International Conference KNOWLEDGE-BASED ORGANIZATION Vol. XXIII No 2 2017

THE UNWRITTEN HISTORY IN OUR TEXTBOOKS

Elena-Tereza DANCIU

University of Craiova, Craiova, [email protected]

Abstract: In his book “The ”, Hadrian Daicoviciu showed that “only a few pages have been preserved of the great book of this people’s ancient history; dozens of pages, undoubtedly among the most interesting, were lost forever and many, perhaps even more interesting, were never written by ancient authors”. There is a text that keeps coming to my mind very often, especially lately, because I have noticed that there is a tendency to remove or skip several pages of our history. The mission of a historian is to try to find out the historical truth with as many pages as possible. We should not overlook, we should not mitigate anything from our past. The lost or unwritten pages of history hinder this mission, it is true, but what should we do about the pages that were written and, deliberately, are not included in the history books?

Keywords: history, ancient, pages, textbooks, historical truth

1. The history of the Geto-Dacians - a Isidore of Seville wrote about Spain “where paradox of the foreign and Romanian the glorious fecundity of the Getic genius medieval historiography flourished”. Alfonso X el Sabio, King of 1.1. Are the Geto-Dacians the ancestors Spain, wrote in his book Cronica General of the Scandinavian peoples? about or Gothia, about Zamolxis who I will never understand why we “was greatly wise in philosophy”, about intentionally fragment historical truth. If in “Boruista” and “Dicineo” [1]. ancient times and the early Middle Ages, Another work called Zamolxis – primul out of a religious mentality or a social legiuitor al geţilor/ ‘Zamolxis – the first mentality, or even due to historical legislator of the Gets’, published in 1687, circumstances, we allowed others to write belonged to Carolus Lundius, professor of our history, I do not know why later, the legal sciences and municipal judge. In this historians of Denmark, Sweden and Spain paper, the author considered that the wrote proudly about Zamolxis, Deceneus or Dacians were the ancestors of the Swedes. , whereas our historians started From Carolus Lundius we also find out from the Roman conquest. Denmark was that: “it must be clear to all, that those called Gothia, Getia or even Dacia. which the ancients called with great In the eleventh century, a Norman veneration the Gets, were later called by chronicler wrote about “Dacia which is writers, by a unanimous agreement, the called Denmark at present”. Its inhabitants, ” [2]. We see, in other words, that in the Goths, had “many kings generously the Middle Ages there was a whole gifted with the science of admirable literature throughout Europe about the philosophies, especially Zeuta and Geto-Dacians who were the ancestors of all, Dichineus, and also Zamolxis, and many except us. Our ancestors were the Romans, others”. our origin was Roman, and we ignored the ancient Geto-Dacian roots.

DOI: 10.1515/kbo-2017-0127 © 2017. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

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1.2. Why have the Geto-Dacians been had doctors appreciated even more than the ignored in the Romanian Greek doctors, they were the creators of a historiography? philosophical and religious view which was Maybe our chroniclers, Grigore Ureche and very close to the Christian one. , educated at Jesuit colleges in We needed about two thousand years before Lviv, Bar and Cameniţa in , we established a state whose boundaries fascinated by Roman culture and learning were close to those of the Geto-Dacian state the language, were more inclined to led by . We discover the bravery say that: “The living in the of our ancestors in crucial moments. Hungarian Country and and Romanian medicine has been pioneering in Maramureş, have the same origin as the some fields. We have doctors who have Moldavians and they are all the descendants preserved the traditional spirit, but they of Rome” [3]. Or to state that: “The distinguish themselves abroad rather than beginning of these countries and people home. living in and and also 1.3. The ancient history of our nation in the Hungarian Countries with this name through the eyes of foreigners Romanians until today ... they are all a Regarding Thraco-Dacian medicine there is nation and have the same origin ... from a text of Plato’s Dialogues that Ana the king of Rome, with some Blandiana mentions in an article written in hundred years over one thousand ...” [4]. the 1990s. This article tells us about a trip Perhaps the representatives of the from Bucharest to taken by Transylvanian School, out of the wish to be Romanian and British writers. In a museum no longer considered a tolerated nation, in Oradea, there was this text of Plato on an started our history from the Roman inscription: “The Thracian doctors are conquest. A people with a noble origin superior to our Greek doctors, because would not have deserved such treatment. before they heal the body, they seek to take This permanent inferiority complex leads us care of the soul ... It is the same, Carmide, to ignore them, to scorn those who lived with this spell. I learnt it there in the army, here before the Roman conquest. And we from a Thracian doctor, one of the disciples wonder then, trying, indignantly, to find of Zamolxis, who, they say, makes people arguments to combat the immigration immortal. This Thracian said that Greek theory supported by Robert Roesler and his doctors were right to speak as I have just followers. shown you. But Zamolxis, he added, our Those who settled around us, those who king, who is a god, tells us that, as we tore pieces of the territory we inhabited are should not try to treat an eye without taking much interested in writing that the Dacians care of the head, so the head cannot be perished after the Roman conquest or that treated without taking care of the body. So the population who lived in the province of we must take care of the body along with Dacia migrated to the south of the Danube the soul. This is why Greek doctors know around 271, returning home a thousand little about most diseases: because they do years later. But why were or are we not know the whole they have to take care interested in getting the Dacians out of of. If the whole is sick, the part cannot be history, especially after December 1989? healthy. For, they said, all good and bad The Dacians, not the Romans are the binder things - for the body and for man as a of our continuity in this space. They whole - come from the soul and from there managed, long ago, to found a state, they they flow, as from head to eye, my friend, were considered by Herodotus “the bravest he said, the soul can be healed with spells. and most righteous of the Thracians”, they

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These spells are the beautiful words that First there is a reduction in the number of make wisdom be born in the soul”. history hours. The reason is to simplify the The British writers were impressed when curriculum. The students of my generation they heard that the Thraco-Dacian doctors studied the history of the Romanians in the were known and appreciated in ancient fourth grade, in the eighth grade, then in Greece and that Plato wrote about us. Their high school in the ninth and tenth grade. reply was: “If Plato had written about the Today in high school, they study the history Scots, we would have put the sentence on of the Romanians in the twelfth grade, one the flag”. hour a week or 2-3 hours a week in We are surprised to find out that foreigners specialized high schools. who begin to know us better, appreciate us I read 12th grade history textbooks to find much more than we do. Ana Blandiana’s out what kind of history of their own conclusion was that we didn’t even country the students of today learn, and introduce that text in our history books, not what kind of history I would have learnt if I to mention the flag [5]. had been a student. Reading some textbooks, I would not have realized 2. The role and place of history in the whether I was studying the history of the Romanian post-communist society Romanians or the history of another people, While learning and teaching the history of because it is simply written on the books: Romanian law, I tried to find arguments “History”. Perhaps it will be worse if it is and see why in Romanian historiography, written: “Education for society”, as we were attached to the Roman past rather suggested not long ago. Confusion will than to the native Dacian one, why we deepen. Students will not know whether focused on our Roman roots and only after they learn the history of their country or of Haşdeu wrote the famous article: “Have the another country, and moreover, they will Dacians perished?” did we begin to turn not know whether they learn history or our attention to the history preceding the another discipline. Roman conquest. Opening the books and reading the But I fail to find any reason why today, contents, I found out that some of them had when living in a democratic society, free given up chronology and made a sort of from censorship, we are unable to write a history by five themes: “Historical spaces history that does not fragment or avoid and peoples”, “People, society and the historical truth. However, I can see the world of ideas”, “State and politics”, effects of incomplete history textbooks. “International relations”, “Religion and With few exceptions, young people today religious life”. If it were about a journal, a no longer know or know only part of the book of studies or essays, there would be no history of the country where they were problem, but it is a history textbook where a born. chronological criterion must exist. The question is what will the destiny of a Otherwise, we might confuse the Antiquity nation be if that nation does not know its with the Middle Ages and the Middle Ages history, losing its traditions and faith? I’m with modern times, a tendency that I notice not a historian, I am a jurist, but I would in young people today. Frankly, I doubt that like the authors of such books to give us an even those who already have a set of answer. I personally learnt more history historical notions can understand much. from the blamed textbooks written under There is a loss of track, of the logical the communism than I could learn from the sequence of ideas, of data and facts. current textbooks. I will try to make a brief 3. Why do we start history from the analysis. Roman conquest again?

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The saddest thing is when we see a province of Dacia was the last territory truncated history, in which, out of time and annexed to the borders of the Roman space economy, we decide who deserves to Empire. One of the beneficial effects of the be entered or not in the nation’s book of conquest of Dacia by the Romans was the history. economic recovery of the Empire. The I still wonder what did our ancestors, the 165,500 kilograms of fine gold and 331,000 Dacians, do wrong so that repeatedly, kilograms of silver brought to Rome by intentionally or not, we forgot to write Trajan determined him to organize about them? Didn’t they deserve it because festivities and games for 123 days. A year they were part of the barbarian world or we later, the Roman citizens did not pay taxes tend to write about conquerors and we and Trajan ordered the building of the great forget the conquered ones? The history of Forum, the Column and the monument of mankind begins in a period preceding the Adamclisi. primitive communal system, and it is our The Romanians living in Italy and those duty to expose any information about us, visiting Rome should know that they can either written or unwritten. The history of a see the statues of our Dacian ancestors on people is its DNA, in which no the triumphal arch. On the arch in chromosomal link should be omitted. Any Thessaloniki one can also see Dacian deformation, any deviation leads to illness. soldiers who were part of the Roman army. A sick society is a society which does not The Dacian men did not die after the know and does not respect its history, conquest, on the contrary, they were part of traditions and can no longer appreciate true the Roman army, forming legions or values. Such a society, sooner or later, is auxiliary troops called “Getica” or likely to perish and, when one is in the “Dacica”. Some of the Dacian slaves precipice, one has no longer much of a brought to Rome became gladiators and due chance to discover who is responsible. to their bravery they were set free. But beyond history textbooks, alternative or Traces of the Dacians have been recently not, censored or not, written for political or discovered in excavations in Germany and social reasons, every Romanian should Poland: bracelets, weapons, pottery. And in know that the roots of this nation start from many museums around Europe and the the Thraco-Geto-Dacians or even from the USA there are numerous statues of Dacians, Pelasgians, as we read in Bulgarian history as we learn from the PhD thesis of Leonard books or on inscriptions in Bulgarian Velcescu, defended at the Sorbonne in the museums. field of art history. They should know that they were not so All these examples are arguments that barbaric as we might have thought, as long should make us be proud of our Geto- as the ancient Greek and Roman authors Dacian ancestors and not get them out of wrote about the philosophical and religious history books and textbooks. doctrine of Zamolxis or Thraco-Dacian Perhaps our history should be a history of medicine. Moreover, between the 1st the values which should help us give up the century BC and the 1st century AC, the permanent inferiority complex and learn the Geto-Dacian society bloomed. Evidence of meaning of appreciation for what we had economic development and political and still have good and beautiful in our maturity is the establishment of the Dacian country. state. In addition, the conquest of Dacia was a 4. Conclusions significant event for Roman history. The I started this brief analysis from the text of Dacians were hard to conquer and the Hadrian Daicoviciu who wrote that there

279 were many pages missing from the book of know ourselves, how could we appreciate our ancient history. It is true! They are our values, how could we learn from missing because, for a long time, we had an mistakes, and what will our future be if we unwritten culture and there were others who get separated from the past? wrote about us. But why, when we started What seems paradoxical to me is that, when writing our history, did we omit pages? we started our history books from the There was and still is a trend that I Roman conquest, foreigners were proud of personally fail to understand. I have tried to their Geto-Dacian ancestors. Why aren’t we find arguments for our chroniclers and for proud of them and why don’t we try to find the representatives of the Transylvanian out why other peoples considered the Geto- School, but I cannot find any argument for Dacians their ancestors? Is it simply a the authors of textbooks at present. Why, confusion between the and the for reasons of systematization and Goths? Or are there other reasons as well? modernization of the curriculum, do we On the other hand, I keep wondering, like renounce important pages of our history? our poet Ana Blandiana, when I see how we Why do we simplify history starting with look through the eyes of others. Why are the title? “History of the Romanians” must some foreigners more Romanian than we remain “History of the Romanians” and not are? The answer stems from education and “History”. We also need to maintain the appreciation of values. The answer chronological criteria to avoid confusion stems from the pages of history that we between periods. In addition, our historians should not ignore and, if we did not write should know that every page of our history them, let’s start writing them now! must be written. Otherwise, how could we

References [1] Ovidiu Drimba, Istoria culturii şi civilizaţiei, Bucureşti, Editura Saeculum-Vestala, 2000, pp. 378-380. [2] Carolus Lundius, Zamolxis – primul legiuitor al geţilor, Bucureşti, Editura Axa, 2002, p. 5. [3] Grigore Ureche, Letopiseţul Ţării Moldovei, in Alexandru Piru, Literatura română veche, Ediţia a II-a, 1962, p. 109. [4] Miron Costin, De neamul moldovenilor din ce ţară au ieşit strămoşii lor, in Opere alese, Bucureşti, Editura Tineretului, 1965, p. 217. [5] Dumitru Bălaşa, Ţara soarelui sau istoria Dacoromâniei, Bârda, Editura Cuget Românesc, 2009, pp. 307-308.

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