Romania - Jules Michelet, 1848
A translation of an excerpt from the French "Principautés danubiennes: madame Rosetti : 1848" written by one of the greatest French historians ever and a loving and dedicated friend of Romania.
Western nations, which have long cultivated the art of peace away from the barbarians, must forever maintain a grateful memory to those Eastern nations which, being sat at the limits of Europe, have covered and defended them from the deluge of Tatars, the armies of the Turks and of the Russians; do not forget everything you owe to Hungary, to Poland, and to unfortunate Romania.
These peoples have often stopped the barbarians in their tracks, they’ve often harassed them. Even in their defeat they’ve been useful to you, using up the forces of the enemies of God by their suffering.
How should we refer to Romania, to the Wallachians and Moldavians? A nation sacrificed. Hungary and Poland, they had at least gained glory for their suffering, their name now resounds throughout the globe; the peoples of the lower Danube have scarcely garnered the interest of Europe.
Eight million people of the same language, the same race, one of the greatest nations in the world goes unnoticed! Why? Here is the crux of their misfortune: being situated in the whirlwind of a stormy sea, made up of countless peoples, the master of which changed endlessly, they tire of the eyes of the one spectating them, disturbing his sight with their apparent mobility. One becomes dizzy when contemplating their history, and akin to a traveller which, standing on the banks of the Danube watching its tumultuous stream, tries to discern, to capture, to number every wave that transforms into another, only becomes quickly exhausted, discouraged, and gives up his task, lamenting the pointlessness of his efforts.
The waves on the surface of the water may indeed change, but the depths remain the same. Romania – from Trajan to the present day – has remained faithful to itself, enduring within its original genius. A peoples destined to suffer, they have been gifted with two things that granted them endurance: patience, and suppleness, so that any time they’ve been forced to bend the knee, they’ve managed to raise themselves back up. Do not compare this country with Roman monuments, or the Roman roads that spread across its land. You should rather compare it with the enduring and elastic strength of a dike that battles the ocean: if it had been made out of granite, it would’ve long been shattered.
The nature of this resistance does not lay in a sombre acceptance of evil, the sad fanaticism of the other bank of the Danube, the death of the heart that sterilised the Muslim world: no, it is a living principle, an obstinate love of the past, the tender attachment to his unfortunate homeland, which he loves more the more unhappy it is. The Romanian has never fled his homeland except in order to return to it. He guards, invariably, all that he inherited from his ancestors: his dress, his mores, his language, and especially his grand name: Romanian! His nobility – well proven. Their language is truly a Latin one. The laborious genius of enduring legions that have seeded the Earth with their things lives on in this great colony of the empire. The Italian colonist married with the daughter or sister of the Danubian; but it is the latter element that predominates in this mixture. If the Vlach does not have the momentum, the fury of the Hungarian, what he has is the fixity, the stubbornness of the ancient Roman legions. There is a Romanian proverb (worthy of Rome): “Fight, until death!”.
The untold-of suffering of these peoples, especially the cruel and violent changes in their fate, has not stopped their poetry from flowering in the least. In art, they have created sighing melodies that touch your soul with their melancholic charm. Like every people of Latin origin, they are sensitive to colour. Their churches, especially the ones of Transylvanian Vlachs, are all masterfully painted even if by peasant painters. Their bedframes are painted; even the saddles and the yokes of their cattle are painted and engraved. The chest containing the wedding gifts that a girl brings with her in marriage, the tunic that she herself decorates, there is there a stunning similarity in their ornamentation to ancient Roman mosaics.
Their dances are also Roman, and their rural games are those from antiquity. They are an elegant people, with an easiness when speaking, which they do marvellously. There is no difference in idiom between the peasant and the cultured man; it is to be frank, the same as it is in Italy – where a “common people” do not exist – or, for whomever insists at any cost that there is, elegance and distinction is found rather in the countryside. Among my friends, a Frenchman by birth, a Hungarian at heart, which in no way can be suspected of partiality towards the Vlachs, said that he found among them (in Transylvania) the shepherds of Virgil.
Their mores are very easy, perhaps too easy. This is true, at least, of cities, especially the capitals, which are a mixture of corrupt foreigners. Apart from that, there is no better people, nor more amiable ones, never complaining, always grateful whenever we do something for them. The sweetness, the tenderness of the Vlach heart is revealed in their language full of graceful caressing diminutives for every word of your choice. They are even more sensitive in their daily actions and life. There are extremely few crimes in Romania, and the death penalty has long been abolished there. Never, as long as it was in force, could one find an executioner among the Romanians; foreigners were called for that.
Their amiable hospitality welcomes, seeks, desires the stranger. There is in many Wallachian lands a touching habit of depositing a vessel full of good water by the edge of the road for a weary traveller that might need it. You enter a Vlach’s home. A beautiful woman, spinning fabric, welcomes you tenderly in her charming ancient language. She stops doing whatever task she was engaged in, she tires herself for you, she welcomes you the way a daughter or sister would welcome a dear brother that returned from a long journey. She runs to the spring, and following the old custom, offers you “apă neincepută”, the clear water that hasn’t been “touched” by anyone. After you wash your hands, she hands you a beautiful towel, embroidered with golden butterflies, the one she prepared for her wedding to decorate the neck of her loved one. She feeds you with everything she’s got, with the best crème fraiche, with the fruits reserved for her absent son, for the stranger is much more than that: he is the messenger of God.
“Ah! If only my man were home, he would’ve guided you as one should; he would’ve served as your guide. But he is away, far away in the mountains – Why so far away? – Ah! I wouldn’t want to tell you… our master is very greedy; we can’t manage our pay if we do not drive our cattle to graze far away, up in the mountains, in no mans land… And on top of that, the Cossack has trampled over us, stollen our feed; our poor cow has fed on tree bark the whole of winter…They’ve killed our bulls too; in order to plough the earth, we’ve had to drive the yoke ourselves”.
A much too painful story so commonly heard! A crushing fate!... The master has changed, the fortune not! Once upon a time, one could observe endless orchards, and millions of sheep and cattle crossing the Danube as tribute to the Porte. Today they remain inside the country, but only for the masters. What has the peasant gained from all that? The administration has been set in order; the tax authority has become better at counting … only to crush the peasant harder. To the righthand side of a peasant that couldn’t pay, the tax authority marked down: We seasoned him with pepper. The unfortunate peasant was placed in a fireplace over a smoky stove and covered with peppers and made to sit there for twenty minutes. When the peasant had turned a purple colour, his hair had become bristly, and death had come knocking, he was taken aside, declared insolvent, and in the words of the preceptor: “Shaken, shaved, and twisted dry”.
Such is the appalling barbarity with which the most patient and gentle people in the world have been treated for so long.
Dear people, whatever nation you may belong to, whatever views you may share, please read the beautiful and choice proclamation of the Wallachian Revolution of 1848; pay attention to the incredible moderation, the clemency which it has shown, the mercy that embraces all; your eyes, I guarantee, will be filled with tears and you will be unable to finish reading it.
But this gentle revolution is deeply rooted. It has been imprinted in the heart of the people and it cannot be removed from there. It has its roots in the fact that not only was freedom promised to them, but property too: land for the peasant, a piece of land to suffice for his family. In a country that is still largely uncultivated, we can give to everyone without taking away from anyone.
These immense deserted meadows which surprise the traveler with their incredible richness, with the variety of a prodigious tapestry of flowers, it is the only country in Europe which recalls the grandeur of American sights. Numerous migrations could take place there, without crossing the Ocean; people could come and settle there, and there will still be room for everyone. It is man alone, the barbarity of wars, and the cruel calculation of tyrants that were able to create a desert there, rendering useless, without however discouraging it, the maternal goodness of its nature.