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| THE CUMANS IN ROMANIA’S HISTORY(10.09.2007) |
| (2007-09-10) |
| Last updated: 2007-09-10 21:24 EET |
The curiosity to know more about one’s ancestors is characteristic of every human being, every community and nation. Who we are, where we come from and where we are heading to are questions to which Romantic history tried to answer in keeping with the political agenda of the time, namely the construction of nation states. This type of Romantic history laid stress on the pure origins of a people, extolled national specificity and played down upon the contribution of non-natives to the formation of nation states. The Romanian Romantic history upheld the Roman origin of the Romanian people through the representatives of the Transylvanian School of the mid 19th century. Subsequently the contribution of the Dacians to the formation of the Romanian people was accepted, so that the Romanians say they are the descendants of the Romans and the Dacians, plus a subsequent Slavic influence.
But it seems that in medieval Romania, non-natives played a more important role than that granted by canonical history. One of the no less than 12 groups of migrant populations that lived at some point on the territory known today as Romania were “the Cumans”. They were a population of Turkish origin, related to another tribe called “the Pechenegs”. In the second half of the 11th century, the Cumans occupied the area between the Danube, the Dniester and the southeastern part of the Carpathians. In the battle of Kalka in 1223, the Cumans were defeated by the Mongolians and forced to retreat to the west. They were converted to Christianity by the Romans in 1227, while in the southeastern Carpathians, under Hungarian rule, the Pope founded the Milcovensis Bishopric of the Cumans. In 1241 the Mongolians invaded Central Europe and destroyed the Milcovensis Bishopric. The Cumans spread throughout the Hungarian kingdom were assimilated. In the 13 century, documents attested the existence of Cumania, a state inhabited most probably by Romanians and Cumans but documents didn’t distinguish between the two peoples. According to a recent theory by historian Neagu Djuvara, this state was the foundation of the future state of Wallachia.
One of the most respected Romanian historians, Neagu Djuvara has recently published a book called “Thocomerius – Negru Voda, a Voievod of Cumanic Origin at the Dawn of Wallachia”. This book sets out to give the Cumans deserved credit for their contribution to the birth of the Romanian nation. The theory supported by Neagu Djuvara in this book is not new. There have been several historians who claimed that the Cumans’ contribution to the formation of the Romanian people was more important than initially acknowledged. Few Romanian historians wanted to risk their reputation and uphold such a theory which contradicted the official history. Nicolae Iorga and Vladimir Drimba, the one who wrote “Codex Cumanicus”, were among the few historians who mentioned the existence and the contribution of the Cumans to the formation of the Romanian people.
About Neagu Djuvara’s challenging book we talked to historian and expert in Oriental studies Virgil Ciocaltan from the “Nicolae Iorga” Institute of History in Bucharest.We wanted to know why the role of the Cumans was played down:
“The explanation is psychological in nature: namely the fear of the steppes. I don’t know how many people know the actual meaning of the word “căpcăun” that is ogre in English. An “ogre” is a frightening character of Romanian fairy tales and of the folk subconscious. Well this “ogre” is no one else but the great khan, the Kap-Kan. The khan embodies the fear of the steppe. Indeed, the encounters of the Romanians with the Khans, the Tartars, the Mongolians, the Cumans and pretty much all the tribes coming from the east, were not among the most pleasant experiences. The fact that the official history plays down the role of the Cumans in Romania’s history is the reaction of the academia to this involuntary fear.”
Legend has it that Wallachia was formed around 1290 by an elite from Fagaras, led by Negru Voda. Negru Voda came from Hungary to establish a kingdom south of the Fagaras Mountains, in central Romania; until 1330 this new kingdom included all state formations existing between the Carpathians and the Danube, under the rule of Bassarab the first, who was of Cuman origin. The personality of Negru Voda sparked heated debates among the historians trying to identify this mysterious figure. Neagu Djuvara believes Negru Voda and Thocomerius the father of Basarab the first are the same person. Virgil Ciocaltan does not agree with historian Djuvara’s theory.
“Thocomerius appears in a document issued by the chancellery of the Hungarian kingdom in 1332, which refers to him as ‘Bazarab filium Thcomerius scismaticum infidelis Olahus nostris.” The document was issued at a moment of tension between the two states. First the document makes Toctemir or Thocomerius equal with the legendary Negru Voda. In my opinion this hypothesis is groundless, it cannot be proved by documents. Secondly, it refers to that Cuman layer, which was not entirely Cuman, who created the Romanian kingdoms. The document issued in 1332 makes it very clear that Basarab was regarded as schismatic by the Catholics, which meant he was an Orthodox. The document also speaks of Basarab as ‘Olahus’, which means Romanian, because olahus was the medieval name of the Romanians. It becomes very clear that in 1332, Basarab was a Romanian and an Orthodox Christian.”
Virgil Ciocaltan believes the process of Romanianization of the Cumans was in a pretty advanced stage in the century when Wallachia was taking shape.
“The process of Romanianization and Christianization of the Turanians didn’t happen over night. The locality of Bran mentioned in Wallachian documents serves as evidence of this process, quite advanced in early 14th century; the document refers to facilities granted to Brasov traders, by rulers in Wallachia, a territory inhabited by the Turks. The Saxons and the Hungarians came to this space in the early 13th century, a century before Bassarab had been documented as a Romanian ruler, and they didn’t find those Turks. They took over the Romanian toponym and called the place Torzburg or Torokvar. Had they found the Turks there, the Saxons would have called the place Turkenburg and the Hungarians Torokvar. In the early 13th century, in the Carpathian space, the process of Romanianization was pretty advanced. It wasn’t a linear process, as not all the Cumans were Romanianized. But we may rely on a relative chronology, and when we say these Cumans formed the Romanian state, we’ve got to take into account the assimilation process, quite advanced and yet incomplete in the 14th century.”
But do Romanians also have a Cuman origin? Here is Virgil Ciocaltan again.
“ We have passed through two waves of nationalism, that in the inter-war period which was followed by the communist nationalism. We’ve got to abandon this way of seeing our origins and analyse them with objectivity. There is no such thing as purity of blood or ethnic purity anywhere in the world. Races, ethnic groups, peoples have mixed everywhere in the world and it has always been so. That doesn’t mean we don’t have our own identity as Romanians, and our own history. I think we should change the angle of our perception and instead of pointing out to our Dacian-Roman origins, we’d rather emphasize our capacity to assimilate other ethnic groups along the centuries. This is the Romanians’ historical achievement.”
Have the Cumans completely disappeared from the Romanians’ history? Experts say no; one can notice some sort of a Cuman legacy, at least at the level of toponyms. Names as Comani, Comana, Comanca, Caracal are still in use. The Cuman legacy, if there is one, should be seen as a discrete Turanian feature of the Romanians, a natural sign of diversity in the history of a nation.
(Steliu Lambru)
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