quum gelu appropinquat
“Ad pavimentum de deculcant
“Ad focum averruncant, ...
The prevalence of Latin in an eastern land, and in a form which is
stated to present closer analogies with the language of the Roman
period than with any of its western derivatives, had its origin in
the Roman conquest of southeastern Europe in the early part of the
first Christian millennium. Occupation of the land by important
bodies of legionaries and a host of civil administrators, their
intermarriage with the natives, the advantages conferred by Roman
citizenship, all combined to force Latin into current use. And when
in 275 Aurelian recalled Roman troops from the eastern provinces of
the empire, the vernacular of Rome had taken too solid a footing on
Dacian soil to be extirpated.
Abandonment of the region by the Romans is cited for political
reasons by the Magyar rulers of Transylvania to refute Rumanian
claims to this Hungarian province. Rumanian historians,
however, have been able to demonstrate the untenability of this
assumption.[166] They have shown that many of the customs of their
country are distinctly reminiscent of Latin Italy. It is still
customary in many Rumanian villages to attach a small coin to the
finger of the dead after an ancient Roman custom of providing
the soul with its fare across the Styx. Bands of traveling
musicians in Balkan or Hungarian cities are known to be composed
of Rumanians whenever their members carry an instrument which is
a faithful imitation of the pipes of Pan as sculptured upon Roman
and Gallo-Roman monuments. Rumania’s national dance, the Calusaré,
commemorates the rape of the Sabines to this day. Neither does
the list of these analogies end with the examples given here.
Furthermore the evidence afforded by geography tends also to
validate Rumanian claims.
From the valley of the Dniester to the basin of the Theiss the
steppes of southern Russia spread in unvarying uniformity save
where the tableland of the Transylvanian Alps breaks their
continuity. The entire region was the Dacia colonized by the
Romans.[167] Unity of life, in this home of Rumanian nationality,
has been unaffected by the sharp physical diversity afforded by
the inclosure of mountain and plain within the same linguistic
boundary. The thoroughness with which Rumanians have adapted
themselves to the peculiarities of their land is evinced by the
combination of the twin occupations of herder and husbandman
characteristic of Moldavians and Wallachians. Cattle and flocks
are led every summer to the rich grazing lands of the Transylvania
valleys. In winter man and beast seek the pastures of the Danubian
steppes and prairies. Rumanians thus maintain mountain and plain
residences, which they occupy alternately.[168] This mode of
life is the transformation which the nomadism of the Asiatic
steppe received on Rumanian soil. It is a true relic of past
habitat. These seasonal migrations also account for the intimacy
between highlanders and lowlanders in Rumania, besides affording
adequate explanation of the peopling of the region by a single
nationality.[169]
There was a time, however, when Rumanian nationality was entirely
confined to the mountain zone. Invasions which followed the
retirement of the Romans had driven Rumanians to the shelter of the
Transylvanian ranges. Perched on this natural fortress, they beheld
the irruption of Slavs and Tatars in the broad valleys which they
once held in undisputed sway. Only after the flow of southeastern
migrations had abated did they venture to reoccupy the plains and
resume their agricultural life and seasonal wanderings.
The outstanding fact in these historical vicissitudes is that the
mountain saved the Latin character of Rumanian speech. Had the
Romanized Dacians been unable to find refuge in the Transylvanian
Alps their language would probably have been submerged by the
Slavic or Tatar flood. As it is, the life of Rumanians is strongly
impregnated with eastern influences. Oddly enough its Christianity
was derived from Byzantium instead of from Rome and, were it not
for a veritable renaissance of Latinism about 1860, its affinity
with the Slavic world would be manifest with greater intensity than
is apparent in the present century.
The preservation of Roman speech was not confined to the
Transylvanian mountain area. In spite of Rome’s waning power
in the Balkans, her language had taken such solid root in the
peninsula that it has maintained itself to this day in the Pindus
mountain region intervening between Epirus and Macedonia. Here
the Kutzo-Vlachs of the region speak a language identical with
that spoken in the last stretches of the valley of the Danube. In
Albania also the same cultural heritage has been treasured to this
day in the mountainous tangle of the land. Albanian however is
further removed from Latin than Rumanian, probably on account of
less intercourse with the Roman world.[170]
The name of Kutzo-Wallachians or Aromunes is given to the
mountaineers of Rumanian speech peopling parts of Macedonia,
Albania and Thessaly. This detached band of Rumanians occupies
mainly the region between the mountains of the Pindus range and
the Serbian boundary. In Albania they are found scattered along
the upper reaches of the Semeni and Devoli rivers. In Greece, the
channels of the Voyussa, the Arta, the Aspropotamos, the Bistritza
and the lower Vardar likewise constitute their favorite tramping
grounds. A shepherd people, roaming with their flocks, their life
is spent either in the valleys of their summer mountain resorts
or in the plains which they favor in winter. Tribes or clans
among which dialectical differences can be found occur according
to locality, but they nevertheless compose when taken together a
compact mass of Rumanians settled far from the main body of their
kinsmen by speech.
A group 5,000 to 6,000 strong live near the sources of the
Aspropotamos around Siracu, and between Kalarites and Malakasi.
Northwards this clan extends to Metsovo.[171] In the Olympus
mountains Rumanians are known at Vlakho-Livadi and adjoining
districts. Eastwards, the Veria Rumanians are found in the villages
of Selia, Doliani and Kirolivadi. West of the latter locality, the
settlements of Vlakho-Klissura, Blatza and Sisani are likewise
composed entirely of Rumanian inhabitants. The same is true of
the villages of Nevesca, Belcamen and Pisuderi as well as of
Gramosta, in the recesses of the Grammos mountains and of Koritza
and Sipiska. Other colonies exist at Okrida, Gopes, Krushevo,
Molovista, Tirnova, Magarevo and Monastir. The Struga and Geala
settlements are also part of the preceding groups.
Within Albanian territory the village of Frasheri is the most
important Rumanian settlement. Its name has passed to the
Frasherist group of western Rumanians. Around Berat, a strong
contingent occupies about 40 villages and can muster ten thousand
men. In the Vardar valley various settlements aggregating 14,000
individuals, all farmers, are distributed near Guevgueli as well as
in localities north and south of this town. Many of these peasants
are Mohammedans and speak a dialect of their own. A Rumanian
settlement is also found in the Jumaya Pass south of Sofia and
along the old Turco-Bulgarian frontier.
The nomadic character of these isolated adherents of a Latin
language is shown in many of their villages, which are occupied
during part of the year only. As an example the villages in the
vicinity of Frasheri, the ancient “Little Wallachia,” are inhabited
during winter alone. Many Frasherists can be met along the Albanian
coast between Kimara and the bay of Valona, as well as along the
eastern coast of Corfu and in villages of the Moskopolis and
Koritza districts. As a rule they are peddlers and confine their
commercial nomadism to profitable routes just as pastoral nomads,
who are their kinsmen, seesaw back and forth between the mountain
districts nearest their plains.
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]
[Illustration:
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.
The rôle played by Rumania during the long period of Christian
servitude entitles the country to the gratitude of the other Balkan
states. The land beyond the Danube became a haven to which victims
of Mohammedan persecution repaired whenever possible. Noblemen
despoiled of their estates, traders menaced with execution for
having claimed payment of debts incurred towards them by the
followers of the Prophet, students whose only crime consisted of
having interpreted Christian doctrines to their co-religionists,
all found refuge under the banner of the cross flying on the north
bank of the Danube. Hungary itself has incurred a heavy debt of
obligation to Rumania, for both Moldavia and Wallachia served as a
buffer against which Turkish blows directed at Magyar power spent
themselves in vain.
The province of Bukovina, once the borderland between Rumanians and
Ruthenians, has become in modern times the meeting place of both
peoples. According to recent Austrian statistics its population is
as follows:
1900 1910
Germans 159,486 168,851
Bohemians and Slovakians 596 1,005
Poles 26,857 26,210
Ruthenians 297,798 305,101
Slovenes 108 80
Serbo-Croatians 6 1
Italians 119 36
Rumanians 229,018 273,254
Hungarians 9,516 10,391
------- -------
Total 723,504 784,929[173]
The Rumanians and Ruthenians are the oldest and most numerous
inhabitants of Bukovina. The former are generally confined to the
southeastern districts of the province while the majority of the
Ruthenians inhabit the northwest. The mountainous sections are
peopled by the Huzuli, a folk whose speech and customs contain
traces of Slavic influence. The remainder of the inhabitants of
Bukovina consists of descendants of immigrants who settled in the
province about five or six centuries ago.
[Illustration:
FIG. 44--Sketch map of the Rumanian area (diagonally ruled) in
Bukovina and Hungary. The blank area is overwhelmingly Slavic
(Little Russians or Ruthenians). The dotted patches in Hungary
represent areas of Hungarian speech.]
Germans, mostly traders and artisans from Transylvania and Galicia,
made their first appearance in Bukovina in the fourteenth century.
Occasionally German priests and warriors would also find their
way into the province and decide to settle permanently within its
borders. A fresh impetus to German colonization was given by the
fall of Bukovina into Austrian hands in 1774. Under the rule of
Maria Theresa and Emperor Joseph II Germans of all classes and
conditions were induced to seek the province and Germanize the
land. They came as officials, teachers, soldiers and merchants and
took up their abode generally in special cities.[174]
This German element was derived chiefly from Swabia, Bohemia and
German Austria. The Swabians were the earliest colonists and are
found scattered in the best farming districts of the province.[175]
The Zips of northern Hungary are generally found in the mountains
of southwestern Bukovina which they had occupied originally as
miners.[176]
The Hungarians of Bukovina are not descendants of immigrants from
Hungary but from Rumania. Their ancestors were the Magyars and
Szeklers who had been dispatched by Hungarian kings to defend the
passes of Transylvania. After Bukovina’s annexation to Austria,
efforts were made to induce the descendants of the old frontier
guardsmen to live within Austrian boundaries. The call was heeded
by many who as a result selected Bukovina as residence. One of the
earliest colonies was founded at Istensegitz, while Hadikfalva and
Andreasfalva became sites of their settlements during the reign of
Emperor Joseph.
The Poles emigrated to the province mainly from Galicia between
the years 1786 and 1849. They are found scattered in the larger
cities, notably at Czernowitz. The Slovaks came later. Prior to
the nineteenth century they had no colonies of any importance in
Bukovina. In 1803 they appear around the glass factories near
Crasna, where they were employed as woodcutters. Between 1830 and
1840 they founded the settlements of Neusolonetz and Pojana-Mikuli.
Many Bukovinan localities are inhabited by Lippowans, who are
Great Russians and who on the basis of language are considered as
Ruthenians by Austrian census-takers. The Lippowans belong to
the sect of Old Believers which seceded from the Russian Orthodox
Church in the middle of the seventeenth century. Persecution forced
them to flee to neighboring countries and they flocked in large
numbers into Bukovina. Their descendants now inhabit principally
the towns of Mitoka-Dragomirna and Klimutz as well as neighboring
villages.
By the acquisition of Bukovina in 1777 the Hapsburgs increased
their territory by about 6,200 sq. m. (10,000 sq. km.) and
a population of 75,000 inhabitants, consisting largely of
Rumanians.[177] Nistor estimates the population at the time of
this annexation at 56,700 Rumanians, about 15,000 Ruthenians at
the most and 5,000 Huzulis, who, from the border bandits that
they were, settled finally in western Bukovina.[178] According to
Rumanian historians the Slavic element of Bukovina was negligible
in the fourteenth century. It was a common occurrence for Ruthenian
peasants to escape from Polish serfdom and settle in Moldavia,
the land of free farmers. The fugitives, dribbling on Rumanian
soil in small numbers, became merged in the mass of the native
population. The consolidation of large estates in the seventeenth
century and the resulting agricultural boom obliged landowners to
induce peasants of neighboring countries to settle in Bukovina. The
emigration of many Ruthenians can be accounted for by this economic
change.
After the Turkish conquest of Kamieniec-Podolski the new provinces
of the Dniester valley were populated by Slavs drawn from among
Little Russians. The district of Hotin in eastern Bukovina was
colonized at that time. Again Sobieski’s victories over the Turks
were followed by a temporary Polish occupation of northern and
western Moldavia and a renewed inflow of Slavs.
Ruthenian invasion of the soil of Bukovina persisted steadily from
the eighteenth century on. Galician serfs were driven by oppression
to this hitherto unexploited territory. In 1779 the number of
Ruthenians in Bukovina was estimated at 21,114. Tombstones of that
date found between the Dniester and the Pruth are almost entirely
in Rumanian. In 1848 the Ruthenian element in the province numbered
108,907 against 208,293 Rumanians. The census of 1910 places the
number of Russian-speaking inhabitants at 305,101, while the users
of Rumanian are placed at 273,254. Rumanian authorities, however,
call attention to the fact that these figures are determined on the
basis of the language most commonly used and not on that of the
inherited mother tongue.
Rumanian also holds easy predominance in the strange medley of
languages which can be heard in the Russian province of Bessarabia.
The region forms a natural extension of Moldavia, east of the Pruth
furrow, and has always been intimately connected with Rumanian
life. It became part of the Czar’s dominion in 1812, after the
treaty of Bucarest of May 28 of that year, but the southern part
was reincorporated with the principality of Moldavia after the
Crimean war. This section was restored, however, to Russia by a
decision of the Congress which met in Berlin in June 1878. It has
since remained Russian territory. These changes, no less than its
position as the narrow corridor between the Asiatic steppeland and
southern Europe, have made it the meeting land of Europe’s most
untutored elements.
The broad hilly spurs bounded by the Dniester and the Pruth
contain the bulk of these Bessarabian Rumanians, who make up
half the population of the province or nearly one million souls.
Interspersed with this native element, German colonists and
Bulgarian immigrants,--the latter brought wholesale in the course
of Turkey’s European recessional,--and Serbian or Greek cultivators
are to be found in many of the villages that nestle in the broad
and smiling valleys of the low plateau. The flat marshy tracts
along the Pruth and at the mouth of the Danube are occupied by
Cosacks and Tatars, while a numerous gipsy element manages to
subsist on the rest of the inhabitants by juggling or fortune
telling, or frequently by pilfering.
The national consolidation of the Rumanians of Bukovina, the
Banat and Bessarabia with the main body would supply a non-Slavic
linguistic wedge between Russians and Balkan Slavs. But apart
from this linguistic difference, Rumanian life and institutions
present close analogies with their Russian counterparts. From the
standpoint of the anthropologist both countries contain a Slavic
substratum strongly diluted by Tatar infiltration. Religious views
nursed and cherished in the Kremlin hold spiritual sway throughout
the length and breadth of Rumania. And yet, in spite of such
strong bonds, and that of immediate neighborhood, language with
nationality remains sharply distinct in the two kingdoms.
FOOTNOTES:
[157] An increase in the percentage of the Hungarian element in
Hungary at the expense of the other nationalities and particularly
of the Germans is shown by official figures. The following table is
instructive:
_Percentages of the Population of Hungary, without Croatia (after
Wallis)._
1880 1910
Magyars 46.7 54.5
Germans 13.6 10.4
Slovaks 13.5 10.7
Rumanians 17.5 16.1
Ruthenians 2.6 2.5
Serbs and Croats 4.6 3.6
Others 1.5 2.2
But cf. in this connection B. C. Wallis: Distribution of
Nationalities in Hungary, _Geogr. Journ._, Vol. 47, 1916, No. 3,
pp. 183-186.
[158] F. Teutsch: Die Art der Ansiedelung der Siebenbürger Sachsen,
_Forsch. z. deut._ _Landes- u. Volksk._, Vol. 9, 1896, pp. 1-22.
Cf. also O. Wittstock: Volkstümliches der Siebenbürger Sachsen,
in the same volume. The name “Saxon” appears to have been applied
indiscriminately in the Middle Ages to settlers of German speech in
the Balkan peninsula. “Saxon” miners and “Saxon” bodyguards were
also known in Serbian countries in that period.
[159] Luxemburg and the regions comprised between Trèves,
Düsseldorf and Aix-la-Chapelle furnished German colonists during
the middle of the twelfth century.
[160] Hungarian statistics show 2,470,000 in 1870; 2,403,000 in
1880 and 2,589,000 in 1890.
[161] Cf. V. Merutiŭ: Romîniĭ între Tisa şi Carpaţĭ, raporturī
etnografice, _Rev. Stiintifică Vasile Adamachi_, Vol. 6, No. 2,
1915.
[162] N. Mazere: Harta etnografica a Transilvanei, 1:340,000, Inst.
Geogr. al Armatei, Iasi, 1909.
[163] G. Weigand: Linguistischer Atlas des dacorumänischen
Sprachgebietes, Leipzig, 1909.
[164] Their number is given at 750,000 by G. Murgocè and P.
Papahagi in “Turcia cu privire speciala auspra Macedoniei,”
Bucarest, 1911.
[165] The total number of Rumanians in the Balkan peninsula is
estimated at about 10,300,000, distributed as follows: Rumania,
5,489,296 or 92.5 per cent of the population; Russia, 1,121,669, of
whom 920,919 are in Bessarabia; Austria-Hungary, 3,224,147, of whom
2,949,032 are in Transylvania; Greece, 373,520; Serbia, 90,000.
[166] A. D. Xénopol: Les Roumains au Moyen-Âge, Paris, 1885.
[167] W. R. Shepherd: Historical Atlas, New York, 1911, pp. 34, 35,
39.
[168] Typical examples of seasonal migration are found in
Switzerland, where conditions prevailing in the higher and the
lower valleys of the Alps have induced the inhabitants to shift
their residence with the seasons.
[169] A similar nomadism is observable among the Rumanians of the
Pindus mountains. Cf. A. J. B. Wade and M. S. Thompson: The Nomads
of the Balkans: An Account of Life and Customs among the Vlachs of
Northern Pindus, London, 1914.
[170] About one-third of the words in Albanian are of Romanic
origin.
[171] _Bull. pour l’étude de l’Europe Sud-Orientale_, June, 1915,
p. 112.
[172] A. A. C. Stourdza: L’Héroïsme des Roumains au Moyen-Âge et le
caractère de leurs anciennes institutions, Paris, 1911.
[173] Divided according to religion, the census of 1910 shows the
following figures:
Roman Catholics 98,565
Greek Catholics 26,182
Armenian Catholics 657
Orthodox Greeks 547,603
Gregorian Armenians 341
Lipps 3,232
Protestant sects 20,518
Jews 102,919
Unaccounted 86
-------
Total 800,103
[174] Czernowitz, Storozynetz, Sereth, Suczava, Radautz,
Gurahumora, Kimpolung were among the cities most often selected.
[175] Their colonies are found at Rosh, Molodia, Tereblestie,
Hliboka, St. Onufri, Altfratanz, Milleschoutz, Arbora, Itzkani,
Ilischestie, Unterstanestie, Storozynetz, Neuzadowa.
[176] Their settlements are found at Jakobeny, Kirlibaba,
Luisenthal, Pozoritta, Eisenau, Freudenthal, Bukschoja and
Stulpikani.
[177] Today the predominance of Ruthenians in Bukovina is contested
by Rumanians who claim that Austrian statistics are deliberately
padded.
[178] I. Nistor: Românú si Rutenií in Bucovina, studiu istoric si
statistu, Bucarest, 1915, p. 72.