Daniel Roxin presents a documentary
about Dacia, country of the ‘bravest and most just of the Thracians’ as they
were described by Herodotus, in which he argues that the history of Romania has
been misrepresented by historians. The
film asks the question why in official and academic terms the Dacians have been
dismissed as a primitive tribe which was erased from history by the Romans, and
Romanians have been told they trace their lineage from Rome. It makes the point that only about 14% of the
Dacians’ territory was conquered, so the opportunity for Latin to penetrate
Dacia as a whole was limited, yet we are expected to believe that Latin
displaced the Dacian language entirely.
But how could it be that the Dacians
would forget their language and traditions, especially as they were under Roman
occupation for much less time than some other parts of the empire, where those
subjugated did not forget their own language?
People in such places as Gaul, Palestine, Spain and Britain did not
carry on using Latin after the withdrawal of the legions, yet we are expected
to believe that Roman influence in Dacia was such that the entire region was permanently
Latinised. A possible explanation is
that Romanian was not derived from Latin but both were derived from an earlier
proto-language, and are thus sister languages.
There is ample evidence that the Dacians
were highly respected by classical authors, and statuary of Dacians by Roman
sculptors is plentiful. However, when
Romanian nationhood was being formed in the nineteenth century, a
disproportionate influence was wielded by Transylvanian Catholics indoctrinated
by the Vatican who emphasised the Roman aspects and marginalised the Dacians as
barbarians who were exterminated by the Romans, so that they could argue present-day
Romanians were descended from the Romans.
They entirely ignored the historical continuity of Dacia. Despite this, many Romanian intellectuals
have sought to stress the Dacian links, while the failure of some modern
historians to mention the Dacian heritage throws their credibility into
question.
Another line of evidence is provided by
paleogenetics, studying preserved genetic material. Analysis of bone fragments from the Bronze
and Iron Ages by researchers in Hamburg was compared to the DNA of modern
Romanians and it found that while there were similarities with Bulgarians and
Greeks, markers for Italians were in general less close. Mitochondrial DNA markers showed a close
relationship between the population living in the Romanian area during the
Bronze and Iron Ages and modern Romanians.
Romanians are not descended from Rome as Italians belong genetically to
a different group.
However there are genetic links with
northern Italians. Drawing on Livy, the
film argues that after the fall of Troy, which was in Thracian territory, Aeneas
and his crew founded Rome; Troy had been in Anatolia, in Thracian territory, so
that thus far from the Romanians being descended from Rome, Romans are
descended from Thracians. This would
explain the respect Romans had for the Dacians, Dio Cassius referring to war
between Trajan and Decebalus (the last Dacian king) as war between two
brothers. Therefore the history of
Romania as generally presented is based on a false view of its origins.
Moving on to writing, it had been
assumed that Sumerian was the oldest writing system, but recent evidence shows
that the Tărtăria tablets from the Neolithic Turdaș–Vinča culture, which was
partly settled in present-day Romania, are 1-2,000 years older than Sumerian
writing. Dating of bones found with the
tablets established that they were 7,500 years old, so the tablets would be as
old, if not older, overturning the accepted wisdom that they were no older than
2,000 BC. Yet in the official
historiography these important tablets and other artefacts have not been given
their due place in the history of Romania.
Is this due to neglect, or are there more sinister forces at work? Roxin promises further documentaries.
