Talk:Protochronism/Archive 1

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Contents 1 Other countries 2 Sinaia lead tables 3 Huh 4 A relevant quotation

Other countries

There were also other nationalist myths of links to ancient civilizations, but these AFAIK none did reached the status of state policy.

• in Croatia, the Illyrian Movement, a 19th century national movement, who linked South Slavs to Ancient Illyrians
• in Hungary, the alleged Hungarian-Sumerian links

bogdan 13:39, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Sinaia lead tables

Even though it's quite clear they are fake, but still get some attention:

http://www.gardianul.ro/index.php?a=mediacultura2005080106.xml

bogdan 13:43, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Huh

I think we should completly rewrite this article, removing all that is related to dacians... Actually real Protochronism wanted to demonstrate the diferences between romanians and other minorities in the country, and to do so, the dacian element was avoided, the greater importance was given to the roman origin. Because if romanians are "more dacians than roman", it means they have more in common with other people like slavians, hungarians, etc than we think.

This article is pure speculation. I think it is the fantasy of someone! Since when did Ceausescu wanted to glorify the Dacians?? Excepting it is written with a point of view against the dacians as a civilisation, insulting the dacians more than anything, it has almost nothing to do with real Protochronism and the raise of Romanian nationalism.

Moa3333 22:40, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

The term is defined as such. I gave reference. Read at least part of it. The term might be applied to something else, because of its ETYMOLOGY, but this is its use in academia. Dahn 22:54, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Also: the connection between Ceausescu and Dacians is as obvious as staple as could ever be within the framework of Romanian nationalism. Dahn 22:56, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

And:I FAIL to see how it is an insult to say that Dacians couldn't write. They couldn't! Dahn 23:07, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Moa, then what were the "2050 de ani de la crearea Statului Dac centralizat şi independent" celebrations about ? :-) bogdan 23:01, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Bogdan, I think they were celebrating sic: "Aproximativ 2050 de ani". :) Dahn 23:07, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

A relevant quotation

Moa3333, you asked for citations and source. Well, here's an interesting quote from Katherine Verdery, see the book in the references section.

bogdan 23:28, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

When Ceausescu appealed to the "historians' front" in the mid-1970s to produce a new ten-volume synthesis of Romanian history, he was appealing to a profession recently fortified by the rehabilitation of persons sidelined during the Stalinist era. The discipline was peopled then by a variety of practitioners, more and less malleable, more and less ambitious. But just as with the Writers' Union in the same period, the leaders of the profession tended to be "reformers" and nonapparatchik professionals installed in strong positions during the late 1960s and early 1970s. These people, entrusted with producing the new Treatise of Romanian History, busily set about doing so according to their idea of proper professional norms.

I understand he could write a modified verssion of the history even if people who wrote it were not 100% for it...

By the time the first volume—the one that treated Romanian origins—was ready, however, dacomania had become the rage in Bucharest. Directors of institutes were instructed to change their subordinates' contributions to the Treatise, reflecting more Dacian and less Roman influence. Those responsible for the first volume refused to do so. In consequence, the typeset fonts for that volume were melted down and neither it nor any of the others—long since completed in the drawers of their compilers—appeared.

Communism was pushing this dacian theories only when they used them againt the russians, and to isolate the country. Katherine Verdery knows more about communist romania than about Dacia. Then also, there was this obsession with "democracy". THere were lections, with only one candidate. I think this was much more important than the "dacomania". We should then speak about "democratico-mania" also?

As conclusion, i think "dacomania" was how nothing to do with real dacians. "Its advocates prefer Dacology"? What about "its advocates prefer democracy?" (instead of totalitarism). Should we distroy the Casa Poporului, that was build by Ceausescu? Speaking about Napoleon Săvescu is also far from the subject.

If i look better, this article should speak more about how this theory was based on "who rules" and on "the power of the dacian nation". I think dacomania has nothing to do with real study of etno-genesis of ordinary people. I think Ceausescu never cared about continuity. He only wanted to know about who was the king, what was the nation, etc... this is completly out of the point, since romanians untill 14th century had no country, and before 106 they had only a country from time to time, when there was a danger, but most of the people were living most of the time in their own community.

I think dacomania NEVER evern tryed to know about what this people were doying, what language they were speaking, the only point was who was rulling them? what was the nation? Then of course, you have two strong nations (Burebista and Decebal) that were important. But this was all of it. There was no Protochronism involving the real dacians, the women and normal people. As a result there was no Protochronism about the ocntinuity of the culture of the real dacian people. On the contrary, ceausescu tryed to create a fake culture, based on industrialisation, and he even distroyed popular traditions in the villages! If popular traditions in the villages were dacian traditions, then why distroy them? I think this dacomania is not about the continuity of the dacian people in reality, it was mearly a way to introduce the celebration of a state is more than 2050 years old into rhe history of Romania, whitch has a short history as state. Nothing more.

I also do not think that all the interest in dacian civilisation is related to this. Even if Dacian were speaking a language close to latin, lingvists say that there are ONLY 4 original languages on the planet, and the language of dacians and latin are both original from a single language. But even if dacians were speaking a language close to latin, it has changed so much in time. I think it has nothing to do with romanian. No more than french has to do with latin, maybe even less because of the influences of other people around. If dacians were speaking a language close to dacians, i think it was becuase they originated from the same language (the mother of all languages), but BECAUSE of roman influences, it evolved in the same direction as latin. It does not mean that latin evolved from dacian, or that dacian evolved from latin. It may mean that dacian language was influenced by latin all the history, not only in the 165 years... It does mean that the both languages evolved from the same language, the original european language. And if you look now how little french is different from romanian after 2000 years, you can understand that if in year 2000 or 3000BC there was a common language, all the people that spoke that language and that were close to the roman empire were able to "import" all the variations of latin in order to make a language "compatible" with latin. I do not think that Ceausescu ment this when he speaked about Protochronism...

I sugest we say that Protochronism is only about the elements of power and of strong nation in Dacia that dacomania was about, not about the cultural elements or the language.

Moa3333 02:07, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

And now, there is a joke on the internet, intresting enaught (of course it is not true), explaining why the romanian language is the oldest in the world:

• One day, a friend of Herodot came and was a people walking and asked him in latin, where will he go? The people answered "trec'acia" (="i walk here" in romanian). He understood that he is going to Thracia.
• The same day, on the nord of the danube, the same people asked someone, where are you from? The answer was: "d'acia" (witch in romanian means "from here" and this is a typical answer still used in most villages even today, instead of the more gramatically correct "de aicia")
• Then he asked, this language is not romanian, isn't it? And the peasant answered "It is similar to the one from la tine" ("la tine" in romanian means "from you"). This is how the friend of Herodot understood that romans were not speaking romanian, but latin...

Well, of course, this is only a bad joke... Don't take it seriously, as i do...

Moa3333 02:22, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

"Moştenirea strămoşilor nu trebuie să ne creeze trăiri de mândrie deşartă, ci de bucurie molcomă, de datorie şi respect pentru ei, necesare în viitorul dorit de noi. Căci, cu cât avem mai mult suntem datori mai mult faţă de ceilalţi. Să dovedim aceasta cu înţelepciune şi dragoste de semeni." from here

If someoe who knows well english can translate this, i think it is far from the so caled "neo-nationalists" ideas...

Moa3333 05:13, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

lingvists say that there are ONLY 4 original languages on the plane What nonsense. No, no reputable linguist would ever say such a thing. Yes, there are several recent proto-languages that gave rise to major language families (such as Indo-European), but they existed so long after the development of human speech (hundreds of thousands of years after) that they were in no way "original languages". The fact that you would say something so bizarre hints that you have little real training in the study of the ancient world, leading me to ask why you are here. CRCulver 06:07, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't want to make personal attacks on anyone, but I could not make much coherent sense out of Moa's postings. Can Moa rewind, please? I'm afraid I have been spending too much time with Mr.Spock (no offense, I'm not referring to Bogdangiusca). Alexander 007 06:17, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

By the way, since Wikipedia now has a Moa, I got dibs on being the Haast's Eagle :-) Alexander 007 06:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

What is your position? Have you anything else to say? Moa3333 07:29, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to respond to your position because I'm not 100% sure what your position is. My position is consensus science and consensus history; where there is no consensus, one must tread carefully in Wikipedia and appeal to the references. My position is that the Romanian language---regardless if it developed north or south of the Danube, or both north and south in a Romanized patch---developed from Vulgar Latin, along with an adstratal/substratal Paleo-Balkan influence (Dacian, Thracian, Illyrian, or even a mix). Notions of "no Romanization" are ridiculous, point blank. But more importantly, there are no current linguists or authorities AFAIK who support such a notion. Alexander 007 07:38, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The position of people like Napoleon Săvescu is that the Romanization never occured; a cute idea that sells books, and attracts some people for a few months, fun as it can be. But if Napoleon and others are serious about their position, they should be careful lest history leaves them in a more serious position:Doggie style. They are fucking themselves from behind in the long run. Even if Dacian was somewhat close to Latin (it cannot have been extremely close), Romanization must have occured to account for the Romanian language. Alexander 007 08:19, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Napoleon Săvescu is not a historian. He just say things to spread the ideas, in order for real historians to take them into account. He does not want to scientificaly prove anythink, and i've read he said this somewere. He hopes that some people who know how ro do resaerc better than him will try to take into consideration also the arguments that does not folow the main "dogma". In this reagrd, his writings are not scientific, and this is on purpose i think. On the other hand, any other "discoveries", especialy those from more independent people must be taken into consideration, even if they are used by Savescu to argue in his books. Moa3333 08:45, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I know what you mean by no authorities supporting "no latinisation". But there nevere were such authoritis in the Ceausescu times. In the ceausescu times in schools the main theme was the romanisation. And romanians were supposed to be "sons of Decebal and Trajan". There was much credit to Decabal, but even more to Trajan. Trajan was considered the most important "king" or "emperor" in romanian history, and the Protochronism theory that only speaks about the dacian part is parital. It should explain also the roman part with the romano-mania only we do not call it like this. Most of all it must be stated clear that it is about who ruled (Decebal and Trajan), and was not dacian-centered. The true Protochronism is about Decebal, Trajan and the 14th century kings... not only about dacians. People reading this should not think that Ceausescu wanted to introduce dacian history and forget all that was roman history... Don't forget Ceausescu was completly mad, and nothing he ever sad was neither locical or part of a grater (conspiracy-)theory. He was speaking LIKE A CHILD. He did not realy wanted to reveal the dacian past and forget the roman past. He wanted BOTH. In the meantime, i will let you do some research on this for now, but this is how i feel it right now. Moa3333 08:45, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, the joke eat the end: Dont forget the current president of romania is Trajan, and he replaced in his party Roman... Moa3333 08:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

About the details of Protochronism under Ceaucescu, I'm not very concerned aside from the concern that this article is to be accurate. I was more concerned with some of your other statements, but now you've clarified them. Alexander 007 08:53, 20 February 2006 (UTC)