Protochronism

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Dacian-themed mural on a Communist-era apartment block in Orăştie
Dacian-themed mural on a Communist-era apartment block in Orăştie

Protochronism (Romanian: Protocronism, originating in the Ancient Greek terms for before in time) is a modern tendency in cultural nationalism. The term was coined in Romania to describe the marked tendency of the Nicolae Ceauşescu regime to ascribe, largely relying on questionable data and subjective interpretations, an idealised past to the country as a whole. A pejorative term that was given to the Romanian phenomenon is Dacomania (sometimes Thracomania), while its advocates prefer Dacology.

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[edit] Overview

In this context, the term makes reference to the trend (noticed in several versions of Romanian nationalism) to ascribe a unique quality to the Dacians and their civilization.[1] Usually glossing over the fact that Dacian society lacked such basic instruments as a writing system, protochronists attempt to prove either that Dacians had a major part to play in Ancient history, or even that they had the ascendancy over all cultures (with a particular accent on Ancient Rome, which, in a complete reversal of the founding myth, would have been created by Dacian migrants).[2] Also noted are the exploitation of the Tărtăria tablets as certain proof that writing originated on proto-Dacian territory, and the belief that the enigmatic Dacian language survived all the way to the Middle Ages.[3] An additional - but not universal - feature is the attempted connection between the supposed monotheism of the mysterious Zalmoxis cult and Christianity,[4] in the belief that Dacians easily adopted and subsequently influenced the religion which would have been preached to them by Saint Andrew (considered, doubtfully, as the clear origin of modern-day Romanian Orthodoxy).

[edit] History

The ideas have been explained as part of an inferiority complex present in Romanian nationalism,[5] one which also manifested itself in works not connected with Protochronism, mainly as a rejection of the ideas that Romanian territories only served as a colony of Rome, voided of initiative, and subject to an influx of Latins which would have completely wiped out a Dacian presence.[6]

Protochronism most likely came about with the views professed in the 1870s by Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu,[7] one of the main points of the dispute between him and the conservative Junimea. For example, Hasdeu's Etymologicum magnum Romaniae not only claimed that Dacians gave Rome many of her Emperors (an idea currently supported by Iosif Constantin Drăgan),[8] but also that the ruling dynasties of early medieval Wallachia and Moldavia were descendants of a caste of Dacians established with "King" (chieftain) Burebista.[9] Other advocates of the idea before World War I included the amateur archaeologist Cezar Bolliac,[10] as well as Teohari Antonescu and Nicolae Densuşianu. The latter composed an intricate and unsupported theory on Dacia as the center of European prehistory,[11] authoring a complete parallel to Romanian official history, which included among the Dacians such diverse figures as those of the Asen dynasty, and Horea.[12] 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.[13] Mircea Eliade was notably preoccupied with Zalmoxis' cult, arguing in favor of its structural links with Christianity;[14] his theory on Dacian history, viewing Romanization as a limited phenomenon, are celebrated by contemporary partisans of Protochronism.[15]

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.[16]

In 1974 Edgar Papu published in the mainstream cultural monthly Secolul XX an essay titled "The Romanian Prothocronism", arguing for Romanian chronological priority for some European achievements.[17] The idea was promptly adopted by the nationalist Ceauşescu regime, which subsequently encouraged and amplified a cultural and historical discourse claiming the prevalence of autochthony over any foreign influence.[18] Ceauşescu's ideologues developed a singular concept after the 1974 11th Congress of the Communist Party of Romania, when they attached Protochronism to official Marxism, arguing that the Dacians had produced a permanent and "unorganized State".[19] The Dacians had been favored by several communist generations as autochthonous insurgents against an "Imperialist" Rome (with the Stalinist leadership of the 1950s proclaiming them to be closely linked with the Slavic peoples);[20] however, Ceauşescu's was an interpretation with a distinct motivation, making a connection with the opinions of previous protochronists.[21]

The regime started a partnership with Italian resident, former Iron Guardist and millionaire Iosif Constantin Drăgan, who is still a champion of the Dacian cause.[22] 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 Ceauşescu's regime came along with an increase in prothocronistic messages.[23]

No longer backed by a totalitarian state structure after the 1989 Revolution, the interpretation still enjoys popularity in several circles.[24] The main representative of current Protochronism is still Drăgan, but he is seconded by the New York City-based physician Napoleon Săvescu. Together, they issue the magazine Noi, Dacii ("Us Dacians") and organize a yearly "International Congress of Dacology".[25]

[edit] Modern-day equivalents

Main article: Nationalism and ancient history

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Boia, p.160-161
  2. ^ Boia, p.149-151
  3. ^ Boia, p.149-151
  4. ^ Boia, p.169
  5. ^ Verdery, p.177
  6. ^ Boia, p.85, 127-147
  7. ^ Boia, 138-139, 140, 147; Verdery, p.326
  8. ^ Boia, p.268
  9. ^ Boia, p.82
  10. ^ Boia, p.139-140
  11. ^ Boia, p.147-148
  12. ^ Boia, p.147-148
  13. ^ Boia, p.320
  14. ^ Boia, p.152; Eliade, "Zalmoxis, The Vanishing God", in Slavic Review, Vol. 33, No. 4 (December 1974), p.807-809
  15. ^ Boia, p.152; Şimonca
  16. ^ Boia, p.145-146
  17. ^ Boia, p.122-123; Martin
  18. ^ Boia, p.117-126
  19. ^ Boia, p.120
  20. ^ Boia, p.154-155, 156
  21. ^ Boia, p.155-157; 330-331
  22. ^ Verdary, p.343
  23. ^ Boia, p.338
  24. ^ Babeş; Boia, p.356
  25. ^ "Ca şi cînd precedentele reuniuni n-ar fi fost de ajuns, dacologii bat cîmpii in centrul Capitalei", in Evenimentul Zilei, 22 June 2002
  26. '^ Zlatko Skrbiš. The First Europeans' Fantasy of Slovenian Venetologists: Emotions and Nationalist Imaginings. V: Svasek, M. ur., Postsocialism: Politics and Emotions. Oxford, New York, 2006.

[edit] References

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